85 years old and to stay alive now to reach this moment to hug his son in freedom and to reunited with his family. And seeing your emotion coming through on this, it is showing real, the humanity of all of this in the mix of obviously this so complicated politics. I am looking at the statement, and it is a lengthy statement. Of course it is. He has been waiting a long time to say it. He has a lot to say. Yes. And he will have a lot the say going forward. And that is one thing in this, it is not what has happened to me since, but it is a call to now, and speaking directly to President Biden, as i take my first breath of freedom, will you engage with World Leaders and engage at a endeavor to prevent taking hostages in the first place. And talk to me about what his mission is now that he is now having his first breaths of freedom. Well, i think that is this is his mission, because he has been and he will be a Case Study Example of the worst of an american detained somewhere in the world because of how many times he and his father were left behind by democratic and republicans. No difference of barack obama and donald trump, and siamak and emad were detained at the end of the Obama Administration and trump administration, and siamak the same, and yjoe akim the sam and i would engage President Biden to say that he is going to say that statesponsored Hostage Taking be outlawed as a practice. The reason they do it is because it is profitable. You have to wait, and eventually, it will be paid out. It is a logical and reasonable and rational thing to do, and the only way to do it is if 30 or 40 or 50 countries around the world say, we will take an attack on one as attack on all, and if one hostage is taken, dozens or 50 or 60 countries will take action against the hostage taker, and the cost could outweigh the benefit, and the Hostage Takers would have to reconsider their perspective. But we have been doing pit the same way since 1979 in our countrys history and we have to change it in a big and dramatic way. And those conversations are the most meaningfulb, and jared, do you have a view of when siamak and his mother and the entire family will be reunited once again . Well, they are going to be reunited in the washington, d. C. , area after a 15 or 16hour flight to doha and so very, very late tonight east coast time. I do want to Say Something about effie namazi whose story could not be told, who is a loyal wife and mother, and she stayed there when her husband was out of jail, and she could go to abroad, but she refused to leave until siamak could leave, ab she stayed there years and years until this day came, and she could leave the country with her son, and she has been through as a mother is beyond what anybody can imagine as a mother and wifeb and she is the silent hero of the family who held them together through this extraordinarily difficult times. There is little more that needs to be said after that, especially when you think of so many times that this was not a guaranteed ending of how this was going to go for the Five Americans especially for siamak after all of the years that he was imprisoned. Again, he continues to give you chills when you hear what we are looking, and when you are hearing what you are saying and seeing the pictures of them finally landing in doha. Jared genser. Thank you. What an extraordinary interview and extraordinary man who clearly feels that he is part of the family working on this for 7 1 2 years. You can hear the emotion and the exhaustion of the small army of people who have been working tirelessly to make it happen. What did you find . I found the that phone calls after he was in house arrest, he had a cell phone that he could facetime. Small phones and the regime allowed them to have the smart phones and make facetime calls afterwards to the families and jared as we know. And siamak in the actual statement did call out and thank what he called superstar lawyer jared, because he has stuck with this for years and he has been unpopular for rattling cages, and his motivation for his own client probably helped the others as well, because he would not let it go. So, i think that it is an amazing time how so many people got together to make sure that the people would not be forgotten, because face it, it was not that easy to do this. There was a lot of opportunity for administrations not to take the hard decisions. And then in the end, this administration did. And lets not forget that we keep talk about should we shouldnt we . America has done the deals with north korea and russia and all of the axis countries that are, you know, the engage in this kind of the commercialization of human life. We have an announcement from mike pence who is running for president , and he going to criticize the unfreezing of Iranian Funds. And when i asked jared genser about that, and why criticizing, because he and the administration went into a similar Prisoner Swap twice. They left siamak twice, and why . That is the question. That is the question. And john kirby said today when i asked him, what happens when they are of course criticizing and david sanger is here to join in the conversation, and the reason that the criticism comes from is that you are handing the way it is depicted is that it is 6 billion that you are handing over so they can continue to fund terrorism, et cetera, et cetera around the world. And what john kirby said today, if this money is seen to be, and it is going to be used for not humanitarian purposes, the tran action ends, because of the structure of the constraints around it. But it is not going to stop, the criticism s david. Right. And what you are going to hear, using taxpayer money, and they havent. And hearing from the critics, that you should not use money for ransoms whether it is democrats or republicans, we have ended up having to strike a deal, and sometimes it is prisoners for prisoners, and sometimes it is prisoners for releasing money, and the nature of the iranian case is a little bit unusual because after the Iranian Revolution happened, the iranian government had paid for all kinds of things that had not been delivered including arms from the United States. That is part of how the iran deal came together in 2015 that did until President Trump pulled out of it at least freeze the program in place. So everyone has to make these deals, and it is a point that christiane has made. Democrats and republicans have made them. I am fascinated by the facetiming that the iranians allowed, and i am fascinated how they have played this. Do you any explanation for why . Well, there is not a unitaru iranian state. Why they picked this moment, and using it to sort of push forward in a broader deal with the United States or the west, and maybe that moment will come. But i guess having released them from the prison, they then had to show the United States. That they were planning to follow through, and the most important thing for them in the last three or four weeks is to get that money transferred and my guess is, and purely a guess is that it is part of the making sure that anthony blinken, the Secretary Of State signed off on the release of the many knee. Release of the money. And also, from the iranian hotel, we heard from The Americans that they would not be physically released until now, and four to six weeks, and the ts were crossed on the is were dotted. And natasha brought up Secretary Blinken, and we will go Natasha Bertrand for that. That is right, john. We got a statement from blinken where he thanked all of the of course american counterparts in qatar, oman, switzerland helping to make this Prisoner Swap and deal become a reality. He reiterated that the president and i have no higher priority than the safety and security of American Citizens at home and abroad, and he said under bidens leadership, we have secured the freedom of 30 americans around the world. He also expresses satisfaction and gratefulness of the efforts by the qataris who played a key role in this as intermediaries because the u. S. And the iranian delegations as they were negotiating, they never spoke facetoface, and then two years and seven months as this deal crystallized the qataris were really a key part of making this happen. He reiterated as President Biden did in his statement that americans should not go to iran. Because there is such a Risk Of American Ps Bes being kidnapped wrongfully detained, they should heed the advice and stay away, because as john kirby, the National Spokesperson says, the Iranian Regime does not distinguish between Iranian Americans and americanss citizens. He said this is a solemn day, and while they celebrate the release of these five citizens, one American Citizen is still unaccounted for, and that is bob levinson, and this is something that the administration has tried to keep a spotlight on through all of this, and not all americans have been freed there. So it is really kind of em fa si emphasizing that it is a key success, but they will continue to try to bring back all americans. I am curious, because you bring up bob levinson, and they have mentioned the levinson family, and they deserve answers, and they said that we will sanction former president mahmou d aw adenajad was gone, n other leader has come clean with what has happened. And now to hear more about the sanctions. Yes, the president has talked about how they were issuing the new sanctions in iran to hold iran accountable for bob levinson the american detained for more than a decade and believed to have died in iran. And the sanctions that The Americans previewed is going to target two entities, the Irans Ministry of intelligence and the officials have argued they have detained and interrogated detainees at the prison which is historical human rights abuses, and then also another set of issues against mahmoud adenajad. And also in the statements in celebrating americans, the Five Americans will now be returning back to the u. S. , and back to their families, the president noted that there are still many more detainees that they are working around the world to release. Think of eva n gerskovesch. And also, what we wanted to know what this means for The Americans in iran, and this is not going to change anything in their view. Yes, and think about this, the president of the United States is in new york, and the president of iran is in new york, president raisi, and they are no more than 10, 12 blocks apart, and it would not be hard to seize on this moment, and have a perfunctory moment to take it forward, but politically neither believes this could be allowed to happen. Look, you are absolutely right, and particular ly raiss hardliner, and rouhani is not so much. And that is how they made the nuclear deal, but they are unable with someone like raisi, and hard to make deals with the u. S. , and that the next u. S. Administration would not pull out like trump did. So there is a former american iranian who worked in the State Department on these issues and trying to figure out a way forward and they say that since 1979, 43 years since the islamic revolution, the republicans have been, and their word, Virtue Signalling to sound tough on iran, and the democrats have been trying to negotiate at all costs they say, and so no joined up, grownup policy on an important relationship. It does not have to be an ally, because it is not, but it is an important relationship, and just like this. It is also the cruel reality of sanctions which is once you put the sanctions on, whether it is russian, north korea or iran, taking them off is really hard, because you are looking weak even if the reason is good. What leverage does the United States have, if any . Well, the sanctions, and even under, and this is something that not many people talked about the context. Even under the Iran Nuclear Deal and certain sanctions were meant to be lifted in return for the halting of the deal, et cetera, it was impossible to get those sanctions properly lifted. Many in the International Community who were dealing with the Financial Services and the Financial Instruments were too af af afraid, they did not want to come up against the american sanctions again. And so it is complicated and no real effort to have a proper geopolitical Foreign Policy with iran. Forgive me for interrupting, and give us a sense of the power of the sanctions, because new ones put in place, with iran, because the negotiation is not happening. David, you know it better than me, but it is cat and mouse, and sanctions from one side of the world, and iran goes around to the other side of the world, china, russia, and the other people of the world that sell a lot of oil to china, and they have a lot of dealings with those countries who are not on the western side of these sage shuns. And we have one set of sanctions that are coming off next month automatically, and it is a u. N. Sanction on the sale of missiles and missile technology, and the problem with that is that it is an opening to the russians to begin to do more deals with the iranians, and the u. S. , and the europeans have said they will keep their sanctions on, but the fact of the matter is that the u. N. Ban is going to lift, and when that moment comes, i am afraid we could be headed into a tougher moment in the russian iran negotiations. And not the lose this moment which is a great moment. And not the detract, but i am caught by this image here on the wall that we can show of these three of the Five Americans finally home. And the smile. The great smile. And it caught my eye to note that. And yes. And to raise it earlier, because i asked john kirby, and he said there is no Calendar Event that sparked this happening today. And there could have been some snaggle events as late as this morning. And what are you learning right now . We are told when they are on the tarmac there in doha, they are going to be given phones that they can skype their phone and let their families know they are on the way home, and this is a huge, huge moment. We saw the imagery of them greeting ibrahim pele who is from the State Department, and also, the kconvoy for Hostage Affairs who have been huge in the process, so from here, once they take off from doha and we are told that they wont take off from doha until they have been checked out from medical personnel to make sure they are fit to fly. Once they do take off, they will be given the post detained persons to be acclimated after they have been in prison, to get a hold of the narrative of the what happened and start to come to grips with how they can come ba to nar mall life, and after having such a traumatic time behind bars, and we have seen Brittney Griner take a part of the program, and the infamous six take part, and they are not expected to do that tonight, because they are to be in washington late, and they will see their families for first time in years and years. I cannot imagine what that is like after all they have been through. Thank you, jennifer. We are waiting to hear from the Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken. And just ahead, Breaking News, Five Americans after years in custody, wrongfully detained in iran, and they are now free. Stay with us. Tech cracked windshield on your new car . You dont have to take it to the dealer. Bring it to safelite. We do more replacements and recalibrations than anyone else. 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