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Trump struggles to keep his story straight on prisoner release from Russia
Over the last decade or so, Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been subtle about his support for Vladimir Putin, but in recent weeks, the American president has gone to almost cartoonish lengths to reward his Russian counterpart.
The list includes instances in which the Republican has offered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel, echoed Kremlin talking points, pumped billions of dollars into the Russian economy, peddled false accusations against Ukraine, ignored existing U.S. laws that ban Russian oil imports, looked the other way on Russia aiding Iran during the ongoing U.S. war, and delivered diplomatic victories for Moscow — all in exchange for nothing except more deadly attacks.
On Wednesday morning, however, Trump finally claimed to have secured a concession of sorts from the Russian leader: In a statement published to his social media platform, the American president said Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher who had been imprisoned by the Putin government, has been released from detention and was headed home.
After some pointless and gratuitous whining about the Biden administration, Trump wrote that Putin agreed to free Hubbard “out of respect” for the American president, adding that the United States “was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia.”
Just 12 minutes later, the Republican published a follow-up item, which read, “Numerous people, who requested that sanctions be immediately imposed on Russia, have called to apologize to President Trump in that they didn’t know that he was negotiating the release of Stephen Hubbard, a truly big and important deal for the U.S. If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt.”
Putting aside the fact that those calls of apology almost certainly didn’t happen in reality, the second message clearly contradicted the first: After saying his administration didn’t have to give Russia anything to secure Hubbard’s release, Trump effectively conceded that he had to waive sanctions on Russia in order to secure Hubbard’s release.
Hours later, at an unrelated White House event, he did it again.
TRUMP: We gave nothing in exchange for Stephen. We never give anything in exchange for hostages.TRUMP LITERALLY MOMENTS LATER: If I implemented sanctions on Russia, Steven wouldn't be coming out right now.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-21T19:33:20.698Z
“We gave nothing in exchange, which is very rare,” the American president boasted. “We never give anything in exchange.” Moments later, he added that if he’d implemented sanctions on Russia, as required by the U.S. law Trump recently signed, Hubbard “wouldn’t be coming out right now, he’d be in there for another 20 years.”
Trump seemed entirely oblivious to the obvious tension between claiming that he made no concessions, except for the concessions he made.
During a Wednesday afternoon Q&A with reporters, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins pressed him on this point, subtly trying to explain to Trump that, based on his own explanation, he obviously did give Putin something in return for Hubbard’s release.
Apparently frustrated by the cognitive dissonance, Trump decided to resolve the dispute by telling Collins, “You’re a low-IQ person. You’re a dummy.”
Hours later, Russia launched a new round of attacks on Ukraine’s capital, killing one person and wounding 22, as part of an assault that targeted civilians. A day earlier, Russia also unleashed another missile and drone blitz of civilian areas in Ukraine, killing at least four people.
As recently as Monday, Trump told reporters, “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much.” The White House has not yet explained why the Republican routinely sounds like he’s reading from a script written by the Kremlin.
The post Trump struggles to keep his story straight on prisoner release from Russia appeared first on MS NOW.
