“We’ve got Donald Trump calling Brittney Griner ‘spoiled’ and Donald Trump talking about her being ‘full of drugs.’ There was no testimony, no evidence, no indication that she was, you name it, “loaded with drugs,” Mr. Scarborough said during MSNBC’s Monday morning broadcast. “It shows once again what a horrible guy he is, what a despicable person. How hard it is. And you can’t help but wonder if she’s saying that because she’s a black basketball player,” the former congressman added. Rev. Al Sharpton said he had no doubt in his mind that Trump had “got away” with the basketball player’s reputation because she was black and openly gay. The remarks came after Trump claimed during a podcast interview that the US had made a bad deal by offering to exchange notorious Russian convict Viktor Bout for Ms Griner, who was arrested with a small amount of cannabis at a Russian airport in February. “Sure doesn’t seem like a very good trade, does it?” Mr. Trump asked. “(Boutt) is absolutely one of the worst in the world and he will be given freedom because a potentially spoiled brat goes to Russia loaded with drugs.” Trump added that he would not have made a deal with the Russians for her release. “They don’t like drugs. And they caught her. And now, we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess. We’re supposed to take her out for an absolute killer and one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. He killed a lot of Americans. He killed a lot of people.” US officials offered to trade Griner and Paul Whelan for arms dealer Viktor Bout (Associated Press) Viktor Bout arrives at the Westchester County Airport in November 2010 after his extradition from Thailand (Getty Images) Bout was convicted of trying to sell weapons to the Colombian FARC guerrilla group in 2012. Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken last week urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a US offer to exchange Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan for Bout, an arms dealer nicknamed the “Death Dealer”. CNN reported that the Russians demanded that Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in Germany, be included in the deal. US officials appear to have rejected the offer. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN it was a “bad faith attempt to avoid a very serious offer.” Ms Griner, 31, has been jailed since February, when she was arrested for possessing a small amount of cannabis vapor at an airport near Moscow. Mr Whelan has been imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges since 2018.
