we spoke to him july 15th in the summer before he left his moscow prison. for some unknown reason they're not allowing him to call us. they gave multiple excuses. the last excuse they gave was the phones don't work internationally. if that was true, why didn't they say that in the beginning. they do allow him to occasionally call his girlfriend in moscow. it is the ambassador's couple visits, an attorney every month, and few calls to his girlfriend. >> the national security adviser said this this past weekend. let's listen. >> so i have personally met with the families of both paul whalen and trevor reed. i have communicated to them directly from president biden that it is a priority of ours to get them home safely. the russians have been willing to engage to discuss that to make it happen. we are actively engaged in an effort to do that. i'm not going to share more here because of the obvious sensitivity of it. but we would like to get paula