this point in time. it seems like this is the worst imaginable time to be doing this considering without venezuelan oil money to help prop up the castro regime they were particularly vulnerable. so he swoops in wants to normalize relations with a country that still provides safe haven for cop killers, still is willing to support they haven t changed their policy. they re still willing to support revolutionary groups around the worltd. they don t have the cash right now to do it. we re not meeting them halfway, we re conceding once again. this is the u.s. giving them whatever they want within the president s purview because of course the embargo has to come from congress. and congress will not lift that any time soon. let s pull this up obama meets with castro but refuses to meet with netanyahu, why legitimize a cruel dictator of a repressive regime. does he have a point? i don t think they re saying the regime is great. and i don t think they re happy with the human rights record
mentioned booker who was just arrested these people think that they re terrorists. they re not really terrorists. they re people who think that they are joining something that will give them a better life. my point is halfway houses for those kids that give them exposure from real religious experts who can explain why what they re doing is inappropriate, i think there s a decent solution there between letting them go and putting them in a federal prison. and that is putting them in a halfway house. we know they re actually piloting that one program in minneapolis right now. i appreciate it. thanks so much. thank you. we re standing by as we expect president obama to speak in panama. at any moment he ll take questions from reporters after his historic meeting today with the president of cuba raul castro. we ll bring that as soon as it happens.
went and he started off by joking that he was going to make up for lost time because he had missed out on all these summits when cuba wasn t invited over all these years. and he sort of went through the litany of grievance the cuban people and government have about the u.s. and meddling in cuba s affairs as the castros like to put it. but he said during the course of these remarks, poppy, that president obama was unlike the ten previous presidents before him and that he described president obama as an honest man, somebody he admires. he says he bases this on the fact that he skimmed through president obama s autobiography. there s a whopper of a news alert right there that raul castro is reading president obama s autobiographies. but it just goes to show you that it really is a new day when it comes to this relationship between the u.s. and cuba. but jim, what about republicans response in i know it s early going but you had jeb bush tweeting earlier today obama meets with castro but
just think about a few things. so cuba is a one-party state. it s a communist country. the united states of course represents a democracy and fights for democracy around the world. so that in and of itself one of those contentions. there are groups in cuba who still believe that there are human right violations in that country. and those people are very outspoken. and so the united states recognizes that there are some people who do feel oppressed in that country. and that s something that the united states speaks out against. and so those are just a few, you know to mention about what the united states doesn t represent or what the united states speaks out against. cuba on the other hand president castro mentioning it today, saying that they re hoping to get respect. so there s a lot of give and take in diplomacy, i think. and a lot of you know smiling afterwards and symbolic
with cuban leader raul castro. he said obviously there s been a lot of mistrust that s built up over five decades of frayed relations between the u.s. and cuba. but he feels like it is time to try something new. and here s more of what the president had to say. this is obviously a historic meeting. the history between the united states and cuba is obviously complicated. and over the years a lot of mistrust has developed. but during the course of the last several months there have been contacts between the u.s. and the cuban government. and in december as a consequence of some of the groundwork that had been laid both myself and president castro announced a significant change in policy and the relationship between our two