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American Morning
Fidel Castro Resigns; What's Next for U.S. and Cuba?; Fight for Hawaii; George H.W. Bush Endorses McCain; Delta-Northwest Merger Talks
Aired February 19, 2008 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Fidel Castro has resigned as president of Cuba early this morning. The news came in a letter published online by Cuba's official news agency. It was signed by Castro and read, "I will not aspire or accept the post of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief." Castro is 81 years old. He temporarily handed over power to his brother Raul in 2006 to have emergency intestinal surgery. Within the last half hour, President Bush has responded to the news at a news conference in Rwanda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe in free and fair elections. I mean free and I mean fair. Not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to force off as being true democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we, of course, know that our president is in Rwanda. He got there just about a half hour ago. Hopefully we're going to get some reaction throughout the morning about this news. You know, Fidel Castro has ruled Cuba since he led the revolution back in 1959, surviving nine U.S. presidencies. His quote, "I'm not saying good-bye to you. I only wish to fight as a soldier of ideas."
CNN is the only network with a correspondent-based permanently in Cuba. Our bureau chief Morgan Neill joins us now from Havana. What has been the reaction this morning, Morgan?
MORGAN NEILL, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Kiran, I don't know if you can see behind me, but it's still dark outside. Cubans just getting up, starting to get the news. So it's still a bit early for a reaction. But this is bound to surprise almost all Cubans. The man that they know simply as Fidel or El Comandante has now stepped down after so many years at the helm. Now, in this letter splashed across the front pages of the state-run newspapers, Fidel Castro talks about why he's resigning.
He says, "It would be a betrayal to my conscious to accept the responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I'm physically able to offer." Now, what does that mean? It means on Sunday, Cuba's National Assembly will have to name a new president of the Council of State. The obvious choice, Raul Castro has been leading the country for a year and a half now essentially. In the meantime, Fidel Castro's resignation doesn't mean an end to his role here. He will continue writing these essays, and they carry a lot of weight because there is simply no one else who has this kind of influence within Cuba. And in that letter today, Kiran, he writes himself, this is not my farewell to you -- Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, there has been a lot of questions as to -- since he has not been seen in public for 18 months, is there any sense that this really is coming from Fidel Castro? Or that there might be something else going on behind the scenes that he may not even with be us anymore?
NEILL: No, no. As far as we can judge, this does seem to be the -- to be coming from Fidel Castro himself. These -- over the year and a half that we had to judge or have seen these letters signed at the bottom by Fidel Castro, they tend to be backed up every so often by a new video in which he is seen talking with a leader who has recently visited or something like that, reading a newspaper with the day's date on it, that shows that he is still around. Though, details of his health are regarded as a state secret -- Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. We'll be checking in with you throughout the morning. Morgan Neill in Havana for us this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Here are some quick facts about Fidel Castro now. He was born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruiz on August 13, 1926. He has six siblings; four sisters, one of whom defected to the United States, now still in a radio show, and two brothers. Raul is the Minister of Defense and has been named publicly as Castro's successor. Castro also has eight children, one of whom defected to the U.S. with her daughter in 1993.
As for his leadership, Castro made Cuba the first communist country in the western hemisphere. He remained Cuba's leader despite the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. And despite much international opposition, Castro did bring social reforms to Cuba but has been criticized for restricting human rights and freedom of speech. He's also the third longest serving leader in the world behind Queen Elizabeth of Britain and the King of Thailand, and holds the record for the longest speech ever given at the United Nations, four hours and 29 minutes back in 1960.
(INAUDIBLE) is Castro's daughter. She's got the radio show daily in Miami.
CHETRY: Well, now that Castro has resigned, what is next for Cuba and for the U.S.? Pamela Falk is a professor of Latin American Affairs at Hunter College in New York. Pamela, thanks for being with us this morning.
PAMELA FALK, PROFESSOR OF LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS: Sure, Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, we were talking a little bit before the show about what exactly will we see here in the U.S. in terms of any type of changes in Cuba? FALK: I don't think there will be any major changes in U.S. policy, Republican or Democrat in the White House, although this is -- Castro really resigning with a whimper, not a bang. This was a transition in some ways that was not anticipated, but it was timed to Cuba's national elections, and they just had the elections. This is intended, as far as Cuba is concerned, to be seen as a transition that's Democratic. It is -- there is really no difference between Fidel and Raul. Raul is a lot less charismatic, and Castro ruled with a mix of charisma and control over all these years.
I think what you'll see is the question raised in Cuba about who the next generation of Cuban leadership is. Castro has been in power, as you mentioned, for almost 50 years. Almost all Cubans only know Castro in power, and he has been in power since Dwight D. Eisenhower, through, as you say, including this president, 10 presidents. And so I think you'll start to see some questions raised about Cuba, about how they can transition. There's not much of an opposition in Cuba. And the real question will be, what's next? This is clearly the end of an era.
ROBERTS: As you said, it ended with a whimper, not a bang.
FALK: Right.
ROBERTS: It's not the way anyone thought that it was going to happen. People thought that there would be an announcement, that Castro would be dead.
FALK: Exactly.
ROBERTS: All the boats would leave Miami for Havana harbor.
FALK: Right.
ROBERTS: There would be big celebrations in the streets. Is this an indication that Castro's health is failing to the point where...
FALK: Yes.
ROBERTS: ... he may be close to death?
FALK: Yes. It's always been the joke in Cuba that his term was his life expectancy, and I think that's what you're seeing. As he got more ill, the transition took place 18 months ago to Raul. And then, of course, there was an announcement out of Cuba where there really isn't any opposition in elections, that Raul had gotten more votes than Fidel. That was a way of sort of indicating a certain foreshadowing of this. And now, he's resigned.
I think we know that he's in very ill health, if not worse, and we'll see some kind of transition. But what they're trying to do is ease the flow and that, I think, we'll have to see how the Cuban people react because it really won't be up to the opposition which is pretty weak. I think it's going to be up to the younger people in Cuba. CHETRY: So the dictatorship basically remains firmly in place?
FALK: Yes, absolutely. And I don't think you see any transition in the line of leadership either with Raul Castro or Ricardo Alarcon, who's the next in line after that, or even Carlos Lahe, who is considered to be one of the economic czars in Cuba. There's a lot of talk of Raul being a reformist. There's really very little difference.
ROBERTS: Pam Falk for us this morning. On that, Pam, thanks very much.
FALK: Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Stick around, and we'll talk to you more about this throughout the morning.
FALK: Sure, John. Sure, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Meantime, it's primary day today. Voters will be heading to the polls in three states -- Hawaii, Washington and Wisconsin. Both parties hold contests in Wisconsin where the first polls open at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, 7:00 Central. Washington is a Republican primary. Polls open there at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, 7:00 Pacific. Half of their delegates will be allocated today. The other half, like the Democrats in their February the 9th contest, will be assigned later at the conventions. And Hawaii turns out for its Democratic caucus today. That starts at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, 6:00 a.m. Local.
In all, 150 delegates are up for grabs today; 94 for the Democrats, the majority in Wisconsin where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a tough fight. For the Republicans, 56 delegates are up for grabs. John McCain is looking for big wins to unify the Republican Party behind his nomination.
And here's the current delegate count. Barack Obama in the lead with 1,262 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 1,213. On the Republican side, John McCain has 830; Mike Huckabee 217.
We kick off this Election Day from Hawaii; 20 Democratic delegates at stake, and Barack Obama's native state. Suzanne Malveaux has got the story for us from Waikiki.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the frantic race for the Democratic nomination where every delegate counts, Hawaii matters. This is Senator Barack Obama's home turf. He was born in Honolulu and spent much of his childhood here. His secret weapon on the campaign trail, his younger sister, Maya Soetero-Ng.
MAYA SOETERO-NG, OBAMA'S SISTER: Hey, people.
MALVEAUX: Maya lives in Honolulu, where politicking nearly 5,000 miles away from Washington has a different feel.
SOETERO-NG: I'd like people to understand that he is, without a doubt, precisely what he says he is. He really has the power to do this.
MALVEAUX: But less you think Hillary Clinton is giving up on Obama's backyard -- think again.
CHELSEA CLINTON, SEN. HILLARY CLINTON'S DAUGHTER: Thank you. Aloha.
MALVEAUX: Daughter Chelsea was dispatched for three days to campaign across the island. While she refuses to talk to reporters, she spends hours greeting and answering supporters' questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's going to do for us women like nobody could.
MALVEAUX: For many Hawaiian voters, this election is giving them a real role in the politics of the mainland.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm for Hillary. I believe she has experience and all the things that are needed to be a president. I just am so inspired by all of this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he represents kind of like an image of my family because he -- I see my kids future in his eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have something here called the aloha spirit, and I really think that Obama embodies the aloha spirit.
MALVEAUX: Do you think that Senator Clinton has that same aloha spirit?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: And, John, a lot of people talk about this aloha spirit, the sense of community and involvement together. A lot of people believe that is why they're unique from voters in the mainland. It's also why some people believe that Senator Barack Obama is a unique candidate.
Now, I spoke with the executive director of the Democratic Party of Hawaii and she says to expect as many as 40 percent more voters that are going to participate this time around in the caucuses. So it's going to be a very, very busy day, a busy evening. And they also say there's quite a bit of uptick when it comes to support for Senator Clinton since Chelsea came just a couple days ago -- John.
ROBERTS: Suzanne Malveaux for us in Waikiki. And, Suzanne, I have to ask you, how did you get that assignment?
MALVEAUX: "The Audacity of Hope," I don't know. We asked for it. We did Iowa so you know, we got the boondoggle. ROBERTS: There you go. With me, it's usually the triumph of hope over experience. Suzanne for us this morning, thanks. We'll talk to you a little bit later on in your morning and ours as well. Thanks, Suzanne.
CHETRY: I guess she gets to average the two temperatures.
ROBERTS: Can you imagine.
CHETRY: Iowa, Hawaii.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: Put it together, and there she goes.
ROBERTS: I think Hawaii wins out in a very short time. She won't be spending as much time there as she did in Iowa. No question about that.
The next debate, just 48 hours away, Thursday night. Clinton and Obama face to face and live right here on CNN from the battleground of Texas. It's going to be live from the UT campus on Austin Thursday night, 8:00, right here on CNN.
CHETRY: And John McCain, the clear Republican front-runner, is hoping that a new major endorsement will help deliver a knockout punch against Mike Huckabee in today's primary races. Former President George Bush endorsed McCain yesterday in Houston, saying that no one is better prepared to lead the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm very proud to endorse John McCain for the presidency of the United States of America. Few men, walking among us, have sacrificed so much in the cause of human freedom, and I'm happy to help this remarkable patriot carry our party's banner forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: McCain is hoping to win over some of his conservative critics who say he's out of touch on immigration, tax policy and campaign reform.
Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee says that Bush's 41 endorsement will not affect his chances in Texas. While campaigning in Wisconsin yesterday, Huckabee dismissed the suggestion that the former president's endorsement is the final nail in his campaign's coffin.
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Does his voice count more than the millions of Republicans across this country, blue-collar Republicans who maybe don't have the platform he has? But do their votes not matter? Do the people who have been coming to our rally suddenly just say, Up, you know, somebody else from the party establishment has spoken. Let's just give up and not be heard from. That's not how elections are supposed to work, and I would like to think that our party certainly is capable of having an ongoing election process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Texas holds its primary March 4th, and Huckabee has said that winning the state is crucial to his campaign's survival.
And again, you want to stay with CNN for today's primary and caucus results and all of the analysis coming from the best political team on television. Coverage begins tonight, 8:00 p.m. Eastern at the CNN "ELECTION CENTER."
And you're watching the "Most News in the Morning." Still ahead, the Feds say that our railways are safe but not safe enough. Amtrak making some big changes. We'll tell you what they are and how it will affect your rail travel coming up.
Also, some more problems at a Florida jail capturing national attention. Here's another incident caught on tape. This is the same facility where last week, we showed you the picture of one of the sheriff deputies dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair. There may be more to the story, though. We're going to have it for you when AMERICAN MORNING comes right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up at 17 minutes after the hour now, breaking news out of Cuba this morning.
Fidel Castro steps down as president and commander-in-chief, 49 years and 49 days after seizing power in an armed revolution. In a message read on Cuban TV, Castro said he will not seek a new term as president. He has ruled Cuba with absolute authority since 1959, outlasting nine American presidents and remaining a constant thorn in the side of the United States. Castro temporarily handed power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery. Raul Castro is expected to be nominated by the National Assembly.
CHETRY: Well, Veronica de la Cruz is in for Alina Cho this morning following other stories developing overnight, including some possible changes to how we ride the rails.
VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's absolutely right. Good morning to you, Kiran, and good morning to all of you out there.
Amtrak is announcing a new security crackdown to keep you safe. Officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol platforms and trains between Washington and Boston. Carry-on bags will also be screened randomly. Amtrak says it's trying the plan on the northeast corridor first, before expanding it across the country. Our Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve will have much more on this new security push. That's coming up in our next half hour.
And early voting returns in Pakistan could spell trouble for President Pervez Musharraf. His party has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's party in the lead. Musharraf has been a key ally in the war on terror, but his popularity plummeted last year after he imposed emergency rule and jailed political opponents.
Well, President Bush visiting a genocide memorial in Rwanda today, remembering 800,000 members of the country's ethnic minority killed back in 1994. The president also praised Rwanda for deploying peace keepers for the violent Darfur region and said the U.S. will use sanctions, pressure and money to help resolve the Darfur crisis.
Well, the Navy says it will try to shoot down a dead spy satellite later this week. And take a look. This is what the attempt might look like. It won't happen until the satellite begins to enter the atmosphere, so debris will burn up quickly. The interception is expected to cost between 40 million to $60 million.
And we have some new video to show you this morning of an inmate being beaten at a Florida jail. It's the same jail where a quadriplegic man was dumped out of his wheelchair. The latest video shows a woman waiting to be booked back in November 2006. A deputy pulls her off her chair and starts hitting her. The woman is seen clinging to the deputy's leg. The woman has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff's office. The video was released the same day.
The officer seen dumping the quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair has resigned. The sheriff's office says it is an internal investigation which is still ongoing.
And New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte is apologizing to his fans and current and former teammates for using hormone growth hormone. Speaking to the press Monday in Tampa, Florida, Pettitte said he was sorry for the embarrassment he caused by taking HGH. He has admitted to using it twice in his career. Pettitte says he didn't do it to get an edge but to get over injuries.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDY PETTITTE, NEW YORK YANKEES PITCHER: Do I think I'm a cheater? I don't. Because from the bottom of my heart and God knows my heart, I know why I was doing this. Was it stupid? Yes, it was stupid. Was I desperate? Yes, I was probably desperate. And I wish I never would have done it, obviously. But I don't consider myself a cheater, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DE LA CRUZ: Pettitte hasn't spoken to Roger Clemens since giving a sworn statement to Congress that implicated his close friend in the use of human growth hormone.
And that's a look at what's making news this morning. John and Kiran, I'll send it back to you. And quite an emotional press conference yesterday. I kind of felt bad for him, but it really does remind you of the pressure that these athletes are under to perform, you know.
ROBERTS: Oh, definitely. You got to be at your top all the time.
DE LA CRUZ: Yes.
CHETRY: They also asked him a lot of questions about Roger Clemens, and he said it is very hard to go from talking to somebody every day to no longer speaking to them. So --
DE LA CRUZ: But, you know, at least Pettitte has gotten it out of a way, like Clemens will always have to dodge that bullet. People are always going to be asking these questions. You know, did he or didn't he?
ROBERTS: He wants to preserve a shot at the Hall of Fame, I guess.
DE LA CRUZ: Yes.
ROBERTS: And that he could well be innocent as well. So --
DE LA CRUZ: Yes.
ROBERTS: We may never know the real answer. But still with baseball, a shocked player finds out that he's just been traded to Japan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT MYERS, TEAMMATE OF KYLE KENDRICK: Kyle Kendrick has been moved to the Yomiuri Giants in exchange for Kobayashi Iwamura. We thought it was important for us to make.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Well, we'll show you his reaction when he finds out that he's been the victim of a clubhouse prank. That's coming up.
And we'll have much more reaction on the news that Cuban President Fidel Castro was stepping down. That's ahead here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. We're following breaking news out of Cuba this morning. The news that Fidel Castro has resigned as Cuba's president after nearly a half century in power. In a letter published online by Cuba's official news agency, Castro says that he won't accept a new term when the Cuban parliament meets Sunday. Castro is 81 years old. His brother Raul served as acting president since 2006 when Fidel underwent emergency intestinal surgery. Castro has not been seen publicly in 18 months, but he has spoken periodically and released video and photographs with date stamps to show that he is still alive. We're going to get reaction from Havana, here in the U.S. and abroad coming up in just a moment.
ROBERTS: Twenty-five minutes after the hour now. Some good news. One less airline may be plagued by chronic delays. Ali Velshi "Minding Your Business" this morning.
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: We have a lot of reports now. This has been going on for a while. We have reports that this might be real at this point. The boards of Delta and Northwest Airlines are supposedly meeting today in an emergency meeting, and could be prepared to announce a merger this week.
Now, here's the thing about these two airlines, Delta and Northwest. Delta's hubs, Delta's headquarters in Atlanta, it's got hubs in New York City, at JFK, in Cincinnati and at Salt Lake City. Northwest hubs are in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis. Now, you know, if you look at a map of that, you see Memphis and Atlanta are pretty close together, and Detroit, Cincinnati are not too far off. But the airlines reportedly would keep all the hubs.
The bigger influence of this is that if you look at Delta, it has a great deal in influence in Latin America, and Northwest has a great deal of influence in Asia. In fact, it keeps a hub in Tokyo as well as in Amsterdam because it has a partnership with KLM. KLM and Air France would hold a part of this new airline.
Let me tell you a little bit about what the new airline might look like. According to reports, it would be called Delta. It would be headquartered in Atlanta, and the new chief of the airline will be the current Delta CEO. As I mentioned, KLM-Air France, which are the same company, will own a substantial stake of this new airline. It will stay part of the SkyTeam Alliance, which it's part of right now.
But a joint Delta and Northwest would be the world's largest airline by traffic. We're talking about that this week. There are also talks that United and Continental might be ready to announce some sort of a deal coming up. We'll stay on top of that for you and let you know what that means to the course of the morning.
CHETRY: All right. Sounds good, Ali. Stick around for this one.
Major League baseball teams kick off spring training. And for the Philadelphia Phillies, it means pulling a prank on rookie pitcher Kyle Kendrick, telling him that he'd been traded to a Japanese team.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE MANUEL, MANAGER PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES: We made a move today, and we made a trade with the Japanese team, Yomiuri Giants, and you were one of the guys in the deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: No one told him that you can't actually be traded to another country and league. He handled the news pretty well and even tried to seem excited about moving to Japan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYLE KENDRICK, PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES ROOKIE PITCHER: I don't know. Do they have good food in Japan?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what I say, you just got punked!
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: How bad is this when everyone is in on it including his agent. All of the local sports reporters and everyone. And there he is in the locker room getting the news that he has been punked. Of course, they seem to have a blast with it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Isn't that nice.
CHETRY: We had to laugh yesterday because we wanted to get him on the show to ask him about the situation...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CHETRY: ... and one of our bookers wrote back and said no, they said they don't want to distract them from spring training, like punking them on international TV is not a distraction.
VELSHI: He handled that nicely. He handled that well.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: You guys could so easily do that to me. Kiran, now, you've been traded.
ROBERTS: You're watching the "Most News in the Morning." Primary day in the race for the White House in Washington State, Wisconsin and Hawaii. How are the latest war of words on the Democratic side play out with the voters?
Plus, live from Havana with breaking news about Fidel Castro, resigning after almost a half century in power overnight. President Bush is speaking out already this morning from his tour of Africa. A live report from Rwanda also straight ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. It's Tuesday, the 19th of February. Thanks for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING. Big day, lots of politics, primary day in a few states and other big news as well.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. An end of an era really for Cuba. Today we're going to be talking about the implications and what it possibly means for U.S./Cuban relations. The news that Fidel Castro after nearly 50 years in power has resigned. He says he resigned as president. The news came in a letter. It was published online by Cuba's official news agency, signed by Castro and read "I will not aspire or accept the position of president of the counsel of state and commander-in-chief." Castro is 81-years-old. His brother and designated successor, Raul Castro, has been acting president since 2006. That's when Fidel has emergency intestinal surgery.
CNN is the only network with a correspondent based permanently in Cuba. That is our bureau chief, Morgan Neill. He joins us from Havana. Very interesting. Can you tell us a bit more about what exactly the shift in power means? Raul has been running the country as we know. He's only about six years younger than his older brother Fidel.
MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is not a change between generations this is not the move to the younger leaders that we heard about from Fidel Castro a short while ago. This is a succession that has been planned for decades, and Cuba had about a year and a half now to test it out, see how this will work, to make sure the succession went smoothly. This is essentially making official something that had been called a provisional arrangement for the last year and a half that is Raul Castro, though we don't know until Sunday's national assembly meeting who will be named president of the counsel of state. You would have to assume that would be Raul Castro named to the post.
Let me show you this, Kiran as well, not only is this front-page material, that's the only thing on the front pages here in Cuba today. You can see out the window behind me, just starting to get light. So Cubans are just now waking up to this extraordinary news. Kiran?
CHETRY: When you talk about what the reaction is, is there any hope that there will be a difference? That we will see changes down the road?
NEILL: Absolutely. We've been asking a lot of people over the last week because while we didn't know this would come out today, we did know there was a national assembly meeting coming up this weekend. So we've been talking to young Cubans about what they expected and would like to see.
A lot of times they said it doesn't matter to White House holds the title of president. We want to see changes. We want to see hope that we can gain jobs that we studied for, we can earn a decent salary, that we can use the Internet, we can travel. These are the kinds of things that we have been hearing. So there is a lot of hope. At the same time you will hear people say they are hoping for these things and maybe end by saying that we all know nothing will happen. So you see this battle between cynicism and hope at the same time.
CHETRY: Morgan, thank you. We will check in with you throughout the morning regarding this story following the latest developments on this news that Fidel Castro, after nearly five decades as leader of Cuba, has resigned this morning. Morgan, thank you.
ROBERTS: Well, Fidel Castro has been president of Cuba through eight U.S. presidents. Castro came to power February 16, 1959, after leading the fight to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In April of 1982, President Reagan reinstates a ban on travel to Cuba. August of 1994, President Clinton ended the open door policy for Cuban refugees. Now only those who make it to land can stay. And in July of 2006, Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raul after undergoing intestinal surgery.
So what's next for the United States and Cuba? Last hour President Bush responded to news of Castro's resignation while traveling in Rwanda.
White House correspondent Ed Henry is traveling with the president and is in Rwanda now and joins us. What's the response from the White House this morning, Ed?
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well John, clearly the timing, catching the White House by surprise. Mr. Bush in Rwanda to talk about the 1994 genocide. He wanted to use that as an opportunity to call on ending the genocide in Darfur. He came with $100 million in fact to help fund U.N. peacekeepers there but that being eclipsed clearly by the developments in Cuba Mr. Bush has to be elated by this. He has on several occasions, as you know, called for the demise of Fidel Castro and today he made clear that while some will call for stability and say that power should be transferred from one brother to the next, Mr. Bush rejects that and says this needs to be a transition to democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRES. OF THE UNITED STATES: Eventually this transition, I hope, will lead to free and fair elections, not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to hoist off as being true democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Another key aspect of this is the Bush administration will keep an eye on the fact that they have private plans to deal with the possibility of instability on the ground in Cuba. The U.S. Coast Guard will watch to see whether or not there will be a flood of Cuban refugees thinking that now is an opportunity, perhaps if there is instability to head to Miami, Florida. The White House will keep a close eye on that in the days ahead, John.
ROBERTS: President Bush said he hopes this is going to be the beginning of some kind of change in Cuba. Any idea from the White House how long that transition to democracy, if one were to take place, would take?
HENRY: No. Mr. Bush's tone was very cautious because obviously, this is just the initial hours. He doesn't want to go too far out on a limb. But if you remember last fall in October he gave a speech at the State Department where he talked about giving laptops, Internet access to people in Cuba trying to open up the Cuban society as much as possible. So you can expect the administration trying to take steps like that in the days ahead to try to open that society as much as possible to make the climate as ripe as possible for democracy to spring forward, but they have no idea on a time table, John.
ROBERTS: All right. Ed Henry for us in the capital of Rwanda for us; Ed, thank you very much. Kiran? CHETRY: Well, turning to the race for the White House. Voters will be heading to the polls in Wisconsin, Washington State and Hawaii a total of 94 delegates at stake today for Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. 74 of them in Wisconsin. Obama leads Clinton in the delegate count, 1,262 to 1,213, so as you can see barely a difference between the two.
Clinton's camp says Obama plagiarized from a 2006 speech by Massachusetts' governor, Deval Patrick. Obama says Clinton is the one using his lines.
CNN political analyst John Dickerson joins us live from Washington, D.C. this morning. First of all, tell us a little bit about the controversy that's going on. This was -- these were -- this was response by Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton's -- what we heard from her on the campaign trail and in speeches, which is that you have to say more than words, words can be empty. And tell us exactly what went down after that.
JOHN DICKERSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the first thing to know about the controversy is that it's not a serious one. It's being pushed by the Clinton campaign, and so it's a bit silly. What it's over is a match in some remarks by Barack Obama recently that matched Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts words, on this debate over whether words are sufficient to build a political movement. And Obama's speech matches something that Patrick said. This is an attempt by the Clinton campaign to get in Obama's face. He has the momentum, and they want to create an issue that we will all talk about and they've succeeded in that. The larger effort by the Clinton campaign is to raise doubts about Obama here going into the primary on Tuesday and then leading up, of course, to the important ones for them on March 4th in Texas and Ohio.
CHETRY: Does that get any traction with the voters, though?
DICKERSON: Well, I don't think so, in part because for these things to work they need to match up with an existing fear about a candidate. There are serious questions you could raise about Barack Obama. This is not one of them. And it does not link up with voters concerned about Barack Obama that have been percolating out there.
CHETRY: We are seeing this happen, seeing some of the back and forth take place as you see that two candidates are within 50 delegates of one another, very close and races in the past have not mattered as much on the national states like Hawaii are key so what should we look for today as we see the voters go to the polls in Wisconsin as well as Hawaii for the democrats?
DICKERSON: The key thing is in Wisconsin among different voter blocs that have been strong for Hillary Clinton or in other primary races have been strong for, that's among down scale voters, voters who don't make that much money, older voters, and women, of course, have always been strong for her. And to see Barack Obama continue to make inroads into those groups.
Wisconsin should be a good state for Hillary Clinton. Her campaign has complained or has said that in states where African- Americans don't play a huge role, that they should do well in those states with working class folks, they should do well. So we want to look at those categories and see if Obama continues to make inroads into voting blocs that have been strong for her in the past.
CHETRY: I'm sure today we can look for reaction to the news that Fidel Castro has resigned after nearly 50 years of Cuba's dictator. Where do the candidates stand? Hillary Clinton as well as John McCain have said that they would not ease Cuba's sanctions. Now, Barack Obama has signaled perhaps they would eliminate some restrictions on travel but keep most of the embargo in place. What are we going to hear from the candidates about how they would handle relations with this island nation?
DICKERSON: Well the interesting thing to look here -- first thing to know, of course, is the politics of Florida, a very key and important state here get in the way of the policy of this issue. There are a lot of anti-Castro voters in Florida So any presidential candidate has to tread very lightly.
On the democratic side, the thing to look for is Obama and Clinton have had a debate about how to handle dictators. Obama has tried to make this a key distinction with Clinton and said I will reach out and I will meet with the world's most feared dictators because we should never be afraid to negotiate. So this could be an opportunity for him to show this new kind of diplomacy that he's been talking about whereas Clinton may embrace something closer to the existing policy. So we'll have to watch for that.
John McCain will probably stick to the Bush line as articulated by the president today.
CHETRY: Very interesting. We'll be watching. John Dickerson, great to see you. As always, thanks.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
CHETRY: And stay with CNN for today's primary and caucus results, all of the analysis as well from the best political team on television. Primary coverage will kick off tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern in the CNN Election Center.
ROBERTS: On another war path, tornadoes ravaged the south. We're following extreme weather to see where it could hit next.
Plus, can peace come to Kenya? Our own Zain Verjee is back from her native country and following the moves by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to help broker a peaceful end to the election turmoil there. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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ROBERTS: Breaking news out of Cuba this morning, Fidel Castro steps down as president and commander-in-chief of the country, 49 years and 49 days after seizing power in an armed revolution. In a message read on Cuban television, Fidel Castro said he will not seek a new term as president. The parliament is meeting on Sunday to pick a new president. He says he will not run.
He has ruled with absolute authority since 1959, outlasting nine American presidents, and remaining a constant thorn in the side of the United States. Castro temporarily handed power to his brother Raul in 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery. It turned out that it was far more than temporarily. Castro was expected to be nominated by the national assembly when it meets on Sunday.
And we've got some news. Remember earlier in the month we told you about that brazen art theft in Zurich. Paintings were stolen literally in broad daylight from this art museum. Apparently, they found them. They would not say whether all or some of the four masterpieces were recovered. But police say that they have recovered at least some of them. They will have a news conference a little later on today to give further details about that. But it's amazing that we thought those had disappeared and may never be seen again. Because a lot of times there are private individuals out there who want to buy stolen paintings and keep them locked away so they know they have them. But they found them.
CHETRY: It's strange. The Swiss media is reporting that they were found in a car parked at a psychiatric hospital. So there you have it. Of course we're going to give you more details. As said, these were priceless works of art worth millions and millions and millions of dollars. They were launching a huge international investigation, and boom, looks like police got lucky here. They just showed up and found them.
ROBERTS: Again, we hope to hear more about them later on today but they found those works of art, at least some of them anyway.
Another disaster zone down south after a tornado ripped through the town of Prattville, Alabama. Here a woman is sitting in front of her car looking at what was left of her house. Officials say severe storms damaged or totally destroyed 200 homes and 40 businesses in the area but everyone survived.
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CHETRY: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Kenya. She's trying to apply pressure for a peaceful solution to Kenya's election crisis.
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CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It can't be that there is simply the illusion of power sharing. It has to be real. By the way, sharing in the responsibility also means putting aside forever, for good, all means of violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: CNN State Department correspondent Zain Verjee has just returned from Kenya. It is her native country.
Good morning, Zain. What is hopefully the impact of Condoleezza Rice's visit and her words?
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. Well, Secretary Rice was just there for about six hours, but what her visit did was it added pressure on Kenyan leaders basically to make a political deal. What's been happening is the government and the opposition have been at loggerheads. They've fighting over the results of a presidential election last year in December. Both of them say they won and the other side stole it.
Secretary Rice said that both of them need to share real power to end the instability in the country. You have something like 1,000 people killed, 600,000 displaced. The government and officials that I have spoken to say the Kenyans are capable of solving Kenya's own problems, but most Kenyan people want this outside pressure from the United States to push the two sides.
CHETRY: Zain Verjee for us this morning, thank you.
ROBERTS: If you ride the rails, listen up, new security measures go into effect today for Amtrak, what they are doing to keep you safe. That's straight ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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ROBERTS: Coming up on six minutes now until the top of the hour.
Amtrak is expected to announce new security measures to keep passengers safe today. Since the September 11th attacks, security experts have warned passenger trains in America could be potential terror targets.
CNN's homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is in Washington, D.C.'s union station with our security watch. What is this about, Jeanne?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well John, there is sure to be those who say it's too little too late in light of the London and Madrid train bombings and the known threat to mass transportation. But Amtrak is talking about putting more bomb- sniffing dogs and more guards armed with automatic weapons in the stations and on the trains that it runs in the United States. They are also talking about doing random bag searches.
The way this will work is they'll set up a security checkpoint unannounced at a station in front of a boarding gate. They'll randomly pick people out of line, do explosive swabs of those bags, and if they come back positive they will ask to search their bags. If someone does not want their bag searched they cannot board the train and will get a refund for their ticket. Obviously it is far from a fail safe system but the hope is it will be a deterrent to anybody who might want to do wrong, John.
ROBERTS: Jeanne, why are they doing this now after not doing anything for six years?
MESERVE: Well first, they have done something. They have been doing random I.D. checks as you buy a ticket and also when you're on the train but as to why they are doing it now, they say it's the prudent thing. We checked with the Transportation Security Administration and asked if there was new threat information that would warrant this, they said nothing new on the radar screen at this point in time but it's an ongoing worry, transit security. John?
ROBERTS: I take the train just about every Sunday. The only thing I've been asked to is show my I.D. to get my ticket. Certainly no one has ever approached me and asked me to check a bag or haven't seen any security measures in place. What is this new tactic going to mean for people who ride Amtrak? Will they be delayed? Will they be inconvenienced?
MESERVE: Amtrak says there will be minimal delay, only a matter of a few minutes. The whole point of mass transportation is to move quickly. It's been one of the real conundrums when they talk about securing the system. How do you put security in place and move people through a place that has lots of entrance points and exit points.
ROBERTS: Jeanne Meserve for us this morning in Washington's Union Station; Jeanne, thanks. Kiran?
CHETRY: A new program today to help keep your kids safe. More testing and more inspections, but can it still keep tainted toys out of your home? AMERICAN MORNING's Greg Hunter is looking out for you in the next hour.
Also, an end of an era from the Bay of Pigs to Elian Gonzalez; what will Castro's legacy be in Latin America? We're going to ask Christiane Amanpour who joins us ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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CHETRY: Breaking news. Fidel Castro resigns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be a big surprise to a lot of observers.
CHETRY: After a half century in power, why now?
The next test, the most politics in the morning.
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