Hostage affairs official says Biden administration has made ‘hard decisions’ to bring Americans home
“You always assume a risk in these situations, and the president has been willing to make these hard decisions,” Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” when asked to address criticism that Russia may be more likely to take hostages if the White House continues to approve prisoner swaps.
Carstens, who was also involved in the high-profile releases of former Marine Trevor Reed and WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian detention, has served as the US’ top hostage negotiator since 2020. Last week’s prisoner swap involved 24 detainees in total, including fellow freed Americans: Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.
The diplomat told Tapper that he once had 54 hostage cases that are “now down to just over 20.”
“So we’ve made hard changes. We’ve traded some bad people to get good people, innocent people back,” Carstens said.
“And you would think that my numbers would be skyrocketing up and yet they’re not. They’re going in the opposite direction. So the math proves that assertion to be wrong,” he continued. “When we make these hard decisions and the president makes the tough call to send someone back in a trade like this, our numbers are actually going down.”
Despite facing criticism over potential incentivization of hostage-taking through prisoner swaps, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens highlights the decrease in hostage cases under his leadership in politics. In fact, the number of hostage cases has decreased, contradicting the assumption that prisoner swaps increase hostage-taking incidents.
