US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the hostages being returned by Hamas are “coming back in pretty bad shape”. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump said, “October 7th would have never happened if I was president. Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah. They had no money to give. Everybody knows that. Jewish people in the audience know that. Iran was broke. They were not giving money around.” He added that after he left office, the Biden administration “took all the sanctions off, and Iran became rich very quickly. With oil, you can become rich very, very quickly. And the rest is history.” Noting that Biden got “none” of the hostages back and “would have never gotten any of them back”, Trump stated, “They're coming back in pretty bad shape. It's a horrible thing. And many are dead. Many are dead. So we'll see how that all ends up. But I just want you to know we're working on that.” Related articles: 'Bad things' will happen to Iran without a deal Iran sends response to Trump on nuclear talks Houthis are ‘dying for peace’ after successful US strikes UAE President discusses Gaza ceasefire with Trump The comments at the speech echo ones Trump made to reporters before leaving for CPAC, when he said the six hostages who were released by Hamas on Saturday are “not in great shape.” “We had a lot of news over the last 24 hours. We had the hostages given back today, it’s disgraceful what’s going on there. They’re not in great shape, but we’ve also seen them in worse shape,” said Trump, who added, “What a terrible situation it is.”
