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U.S. and Cuba To Restore Diplomatic Ties; Hackers Threaten Terror

Aired December 17, 2014 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And the angry, angry official attacks such as this one uttered after Cuba downed a small aircraft whose Cuban pilot was trying to defect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Frankly this is not cojones. This is cowardice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Cowardice, not cojones pretty much reflected view of Cuban relations for as long as anyone could really remember. And mark this day, December 17, 2014, the day it changes.

Lots to talk about here. Let's begin with Alina Machado. She's live in Little Havana in Miami.

And, Alina, you're talking to people there in the wake of huge, huge, historic news. What are they telling you?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I want to set the stage first so you have an idea of where we are.

We're on Eighth Street here at Versailles. This is the heart of the Cuban community, particularly the Cuban exile community here. You can see there's flags, American flags, Cuban flags. And if you look over here again, traffic, it's pretty, pretty slow.

We have even seen a significant police presence here as they manage the crowds that are coming. And then if you walk over here with me, you also see people holding signs like this one, basically protesting and showing their disapproval of what President Obama did today, of the new policies that he announced today.

There's been a very loud, a very vocal group here as well of people who have been very unhappy. They're angry by these changes. There's a small group of people over here holding more signs. I want to see if we can get into the crowd a little bit.

Excuse me for a moment.

You can see them here. There's a gentleman over here. He's holding a sign. He's been here for several hours, basically expressing his discontent with the changes. If you walk over here, you see more signs, more people. Everybody has

an opinion here. That's what is unique about this particular area. It's Versailles. It's an area where you see a lot of Cubans come by. We have noticed a bit of a generational divide. You see the people who have been here and came to this country in the '50s and the '60s.

They are very adamant about not having these changes implemented. They are very angry about it because of the history of these changes, of the history, the things that they say they went through when they left the island.

And then there's a younger generation of people who are more open to change. Brooke, it all depends on who you're talking to and I think really the heart of the issue here is everybody is waiting to see what happens next.

BALDWIN: OK. Alina, thank you so much.

I just want to make sure we just also pause and listen to Alan Gross himself, who is standing next to his wife just about an hour ago. This is the first time we have heard from him yet. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN GROSS, FREED FROM CUBAN PRISON: To all those who tried to visit me, but were unable to, thank you for trying.

I am at your service as soon as I get some new teeth. To the Washington Jewish community, it was crucial to my survival knowing that I was not forgotten. Your prayers and your actions have been comforting, reassuring and sustaining.

But, ultimately, ultimately, the decision to arrange for and secure my release was made in the Oval Office. To President Obama and the NSC staff, thank you.

In my last letter to President Obama, I wrote that despite my five- year tenure in captivity, I would not want to trade places with him, and I certainly wouldn't want to trade places with him on this glorious day.

Five years of isolation notwithstanding, I did not need daily briefings to be cognizant of what are undoubtedly incredible challenges facing our nation and the global community.

I also feel compelled to share with you my utmost respect for and fondness of the people of Cuba. In no way are they responsible for the ordeal to which my family and I have been subjected.

To me, Cubanos, or at least most of them, are incredibly kind, generous and talented. It pains me to see them treated so unjustly as a consequence of two governments' mutually belligerent policies.

Five-and-a-half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits better judgment. Two wrongs never make a right. I truly hope that we can now get beyond these mutually belligerent policies. And I was happy to hear what the president had to say today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Alan Gross, five years later, he's finally home.

This is a true turning point. This is -- I keep saying it, but I think it's just worth repeating. This is a piece of history that is decades in the making.

So, Fareed Zakaria is joining me from "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

I just want to begin. But the floor is yours. You have been watching all of this, phenomenal details just on how he happened to see John Kerry coming in on that plane from Cuba and they're watching the president's address together. Put this all in perspective for me.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: This is really one of the last vestiges of the Cold War that's coming undone.

And if you think about it, there are three major countries that lie outside of the world system right now, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. And for America, Cuba is the most emotional. It's the one closest to us. It's the one that the United States has had this most tangled relationship with, which, of course, goes before 1961 and the embargo.

It goes all the way back to the U.S. so-called colonialism and the Spanish-American War and all that. And now it feels like this is the new -- this is the next chapter, where we're done with the Cold War chapter of U.S./Cuban relations and Cuba is going to begin to come in from the cold. I think you're exactly right that this is history in the making.

BALDWIN: I was reading something that Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent, pointed out that I think he was saying there weeks ago. Russia had ships parked in the Havana harbor and how that was sort of a thumb in the nose at the time, Putin toward Obama.

Now here we have this surprise to the world that this has now happened. How -- in terms of just geopolitics, how does this factor in? Is -- this has to be a huge win for Obama over Putin.

ZAKARIA: Oh, it's a huge win for Obama in general.

And part of what made it possible is actually the same reason Mr. Putin is in trouble, the drop in the price of oil. It's not the only reason, but, remember, Cuba was a Russian, a Soviet client state, got $4 billion of subsidies from the Soviet Union.

BALDWIN: Right.

ZAKARIA: Cold War ends. It's looking for a new patron. It finds one, Venezuela. But over the last year, as oil prices have weakened and over the last few months, as oil prices have collapsed, it's become clear that Venezuela will not be able to keep subsidizing Cuba.

I'm sure that Raul Castro, looking at the price of oil, realized his sugar daddy in Venezuela just dried up. And all of a sudden, the Cubans are now looking at a new future and realizing that maybe they're going to have to make peace with the United States.

BALDWIN: Fareed Zakaria just said sugar daddy.

Something else you bring up, Raul Castro. This is what I also find fascinating. Here you have talks between the Cubans and the U.S. administration for 16, 17 months. The pope is involved. The Vatican is involved. Yet nothing leaked. How is that possible?

ZAKARIA: They say that Obama runs a very tight ship in the White House. A lot of people in the State Department don't like that, the Defense Department.

But this is the proof of why Henry Kissinger ran the White House that way, Richard Nixon ran it, why sometimes you do need centralized control. This is a perfect example of good presidential use of White House staff on foreign policy.

BALDWIN: At the end of the day, though, as the president pointed out, this will ultimately be up to Congress, correct, to officially lift the embargo, so that people watching and are wondering when can I finally get my trip to Cuba, we have to wait for that.

ZAKARIA: We will have to wait. But symbolically this is huge. And it's more than symbolism, because what this really means is Cuba is coming in from the cold. The rest of the world gets that signal. Cuba is now open for business.

People are going to start trying to pour in. It's now going to cost the United States -- there have been calculations already, Brooke, that argue that America loses out much more than Cuba does from the embargo, because America has all of these companies that could do great business in Cuba.

Cuba doesn't have those many companies that could do great business in the U.S. So, one hopes now that American business and American society in general will pressure Congress. It will be a very interesting test. Even within the Cuban community, even though what you saw was elderly Cuban exiles, the Cuban community in Florida is slightly in favor of getting rid of the embargo.

But the difference -- and we know how this works in American politics, is the minority who don't want the embargo lifted are passionate and they're determined. And that's why you're hearing Menendez and Rubio and all these people, because those are the people who will go and vote. They are single-issue voters.

Will they be able to block what is probably the will of the majority to end the embargo?

BALDWIN: Fareed Zakaria, thank you. Thank you so much.

Let me switch gears because, as we mentioned, breaking news a moment ago. We're just now reporting on this deeply, deeply disturbing story emerging out of Syria right now. Let me pass this information along to you. This is information that's coming to us from the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This is what we are now learning. They are reporting about this mass grave containing the bodies of 230 people killed by ISIS. It's been discovered in the southeast city there of Raqqa. That is the ISIS stronghold. And according to this group, the dead were local Sunnis, many of whom were apparently killed in battle.

Back in August, the United Nations accused ISIS of killing local tribesmen in that region. And again, now, according to this group, they are finding, reporting on this 230-body mass grave in Syria, according to London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Just ahead, we are going to take you live in Rome and talk about that Vatican role and how the Vatican, how Pope Francis were key in this deal between Cuba and the U.S., their secret meetings for months and months and months.

Plus, another theater chain pulling the plug on Sony's controversial movie, all of this as hackers threaten Americans. Many go and they can go see it. Will Sony making this unprecedented move of yanking the film altogether? Legendary journalist Kurt Loder joins me live discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Two theater chains confirmed they are now pulling the movie Seth Rogen-James Franco movie "The Interview" after hackers have threatened this 9/11-type terror attack. Their warning was, remember 9/11.

And as we're about to break here, it sounds like more theaters are about to follow suit. This film has raised lots and lots of questions in North Korea because it portrays the assassination of President Kim Jong-un.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: The CIA would love it if you could take him out. Take him out.

SETH ROGEN, ACTOR: Like for drinks?

JAMES FRANCO, ACTOR: Like to dinner?

ROGEN: Take him out on the town?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: No, take him out.

ROGEN: You want us to kill the leader of North Korea?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Yes.

FRANCO: What?

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: We can tell you the country's oldest theater group,Bow Tie

Cinemas, announced today it will not show "The Interview" at any of its 58 theaters. Also learning that Carmike Cinemas is dropping this movie "The Interview" from all 278 of its locations.

And then here in New York, you have the big premiere of this film. That has been called off as well. The actors Seth Rogen and James Franco have also canceled their press tour for this movie.

But Judd Apatow, he's been a champion of this film, produced Rogen and Franco's 2008 comedy "Pineapple Express."

This is what has now tweeted. Let me read this for you. He says: "I'm not going to let a terrorist threat shut down freedom of speech. I'm going to 'The Interview.'"

I have sitting next to me Kurt Loder. He's a movie critic for "Reason" magazine, author of the book "The Good, the Bad and the Godawful: 21st-Century Movie Reviews."

Huge fan of yours. You have been around for a journalist for a long, long time. Brian Stelter also, our senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." So, both of them joining me.

Before I get to you, Kurt, you have some news to break as far as other theaters are concerned.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Now it's pretty much every major movie theater chain in the country, Brooke.

If you go to see a movie, you might go to Regal, you might go to Arclight, you might go to Cinemark. All of them decided to yank "The Interview" from their screenings next week. The only big major chain that I know of that I haven't confirmed yet from is AMC and "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that one has also decided to remove the movie.

It's just I don't have confirmation of that one yet. But basically every big company that can decide whether this film will be in theaters has decided it won't be next week.

BALDWIN: Your reaction to all of this?

KURT LODER, "REASON": It's incredible that the United States is being dictated to by a vile administration like North Korea who is pretty apparently behind this.

And it's amazing that this is actually happening. I think to back down and not show this movie is a big mistake, because what will be next? Will it be books? You can't put this book out or whatever? There's a real threat. I understand why theaters don't want to see it and it's a real problem for rival studios, because there are half-a- dozen major films opening on Christmas, Christmas Day.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: They are worrying about "Into the Wood." They are worrying about "Unbroken."

LODER: Yes. And...

BALDWIN: But this is the kind of buzz any movie producer, right, would dream about for a film. We're talking about it constantly, first the hacking of Sony Pictures and then of course with this film in particular. But just racking my brain this morning thinking of like "The Passion of the Christ," thinking of Tarantino films, thinking of "Zero Dark Thirty."

There were definitely protests, but to have this kind of tangible threat, have we seen this before?

LODER: I think -- I don't know. Don't you think the best thing to do is Sony would just put this up online?

BALDWIN: Put it online?

LODER: Put it online.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: That's my dream too.

BALDWIN: Just charge, 10 bucks, for anyone to watch this?

LODER: Whatever. And they will lose like $100 million anyway. So, yes, charge it whatever.

STELTER: I said that to a guy at Sony this morning.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: I'm going to read it out loud. At that time, they were still hoping that theaters would run this movie, so they weren't as seriously considering putting it online.

But now I think they have to consider that. Maybe they can charge 10 bucks per person and charge on video on demand or something like that.

BALDWIN: Do you think that this is something -- if this could happen at Sony Pictures, that other -- I'm thinking of like the domino effect down the road of other films. Not saying someone else is writing a plot about the assassination of a sitting world leader.

But would this then be something that would affect future films? Future controversial films?

LODER: Sure. Absolutely. If you can do it, if you can dictate to an American company or an international company, if you can dictate to a publisher and it works, why not do it again?

BALDWIN: But do you think it's appropriate to have an actual world leader being assassinated in a film, in a comedy nonetheless?

(CROSSTALK) LODER: Well, appropriate, it doesn't matter. It's strictly a freedom of speech thing. So what? So what? No one is actually assassinating him, unfortunately.

But you're allowed to say whatever you want.

BALDWIN: He dies.

LODER: Maybe that's not true in North Korea, but it is here. You can say what you want.

BALDWIN: What do you think, right, I think.

STELTER: I'm torn about it, because if it was any other foreign leader, this would be much more controversial. Right?

But there's no fortune leader like Kim Jong-un.

LODER: So true.

STELTER: He's a punchline already to so many people.

LODER: And so I think the threat is not necessarily credible. North Korea is a regime that can't even launch a rocket.

STELTER: It seems farfetched.

LODER: It is very farfetched, but the threat is enough.

STELTER: I just interviewed Mark Cuban, by the way. He's one of the owners of that theater that was going to premiere this film in New York tomorrow.

And he said the downsides were just too obvious. There are just too many risks involved. Even if this was the most farfetched thing in the world that there could be some threat, it just wasn't worth it. People don't want to go to the movies, he said, and be worrying in the back of their minds about something bad happening.

LODER: On Christmas Day, especially.

(CROSSTALK)

LODER: Getting a full-body pat-down.

BALDWIN: Oh, God, that's a frightening thought.

You have to wonder, though, I think to your point about putting it online. We will see if that's the next step perhaps.

LODER: Hope so.

BALDWIN: But so far, everything is a go, correct? Just final question to you. Everything is a go as far as this movie being this theaters on Christmas Day minus all of those theaters,minus all of those theaters? (CROSSTALK)

STELTER: I'm not sure who could put it on at this point. Maybe there will be some smaller chains that will decide to run it. But maybe Sony will walk away altogether.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: I got to give credit to Sony for not deciding to yank it yesterday, because they made a conscious decision last night, we're not going to pull this movie, we're going to let the theater owners decide. But now they have decided to walk away.

LODER: Yes.

BALDWIN: OK. Brian Stelter and Kurt Loder, thank you both. Appreciate it.

And next, new information on the threat from the hackers to moviegoers. That's back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, back to our breaking news.

As we were just hearing from Brian Stelter, our senior media correspondent, basically saying that almost all of the major theaters in this country will not be playing the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy "The Interview" come Christmas Day.

Sony has yet to say, we're not releasing it, but that's the closest we have seen so far.

I want to bring in our correspondent Laurie Segall, CNN Money and tech correspondent, and Kurt Loder good enough to hang around with us as we talk about this and this group. We still don't know definitively who these hackers are. But tell me about the specific threat, I don't know, to the theaters, to the moviegoers come Christmas Day.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This all kind of started happening after yesterday.

We had these hackers and guys the claiming to be GOP, the Guardians of Peace, and these are the guys that are claiming to be behind the Sony hack. They online put out a message. Normally, the online messages we have seen so far are threatening to release more data.

Well, they actually threatened physical terror. They implied physical terror. Just a little bit from it, they said the world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September, 2001. They said anyone going to the premiere should worry. If you live nearby, you should worry.

So that incited a lot of fear. This was a new level. They also posted access to the Sony Pictures CEO's inbox. This is a very violating feeling and you can see what all of the studios are doing now. People are really nervous about showing up to this movie. They canceled the premiere here Thursday, and that's what this all really stemmed from, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We know that the actors aren't doing the press avails that they were planning on doing.

Yes.

BALDWIN: And your whole point, Kurt Loder, is just that this is dangerously setting a precedent, right, that these groups, be it North Korea or some third-party hack group, is basically dictating what can and can't be shown.

LODER: Yes. Yes.

And I think -- as I say, I think if rival studios think this will just go away after Sony thing is resolved, if it's resolved, and they won't be affected at some point in the future, they will. This will happen again. If they can demonstrate that we can do this to an American company, what can't we do? This will happen again. It's a really -- it's a tricky situation. I understand their dilemma, but it's not a good thing.

SEGALL: It's such an interesting point you make.

I spoke to a security researcher recently who said I bet those executives are saying, it just wasn't worth it, the millions lost, the damage caused. And he said what we really need to be talking about now is this idea -- and they might not say it out loud, but this idea of behind those closed doors self-censorship.

And that's going to be huge when it comes out of here. I got to say, sifting through and seeing some of the e-mails and this kind of thing that you have access to in a couple clicks of this Sony Pictures CEO, that's pretty unbelievable.

This is a new type of robbery. It's more violating and it's horrific when we hear it's a different hack a different day with credit card numbers and you lose money and this and that. But when there is this real -- this personal information at your fingerprints, at the Internet's fingerprints...

BALDWIN: It's frightening.

SEGALL: It really is frightening, Brooke.

LODER: I think the -- self-censorship already happens. There was a remake of "Red Dawn" a couple years ago where the bad guys are supposed to be Chinese. But the Chinese market is so important now that the bad guys were changed into North Koreans, ironically enough.

I'm sure that didn't sit well over there either in Pyongyang.

BALDWIN: I'm sure it didn't. I'm sure it didn't.

What about how close -- you can't answer this. The obvious question is how close are they to figuring out who these bad guys are and who these hackers are? I know they have to look at semantics of some of the language in the threat.

(CROSSTALK)

LODER: I hope they are looking at having actual Internet security. A major corporation gets...

BALDWIN: How is that possible, right?

LODER: ... hijacked like this, it's amazing. It's incredible.

SEGALL: And this hack was so sophisticated too.

These guys didn't just go in and look around. They deleted whole hard drives. This was a sophisticated attack. When you talk to security researchers, they say there are very -- there are some similarities to a hack that happened on South Korean banks last year.

And it was known that North Korea could have essentially been behind that. They are trying to make that link. But the scary part is, we just don't know. You better bet the feds are looking at this. But something -- when we even think here at CNN, it's so scary that that could happen to Sony. So then you think, what if that could happen to us? What's in my inbox?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Totally. Totally.

LODER: What if it happened to the government? Congress' e-mails aren't encrypted.

(LAUGHTER)

LODER: Think about that.

BALDWIN: Totally.

Kurt Loder, thank you. And Laurie Segall, thank you very much.

Coming up next here on CNN, more on our other breaking news, the secret efforts to free the American Alan Gross from Cuba. He's been in prison for five, was supposed to be 15 years . Coming up, we will talk to the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He was part of this whole thing, helping secure the release of prisoners from Cuba actually in 1984. Find out his role in Alan Gross' release -- Reverend Jesse Jackson live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)