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
Thats a closed session but its significant for several reasons. First, you mentioned hes the president s personal lawyer. Hes known him for years, they go back in terms of business dealings. This is a person whos been in a lot of private, personal and confidential conversations with the president so it will be very, very interesting to see what kind of information hes going to be able to reveal. And then of course its a sign of a potential escalation or widening in the russia probe given there have been other significant interviews. Of course, Jared Kushner met with the Senate Intel Committee as well. But this will be a very interesting interview to watch and again as the headlines play out with that on the hill, on tuesday, while the president is in new york, trying to focus on things like the threat from north korea, the current Iran Nuclear Deal and other pressing issues. He will be trying to make this a global debut on The World Stage where others may be talking about some of the d
that was the moment of real hope for some significant change in cuba, greater engagement giving inspiration to the pro democracy people. it scared the hard liners when they denounced it, that s how you know they re successful. when they say, no, no, this is no good, we don t need this. we had a few years where it looked like we were on a trajectory that would be the single best thing for the cuban people. president trump has essentially ended that. we now have fewer staff in the u.s. embassy in cuba than we had prior to lifting some of the sanctions in the u.s. intrasection because we need to be influencing how this comes out. as has been the case in so many other parts of the world where the u.s. retreats, russia and china have stepped in have come in.
our first priority is always to protect our people. on the other hand, if we were to close the embassy in cuba that would disrupt the long tradition. because before we had an embassy of course we had the u.s. intrasection for 25 or 30 years. if at all possible to keep it open i think we should. but if the attacks persist i think maybe our presence would have to be suspended there until we get to the bottom of this. i m going to actually ask you one more question, this is about the iran nuclear deal. the administration has been somewhat divided about it, the iran nuclear deal is not working despite the fact that it s been certified repeatedly for the first couple of months of the investigation. your take on whether it should stand as it is or should be scrapped. well, i d be very reluctant to scrap it. i think they re technically cop pliant as compliant as i said
intrasection. you can see the area behind me. this is a very delicate diplomatic situation, of course, with the u.s. and with cuba. it will be very difficult to have these dissidents here and they don t want any disruption in this. this is a very delicate situation. again, secretary kerry says it s a space issue as well as a government to government event. he s meeting with the dissidents later in the day, and by the way, he plans to stroll through the streets of havana. indeed, that s what he told me. as a matter of fact, we ll have that sound for you later in the being with me. coming up in the next half hour, we ll talk more about the dissident situation in cuba. we re just getting started on the rundown. the iowa state fair begins today in des moines. it s not all butter sculptures and cows. it s a chance for the 2016 presidential hopefuls to connect with votes. we ll talk about that after the break. plus, the cancer diagnosis for former president jimmy