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
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