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State Department Briefing: Bruce on Detained Americans, Canada Meeting, and Houthi Capitulation

May 6, 2025 · U.S. Department of State · 1:51:42

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Spokesperson Tammy Bruce led the State Department briefing on May 6, 2025, according to the State Department. Bruce said the department has no higher priority than the safety of Americans at home or abroad and that President Trump had secured the release of 47 unjustly held Americans in his first 100 days — including an American held in Russia for over a year, welcomed home with Secretary Rubio — with a commitment to bring home every wrongfully detained American, as she stated the figure.

Bruce said Secretary Rubio joined President Trump in the Oval Office that day for a meeting with Canada’s prime minister, who she said described an intention to increase Canada’s defense spending, and she said 18 NATO countries had announced increases since the November election against a baseline nine years earlier when most allies were nowhere near 2 percent, as she stated them.

Bruce announced that the Houthis had capitulated following administration strikes, in the president’s words as she relayed them: they announced they do not want to fight anymore and will not be blowing up ships anymore, and the United States will honor that and stop the bombings, as she stated it. She said Secretary Rubio explained the issue was always freedom of navigation against bad individuals with advanced weaponry threatening global shipping, as she stated it. The spokesperson is not on this site’s tracked-officials roster, so the page carries no official tags.

Why it matters

The briefing is the department’s same-day announcement record of the Houthi bombing halt — stated as capitulation tied to a pledge to stop attacking ships — and of the 47-releases figure, as Bruce stated them, both central to the administration’s first-100-days foreign-policy account.

Scoreboard watch

Bruce stated the Houthis had pledged to stop attacking ships and that the U.S. would stop bombings in response, as she stated it — checkable against subsequent Red Sea attack reporting.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Department of State Press Briefing - May 6, 2025 - 2:00 PM”, 2025-05-06 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-05-06). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.