(WASHINGTON) — When Americans imprisoned in Russia returned to U.S. soil late Thursday, standing right there to greet them was the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.
The vice president, along with President Joe Biden, who ended his own campaign and handed her the party baton, greeted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, among others on the Joint Base Andrews tarmac even before they embraced their families.
The late-night scene underscored the diplomatic victory the White House had just scored — and how it was putting Harris front and center as her nascent campaign launches, trying to enhance her credibility on the world stage against Donald Trump’s attacks that she would be treated as a “play toy.”
“This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy and strengthening alliances,” Harris said Thursday night — a statement that could be read both as praise of Biden and a knock on the former president’s foreign policy, which is skeptical of working with allies.
In a May Truth Social post, Trump claimed Gershkovich “will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me but not for anyone else.”
The prisoner exchange, which also freed Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a legal permanent U.S. resident, was the product of months of intense diplomacy that gained true traction in the last couple of weeks and involved several different countries, including Germany and Slovenia.
But the breakthrough came amid a turbulent presidential race between Trump and Harris, who has been blitzing the campaign trail since Biden bowed out of the contest.
Besides swiftly greeting the freed prisoners and speaking Thursday night, administration officials were also quick to highlight her role in the historic deal, considered one of the biggest swaps to take place since the Cold War and significant enough to break through an incessant news cycle surrounding the election.
“Both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have made the return of unjustly detained American hostages an absolute priority, and in this particular case, Vice President Harris actually had an opportunity to engage with Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz earlier this year at an opportune and timely moment at the Munich Security Conference where she talked about this issue with him,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the White House Thursday, referring to Harris’ interaction with Germany’s leader.
“I’ve sat in the Oval Office more times than I can count over the course of the past years providing briefings and updates on this and getting peppered with questions by both the president and the vice president thinking through the strategy, iterating the approach, which she was a participant in very much, a core member of the team that helped make this happen,” he added.
Trump, for his part, downplayed the exchange soon after news broke.
“So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia? How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash? Are they giving us cash (Please withdraw that question, because I’m sure the answer is NO)?” Trump posted on his social media platform.
The White House has insisted no cash was exchanged nor was there any sanctions relief for Russia.
Still, the Harris-Trump race is expected to carry on, largely unaffected by the exchange, historic as it is.
Trump is a defined entity, spending decades in the limelight and four years in the White House, after which he has retained a stubborn and iron grip on the GOP.
Harris, while she is still defining herself as a presidential candidate, appears largely set to introduce herself as a prosecutor going after a convicted felon with a focus on policies emphasizing “freedom.”
She did tie herself to the administration’s record on released prisoners before news broke Thursday, saying in Houston that, “As vice president, it has been my honor to work alongside our president, Joe Biden, to bring home more than 70 Americans in the last three and a half years.”
The broad contours of the race are still expected to remain the same, strategists in both parties said.
“No, I don’t think so,” one former Trump campaign official who remains in touch with his current team said when asked if there was any electoral fallout from the swap. “I don’t think it moves the needle diplomatically.”
“I’d be shocked if bit did,” one Democratic strategist said when asked the same question. “This isn’t the Iran hostage situation that riveted people for 444 days and created Nightline and other alternative time news offerings.”
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