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At This Hour

Interview with Rep. Chris Van Hollen; Withering Criticism for Obama's New Cuba Policy; Putin Says U.S. Reigniting Cold War; Pope Helped Seal U.S./Cuban Deal; Sony Cancels Film, Sony Shares Up; Mumps Sidelining Professional Hockey Players

Aired December 18, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

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SEN. TED CRUZ, (R), TEXAS: This was a mistake. This is throwing an economic lifeline to the Castros at a moment when their regime was vulnerable. It was a serious mistake.

SCOTT WALKER, (R), WISCONSIN GOVERNOR: I think it's a bad idea. I think there's a reason why -- I don't think there's been any noticeable change towards making that a more free and prosperous country. There's a reason why we have the policy in the first place.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, (R), FLORIDA: I think we gave away too much. And I feel bad for all the human rights dissidents who are suffering today and will be suffering tomorrow and still have no freedom.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Withering criticism for the president's move to normalize relations with Cuba after more than 50 years.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us is Maryland Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, who was on that plane bringing Alan Gross home.

Thank you for joining us.

I can imagine it's been a bit of a heady time for you. Give us a brief word or two about what it was like to be with Alan Gross and his wife on the plane yesterday.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D), MARYLAND: Sure. The big moment was when we walked off the plane in Havana, went across the tarmac, we went into the building where Alan Gross was waiting, led by his wife, Judy Gross, who has spent the last five years relentlessly working to free Alan and to see Alan's big smile. He's lost some teeth, but he had a big smile, and for the first time he knew it was really the moment he was going to be free. There had been sort of ups and downs over the last five years in terms of hopes that we would get him home, but it was real. You can see it on his face. BERMAN: I think there's universal support and acclaim and happiness

to see Alan Gross here in the United States once again. Less universal are the opinions on the president's overall agreement to normalize relations with Cuba. When we led in to you, you heard from Republican politicians and some Democratic politicians, including Bob Menendez, who also lashed out against the agreement the president reached. "The Washington Post," which is a newspaper has largely been friendly to you and also friendly to the president, had an editorial that said, "On Wednesday, the Castros suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout from the Obama administration. The liberalization will provide Havana with a fresh source of desperately need hard currency and eliminate U.S. leverage for political reforms."

What's your response to that?

VAN HOLLEN: Look, I expect the different opinions. People have been saying for the last 54 years that the Castro regime is on its final legs. Any day our policy of isolation and punishing Cuba is going to result in regime change and democracy. For 54 years it didn't work. Well intentioned, but it clearly didn't work. What it did do was isolate the Cuban people and punish the Cuban people but actually helped sustain the Castro regime which, of course, has survived eight American presidents. When something is clearly not working, you usually try something else. I firmly believe that a policy of engagement with the Cuban people, more trade, more communication, more travel, will over time help open things up, not from the top down, but by creating more opportunity, a little more freedom on the island. Again, I think the burden is on the folks who say we should continue the current policy for another five years to say why it will be any different than the last 54.

PEREIRA: I want to ask you about -- you talk about punishing Cuba. We know among the changes in the policy was fleeing some of the members of the Cuban 5. We have some sound I want to play from daughter of one of the men who was shot down over international waters by one of the Cuban Five. Take a listen.

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MAREIENE ALEJANDRE TRIANA, FATHER KILLED BY RELEASED CUBAN: The only person that we had responsible for what happened to them, for him to be let go, it's a slap in the face to my dad.

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PEREIRA: What is your response to her, Congressman? You see her grief. You can hear it. It's palpable.

VAN HOLLEN: Obviously, our hearts go out to anybody who has lost a father, a parent, regardless of the circumstances. But it's also important to remember that as part of this agreement, we're bringing home an individual who was a great asset for the United States, a Cuban national who is in prison right now, been there for 25 years, was going to rot away the rest of his life in Cuban prison for having provided the United States government with very important intelligence information, information important to our national security. He's coming home. We don't know his name because it can't be disclosed. But the reality is that person would die in jail without this agreement.

And I think it's really important to send a message to people around the world who are willing to risk their lives in order to provide the United States with important national security information that we're not going to forget them. So having that person come back sends an important signal to people who want to help the United States and help strengthen our national security around the world.

PEREIRA: Congressman Van Hollen, thanks for joining us. Best of the holidays to you, sir.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you. Happy holidays.

BERMAN: Other news we're following @THISHOUR, Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhohkar Tsarnaev, appeared in court this morning for the first time in more than a year. This was his final pretrial hearing before jury selection begins in his murder trial set for January 5th. Tsarnaev was asked if he was pleased with his lawyers and was up to date on information about his case. Each time the 21-year-old answered yes. Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to a 30-count indictment.

PEREIRA: In Nigeria, word of more attacks by the terrorist group Boka Haram, saying they kidnapped at least 185 women and children in a raid earlier this week in the northeastern part of the country. The insurgents also killed at least 32 people in that raid. This is the same group that kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school in April. Almost all of those girls are still missing.

BERMAN: Facing a crumbling economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin is lashing out, and he's accusing the United States of reigniting the Cold War. The Russian leader made the comments today in a wide ranging news conference in Moscow, his annual four-hour-long festive affair. As far as Russia's actions in Ukraine and Crimea, the president says he is protecting Russian interests. He says the U.S. is creating new military threats around the world.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): Russia's only main contribution where it is supporting its national interests in a harsher and harsher way. We're not attacking anyone. We're not warmongers. We are only defending our interests. And the dissatisfaction of our Western partners are huge because of this.

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BERMAN: Right now, falling oil price and Western sanctions are taking a toll on Russia's economy. The ruble has been in free fall over the last several days. The Russian leader says it should take about two years for the economy there to recover.

PEREIRA: Fair amount of optimism from the Russian leader.

Ahead @THISHOUR, President Obama, Castro and the pope. How the Vatican helped seal the deal between the U.S. and Cuba.

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PEREIRA: The release of Alan Gross from a prison in Cuba didn't happen overnight. It involved a year of secret delicate negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba, and it even included a personal plea from Pope Francis. And on the pontiff's 78th birthday yesterday, his wish was granted. President Obama, in fact, thanked him for his role.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to thank his Holiness Pope Francis whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be rather than simply settling for the world as it is.

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PEREIRA: Want to bring in Peter Kornbluh from Havana, the co-author of "Back Channel to Cuba, The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana." What an appropriate book to be talking about at this time.

Peter, I was in Havana when Pope John Paul II visited that country in 1998. There's been intense interest at the Vatican in Cuban affairs for some time. But this, what's been going on the last year seems drastically different from that. This isn't Pope Francis blessing the deal. There were negotiations at the Vatican here.

PETER KORNBLUH, AUTHOR: The Vatican has actually played a role as an intermediary between the Raul Castro government and the Barack Obama administration since 2009. The Vatican was involved in pressing four meetings then, the church in Cuba as well has played an interesting role and a number of other countries have also. What's been going on over the last year, the secret diplomacy, top-secret diplomacy to bring the two countries together for talks to arrive at this final agreement is really a concerted effort, kind of behind-the-scenes diplomacy? There's a long history of this that we have recorded in our book, but it really shows that, out of the public eye, two countries can arrive at a new dawn, a new day, as Barack Obama has put it, in future relations.

PEREIRA: It's interesting when we look at this pope and the things he has done since his papacy began both around the world it has challenged catholic doctrine, but also on the international front. Of course, it's not lost on us that he is Latin American, very significant.

KORNBLUH: Yes, and his country, Argentina, have been in the forefront of efforts, along with Brazil and Mexico, to push the Obama White House for better relations with Cuba. And that started shortly after Barack Obama was elected president. He received a lot of pressure about changing policy towards Cuba at the first Summit of the Americas that he attended in 2009. And the Vatican has stepped up its role, obviously. The pope is the perfect moral interlocutor. Barack Obama met with the pope last spring. And a number of us analysts in Washington, who are familiar with how secret diplomacy worked, thought that was the point where messages would be passed from the Cuban government to the president of the United States, through the Vatican, and the pope was going to be enlisted to continue to be an active intermediary, interlocutory between the two countries until this very moment.

BERMAN: Peter, let me ask you about the Castros. You're in Havana. Raul Castro is 83. Fidel Castro is 88. What does this deal, do you think, mean to them personally, and what do you think it means to their legacy?

KORNBLUH: Well, I think that this change in U.S. policy is a tremendous legacy for President Obama, frankly. It's a foreign policy victory of great significance. It's changing 55 years of policy. He has taken the courageous step that none of his predecessors since Dwight Eisenhower have taken to change a failed policy and promote U.S. interests along the way and Cuban interests. For the Castros, certainly, it means the validation of their revolution. They have wanted to have the mutual respect of the United States, be treated like an equal party. They have been saying this to the United States literally since August of 1961 when the first secret meeting between the United States and Cuba took place, Che Guevara meeting with a Kennedy aid, Richard Goodwin, in August of 1961, in asking for better relations, mutual respect. For the Castros -- Fidel has lived long enough to see this. Raul has an agenda to modernize and transform the Cuban economy from socialism to capitalism. He needs the United States for that. And Cubans don't want to live in the threatening national security -- under the dark shadow of a national security threat from the United States. They prefer to not deal with that and have U.S. Tourists and people come here and travel and spend money and have normal relations.

PEREIRA: Peter Kornbluh, sounds like you'll have another book that will be in the offing. Thanks for joining us from Havana today. We appreciate it.

KORNBLUH: Well, we need to write the new chapter for this one. That's for sure.

Thanks for having me.

PEREIRA: All right.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, Sony pulls the plug. Now "The Interview" may not ever see the light of day, not only on home video.

PEREIRA: Normally, it's an injury that keeps a hockey player off the ice. Not this time. A highly contagious disease has sidelined a bunch of players. You'll get the latest, ahead @THISHOUR.

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BERMAN: There is outrage this morning and serious questions after Sony canceled the release of the film "The Interview" after a cyber terror attack that appears to have been sponsored by North Korea and also threats of violence on theaters if the film went ahead. Now, what's happening on Wall Street appears to be a different story. Sony shares are up since this all happened.

Let's talk about that. We're joined by senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter. Also here is crisis management and damage control expert, Frasier Seitel.

Frasier, what about that? Sony is not the United States of America. Sony is not, you know, even 1940 England with Chamberlain. Sony is a company with shareholders. They need to keep the stock holders happy and make money. This an argument to be said that Sony is doing this because it's a good business decision?

FRASIER SEITEL, CRISIS MANAGEMENT & DAMAGE CONTROL EXPERT: Stopping the film? Absolutely. They have botched the public relations from start to today. They've been consistent in their awful handling of it. The first thing they did fired their pr guy because the CEO's husband was mad that he didn't get her on some panel. Then the embarrassing e-mails. Then they wimped out with the theaters forcing them to cancel this awful movie that they should have bellied up to the bar and canceled. They hired David Voyce (ph) at a thousand dollars an hour to threaten CNN and everybody else not to use this material and now they've hired an army of P.R. consultants to clean up the mess. The first thing these geniuses suggest, go and meet with Al Sharpton. If they thought Kim Jong-Un was a snake, wait until they meet with Al Sharpton. It has been a lose-lose-lose public relations strategy. Breathtaking in its stupidity. Other than that, it was fine.

PEREIRA: Other than that, it was fine he says.

(LAUGHTER)

Brian, you got off the phone with him. You've been on the line. What are they saying?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: With that army of consultants, the way you put it. Something I was asking them, and there's no answer yet, is it over now?

PEREIRA: Yeah, a big surprise supposed to come on Christmas day.

STELTER: All the revelations you're talking about, the embarrassing revelations and e-mails. This was a series of leaks every couple days put on the Internet. Will the hackers stop now, now that Sony has given in and decided not to run this movie. It couldn't run the movie because none of the theaters were willing to run it, so they were in a tight spot there. Is it over now? The answer is we don't know. We don't know if there will be the Christmas surprise the hackers threatened.

BERMAN: I will give the flip side. Perhaps it was a sound business decision for Sony to pull the picture. Sony Pictures is a content company. And part of the idea of content and artistic expression is freedom of speech.

SEITEL: You take risks. BERMAN: And freedom of expression. What does this say to the

artistic community? What kind of message, pr message, does this send to the artistic community that Sony just rolled over?

SEITEL: Here's my answer. Don't hire Seth Rogan to create a movie killing somebody who's still alive. That would be my message to them. What I would do, what my public relations strategy would be for Sony, is like Bill Cosby, there's nothing you can do to this now to make this better. It's a disaster. Get off the radar screen. Don't meet with anybody. Create a good movie, and start to pick up the pieces from this disaster.

PEREIRA: You think that's all they can do?

SEITEL: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Brian, a lot of people are wondering when and if this is going to leak on-line.

STELTER: Yeah. Is this movie going to show up?

PEREIRA: Right. But then the concern those folks will face a hack attack in their own right?

STELTER: That's right. For example, Comcast, sources close to Comcast say they're not willing to put this on their VOD system. 20 percent of the homes in the United States have Comcast. A lot of you are watching Comcast. They don't want to make this movie available that way, partly for concerns about being hacked themselves. And I think what happened yesterday, as these theaters backed out, then Sony went out and reached out to digital distributors, and thought any of you take this movie, help us sell it? The answer was basically no.

I wonder whether it will leak on-line illegally, or become available in some other way. Will someone put it on Pirate Bay or some other website? I have to guess some day some how we will see this movie.

BERMAN: It is your patriotic duty to watch it or watch Team America.

(LAUGHTER)

Ponder that, everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

Frasier Seitel, Brian Stelter, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

For more of Brian's fantastic reporting visit, CNNmoney.com. Do not miss "Reliable Sources," Sundays at 11:00 a.m. eastern.

PEREIRA: Ahead here, a disease usually associated with childhood taking out a growing number of NHL players. Including this guy, the game's biggest star.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: Professional hockey players are falling fast, not because of cross-checks. These hockey players are getting the mumps.

PEREIRA: Five different teams, at least 15 players, affected, including this guy, the game's -- one of the game's biggest stars, Sidney Crosby. Look at his face. He is expected back in the lineup tonight after missing the Pittsburgh Penguins past three games.

Let's talk to our medical correspondent, our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

This is interesting that this is kind of racing through the NHL. What's happening here?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Michaela, this actually happens in what are called congested groups, groups that -- I'm not talking nasal congested. They live in congested situations. They travel together, play together. This happens on college campuses with some frequency. Several hundred people a year, you are involved in these mump outbreaks.

What happens is -- this is interesting -- it's often a visiting European that is the culprit. What I mean by that is that Europeans aren't vaccinated against mumps the way we are, and so a European will come to this country, come to perhaps visit a college, and will infect people, because the person has the mumps and doesn't realize it. In this country, people are vaccinated against the mumps but by the time you're a young adult that vaccination has waned to a certain extent.

BERMAN: Are there boosters? We are vaccinated for the mumps. And warn us, if we get it, what can we expect?

COHEN: Right. There are boosters that adults are supposed to get if in a high-risk group, like a health care worker. But, routinely adults do not get boosters in this country.

What you can expect is to be miserable for a week or two with a fever, some of the swelling we saw on that hockey player. Now very rarely, there are fertility problems for men. For both genders, you can get meningitis. But those are rare. Usually it's just an awful couple weeks and you're done.

PEREIRA: Let's shift focus. let's do another virus while we're at it.

COHEN: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Flu season, kind of the start of it. Have you heard any indication of how bad it is?

COHEN: So far, it doesn't seem terribly awful. It's in -- there are high levels of it in seven states. That's not so unusual for this time of year. What is unusual this year, Michaela, is that the vaccine may not be working so well. There is a strain that is mutated, and so it is not in the vaccine, and it's a particularly harsh strain. What you can do this year, like every year, do your best not to get the flu. Someone is sick, stay away from them. Wash your hands. If you haven't gotten vaccinated, do get vaccinated. Even with the new strain, the vaccine will help you.

PEREIRA: Lessen the symptoms you get if you get it at all.

BERMAN: There's always chicken soup.

PEREIRA: Mom's chicken soup, the best.

COHEN: I believe in that. Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Absolutely. Wholeheartedly.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for that.

COHEN: Thanks.

PEREIRA: If you want more information, visit CNNhealth.com.

That wraps it up for you and I for today.

BERMAN: Indeed, it does.

Thank you so much for joining us @THISHOUR. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.