whether the biden administration and the russians could reach another deal to bring paul home. kate. let s get more answers to that. great reporting. thank you very much. i appreciate it. joining me now from the white house is john kirby, the spokesperson for the national security council. john, this is a very important day. and it is, as the president said, a day of mixed emotions for so many people. you heard paul whelan speaking to my colleague jennifer hansler from the state department saying that he knows that his case has been considered a higher level or considered differently or separately than others like britney s. biden spoke to this today as well for totally illegitimate reasons. what are the reasons? well, i don t want to get into too much detail here, with you, kate. but bit has to do with the sham
focus on our national security interests is not going to change. we re going to make sure that we could defend this country against any and oall threats so with mr. bout back on the street, we re going to focus on making sure we could defend this country. absolutely. the president said this morning that returning all wrongfully detained americans is a priority. in russia and beyond of course. amad shargy is an american wrongfully detained in iran since 2018. we followed his story closely and i believe we ve spoke to you about it in the past. his sister will join us in a few minutes. short of getting ahmad home, they want to meet with president biden which cherelle said was critical for her as well. will the president do that and meet with the family? well first, i want to tell the family, again, we are still focused on that case as well.
the purpose of their work is to bring ahmad home, and we are still waiting. bahara, this involves some of the biggest things when you talk about your husband being detained by iran. the united states and iran, decades of tensions, negotiations over nuclear weapons. i mean, very big things. but this is also about a family, about your family. what do you want people to know about what this has been like? who ahmad is and who he is to you? ahmad is for me first and foremost actually a father because he is such a present father. he is my best friend. and yes, he is a brother and a son to two parents that have their eyes to the door waiting for him. what i want people to know is that what it feels like sometimes, kate, is that it feels like we are a family and