MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now a story about hopes versus reality. When President Obama was elected, he pledged to shut down the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which became a symbol of unlawful detention for holding hundreds of suspected foreign terrorists without charge or trial. Here's Obama in 2008.
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BARACK OBAMA: I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that.
KELLY: But eight years later...
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OBAMA: With respect to Guantanamo, it is true that I have not been able to close the darn thing.
KELLY: Then came Donald Trump, who made this vow in 2016.
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DONALD TRUMP: This morning, I watched President Obama talking about Gitmo - right? - Guantanamo Bay...
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TRUMP: ...Which, by the way - which, by the way - we are keeping open...
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TRUMP: ...Which we are keeping open. And we're going to load it up with some bad dudes, believe me. We're going to load it up.
KELLY: But President Trump did not send any new prisoners there. Then, when Joe Biden won the presidency, he renewed a goal he had made as vice president in 2016.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: Do you think that you will succeed in getting Guantanamo Bay closed?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: That is my hope and expectation.
KELLY: Well, now that President Biden's time in office is almost over, how successful was he at fulfilling his Guantanamo objectives? Here's NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer.
SACHA PFEIFFER, BYLINE: Biden, like Obama before him, faced staunch opposition to closing Guantanamo from a core group of Republicans in Congress. Here's Texas Senator Ted Cruz, addressing Obama in 2016.
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TED CRUZ: Let me say this, Mr. President - don't shut down Gitmo. Expand it, and let's have some new terrorists there.
PFEIFFER: Still, Biden was able to make some progress. Early on, he reopened a government office that had been closed by Trump that works to release Guantanamo prisoners. Biden also transferred several prisoners to other countries. And his administration took a major step toward resolving the 9/11 case, which has dragged on more than two decades without going to trial. The alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, agreed to plead guilty and serve life in prison in exchange for no longer facing the death penalty. Karen Greenberg is director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School.
KAREN GREENBERG: It was a sense of aggressive movement, and then it just sort of dissipated.
PFEIFFER: She's watched with dismay as the Biden administration has backtracked on some of its Guantanamo decisions. For example, two days after that plea deal was reached with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed last summer, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reversed it. Here's Greenberg again.
GREENBERG: It's always been one step forward, several steps backwards. That's been the story of Guantanamo, and I don't think the Biden administration has changed that at all.
PFEIFFER: A federal appeals court is considering whether the plea deal can go forward, and that legal fight will now play out during the Trump administration. Considering Trump's support of Guantanamo, that leaves Greenberg wondering if it will stay open until some of the other remaining detainees die of illness or old age.
GREENBERG: I now cannot see a path forward for closure, and this is the first time I've really felt it's not going to happen - ever.
PFEIFFER: In just the past month, Biden did release more than a dozen additional Guantanamo detainees, but why the flurry of prisoner releases right before Biden leaves office and not earlier? Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck thinks it's because Biden was trying to avoid controversy during his tight reelection race last year.
STEVE VLADECK: It reflects a view that they couldn't do this before the election without provoking political blowback and that, if they don't do it now, it's going to be at least four years, and maybe eight, before there's anyone else in a position to do it.
PFEIFFER: Vladeck suspects a lack of political courage is also why the Biden administration backtracked on its plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his alleged accomplices. But Vladeck doesn't get why the Biden White House keeps fighting the deals, since Biden no longer has to worry about losing votes over unpopular moves.
VLADECK: Man, I mean, especially now that President Biden's a lame duck, I don't understand the politics of this at all.
PFEIFFER: Scott Roehm of the Center for Victims of Torture says, by waiting till the closing days of his administration to release prisoners who had been cleared for release years earlier, Biden let those people languish behind bars unnecessarily. Now Roehm will be watching to see how President Trump handles Guantanamo.
Do you see his administration trying to undo the pleas?
SCOTT ROEHM: It's definitely a possibility.
PFEIFFER: Legally, could it be done?
ROEHM: I don't - no, I don't think, legally, it could be done. Does that mean an incoming Trump administration won't try? No.
PFEIFFER: And although Roehm gives Biden credit for reducing Guantanamo's population to less than half what it was when he entered office...
ROEHM: I think, at the end of the day, Guantanamo is going to be open in some fashion when the Biden administration leaves office, and that is a failure.
PFEIFFER: Sacha Pfeiffer, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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