day everybody, no matter who you vote for, can understand how important it is to get these families reunited, to get these americans back home. and yes, sometimes that means making some tough decisions and some tough calls. you and i have talked about several of those in the past. the president s not afraid to make those tough decisions because he cares that much about the safety and security of americans overseas. agreed. it is not an easy story. not an easy terrain to negotiate, to get these americans home. admiral kirby, good to see you as always. let s bring in cnn international anchor christiane amanpour. christiane, you just heard mr. kirby say it s not a ransom payment, no sanctions relief, no u.s. taxpayer dollars will be used. what is this, then, in your view? well, i think john kirby s absolutely right. it s not ransom. i mean, look, if you want to talk about all these things, they ve been going on since time immemorial. since the beginning of the islamic revolution. succ
but you re absolutely right that the protests, the crackdown, the harsh penalties, imprisonment, even extrajudicial executions in the wake of mahsa amini s death and the protest movement has caused the united states and other countries to sort of slow down negotiations. it just wasn t palatable. it wasn t politically palatable to be able to do that. and that s one of the road blocks that the hostage negotiations ran into. and i think that what you re going to see, though, some have suggested is potentially it s a de-escalation between the united states and iran, at least until the end of the election. all right. christiane amanpour. remarkable reporting. thank you so much as always. cnn is on the ground in hawaii where unprecedented wildfires have caused widespread destruction. crews are fearing they re going to find more victims in the rubble. we re going to take you there.
this is an investigation of joe biden. and that s where the committee will focus in this next congress. so let s pause it for the sake of argument that hunter biden is sleazy and the president s relatives tried to profit off the biden family brand, something cnn has reported on. what s new in this memo? well, before we released the memo we interviewed devon archer who is one of the associates who was partial owner of one of the shell companies that the bidens were receiving money from foreign nationals and then laundering it into biden bank accounts. so the associate devon archer testified that joe biden had in fact spoken to over 20 of the people who had wired the money to the biden family members. the reason that s important, jake, is because the president said repeatedly he had never spoken to his son or anyone affiliated with his son in their business dealings. now, there is no business. so what the business was according to devon archer was
on the show, actually. we dan interview with him. i don t know if you knew that. well, cnn s done a better job than a lot. that s why i m on the show. and i m a fan, jake, and i m working with you on this. but i do think there s certainly yo overwhelming efld remember, there s a text message from hunter biden to his daughter complaining he had to give his father half his salary. so we ve gone through a lot of bank records yeah. we haven t gone through all the bank records. but look, we ve caught joe biden in several lies including he never spoke with any of these corrupt people from these foreign countries that sent his family money. he had dinner with some of them, we found out in this. right. so there s i think more than enough evidence to show that joe biden hasn t been truthful with the american people and he had knowledge that his family was money laundering. he had to. do you think the treasury look, if there s evidence of money laundering, which is a crime, whi
americans were moved from tehran s notorious eivin prison to a hotel guarded by iranian officials earlier today. cnn s christiane amanpour was first to break the story. she also spoke with one of the iranian american detainees in an unprecedented interview from the prison back in march. she joins us now. christiane, siamak namazi took a huge risk talking to you, but it does seem his message has been heard. reporter: well, let s hope so because he was desperate. and you re absolutely right. he told me desperate times, you know, mean you have to take desperate measures. and it was an extraordinary thing for somebody to be able to take a phone call out of eivin. he had been in nearly eight years, so he had some privileges like the ability to use a phone. but never had this been allowed to the press, and he didn t get permission. he just did it. but it just goes to show how desperate they were and how they absolutely wanted to get their message in front and center of the biden administra