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U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Holds Press Conference; Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan Released in Prisoner Swap. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 01, 2024 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:48]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We are continuing to follow breaking news.

President Biden addressing the nation moments ago, formally announcing the largest exchange of prisoners between the United States and its partners and Russia since the Cold War, the president confirming that "Wall Street Journal" reporter Evan Gershkovich and retired U.S. Marine, Paul Whelan are coming home, this photo just posted online of the two men after their release.

Between them, of course, is Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who is being released, along with prominent Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is a U.S. resident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Their brutal ordeal is over and they're free.

Moments ago, the families and I were able to speak to them on the telephone from the Oval Office. They're out of Russia. Earlier today, they were flown to Turkey. And soon they will be wheels up on their way home to see their families. This is an incredible relief for all the family members gathered here.

It's a relief to the friends and colleagues all across the country who have been praying for this day for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The president in his appearance there at the White House, flanked by members of the now-freed Americans and Alsu's family as well.

Just moments ago, we learned the four former prisoners are now wheels up out of Turkey. They're heading to the U.S., Whelan coming home after almost six years in Russian prisons, Gershkovich more than one year.

CNN's M.J. Lee is at the White House.

M.J., this was quite a moving moment there at the White House. Tell us more about what we saw.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a very moving and emotional moment here at the White House, for sure.

And President Biden in those remarks said, whenever these four Americans are wheels down on American soil, he plans on being there to greet them at Joint Base Andrews. And we heard the president there flanked by the family members of those four Americans that are now on their way home really celebrating their release and describing this multinational agreement as a feat of diplomacy.

And this is a historic agreement that has been years in the making. Just keep in mind that Paul Whelan is an American who was already in detention in Russia when President Biden took office in early 2021. So you could really argue that he has been working on securing Whelan's release for the entirety of his first term.

And we also know that the president, of course, has been pushing to finalize this deal in the recent days, including as he was considering the future of his political campaign. We know that, for example, about an hour before the president, just 11 days ago released that letter to the American people saying that he was ending his 2020 campaign, had been on the phone with the Slovenian prime minister pushing him to get this deal across the finish line.

Now, a few things that I just want to make sure U.S. officials are very much emphatic about, in light of this prisoner swap deal. One is that, as these deals typically go, they're emphatic that they have to make some excruciating decisions.

That is to say that these deals are not made overnight. They certainly are not easy decisions in terms of what swaps they have to make and what negotiations go into play. And second, they, of course, did not get everything that they wanted. That includes Marc Fogel, an American that was sentenced to 14 years of labor camp in Russia.

This is a history teacher who had been teaching in Moscow, though U.S. officials are making clear that they are going to redouble their efforts to try to get him out. They were unsuccessful in doing that this time around. And this deal also, U.S. officials are stressing, does not mean that there is now some breakthrough or even a detente of sorts in U.S.-Russian relations.

They are -- U.S. officials making very clear that, even despite this deal, there are going to be no major policy changes when it comes to how this administration views Vladimir Putin or the ongoing war in Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: And we are set to get a briefing at the White House in just moments. We will, of course, bring that to you live.

M.J., the White House is also touting how Vice President Kamala Harris was involved in this prisoner swap. Break that down for us.

LEE: Yes, there are two meetings that we are not learning about that Vice President Harris had privately when she was attending the Munich Security Conference. This is back in February.

[13:05:05]

She, of course, did have a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. We knew about that meeting at the time. But what a White House official tells CNN is that, as that meeting was wrapping up, she actually asked all of the staff in the room to vacate the room, so that it was really just her, the chancellor, and two aides left remaining.

And it was in that private conversation that the vice president really pressed the chancellor on the importance of Vadim Krasikov. This, of course, is the Russian assassin who was being held in Germany that U.S. officials have now said was the biggest fish that the Russians had wanted as a part of this deal.

So that was the pressure that she was putting on her German -- the German chancellor at the time, going back, again, a number of months. It was also at the Munich Security Conference, we have learned, that the vice president asked for a meeting with the prime minister of Slovenia. She wanted to press him in that setting about two Russian nationals that were in Slovenian custody and the importance of those two Russian nationals as a part of this broader deal as well.

So these are obviously just details that are coming out now and wouldn't have come out at the time, given just the sensitive nature of these talks. And, of course, whenever we do next see the vice president, we certainly expect her to weigh in. She, of course, has been busy campaigning and out on the road, as she is now seeking the Democratic nomination and moving forward and hoping to defeat Donald Trump in November.

But these are all important foreign policy areas and issues that she is hoping that she will inherit from President Biden when it comes to next year.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly, some of the reporting indicates she's set up for that politically.

M.J. Lee, thank you.

Let's bring in Kylie Atwood, who is at the State Department.

Kylie, what more can you tell us about what is really an historic exchange?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Brianna, the vast and complicated nature of this exchange really can't be overstated.

As we have been discussing, seven countries were involved, the secretary of state thanking all of those countries for the extraordinary efforts that they put into this, of course, the U.S. and Russia. And then it was Germany, Poland, Norway, and Slovenia that were involved. And then there's Turkey, obviously, where this exchange occurred. And I spoke with a senior administration official just moments ago,

who described Turkey as being extremely helpful in this exchange and said that Turkey was picked as the location for this for a number of reasons, but one of them being that they have been involved in negotiations when it comes to back-and-forth with Russia in multiple instances, when you talk about the Black Sea grain initiative when it comes to the Ukraine war or the prisoner swap that we saw that released Brittney Griner, which also took place in Turkey.

So, Turkey played a pivotal role here. Now, as you were hearing from M.J., there are Americans who don't get included in these prisoner swaps. That is the sad part of days like this. Marc Fogel, who's that American teacher who was detained and sentenced to 14 years in prison, facing charges of drug smuggling, his family just found out today that he wasn't included.

That's according to his lawyer who I spoke with. She said to me that the White House didn't call their family. She said that they were shocked. They're really upset. We will hear more from them, I am sure. But that is one of the challenging pieces of days like today.

We heard from the secretary of state, who spoke to the fact that the Biden administration has been working on this so tirelessly. And, sometimes, the families, even of those who are involved in the swap today who are being released from Russia today, didn't know if those efforts would actually pay off.

Now they're seeing that they will. But he spoke to the Americans who are still wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad. And he said: "We will not forget you. We will not rest until you see your loved ones again."

SANCHEZ: Kylie Atwood, live at the State Department for us, thank you so much.

We have also just learned that the Russian plane used during the prisoner exchange in Turkey has returned to Russian airspace. That's according to flight tracking data.

Let's get some perspective from our experts now. We're joined by CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, alongside CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier, and we're also joined by NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark.

Thank you all for being with us.

Alex, take us through how the next few hours are going to play out, when these prisoners finally get to the United States.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: So, thankfully, we're past the hardest part. The exchange has taken place. The prisoners are heading home to their respective countries.

When it comes to the United States, they are going to be coming home and then offered medical and psychological services. Now, M.J. mentioned there that President Biden is expected to go out to Andrews -- Joint Base Andrews. So we could see these four, the three Americans, plus Vladimir Kara-Murza, who's a green card holder, coming to the East Coast.

[13:10:00]

But they will be offered the opportunity to go out to San Antonio, Texas. The Brooke Army Medical Center is part of the biggest Defense Department complex in their system. And they have a special program called PISA, P-I-S-A, that is designed to help people essentially get back on their feet after traumatic events.

This is something that Brittney Griner, for example, went through and Trevor Reed was offered. And so oftentimes we will see people landing in San Antonio, Texas. I think the -- obviously, the family reunions are going to be their biggest priority. We saw some of the family members there with President Biden.

And so, after that, they will be given all of the necessary things that they will -- that they may need to adjust and get back on their feet. So this is a tremendously happy moment, obviously, Paul Whelan's family waiting for almost six years since he was arrested in 2018, Evan Gershkovich's family having to deal with his conviction last month to 16 years in a Russian penal colony.

Thankfully, just over a month later, he and the other three are coming back to the U.S.

KEILAR: Yes.

And the details of just the scope of this and the secrecy of it, Kim, fascinating, as "The Wall Street Journal" has reported this. In the wake of Alexei Navalny's death, there was this shuttle diplomacy of paper-only proposals that were being hand-delivered between NSA Jake Sullivan's office and his counterpart in Germany.

I mean, this was sort of the secrecy of it. How different is something like this just because of the sheer size of it?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It reminds me actually of the planning of the Osama bin Laden mission, that they kept it in a very small group of people.

And yet I'm also thinking about the relief and the elation of that small group of people who've been working on this that has to include not just the national security adviser's office, but Roger Carstens, the hostage envoy, and his team from the State Department.

Now, Roger started this job under Mike Pompeo's State Department. And a lot of the same people have stayed with him and they have worked this 24/7, not for days or months, but for years, to get to this point, to get Dave Whelan out, in addition to Paul, and Alsu, who was taken more recently.

And it reminds me. So, Roger is a former Green Beret and their motto is to free the oppressed. And it's really nice to be talking about the great news of these people being released. KEILAR: And I would also add, Robert O'Brien, the former national

security adviser to former President Trump, highly critical of the Biden administration when it comes to their approach. He says that this encourages more hostage-taking.

And yet he praises Roger Carstens when given the chance.

DOZIER: Yes.

KEILAR: So it's just sort of a very --

MARQUARDT: He handed that job off to Roger.

KEILAR: That's right.

DOZIER: Yes. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

DOZIER: I was just going to say that, look, we're going to -- once the welcoming, the pictures on the tarmac are out, we're going to move on to crass politics. And then we're going to start asking the questions, why did Moscow not wait for a potential Trump presidency?

Moscow has given a real win to the Biden/Harris administration by having this happen now. And I think it could go back to the delicate negotiations among the small group of people that you were asking about. Germany was willing to do this for the Biden/Harris administration now.

They had the KGB colonel who assassinated someone, available to give and trade now. And Moscow decided, let's do it.

SANCHEZ: That appears to have been the linchpin of this entire agreement.

We do have some news to share with you. We have learned that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed decrees to pardon those released in Thursday's prisoner swap.

General Clark, I'm curious to get your perspective of not only the timing of this, but the sheer scale of it. This is a huge deal.

WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, really complicated, took years to do. Lots of intricate negotiations. Started before President Biden came to office, obviously.

And now it's been culminated. I think all the questions are still out there to be answered. But I think, if I just put myself in Putin's views, he's got the colonel back. He's looking at what's happening in American politics. There's a couple of lessons here.

Number one is, maybe he's not as -- maybe he doesn't feel confident that Trump's actually going to get elected. Number two is, he might be sending a message to Donald Trump: You have got to be even nicer to me if you want my support. So there's a lot of dimensions of this. But I think the bottom line

is, we should be very happy it's been done. We have got our people back. And I just -- I don't agree with the idea that this is going to promote more hostage-taking.

Look, that's always out there. It's always a possibility. This effort reflects America's values. We're proud of our values. We stand up for them and we take care of our people.

[13:15:08]

KEILAR: Yes, it does seem, unfortunately, that the ship has sailed on this practice, and this is the way it is going to be for some time.

General, I'm curious, as the former NATO supreme allied commander, how you are looking at the Biden administration's relationship with NATO, Biden feeling very strongly that he has invested a lot of time into building up NATO, and how -- and he emphasized relationships when he was just speaking at the White House paying off -- how you see that.

CLARK: Oh, I think the president has done a great job in strengthening NATO.

He had a lot of long, a lot thoughtful messages to give, because --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: General Clark, sorry to interrupt, sir.

We have to go to the White House, where Karine Jean-Pierre is delivering a briefing. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: -- were unjustly imprisoned in Russia.

I know, for a lot of reporters in this room, especially the "Wall Street Journal" team, this is personal. And I know, for the families of Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir, it's one of the best days of their lives.

As President Biden said in his statement, as we celebrate the return of these brave Americans, we remember all those still wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world, and reaffirm our pledge to their families. We see you, we are with you, and we will never stop working to bring your loved ones home, where they belong.

And, with that, I will turn it over to our national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Thank you, Karine.

And good afternoon, everyone.

Today, as you have seen and heard from the president and from Karine, we have completed one of the largest and certainly the most complex exchange in history. And Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, three American citizens and one American green card holder, are finally coming home.

I had the honor and pleasure of joining the president this morning in the Oval Office as he shared the wonderful news with the families. And then, together, they spoke with Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir, who were on the tarmac in Ankara with U.S. officials where the exchange happened.

To say that everyone in the room was overjoyed, even at a loss for words, is an understatement.

Since taking office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have made clear that they will not stop working until every American wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world is reunited with their family. As an administration, we're proud to celebrate the return home of over 70 such Americans from places around the world like Afghanistan, Burma, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda, and elsewhere.

Today's exchange is a feat of diplomacy that honestly could only be achieved by a leader like Joe Biden.

At his direction, the professionals in our national security, foreign policy, and intelligence community worked tirelessly and relentlessly to secure the release of 16 individuals who were detained in Russia, the three American citizens, one American green card holder, five German citizens, and seven Russian political prisoners, in exchange for eight individuals held in a combination of the United States, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, and Poland.

The president was himself personally engaged in the diplomacy that brought this about, including multiple conversations with Chancellor Scholz, with the other leaders of the countries who provided some of the Russians as part of the exchange, and, most recently, as has now been reported, calling the prime minister of Slovenia early in the afternoon of Sunday, July 21, to coordinate the final arrangements, to make the final piece of this deal fall into place.

There is no more singular or concrete demonstration that the alliances that the president has reinvigorated around the world matter to Americans, to the individual safety of Americans, and to the collective security of Americans.

And we're deeply grateful to our allies who supported us in these complex negotiations to achieve this outcome. And while I'm standing at this podium, the president is reaching out to give personal thanks to the leaders of Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey.

And, honestly, guys, I can just say this was vintage Joe Biden, rallying American -- rallying American allies to save American citizens and Russian freedom fighters and doing it with intricate statecraft, pulling his whole team together to drive this across the finish line. His goal has always been to put the families first, the families who

are enduring an unimaginable ordeal. From the president on down, we have stayed in regular and routine touch with them. I spent a lot of time with the families of Evan and Paul and Alsu.

And most of the time, as you can imagine, those are tough conversations, but not today. Today -- excuse me -- today was a very good day. And we're going to build on it, drawing inspiration and continued courage from it for all of those who are held hostage or wrongfully detained around the world.

[13:20:16]

And that includes Marc Fogel, who we are actively working to get his release from Russia as well. And there are others being held in Syria, Afghanistan, other countries around the world who we are working to get released.

And just on a personal note, I want to say that this is the culmination of a monumental level of effort and level of skill by my teammates across the national security enterprise, my colleagues here at the NSC, my colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency, my colleagues at the State Department.

These are dedicated, talented professionals who are not in the headlines, who don't get to stand at a podium like this one. And it was at the president's direction that they built and pulled off the most intricate, expansive deal of its kind in memory.

So they know who they are. I salute them. And every American should be proud to have those kind of people standing up on their behalf and on behalf of American security.

While this has unfolded, we have been closely monitoring the events in the Middle East as well. Since October 7, we have worked to deter and prevent escalation into a wider regional war. That risk has always been there.

That risk is there now. And we are determined to engage in deterrence, defense, and de-escalation to try to ensure that we do not have a wider regional conflict or escalation that goes unchecked.

So I'm happy to get more into that in response to your questions.

And, with that, I will turn it over to you.

Yes.

QUESTION: Thanks, Jake.

Whose idea was it to try to go big and bring everyone home at once, instead of going for a simpler one-for-one type deal, and why?

SULLIVAN: That's a great question, which I don't feel entirely comfortable answering, because this was an organic process involving a lot of people across our government. But what I will say is this. The president sat us down on a regular

basis over the course of the detentions of Paul, Evan, and Alsu, and really pushed us to think about what configuration would actually work to make this happen.

And it was through an iterative process of back-and-forth with various of the allies I mentioned, with engagements with our Russian counterparts, where we were making proposals, getting responses, that this all came together.

And so I would say that, if you had not had Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, I don't think this would have happened. But, as I said in my remarks, there were a lot of other people who played a central role in building out the pieces of this, and then executing on that.

And the execution phase of this to get this level of coordination together, to have those planes all land on the tarmac at the same time from multiple different countries, with so many different individuals coming from Russia and going back to Russia, really extraordinary. And I think team effort can be a cliche, but I think in this case it's a warranted description of what happened.

QUESTION: And was Alexei Navalny supposed to be a part of this deal before he died in prison?

SULLIVAN: So, we had been working with our partners on a deal that would have included Alexei Navalny. And, unfortunately, he died.

In fact, on the very day that he died, I saw Evan's parents, and I told them that the president was determined to get this done, even in light of that tragic news, and that we were going to work day and night to get to this day. And so that work continued over the course of the past few months and culminated in today.

Yes.

QUESTION: You have mentioned it a little bit, but can you describe and give us a little bit more color on that Oval Office conversation just before the president came out?

Did all four Americans get to speak? Did each of the family members get to speak to their loved ones? Did the president tear up? Did you tear up?

(LAUGHTER)

SULLIVAN: I saved my tearing up for this podium.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

SULLIVAN: I would like to strike that from the record, if --

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

SULLIVAN: I don't know if that's permitted. Probably not.

So, the president invited the family members in at the moment that we received the word from the tarmac in Ankara that the exchange was complete, and he was able to give them the news directly that the exchange was in fact complete.

Then Paul, Evan, and Alsu were in one place. Vladimir was actually in another place. So he conducted two calls from the Oval Office, one with the three American citizens on the phone, and he welcomed their freedom, said that, on behalf of the American people, he was so proud to have them out, and then very quickly turned the phone over to their family members.

[13:25:00]

And each family got the opportunity to engage by phone with their loved one who was out. He then conducted a second call with Vladimir. And Vladimir's wife, one of their daughters, and their son were there to be able to speak with him. And the president and he also got to reminisce on the fact that they were both pallbearers together at John McCain's wedding -- wedding -- John McCain's funeral.

And so it was a kind of extraordinary personal exchange in the Oval Office. And the family members were both overwhelmed, of course, by the events of the day, and also standing there in the presence of the U.S. president at the Resolute Desk.

So it was quite a moment.

QUESTION: And can you talk about how the administration tries to make sure this doesn't incentivize more arrests of innocent Americans, beyond what the president said, advising people not to go abroad in certain places, especially because you're looking at this inherent imbalance between releasing -- or between securing the release of innocent Americans in exchange for wrong -- rightly convicted criminals, including a murderer?

SULLIVAN: Look, it's a fair question. It's a question that we grapple with every time that we look at the hard decisions involved in one of these exchanges.

It is difficult to send back a convicted criminal to secure the release of an innocent American. And yet, sometimes, the choice is between doing that and consigning that person basically to live out their days in prison in a hostile foreign country or in the hands of a hostile power.

So, from our perspective, we have assessed and analyzed that risk, and we have judged that the benefit of reuniting Americans, of bringing people home, and also of vindicating the idea that the American president and the American government are going to do what it takes to protect and secure the release of innocent Americans, that that benefit outweighs the risk. And that's how we have proceeded. I would point out, in addition to that, that, in periods of time when the U.S. government didn't tend to do prisoner exchanges, Americans were unjustly detained and held hostage overseas. In periods where we did, Americans were unjustly detained and held hostage overseas.

So I think there are real questions. And Roger Carstens, the hostage negotiator at the State Department, has actually pointed out that, in this analysis, it is not quite as clear-cut that the evidence actually demonstrates the kind of result that your question speaks to, that a lot more people get taken because we do these exchanges.

But it's something that we have to pay attention to, and it's something that makes these decisions by the president not simple decisions, hard decisions, and yet, as he did today, he was prepared to make them.

Yes.

QUESTION: Can you explain a bit more, when did it become clear that Krasikov was this lynchpin to a deal like this? And was it during the negotiations over Brittney Griner?

SULLIVAN: When you're engaged in a negotiation and one side lays down a position, there's not like a lightbulb moment when you say, OK, that position is immovable. That has to be tested, and alternatives have to be suggested, and proposals get put on the table and rejected, new proposals, and rejected.

So, it is less of a aha moment, OK, now we know, and it's more something that you accumulate through the experience of the negotiation. And so, over the course of this negotiation, we did reach the conclusion that Krasikov was a key.

QUESTION: You have discussed, obviously, the president's, direct involvement, in all of this. Can you talk us through any involvement that the vice president had? Was she also speaking directly to other leaders and allies?

SULLIVAN: So, as I said in my opening comments, both President Biden and Vice President Harris have made the return of unjustly detained Americans hostage -- American hostages an absolute priority.

And, in this particular case, Vice President Harris actually had an opportunity to engage with Chancellor Scholz earlier this year at an opportune and timely moment at the Munich Security Conference, where she talked about this issue with him.

That followed on a conversation that the president had just a short time before that, and it was in the run of high-level engagements and a back-and-forth that the president and the chancellor were having that Vice President Harris was actually able to sit face-to-face with Chancellor Scholz and talk through the elements of this.

And then I have sat in the Oval Office more times than I can count over the course of the past years providing briefings and updates on this, and getting peppered with questions by both the president and the vice president, thinking through the strategy, iterating the approach, which she was a participant in very much, a core member of the team that helped make this happen.

Yes.

QUESTION: Jake, two quick questions, one as it relates to the president's interactions with Chancellor Scholz. It's been detailed to us, but maybe, from the podium, you could help us understand.

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