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First Family Starting Vacation in Hawaii; President Gives Yearend Press Conference; North Korea Claims It Is Being Falsely Accused by United States for Hacking into Sony Pictures; Former Hacker Discusses Cyber Attack Attempts on U.S. Government; President Announces Normalizing of Diplomatic Relations with Cuba; Winter Storms Threatening U.S. East and Midwest; Singer with Tourette's Syndrome Uploads Songs to YouTube; Process for Making of Bubble Wrap Examined; Former Killer Whale Catcher Turned Conservationist Discusses Career Change

Aired December 20, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow is Misty Copeland's finale performance of the American Ballet Theater's "Nutcracker." Next she will make her American debut in "Swan Lake" with the Washington Ballet in April.

President Obama might be starting his Christmas vacation, but after a cyber-terror attack he still has a lot on his plate. What he's focusing on today.

Plus days after historic policy change with the U.S., Cuban President Raul Castro speaks to parliament. What he says about the trade embargo and Cuba's status as a terrorist state. And the holiday rush home is just a few days away, and there's a big storm already causing trouble. We have the forecast coming up.

Hello again everybody. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM.

President Obama and the first family in Hawaii. They landed in Honolulu overnight to begin their holiday vacation, but before he left Washington the president held a yearend news conference highlighting administration accomplishments. White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski is traveling with the president, joining us live right now from Honolulu. So what is the president doing today? He said he was hoping to relax or at least have some calm moments in his fourth quarter.

(LAUGHTER)

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. He seemed really ready for a vacation. Look at this place. Good morning from Waikiki Beach.

They stay in a house that they rent. This is a pretty secluded neighborhood. We saw some pictures of it. It looked pretty quiet there before he left, the Secret Service preparing for his arrival. And the family arrived pretty much in the middle of the night. So we expect today to be full of relaxation. But you're right. He made this -- he gave this address yesterday, his

end of the year press conference, a long list of the administration's accomplishments, and we've been hearing that. Almost every time he makes an announcement he kind of gives the good news first, sort of the state of things, almost sounded like a mini state of the union address. And he said when you look at virtually any metric America is better off now than before he took office. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Meanwhile around the world America is leading. We're leading the coalition to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL, a coalition that includes Arab partners. We're leading the international community to check Russian aggression in Ukraine. We are leading the global fight combat Ebola in West Africa, and we are preventing an outbreak from taking place here at home.

We're leading efforts to address climate change, including last month's joint announcement with China that's already jumpstarting new progress in other countries. We're writing a new chapter in our leadership here in the Americas by turning a new page on our relationship with the Cuban people. And in less than two weeks, after more than 13 years, our combat mission in Afghanistan will be over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: OK. Well, that was a lot right there. He got into some other topics too. He did say, though, he's ready for a vacation, and he has a long list of movies he wants to watch but he wouldn't say whether "The Interview" was one of them.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: That's what I was about to ask.

KOSINSKI: The movie on North Korea that Sony has pulled. And I think one of the most remarkable things in that address that he gave was that he wished that Sony had talked to him before they pulled that movie from theaters. He called that a mistake. And I don't think too many people were expecting him to weigh in so definitively and with such an opinion on that, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Yes. And we heard the CEO say he can pull some strings if he wants, if he, the president, really wants to see that movie. And I'm sure he can see it on vacation or any time if he really wanted to. All right, Michelle Kosinski, thank you so much from Honolulu. We'll check back with you.

All right, now to the story that has captured the headlines for weeks now, that devastating cyber-attack on Sony pictures. North Korea went on the offensive today, blasting the U.S. for linking Pyongyang to the attack. Alexandra Field joining us now from New York on that. Alexandra, North Korea issuing a very wordy statement.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, in typical North Korean style. This is very similar to some of the writing we've seen from them in the past. This comes from their state run news agency. It also includes a very bizarre request, saying that the United States should work together with North Korea on a joint investigation into this hacking. It says that if U.S. does not cooperate, if they continue to name North Korea as having backed this cyber-attack, that there will be consequences.

It's a lengthy statement. Here's part of it. They say this about the U.S., "Whoever is going to frame our country for a crime should present concrete evidence." It goes on to say "America's childish investigation result and its attempt to frame us for this crime shows their hostile tendency towards us." And then it says "We will not tolerate the people who are willing to insult our supreme leader, but even when we retaliate, we will not target innocent moviegoers. The retaliation will target the ones who are responsible and the originators of the insult."

And Fredricka, you heard Michelle talking about this. The president is addressing this head on and the White House is saying there will be retaliation but that will come from the U.S. directed towards North Korea. The question now is what kind of tactics could be employed.

WHITFIELD: Right, big question there. Alexandra Field, thank you so much.

All right, now to some new developments out of Havana. President Raul Castro applauding the White House decision to begin normalizing relations between the two countries. In a speech to the country's national assembly earlier he also cautioned there's a long road ahead for the two countries. CNN's Patrick Oppmann was at this morning's address. So we just heard that there was a lot of praise from Raul Castro, but what more was he willing to reveal to the Cuban people?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This talk, this speech really seemed directed not just to the Cuban people but really the elites in the Cuban government and military. Raul Castro is perhaps assuring some people that he's not selling out the revolution, that normalized relations with the U.S., at least in his opinion, will not affect his hold on power. You know, he said that yes the U.S. will be talking with Cuba and that there will be, he expects, an embassy, a U.S. embassy here in Havana, a Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C.

But as he said that Cuba will not alter its domestic or foreign policy in any way to please the U.S. So he was complimentary of President Obama but said that the revolution will continue. He said the revolution he felt would continue for another 570 years. So very optimistic, much more optimistic than many people who feel that this is the waning days of the revolution. Raul Castro of course is 83- years-old. There's a lot of discussion about who will succeed him, whether the young people here feel the same revolutionary spirit as, as they're called here, the historic generation does.

Raul Castro was very clear even though some concessions have been made that he is, as some people would say here, sitting down to negotiate with the enemy, that at least in his opinion he hasn't sold anything out. He did confirm something interesting -- confirmed something interesting, Fred, which is that he will be in Panama in April for a hemisphere summit where Barack Obama will also be attending. So certainly some anticipation building up for that meeting. We'll see if there's a handshake, if there's a meeting, if there's more historic agreements struck when the two men see each other in April in Panama.

WHITFIELD: Gosh. So Patrick you mentioned Raul Castro, 83-years-old. So what about that next generation of political leaders? Have there ever been any hints of someone else who is either being groomed by the Castros or whether there's anyone who is waiting in the wings who has been bold enough at this juncture to reveal their political aspirations?

OPPMANN: Being bold in Cuban politics is usually not a recipe for success. People over the years who suggested they would like the job, they are doing something else right now. But there's a man name Miguel Diaz-Canel, two years ago he was picked by Raul Castro, elevated to rule of first vice president. He was there today by Raul Castro's side. He was born after the revolution. Not a man we know very well. He's not someone that certainly U.S. officials have had any access to, foreign media sees very little of. He's obviously got to be closely guarded so no mistakes are made, nothing too revealing.

But it's his job to lose right now. We don't really know how he feels about this deal. Raul Castro kept this deal a closely guarded secret. His daughter Mariela told me the other day that she even didn't know until it was announced that there were negotiations. Raul Castro led himself and told very, very few people up until of course this week when the whole world found out in quite spectacular fashion.

WHITFIELD: Wow. I guess they have something in common with the White House because they kept it secret for 18 months. That too is pretty extraordinary. Patrick Oppmann, thanks so much from Havana.

All right, a big winter storm threatening to make holiday travel a mess this week even those folks look like they are having fun right now. California snowboarders making the best of what could be a bad situation for others. What we can expect, all of us, over the holidays, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A blast of winter is heading to the east and the Midwest right in the middle of the busy Christmas holiday travel week, and it's going cause some major delays on the roads and in the skies. CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis with us now. I wish I could say we can count on you for some good news, but I don't think folks are going to welcome this news.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Not so much. And AAA says that they're estimating about 99 million people to be traveling. Most of those, about 90 percent of those people are going to be on the roadways.

If you're headed into the Pacific Northwest you've got the powerful storm system there right now. All the way from Vancouver to Seattle to Portland, and just to the north of San Francisco, that rain is going to pile up. I looked at some already rainfall reports. And in Curry County in Oregon they are seeing about three, three and a half inches of rain, more in store.

All right, now we take you through Sunday. Here's going to be the troublemaker, area of low pressure moves across the Great Lakes. And the computer models are still trying to figure out exactly what is going to happen, but right now it looks like if you're traveling in to or out of Chicago's international airport, Minneapolis or Detroit, you are looking at snow. This comes on Christmas Eve, wet weather out ahead of it. So places like New York City, wish I could tell you there's going to be a white Christmas, it's going to be a wet Christmas. Soggy skies persist there even as we go into Christmas Eve and therefore Christmas Day. It looks like some of that begins to pull away, but that cold air is going to be on the backside of this and it's going to be brisk.

So once the rain tapers off it looks like you're due for some much colder temperatures. New York City, Christmas day, 57 degrees. And we're looking at Chicago where readings go from the 40s into the 30s and you're expecting snowfall. Just how much is hard to say at least at this point. But across the west the snowfall, one to three feet across the cascades, the northern Sierra Nevada.

Speaking of Sierra Nevada, maybe we have that video out of Kingvale. This is just to the west of Tahoe. It's beautiful. It's lovely. Unless you don't have chains on your tires or unless you're driving a truck, and then this is a whole different ballgame. But Fredricka, it is going slow going through the Midwest. Millions of people are going to be affected. As I mentioned AAA says 99 million people, and it's a record number that are hitting the highways.

WHITFIELD: With those gas prices so low too great incentive to hit the road. Already, Karen Maginnis, thank you so much.

All right, could the Sony hack have been prevented? I'll ask a man who was once an infamous hacker himself on what we should be doing differently to stop the next attack from happening.

But first a young singer-songwriter with Tourette syndrome is helping others face their challenges and live their dreams through music. We have the story in this weeks' "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jamie Grace grew up of growing up becoming a singer-songwriter. But before she could begin to pursue her career in music she got some news that put her dreams on hold. At the age of 12 Jamie was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome.

JAMIE GRACE, SINGER/SONGWRITER: I wanted to be a singer. I had no idea what Tourette syndrome was. All I found were clips of movies of these actors yelling and cursing and, I remember seeing it at 11 years old and crying my eyes out. And I spent the next year being absolutely miserable. GUPTA: Instead of letting her condition silence her, Jamie turned to

YouTube. Just two years after her diagnosis Jamie began posting videos of herself singing.

(SINGING)

GUPTA: She got the attention of record labels and an online audience.

GRACE: I didn't blow up like Justin Bieber did, but I had a really cool response.

GUPTA: Now she's using her stage and her story to inspire others.

GRACE: I love the way you hold me.

GUPTA: Jamie started her own foundation, I'm a Fighter. It's a place where people dealing with illnesses and challenges can share stories and find support.

GRACE: It's daily stories of fighters, a little kid with cancer or a hardworking father. It's been really cool to able to build that community. I really hope that my songs connect with people. I really want to bring encouragement.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The cyber-attack against Sony has other companies wondering if they could be next. Some like Target and Home Depot have already been victims of huge cyber security breaches, but as CNN's Chris Frates explains, the biggest target by far has been the United States government.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, we reviewed hundreds of pages of documents on cyber-attacks and security breaches against the U.S. government, and what we found was astounding.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRATES: Every day the government is under attack, cyber-attack. There were 61,000 hacks and security breaches throughout the U.S. government last year.

TONY COLE, VICE PRESIDENT, FIREEYE: There's an adversary out there whose job it is to break into our systems. So, you know, somebody is trying 24/7. It's going to get much worse than it is today.

FRATES: The White House and State Department networks were recently targeted. Cyber incidents involving U.S. government agencies are skyrocketing. That number hit more than 46,000 last year.

DENISE ZHENG, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Cyber espionage is increase at unprecedented rates. FRATES: In January, 2013, hackers hit the Army Corps of Engineers,

grabbing sensitive information. They allegedly stole data on the nation's 85,000 dams, including their locations and the potential for fatalities if they were breached.

COLE: People were stealing hard copies of paper work and passing it off to our adversaries when we had spies. Today they can actually do that digitally and take magnitudes more data than they could in the past.

FRATES: In July, 2013, hackers infiltrated the Energy Department, taking the personal data of more than 100,000 people. They lifted information including birthdays, Social Security, and bank account numbers.

ZHENG: Government and industry are in a difficult battle against cyber adversaries. There are always very sophisticated actors out there. And for them we just have to assume that an attack could occur, and so organizations need to be prepared.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRATES: The government spent $10 billion on cyber security last year, but that can't defend against an employee who is duped into clicking on a malicious link. As one expert told me, there's no good defense against a stupid user. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much.

So, how do companies and governments prepare for cyber battle? Let me bring in Kevin Mitnick. He knows both sides of this. He's a convicted hacker who is now a security consultant and CEO of MitnickSecurity.com joining us from Los Angeles. Good to see you.

KEVIN MITNICK, CEO, MITNICKSECURITY.COM: Thank you for having me on your show.

All right, so let's begin with this Sony hack. Given everything we know, could that company have prevented this attack, or was it inevitable because so many former employees and current employees say that company was pretty vulnerable?

MITNICK: Certainly they have sloppy security. But if you have nation state that has money, time, and resources, I think they can break into anything. In fact, what I tell my clients that are concerned about their systems being hacked is they need to do what we call a penetration test. So what's a penetration test? It's an ethical hacking exercise where hackers with permission try to break into the company physically, technically, and by manipulating people, by clicking on links and stuff like this that might contain malicious attachments, and actually see how well their security holds up to these attacks, find the holes, and then patch those holes before the real bad guys try to break in.

WHITFIELD: So how often should a company be doing this to find out whether there are holes? MITNICK: Well, at least on an annual basis, but if they're a company

like Sony, for example, I would probably recommend doing it at least twice a year. And also having a cycle, what we call kind of a security lifecycle, so if, for example, Sony sets up a new web application that's facing the Internet where anybody can connect to, that that goes under some sort of security review before it's placed out into the public, because in a lot of cases, companies release websites that are vulnerable and they don't test them before they are released and they end up getting hacked.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness. So the FBI has pointed the finger at North Korea. North Korea saying it was framed, that's the language it used in a statement today. You recently have said that you were not necessarily convinced it was North Korea. So why were you skeptical, and now given their response today saying we want to have a joint investigation with the U.S. and if not there will be serious consequences, how has any of that changed your view about who really is at fault here?

MITNICK: Well, the statements by the government were largely conclusionary. They haven't released any evidence, and as a security professional we actually like to see the details. And what the FBI relied on is the malware that they found in the network, the infrastructure and some of the I.P. addresses that were used. But if the truth be known, hackers share tools, they share malware, they share infrastructure. So I'm not 100 percent convinced.

WHITFIELD: They don't want to be detected.

MITNICK: Right. So could somebody else have been behind the attack to make it look like North Korea? I don't know. I didn't have visibility into the evidence to look at it myself. But the damage has already been done. Sony's extremely confidential information was exposed to the Internet. Why should the government hold back this evidence? I think they should release it so the security community could look at it and say, hey, this makes a lot of sense.

WHITFIELD: And then how in your view has Sony's reaction, meaning it says it's not going to release the film on Christmas Day even though Sony also says it was the movie theaters who essentially, you know, caved in by saying we're not going to air this movie, how has all of this, in your view, perhaps even empowered hackers?

MITNICK: Well, it's really sent a bad message, and I agree with the CEO that it was really the theaters that stopped the showing of the movie because of the concern for liability, that their patrons might be injured on site.

But I don't think Sony -- I think Sony should actually release this immediately on pay per view or free to the world, that we shouldn't allow, whether it's a nation state or a group of hackers to censor, this creative material from being shown to Americans. I really think it's a bad message that's sent because now copycats might do the same type of attacks not for embarrassment but actually to monetize it some way through some sort of extortion scheme.

WHITFIELD: All right, Kevin Mitnick, thanks so much for joining us from Los Angeles.

MITNICK: All right, thank you for having me on your show.

WHITFIELD: Happy holidays.

MITNICK: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, celebrations in Havana after President Obama and Castro agree to reestablish diplomatic tools. But can President Obama win the looming battle on Capitol Hill on this issue? Our political panel weighing in.

But first, our look into future. Today we look how American farmers will use technology to grow our food. Here's Richard Quest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From the time man first tilled the earth, farming has been associated with long days and backbreaking work. Today achieving that bountiful harvest is not just about working harder. No, it's more about working smarter. Now technology is arming farmers with the information and the ability to do just that.

JOE HOSSLE, FARMER: Years ago I worked all fall. Now we're doing what I did all fall in about two days.

QUEST: Farmers like Joe Hossle are taking full advantage of the technology available.

HOSSLE: Our yields are getting color-coded in right here on this page here.

QUEST: Today sensor technology is used all over the farm. It provides real-time information about everything from fuel levels to the soil fertility.

HOSSLE: We're much more aware of what we have in the fields. This information that we've received from all of our technology has basically put money in our bank accounts.

QUEST: In the future technology will give farmers better data by giving them a better view from drones like this precision hawk. Its ability to map the terrain will provide farmers more valuable information than ever before, so tomorrow's farmers will need to work the data even harder than they work the fields.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: President Obama is not backing away from his decision to normalize relations with Cuba and easing travel restrictions. He said it's time to try something new.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't anticipate overnight changes. But what I know deep in my bones is that if you've done the same thing for 50 years and nothing has changed you should try something different if you want a different outcome. And this gives us an opportunity for a different outcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Earlier today Raul Castro praised the U.S. president when he spoke before the Cuban national assembly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAUL CASTRO, CUBAN PRESIDENT (via translator): We welcome the statements made by President Obama in order to open a new chapter in relation to the ties between both nations and to start making the moST significant changes in the U.S. policy of the past 50 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Cuba's national assembly has ratified the diplomatic deal, but here in the U.S. only Congress can lift the trade embargo outright. Amy Holmes is a conservative and anchors "The Hot List" on the TheBlaze.com, good to see you.

AMY HOLMES, ANCHOR, "THE HOT LIST," THEBLAZE.COM: Good to see you, too.

WHITFIELD: And Maria Cardona is a CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist. Good to see you as well, Maria.

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Hey, Fred, you too.

WHITFIELD: OK, so Amy, you first. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the United Nations all say lift the trade embargo. So should or will Congress end it as well?

HOLMES: Well, there's a real debate to be had about whether or not the embargo is helping Cuba move towards democracy. You have libertarians that say no, trade embargoes actually rally the populous against the country that is imposing it.

But in this case President Obama once again is taking an executive action without building consensus. You saw this week that opposition to the president's action was bipartisan. Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a Democrat, he came out against the president. And as president from we know from public polling does not have public approval. He's at 52 percent disapproval. So he doesn't have the political capital nor has he built consensus on the Hill for this action. But I guess we now know what his new doctrine is, which is do something else.

WHITFIELD: Well, he kind of said that, you know, it is time to do something else because 50 years in his view he says hasn't worked, and at least in the six years in his presidency, he's also said that he's not getting anywhere from trying to build a consensus. So didn't he warn, you know, particularly post-midterm elections he was going to get things done and work around congress, Amy? HOLMES: To me or to Maria?

WHITFIELD: To you, Amy.

HOLMES: To me. Yes, of course. Well, yes, after this midterm thumping where House Democrats are at their lowest minority in 80 years, where you have had a seen President Obama basically hollow out the Democratic Party, he has responded with, hey, I'm president and I'm going to use executive action. Even Bill Galston, Bill Clinton's former domestic policy adviser, says that he has never seen anything like it.

WHITFIELD: OK, so, Maria, now to you. The president fired the warning shots, didn't he, and now he's delivering on that. So should anyone be surprised, or is there a problem with this?

CARDONA: Well, clearly the Republicans have a problem with it because I think what they are seeing from this president is, and his mantra is, get something done even if Congress obstructs you at every turn. He definitely warned the Republicans and told the American people that he was going to do whatever he could within the realm of his power, and he does have this power to do it. He did it at the state of the union at the beginning of this year, Fred. So no one should be surprised by this.

And in terms of building consensus for the Cuba policy, consensus has already been there by the American people. The American people overwhelmingly have believed that the embargo towards Cuba has been an epic failure, and it has. It has not helped the Cuban people, which is what we all thought was the goal of this at the end of the day. And, frankly, it has probably kept the Castro brothers in power.

There was an interesting poll also yesterday from "The Miami Herald," and the Cuban-American community is split with overwhelming support from this from the younger Cuban-Americans who are, frankly, the future of that community, and they say they want the trade embargo lifted, they want to be able to go visit their home country and to be able to actually bring American values personally to the Cuban people.

WHITFIELD: So, Amy, I wonder, how is this going to impact the next presidential race. Florida Senator Marco Rubio saying that, you know, he's going to fight confirming an ambassador to Cuba. But then you listen to the polls Maria was talking about, you know, a recent poll in fact saying nearly seven in 10 Cubans now favor in reestablishing diplomatic relation with Cuba and about half want the U.S. to end the embargo. So is this what the president means when he says in this fourth quarter interesting stuff happens.

HOLMES: I would actually warn the president to stop using sports metaphors since his reference to the jayvee team turned out to be pretty faulty.

But in terms of the embargo policy, we're already seeing it split the Republican Party. You have Senator Rand Paul who leans more libertarian, who doesn't approve of this, quote-unquote, "isolationist policy," Marco Rubio who wants to see the embargo stay in place. I think it is going to mix up the 2016 elections in some interesting ways.

Also on the Democratic side of the aisle. If Hillary Clinton throws her hat in the ring, which I think a lot of people are expecting she will, is she going to actually go to the right to seem more hawkish on foreign policy to distinguish herself from President Obama's record? We'll see.

WHITFIELD: Interestingly enough you bring up Hillary Clinton, and she has made it very clear that she was part of or helped get the ball rolling as it pertained to lifting the embargo or at least easing the relations, warming the relations between the U.S. and Cuba. So you have to wonder, Maria if she's going use that to her advantage if indeed she run. I think everybody feels like she's going run. But if indeed she chooses to run, will this assist her?

CARDONA: I think it absolutely will, Fredricka. If she runs she will absolutely use this and talking about how she was part of the run up to this. And let's remember, her husband really wanted to do this in his term but because of circumstances was not able to do it.

And, again, not just on the Cuba policy, but another thing the president has focused on in terms of his executive action, climate change, immigration. He has the consensus of the American people on his side. So I think the Republicans are a little bit in a tizzy because they don't quite know how to go at it when you have these very popular policies that the president is focused on, and now that they have the majorities in both houses of Congress they've prove to the American people they have to govern. So we'll see.

WHITFIELD: All right.

HOLMES: Hold on just for a moment. As a matter of fact ABC and "Washington Post" found this week the American public prefers or rather trusts Republicans more on the issues of economy and immigration over President Obama. I think Hillary Clinton is going to be distancing herself rather on some of these issues.

CARDONA: She will not be distancing herself on immigration or on Cuba policy or on climate change.

WHITFIELD: The middle class is the focus for her if she runs and is the focus for the president.

CARDONA: The growth of the middle class is the focus for her if she runs and has been the focus for this president.

WHITFIELD: I think the word "interesting" is perfectly applied. It's going to be interesting next year and a half or two. Amy Holmes, Maria Cardona, thanks so much, appreciate it.

CARDONA: Thank you, Fred. Happy holidays.

WHITFIELD: Happy holidays.

All right, coming up next, something fun -- bubble wrap. Everyone loves bubble wrap. Why is that? CNN MONEY's Vanessa Yurkevich shows us where it actually comes from.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Inside Sealed Air's headquarters in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, they make it by the truckload every hour. But there's something new happening. In their labs they are creating boxes that self-inflate, bubbles that inflate on sight, and packaging that takes the shape of a product once it's cracked, much like a hand warmer.

JEROME PERIBERE, CEO, SEALED AIR: This is not made out of plastic. It's made out of mushrooms.

YURKEVICH: Mushrooms that I can eat?

PERIBERE: Mushrooms that you can eat.

YURKEVICH: Doesn't smell like mushrooms. Does it taste like mushrooms?

PERIBERE: No.

(LAUGHTER)

YURKEVICH: But bubble wrap started it all. And like other brilliant inventions, it was made by accident. The story begins in 1957 when these guys were trying to make wallpaper. It didn't quite stick, but from that failure bubble wrap was born.

What is the secret to making bubble wrap?

ED ACKERSHOEK, ENGINEER, SEALED AIR: I'm not going say that. Come on down.

This would be one of the revers that we're using on the product.

YURKEVICH: And this is essentially plastic.

ACKERSHOEK: This is plastic.

YURKEVICH: And then it gets crushed up into these huge tubes.

ACKERSHOEK: Here we will suck it newspaper into any of the one of three lines.

YURKEVICH: To form the bubbles the plastic is melted down at 500 degrees into a consistency like molasses.

ACKERSHOEK: Once we vacuum form the bubble, then we extrude another layer of material to seal the air inside the bubble. It's a static charge just like on a balloon.

YURKEVICH: It's cut down to size by $1 million machine. And there are over 100 different kinds of bubble wrap customized for almost every major shipping company in the world.

PERIBERE: Every ecommerce company is probably using these products.

YURKEVICH: Bubble wrap is actually only three percent of the company's revenue. Their newer innovative packaging isn't so easy to pop.

So this is kind of the thing of the past and this is the thing of the present and future?

PERIBERE: That's exactly right.

YURKEVICH: No bubble wrap.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Tonight at 7:00 eastern CNN will show an encore presentation of "Black Fish" the story of a SeaWorld trainer killed by a 12,000 pound orca in 2010. The film gained international attention for the way it challenged the concept of keeping killer whales for entertainment. CNN's Ivan Watson spoke to a man who spent two decades capturing killer whales and now rescues them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is the unmistakable sound of fear coming from one of the world's largest predators, a young killer whale effectively screaming just hours after being captured from the wild. So traumatized and disoriented, the animal can't even swim after its journey from the ocean to this small pool. This rare never seen before video of killer whales captured near Iceland in the 1980s is being shared for the first time with CNN by Jeff Foster, a man who masterminded the capture of many killer whales.

How many years were you actually capturing killer whales?

FOSTER: For me it was from 1972 to 1990.

WATSON: That's a long career.

JEFF FOSTER, FORMER WHALE CATCHER: Yes.

WATSON: How many of the killer whales do you think you captured?

FOSTER: Couple dozen, probably, total.

WATSON: A couple dozen with all of them going marine parks like SeaWorld.

Are killer whales big business?

FOSTER: Oh, absolutely. Killer whales are the most expensive animals in the world outside of racehorses. So they are worth millions of dollars. And of course the amount of people who like to see these animals in captivity, there's a huge demand for that.

WATSON: Foster started his career as a teenager here in Seattle, which was the birth place of the captive killer whale industry. In 1976 a ban on capturing orcas in Washington state along with the growing public outcry in the U.S. against the practice forced Foster and his colleagues to move their operations to Iceland. There they snatched young whales from the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean and domesticated and trained them for eventual sale to marine parks in the U.S., France, and Japan. Over time Foster says he got more and more uncomfortable with ripping wild killer whales from their families in the sea.

FOSTER: There's a cry like a baby's crying. And so yes, you know, it tugged at your heart.

WATSON: Over the last 20 years foster has gone from being a hunter to a rescuer of marine mammals.

FOSTER: Hi, Thomas.

WATSON: We first met Foster two years ago in Turkey when he led a back to the wild project that rehabilitated two abused dolphins and released them into the Aegean Sea. He has worked on similar rescue projects with the killer whale Springer who was found lost and disoriented in the Puget Sound, and with Keiko, star of the film "Free Willy," who survived for a short time in the wild after spending decades in captivity.

But two years ago Foster got a tempting offer to return to opportunity. He was offered $7 million to capture killer whales off of the pacific coast of Russia.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Seattle.

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WHITFIELD: So does Jeff Foster take that $7 million offer to return to the hunt? We'll have the answer after this.

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WHITFIELD: Tonight CNN will show "Black Fish," the controversial story of a SeaWorld trainer killed by a killer while. Right now we continue the story of a man who hunted killer whales and now is a conservationist. CNN's Ivan Watson shows how he handled a $7 million offer to return to the hunt.

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WATSON: Jeff Foster is a man who knows what it's like to experience the thrill of the hunt and the high dollar payoff that capturing killer whales for theme parks can bring.

But after decades as a leader in the captive industry Foster changed his focus, turning his attention to marine conservation instead. And then a tempting offer to capture whales again, this time off the far east coast of Russia, proved almost too lucrative to him to refuse, an offer that would have allowed Foster to retire as a multimillionaire with a $7 million paycheck.

FOSTER: They offered $7 million for me to do the whole thing, collect the animals, select them, do the initial training, and then transfer them to the facilities.

WATSON: And how about killer whales?

FOSTER: A total of it eight.

WATSON: And where would this have taken place?

FOSTER: In Russia. The buyers were Chinese buyers. It was mentioned that two of the animals would be going the Olympics and to a town I never even heard of.

WATSON: Sochi.

FOSTER: Yes.

WATSON: Sochi was the host city of this year's Winter Olympics in Russia. It's also home to a small dolphin park called the Sochi dolphin area. This dolphin area in Sochi has denied reports it was seeking to acquire killer whales, calling those reports a hoax aimed at slandering Russia's Winter Olympics. And we certainly didn't see any killer whales at this very small facility. But according to Russian official documents there were very different plans involving killer whales for the dolphin area as recently as 2012.

The Russian fisheries agency issued a permit to the Sochi dolphin area in 2012 for the capture of two orcas in the Sea of Orsk, the far east Russia Orca project, a killer whale watchdog group reports more than a half-dozen whales were caught last year. The question is, why after months of negotiations did Jeff Foster turn down an offer that would have allowed him to retire in comfort?

FOSTER: It got to that point, and literally I was looking in the mirror, and I said I can't do this. I can't -- I'm not going -- I can't get involved with any more captures of killer whales.

WATSON: Foster takes us out on a boat into Washington state's Puget sound where he first learned how to capture killer whales. He says scientists have learned over the past 40 years that, unlike many other wild animals, these social, highly intelligent orcas live longer in the wild than they do in concrete pools like SeaWorld and Marine Land.

FOSTER: One of the reasons I changed my animals on these animals being in captivity is that the pools really haven't changed since the 80s. We've developed new pools for dolphins and new pools for other species, but the killer whale tanks haven't really changed in 30 years.

WATSON: Foster points the case of a young killer whale named Morgan who he says is suffering in a park in the Canary Islands. FOSTER: She is just this wonderful little animal that is confused and

lost and alone. And she is in almost a situation where she's getting up all the time.

WATSON: Morgan was brought to this SeaWorld affiliated park after she was found disoriented and sick off the coast of the Netherlands. On two visits to the park Foster says he saw Morgan abused by larger killer whales and says she was so despondent she was banging her head against the side of the pool. He says she also constantly called out for her missing family.

FOSTER: Loud, loud calls, loud screaming calls. And it's continuing over and over and over. And I just, you know, at that point it really hit me, really hit home that this poor animal is in a really terrible situation with a very dysfunctional group of animals. And she needs moved out into a better place.

WATSON: Foster joined a campaign to free Morgan. But in April after a lengthy multiyear appeal process a court in the Netherlands disagreed, ruling the whale should stay in the park. In an impassioned statement the park's owner defended the court's decision by saying, quote, "I honestly think that this decision can be seen as a pardon for Morgan because her release would have meant suffering and death."

So Morgan remains in a pool in captivity despite the best efforts of Foster and other Free Morgan activists. The former orca hunter is learning it's far easier to capture a killer whale than it is to set one free.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Seattle.

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WHITFIELD: All right, watch the film "Black Fish" tonight at 7:00 eastern right here on CNN.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thanks for being with me today. The next hour of the NEWSROOM begins after a short break with Martin Savidge.

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