get americans back, you know, from the beginning of the reagan administration all the way through to this one. and for with respect vice president pence to cast aspersions, remember he was the vice president for president trump, who entered two such deals to get two americans back. before that president obama did too. you mentioned it. as part of the iran nuclear deal. and before that and before that the presidents did it. right now president biden this year has entered a deal of reciprocity with the russians to get back brittney griner and trying to get back others. these are the facts of life. and to protect american life sometimes these have to happen. admerle kirby didn t say to you, and i m not sure whether i ve got this right, but from what i understand about the money it is not even american money. forget taxpayers dollars. it s south korean money. apparently, the money is the money that south korea owes iran
with remarkable reporting. stick around if you would. i want to bring in white house national security council spokesperson retired rear admiral john kirby who joins us now. admiral, thanks for joining us. iran is one of the only countries the u.s. government designates as a state sponsor of terrorism. the first question is how was this done? i know the u.s. does not negotiate with terrorists, but this negotiation was done through a third party. is it switzerland who did the negotiation? right, through our swiss representatives. that s right, jake. yeah, that s exactly right. and it was a swiss representative, our protecting power, if you will, since we don t have diplomatic relations with ifrn, who checked in on these four once they got out of prison and verified to us that they were in fact out. so it s five u.s. detain ees who are now out of prison but on house arrest. and and is the exchange going to be
americans were moved from tehran s notorious eivin prison to a hotel guarded by iranian officials earlier today. cnn s christiane amanpour was first to break the story. she also spoke with one of the iranian american detainees in an unprecedented interview from the prison back in march. she joins us now. christiane, siamak namazi took a huge risk talking to you, but it does seem his message has been heard. reporter: well, let s hope so because he was desperate. and you re absolutely right. he told me desperate times, you know, mean you have to take desperate measures. and it was an extraordinary thing for somebody to be able to take a phone call out of eivin. he had been in nearly eight years, so he had some privileges like the ability to use a phone. but never had this been allowed to the press, and he didn t get permission. he just did it. but it just goes to show how desperate they were and how they absolutely wanted to get their message in front and center of the biden administra
special system only used for humanitarian purposes. and that s what we re talking about here. it s a pre-existing account that was set up in the previous administration which they allowed other countries to set up that has not been made accessible to the iranians. they d be able to have some access to it but only for humanitarian purposes. five americans who are part of this deal that we know of being released from the evin prison, four of them, and put in house arrest in a hotel. the fifth one already was in that house arrest. right. removing them from the equation, we certainly hope that they all get out of iran and back to the united states, are there any other american citizens or american green card holders still detained in iranian prisons unfairly other than those five? these are the five that the state department have designated as wrongfully detained. one american also taken by iran in 2007 of course, robert levinson, is believed to be dead. is there any new informat
detained by the iranians, for one reason and that is because they are americans. my father is an amazing person. is he is so calm, so kind, so generous, so noble. and i think just how my siblings and i have been able to carry ourselves through this surreal nightmare is just a testament to him and my mother and everything that they ve instilled in us and who they are. former new mexico governor bill richardson, who advocates for some of these families, puts it bluntly. and this has happened in russia, venezuela, iran, north korea. it s a pattern. it s a new hostage diplomacy that we have to start confronting. just do what s necessary to end this nightmare and bring us home. thank you. we ll get that message out, siamak. these few may finally have been released, but will they be the last american hostages taken by tehran?