State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce Pressed About Prisoner Swap Negotiations With Russia

4/11/2025

During Thursday’s State Department press briefing, Spokesperson Tammy Bruce answered questions about the U.S. negotiations with Russia regarding detained Americans.

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Transcript

00:00Can I follow up a bit? There are several Americans in Russia that were at least identified by

00:08Mickey Bergman and other groups who are active in this regard with trying to get Americans out

00:15who are not designated yet as wrongfully detained. And I'm wondering if you could check or take the

00:21question as to whether there's any progress on elevating them to the level of wrongfully

00:27detained, which could accelerate them getting released. I think that was done by the administration

00:34with Mark Fogel. Right. I do know. Yes. Again, the question about Americans who don't have a

00:41designation of being wrongfully detained is that if an American is being held, we are regularly

00:46looking at those cases. We're constantly addressing the nature of how they're held, why they're held,

00:55and if that designation might change. So it's not something we look away from. It's a regular

01:00effort. And so in the regard of anyone who's not been designated in that fashion, it is something,

01:07as you've noted, like with Mr. Fogel, that can change if circumstances merit it.

01:12Can you give us any details? There's some confusion. According to her lawyer, she was supposedly,

01:18Xenia was arriving at 4 p.m. There are other reports that it is as late as 9 p.m.

01:24Can you give us any clarification about and when she'll be, if she'll be coming, going to the White

01:29House? Or do you know anything more? And I have one more question to ask about her, about will she

01:35be going to Brooke Army Medical? Well, clearly there's still issues of privacy here. I'm not really

01:42going to talk about the choices she's made, where specifically she is going, or what the plans are for

01:50her involved in that, which are decisions that are going to be made in that environment and with her,

01:59which would not be appropriate to discuss. And certainly I can't discuss the nature of the

02:04negotiations that occurred, which clearly did. But maybe that's for another day, but here I can't do that.

02:12Okay. Ends.

02:12Ends.

02:13Ends.

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce Pressed About Prisoner Swap Negotiations With Russia

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