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New Day Saturday

North Korea: We Are Being "Framed" In Sony Attack; DA: Ferguson Witnesses Lied To Grand Jury; U.S. Government Hacked Nearly 61,000 Times In 2013; Security Analyst Tips for Safe Holiday Travel; Aftermath of Deadly Attack on Pakistani School; President Obama's Message on North Korea and Cuba; White Christmas Possible for Some Parts of U.S.; Super-Saturday As Busy Shopping Day Before Christmas

Aired December 20, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Sony as a corporation suffered significant damage. There were some threats against employees. So I think they made a mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president, the press and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Sony's CEO fires back at President Obama over the North Korean hacking scandal, claiming the studio made a calculated decision in the pulling of "The Interview" from theaters.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: A shocker overnight from Ferguson. The DA says he knew witnesses lied to the grand jury in the Michael Brown case, but let them testify anyway.

BLACKWELL: Plus new video of Ray Rice taken just moments after the NFL player knocked out the woman who is now his wife. The surprising reaction she had after being handcuffed.

MALVEAUX: Good morning, everyone. I'm Suzanne Malveaux in for Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. It's 6:00 here on the east coast. Good to have you with us. We begin with breaking news, stunning claims by North Korea. It says it has been framed by the U.S. in the explosive Sony cyber-attack.

MALVEAUX: Now this as President Obama and the FBI are calling out the rogue nation for the attack on Sony Pictures. Now Mr. Obama made no mistake says the U.S. will respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: They caused a lot of damage and we will respond. We will respond proportionally and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The president also had tough words for Sony saying, bluntly, that the studio should not have cancelled the Christmas day release of the film "The Interview" after hackers threatened another 9-11.

BLACKWELL: The Sony CEO Pictures fired back in an exclusive interview on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OBAMA: I am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.

MICHAEL LYNTON, CEO, SONY ENTERTAINMENT: We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I wish they had spoken to me first. I would have told them do not get into a pattern in which you are intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.

LYNTON: We definitely spoke to senior adviser or a senior adviser in the White House to talk about this situation. The fact is, did we talk to the president, himself, and talk to him about what was transpiring as the theater started pulling back? But the White House was certainly aware of the situation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right. So what will the response be? U.S. officials tell CNN government agencies have given the White House a variety of openings to respond to North Korea.

And of course, we are covering this from all angles this morning. CNN's Kyung Lah is in Seoul, South Korea and "Daily Telegraph" columnist and historian, Tim Stanley is in London.

Kyung, I want to start with you. What's on the menu here as it relates to the response to North Korea?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's limited response. This is not a buffet. We are talking about the diet special here because the United States does not have a lot of options ahead of them. We're talking about a rogue nation. We don't have a lot of trade.

You know, there aren't a lot of tricks left in the bag that the United States to pull out. They are going to try. But everyone who has watched this conflict knows that the response -- there isn't that much that they can do.

Other than try to add some additional sanctions, but I want to add something, Victor, where in just the last 20 minutes or so, we're getting the first official response from North Korea. This is very important because we have not heard from North Korea since December 7th when all of this started to unfold.

The North Korea releasing via its state-run news agency, KCNA, saying that it is being framed, North Korea adding that they want to see the evidence that President Obama.

And the FBI says that they have that they don't -- that they can prove the opposite, that they have nothing to do with this and that North Korea believes it has every right to retaliate, but retaliate on innocent movie-goers, they would choose to retaliate on the originators of the insult, of the movie.

And curiously, they say that they want to work with America, have a mutual investigation to try to figure out, who is the source of the hack. The United States says they absolutely have evidence to prove so far that North Korea absolutely is behind the hack of Sony Pictures.

BLACKWELL: Tim, is it credible to think that North Korea is being framed here? What is unusual about this hacking happens often in this new global tech society, but the hackers goaded Sony time after time and try to embarrass them publicly. What do you think about this claim that North Korea has been framed?

TIM STANLEY, COLUMNIST, "DAILY TELEGRAPH": Well, it is unusual, but actually, it's perfectly normal for a group of hackers, who obviously have political affiliation or sympathy with a foreign regime to do something and that foreign regime to say that had nothing to do with us.

So a few months ago, we've discovered that Malware was attacking embassies and governments that were formally part of the eastern block. It was very obviously an attack, which is the advantage of the kremlin. But, of course the kremlin said that had absolutely nothing to do with us.

So actually, far from this being a surprise, North Korea is following a typical pact when it comes to cyber terrorism. A cell which is apparently unaffiliated with the government, but it's very pro, the North Korean government does something and then the government is at liberty to say they have nothing to do with us.

And the problem is that western democratic governments do not have the tools to link those two. They can't do it. So it's likely a few months down the line, we will see North Korea get away with this.

BLACKWELL: The denial is unusual. But what I said was the goading, the teasing of Sony publicly, was that something at least I hadn't seen very often. Let me play something the president said at his end of the year news conference on Friday. We'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate somebody from releasing a satirical movie, imagine what might happen if they see a documentary they don't like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now we know that the Sony CEO says the studio has not given in. Is it likely, Tim, that this will encourage more cyber- attacks?

STANLEY: You mean the president saying that they're going to fight back? He is going to encourage cyber-attack, the cyber-attack, itself?

BLACKWELL: No, Sony's pulling of the movie.

STANLEY: Well, yes, first of all, it's very frustrating when the president shifts from being very smart like he was of Cuba, being very dumb like he is over this incident, when he language changes, he says things like folks.

The reality is that if a private corporation is targeted like this, there is very little the government should be able do to intervene, to tell the private corporation what to do.

Now Sony pulled out, because, first of all, theaters refused to play it. Sony wasn't right, but even if they had done it, it was probably right to, the hackers invoked the memory of 9-11. Will that encourage future hackers? Maybe it will.

So what we got to see is some kind of collaboration between the FBI and private corporations to make sure that when this sort of thing happens again, those corporations know what to do and know they have the government's backing.

But right now, all the president is doing is saying the government is right behind you, but you've just heard, there are no sanctions that can be put on North Korea. There is nothing the government can do on this occasion. Frankly, they were right to put the safety of their customers first.

BLACKWELL: Kyung, do we know about any communications between the U.S. and North Korea, and also China, their state newspaper has released an op-ed this morning criticizing this film. Do we know about any communications with the U.S. about this from either of those countries?

KYUNG: Well, the goad in China, that was to be expected because here in Asia, North Korea is allowed to act because China funds it. That's a well-known fact. So that response was very predictable.

But as far as communications, there is no official communication. I stress the word "official" between the United States and North Korea. There are no relations officially. But in talking to many diplomats across Asia, there are discussions, they're very quiet.

There are the spy games that you've imagined. There are discussions. Here's what's important are these statements. You have to read the large statements, like the one we got this morning, and then whittle them down.

What is North Korea trying to achieve? What is the next chess move? Because a lot of this is like a lot of propaganda that comes out of North Korea, a lot is show, and then the games underneath and the reality.

BLACKWELL: All right, Kyung Lah for us in Seoul, South Korea. Tim Stanley, stick around for us. And the full interview with Sony CEO will air tomorrow on "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS." That's tomorrow again at 10:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

MALVEAUX: A new shocker this morning in the shooting death of Ferguson teenager, Michael Brown, in this first extensive interview since the grand jury cleared former Officer Daniel Wilson last month in Brown's death. The DA who prosecuted the case says that some of the witnesses obviously lied under oath, but he let them testify anyway.

St. Louis Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said during a radio interview with KTRS yesterday that he had no regrets about letting the grand jury hear from non-credible witnesses. Now McCullough says, those witnesses will not face perjury charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MCCULLOCH, ST. LOUIS PROSECUTING ATTORNEY (via telephone): There were people who came in and, yes, absolutely lied under oath, some lied to the FBI. Even though they're not under oath, it's a potential offense, a federal offense.

But I thought it was much more important to present the entire picture and say, listen, this is what this witness says he saw, even though there was a building between where the witness says he was and the events occurred.

So they couldn't have seen that or the physical evidence didn't support what the witness is saying. It went both directions. I thought it was much more important the grand jury hear everything what the people have to say and they're in a perfect position to assess the credibility, which is what jurors do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: As to the timing of when the decision was announced, McCulloch said he had no regrets. The late night announcement of the grand jury's decision triggered riots and violent protests in the streets of Ferguson. It also sparked nationwide peaceful demonstrations.

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, protesters angry over the shooting death of Dantre Hamilton paralyzed the city during rush hour on Friday. Now officials say nearly 100 people were arrested and are expected to face disorderly conduct charges. Hamilton was shot by Milwaukee police officer 14 times back in April after a confrontation in a city park. The officer involved in his death has been fired. Hamilton's family says they want the officer to face criminal charges.

BLACKWELL: There is new video this morning showing the after math of that now infamous moment when Ray Rice punched his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City elevator. This video obtained by ABC News shows the couple going through a range of emotions.

First, Rice appeared apologetic while Palmer appeared to angrily rebuff whatever he has to say there. Later, Palmer is seen crying with the security guard before finally trying to see them here kissing, nuzzling, I guess you would call it with Ray Rice in separate police cars.

Rice was suspended from the NFL earlier this year after video of him hitting his then fiancee and now wife in a hotel elevator surfaced on TMZ. Rice later won an appeal of that indefinite suspension.

The cyber attack of Sony, it really is just one aggression in a much moving digital war. Hackers are constantly going after the U.S. government. Hear just how often these breaches happen.

MALVEAUX: And Chrysler is expanding its recall to over 3 million vehicles because of defective airbags. We'll tell you which cars are now a part of that recall.

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BLACKWELL: All right, 15 after the hour now. The cyber terrorists who infiltrated Sony's system took a mind-boggling amount of information, they sold so much data that analysts says it will take more than a year for Sony to go through all of it.

MALVEAUX: And now a CNN investigation finds that it is a mere drop in hackers and attacks. Our Chris Frates has gone through records that have much, much more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 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 is an adversary out there whose job, you know, it is to break into our systems. So somebody is trying 24/7, it is 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 increasing at unprecedented rates. FRATES: In January, 2013, hackers hit the Army Core 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 paperwork and passing it off to our adversaries when we had spies. Today they can actually do that digitally and take magnitudes of 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 sophisticated actors out there. For them, we have to assume an attack could occur. 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 on clicking a malicious link as one expert told me there is no good defence against a stupid user. Chris Frates, CNN, Washington.

MALVEAUX: Let me go back to Tim Stanley, historian and columnist for the Britain's "Daily Telegraph." So Tim, we heard Chris' report here. He says there is very little that we can do to protect against an employee who is just clicking on a bad link.

For instance, in some ways it makes others vulnerable as well within his company. So what can these companies do to essentially protect themselves and what can the government do?

STANLEY: Well, just to confirm that report in terms of what we know in Britain, GCHQ our Secret Service calculates that something like 80 percent of hacks of companies, computers are down to someone just not putting on a password or something like that.

So you are absolutely right. It's the elementary errors. It means the company versus got to work with security agencies. They need to work with employees to make sure they're not doing silly things like using a password that's 123456.

I mean, that sounds really small and silly, but that's how people break in and that's how so much information is being stolen. And a lot of that is ending up in the hands of Chinese or Russian governments.

MALVEAUX: Explain to us, really, what's happening on the offense and the defense? Because it certainly seems like the hackers have the advantage here and that many of these companies, private companies as well as the government are really quite behind. STANLEY: Absolutely. The advantage that the hackers have is these are small cells. A little bit like terrorist cells, really, they often operate within the countries that they are attacking. They keep themselves distanced from the governments that are obviously supporting them.

They don't operate, of course, by any kind of rules, whatsoever. We know that what they do often is the advantage of foreign governments. For example, in 2008, before the South Acetia crisis began, Georgia's computers were hit by Malware and suddenly went down, which, of course, was to Russia's advantage.

We know that the Chinese Army is supposed to be devoting an entire military division to cyber warfare. So we know they take it very seriously. Our problem in the west is we play by the rules.

Western governments are very good at processing information because we got the bureaucracies and the scale and the money to do it. We are very bad at doing is collecting information and fighting back because our legal structure won't let us do it. The basic problem is that there is a kind of a sort of unofficial

Geneva Convention when it comes to cyber terror. We are paying it and the other guys aren't. That's why they're getting away with it.

BLACKWELL: All right. Tim Stanley, thank you very much. Appreciate your time this morning. Victor, you know, one of the other things in some areas there are no rules. We are making it up as we go along.

BLACKWELL: The question is, should there be an official Geneva Convention? There is an unofficial one. Should there be an official rule of law when it comes to the digital era?

All right, let's talk about the holidays because so many people are traveling now. They will be hitting the roads. Millions are flying. We will tell you why the State Department is warning travels to be on high alert for potential terrorist attacks.

MALVEAUX: Plus, the latest on a disturbing case in Australia. Police make an arrest after eight kids are found dead in a home.

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MALVEAUX: A lot of other news to tell you about. Here is your "Morning Read."

BLACKWELL: It's 23 minutes after the hour. The parents of a Colorado shooting suspect, James Holmes, has written a letter to the public in the "Denver Post." Here's a part of it.

"We do not know how many would like to see our son killed. He is a human being gripped by severe mental illness." Now, of course, Holmes is accused of opening fire inside a movie theater on July 20th, 2012 killing 12 people. His trial is set to start next month.

MALVEAUX: A woman in Australia has been arrested on suspicion of killing eight children. Seven of the children were her own and one was her niece. Some of the victims are believed to have been stabbed. The 37-year-old suspect is now under police guard at a hospital.

BLACKWELL: Chrysler is expanding its recall of cars and trucks equipped with Takata airbags to more than 3 million older model vehicles worldwide. The recall comes over fears that it can explode and send shrapnel into drivers and passengers. Now earlier, the recall was limited to areas with high humidity only where the airbags were believed to be more prone to rupturing.

MALVEAUX: Sony's CEO fires back. Still ahead, why he says President Obama didn't know the script when the company pulled "The Interview" from theaters.

MALVEAUX: Plus the State Department's holiday travel warning. Why they are putting travelers on high alert through March?

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BLACKWELL: The terror attack in Sydney has sparked a holiday travel alert around the world. Now the State Department is warning travelers to be extra cautious when going anywhere in the U.S. or around the world.

MALVEAUX: Plus President Obama just reached his holiday destination. What he is going to be keeping an eye on while vacationing in Hawaii.

BLACKWELL: We are starting this half hour with the breaking news, a stunning claim by North Korea.

MALVEAUX: The rogue nation now says the being framed by the United States as a culprit in a cyber-attack that forced Sony to pull the Christmas Day release of the satirical film "The Interview."

Now according to North Korea's state-run central news agency says, quote, "Whoever is going to frame our country for a crime should present concrete evidence. If America refuses our proposal of mutual investigation continues to link us to this case and talk about our actions in response, they will be met with serious consequences."

BLACKWELL: Now all this is coming as the CEO of Sony Pictures fired back at President Obama for saying Sony should not have cancelled "The Interview's" release in theaters. Michael Lynton spoke with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": The president says Sony made a mistake in pulling the film. Did you make a mistake?

MICHAEL LYNTON, CEO, SONY ENTERTAINMENT: No. I think actually the unfortunate part is in this incident the president, the press and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.

So to sort of rehearse for a moment the sequence of events, we experienced the worst cyber-attack in American history and persevered for three-and-a-half weeks under enormous stress and enormous difficulty.

And all with the effort of trying to keep our business and running and get this movie out into the public, when it came to the crucial moment when a threat came out from what was called the GOP at the time threatening audiences who would go to the movie theaters. The movie theaters came to us one by one over the course of a very short period of time, we were completely surprised by it, and announced that they would not carry the movie. At that point in time we had no alternative, but to not proceed with the theatric release on the 25th of December. And that's all we did.

ZAKARIA: So you have not caved in your view?

LYNTON: We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered. And we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right. You can see more of Michael Lynton's interview on Fareed Zakaria "GPS." It's at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Sunday right here on CNN.

MALVEAUX: Well, alarming warning from the State Department this morning, if you are traveling during the holiday season the State Department is now advising Americans to be extra cautious. This is after that gunman in Sydney took 17 people hostage.

BLACKWELL: Well, the alert says that U.S. Citizens should be extra cautious, maintain a very high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance their personal security. Now, this travel alert expires March 19, 2015.

MALVEAUX: We want to bring in our CNN global affairs analyst Lieutenant Colonel James Reese. And Colonel, let's talk about this. Because we watched the Sydney attack. It was just horrific. And now we got this warning here. Tell us, put this in perspective. Is this really common to have something like this? What is the significance of this during travel?

LT. COL. JAMES REESE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good morning. Well, the significance of the travel is the years now of intelligence analysis that we have, and candidly, this is the U.S. is not the only one putting this adviser out. I have clients over in Indonesia, and they receive from their hotels a hand document from the Australian and the British consulates there with the same travel advisory. What the analysts are looking at, is what has happened in the past since 9/11, what are the historical aspects that are going, what are the current threats, what is the chatter that's going out there. And unfortunately, this is a huge time for Christians around the world. Everyone is traveling for the holidays. And it's a time when people really need to be aware of what's going on around them.

MALVEAUX: And Colonel, I mean this is correct in the fact that this is the first time that this has been issued, a global travel alert since August of 2013, this is after the al Qaeda threat in Yemen. I assume that this is something that throughout the world is being taken very seriously?

REESE: The lone wolf attacks are really starting to bother and put pressure on the intelligence services, and like we have been talking now for several weeks and months now about these lone wolf attacks, it's - you can't know when it's going to happen. So it's really trying to get people out there, it's trying to remind folks at this time when everyone is trying to have a good time with their families and friends, to be aware. Look, what's going on.

MALVEAUX: Right.

REESE: Watch the hands of people happening.

MALVEAUX: Yeah, be specific, if you can. Break it down for us, because I know we've got some details, these alerts, saying that these attacks can take place in public places, and if there are some things that at least people can do to stay safe or try to.

REESE: Well, you know, the one thing we always try to tell people is as you are walking around, pay attention. Stay away from the large gatherings of Western tourists. That's tough when you are in Bali, you know, if you are in different areas of the world. You know, I just flew in from Dubai on Thursday night. And it's packed with people. And they're celebrating Christmas and everyone is in a cheer. But one of the things I like to tell people is this hands don't lie. Look for people's hands, if you see people place a bag on the ground, you know, report it. Get out of the way. And if something does happen, get to a place, get away, don't be an onlooker and, you know, look for the EMS to come in.

MALVEAUX: All right. Very good advice. Colonel, I want you to stay with us, we want to get your thoughts on another story that we have been following, of course, a little bit later.

BLACKWELL: Crush Taliban to save our children, that was the rallying cry from thousands of protesters who gathered earlier today in Pakistan to protest against the Taliban and that brutal school massacre. The attack left nearly 150 people, mostly children, dead.

MALVEAUX: Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces, they say at least five Taliban insurgents, including a key commander, were killed in Peshawar.

Sources say, at least two suspecting militants were killed in a nearby suburb.

BLACKWELL: Well, in recent days, dozens of militants have been killed in crackdowns. The Pakistan military not saying if those were killed, those members were killed, members of the Taliban, rather, or if they were connected to that school attack.

MALVEAUX: And that school massacre that has prompted the nation's prime minister to lift the moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism cases.

BLACKWELL: 132 students were killed in that attack. And the scene is absolutely horrific. Nic Robertson shows us the blood stains and the bullet holes inside the school. And we have to warn you, especially because of this hour, that some of the images could be disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is where the Taliban got into the school, they cut the barbed wire at the top of the wall, scaled it, using bamboo ladders, another team got in just down here and then they took off towards the main buildings.

They flew into here, the main auditorium. They split into two teams. It was full of children here taking classes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They shot me as soon as they came in. We tried to run. I was shot in my shoulder. The people who came, they have no sense of humanity in them.

ROBERTSON: So many of the children afraid, trying to hide underneath these benches. The class was going on, a brigadier was giving a lesson in first-aid. The dummy, the operators, left where he fell and this is when things get really bad. The army says that the children fled for the door over here and the door here, a hundred of them were gunned down as they were trying to escape. Cold blooded murder.

Everywhere you walk here, blood splatters all over the ground. The Taliban not satisfied with the killing downstairs, come up here into the computer lab. And one look inside this room, and you can see immediately what's happened. Children gunned down, whether just typing at their computers, classroom after classroom, a pair of glasses sitting here, child's pencils and pens lying on the floor, torn, pieces of schoolwork, this child has just been writing in his lessons, and here on the board, where the teacher would have been standing, bullet holes and then the place where the teacher fell.

And this is where the final showdown took place. The administration block. One of the attackers blowing up his suicide vest here, north marks of all little pot marks, from all the ball bearings inside his suicide vest and over here, rubble on the floor. Another suicide bomber has blown himself up. Chaos, devastation, the principal's office down here. She's killed. And right at the end of the corridor, the last suicide bomber blows himself up. The deputy principal hides in there. She survives and this here is what's left of the last attacker. Nic Robertson, CNN, Peshawar, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: It's just so hard to even watch. I want to bring back Lt. Col. James Reese. And let's talk about this, first of all, the Taliban inside of Pakistan, why are they so dangerous? Why have we seen this unfold?

REESE: They have been dangerous a long time. It's a culture. It is the Islamic aspect, the extremism that they have. And they have, they want to overthrow the government of Pakistan and it is a, it is a brawl that's been going on there for years. And it's tough - Afghanistan. And it really is. It's horrific what's going on. And just like what was said in this earlier segment, these people play with no rules at all.

MALVEAUX: Yeah. I mean that's very apparent. And I want to bring this up. You know, I got to see the work of the Taliban firsthand in Afghanistan when I was in Afghanistan, I covered the anniversary of 9/11. And they attacked our U.S. embassy there. And we saw the aftermath in a building that burned out and shot and killed people. Give us a sense of the difference. Is there a difference between the Taliban that operates in Pakistan and it operates inside Afghanistan?

REESE: In really, in reality no, I mean you've got the Haqqani network in Afghanistan that has free flow moving into Pakistan.

Unfortunately the worst kept secret throughout, you know, the last ten, 12 years is elements of the Pakistani government and the intelligent service at times support the Taliban because of the intelligence aspects that you can get between both Afghanistan and India to their East. So unfortunately, sometimes you make your, you know, you make your bed working with the devil and it causes them, and as a former military officer, I can't even imagine what people like to have to find out that my children were killed in my school, where they were going while I'm out there trying to fight for my country. It's devastating.

MALVEAUX: And these militants, they were also responsible for what was a failed bombing in Times Square four years ago, should we be concerned that they are here in the United States?

REESE: I don't know if I can tell you that, that the Pakistan Taliban are specifically in the United States, but do I believe that they have influence and ways to get people that are doing things that can hurt us, absolutely, as well as these other extremist groups around here. We have to stay vigilant. We have to continue to put budgets against these things. And unfortunately, this is the way it's going to go for the rest of our lives and our children's lives.

MALVEAUX: This is a very ominous warning this morning, but obviously, a very important one. Colonel James Reese, we thank you very much for your time this morning.

BLACKWELL: The president had this message at his year-end news conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: When we work together, we can't be stopped. And now I'm going to go on vacation, Malakaliki Moka, everybody. Mahalo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Yeah, he is out here. The president and his family have touched down in Hawaii, and they are kicking off their Christmas vacation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Boris Becker took me of a tour of his hometown, it seemed there was a memory on every corner.

BORIS BECKER: This is the home that I was born. That was my candy store, before and after school. That's my -- my kindergarten. This one -- I guess. Little Boris. Little Boris.

(LAUGHTER)

BECKER: This is the original course, when I picked up my first record of practice for them. I want to show you my very first coach. (INAUDIBLE). It's the tennis wall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tennis wall was your first coach?

BECKER: Yes, yes, when I was little and my parents were busy and I was too small and not allowed to go on the court, this is where I played for hours, this is the city square.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your homecoming effort?

BECKER: This is my homecoming.

Here we are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we are. Right on the ...

BECKER: Standing on this famous terrace, yeah. And it looked so much bigger then.

It's the joys of German culture. Beer and sausage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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BLACKWELL: The Obamas are saying aloha to Hawaii this morning. The first family is taking a break from Washington and soaking up some sun. Well, not here, because it's late at night. But some sun at their beach front home in Honolulu. I should say a beach front home. It's not the Obama's home. They will be there for about two weeks.

MALVEAUX: And it's an annual tradition for the family, even before he became the president and went to the White House, no official events on the president's schedules, see if he stays - but we are sure he is going to play two rounds of golf, but before the president headed out for much needed break there was some business, of course, that we have to take care in Washington, which included taking questions one last time from reporters.

Jim Acosta is at the White House. Jim, what did the president say?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Suzanne and Victor, President Obama delivered a stern warning to North Korea, suggesting the communist nation's leaders will pay a big price for the cyber- attack on Sony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Hello, everybody.

ACOSTA: On the most pressing issue facing him before he leaves Washington, President Obama said there will be a response for the hack attack that prompted Sony to pull its movie "The Interview" from theaters.

OBAMA: They caused a lot of damage and we will respond. We will respond proportionally and we will respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.

ACOSTA: The president declined to specify whether that response would come in the form of sanctions or even a U.S. cyber counterattack. But he echoed the complaints from Hollywood to Washington that Sony created a bad precedent by caving to a dictator.

OBAMA: Yes, I think they made a mistake. I wish they had spoken to me first. I would have told them, do not get into a pattern in which you are intimidated by these kind of criminal attacks.

ACOSTA: Still, the president mocked North Korea's behavior as a bigger joke than the punchlines in the Seth Rogan-James Franco comedy.

OBAMA: I love Seth and I love -- and I love James, but the notion that that was a threat to them I think gives you some sense of the kind of regime we are talking about here.

ACOSTA: For the president the confrontation with North Korea comes just as he is easing tensions with Cuba. Mr. Obama defended his decision to normalize relations with the island even as he acknowledged democratic reforms won't come overnight.

OBAMA: The change is going to come to Cuba. It has to.

ACOSTA: But in critics, the president also seemed to tamp down speculation he may travel to Cuba any time soon. Something the White House didn't rule out.

OBAMA: We are not at a stage here where me visiting Cuba or President Castro coming to the United States is in the cards.

ACOSTA: Mr. Obama started his news conference, touting his accomplishments of 2014, taking a victory lap over the improving U.S. economy.

OBAMA: Take any metric that you want. America's resurgence is real.

ACOSTA: The complaints about his executive actions, he challenged the soon to be GOP-controlled Congress to work with him on immigration reform and he appeared to dismiss the economic benefits of building the Keystone Pipeline.

OBAMA: At issue in Keystone is not American oil. It is Canadian oil.

ACOSTA: But he conceded big problems remain such as the racial tensions that flared up in recent weeks after Ferguson. OBAMA: There are specific instances, at least, where, where the --

where law enforcement doesn't feel as if it's being applied in a color blind fashion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: One thing that is worth knowing about the news conference, all the questions came from women in the White House press corps. The president will be spending the next two weeks in Hawaii on his annual family vacation. He said he has a list of movies to watch. He did not say whether "The Interview" will be one of them. Suzanne and Victor.

MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you. Just for the president say Sony made a mistake in pulling "The Interview" from the release. But the president of Sony Pictures, well, he disagrees. We are going to hear from Michael Lynton in our next hour.

BLACKWELL: Still ahead, a family sues a popular chain restaurant. They claim that the store killed their parents. The murder weapon. We'll tell you what that was.

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MALVEAUX: There are five things to know for your "NEW DAY."

BLACKWELL: Up first, a West Virginia family is suing the Bob Evans chain, saying meatloaf, their parents ate one at the restaurant killed the couple. And the children of Virginia and Harold Starcher say their parents became violently ill after the meal and died a few months later. This happened in 2012. Bob Evans says the suit is, quote, "entirely without merit."

MALVEAUX: Number two, terror on a Georgia freeway after a FedEx truck slams into a police car. Now, you got to watch this carefully. You can see an officer getting out of his vehicle to make a routine traffic stop. When he returns to the car, a FedEx trailer barrels into his vehicle. According to WGCL, rescue teams had to use the Jaws of Life to pull the driver from the truck after it's overturned. Officials say the driver failed to stay in his lane. No word yet on his condition. The police officer was not seriously injured.

BLACKWELL: All right, number three, a woman in California will be spending Christmas in jail after being arrested for allegedly stealing Christmas presents from neighborhood door steps. All right. So this is the second time she's been caught, police say. Cops say Martha Lampley (ph) was out on bail when they caught her swiping presents again. Now, the first time around, police discovered a vault filled with clothes and jewelry and stacks of shoes.

MALVEAUX: Number four, a Maine museum employee is being called a hero this morning after she stopped a man from abducting a two-year-old girl, who had stepped away from her grandmother. Sharon Wise said her instinct kicked in when she saw a man grab the girl by the wrist. She rushed over and told the man to let the girl go. He is now under arrest. BLACKWELL: Number five, Justin Bieber's population is waning. Oh,

say it isn't so, at least on Instagram, maybe just Instagram, the site says it's deleted millions of spam accounts in what many people online are calling the Instagram rapture. It's an overstatement I think. Bieber lost about 13.5 million followers. It's about 15 percent of his follower base.

MALVEAUX: And weather could cost the major headaches for holiday traffic. We are talking about high winds, possible flooding.

BLACKWELL: And snow, snow, possibly. Parts of the country can expect a white Christmas. But what does it mean for travel plans? And we are following breaking news, we received the first official response from North Korea on the Sony hacking since December 7TH when all this started to unfold. That's coming up at the top of the hour.

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BLACKWELL: Procrastinators, listen up.

MALVEAUX: That's me.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Today is super Saturday, otherwise known as the last Saturday before Christmas.

MALVEAUX: It's going to be a busy one. And Victor, I haven't done any shopping.

BLACKWELL: And I'm done.

MALVEAUX: Yeah. Well, you know, I'll get it done. Retail Watchers says that today it's going to be even busier than Black Friday with an estimated $10 billion in sales today alone. Stores like Macy's, Kohl's, they are going to be open nearly non-stop until Christmas, while Amazon and Best Buy, they are stretching out dates for a guaranteed delivery by Christmas. I'm going to need that.

BLACKWELL: Get the packages in the mail. If you are hitting the road for the holiday, though, there is some serious weather out there that you might have to try to work around.

MALVEAUX: So I want to bring in our CNN meteorologists, Karen Maginnis, and Karen, so, give us a sense of what we are dealing with over the next couple of days.

KAREN MAGINNIS: It looks like in the next 48 hours, this very powerful Pacific storm system takes aim at Washington, Oregon and California, just about everybody there expecting heavy rainfall, especially in some of the coastal communities. You could see upwards of ten inches of rain. Now, the snow levels are rising. That's because this is specific moisture, so it's a little bit warmer. Some are referring to this as the Pineapple Express. But needless to say, we have got this long set of moisture aimed at Portland also into Seattle and northwestern California. This is where we have flash flood watches out and warnings. Some of the mountain snowfall could be between one and three feet.

Now, AAA says that there will be as many as 90 million people on the roadways. That's come Christmas. They travel within 50 miles of their home. Well, if you are headed to the Pacific Northwest, this is going to move a little bit further towards the east. But until then, you'll have to deal with a number of rises along the rivers here, especially the Clackamas River, around Oregon City. It could be at major flood stage going into Monday morning. Now, we have seen a considerable rises there, but, also, across the southeast in the United States, we are looking at Atlanta into New Orleans, with heavy rainfall expected over the next several days. Back to you, guys.

MALVEAUX: All right, thank you very much, Karen, appreciate it.

A lot of other news to tell you about this morning.

BLACKWELL: The next hour of your "NEW DAY" starts right now.