First Lady Meets With Former Hostages Held by Hamas
First Lady Melania Trump meets with Aviva Siegel (51 days captive since October 7, 2023) and Keith Siegel (484 days), thanking her for aiding their release and President Trump’s hostage negotiations. Both now focus on humanitarian work in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp via IsraAid, while Melania dismisses claims the meeting promotes her documentary. She also hints at progress on Ukrainian child hostages, amid C-SPAN’s upcoming coverage of DOJ controversies, Homeland Security funding debates, and a mid-air collision with 67 fatalities—reaffirming its role as an unfiltered platform for democracy’s raw, balanced perspectives. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Appearances
k
keith siegel
03:18
melania knauss trump
03:07
?
Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
Gratitude For Freedom00:10:10
unidentified
Live coverage of the House on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN 2, and all of our congressional coverage on our free video app, C-SPAN Now, and our website at c-SPAN.org.
In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
According to a new MAGN research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced.
28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
No commentary, no agenda, just democracy.
Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
First Lady Melania Trump met with Keith and Aviva Siegel, two American Israelis held as hostages by Hamas in Gaza.
She said she was happy to see them both healthy and home with their children and their family.
The First Lady then took questions from reporters, including one on whether the meeting was to promote her documentary, Melania.
I want to start by saying thank you to the First Lady, Melania Trump, and to President Trump.
I want to thank you for being a caring, compassionate person and for supporting and helping Aviva during those difficult days.
And you helped her enormously in many ways.
It's an honor, it's a privilege, and I'm eternally grateful, and I am very grateful to have the opportunity to say that to you in person, sitting next to you.
I am eternally grateful to you and President Trump for bringing me home and for bringing all of the hostages back to their families.
And I just want to mention the extraordinary mobilization in the fight for Aviva and my and all of the hostages' freedom and how it moved me deeply.
And it showed us the true meaning of holding on to hope even in the most difficult moments.
Now that I have regained my freedom and I celebrated one year of freedom, being released from captivity this Sunday, I have committed myself to partnering with Israel, an Israeli humanitarian aid organization, to help restore hope for others.
Giving back is a crucial part of my recovery and rehabilitation process.
Aviva and I just returned.
Aviva and I just came on Sunday from one of the world's largest refugee camps in Kenya called Kakuma.
In Kakuma, Israid is providing access to clean water, hygiene, sanitation, and education to thousands of refugees that otherwise would not have any of those.
The work of Israel has inspired me and given me a new sense of purpose.
What a remarkable and amazing accomplishment, bringing all of the hostages back home.
And we have a mission ahead of us to help others that are struggling.
And this is our new mission in life.
This is the road we are on.
This is our journey.
And I also want to end by congratulating you on the release of your movie.
So much looking forward to seeing it and so grateful for you deciding to have Aviva be a part of your movie.
I just want to say that I waited for the last hostage to come home to thank you.
Because when we met, before he came home, you gave me so much hope and I could feel your heart with me.
And I knew how important it was for you to go back home and talk to President Trump and share your feelings.
So I want to thank you for that.
And I want to thank you for putting me in your special Melania form because I was there talking to you, not for myself, but for the whole world.
Bringing the hostages home was the most important thing that I could think about in this world.
And now it's all over the world, the bad things that Hamas did to my husband, but I'm lucky.
And thank you, Keith, for staying alive and being with me.
And thank you, Melania, for helping.
I really appreciate it.
I want to just tell you that I decided to write a book, and it's dedicated to my grandchildren that called Hear the Stories, because they are very, very hard stories to hear.
And in the book, I wrote thank you to Madame because you helped to bring Keith home and you helped to bring the hostages home.
So I'm thanking you.
And in my book, everybody that will read it will understand what happens to somebody that's 64 years old, kidnapped from a home, and went through so many moments that I thought and was sure that I'm going to die.
We are here celebrating the release and the life of those two incredible people.
So let's honor that.
unidentified
This week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate are in session.
Both chambers must pass legislation to extend funding for the Homeland Security Department.
Past the Midnight Friday deadline to avert a department shutdown.
On Monday, the Heritage Foundation hosts a conversation with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the first anniversary of his confirmation.
On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee will conduct an oversight hearing of the Department's ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agencies.
Then on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will have an oversight hearing on the Department of Justice investigating recent controversies within the Department.
And Thursday, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homindy testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee investigating the systematic failures that led to a mid-air collision, killing 67 people last year.
Watch live this week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
Also, head over to C-SPAN.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
C-SPAN Democracy Unfiltered C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.