In remarks to the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner, President Trump invited former hostages held by Hamas on stage.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We should have never been involved in that.
00:03We're also joined tonight by a number of brave souls who recently released from,
00:07they were recently released from Hamas captivity.
00:12Hamas is just a disaster, the level of hatred.
00:19Where are the people? Hamas?
00:23They understand what that's all about.
00:27Where are you?
00:30That's great. How does it feel to be out?
00:38How does that feel to be out, huh?
00:41You want to come up here for a second?
00:43Come on up here.
00:45Come on up here.
00:48Come on up.
00:50Yeah, let them up, please.
00:52That's great.
00:54That's great.
00:55I'll tell you, these people, what they had to go through.
00:58I've, I had 10 hostages in my office two weeks ago.
01:01What they had to go through is just horrible.
01:03Come on up.
01:08That's great.
01:17That is so nice to see you.
01:18That is so nice.
01:21Thank you, thank you very much.
01:51President Trump, I'm here and I'm alive.
01:58President Trump, you saved my life.
02:10You saved the life of 33 hostages that because of your efforts and your setting the hostage
02:19crisis at the high priority of what you are doing among all of the enormous issues and
02:33things that you're dealing with.
02:35Since you came into your position as President of the United States, you set the hostage crisis
02:44at the highest priority.
02:46You got 33 of us home alive.
02:51We all owe our lives to you.
02:55Thank you, thank you, thank you.
02:57And please, please continue your tremendous efforts and your tremendous actions and your
03:08tremendous accomplishments.
03:10Continue and we will get, with your help, all of the remaining 59 hostages still in Gaza
03:18back home.
03:21Thank you, President Trump, for bringing my Keith home.
03:38Keith's grandchildren are the happiest, Keith's children are the happiest, Keith's family
03:44is the happiest, but I am the most happiest.
03:49Thank you so much.
03:52We need you, we need you to bring all the hostages home.
04:00There's 24 that are alive and 59 to come home to their families.
04:07Just like I received Keith, they needed to.
04:11We have Yair standing here with us and Eitan, his brother, is underneath the ground now, begging
04:20to get out.
04:22So I'm begging you all to help us.
04:25We need your help.
04:32So, my name is Yair, I've been in hell for 498 days.
04:50I've been held in hell with Hamas terrorists.
05:03When we didn't see the light, but we feel when we heard President Trump get elected, we knew,
05:14there is now someone who makes the things happen.
05:23We need, we needed, I'm sorry about my English, I am half Argentinian, half Israeli, I'm sorry.
05:34We knew we need someone who do the things.
05:38That's President Trump.
05:40We are here because of President Trump, thank you.
05:50Thank you for your efforts.
05:53It's really surreal to be here, you know, we, I'm a simple man, I'm running the bar in
06:02the kibbutz in Niroz, where I was live, and now I'm here with President Trump, who's running
06:11the world.
06:19We are thankful, we are really thankful, but humbly, we ask, we ask for more.
06:27The last push, the last 59 people, the last 59 hostages, among them my brother, Eitan, and
06:38what is Liran, brothers, Zibi, Angali, and Neviatar, all the brothers, all the families.
06:48In a few days, we mark the Passover, right, Pesach, it's a family.
07:05It's a family time, so I expect that in the next Seder, when my mother make the Knei Dalach,
07:25the Matzibols, that my brother Eitan, my little brother, who I call little, but he's 38, but
07:35it's my little brother.
07:37I hope he can sit with us in the Seder of Passover, and, wow, it's overwhelming.
07:52I just want to tell you again, thank you, thank you very much.
07:59I just want to say, I said, of the 59 people that you want to bring home, how are they?
08:00I just want to say, I said, of the 59 people that you want to bring home, how are they?
08:04And how are they doing?
08:05Do you have any idea?
08:06Because they left that whole scene.
08:07Not just a couple of people that you want to bring home.
08:11I just want to say, I said, of the 59 people that you want to bring home, how are they?
08:29And how are they doing?
08:30Do you have any idea?
08:31Because they left that whole scene not long ago.
08:35And they said, well, of the 59, 24 are living, the rest are dead.
08:40I just heard that.
08:42And I was told that before by somebody else.
08:47But 24 are living, the rest are dead.
08:49These are young people, largely young people.
08:51Young people don't die.
08:52Young people are killed, they don't die.
08:55But the conditions were so horrible.
08:57But think of that, so, of the 59.
09:00And I've had Israeli parents tell me that my son is dead, but please bring him home.
09:08As though he were alive, she wanted him brought home more than, it just seemed almost more than if her child was living.
09:19Amazing.
09:20She just, they wanted the mother and father, in three other cases, they wanted to have them brought home.
09:30I said, how is he doing?
09:32He's dead.
09:33It's only his body, but we want him home.
09:36So there's an amazing thing.
09:38But the 59 that you mentioned, you said that 24 were alive and the rest are dead.
09:45This is a terrible thing that's going on with Hamas.
09:48Terrible.
09:49The hatred is so incredible.
09:51It's unbelievable.
09:53And the way they were made to live was not even understandable, I think, by anybody in this audience.
09:59And you have great people in this audience that love you, and they're going to fight for you.
10:03And I just want to thank you very much.
10:06Thank you very much.
10:25I got them back.
10:26Take care of some.
10:28It's incredible what they've been forced to live with for 450, 500 days, incredible.
10:41Nobody in this room could really understand it.
10:43I found it hard to understand.
10:46But we'll not rest until your loved ones have been returned home, and hopefully we can
10:52do it the right way.
10:55We want to get those 24 out really fast, and we're working on it very hard.
11:01There was no chance before.
11:02This is something that should have been done right at the beginning, during the past administration.
11:09On day one, we —