(LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump told multiple reporters on Friday that he is not optimistic about Chinese leader Xi Jinping releasing the 78-year-old founder of the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai, after speaking with Xi during his recent trip to China.
Responding to a question from a Reuters reporter aboard Air Force One on the way back from China, the U.S. president said that Xi is very seriously considering releasing Zion Church founder Pastor Jin Mingri but the Chinese ruler had told him that releasing Lai would be a “tough one.” During a separate interview on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, which aired the same day, Trump told the host that he was “not optimistic” about Lai’s potential release.
“(Jimmy Lai’s) a tougher one, I did bring it up…. For him, it’s a tougher one,” Trump said on Air Force One. “I don’t want to mislead anybody, he said Jimmy Lai is a tough one for him to do…. He told me that would be a tough one.”
🇺🇸🇨🇳 Trump on political prisoners in China:
On the pastor:
“I think he’s giving very serious consideration.”
On Jimmy Lai:
“I did bring it up. It’s a tougher one for him. He told me that would be a tough one.”
Xi deciding which political prisoners are convenient to release… https://t.co/yXiYrsJ37E pic.twitter.com/ZwLsWVTugz
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 15, 2026
During his interview with Bret Baier, the president provided more details on his conversation with Xi, saying that while he urged the Chinese leader to release the political prisoner, Xi did not offer a positive response. Trump added that he is not optimistic about Lai being released.
“I brought up Jimmy Lai, and I would say the response to that was not positive,” Trump told Baier. “He said that (Lai’s) sort of been his worst nightmare.”
READ: Jimmy Lai’s daughter: ‘My dad is shrinking to nothing. If China fails to act, he’ll be a martyr.’
“He went through a whole thing, and I said, ‘Well, we’d appreciate if you would release him. He’s gotten old, and he’s probably not feeling too well. It would be nice,'” he added. “And I did not feel optimistic, I have to be honest with you about that one.”
As reported extensively by LifeSiteNews, Jimmy Lai was punished for his opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was charged in 2020 with “collusion with foreign forces” in violation of the draconian National Security Law (NSL) that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in order to suppress dissent against the CCP. Lai’s tabloid, Apple Daily, published criticism of the CCP, prompting retaliation from the communist authorities.
Critics have denounced the recent 20-year sentencing of Lai, which is the harshest yet imposed under the NSL, as especially cruel given that 78-year-old Lai is likely to die in prison due to his age and health conditions.
His son Sebastian told the BBC that the prison sentence was “basically a death sentence” and that his father was being punished for defending “the freedoms of Hong Kong.”
READ: Communist China still fears Christianity, and Jimmy Lai’s sentence proves it
Lai escaped to Hong Kong from China as a child and became a self-made businessman on the island, founding in 1995 Apple Daily. The paper became one of the leading newspapers in Hong Kong but closed its doors in June 2021 when the offices were raided by CCP security personnel and Lai was arrested.
His arrest and subsequent jail sentence caused outrage in the international sphere, with the U.S. State Department issuing an October 2022 statement in which it deplored the Chinese National Security Law’s “systematic dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy” and called for a restoration of “respect for press freedom in Hong Kong, where a once-vibrant independent media environment has all but disappeared.”
Prior to his visit to China, Trump had said he planned to bring up Lai’s imprisonment during his meeting with President Xi, adding that he wanted to see him released.