CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Alan Gross

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: All right, I want everybody to stand by. Ana, stand by. Evan, stand by.

Right now I want to go up to Capitol Hill. Joining us, the three members of the congressional delegation that went to Havana this morning and accompanied Alan Gross back to the United States. Joining us now, Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic congressman from Maryland, Alan Gross lives in his district. He's in Rockville, Maryland. Senator Patrick Leahy is joining us from Vermont, and Republican Senator Jeff Flake. So we've got a Democratic senator, a Republican senator, we've got a Democratic congressman.

Senator Leahy, I'll start with you. You're the veteran there. You must be pretty thrilled about this decision by the president to normalize relations with Cuba.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: I'm very thrilled with it. I've talked with the president many, many times about this over the past few years. Like my two colleagues who are here, we've gone to Cuba numerous times, met with Alan Gross when he was down there. But what I kept telling the president, obviously we wanted to do everything we could to get Mr. Gross out. We also have to think, what is in the long-term best interest of the United States? And I think normalization with Cuba is in our best interest. We look foolish to the rest of the world, the most powerful nation on earth acting as though somehow we're afraid to allow U.S. citizens to go to Cuba. They're not going to change overnight. But they certainly aren't going to change if we continue our embargo.

BLITZER: Senator Flake, you're a Republican. A bunch of -- we heard Marco Rubio, he hates this decision by the president. Where do you stand in terms of trying to normalize U.S./Cuban relations?

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: Well, I've been in Congress, in the House and the Senate, for 14 years now and all 14 of those years I've pushed to lift the travel ban and to normalize relations. I think that our policy has done more to keep the Castros in power than anything. And so I think it's high time for a change. Fifty years is long enough and that we ought to do this and do whatever we can so that ordinary Cubans can have more control of their destiny. And this does that by allowing Americans to travel and more commerce, more contact. This is a good thing.

BLITZER: Congressman Van Hollen, tell us what it was like. You flew to Havana early in the morning, what, about 4:00 a.m. and then you get Alan Gross, you pick him up, his wife, Judy, is on the plane coming back to Joint Base Andrews. First of all, what was your impression after five years in a Cuban jail? How is he doing, this American contractor?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, a very emotional moment. His wife, Judy, has dedicated the last five years tirelessly to try to bring Alan home. So you can imagine that moment at the airport in Havana when we first saw Alan. And he knew the moment had come to bring him home.

He was elated. A big smile on his face. And, of course, on the airplane back, as we finally crossed into U.S. airspace, you saw him give a big hoorah, put his arms up. He was clearly glad to be home.

I should also say that after having spent five years in Cuban prison, he knows how important it is to be free. And he believes that the president's policy will over time lead to more freedom for the Cuban people for the reasons my colleagues have said. That the current 54- year-old policy has been a miserable failure by its own standard that we set to try and reform and open Cuba. This policy of engagement will do more than that failed policy. And that's Alan Gross' view after having spent five years in a Cuban prison.

LEAHY: (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: All right, these are live pictures or - hold on a second. All right, we're showing our viewers, this is Alan Gross and his wife, Judy. They've arrived at this office building here in Washington, D.C. They're going to be going up to their lawyer's office, making a statement. We're going to have live coverage of that coming up.

But here you see Alan Gross getting into the elevator, together with the entourage, the people who have brought him, his wife, Judy, who's worked for five years plus to try to get her husband out of that Cuban jail. You see - you see that he's lost a lot of weight.

Senator Leahy, you visited him before. I interviewed him a couple of years ago in that Cuban prison and he told me then, and I was shocked when I heard it, he had lost 100 pounds in that Cuban jail and he was described as very frail.

LEAHY: I think that's (INAUDIBLE). But he's, you know, you keep on doing exercises, push-ups and everything else in his - in his cell. I did notice a difference the last time I visited him that I was thinking, we've got to get this man out of here. You say he's going to his lawyer, Scott Hilbert (ph), who's superb and has worked tirelessly on this.

But the other thing I think I remember, we were flying there and watching some of the news on the airplane. And I said, you know, Alan, you're free. And he got up and he threw his arms around me, hugged me. He said, Patrick, I finally know I'm free. And we were both shaking, very, very emotional, as it should be. Now let's take the next steps forward to make all the time he spent there, all the effort on his behalf, let's make it worthwhile for the future of our country and of Cuba's.

BLITZER: Senator Flake, what was your impression? Because we spoke with his wife, Judy, a few weeks ago and she was afraid she would never see her husband again. She thought he was actually dying in that Cuban jail, losing sight in one eye, having all sorts of other problems. But he looked pretty good, at least in the video that we're showing our viewers right now here in the United States and around the world. But you spent three hours on that plane with him. Give us your impressions, Senator Flake.

FLAKE: Well, he was ready to come home. I met with him a month ago myself and Senator Tom Udall in Havana, in the Cuban prison. And at that point, he was at wits end. And he had said many times, I've spent my last birthday here. Either I go home or I go home another way. And so he was really at wits end. And so this was a welcome thing for him. And I share my colleagues view that it was just very emotional. And it's great to have him home.

BLITZER: What do you say, Senator Flake, to your Republican colleague, Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that anyone that the president nominates to be the United States ambassador to Havana, to Cuba, he will vote against it. He doesn't want to have a U.S. ambassador in Havana, and any funding to establish a formal U.S. embassy in Havana, he will vote against any funding for a U.S. embassy in Havana. What do you say, Senator Flake, to Senator Rubio?

FLAKE: Well, he has very strongly held views on this. I respect those views. But I disagree. I think that, you know, we have a U.S. interest section in Cuba and we ought to have an embassy. We ought to have normalized relations. And that would do better to protect Americans who are there. It would be better for -- just to have a U.S. presence there, an official U.S. presence. So I would simply disagree and would hope that my colleagues would share my view.

BLITZER: Is most of your -

LEAHY: (INAUDIBLE) -

BLITZER: Hold on one second. Senator Leahy, one second for one follow- up for Senator Flake.

LEAHY: Sure. BLITZER: There are going to be 54 Republicans in the next United States Senate. How do they divide up, your Republican colleagues, the 54? Are more of them with Senator Rubio, you think, or more of them with you?

FLAKE: You know, I don't know. We'll see in the coming weeks. We haven't really had a test vote, if you will, on Cuba, or a travel policy, for a number of years. And I think more than half of the Senate is in its first six years. So it's really unknown at this point. But I would hope that my colleagues would realize it's been 50 years. It's time to move on and have a policy that actually has a better chance of improving the lives of ordinary Cubans.

BLITZER: What about among the Democrats, Senator Leahy? You've got Bob Menendez, who's the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee himself, like Senator Rubio, a Cuban-American. He doesn't like this improvement either.

LEAHY: Well, of course, there's going to be some, for whatever reason, for politics back home or how they feel will be opposed to this. But let's stop and think what's in the best interest of the United States, the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth. Are we going to say, oh, we don't like you, so we're not going to put an embassy in there, we're not going to be in a position where we may help to change things and we're not going to be in a position where we can help Americans who are spending time in your country? I think that would be really, really foolish.

If you're a U.S. citizen, you're in another country and suddenly you need help, you expect to be able to go to the U.S. embassy. And we say, no, we have a few people in Congress who don't like this country. So there's nobody here you can go to. It just doesn't work that way. You don't get to pick and choose. We're in countries where we don't agree -- we don't agree with the Chinese form of government. We don't agree with Russia's form of government. But I think everybody from the business community to the academic community think we're out of our mind if we pulled our embassies out of those countries.

BLITZER: A final thought from you, Congressman Van Hollen. You agree with Senator Leahy, I assume?

VAN HOLLEN: I do. This was a very emotional moment, obviously, for Alan Gross and his family and our community in Maryland. I've been proud to represent the family. I knew Alan before he was taken prisoner in Cuba. So this is a great day for Alan Gross and the Gross family. It's also a very important day in American-Cuban relations trying to turn the page on 54 years of clearly failed policies to try to actually open up Cuba so the Cuban people have more freedom and more opportunity.

BLITZER: Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Congressman from Maryland; Jeff Flake, the Republican Senator from Arizona; Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Senator from Vermont, who were on that plane from Havana to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C., today, together with Alan Gross and his wife, Judy, bringing him home after five years being held in a Cuban jail. Thanks to all of you for joining us.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

Source