{"id":30398,"date":"2024-08-02T03:29:28","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T08:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30398"},"modified":"2024-08-02T03:29:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T08:29:31","slug":"biden-harris-greet-americans-freed-from-russia-at-air-force-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30398","title":{"rendered":"Biden, Harris greet Americans freed from Russia at Air Force base"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Biden<\/u><\/a> and Vice President Harris<\/u><\/a> greeted three United States citizens who were released from Russia during the prisoner swap when they landed at Andrews\u2019 Air Force Base late Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three Americans \u2014 journalist Evan Gershkovich, former marine Paul Whelan,<\/u><\/a> and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva \u2014 landed at the base just outside of Washington, D.C., around 11:45 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2002<\/u><\/a>and Harris waited at the bottom of the stairs when the plane landed. Whelan exited first and Biden greeted him, saying, \u201cHow are you doing, sir?\u201d They all spoke and hugged. Gershkovich then exited the plane and hugged Harris and Biden<\/u><\/a> and spoke with them. The two also greeted their family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurmasheva then exited and spoke with Biden and shook hands with Harris. Biden wished a happy birthday to her daughter, who ran up to her saying, \u201cI can\u2019t believe you\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whelan, after greeting his family, went back to Biden and shook his hand again. Also on the tarmac for the arrival were multiple Wall Street Journal employees<\/u><\/a> waiting for Gershkovich, their colleague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three former detainees arrived from Turkey, where the prisoner swap took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden was with the families of Gershkovich, Whelan, Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was also released in the deal, earlier at the White House. The president and the families spoke with those released from the Oval Office while they were on their way to Turkey, and the families flanked Biden while he gave remarks announcing the swap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president has stressed the importance of allies, especially Slovenia, Norway and Turkey, for their help with the release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris also gave remarks earlier on Thursday before leaving Texas and returning to Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday, in spite of all of their suffering, it gives me great comfort to know that their horrible ordeal is now over,\u201d she said, adding that the administration \u201cwill never stop fighting\u201d for the release of other Americans held abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Biden and Vice President Harris greeted three United States citizens who were released from Russia during the prisoner swap when they landed at Andrews\u2019 Air Force Base late Thursday night. The three Americans \u2014 journalist Evan Gershkovich, former marine Paul Whelan, and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva \u2014 landed at the base just outside of Washington, D.C., around 11:45 p.m. Biden\u2002and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29892,2771,29894,7843,29893],"class_list":["post-30398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-air-force-bases","tag-president-biden","tag-prisoner-exchange-program","tag-release","tag-vice-president-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30400,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30398\/revisions\/30400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}