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
send them over. that seems to be at odds with is this nuclear option possible the position of senator mitch here, joyce? mcconnell, the majority leader, i don t think that we ll see who has talked about how he this happen. and one of the biggest clues doesn t want to take these up. that we have that it won t he has no interest in taking it happen is the fact that mitch up. so we re seeing the beginnings mcconnell, who as you pointed of a republican split. you have some potential out early on, really never wanted to have a trial in the frustration with the president bubbling up through his twitter senate, has been forced to talk about one. he s not even in a position now feed and congressman van holland of seeing as a realistic talking and he s in the camp that we re eventually going to possibility having an immediate have a trial. but it s not like he has any motion to dismiss as soon as the assurances from pelosi. articles of impeachment are and then the big question is brought up i
attorney scott gilbert and as well three u.s. congressman senator jeff flake from arizona, patrick leahy from vermont and congressman van holland from alan gross s home district in maryland. these are three congressmen who have been very much involved in winning his release. then they take off after 8:00 a.m. and we re told at 8:45, the pilot gets on the intercom to tell alan gross that they are now out of cuban airspace. alan gross stands up and is i m told unable to talk he s so overwhelmed by emotion then he calls his daughters and his first words to his daughters are i m free. you can only imagine their reaction at this long nightmare concluded for their father. where do u.s. cuban relations go next. i m joined by a long time diplomat here in havana. they restored semi relations and you are the chief of the u.s. intersection, what do you think
congressman southerland. this was all done on the anniversary of lyndon johnson s declaration for war on poverty. what do you think of this idea of the promise zones across the country, the first five of which were unveiled on thursday? the president, i believe this is the program he made reference to in his state of the union a year ago. so there doesn t seem to be much of an urgency here since it s 13 months after he first mention e it. the devil is in the details. there wasn t a lot of details that came out. as you know, president reagan had the enterprise zones. if it s patterned after that, that encouraged school choice. i do believe tax incentives to move the economy forward. and so we re going to be patient. we re going to look at what the president is offering and but again, the devil is in the details. congressman van holland, i think many people were appreciative of the idea of the promise zones. ted cruz came out and said all of america needs to be a promise zone with re
we know that 45% of single mothers live in poverty. and so, therefore, why we are trying to push more policies that are just going to add to those numbers, if you look at the facts, this administration, we can do better. we must do better. let me move on. we can always do better but it is also a fact that more than 8 million jobs have been created over the last 46 months. is it enough? no. you still have three people, as i said, looking for every job. so we should not be cutting off extended unemployment benefits. on that point let s listen to what senator harry reid said about the republican position on unemployment insurance extension on thursday. you have to give them credit. they re doing their best to divert attention away from this issue. this is opposition and it s cold hearted to extend unemployment benefits. it s a very tough position to defend. that was wednesday. congressman van holland, are