Trump says he got people back from N. Korea amid attention on prisoner swap with Russia

WASHINGTON -- Former US President Donald Trump has highlighted that he brought back home some people held in North Korea during his presidency, as public attention shifted to a landmark prisoner swap deal that saw the release of 16 people from Russian captivity this week.

In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, Trump called the deal a "win" for Russian President Vladimir Putin, while President Joe Biden and his staff were credited with facilitating what was hailed as the largest prisoner exchange deal in the post-Soviet era.

Under the deal, 16 political prisoners, journalists and others, including five Germans, were set free in exchange for eight Russians jailed in the US, Germany and other countries. Among them was Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who arrived back in the US on Thursday.

"I got people back from North Korea. That's tougher than any other place to get people back," Trump said. "I had a good relationship with Kim Jong-un. We got people back."

In 2018, Pyongyang released three US citizens from prison in what was viewed as a good-will gesture ahead of the first bilateral summit with North Korean leader Kim and Trump in Singapore in June of the same year.

Trump said that during his time in office, he enabled the release of 59 people without paying a dime.

"We never gave 10 cents. They gave them back," he said. "I called the head of the country, whatever the country was."

He called the historic swap deal "very complex."

"The deal is very complex because it just came out so nobody understands the deal yet," he said. "We should have had him back a long time ago. It should have never happened ... He should have been taken in the first place." (Yonhap)