we have six incredible people who were
held hostage by various countries
and i'm very pleased to let everybody
know that we brought back
over 50 hostages from 22 different
countries
we worked very hard on it ambassador
o'brien and others
and i will tell you we uh we're very
proud of the job we did but
i'd like to ask maybe pastor brunson to
say a few words so we can go through and
just give us a little history of what
happened and how is life treating you
i was held in turkey uh for two years
and
you took unprecedented steps actually to
secure my release and your
administration really fought for me
and i don't i think if you hadn't done
that i may still be in turkey i'm very
grateful for 28 years right they had you
there for
they had you scheduled for a long time
andrew we had to get you back and i i
have to say that
to me president erdogan was very good
and i know they had you scheduled for a
long time and you were a very innocent
person
and he ultimately after we had a few
conversations he agreed
so we appreciate that and we appreciate
the people of turkey and you still
appreciate the people of turkey i
understand right
we love the turkish people that's grace
it's great to have you back andrew thank
you
please mr president thank you for having
me thank you my name is sam goodwin i'm
from st louis missouri
i was held in syria for 63 days and uh
i'm i think i speak for my fellow former
hostages and detainees here when i say
i'm as grateful as i've ever been for
anything to be home safely
and uh thank you for the information and
opportunity to be here
particularly ambassador o'brien was
incredibly supportive and helpful to my
family
and i can't say enough nice things about
him thank you for promoting him
and uh just really happy to be here so
thank you we got your back
you got him back yeah we got you all
back and we have
some more that we're working on right
now to get back that we better do please
go ahead
my name is michael white mr president i
do once again
it's an honor to be here honored to meet
you in person basically what had
happened with me
is i went traveled over to the country
of iran it turned out there was a major
major trap and i was apprehended there i
went through a lot
in their injustice system in iranian
justice doesn't iran is an
oppressive extortionist terrorist regime
you know what i'm talking about
but what you did sir is you were able to
get me out of that prison in record time
it was amazing thank you very much well
thank you
please yeah my name is josh holt this is
my wife tammy yes
we were held hostage in venezuela for
two years i know very well
and you you helped us get out uh senator
hatch worked with you very well on that
as well
um and it was a a great honor to be able
to meet you right when we got back
i remember a lot of people ask me what
was it like meeting president trump and
i just said i was
i was blown away i just got released
after two years then i'm shaking the
hand of the president in the oval office
i don't really remember a whole lot of
it
so it's nice to meet you again and it's
been great it's been great to be back
helping people through situations that
they've gone through and now we have
started our family well the great people
of utah really
wanted me to do something about the two
of you and we were able to do it
and a little bit of a miracle i think
frankly it was because it was a very
hostile period
and we appreciate everybody working so
hard with us but
we were able to get you both back and
are you living in utah now i
hope we're still in new york that's good
we'll say hello to the folks in utah
because
they're great people thank you very much
congratulations thank you
please brian aaron spent an unexpected
trip there in
india i was not going to india i was
going through india to nepal
i've been working for the last 18 years
but on behalf of my family myself thank
you
president trump for getting us out and
getting us home
the darkest moment of our whole time
together
uh your letter to my wife came and it
really gave her the hope and the peace
and it's great
from that time forward as more people
got involved especially the ambassador
there
in india things became more peaceful and
the hope
was there for the last four months that
we really would get to come home because
they had planned on keeping me for
three to five years the original charge
thing was three to five years right and
that was cleared and then they came up
with new charges to do a seven-year
term india responded very well to my
request
so we appreciate that and appreciate
everything y'all did
thank you all for being with us we have
a few more people we want to get back
and we will get them back and they'll be
back very soon thank you very much
appreciate it