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U.S. and Cuba Begin Historic Talks Today; Analysis of State of the Union Address; Fake Baby Steals Scene in "American Sniper"

Aired January 21, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: One of the more emotional moments of the President's speech was last night was his salute to an American contractor recently freed from a Cuban prison as part of a new era of U.S.-Cuban relations.

We'll have more on that in just a minute. But first, the President's comments.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And after years in prison, we're overjoyed that Alan Gross is back where he belongs. Welcome home, Alan. We're glad you're here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Historic talks are getting under way today. Arriving in Havana: the highest level U.S. delegation in decades. Their talks with the Cuban government are aimed at eventually loosening the trade embargo that's been in place since 1962. Talks are scheduled for today and tomorrow more talks in both Havana and Washington will come later.

But guess what? There's a big Russian spy ship off the coast of Cuba and everybody is wondering why it's there. Let's head to Cuba right now to Havana and CNN's Patrick Oppmann. Tell us more about that ship -- Patrick.

PATRICK OPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And when we say "there", we mean right there. And if there's really an image of Cuba being at the crossroads, perhaps it's the images that we're seeing today. I'll ask cameraman Jerry Simon to zoom in on the "Viktor Leonov", Russian spy ship that quite surprisingly just arrived in Havana Harbor.

We're in downtown Havana a lot of the old Havana which is usually where tourist cruise ships dock and instead we have this Russian spy ship. You can see the antennas all over the ship, the dome. That's over high tech spy equipment used to soak up whether it's cell phone calls, e-mails, any kind of electronic communication presumably only 90 miles away from the United States it would be targeting the U.S. And it's come here twice in the past but the fact that it arrived yesterday has a lot of people talking. Then the other images that we're seeing today of U.S. diplomats sitting down for even more rare talks with their Cuban counterparts. The assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson due to arrive in Havana in just a few hours -- the highest level diplomat to visit here in 35 years. Her mission here will be to restart diplomatic relations with Cuba and U.S. officials say it's a question of when, not if, there will be once again, a U.S. embassy with an American flag flying over Havana -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm just so fascinated by this Russian spy ship. I'm just going to ask you another question about it. Are they disembarking? Do you see Russian sailors on deck? What more do you see with the ship as far as activity is concerned?

OPPMANN: They have not. It came in last night. We asked Cuban officials about it. All they would say is that any naval ship that comes to Cuba with peaceful intentions is welcome. Obviously some in the U.S. might argue with the ship's intentions here. Last night we heard them sing the Russian anthem as they lowered the Russian flag.

They have not disembarked. Last year they parked in the same area of Havana. They actually got out. We saw them buying quite a bit of Cuban Crystal Beer and Havana rhum and talking to some of the Kuwanas on shore and when we tried to interview them, they ran back to the ship.

This time so far at least, they're saying aboard -- were hearing they're going to be here for several more days. If they are listening and I'm guessing they are, we would love to talk.

COSTELLO: Hi, Russian sailors. Hi, Vladimir Putin. I'm sorry to joke about it but it's just so bizarre. Patrick Oppmann -- thanks so much. I appreciate it. I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Democrats lost big in the midterm elections but you would never know it listening to Barack Obama at the State of the Union last night. His speech was described as in your face, defiant and upbeat. But perhaps the President himself summed it up best.

I have no more campaigns to run. My only agenda -- I know because I won both of them.

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COSTELLO: All right. That attitude is not sitting well with many Republicans. To talk about this, we're joined by Sean Spicer. he's the communications director for the Republican National Committee. Hi -- Sean.

SEAN SPICER, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Good morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning -- Sean. It seems pretty clear to me that the spirit of bipartisanship won't be shining in 2015. SPICER: I think we actually like it to. I think if you ask most

Republicans they want to get stuff done. But last night was somewhat divorced from reality. In 2009 when the President's party did well, he said elections have consequences. When we did very well, as you pointed out in the intro, he seems to sort of do the in-your-face talk about veto threats, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to go it alone. I'm going to sign executive orders.

I think that he can speak about bipartisanship and they're great platitudes and it's a great speech when it comes to that but at the end of the day the reality is do you want to reach across the aisle and work together? And I think there are some areas where we could do that. But the President has to realize that it's not a one-way street and the constitution lays out that there are equal branches of government that play a role in crafting our laws.

COSTELLO: It seems to me that tit for tat has already started because as you know, Republican lawmakers reached out to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, and asked him to address a joint session of Congress. They didn't bother to the President. As Dana Bash put it, it was meant as a poke in the eye to President Obama. Is this what we should expect the next two years -- this tit for tat thing going on?

SPICER: No. I also don't think that the President can sign executive order after executive order, ignore Congress, go around Congress and then when the speaker reaches out to have prime minister address a joint session which is within the prerogative of the Speaker of the House, the same way that he invited the President to come at the State of the Union, that somehow everyone gets all upset.

So this is a little bit different. I mean haven't heard a lot of clamoring from the left and from the media about all the President's executive actions on major policy issues. Inviting someone to give a speech to a joint session is a little -- not exactly on the same level.

COSTELLO: Ok. Well, I would like to ask you this too because CNN did a poll right after the President's speech about some of his plans to help the middle class. I think that both parties agree that the middle class is hurting right now and both sides desire to lift people out of poverty -- right. Am I right about that?

SPICER: Yes. You pointed out in your op-ed. I think there's an agreement on that.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. I feel great about that. I think that's fantastic.

So the CNN poll found that after the President's speech, 72 percent of respondents think the President's ideas will move the country in the right direction. In other words, they like the child care tax credits. They like the free community college. They like paid sick leave. They like maternity leave. Even if you don't want to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for these things, shouldn't Republicans also being addressing these things because these are real problems that the middle class is grappling with. Do you know how much child care costs in this country?

SPICER: I'm well aware of how much child care costs. I live it every day. But what I think the difference is -- what I think the difference is that the President wants a Washington-based solution for every problem. He wants to raise taxes and have Washington answer that. I think community colleges are a tremendous asset to our country and there are many people who benefit from them or tech school versus going to a four-year school. I totally agree on that.

I think the difference whether it's alleviating poverty or getting people higher education through the higher education system is the way we do it.

The President wants to do everything based on Washington, based on higher taxes -- a very old model where everything needs to be controlled. I think that we look at this as sort of how do we grow the economy? How do we make people's wages go up? Instead of trying to figure out how we --

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COSTELLO: But the only two things I've heard from Republicans --

SPICER: Hold on. Hold on.

COSTELLO: Ok -- go ahead. I'll let you finish.

SPICER: I was just going to say I think that when you tell people would you like free community college, who is going to say no? Who is going to say -- the President with next year's State of the Union, would you like free cable? I mean no one's going to say no to that. I think that the problem is that it's not free. There's somebody -- and those are called taxpayers -- that pick up the bill.

And when the President can go out and say I propose the following free stuff and he proposed free Obamacare and everyone says that's great and then this year their premiums went up. They lost their doctor. I think the problem is that it's a great sales job but no one is explaining here are the consequences. It's like the fine print that people always complain about they get looped into like an infomercial.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans in this country. Because you know, Republicans often talk about Barack Obama being Robin Hood -- right, taking from the rich to help the poor. That might not fly with many Americans these days because you know what's trending on twitter this morning? Rich people problems.

They're mocking rich people. And here's why. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of income gains went to the wealthiest one percent. And that's happened over a long period of time.

I'll give you another stat. From 1979 until 2011, income for the bottom 20 percent of households rose 48 percent. For the top one percent, it rose 200 percent. There is something wrong here that has to be fixed. SPICER: Well, there's three things that are wrong. I'll give you two

stats. When Barack Obama took office, there was $10 trillion of debt in this country. There's now over $18 trillion of debt. When he got into office, he claimed it was unpatriotic to have $10 trillion because President Bush had seen 4 trillion increase during his time. I think that when --

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COSTELLO: Hold on.

SPICER: Ok fine -- fair enough. Fair enough. I'll concede all of that. But here's the other point. Last year we continued to see the highest amount of revenue come into the federal government. The problem I have is not that people -- and no one wants to pay taxes. We acknowledge it as a reality of living in the free and amazing society that we live in.

But the answer -- the question I have before we continue to tax anyone, why are we looking at the revenue side and saying wait a second, we bring in plenty of money and we're spending out of control. And no one wants to talk about this. The President didn't mention debt once last night.

COSTELLO: Sean -- I'm going to interrupt you for the best reason. Kevin McCarthy is now speaking about inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to address the joint session of Congress. Let's listen in. Please standby.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), CALIFORNIA: At the time when he said he wanted to work together. But I found places that we can -- cyber security. He said hire more vets. We already have a bill that passed the floor and moving forward.

But I believe that if you listen to the American public on priorities there's a new poll that came out printed even before his speech that said number one, 85 percent, creating jobs -- priority for all of us.

When you listen to the rosy numbers that the President gave, he skipped over the participation rate when you look at unemployment. It's the lowest point, 62.7 percent since 1978 at the time of Jimmy Carter.

What does participation rate mean? That means those are the people in this economy that have given up. They've given up looking. That means they've given up on their dreams. They've given up on their future. That's why creating jobs should be number one. That's why it is with this Congress.

Second is defeating and dismantling ISIS. Third is reducing the deficit -- $18 trillion of our debt. On, passing legislation to secure the border with Mexico, 58 percent. We'll have a bill marked up today and move that next week.

At the bottom of the numbers closing Gitmo and addressing climate change -- I think it's time for a new beginning with a new American Congress that we focus on the priorities of America putting us back to work and putting us on the right track. No more top down but bottom up.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R), MAJORITY WHIP: Congress has been working for a few years now on cyber security. You heard the President last night talk about cyber attacks. This is a real opportunity where the President can work with Congress to further solve this problem. We passed legislation last year to increase the sharing between federal agencies as it relates to cyber attacks and that bill was actually signed.

But as you can see, there are still threats both in the government sector and in the private sector whether it's individual hackers or foreign governments that continue to attack our networks. You've seen millions of Americans have their data and their privacy placed at risk.

So Congress is continuing this year to work on legislation to increase the ability for private sector and government sharing of the attacks that are out there, the real threats of cyber attacks while also making sure that individual privacy is a very top priority. So there's a real opportunity where we've got an opportunity for the President to work with --

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COSTELLO: A baby doll masquerading as the real deal is the latest target of critics of "American Sniper". Jeanne Moos has more for you

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JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to resist sniping at "American Sniper" once you noticed what's wrong with this scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That baby looks like it's rubber.

MOOS: She may sound like she's crying but she doesn't have a heartbeat and movie goers weren't fooled.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a fake baby. Like why couldn't they get a real one?

MOOS: Nor was this movie critic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, during that scene which is a heavy scene -- I started laughing. And then I like bite my hand because nobody else was reacting.

MOOS: But they are now with tweets like if that fake baby from "American Sniper" doesn't get a best supporting fake baby nomination, I'll be outraged. One moviegoer even posted this doll looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like the hair. MOOS: The hair is caught in the --

Bradley Cooper and his movie wife Sienna Miller did their best to make the fake baby convincing but --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that baby hit, everything went away except that baby.

MOOS: Journalist Mark Harris joked nice candid shot of one of the actors who worked with Bradley Cooper in "American Sniper". The filmmakers did try to use a real baby but things went amiss. In a since-deleted tweet, the screenwriter Jason Hall said "Hate to ruin the fun but real baby number one showed up with a fever and real baby number two was a no show." Director Clint Eastwood voice, "He made the doll, kid". Now dolls are popping up in mockery.

Why would Clint Eastwood settle for a fake?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eastwood shoots so fast that he's notorious for one or two takes, then you move on. I'm guessing the baby was the last thing he cared about in that scene.

MOOS: It seems like the kind of thing you can go down to Toys R Us and pick up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MOOS: But fake baby now has her own Twitter account and tweeted, "I'm not straight from Toys R Us -- thank you very much. In the midst of this deadly, serious scene -- we're obsessed with Bradley Cooper moving his thumb to make the baby's arm move. Cooper deserves an award for best grunt while picking up a practically weightless plastic baby.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

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COSTELLO: That looks so fake. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

NEWSROOM with John Berman after a break.

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