He is the Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense frequently appearing in The White House Newsroom - yesterday was a busy day flooding the airwaves:
Ayman al-Zawahiri's death is a significant blow to al-Qaida, Kirby says
NPR's Asma Khalid talks to John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House's National Security Council, about the death of one-time al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
White House: ‘What’s the drama?’ about Pelosi’s Taiwan trip amid China threats
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby denied Monday that there was any “drama” around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned visit to Taiwan after a reporter pointed out that President Biden publicly said last month the Pentagon wanted her to cancel the trip.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected to visit the island nation Tuesday aboard a US military jet despite multiple Chinese threats — including one to possibly shoot down Pelosi’s plane.
Top storiesPress Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Good afternoon, everybody.
Q Good afternoon.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Apologies for the delay. I so apologize for that. But thank you for all being here.
We know there’s a lot of interest today on some international issues out there, so we wanted to make sure that we had someone from NSC, so I brought over John Kirby from NSC. St- — I always mess this up. (Laughs.) Communications Strategy Coordinator.
Okay. All yours, Kirby. Sorry about that.
MR. KIRBY: Thanks, Karine. No worries.
Okay, everybody, just a couple of things at the top here. Today, I think — and you might have heard Secretary Blinken talk about this earlier — officials from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow attended the sixth session of the court hearing of American citizen Brittney Griner, who is being wrongfully detained under intolerable circumstances.
I want to reiterate that President Biden has been clear about the
need to bring home every American who is held hostage or wrongfully
detained abroad, and that includes, of course, Brittney Griner and Paul
Whelan.
Now, months ago, President Biden directed his national
security team to pursue every avenue to bring Brittney home safely to
her family, her friends, her loved ones, her teammates. The U.S.
government continues to work aggressively, pursuing every avenue, to
make that happen.
Now, as part of those efforts, we made a
substantial offer to secure the release of Paul Whelan and Brittney
Griner and to bring them home, just as Secretary Blinken mentioned
earlier.
I would add that a high-level administration official,
Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Josh Geltzer, spoke today –reached
out, I’m sorry, today to both the Whelan and Griner families ahead of
Secretary Blinken’s comments. And he’s going to be having conversations
with them later today and tomorrow, as we arrange for them to connect.
In
order to increase the chances for success here, we’re obviously not
going to be able to share more publicly about the deal. I’m sure you
all have questions about what this looks like, and I’m sure you can all
understand that it’s not going to help us get them home if we’re
negotiating in public with you all. So I’m not going to have any more
detail on that.
But I will say that the President and his team
are willing to take extraordinary steps to bring our people home, as
we’ve demonstrated with Trevor Reed, and that’s what we’re doing right
here. It’s actively happening now.
This has been at the top of
the mind for the President and for his whole national security team. He
receives regular updates about the status of our negotiations to secure
Brittney and Paul’s release, as well as other U.S. nationals who are
wrongfully detained or held hostage in Russia and, I might add, around
the world as well.
With that, I’ll take some questions.
Q A few questions for you, Kirby. I just want to make sure: One, this offer was made in June. Is that right?
MR. KIRBY: It was made several weeks ago.
Q
Several weeks ago. And has Russia responded to the offer? And our
indication seems to be that they have not. And if they have not
responded, what do you read into that?
MR. KIRBY: Again, I
don’t want to get into the details of negotiations, Kaitlan. I would
tell you that the offer has been made, and we certainly hope that Russia
will favorably engage on it. But I don’t want to get into more detail
about that.
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