Trump on hostage families: ‘Whatever I can do, I’ll do for them’

The former President was harshly critical of US President Joe Biden’s policy on Iran, including the offer of $6 billion to the Islamic State as part of a prisoner swap.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Speaking to Ben Shapiro on his podcast at the Daily Wire, Donald Trump recounted meeting hostage families and saying, “Whatever I can do, I’ll do for them.”

Trump recounted meeting the family of hostage Idan Alexander, an American citizen, during a ceremony commemorating the Hamas massacre on October 7th, a year on.

“They really don’t know [if he is alive],” Trump said. “It must be almost harder when they don’t know; they’re not sure whether or not he’s alive or not alive. They think he is. But, you know, being alive over there is rough stuff. Before, it was rough, but now it’s probably even rougher.”

“Whatever I can do, and you know this, whatever I can do, I’ll do for them. Let’s see what happens. Maybe I’ll be able to help them. Hopefully, it’s resolved long before that. But I can see the family is just going through hell. It is very, very sad to see,” Trump said.

Regarding the Middle East in general, Trump discussed the success of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan.

“I did the Abraham Accords, which should have been filled in” with more Muslim countries, “I would have had every one of the slots filled in. Biden got none. We had the four countries – four very good ones and four tough ones. The rest was just a fill-in job. We would have had total peace.”

The former President was harshly critical of US President Joe Biden’s policy on Iran, including the offer of $6 billion to the Islamic State as part of a prisoner swap.

“Iran was broke. We had no terrorism, we had no attacks, we had no Hamas problems, no Hezbollah problems. We had nothing, because Iran didn’t have the money to give to them because I put sanctions on [Iran] and I dealt directly.”

By the end of his term, Trump said Iran was “Iran was ready to make a deal” by the end of his term,” Trump said. “Biden should have made a deal. Iran was in a position [of weakness]. Instead, he gave them billions and billions of dollars. He took off the sanctions that I had. He took off everything, China started buying more oil than they ever bought before, and today Iran has $300 billion.”

Following the October 7th terror attack, Biden faced strong criticism for the prisoner deal with Iran and the US agreed with Qatar not to release the $6 billion to Iran.

2024 electionDonald Trumphostage families