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New Day

Being in Shape Lowers Risk of High Blood Pressure; Historic Thaw in U.S.-Cuba Relations; Russian Economy Nose-Dives

Aired December 18, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good to have you back with us.

In today's "NEW DAY, New You," we all know that exercise is good for us. But a new study shows that if you are in better shape, not only is your body slimmer, but so is your risk of having high blood pressure.

Let's turn to our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Good to have you with us. Tell us a little bit about this study, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Michaela, this was a huge study. More than 57,000 people. And what they found is when they put them on the treadmill, those who could work out the longest and the hardest, if you looked at them over the next 18 years, they were less likely to get high blood pressure, which means they were less likely to get heart attacks and strokes.

PEREIRA: OK, so there's folks working out right now, watching this segment from the elliptical or the treadmill. They're wondering, how much time on those machines do - or how much exercise do I need to get to start to see that blood pressure start to dip?

COHEN: Right. So experts tell us about 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week. So it's not huge. I mean that's not a huge investment. It's not every single day. So hopefully, you know, people can manage to work that in.

PEREIRA: And it's stuff that gets the heart pumping, right, the blood pumping?

COHEN: That's right.

PEREIRA: It's cardiovascular-type exercise, correct?

COHEN: Right, that's what you want to aim for. So elliptical, if you're, you know, on a treadmill and getting your heart rate up, that's a good thing. But I always want to add this note, Michaela.

PEREIRA: OK. COHEN: Some people who don't exercise a lot, the thought of doing exercise that's going to be strenuous enough to get their heart rate really going, it seems kind of intimidating.

PEREIRA: Right.

COHEN: Or they try to do too much and then they say, oh, this is just too much, I can't do it.

PEREIRA: Sure. Sure.

COHEN: So, do what you can. Start with what you can. And if what you can do is a 10 minute walk around the block, that's great. Start with that.

PEREIRA: Behind your picture, where I am at the big wall, there's a picture of people walking in New York's Central Park, and that's a good way to, you know, get out, get some fresh air.

COHEN: There you go.

PEREIRA: Start small.

COHEN: Right.

PEREIRA: It's no -- it's not lost on me that this study is coming out as people are likely planning those New Year's resolutions.

COHEN: Yes.

PEREIRA: And maybe this is what they can do, start small.

COHEN: Right. Exactly. Start small. That's really important. If you can't start big, start small.

PEREIRA: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, great to have you with us. Have a great day.

COHEN: Thanks. You, too.

PEREIRA: Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Michaela.

The historic thaw in U.S./Cuba relations, just the latest in President Obama's unprecedented actions. We'll break down the president's bold and controversial moves with our political experts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

We're coming to you from Little Havana in Miami. Now, this is a real focus for the community here, specifically the Cuban community. This is where they come to commensurate about things that have gone wrong in Cuba and sometimes to celebrate. We had a little bit of both here last night. And certainly the focus was President Obama. He has made history. Whether you like the move or not, this is something. Thawing relationships between Cuba. It's been in establishment since 1961, codified as law in the '90s and now the president wants to change course. It is also an example of what seems to be a new strategy that deserves discussion.

Let's bring in Ana Navarro, CNN political commentator, of course, and Marc Lamont Hill. You know him as well, CNN political commentator, host of "Huff Post Live."

Now, here's my point, Ana, and let -- you start with it. The president gets a beat-down in the midterm elections, his party but also him, and since then this flurry of activity by him, right? Take a look at what he's done with the deal with China, about immigration as executive action and now this, making history in Cuba. Is this strategy working for him going it alone?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think he tried for a while - tried unsuccessfully, failed at it, frankly, to get legislation done. He came in trying to be the uniter. Instead, he's been the divider. Probably the country is more antagonized, more divided, more polarized today than when he came in. And I think he's decided, well, you know, I can't do it through legislation, so I'm going to do what I can do through executive order, which is limited.

As you said, this is a thawing out. And this is a lot of symbolism, but it's not the lifting of the embargo. That he cannot do by executive order. Immigration, yes, he solved certain issues and addressed the problems of certain people, but it is not a permanent, legislative solution. So I think we're seeing this pattern on him (ph). And the timing here is not coincidental. Let's remember that we had what was supposed to be a very close congressional election going on here that ended up costing the Democrat his seat. I don't think they would have done this before that election. And we also had a close governor's race where I think there was some hope that the Democrat might have won. So I think that he waited until after the election to make sure that it wasn't an Al Gore 2000.

CUOMO: Right.

NAVARRO: Come November, we will remember, by the Cubans.

CUOMO: Politics is rarely accidental, right, moves?

NAVARRO: Right.

CUOMO: There's a lot of intentionality.

Marc, the pivot point is this, that the president is dealing with a toxic political environment and he can't get things done because there's a culture of obstructionism, so his promise of change has to be made manifest through his own actions and that's why he's doing this and it probably is the best he can do, but it's a show of strength, not weakness. Your take?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree, I think it's absolutely a show of strength. I would disagree with Ana's initial premise, which is that the president himself has been a divider rather than a uniter. I think that's been the fundamental challenge of this president is to respond to a Congress that has been stubbornly resistant to just about any type of legislative move proposed by the president. I think any type of progressive policy has been resisted by the Congress and, for that reason, he's been stuck in a very difficult place. I don't agree with all the president's policy decisions or ideologies, but he has made an effort to move the ball forward, which has been thwarted at every turn.

I think at this point, and this is where Ana is absolutely right, this is a timing issue. All policy moves are timing issues. All presidential decisions are timing issues. Post-election immigration just makes more sense. Post-election thawing or trying to normalize relations with Cuba just makes more sense. And I think it's also a legacy issue. I don't think the president wants to go down in history as someone who didn't get anything done. I think there's a positive move. It won't lift the embargo, but it is a positive step forward.

CUOMO: Or how -

NAVARRO: And this does not make -

CUOMO: Go ahead.

NAVARRO: This does not make the most (ph) sense right now.

CUOMO: Why?

NAVARRO: What it does is have less political cost, you know, that will -

CUOMO: What's the difference?

NAVARRO: Oh, the difference is that he's no longer up for election. That this is a purple state. That there's no longer congressional seats up for grabs here. That this is over. That he himself is no longer on the ballot and there won't be ballots while he is president.

HILL: That's why the timing makes sense.

NAVARRO: That's the huge difference.

You know, what would have made sense is for him to try to do immigration, for him to try to do legislation on these big issues when he had both the House and the Senate. And he didn't. And so, yes, -- so now --

CUOMO: Well, he couldn't. He couldn't.

NAVARRO: No, he chose not to. On immigration, with -- he chose not to - he chose not to spend the political - not to spend the political capital on that.

HILL: It's stunning -- it's stunning the amount of work that people -

CUOMO: That's a fair point. Marc, that - Ana's - Ana's making a fair point. Immigration. Let's break out immigration for a second.

HILL: Yes.

CUOMO: The fair point from Ana about immigration, that he could have do it - he could have done it and did not.

HILL: I mean, there's this idea that when the president -- the narrow window in which the president had a supermajority that he should have done the most progressive and innovative domestic policy initiative probably in the last 50 years, universal health care, and cap and trade, and immigration policy, I mean, he didn't have the political muscle, capital or resources to do all of those things. He prioritized. Do I wish he would have - do I think he should have done something different? Perhaps. And, I mean, I think that's up to everyone's decision. But I don't think it was - it's easy to say that he should have gotten immigration through. And even now immigration's a very tough thing to get through wholesale.

And it's not just the president's decision to wait until after an election. If you remember correctly, the Congress didn't want to deal with this issue in a substantive way post-election - or pre-election, excuse me.

CUOMO: Well, they don't want to deal with anything, Marc.

HILL: Very true.

CUOMO: I mean they're --

NAVARRO: Now, this was different from immigration through -

CUOMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: In that immigration -- is largely self-funded by fees. This, a lot of the funding for some of these changes has got to go through the Congress. Things like the confirmation of the ambassador.

CUOMO: Right.

NAVARRO: Things like funding for an embassy and funding for some of the regulatory changes that he wants to put through, and I think he's going to get a very tough fight.

CUOMO: Look, at a minimum, we have seen a little bit of change in perception here for the president. Let's put him against Putin, OK? Putin was like cleaning his cloth all summer long, right? We were baffled by how Vladimir Putin just had this new license to do whatever he did and Obama seemed to be backing away at every turn, or at least that was the perceptive reality, right? Now look at him. Putin, in this press conference he gave today, and maybe he's still going on, who knows, that he said, well, it's too early for me to say whether or not I'm going to run again. From Vladimir Putin. You know, as you hear that the (INAUDIBLE) is saying, well, I don't know, you've been a little too aggressive, these sanctions -

HILL: Exactly. CUOMO: Our ruble's crashing. And the president making these big, historic moves. It looks like he's had an advance.

NAVARRO: And isn't it ironic? We did sanctions there, we enforced them, strong sanctions, and we're bringing Putin into a weaker position.

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: Wait a minute.

NAVARRO: And at the same time we're appeasing the dictators 90 miles an hour.

HILL: Wait a minute.

CUOMO: But you think that it works well, do you think that we've seen progress in Cuba because of the sanctions? Hold on, Marc.

NAVARRO: Do I think we've seen progress in Cuba because of the sanctions? You know, I think we haven't seen a victory by the dictatorship because of the sanctions. I think the sanctions at this point are maybe symbolic if you want. But we are closer to the end of those dictators than we were 55 years ago. They're 80 some years old and they're in frail health. We haven't even seen Fidel Castro. For all we know he's "Weekend at Bernie's." They prop him up, dress him in an Adidas sweat suit.

HILL: Oh, God.

NAVARRO: And prop him up and bring out his corpse every now and then.

HILL: Oh, wow, I won't respond to that part of it.

CUOMO: I have that picture in my head now, Ana. Thank you very much.

HILL: But- - but our - -

CUOMO: Go ahead. Button up quickly. I've got to go.

HILL: Ana's made two points that I strongly disagree with. One, the point about sanctions to me is mind boggling. Again, we've had 60 years of sanctions, or nearly 60 years of sanctions, and no, all we've done is further isolate Cuba, undermine humanitarian and economic development in the country. We've hurt the wrong people. But, to the point about Putin, in the summer when we did those economic sanctions people said they weren't enough. People said the president wasn't tough enough. People ignored the fact that the toughest sanctions had to come from Europe because that's where the energy dependence was.

CUOMO: Right.

HILL: And so people say we were doing it wrong, and now that it's working, people are simply moving the ball and saying, why don't you do what you did with Putin out in Cuba? I mean, whatever the president does, they just move the target, they just keep changing the target to make it seem as if he's not doing enough.

CUOMO: Right.

HILL: It's unreasonable.

CUOMO: I hear you. Marc Lamont Hill, Ana Navarro, I'm here with Ana in her hometown.

NAVARRO: We're going to go have cafe con leche and test your Spanish.

CUOMO: Yes, that's good. because I don't know what you just said. Alisyn, back to you in New York.

CAMEROTA: Great stuff from Miami. Thanks so much for being on the ground there for us. It's been great to get a read on how the people are feeling, yes.

PEREIRA: You can hear the passion, and the noise, and the conversation. It's fantastic.

CAMEROTA: There's a lot going on there. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin, as we've been discussing, what is he saying about the collapsing economy and his own political future? We'll speak with the former ambassador to Russia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Russian President Vladimir Putin holding a three-plus hour news conference this morning. He said he's confident the country's crumbling economy can stabilize, though his own future, he admits, is uncertain. Thomas Pickering is the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, he's also a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Good morning, Mr. Ambassador.

THOMAS PICKERING, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: What a turnaround in fortunes for Vladimir Putin in just the space of a year. He was the king of the hill after the Sochi Olympics, he was annexing Crimea, he was showing aggression in Ukraine, and now today in the press conference, he's having to explain his country's crumbling economy and his own future. How do you explain this?

PICKERING: Well, it's very clear that the crumbling economy has been a major and significant impact on the Russian people, and they're asking questions now they weren't before. They were very happy with the triumphalist notion that Putin was in fact leading them into a brave new world. That's pretty well gone. He's been explaining why, in fact, sanctions are hurting him, but he's interestingly enough allotting that only 25 percent of the economic disruption. That's probably right. He himself, I think, was responsible for causing the initial decline, beginning in March with the Crimea invasion and that's had a real effect. And now, of course, he's been hit with a triple whammy. The oil price decline has really hit Russia very, very hard. And while they have strengthened the ruble overnight, I'm not sure that's going to continue, and his big bet has to be that the world will recover at some point and he'll have enough money left to be able to ride out the crisis before that happens and keep his people happy. That's a big bet.

CAMEROTA: It is a big bet.

PICKERING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: And he admitted in his press conference that his own future is uncertain. He doesn't know if he would seek re-election. Do you think that he survives this?

PICKERING: Well, if he survives this, I think certainly he will seek re-election. He's being canny like Western politicians and not coming out too early. He's in a very difficult situation now, the notion that he should turn to seek re-election at this stage is probably politically very unwise.

CAMEROTA: And yet, Mr. Ambassador, the public opinion polls in Russia still today, the A.P. just did a poll. It was at the beginning of December, so the economy was already taking a nose-dive, and 81 percent of Russia still supports Vladimir Putin. Compare that to 2012, before the annexing of Crimea and before the Olympics, and it was only 58 percent.

PICKERING: That's right. He's really strengthened himself with his robust action in Ukraine and his trumpeting of Russian nationalism. I expect, however, the first of December is still a ways back and that polls taken over the next couple of weeks will show a truer picture, and will show, in fact, the reflection of people standing in line with rubles in their hands in Russia, either to buy foreign exchange or high-value goods to guard against the decline which has been going on.

The ruble went down to 80, but stabilized back up to around 60 overnight and I think it's still a very problematic situation for Putin and Russia.

CAMEROTA: Ambassador Thomas Pickering, thanks so much for joining us on NEW DAY.

PICKERING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Michaela?

PEREIRA: All right. When we come back, we're going to have the Good Stuff. Stay tuned for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right. Chris said that I'm allowed to do the Good Stuff today.

CAMEROTA: Oh, wow.

PEREIRA: With his permission. Mr. Kent is certainly the Good Stuff.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) PEREIRA (voice-over): He is a beloved crossing guard from Lakewood, Texas. For decades he has made sure the kids are safe. However, Mr. Kent needs help. His wife is sick. The medical bills have been mounting. Just a few weeks ago his car was repossessed. Well, the fathers of Lakewood weren't going to stand for that.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA (on camera): You know how you get your attention of a crossing guard? You park your car in the middle of his crosswalk. Look what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to move it for us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's your car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's your car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, baby.

PEREIRA (voice-over): That's right. The dads got together, bought Mr. Kent a brand-new car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wouldn't trade Mr. Kent for the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything is good and I love you all so very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love you, buddy.

PEREIRA: And we love that community of Lakewood for doing that for a tremendous man, a member of their community who needs a little love and support this holiday season.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA: You did the Good Stuff really well.

PEREIRA (on camera): But I did okay?

CAMEROTA: I need a tissue.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: That's the mark of a Good Stuff.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Well, thanks so much for watching us with all of the breaking news today. We appreciate it. We'll see you tomorrow. It's time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello.

PEREIRA: Hi, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, have a great day.

PEREIRA: You, too.

COSTELLO: NEWSROOM starts now.