Remarks: Donald Trump Meets with Stephen Hubbard in the Oval Office - October 30, 2026

Everybody. Uh, this is a man who's a very special man, and he, uh, suffered greatly. But we were talking about it. Uh, the, uh, the level of hate was not nearly as much as we've --

No.

-- heard when we talked about Hamas and some of the, because we got all of them out. We got all of them out. Some did, some alive, but we got all of them. It was a tough thing. But we talked about -- this is Stephen Hubbard who, uh, has become a very well-known person. In fact, you could run for office tomorrow, probably --

[Laughs]

-- when right now you wanna get a little rest. But he came in from Russia and he, uh, I think I can say that you were treated reasonably well, right?

Yes, and even sympathetically by --

By some of the people.

-- some of the guards.

I think that's great. I think that's great. And so as you know, he was, uh, somebody I wanted to get back, and, uh, I spoke to President Putin, and they, uh, they said, "Well, let him come back." We had a plane, and we arrived a couple of days ago, and I know you've been treated very well. I hope you've been treated very well.

Oh, of course.

But he's been through a lot. How many years? How many years was that?

F- -- four and a half.

Four and a half years. Wow. It's a long time. That's a long time. I'm going to Florida. You want to come with me? I'm going.

It's warm.

I got to do another rally in Florida. And they have a big crowd right now in Florida. Very big.

Waiting for you.

Huh?

They're waiting for you.

Where they're gonna be. Want a ride? I'll give you a ride on Air Force One. And then, uh, we're going to Kansas, as you probably heard. We're going to Kansas and Iowa on Sunday. Tomorrow we're doing, on Saturday, we're doing a lot of tele-town halls, but we'll be in Kansas. We want to make sure we win Kansas.

We want to make sure we win Iowa. We should do that. But, uh, I just think it's an honor to have you and your family.

Thank you.

Uh, and they're over standing right, by coincidence, standing right, I didn't do that on purpose, but standing right in front of the --

Oh.

-- Declaration of Independence, which is --

Yes.

That's the real deal, right? So --

That's the real deal, yeah.

It's a, it's a great honor to have you.

That's why our country is great. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we do. We have great military. We have, our country is the strongest it's ever been, I, in my opinion.

Thanks to you.

Well, thank you very much. It was really an honor to help. It was just spur of the moment. I said, "Do me a favor. Will you let Steve, Stephen Hubbard, let him out?" And they were very nice in that, in that regard, so it's great. You weren't upset with that, Troy? When you found out about your father coming back, what was your feeling?

Well, to be honest with you, uh, I'd given up most hope, and then so when I was --

Do you think he would never, you'd never see him again?

No, because there was some talk back in 2025, and then that dwindled down, and so --

That's when they released another group of people.

Yeah.

And he wasn't in the group. And I even said --

Right. So I lost a little hope, but --

Yeah.

-- when we got the word, we were happy.

That's good. Did you know, when did you know? After I spoke with President Putin, I guess, right?

Um --

We were working on it.

Yeah, back channels.

Right. Yeah, right. How about you?

Well, the State Department SPEHA people.

Yeah.

They kept you in touch?

Yes.

They, they told us. Yeah.

They didn't tell us what exactly was happening --

Yeah?

-- but they told me to pack my stuff.

Be ready.

Well, we did it at the highest level.

Yes.

That I can tell you. And, and we're very happy. And he's a very, and we were talking with Stephen and the family. These are very nice people. Very, very nice people. Would you have any questions? And then we're going to Florida right as some of you are going. Uh, would you have any questions?

Yeah. Mr. President, there are other Americans who are still in Russia who are being detained there and similar conditions to Mr. Hubbard. Can you say there's a strategy to get all of them over?

We're going to be working on them. This was one that seemed to, uh, have caught a lot of imagination. A lot of people thought it was just a bad situation. And we do, you have, could be eight, could be maybe different numbers. I'm hearing different numbers, but seems to be eight, and we're working on them also.

Do you know any of the other people that were in?

I don't know any.

So you were very much --

I was isolated from all other foreigners.

They actually had them on the front, where the fighting is, a lot of the fighting. So you saw what was happening with the whole thing?

Well, I didn't --

Initially, initially.

Initially.

I was under artillery fire with the Russian soldier.

That's amazing.

They tend to forget about me. They're all scrambling to try and save their lives, you know?

I- -- it's nasty stuff, right?

Yes. It's not like the --

So they scrambled and they just left you, but you --

Yeah, they forgot all about me --

Yeah, that's --

-- during that time [Laughs]

That's not --

I was, I was scrambling, too, with the --

That's amazing.

[Laughs]

Yeah. No, it's amazing. It's a, I guess they got along a little bit and that's impressive. Any questions? It's an honor to have you back. It's a great honor.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

And we're gonna speak to them for a couple of minutes and we'll see you guys at the plane. Are you going to Iowa?

No.

You mean you're not? She came from Iowa. That's where I met her first, right, a long time ago.

Is there anything you can say to explain all the schedule changes? I, I know that you had said you wanted --

So I wanted to see if I could do tele-rallies because I'm very successful with, you know, with batting unbelievable, uh, at tele-rallies. I do 'em well and it's a great instrument. It only seems to work for me because other people call and nobody gets on the phone. And I got a call from, uh, both states, Kansas and Iowa.

We're in good shape, I think, in a lot of states. We had a great rally yesterday, as you know, for Darline, South Carolina. But I got a call from Iowa and from, from the people, and from my friends that are very, very good. And, uh, we have a couple of races that are very important. And they said if you could go, it would be better than a tele-rally.

And I tried to talk about it then. I said, "What about a tele-rally?" But they asked me, so I'm gonna do two on Sunday. And I was a little bit concerned about Saturday because it's a college football. It's Iowa. It's, uh, Kansas [Laughs] But, uh, so I've, I'm gonna leave early in the morning on Sunday and we're gonna do, uh, Iowa f- -- Iowa first, I believe.

And then we go to Kansas from there. And then we come back. And then on Monday we'll do some, quite a few, uh, tele-rally. These are telephonic rallies. They're fantastic actually. And we're gonna do a lot of 'em for a lot of congresspeople. And we're gonna see if we can do, do, you know, the people want 'em. You see the people there, it's amazing.

The crowds have been unbelievable. The biggest crowds anyone's ever seen. The biggest crowds for midterms by thousands of people. If you look at Florida, I, I don't know if you see what's going on down there. They're waiting for me now. See, I'm supposed to be down there, but I wanted to wait.

Oh.

I wanted to wait for Stephen to be honest with you.

That would be an honor. Thank you.

No, I wanted to wait for you. But, uh, so we're doing it for Byron Donalds, and, uh, the whole group, Ashley. But, uh, Monday, uh, Monday is gonna be exciting, but Sunday's gonna be a very exciting day. And then Tuesday, we're gonna see how it all works out. I think we're doing well. Uh, typically, a president, whether he's good or bad, Republican or Democrat, loses the midterms.

Nobody's ever explained why, but I think we have a shot at doing well. Maybe very well, but, you know, pretty well.

On the Binance hack, do you think that it should be attributed to that North Korean hacker group or --

We don't know. We're looking at that. The hack with Binance. We're looking at that.

And do you think any of that money will be clawed back or is it --

Well, they say they're gonna get it back and they're saying they're guaranteeing it or something. They are. Uh, but no, it was a hack. That's the problem. You know the old-fashioned way when you used to sign a check?

Yeah.

Take it out [Laughs] These are different. People never see the money anymore.

No.

So I've always felt it was a little bit dangerous. But no, they say they have it pretty much under control. We'll see.

On Iran, can you say if more talks are happening? Is there --

There are talks. No, no, no. They wanna talk. They keep talking. But look, they're not paying their soldiers, they're not paying their police. They're, you know, they're in a lot of trouble. And we have time, frankly. We're, you know, it's, it's a war, but it's not a typical war. We've been in, we've been there for seven months.

Uh, we're spending very little money, relatively speaking. I heard somebody say, uh, "You're spending money." Well, I said, "Well, any money we spent, we've more than made up for in a place called Venezuela, like by 10 times." And I watch this guy, Ro Khanna, who's a lightweight. And he was saying that, "President Trump is spending a lot of money." Well, I spent a lot of money in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon, which we've done.

But any money we've spent in Iran, we've more than made up for with what we did in Venezuela, taken in hundreds of billions of dollars, many, many times. But they don't mention these things. So that's why I like to have news conferences I can mention [Laughs] --

Yes.

-- when other people forget. They also said it was terrible that they attacked the house of, uh, Ilhan Omar, which is not her real name. It was terrible that they would attack her. Ah well, they attacked my house and nobody brought that up. They attacked a place called Mar-a-Lago. Nobody brought it up. And, you know, I'm sitting there, I'm watching the Good People, and is that a helicopter?

Oh, y- -- ooh. Do you want to see a nice helicopter? How do you like the helipad? See, that's, that's landing right now. I'm going to have a helicopter. Because of Halloween, we had to take a very long drive for the last four days, getting it ready, so now we have a helicopter. Go ahead, please.

On the Russian sovereign wealth fund --

Yeah.

Are you considering lifting sanctions on the Russian sovereign?

Not lifting or not, not doing anything, but, you know, I was very happy. They wanted me while I was negotiating for you. People, stupid people wanted me to put sanctions on Russia. If I would have put sanctions on Russia, your sons would have said, "That wasn't good."

The Russians laugh at these sanctions.

I think, you hear that? They laugh at the sanctions.

They laugh at sanctions.

He does.

It brings disrespect on my country.

How would it have been, I'm speaking to President Putin. I'd like to get Stephen Hubbard back, Mr. President. And by the way, we're putting sanctions on you right now. Can you imagine?

Oh-oh. They would all laugh.

You would have been back.

Yeah, I would have been back.

You would have been back. So no, it was a great honor to get you out, really. And it's, it's a great family. Please, Jen.

Mr. Hubbard, did you want to tell us something about the moment you learned that you would be free?

I, I had heard it many times before, and I reached the state where seeing is believing. Actions speak louder than words. I never trusted what they said. Only when they started giving me new clothes and leading me to the exit of the prison, and I went out and I saw the car and, and I was accompanied by a couple of Russians.

Um, then I believed, finally believed, you know, on the, on the drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg. I'm really going somewhere.

Did you think you'd be there for many years?

Yes.

Many, and you thought your father would be there for many years?

I was, I was afraid they were, we were gonna lose him there.

I wouldn't have lasted another year.

You look very healthy to me.

Well, I'm eating but --

You have no weight problem.

[Laughs]

He looks, he looks very good.

He's been bulking up on the protein for a few days.

He looks very good to me. Anyway, thank you very much, everybody. We'll see you in a little bit.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna give you guys a little, little present. You'll like it.