Raul castro, the president of cuba will also give a News Conference in his country that will happen at noon eastern time. Of course cnn will continue to follow this breaking news throughout the day. Thank you for joining me today, im carol kos toll low. this hour with berman and michaela starts now. Hello, everyone. Im john berman. And. And im michaela pereira. History is being made at this hour after more than a half century of tension and diplomat diplomatic silence between the u. S. Its releasing alan gross from prison after five years. A series of genuinely breathtaking developments. Cuba is also releasing a u. S. Intelligence asset, a spy, whos been locked up in cuba for more than 20 years. In Return Washington is freeing three cuban spies convicted in 2001 of espionage. That is big in and of itself. It all seems part now of something much, much bigger. President obama will announce major changes in u. S. Policy toward cuba. Officials calling them the most sweeping changes since t
lives as u.s. and cuba who move closer together. of course it s obviously have a major impact on the life of alan gross returning to the united states and the lives of three cuban intelligence agents who are also flying back to the united states. alan gross we re told will land at andrews air force base at 11:30 a.m. this morning, will have some words to the media and then will go back to being with his family trying to get his health better. i m sure that s causing such a good sigh of relief from every family member knowing he s on his way. thanks so much patrick. we appreciate it. i want to turn to somebody on the phone from madrid tud, spain, former governor bill richardson is on the phone with us. your reaction to the news that this deal is being made for the return of an american to
u.s. markets they will have american companies investment in the status quo in cuba. and what you re going to have now is american companies doing business in cuba advocating here for us not to do anything to disrupt the status quo because it s good for their bottom line. and i know that to be true because last week we passed a bill here that supported the democratic aspirations of people in hong kong and my office got multiple calls from companies that do business in china asking us not to do it because they have an interest in the status quo. the same was true with ukrainian sanctions and people that have business deals with moscow. they want this not to do too much on the sanctions front. now you ll see that with cuba as well. senator marco rubio, we appreciate your time. we know this is very, very close to home. i guess we have here in studio rabbi eli abadi. he visited alan gross when gross was in prison in cuba. great to have you. first of all, your reaction to knowing mr. gros
more normal relations with cuba. it shows the bipartisan support but there was also bipartisan opposition to this. we are waiting to get our first look at alan gross. he s 65 years old. he s been in prison for five years. he lost a tremendous amount of weight and as mikhail la was saying, over time he s been angry not just at cubans but there were period of times where he was not happy with the united states for the efforts to get him back. on board the plane was his wife and i can t imagine what that conversation would have been like. consider that for a moment. the man thought he was going spend the last of his days separated from his family. to know that today he is sitting behind the woman he chose to marry, the woman he loves headed back to american soil, i can t imagine the range of emotions he s feeling. one of our producers had a chance to speak with his attorney, scott gilbert. this is what he told our producer. alan gross was planning on enjoying a good scotch.