Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) was raked over the coals on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday for his "pathetic" spin on President Joe Biden's successful effort to free unjustly arrested Russian prisoners and return them to their families.
On Thursday, while doing a photo-op at the border, Donald Trump's running mate told reporters, “We certainly want these Americans to come back home. It was ridiculous that they were in prison to begin with."
He then added, "But we have to ask ourselves: Why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house,” he said. “That’s a good thing, and I think it’s a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.”
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That led Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson to launch into a scathing takedown of both Vance and the former president.
"I think that the reaction from both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance yesterday— the only word that comes to mind is just pathetic," Robinson began. "It is just absolutely pathetic and incredible that they couldn't just say, we're happy that they're home. We're happy these Americans who were wrongly detained by Vladimir Putin are home and just leave it at that."
"I don't understand why they felt they had to attack, attack, attack," he admitted. "I mean, I guess that's who Trump is, and then J.D. Vance seems to be trying really, really hard to be kind of a mini-me; giving credit to Donald Trump for something he couldn't have been bothered to do when he was in office."
"I think, in part, it's their frustration," he claimed. "They just can't buy a news-cycle right now. They have been — and that has to be driving Trump crazy. Kamala Harris has dominated the news cycle and he thought he maybe had a little momentum by going crazy and saying offensive things at the NABJ meeting on Wednesday. Boom! Thursday attention is away from him again. Nobody is thinking or talking about Donald Trump."
"So maybe that pathetic reaction was just frustration on the part of Trump and Vance that nobody is really paying much attention to them right now," Robinson suggested.
Watch below or at the link right here.
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