Exclusive: Trevor Reed recounts his detention in Russia and the prisoner swap that brought him home

Reed told Jake Tapper in the CNN Special Report: “Finally Home: The Trevor Reed Interview,” which aired Sunday night, that he’s feeling a little better each day since coming home less than a month ago. And she said, you know, obviously that didn’t happen,” Reed recalled. Once the plane was on the tarmac in Turkey, Reed said, “I had no idea what was going on.” “We felt pretty let down by the Marine Corps,” Joey Reed said. Trevor Reed also said he does not believe US participation in prisoner swaps to bring Americans home should be controversial. While some critics say US participation in the swaps could incentivize foreign governments to hold Americans hostage or prisoner under false charges as a form of leverage, Reed said these nations are “going to continue to do that as long as American citizens travel there.” “The thing that you have to understand is countries like North Korea – Russia now, obviously, China, Syria, Iran, Venezuela – countries like that are going to take Americans hostage no matter what,” Reed said. “(The) United States went out and made the ethical decision to exchange prisoners to get their innocent Americans out of that country, even while exchanging them for someone who’s more high-profile and valuable in the United States,” Reed said, later adding that “the Russians, the Chinese, Venezuelans, Iran, Syria, North Korea – none of them ever in their whole history have or ever would make an exchange for a prisoner who is just an average one of their citizens. A senior administration official told CNN last month that they do not necessarily see Reed’s successful repatriation as translating to momentum for Whelan’s and Griner’s cases but said the US government will continue to press for their release, and the channel for potential swaps will remain open. “We need to do absolutely everything we can, as Americans, to advocate for those Americans who are being held illegally overseas and do every single thing we can possible to get them out,” Reed told CNN. Reed said that while he realizes there’s nothing he could have done to bring Whelan with him, “the fact is that the United States should have gotten him out, and we have to get him out at any cost.”