united states relation with cuba. the largest switch in decades and it comes after a deal to free an american imprisoned there as well as a spy whom fidel castro locked up 20 years ago. we have comprehensive coverage ahead from how the pope played a part to what it means for americans who want to visit cuba and most importantly the cuban people. is it possible they might benefit? will freedom find them or will they the cuban people continue to be the oppressed victims of all of this. we'll hear from this about the president's decision and calls this a victory for this oppressive government. two sides and many details left unknown on a day for the history books. let's get to it. >> man alive and what a day it is on the deck this afternoon. first from fox this wednesday afternoon more than a half century of bad blow between the

united states and cuba has done very little to further democracy. that from the white house today as program announced a historic new set of relations with the island nation. the sweeping changes come after cuba released an american prisoner along with a high level spy and also after program phoned cuba's dictator, spoke him for 45 minutes, the first meaningful conversation between our country's leader and cuba's leader since 1961. the year president obama was born. that american prisoner's release came as a huge surprise even to his own family members who said they first learned about it when they saw it on television. alan gross spent five years as he put it in isolation for working to give cubans internet access that they would get around the country's censorship. a his wife said he dropped more than 100 pounds. that his teeth were falling out. we learned today that is

absolutely true. and that he was going blind in one eye. we're told he took a deep sigh of relief the moment the jet left the cuban airspace, the announcement came overhead and a smile went ear to ear. the nearly freed prisoner who is jewish noted the timing of his release. >> this is great. yeah. i have to say happy holiday season. today is the first day of hanukkah. i guess it's the best hanukkah i'll be celebrating. >> cuba released three american spies. president obama said the u.s. did not release these spies in

exchange for alan gross. instead he agreed to exchange those prisoners for cuba locked up for 20 years. the president mentioned and we can confirm we don't know much about that spy but he's not an american. president obama called him one of the most important agents the united states has ever had in cuba. all of this sets the stage for today's bomb shell announcement that our two nations will once again have diplomatic ties. what does that mean? it beans a cuban embassy in washington and our cuban interest section in havana will gk a united states embassy. it means relaxing of trade and travel bans so more americans can once visit the once forbidden island. cuban cigars would no longer be banned. the president pointed out the restrictions have been around longer than he's alive. he said that's proof enough that the economic punishments did not work.

>> i do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result. moreover it does not serve america's interests or the cuban people to try to push cuba towards collapse. >> still the move has plenty of critics, frankly from both sides of the political aisle. those critics say relaxes trade bans does nothing to stop cuban human rights abuses. >> these changes will lead to legitimacy for a government that shamelessly continuously abuses human rights, but it will not lead to assistance for those whose rights are being abused. >> the regime is more brutal in enforcement against those who try to create peaceful change in their country. i reject the notion that somehow it's the united states that created hardship on the cuban people. >> president obama said he'll still pushed for increased freedoms and democracy for the

cuban people. of course cuba has been under communist rule since the cuban revolution in 1959. that's when fidel castro and a group of guerilla fighters revolted to form a soviet state a socialist state. the next year in 1960 the castro regime took control of all foreign assets in the country, took it all and hiked taxes on american inports. at the time president eisenhower decided to retaliate. in doing so he cut off all ties in cuba and slapped a ban on almost all trade. a year later failed bay of pigs invasion. president kennedy said exiles to overthrow castro. it did not work. but the tension peaked during the quo ban missile crisis in 1962. u.s. spy satellites spotted soviet missiles on the island of cuba. president kennedy then ordered the navy to block kid cuba's coast setting off a two week

standoff. as cuba became more and more isolated decades passed with no major dust up until 1999 until a young boy name elian gonzalez he was the sole survivor of his family to reach the united states. the cuban government demand his return despite angry refusals of the boy's relatives. the feds raided the family home, took elian gonzalez and sent him back to cuba and has become a favorite symbol of the castro party. fidel castro then handed power over to raul. now years after that transfer of power it looks as if decades of heated relations with cuba could finally be cooling. we have team fox coverage for you this hour.

phil indicating is in mime's little havana neighborhood but let's go to the white house. rich, this doesn't mean a lot of changes today, right? >> reporter: it doesn't, shep. especially when it comes to americans traveling to cuba. there are a number of americans, in a dozen of different american categories like journalists you and i can go to cuba, aid workers can go to cuba, a whole host of americans cannot and still cannot. it's easier for those in those categories to go to cuba so there's not a wholesale change. can't get on a mr. sal flight starting tomorrow something the obama administration is hoping can to be done but those are changes they acknowledge have to go through congress and they have gotten a pretty icy reception from congressional lawmakers. >> what are opponents saying? >> reporter: for what they can do, congress controls funding, house speaker jones in a statement saying there's no new course here only another in a long line of mindless

concessions to a dictatorship that brutalize its people and scheme with our enemies. congress can withhold some funding. congress can try to withhold funding for creating an kbae in havana. the white house responding to that idea saying look we already got funding with what's called our intersection in havana and we can move forward with normalizing relations. the two governments have decided to do so. looks like a matter of logistics. >> let's bring in senator bill nelson now a democrat from florida. the senator is a long time castro regime critic and a vocal one and an economic embargo supporter and joins us now with his thoughts on what has happened today. senator nelson terrific to see you. your thoughts? >> well, first of all, the exchange, thank goodness alan is home and we brought another american that had been in captivity for a long time home.

with regard to all of the new diplomatic things, the release of a whole bunch of jailed prisoners, that's a good step. now we will see if raul will do the freedoms for the cuban people, freedom of the press, of the speech, of assembly, of religion. and if he makes good on that, then i think our efforts at recognition and setting up diplomatic relations will bear fruit. >> and what will be your position and for what will you advocate? >> well, i think this is a step in the right direction. as you know, i get along very well with my colleague from florida and from new jersey that have been critical of this. >> senators mendez and rubio. >> i support it. marco rubio and bob menendez

from new jersey. it's a step in the right direction. we have to come in to the 21st century. cuba has been propped up by venezuela. now venezuela is in economic cardiac arrest. cuba has been propped up by russia. they are in the same kind of economic distress. and, therefore, cuba is out there. it's a moment in time that things can change. and i want to see if they will bring freedom to the cuban people. listening now and saying you're making my point. venezuela is not there for them, the russians are not there for them, this is the time when raul and fidel and the entire communist regime might collapse and the people might get their country back. it's been 50 years but couldn't we wait another minute? i'm sure some are saying exactly that. >> well it's that moment in time that we couldn't wait another minute for the life of alan

gross and a lot of people interceding. you heard about the pope and that is true. you perhaps have heard about the president of haiti. that is true. so it was that moment in time that things started to align that we could dare to do something different in our relations with cuba. and i'll tell you, if this works out and if he gives freedom to the cuban people, there will be an economic renaissance between cuba and the united states and especially my state of florida. that will be a game changer. >> nature bill nelson live with us from orlando. all the best. thank you so much. >> thanks, shepard. >> jeff flake was on the flight that brought alan gross home and senator flake has been kind enough to join us on phone now. senator, first of all, the emotions of them all.

share them with our audience. it's possible we lost him. i believe we lost the senator. he just dropped off the line as -- we'll re-establish -- in fact we just made a reconnection now. he was running to get a flight i'm told this afternoon and hoped to join us on camera. imagine being on that flight put all the politics aside and think of this man, a jewish man who went over to help jews, a small group of jews in cuba to receive some sort of internet access and now he's back on the lines with. now i just wonder, senator, thank you again for being here. i know as the captain flew out of cuban airspace he made an announcement and if you could tell us the emotions about that announcement. >> alan just, you know, stood up and his arms in the air and let out a cheer. it was extremely emotional. >> how did this happen? i know you worked very hard. how did this happen? >> well, the negotiations

between both the white house, state department and other entities have been going on for quite a while. i've not been involved in the direct negotiations in terms of the prisoner release, but this effort to get alan gross released involved a lot of people over a number of years, most especially his family, his lawyer and a lot of people who just felt that he shouldn't be there at all. >> now that he is back and we have turned a corner clearly and opened an old discussion anew, your thoughts on how this thing goes forward as one who represent sos many with varying positions on this very emotional matter. >> well, i am very pleased with the moves that the president took today. i think that they will do a great deal to help the cuban people. that's what this is about. the future is in their hands and if we can give them more tools to shape it, all the better.

we've been doing this for 50 years. for those who say we should have just wait ad little longer for the regime to fall, how much longer can you wait? 50 years. the policy is a failure. we ought to move on. >> i have an employee and long time friend here on our staff who is cuban and whose parents came over from cuba and visiting on the island with her grandparents for the first time in 44 years over the holidays. she has been emailing back and forth and have been communicating and said it's just like it was two years ago, no products on the shelf, cuba is in economic disarray. no way the cuban people can ever benefit from this. as much as they want to see it after all these decades, sir, they just don't believe it. to those who say the people will always be the victims, you would say what? >> well, this policy that we have now that will allow more americans to travel and more cuban-americans to invest and to help their family members there,

it has made a difference for ordinary cubans the past couple of years. the regime is still, you know, bent on keeping their socialist system but allowing more americans to travel, allowing better contact and more commerce can do only -- can only help the cuban people. there's no guarantee it will turn things around but boy we've been doing what we've been doing for far too long and we've seen the results. so, yeah. it's not a pleasant place to be if you like a high standard of living. these poor cubans have been through enough. >> jeff flake, the republican of arizona on twlin us. thank you so much. a day for the history books and emotions are high and our coverage continues.

continuing coverage in a historic shift, the tectonic plate relations with cuba have shifted today and now a certain debate will play out and it comes down fundamentally to this. would a change, a loosening of economic ties of relations in travel, in trade, would a change of that kind benefit the people of cuba or would it benefit solely the corporations which are involved in such a thing and the castro regime or could it be good for snmpb that's the debate. that will play out. joining me now to discuss it the managing editor of "wall street journal" who traveled to cuba in 1996 for the "wall street journal." and so we were talking during the commercial the museum such as it. i've been there thanks in part

to this job and little sneak through the bahamas one time and my god there's no place like it on this planet. >> it's a museum piece of socialism. like stepping back in time. carson, the 1960s. >> no glass in the windows. can't get glass. >> you just defined the debate that we're now is going to hear in the coming months as the politics of this gets digested. does it entrench castro? does it entrench and authoritarian regime? they are loosening the amount of money you can send every quarter. so more cash. there too you can point to china, can you point to vietnam and say people are enfranchised economically. maybe not politically quite yet

but they have lots more opportunity in both those countries. >> there are state stores which according to my friend's mother who is over there right now contain almost nothing. some days there's bread, some days not. there's no necessary advertise. there's some other stores that are sort of, sort of like our system but castro gets half of it. those sometimes have it but much above the means of most of the people. those who have access to dollars are the that was and those dealing with the cuban currency are the have notes. who will be their voice? >> who will benefit. the old friendship shores in china. over time those products began to get down the people of china. people of china began to be able move to from one city to the next, to go from one job to the next, to exert their aspirations and ambitions. >> secretary of state john kerry speaking live now about this change with cuba. let's listen. >> after the unspeakable tragedies of this past week in

peshawar and sydney. we're happy to see alan home and reunited with his family. to feel and witness the joy that this family is sharing today and that all the people in our country are sharing on their behalf. couldn't be a better gift for the holiday season. and i had the privilege of meeting earlier today with alan and his wife screw die at andrews air force base shortly after he came back, and shortly after i was able to return from my trip abroad. i want to say that judy, who we have gotten to know here in the state department over the course of these months, years, has been absolutely extraordinary. she has kept hope alive that today could be a reality.

we're all overwhelmingly happy that alan is now free and reunited with his family and on american soil. i was a 17-year-old kid when i first heard an american president talk about cuba as an imprisoned island. for five and a half decades since our policy towards cuba has remained virtually frozen. and done little to promote a prosperous democratic and stable cuba. there's no other country in the world to which we have closed our lives for as long as we have closed them to cuba. the berlin wall fell 25 years ago. and the wall separating americans and cubans has yet to come down. not only has this policy failed to advance america's goals, it has actually isolated the united

states instead of isolating cuba. and the truth is that we have reached out to countries where our wounds were far deeper than they are with cuba. and actually far more recent than they are with cuba. beginning more than 20 years ago i saw firsthand how three presidents, one republican and two democrats under took a similar effort to change the united states' relationship with vietnam. and it wasn't easy. and it still isn't complete today. but it had to start somewhere. and make no mistake, it has worked. we made peace. we normalized relations. we even signed a trade deal with vietnam. and anybody who has traveled there today will tell you how much that country has changed and is continuing to change. are there things yet to achieve?

of course. but we are dealing with a country in which thousands of americans died during the course of our lifetime. that is not the situation with cuba. so today we have a choice. we can ignore change and resist it, or we can mold it and channel it into a new set of policies. since 2009, when he first became president, president obama has taken steps forward to change our relationship and to improve the lives of people of cuba by easing restrictions on remittances and on family travel. and with this new opening the president has committed the united states to begin to chart an even more ambitious course forward. in january as part of the president's directive to discuss moving towards re-establishing diplomatic relations, assistant

secretary for western hemisphere roberta jacobson will travel to cuba to lead the u.s. delegation to the next round of the u.s.-cuba migration talks. and i look forward at the right time to being the first secretary of state in 60 years to visit cuba. at president obama's request i've also asked my team to initiate a review of cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. >> it is a -- these are words if you live in south florida and covered this for however short period of time, simply cannot even believe what i'm hearing john busey. the change has happened so quickly. when i worked south florida less than years ago we had a promo win it all comes crashing down in cuba. we had a plan to put our satellite truck on the back of a

barge and float it to begin announcing the castro regime had died because these sanctions will eventually work. 50 years late per. definition of insanity is what. >> something will change after you repeat it. that population you were broadcasting to in miami and in south florida has changed. it was staunchly anti-castro because they were immigrants. now it's the new generation. they are thinking of things differently. the politics of florida have changed as well. you look back on our history with cuba, the cuban missile crisis, the boat lift, the spying back and forth. the changes to dial that down a little bit is pretty appealing. >> certainly is. thank you so much. you mention ad change in the politics of the area and they have changed. young people do think differently. i tell you where they don't.

in the middle of havana, thoughts have not changed at all. the same faces you saw 30 years ago are there today but our phil keating who is monitoring things. >> reporter: here it's typical for what you expect. policy change doesn't necessarily come down hard on the castros. you come to this cafe which is 8th street in miami and speaking of the younger generation typically wanting to move forward and end the embargo, we got this young man here and he's got a couple of older cuban-americans here who are the hard liners who want to keep the embargo in place and they have been engaging in some, spirited dialogue here. but this is cafe versailles and this is the happening all day. it's this way every time something like this happens

regarding cuba. i spoke with many people today. one man i spoke with today he says number one he does not support normalizing relations because he said there's still a lot of unknown questions. take a listen. >> what is it are we getting in return? just one sided that the cuban regime benefits or are we getting all political prisoners freed, labor unions to organize free, political parties and free elections? >> i was in cuba two years ago and 100% talking about it earlier whether you believe it's because of the incompetent cuban government or u.s. trade embargo, poverty is all over that nation affecting every single household. >> one thing about cafe versailles, count you'll get one response. but if you go across south florida as a whole through little havana, and all the places where people live, young people seem to think differently, don't they?

>> reporter: this is very true, shep. this is a strong point in the last two presidential elections to try to get a bellwether where the cuban vote would lie, lay with the republican party or whether the democrat people who support it could benefit. and the younger people especially university age favor getting rid of the embargo or at least lessening the effects of the embargo. did find one young attorney here today who told me, gave the analogy of the american business model as far as what he applauds what the president has done. take a listen. >> if you were in the private-sector and you had a policy for 50 years that didn't work, you would be fired as the ceo. he's done the right decision, it's the logical decision. they can find common ground in medicine, music and tackle the

more serious issues later. >> reporter: this is the spot in little miami. you have cuban flags flying. people driving by cafe versailles. a lot of people yelling out liberty in spanish. >> i can remember, whenever fidel castro would come and have his four or five hour monologs for the cuban people they would of course be covered in south florida. these crowds would gather and they would drink cuban coffee and say i cannot wait for the day when the cuban people rise up when fidel castro economy collapses and judge napolitano, it just never did. it collapsed for the cuban people but never collapsed for the regime torre gym's followers. the difference between haves and have notes is nothing that can be described to you. ahead we'll hear from marco rubio on why this is the most

awful thing in the world. we'll hear from judge napolitano how this can work legally. what can happen without congress. then we'll look forward towards what this new congress might have to say about all of this. 90 miles from the southern tip of florida, a place almost every single one of you have never seen. could be changing. stay with us. you owned your car for four years. you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends. three jobs. you're like "nothing can replace brad!" then liberty mutual calls. and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement, we'll pay for a car that's a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic...

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you don't need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible. because we do. we're exxonmobil and powering the world responsibly is our job. because boiling an egg... isn't as simple as just boiling an egg. life takes energy. energy lives here. >> breaking news. a jury found a man in montana guilty of deliberate homicide. the defendant a man named marcus karma said he shot a 17-year-old in self-defense after that teen entered his garage because he feared for his own safety. but prosecutors argued that he meticulously planned it all. prosecutors said he warned his neighbors he was going to hurt somebody before it happened. they said he set a trap some

could kill him. sure enough neighbors said he was angry burglars hit him before. defense attorneys claimed he was dealing with a lot of stress. a jury has found him guilty of deliberate homicide of a german high school exchange students. we'll have more. next here on shepard smith reporting the legality of the tectonic shift in our relations with cuba. óqoqúúñ@

here is breaking news now on fox news channel, ladies and gentlemen the terrorists just won. the two largest movie theaters companies in the united states regal and amc announced they will not show the movie "the interview" after hackers announced they would plan to attack the theater. two men plan to kill the north korean dictator kim jong-un is

the plot. trace gallagher has this detail. what more do we know about how this happened? >> reporter: well, so far, shep the department of homeland security says there no credible intelligence to indicate that there is an active plot but dhs acknowledges it has not analyzed all the messages from thaking group gop or guardians of piece. even without so any cancelling the movie it appears the film may not see a wide release anyway because now we're hearing that all of the major theater chains have now said they will refuse to show the film. we're talking about amc, regal, and even the small independent theaters may delay showing "the interview" until after the holidays. security has already been beefed up in both new york and los angeles even though nypd says the threat remains very vague. listen. >> having read through the threat material myself it's

actually not crystal clear whether it's a cyber response they are threatening or a physical attack. >> between the lawsuits and all the lost money revenue this could cost sony pictures tens of millions of dollars. >> there are reports some inside sony believe this is an inside job. >> and they believe that because the hack was so precise. sony believes hackers recruited somebody like a disgruntled employee who gave them access to their computer an guided them to i.t., employee payroll. remember the hacker's placed unreleased movies online. now we know the group gop or guardians of peace has claimed responsibility for the hack. hackers said another equally

embarrassing document dump is coming unlessony cancels the release. sony has not yet said they would cancel the release but they may not have to as we said all the major movie chains said they are not going to show it. >> trace gallagher. judge napolitano, our chief judicial analyst, man, you talk about terrorists winning. >> i can't recall an incident like this where hacking has resulted in the massive refusal of a major corporation to sell its product which is a satire, which is a form of protect political speech. shep, it's the duty and the job of the government to protect the exercise of first amendment freedoms. it's the duty and job of the government to find these hackers and neutralize their threat so that people who want to watch this movie whether it's a ridiculous movie or a serious movie or a silly movie doesn't matter. people have the right to watch whatever movie they want in this country. >> it's a seth rogan comedy, for god's sake. >> correct. >> corporations with no back

bone. i guess -- i'm sure their lawyers going up and down one person gets hurt here and you'll go bankrupt. this is a slippery slope. >> it is a slippery slope because if they can get away with this what else can they intimidate us. >> what if every time we got a bomb threat around here all these people went home. we would never do the news. >> correct. i'm very disappointed if the government advised sony to do this. if sony did it on its own zmoosh it sound s it is. >> i wish the same government would have liberated the first amendment and said run these movies and we'll make sure the people who watch it are unharmed. >> i wonder if there's a backlash against these countries. somebody doesn't want every movie shown. if it's that easy for them to back down then maybe they don't deserve to be in the business. >> i thought they could find

hackers. this has been going on for a couple of weeks. >> you think they could figure out who it is. judge is stick around because we'll talk next about ethicalitiethicalit i -- legalities of what the president has done. who is going to stop it? who will protect people in cuba? who will benefit? is it the rich getting richer or people in cuba have a shot? where are the protections. enormous ramifications for all of this for decades to come.

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the marine vet who shot and killed six people outside of philadelphia and wounded another turned up dead after he stabbed himself in the stomach with a sword. that's what local television stations are reporting, a sword. friends held a vigil for his

victims all relatives including his ex-wife and nephew in the hospital in very serious condition. rescuers say one person is dead and others may be trapped after a building in kenya's capital city of nairobi. humvees are going under the hammer in a public auction. which got under way online. more than 20 of the military trucks are available. the pentagon reports thousands more could soon follow. the bidding for each humvee starts at ten grand. wow. continuing coverage now of the dramatic shift that's happened in u.s. relations with cuba. we talked to those who said look we tried for 50 years. it hasn't worked. there are a lot of people who don't believe that at all that doing this will help the cuban regime and not the cuban people.

the senator from florida and potential presidential candidate marco rubio is one of them and he went on a long talk today explaining you can't do this. this is rewarding a dictator that imprisons people for no reason. you can't do it. predictably he blamed the president. >> all these tyrants around the world know the u.s. can be had, pretty easy deal. at a minimum, barack obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since jimmy carter. >> his point is that we didn't get anything in return. that, well, we got this hostage back but this is separate. three people who were accused of actually did blow up and shoot down a plane years ago were released from prison. what does the united states get out of this? we see what fidel and raul get out of this. here to break this down is the fox news team, judge napolitano. 50 years. >> we start with the normal san diego of relations between the united states and cuba which is

in the hands of the he doesn't require any permission from congress to do this. he and he alone can decide if it's full fledge embassy or cult or intersection. if he wants to expand the number of people there, if he wants to spend money he obviously needs the permission of the congress and because this is happening almost on christmas eve it's the new congress in which both houses are controlled by the republican party. so he's going to have to persuade them to give him the money to expand the size of the embassy. in terms of the embargo the president cannot change the embargo. that's the statute an act of congress, a 1959 act. acted and re-enjaktd in the lbj years. >> by point of information there was a vote in the united nations on world support for this embargo. you know what the vote was against the united states, 192-1. to one. we're alone on this island of embargo.

i just want to say. >> a lot of people particularly people in south florida understand senator rubio's argument. >> completely. >> hear this argument out. as the embargo shrinks, as the president begins to soften its tone around it, as he allows things like cultural exchanges, legal exchanges, as he allows sports exchanges, things that are not specifically addressed in the embargo to take place, more and more people in cuba just as happened under richard nixon with russia w-the old soviet union will begin to experience the benefits of free enterprise and the physical goods of the western world and where economic freedom comes, even when it comes slowly civil liberties are soon to follow. >> marco rubio makes the case, he makes it strongly and many of his constituents in south florida are with him 100%. he makes the case you have to continue this. but, judge, which embargo in the history of the world worked?

>> none with respect to changing the policies of the government. >> none of. >> they keep the poor in decity toot condition. they keep the middle class down with for and don't affect the government. senator rubio will argue this. his family and a lot of other families had million, hundreds of millions stolen from them in real estate and in other forms of wealth. is the castro regime going to return that? the president is not addressing that. that might bristol-myers an issue for the courts to resolve at some time in the future. each time you enhance human freedom unless there's a war you do it in baby steps. this is a series of baby steps that seemed inconceivable as recently as a year ago. >> we'll follow it. judge, thank you. sweeping changes to relation with cuba will have major economic impacts on both countries. in a country where the center of havana, old havana where there's still 1950 cars and no glass in the dwoirngs where if you have a

cuban friend or someone from cuba helping you is not allowed to go into your hotel because hotels which fund castro are for tourists only. imagine what would happen if suddenly you put all of this freedom and all of this wealth and all of our excess just dropped it in there. you can't do that. so how is this going to work? jerry ellis is in to talk about the economic ramifications of it. that's next.

first time i went to cuba i asked my friends in south florida what do we take. take soap and tooth brushes, take toothpaste, take toilet tissue because they can't get any of it. can't get any of those things that we don't even think twice about. don't forget bring me back somecy garcias and rum.

smuggle it in. you don't have to smuggle it in any more. gerry willis is here with us. >> that's one of the things that happened. as an american you can bring up to 100 bucks worth of cigars and booze. >> at the cost in cuba or cost in south florida? >> i don't know the details. the remittance up to $8,000. if you're sending money to relatives in cuba you can do that. as we were talking about, if you want to travel there, tourism is not completely open but for 12 categories of travellers mostly official folks, legal, government -- >> students. >> students. journalists they will make the restrictions much easier to meet. >> i think the last time i went i brought back cuban rum. havana gold for like $4. >> did you now. i think that's what it cost. maybe $5. it wasn't much more than that. think of how all of that will shift if this actually happens.

>> even today pepsico put a statement how eager they are to get over there. think about american businesses if they open the doors wide. there will be a ton of pressure to make that happen. >> you know the fear anybody who cares about the cuban people the last thing they need is a taco bell or a lowe's. >> toilet paper. toothbrushes. >> it's one big idea and all sort of comes together and you wonder are we about to get in there and ruin that place? >> they have been held back for a long time. they need more stuff and basic stuff certainly. be interesting to see how quickly that gets developed. my big question that becomes tourism destination one. >> is the dow loving this. the dow was up 300 points. >> no, sir. it's the federal reserve. federal reserve saying it's santa claus all over again. >> keeping rates at nothing.

>> yeah. we're staying right there. janet yellen, santa claus, same person. >> we'll follow them for the rest of the afternoon. how did this play long term? i don't know. can you help me up? [ snow intensifies ] [ sleighbells ring in the distance ] aleve. all day pain relief with just 2 pills. get back to being you.

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homer, marge, maggie and the rest landed in springfield 25 years ago today. mr. murdoch is a genius as we all know. when news breaks out we'll break in. have a great afternoon. this president is the single worst negotiator we had in the white house in my lifetime who has basically given the cuban government everything it asked for. and received no assurances of any advances in democracy and freedom in return. >> marco rubio letting it rip at the president's decision to make nice with cuba. like rubio, ted cruz also has cuban roots, no fan of this deal. he is here. right now. welcome everybody on neil cavuto and talk about climate change, only this president bush has more americans hot and bothered.