The 95-year-old mother of Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher detained in Russia since 2021, became dizzy when she heard that her son was returning to U.S. soil after three long years.
The moment became a reality Tuesday as Fogel, a history teacher from Pennsylvania, arrived at the White House on a snowy night after officials negotiated his release.
With an American flag draped around his neck, Fogel spoke to reporters alongside President Donald Trump at the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room.
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The freed school teacher remarked, “I feel like the luckiest man on Earth right now,” calling the Republican president a “hero” for securing his return.
“I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world,” Fogel said, according to a pool report.
The White House shared a photo Tuesday of the teacher stepping off a plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Fogul’s mother, Malphine, said she was surprised to get a call from her son from the airport in Moscow.
“He just said, ‘I’m in the Moscow airport’ — he usually calls from the prison — and I said, ‘What are you doing there?’ And he said, ‘I’m waiting for a plane to take me to Washington, D.C.,’ which was unbelievable,” Malphine Fogel told Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate WTAE about how she learned her son was coming home.
“I actually got dizzy,” the elderly woman said.
Following Fogel’s arrest for possessing medical marijuana prescribed by a doctor, for which he was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian penal colony for drug trafficking, the man’s mother has advocated for her son’s freedom by lobbying a Trump campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, before a shooter attempted to assassinate the Republican leader in July.
In her press briefing Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Fogul’s mother was slated to join Trump on stage during the July 13 Butler rally to call for his release.
“But that day, before the rally, President Trump promised Marc’s mother when he returned to the White House, he would bring her son home,” Leavitt said. “God saved President Trump’s life on that day in Butler, Pennsylvania. And now, Marc Fogul is back home safely with his family as a result. God is good.”
The mother filed a lawsuit in 2024 against former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claiming that the official failed to disclose any valid reasons why Fogel had not received the “wrongfully detained” designation under the Levinson Act. The act would’ve provided Fogel and his family with resources, such as entitling them to information on U.S. policy.
“He’s not a criminal,” the mother said of her detained son at the time. “He is a dedicated teacher. He was always a good son, a good husband, a wonderful father and he needs to come home.”
After disembarking from the plane, Fogel arrived at the White House, and Trump greeted the freed schoolteacher on the North Portico, as CBS News reported Wednesday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson also greeted the released American.
“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” the family said in a statement following Fogel’s release.
“Thanks to the unwavering leadership of President Trump, Marc will soon be back on American soil, free where he belongs,” the statement continued. “This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today, we begin to heal.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a Wednesday briefing that a Russian citizen held in the United States would be released as part of the prisoner exchange that resulted in the end of Fogel’s detainment. At the time of reporting, the Russian citizen is expected to return home in the coming days; however, the citizen’s identity remains unknown.
In a Wednesday social media post, Trump said that he had thanked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for releasing Fogel, describing the teacher as “a wonderful man.” The president disclosed that he had spoken with Putin during “a lengthy and highly productive phone call.”
“We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,” Trump wrote.
“We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering, that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
