Alan Gross Freed And Back On U.S. Soil
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Half past the hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Big, big news today. Freed American Alan Gross thrilled to be back on U.S. soil looking forward to apparently a good scotch after spending five years in a Cuban prison. This is what we're hearing from folks who are close to him, a good scotch and a cigar. Gross' release is part of this landmark deal that will forever change Cuban/American relations. But of course, you have multiple politicians now slamming President Obama's landmark shift on Cuban relations saying it vindicates Cuba's human rights offenses. Here is Senator bob Menendez of New Jersey.</s>SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: I think the president's actions have created a challenge for us globally. There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States. Trading Mr. Gross for three convicted criminals sets an extremely dangerous precedent.</s>BALDWIN: My next guest has personally appealed for Alan Gross' release for years and years. He has called U.S. sanctions on Cuba a "historic embarrassment." In fact, back in 1984, Reverend Jesse Jackson flew to Cuba, spent some time with Fidel Castro and returned to the U.S. with more than 20 Americans freed from Cuban prisons, and he joins me now. Reverend Jackson, nice to see you. Welcome.</s>REV. JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: It's a big day, Brooke. It's a big day.</s>BALDWIN: It is a big day. I mean, I don't know if you have personally been able to have a minute to be in touch with Alan Gross or anyone in the family, but do we know how are they doing?</s>JACKSON: I've not talked to him yet. But you know, he is back on American soil, look found in state department debriefings now and Cubans are back home. But the bigger deal for us it seems to me is a family reunification. That's a big deal. Second, Cuba is just 90 miles from Florida. Peace and stability in our hemisphere is a big deal. It means expansion of trade. Some of the communications and all baseball plays, if you will, baseball players, hotels, it has a lot of positive mutual beneficial economic arrangements. And the reason way Mandela what this Cuba so quick is that as our ally in Angola, they stopped South African expansionism. But Cuban has more doctors in Liberia fighting Ebola than any other nation in the world today. There are some of the positive things that can happen from this relationship. We should seize upon them and what needs to be changed, let's change it.</s>BALDWIN: You know, President Obama himself mentioned the role in the fight against Ebola in Africa. But just pushing back on that, we just played the sound bite from senator Menendez saying that this sets a dangerous precedent and he's not the only one, you know, he sort of raising, you know, ringing these alarm bells. How do you respond to that?</s>JACKSON: You know, Mr. Reagan said we should have constructive engagement with South Africa. It was the most brutally human rights abusing in the world at that time. We kept pushing that for a new South Africa. The risk fears were never realized. We're allies with China in so many ways. They have a greater number of people in that same predicament, Brooke. But we find that isolation has not worked and a lot of improvement, it has made political leadership there stronger and choked the people. Now the people where they acts with agriculture goods and travel with family and education and athletics, they bring Cuban to the bigger world. It also expands our tentacles in our own universe.</s>BALDWIN: You know, in terms of this even the discussion, you have Cuba and U.S. who been talking apparently since, you know, for 17 or 18 months. The Canadians helped. The Pope apparently played a huge role. I mean, can you lift the curtain for me as best as you can, Reverend, and tell me how aware were you of these top secret talks?</s>JACKSON: Very much aware. We were in Cuba last year trying to get -- to see Alan Gross at that time, before out minister. You can tell something big was happening, but I didn't quite know what it was. While there, we negotiated three of</s>BALDWIN: You know we were, of course, watching the president. We took him live when he was speaking on this historic deal today at noon. At the same time, his equivalent in Cuba, Raul Castro, was talking and I thought it was interesting, he said "Obama deserves respect for this deal." I mean, did you think you would see a leader of Cuba use a word respect in describing a leader of this country.</s>JACKSON: Well, many years ago, maybe the mutual respect required a person which is to break the cycle of fear and go forward. But I am hoping that sacrifice him. When was to meet with Castro in 1984, I asked him on time why didn't he go to church? He said well, because we were fighting for the revolution. He said, well, and I grew up in the church trying to be a priest. And I took feed the hungry and take care of the people seriously. Cuba is kind of outland for gangs such in Mafia and the likes. He got back in to the church who is defending the status quo. That was a big fight. He didn't bring him down, he said, but he didn't like it. So he asked me to go to the university with him. I did. And I said will you go to church with me? And he did. He went to church for the first time in 27 years. And he put a religion in his secretary at that time. It was clear even then that breakthroughs were possible. But now, you're going to have more other than just being in there. You will have other networks are going into Cuba. To bring Cuba into our fold would be a big deal toward stability. I hope that Venezuela is next. We must secure freedom and peace in our hemisphere.</s>BALDWIN: You are the third person to come on this show and bring up Venezuela. We'll wait and see, Reverend Jackson. We'll wait and see. Thank you so much for joining me.</s>JACKSON: Well, Brooke --</s>BALDWIN: Yes. Go ahead.</s>JACKSON: Thank you. No, my point is that Venezuela -- more oil than Saudi Arabia. It takes forward to get the tanker from Saudi Arabia and for the used in Venezuela. I mean, it's in our hemisphere. We have the diplomatic strength to bring peace in our own hemisphere. It's a good start for world peace.</s>BALDWIN: Thank you, sir.</s>JACKSON: Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: Now to this, another December and another day I sit in front of these cameras telling you about children taking their last breaths inside what is supposed to be the safest place in the world, their schools. Last night parents went home without their children, 132 children. All those left, their empty pillows, holding the scents of sons and daughters. Their toys, their pajamas left behind. Because just hours before they put on their uniforms to go to school in the morning, just as they did each and every day, but this time will be the last time their parents gave them a kiss on the cheek, said good-bye because these monsters, these killers, decided to take their war to the most innocent among us, the ones who cannot nor should not ever have to fight back. The gunman, Taliban militants ambushed the school armed with guns, armed with explosives and no intention of leaving anyone alive. All of this as children took math tests and others hid underneath benches until killers found them. Students watched their teachers die before the terrorists pointed guns at them, shooting them pointblank. Outside of the school walls, you had the scene of horrified parents standing, waiting, listening to those gunshots from within, watching this terror unfold, wondering if their son or their daughter had hopefully survived. Parents and relatives running through those hospitals, and in some cases racing through the morgue looking for their children. One father told the Associated Press, my son was in a uniform this morning. He's in a casket now. My son was my dream. My dream has been killed. Another man tweeted this saying, the smallest coffins are the heaviest. But in this, all of this pure evil, they are the survivors, the ones who found those hiding places, the ones who played dead and they join another survivor, Malala Yousafzai who took bullets from the same Taliban just for wanting to learn. She and the others prove that they will never, ever let terror win and that some dreams refuse to die.</s>MALALA YOUSAFZAI, ACTIVIST: We stand with those family and all those children who are injured right now and who are suffering through this big trauma. And now it is time that we unite and I call upon the international community, leaders in Pakistan, all political parties and everyone that we should stand up together and fight against terrorism. And we should make sure that every child gets safe and quality education.