ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Russia released more than a dozen prisoners yesterday, including some high-profile Americans, in exchange for Russian prisoners held in the West. It was one of the largest prisoner swaps since the end of the Cold War. And one of the U.S. officials who helped negotiate it was special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens. He was on the flight with the former prisoners from Joint Base Andrews to San Antonio, Texas, where the Americans are now undergoing medical and psychological evaluations. I asked him to describe what that flight was like.

ROGER CARSTENS: I tell you, it was like - jubilation's maybe too strong of a word, but just picture a wonderful, warm, happy experience where people are reconnecting, detainees are talking to each other, the families of detainees are talking to each other, and everyone just quietly enjoying and relaxing, really a brilliant moment.

SHAPIRO: You had been so focused on these individuals for so long. Was it odd to finally be face-to-face with them, sitting on the same airplane as them?

CARSTENS: You know, odd might not be the word. I might just say calming, refreshing, joyful. And really over 4 1/2 years of talking to Paul from prison, meeting with his family, and to finally get face-to-face with someone that I'd talked to as he held a cellphone in a Russian prison was an amazing experience.

SHAPIRO: I know that these negotiations involved not only Russia, but many other countries, many other stakeholders. Can you tell us about how you navigated all the various competing interests of all the parties involved as you were getting this done?

CARSTENS: I can tell you, Secretary Blinken, to my mind, played a wonderful and outsized role in this. I think in December of '22, after we got Brittney Griner home, we were wondering, how are we going to now crack the Paul Whelan case? And Secretary Blinken asked that we be very creative about trying to find a way to fix this. So case officer Fletcher Shon (ph) started to look up or create a list of detainees anywhere in the world, Russian detainees that might be of interest to the Russians. And then later, when it became apparent, probably I'd say about February or March, that it was really going to take someone like Krasikov to seal the deal.

SHAPIRO: Krasikov was the convicted assassin who was held in a German prison, yeah.

CARSTENS: Correct. So now we're going to involve, you know, trying to bring Germany into this very broad swap situation. The secretary, I guess the way I'd characterize what he said, it's like, look, we've got to make the problem bigger so that the solution is bigger. He called it when he was in Japan yesterday, enlarging the problem, and that's exactly what we tried to do, to enlarge the problem to try to generate a bigger solution. And then, of course, as you probably know, the role of Jake Sulllivan and the intelligence community, especially in the last, say, almost a year of this, has just been fantastic. Their leadership was very incredible.

SHAPIRO: You were appointed hostage envoy by former President Donald Trump, who has now criticized this deal, saying the U.S. gave up too much. What's your response to that?

CARSTENS: You know, I might just say that it's just a great day for America. I have the pleasure of not really getting into any political statements or anything like that.

SHAPIRO: You don't want to wade into a presidential campaign? I can't imagine why not.

CARSTENS: Can you imagine that? (Laughter). I'm not that smart, but that's one thing I will stay away from. But here's what I can tell you. This is a bipartisan or even a nonpartisan issue. All Americans get behind these things, Republicans, Democrats, independents. Now, when we pull these things off, in reality, we seldom do get criticism because everyone recognizes that this stuff is hard. Secretary Blinken said, if we want to bring an innocent American home and the Russians want to bring home a convicted assassin, that says something about their values, and that says something about American values. As Blinken says, we'll take our values any day.

SHAPIRO: How do you respond to the argument that these kinds of deals, as good as they may make people feel, will ultimately encourage Russia and other U.S. adversaries to keep taking U.S. hostages?

CARSTENS: I guess that'll be proven over time, but what I can tell you is my numbers are going down. So we've actually done some of these deals before, if you recall. We did two in regards to Venezuela. We've done one with regards to Afghanistan. And so you would - common sense would dictate that my numbers would be going up, that people would realize that this is a good way to leverage America, they'd be taking more people. And yet my numbers are going down.

There was a time, a snapshot in time, I had 54 cases on my desk. And a snapshot right now, I'm hovering, I guess with yesterday, probably around 20, a little over 20, a little under 20. I'll have to go do the math there. So going against the conventional wisdom, we are making the right deals to get people back. Under President Biden now, we have 50 wrongfully detained Americans, a total of 70, if you want to, like, parse it in a different way. And yet my numbers keep going down, and they've not been going back up.

SHAPIRO: Do you think there are lessons in this negotiation for the war in Ukraine or other areas of disagreement between the U.S. and Russia?

CARSTENS: I mean, yeah. The big one is something that I think people in this business kind of know, and that is, no matter how bad it is, people are still willing to find these solutions. A good example, Russia and Ukraine at war, and yet they still find time and space to negotiate for POWs. The United States in periods of tension with Venezuela, the Taliban and Russia, and yet we still find ways to get off to the side and make these very human deals to bring people home. And that's how this stuff gets done, even when you're at war.

SHAPIRO: That's special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens. Ambassador Carstens, thank you so much for talking with us.

CARSTENS: All right. Thanks for bringing me on. You take care. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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