VP Kamala Harris Was A ‘Core Member’ Of Team That Secured US-Russia Prisoner Exchange: White House

last year

During a White House press briefing on Thursday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked about the major prisoner swap with Russia.

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00:00Can you explain a bit more, when did it become clear that Krasnikov was this lynchpin to

00:05a deal like this, and was it during the negotiations over Brittney Greiner?

00:11When you're engaged in a negotiation and one side lays down a position, there's not like

00:16a lightbulb moment when you say, okay, that position is immovable.

00:20That has to be tested, and alternatives have to be suggested, and proposals get put on

00:26the table and rejected, and new proposals and rejected, so it is less of a aha moment,

00:34okay, now we know, and it's more something that you accumulate through the experience

00:40of the negotiation.

00:41And so over the course of this negotiation, we did reach the conclusion that Krasnikov

00:46was a key.

00:47You've discussed, obviously, the President's involvement, direct involvement in all of

00:51this.

00:52Can you talk us through any involvement that the Vice President had?

00:54Was she also speaking directly to other leaders and allies?

00:58So as I said in my opening comments, both President Biden and Vice President Harris

01:04have made the return of unjustly detained Americans hostage, American hostages, an absolute

01:11priority.

01:12And in this particular case, Vice President Harris actually had an opportunity to engage

01:17with Chancellor Schultz earlier this year at an opportune and timely moment at the Munich

01:22Security Conference, where she talked about this issue with him.

01:26That followed on a conversation that the President had just a short time before that, and it

01:31was in the run of high-level engagements and a back-and-forth that the President and the

01:36Chancellor were having that Vice President Harris was actually able to sit face-to-face

01:40with Chancellor Schultz and talk through the elements of this.

01:45And then I've sat in the Oval Office more times than I can count over the course of

01:49the past years, providing briefings and updates on this and getting peppered with questions

01:54by both the President and the Vice President, thinking through the strategy, iterating the

01:59approach, which she was a participant in very much, a core member of the team that helped

02:05make this happen.

VP Kamala Harris Was A ‘Core Member’ Of Team That Secured US-Russia Prisoner Exchange: White House

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