John finer is President Biden's Deputy National Security Advisor and I spoke with him

about the prisoner swap moments ago.

John finer, welcome back to the news hour.

Thanks, you could be here. All told, this was among the most complex prisoner swaps undertaken since the Cold War.

The deal was in the works for the last two years, as I understand it, and ultimately came together in the last two weeks.

What were the key inflection points?

How did this all happen?

Look, I think there are a few key aspects of this deal that really speak to the approach that our administration and

President Biden have taken to foreign policy since we got here. One is diplomacy.

We have said from the very beginning diplomacy would be the hallmark of our foreign

policy and that includes diplomacy at the level of the

president who made a call to a fellow head of state the Prime Minister of

Slovenia one hour before telling the country in the world that he was no longer

going to be running in this year's

election to try to free up one more aspect of this deal that was ultimately

successful. It's that sort of face to face and person-to-person

diplomacy that's at the core of our policy. Second is allies and partners.

The president has said his worldview was predicated on rebuilding,

revitalizing America's alliances,

and you saw a half dozen allies come together today with different aspects of this deal

which ultimately led to get it done.

And the third is execution.

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