Trump Would Get Brittney Griner on the Next Flight Home
CLAY: Brittney Griner wrote a letter. She is a WNBA star, formerly from Baylor.
BUCK: Oh, I saw it because she’s disappointed in Biden. So anytime someone’s disappointed in Biden, that comes on my radar.
CLAY: Okay, and I know you know that she was already imprisoned because right about the time the Ukraine war in Russia started, a lot of women’s basketball players go to Russia where they can evidently make more money than they could if they were playing solely in the United States. So she was arrested for drug possession, allegedly. She is still in prison.
BUCK: Wasn’t it just like a little bit of, like, residue in a vape pen? It wasn’t like she was moving heavy weight.
CLAY: Yeah. She didn’t move to Russia to try to become like a drug kingpin, I don’t think. It was for individual use. Side note, if you are young and you are listening to us and might be inclined to travel with marijuana or any other kind of drug, first of all, don’t do drug, kids. Second, certainly do not have possession of drugs ever in a foreign country, period.
BUCK: You are stepping into a world of guilty pleasure TV watching that I went through for a while with Locked Up Abroad where it’s like every episode is like, yeah, I was holiday and I was like I need to make a little extra cash, you know, so this guy’s like just take this big brown package that smells a bit like marijuana and I tried to get it through the airport and then get back to the U.K. on me holiday. And I was facing 40 years in a labor camp. You’re like, yes, dude, do not take the giant package of drugs through the airport in Thailand.
CLAY: Brokedown Palace back in the day. That was another one. Take it from me, who practiced law in the Caribbean, am still licensed there, jail in America ain’t great, all right? I’m not pretending that you’re gonna have an amazing time in prison in the United States. But it’s a whole hell of a lot better than most prisons in a foreign country.
BUCK: I rode in Bermuda when I was there with Carrie with just randomly and I like to talk to locals and learn about the island. The former director of prisons in Bermuda for 30 years. He was an Uber — or a taxi driver. You don’t have Ubers there. And I asked him. He seemed like a very nice guy, how many prisons do you have, a couple of hundred, not very many; so what’s it like for them? He was like, horrible. No air-conditioning, folks.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: Start with that. You’re in a prison in a tropical or subtropical climate, no air-conditioning.
CLAY: Yeah. U.S. Virgin Islands where I was a lawyer, am still licensed as a lawyer, went into those prisons, and it was terrifying to think about being in prison there. So Brittney Griner overseas, we know it’s not a good position for her, probably being treated better than the average prisoner in Russia, I would imagine.
BUCK: Maybe, maybe not, given the Russia-U.S. relationship right now.
CLAY: Yeah. Well, so she penned a letter to Joe Biden, said she had never worked for — voted for a president before, she voted for Biden asking for his help, and then her WNBA coach stepped in as well and said if this were LeBron James he’s already be out of Russian prison. I agree with her. I don’t think there’s any doubt that LeBron, bigger celebrity, would be out. I also would point this out, Buck:
If Donald Trump were still president of the United States, Brittney Griner wouldn’t be in prison anymore in rush, either. I think he would have gotten her out opposite maybe a sign that she voted for the wrong person in the 2020 presidential election, but also just a further sign of Joe Biden’s incompetence. I know a lot of people out there aren’t rap fiends or huge rap fans, I would guess, but A$AP Rocky was arrested. Was it in Sweden, Buck?
BUCK: Sweden. For assault, yes.
CLAY: For assault, and Trump basically threatened a trade war with Sweden to get him back, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that Brittney Griner, Trump would have done whatever was necessary to get her out of that country either. I just don’t have any doubt. With Biden’s incompetence, which exists everywhere, I don’t know when Brittney Griner is gonna be back.
BUCK: Yeah. I think she’s in a very tough spot because there’s also the additional considerations of the Russians now wanting leverage. So, you give them an opening to hold the high profile, to have a basis… Look. Obviously, they found some residue in a vape pen. She wasn’t trafficking. The whole thing seems completely trumped up and absurd. But obviously sloppy. You don’t want to… Don’t take your vape pen you smoke weed in to a foreign country.
Important safety tip for everybody: Don’t bring any illegal substances to any foreign country with you, especially ’cause you don’t know the laws, you don’t know the legal system on top of that. But they may be holding her for leverage with America. At some point, they may want to do some kind of either a prisoner swap or they may want to do a, “Okay, you better drop those sanctions against a few of those oligarchs.” That’s the kind of quid pro quo, horse trading, the Russians are gonna be looking at.
CLAY: And it is indicative of how often media in sports and also athletes speak out aggressively on things that are much less consequential. I haven’t seen a lot of athletes demanding that Brittney Griner be freed, and I haven’t seen a lot of sports media members who usually love to argue about anything political related also making those arguments. Now, early on the report was, well, don’t draw attention to it because it’s more likely it’s gonna get resolved.
Now that we’re talking months and months in, that sort of idea of being less aggressive in drawing attention to it has faded and still we’re not getting any kind of different result there, and this is just I think part and parcel, again, of Joe Biden’s incompetence. And I would ask everybody out there, talk to your kids. If they’re going overseas, make it clear to them, be careful, because American protections don’t extend everywhere overseas and you might find yourself in the middle of something far bigger than yourself, as Brittney Griner clearly has, Buck, with the Russia-Ukraine war going on and United States-Russia relations being where they are.
BUCK: And I could maybe add a little bit of insight from my previous life here working for the federal government. If you’re relying on U.S. embassy employees or folks from the consulate abroad to save your bacon, you’re in a whole lot of trouble. They’re gonna do what they can maybe when they get to it. You do not want to be incarcerated in a furnish country and hope that embassy comes through big for you. All of a sudden, people realize the embassy will show up and say you know you’re subject to the laws of the country you’re in, right? They’re there to remind you, “You know that we’re gonna try to ask nicely, but you’re kind of screwed.” That’s what they actually end up doing a lot of the time.
