Fox News' Greta Van Susteren reminded her audience this week about how Republican front-runner Donald Trump reached out and provided financial help to Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi after he was released from a Mexican jail in 2014, while President Barack Obama, on the other hand, didn't even pick up the phone to help.
"In all seriousness, Donald did help out Sgt. Tahmooressi. He sent him some money to help him jump start his life. Sgt. Tahmooressi rotted in a Mexican prison for 214 days," Van Susteren said on her show "On The Record." "President Obama wouldn't even pick up the phone to help."
Tahmooressi was imprisoned in a Mexican jail in April 2014 after taking a wrong turn while driving and accidentally crossing the border into Tijuana with loaded U.S.-registered guns, reported The Hill.
The Marine depleted all his savings on legal fees to defend himself, and when he was finally released after nearly eight months due to his mental state, he reportedly had no money for additional legal costs or to help defray the costs of treatment for PTSD he suffers from as a result of his serving in Afghanistan.
That being the case, Trump decided to send Tahmooressi a check for $25,000 to help him get back on his feet, according to Western Journalism.
It is my great honor to send $25,000 to Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi. #marinefreed
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2014
"I hope the lawyers don't take it all... I really want this money to go to him, not to his lawyers," Trump told Van Susteren last year, according to Western Journalism. "Because I don't know what kind of a job the lawyers did. It took them a hell of a long time to get him out."
Trump said he was inspired to send the money after watching an interview between Van Susteren and Tahmooressi.
"I watched your interview... I felt very badly in watching him," Trump said. "He suffered greatly and I think that this $25,000 will be the beginning of getting somebody who's a good person back with his life and onto a hopefully much better life than he's had."
Van Susteren and a number of Republican lawmakers have been critical of how Obama handled Tahmooressi's detention.
While a number of government authorities, including the State Department and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, worked to secure his release, President Obama, Tahmooressi's commander in chief who has repeatedly pledged to leave no soldier behind, was conspicuously absent from negotiations.
At one point while Tahmooressi was jailed, Obama called his Mexican counterpart, President Enrique Peña Nieto, but never mentioned the soldier, Arizona Republican Rep. Matt Salmon told Newsmax. Nor did Obama phone Tahmooressi's worried mother, who testified before a congressional subcommittee about her family's plight.
Some argue that Obama's hectic schedule prevented him from personally intervening, but The Hill notes that the president had plenty of time to attend fundraisers with wealthy Democratic donors, and certainly had plenty of time to play his 200th hole in golf, which nearly coincided with Tahmooressi's 200th day in prison.
"The president, who is also the commander in chief, didn't do his job," California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told The Washington Times. "There is a lack of concern for this man, for this American hero who served our country. As commander in chief he showed a total disdain and non-interest in an American hero who served us in Afghanistan and a total disregard for the fact that he was suffering."
