superstar brittany grine ner russia, what the white house is now saying about a potential prisoner swap with moscow s, spoiler, it s complicated. i will tell you what americans saw today when griner had the first in opinion person visit in months. the one time adviser to former president trump getting immunity from the d.o.j. and why the government is giving kash patel a pass to try to get him to talk to the grand jury in the larlg case. and the huge amount of conservative cash pouring into midterm races that typically fly well under the radar, school boards and how it affects education across the country. i m hallie jackson. we want to bring in kelly o donnell, shaq brewster is in wisconsin, and ellison barber is in georgia, where we expect to see senator raphael warnock out this hour. kelly, i ll start you with. teeing up the speech that we expect to see from the president, if he s on time at some point this hour, talking student debt relief, coming at a time as you kno
biden s national security council. i got you to correct. john. thank you for being with us. state department officials say that they talk to the family. where the able to get the whelan family any kind of positive updates about contacts with russia? i don t want to get into negotiating here in public as you might imagine. we would want to do. we were able to give them an update of where we are. what our thinking is. and a sort of help them understand the path forward to try to get paul home. i want to be careful here. make it clear that we don t have a deal in place right now. i do want to convey that. we certainly are smarter after weeks and months of trying to get paul out previous to getting miss griner out. we certainly have a better understanding of the context behind russian expectations. and we ll be able to use that going forward as mr. sullivan, the national security adviser, said yesterday. use that going forward.
paul whelan is in prison for espionage. the russians take right espionage super, super seriously. he is a former marine, but he is not just a former marine, he is a former marine who is court marshaled and did not have a honorable discharge from the marines. he was working as a casa corte consultant. these are all things, i m not casting any aspersions towards mr. whelan, but these are the things that russians take very, very seriously. and so, getting that miss griner out was a great victory, there was a discrepancy between the crimes that mr. boot committed and the crimes that she committed. but again, you are at the mercy of what the russians can do. and paul whelan, by the way, was taken do. paul whelan, by the way, was taken prisoner by russia while donald trump was president, and donald trump didn t lift a finger to get him out. you are saying of course that s the perception of what the russians think, what the russians perceive whelan did.
fall with an effort to try to get griner out. she is on her way back as noted to a medical facility in san antonio, texas, a military facility where she will be checked out. they specialize in people who suffer injuries overseas or in this case in captivity, so it sounds like it s exactly the right place for her to go. we ll hear more from the administration in the next hour or two with more details as to how this went down. and, yes, willie, officials say, we heard it from the president, they will still be working on paul whelan, they re not giving up hope, but nor do they suggest his release is right around the corner. richard haass, you know, you can t make a deal that s not on the table, that s not ever going to be on the table. there was never going to be a two-for-one swap. we were told that early on. i m sure the biden administration pushed that as far as they could. if you re going to bring americans home, you ve got to
brittney griner was taken into custody one week before russia invaded ukraine. how did the u.s. negotiate her release despite the hostilities between the white house and vladimir putin? joining us now is richard engel in kherson, ukraine, the former supreme leader of nato and michael mcfaul. welcome all. richard, first to you. this is a high wire act for american diplomats getting griner out, even as the u.s. is backing ukraine and arming ukraine against russia. it s extraordinaily difficult. the u.s. i don t want to say is asking for a favor, but asking for vladimir putin to give something up at the same