President Obama promised on this third day in office that he would close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.
"Guantanamo will be closed, uh, no later than one year from now."
He hasn't made good on that promise.
And with just thirty-four days left in office, that's unlikely to change.
Over the last 15 years, 780 detainees come through GTMO.
At its peak, 682 detainees were held at the same time.
When President Obama took office in 2009, that number had dwindled to 242.
59 inmates now remain at Guantanamo.
Fifteen of whom are deemed to be high value.
Like Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the accused mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
As a candidate, President Elect Trump vowed to keep the contested prison open.
"This morning, I watched President Obama talking about GTMO, right - Guantanamo Bay.
Which by the way - which by the way, we are keeping open. Which we are keeping open. And we are going to load it up with some bad dudes.
"Believe me. We're gonna load it up."
Jason Leopold made one last trip to Obama-era GTMO as the military there prepares for a new commander-in-chief.
We plan for every contingency right now, we're planning to reduce the population and close this place down.
But if we get an order to do the opposite, we are prepared to do that as well.
That's how the military works here at GTMO
The commander changes, the orders change.
But a new administration will most likely have the biggest impact on the fate of fifty-nine detainees left on this base.
As it stands, of the fifty-nine detainees currently being held, twenty-two have been cleared for transfer.
But unless the Obama Administration can find countries willing to accept those twenty-two before Trump is sworn in, it is unlikely they will ever be released.
"So they're all thinking about, 'what's my possibility for a transfer?' or 'what's going to happen?'
So when they see some of their compatriots, or friends, or, you know, even folks they don't like, leaving -
uh, they see that there's the possibility for them to leave."
"What happened here on November 8th?"
"The detainees were interested in what was going on. So they were all watching the news.
Um...everyone was calm. Uh, there were no really negative responses to it whatsoever."
The detainees here, who have access to satellite television, are very aware of American politics.
Trump has said he would re-introduce a policy of torture, which Guantanamo detainees endured between 2002 and 2006.
"They said, 'what do you think about waterboarding?'
I said, 'I like it a lot, and I don't think it's tough enough.'"
Military leadership here won't talk about what they would do if Trump's calls to torture become orders.
"If you received an order, uh, from the new administration to, uh...
carry out these, you know, techniques. For example: waterboarding. Would you honor that order?"
"That's speculative. I am confident that there will be no torture here.
And whatever orders we receive - by the time they come to me - I am confident those will be legal orders
that I will be ready to carry out."
The never-ending terrorism trials on the island may end up being just a preview of Trump's plan.
He said he was open to prosecuting Americans accused of terrorism before the military tribunals at GTMO.
A three day tribunal hearing for the five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks had just ended while we were there.
We spoke to an attorney who represents one of the accused.
And he said it doesn't really matter who is president when it comes to Guantanamo. Because the status quo remains the same.
"This will be the third president that Guantanamo has been open under
so in some ways, it doesn't matter - Republican, Democrat - who the president is
Uh...you know, the past fifteen years, Guantanamo has been open."
"It seems like things are still in quite a bit of disarray."
"Absolutely, one of the standard jokes around here is that it's not
that Guantanamo has been open for fifteen years,
it's been open for one year, fifteen times."
There are plenty of policy unknowns, but the biggest mystery at Guantamo
is what the fifty-nine detainees think about their predicament.
They're aware when media tours like ours are in process.
And inside camp 6, a 39-year-old Yemeni identified by his attorney as
"forever prisoner Khalid Kasim" held up a painting to the one-way glass
that's as good as a summary as any.