immediately, and that is something again that we have been very consistent about. reporter: paul s brother, david whelan, telling abc news the video was shot in may. you can see his strength and his contempt for the russian propagandists. we hear from him on a daily basis when he s able to call our parents, but you never know exactly whether someone is telling you how they actually are, and i think seeing him has helped all of us realize that he is resilient. reporter: david, whelan is one of two americans the u.s. considers wrongfully detained in russia. wall street journal reporter evan gers coe vich has been held there since march and still without a trial. david? britt clennett reporting from ukraine tonight, thank you. back here in the u.s., and news from capitol hill of a very personal health wattle. house majority leader steve scalise, the second-highest ranking member, announcing he s started treatment for a blood cancer. he says he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma
prison uniform. you see him at a sewing machine, eating in a cafeteria. outfront now is paul s brother, david whelan. david, as i understand it, these are the first images you ve seen of your brother in more than three years. what was that like for you to see him, and how does he look to you? he looks pretty good. i was a little bit surprised. i hadn t learned that the video was going to be coming out. we knew that r.t. had attempted to interview him in may, but we hadn t seen anything that came out of it. i think if you listen to it, it sounds very conspiratorial, doom and gloom, but if you turn off the volume and look at paul, i think you get a sense of how resilient he has been, and also what a sense of his life in the prison. for our family, it was very valuable to see it. you mentioned this had been shot. the reporter who visited the penal colony tried to interview him. i want to play that brief exchange that they had. sir, you understand when i say that i can t do an inte
so state media had claimed that paul actually consented to an interview in a letter before the tv crew arrived and back tracked. you say his decision to not participate ultimately had consequences. what happened to him? that s right. the prison officials tried to coerce and badger him into doing the interview. so when he refused to do the interview on when the television crew came out, afterwards, they took his personal property, and they sort of just threw it around. they threw letters that he had saved that people had sent him, they threw those around and walked on them. they stole pieces of clothing that were in his possession. so they retaliated against him for that, and we had to fill out a complaint in order to have people to stopping the retaliation. so in terms of that complaint, do you feel that anything was dealt with? have you heard at all? i haven t. and we did see a photograph in russian media showing that the
are americans now, and paul is just one of them who are being taken hostage around the world. and i hope that they will be supportive of the families of those hostages as well as take the time to write to their congressional representatives to other politicians to encourage them to find concessions to bring these people home and to find deterrents to stop the hostage-taking from recurring. david whelan, always appreciate your time. thank you again for joining us tonight. thanks. outfront next, one of donald trump s 18 co-defendants in the georgia election case entering a plea tonight. h, let t a reminder on my phone. on the top ofof the pile! oh. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty.y. liberty. wake up, achievers. you re making the most of every hour of your life. except the hours that you re sleeping. so why do we leave so much untapped potential on the table? this is a next level bed, for a next level you. my circadian rhythm is kicking yo circadian rhyth
life of this young american reporter. well, pamela tonight u s secretary of state antony blinken is being very critical indeed of russia s detention of this american journalists, basically calling for consular access to him, but we ve spoken to us diplomats in this country and they re saying that so far, there s been no consular access granted to this us journalist so far. pamela alright, matthew chance in moscow for a stay safe over there, matthew. thank you. 11 is not the only american detained in russia right now. former u. s. marine paul whelan was accused of being a spy and was sentenced to 16 years in a russian prison in 2020. paul s brother, david whelan joins us now. so, david, thank you for coming on your show. first off. what is your reaction when you heard another american was detained in russia for spine? well my heart sank. and as i ve