00:00We had a wonderful man who, during the Biden administration, was taken hostage in Russia.
00:10They claimed things.
00:11We won't get into that, but we thought he was a very high-quality, innocent man.
00:17And Stephen Hubbard, his name is.
00:20And he was, for the last number of years, I would hear the name mostly when it happened.
00:27And when it happened, I would watch his son on television, I'd watch his family on television,
00:34begging virtually for him to come back, please.
00:38And the other day, I was talking with — I set the stage earlier, but the other day, I
00:44was talking to Vladimir Putin about settling his war with Ukraine, which I think we're
00:50getting closer to, by the way.
00:52Maybe now the closest we've been.
00:55But I mentioned, could you let Stephen Hubbard out, please?
01:01And he agreed to do it.
01:03So he was met today in Russia, and he's on his way back.
01:09He's on a flight.
01:11Steve Witkoff is with him.
01:13His family is with him.
01:14His family went over to meet him.
01:17And so we thank everybody involved.
01:19This was an amazing thing.
01:20They didn't think he'd come out for 20, 25 years.
01:24So we appreciate the fact that we were able to get him.
01:28We gave nothing in exchange, which is very rare.
01:33We never give anything in exchange.
01:35We have — we've taken — we've gotten out hundreds of hostages.
01:39We don't give — once you give, you'll end up quadrupling the problem.
01:43The past administration gave massive amounts of money and other things.
01:48You can't do that.
01:49And when you do that, the problem is — is greatly exacerbated.
01:55So he'll be landing soon, relatively soon.
02:00And I hear he's in pretty good shape.
02:03He went through a lot.
02:03I spoke to him this morning.
02:06He is the happiest man around.
02:08He didn't think this was going to be — this was very surprising to him.
02:11But I did — it really took place on a phone call at the end of last week with President
02:17Putin.
02:18So we appreciate it very much.
02:20And his family is extremely happy.
02:23They can't believe it because it happened so quickly.
02:26So that's the kind of things we do.
02:28Any other questions, please?
02:32Go ahead.
02:33Mr. President, you have to — you can't both speak.
02:40Thank you, Mr. President.
02:41Following up on that question, while Mr. President was in St. Petersburg, he described
02:46the President Putin as a humanitarian.
02:49Would you describe him in that same way —
02:51You mean Steve Woodcoff said he was a humanitarian?
02:55Yes.
02:55Well, I guess you could say for that —
02:57President Putin was a humanitarian.
02:57Well, I guess you could say for that —
02:58I don't have any particular purpose, for the purpose of allowing a man who was thinking
03:03he was going to be in prison for life out.
03:07But, you know, I — I wouldn't say anything one way or the other.
03:11You know, we're negotiating with Russia to stop the war with Ukraine.
03:15And we have been pretty happy with Russia that they have not gotten involved with Iran.
03:22We've — we've taken Iran down to levels that they've never seen before.
03:26They're very low.
03:27Their military is completely gone.
03:30Their anti-aircraft — just about everything is gone, including their economy.
03:35The only thing not gone is inflation.
03:38They have 301 percent as of this morning.
03:41Their money is gone.
03:42Everything is gone.
03:43So — and, frankly, their leaders are gone.
03:46The first set of leaders are gone.
03:48The second set of leaders are gone.
03:50Parts of the third set of leaders have gone.
03:54And I would say that a very important element is the fact that Russia and China have not participated
04:03or participated in a much smaller way than they could have.
04:08So I — I'm very happy about that.
04:11So the last thing I want to do is upset an apple cart where we're getting close to settling a
04:18war.
04:18The last thing you're going to do is let's — let's do something horrendous.
04:23So let's say we did what a lot of stupid people wanted me to do — a lot of really
04:27stupid people.
04:28I took a lot of heat.
04:30Well, why don't you do this — they didn't even know what it was.
04:33All they said is, oh, I think you should do.
04:36Oh, do you know what he's supposed to do?
04:37No, we don't really know.
04:38It's just — one guy — one politician on television said, we don't know exactly something.
04:45Well, I was in the midst of getting Steven out of Russia.
04:52And if we did what these foolish people wanted me to do, he wouldn't be coming out right now.
04:58He'd be in there for another 20 years.
05:00So the last thing I was going to do is break up that.
05:04Also, and whether people like it or not, Russia could have participated much more strongly with Iran.
05:12And likewise, China — and as you know, President Xi was here a week ago — likewise, China could have
05:18participated a lot more.
05:20There's very — there's relatively little participation.
05:25The fact is, both of them would like to see the war settled.
05:29So we're in the process of doing that with Russia.
05:32And we have China also that's involved.
05:35Thank you very much, everybody.
05:37Thank you very much.
05:38Thank you very much
