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US-Cuba Relations Changing; Horrifying Scenes from the School Attacked in Pakistan; Russia's Economy in Crisis; Sony's Former Employees Also Affected by Hacking

Aired December 18, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Half past the power. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's talk about the trade embargo against Cuba. It's cost that country dearly over the decades. But now the relations between the two countries are changing and like we saw yesterday. So what impact could that have on Cuban economy?

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik joins me with a little bit more. And we show your face. Let's get back on a two shots. Because let me show the cover of "New York Post," President Obama smoking a Cuban.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's about the cigars. We will get in those in a moment.

BALDWIN: We'll get to the cigars. First, if we're talking about, you know, easing a restriction, what does that mean for both Cuba and U.S. economies?

KOSIK: Well, you make a good point because the potential is big, not just for Cuba but for the U.S. as well. In fact, since this embargo has been in place with Cuba, billions of dollars have been left on the table.

Let me break that down for you. I will show you. The U.S. economy each year misses out on $1.2 billion. Cuba says its economy misses out on $700 million every year. Here's the thing. The U.S. and Cuba have had a trade relationship before, before the embargo, before the Cuban revolution. Cuba got nearly 70 percent of its good from the U.S. and for U.S. exports. Cuba was actually is seventh biggest market.

In fact, rice and beans is a really good example because the U.S. wound up exporting before the embargo, of course, rice, beans, other commodities to Cuba. And now that these restrictions have been lifted a bit, Cubans could import the 400,000 tons of rice that Cubans consume before the Cuban revolution. That's potential that's there, 400,000 tons of rice. That's just one example.

BALDWIN: So you have that example. But then you have the question that everybody is tweeting me about, right, which is not only when can I go to Cuba but it is the cigars and the rum. KOSIK: Right. So when will we see the immediate impacts? Not

exactly sure. But here are the three top areas where you can see changes real fast. The first one is money flow into Cuba because right now Americans often send their relatives in Cuba to the friends in Cuba money.

Before these restrictions were lifted, they could only send $500 every three months. Now that's been raised to $2,000 every three months. That's good news for those living in Cuba and for the Cuban economy because guess where that money is going to go?

The travel industry, that is going to be huge because now the categories under which you can travel, they have sort of gained in numbers. And now you have a better chance of actually traveling to Cuba even though you can't, just call up and book your next flight there.

And if you can get there, and if you get your hands on an authentic Cuban cigar as I have gotten actually from a friend who got these from Portugal, now if you get these in Cuba, same thing with liquor, you can get up to $100 worth of liquor and Cuban cigars -- you don't have to smuggle it out, you can buy on those, this is up to $100 worth, not to sell of course but to enjoy. For you.

BALDWIN: Well, I'm a cigar girl so thank you very much. Hope my mother is not watching.

Alison Kosik, thank you so much.

Now this --

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BALDWIN: You know her and love her music, Christina Milian. Right, you are thinking, OK, Brooke, what is the connection? Here is the connection. The monument was shift in U.S.-Cuban relations. It's had a huge personal impact for Grammy nominated singer Christina Milian, a Cuban-American who was born in Jersey City. She was raised by her mom, Carmen, who emigrated from Cuba when she was 5 years of age. So for Christina, the president's announcement yesterday hits especially close to home.

We checked out her Instagram and we will pull it out for you. This is what she wrote. Today is a day that I'm so grateful and proud to witness in my lifetime. Proud of our president Barack Obama and excited that I can finally experience the land of which my mom and dad and ancestors come from. Cuba is no longer an urban legend. We're finally going to visit Cuba and so will our children. And so she joins me now live, Christina and her mom, Carmen.

I do mention Christina is starring in an upcoming E! reality show, Christina Milian Turned Up. Ladies, wonderful to see you.

CHRISTINA MILIAN, SINGER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We're excited. I'm feeling this from you two, you know, across the country here.

And Christina, I mean, all your life you have heard these stories about Cuba. What have you, you know, in all of these years, what have you imagined a trip to Cuba would be like?

CHRISTINA MILIAN: Man. I mean, first off, I hear about the people and I hear about how warming they are and how great the food is and how welcoming that they are. Of course the sand, the beach, I mean to know that you come from an island that's so beautiful and that the people are just exactly what your family is like, but to never be able to actually have the opportunity to actually just explore it and find out for yourself. That was always the thing that was like, mom, when can we go? And she like no, you can't do that.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Carmen, I mean, you were itty-bitty. Do you remember any of that?

CARMEN MILIAN, CHRISTINA MILIAN'S MOTHER: No, not really. But I do hear stories of people that do visit and it's just a beautiful island and it's my motherland. So I'm, you know, I'm excited. This is something great, a great opportunity to finally be able to bring my children and grandkids.

CHRISTINA MILIAN: Yes.

My sisters and my dad, everybody was really excited yesterday. It was like the first phone call I got in the morning when I woke up. And was like I barely got the opportunity to my open eyes and I'm like wait, wait, what? I was just like exciting and so. It was great news. And honestly, like my dad was crying, my sisters, just to know this channels to different generations. And especially like, you know, my grandmother who is still alive, there are people in our family that they feel so blessed actually to witness this in our time. So I feel blessed to be able to show this to my own daughter. This is going to be amazing.

BALDWIN: You mentioned word generation and that was my next question. I think it is pretty interesting. We were talking to our reporter in south Florida, and it seems to sort of a difference almost like this generational shift, right, and then how people here in the states perhaps feel about Cuba. I mean, do you think that it's reflective of this newer generation and perhaps more of an acceptance?

CARMEN MILIAN: Yes, I believe so. I mean, we need a change. And the thing is that it hasn't happened in 50 years. So, you know, the older people are, like, you know, it has to be set a certain way. But the young generations are optimistic, you know. This is a possibility of our dreams come true while we're still alive, at least from my generation that came from Cuba.

BALDWIN: And your cousins, Carmen, I mean you still have cousins back home, right, I mean?

CARMEN MILIAN: I do. BALDWIN: What is life like for them? Has it improved in recent

years? What are they tell you?

CARMEN MILIAN: No, it hasn't. And you know, my relatives, you know, whenever they can, they send money and whoever, you know, has an opportunity to visit for, you know, because of the relatives that are there, they go and impoverished so they could definitely use the help. So they seem the embargo would really, really be helpful for everyone over there. We just can't forget the people.

CHRISTINA MILIAN: Absolutely. A step forward.

BALDWIN: Christina, you mentioned your daughter and how -- I'm curious, as a mother, how do you plan to, I don't know, explain and help impart your human Cuban heritage to Violet?

CHRISTINA MILIAN: Well, Violet is very, very much -- she's a Cubanita, you know. We are very, very rooted in our background. And so, you know, everything from the foods to she speaks Spanish, we speak Spanish at home. She understands that she's a young Latina and as she grows up, you know, we are definitely -- we speak the Spanish. We speak the language. Everything that will make sure she knows. But I now feel like a step closer, I can actually bring her to the country. And now she'll really know where she comes from.

Because it was always a big question for me, you know, I would have to read books or ask questions, hear these great stories from my grandparents and my mom. So now, to actually explore it myself is going to be incredible and for Violet. That's even better.

BALDWIN: Christina and Carmen, thank you both for joining me. I appreciate it.

CHRISTINA MILIAN: Thank you.

CARMEN MILIAN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Just ahead, the tragedy inside of a school where Taliban militants killed dozens and dozens of innocent children, total innocence here. CNN has now gone inside of this school to see the horrifying scene, the empty hallways, the bullets, we'll take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Before we show you this next story, I just want to let you know, you know, out of the gate, this is not appropriate for children. This is very, very graphic. We're talking about the loss of way too many young, innocent lives.

Pakistan is in mourning and now we're getting a heartbreaking look inside the school where the Pakistani Taliban slaughtered more than 130 kids. The blood stained floor in the computer lab where sons and daughters of Pakistan's military were sprayed with bullets. Shoes abandoned in the school's auditorium. Students and teachers ran in horror from rounds and rounds of gunfire. A pair of bloody glasses found behind.

Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson took that chilling tour and shows us how gunman breached the school's wall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is where the Taliban got into the school. They cut the barbed wire at the top of the wall, scaled it using tie for the ladder. Another team got in just down here and then they took off toward the main buildings.

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

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

ROBERTSON: So many of the children afraid and trying to hide underneath these benches. The class was going on. A brigadier was giving 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 killing downstairs and they come up here to the computer lab and one look inside this room and you can see immediately what's happened. Children gunned down whether they were just typing at their computers.

Classroom after classroom, a pair of glasses sitting here, child's pencils and pens laying on the floor, torn pieces of school work. This child was 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 here, the administration block (ph). One of the attackers blowing up his suicide vest here, shrapnel marks the wall, little foot marks from all of the ball bearing inside the 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Nic Robertson is live now in Islamabad.

And Nic, my stomach is churning over the pictures we just saw and you saw it with your own very eyes. I don't even know what to ask you. I guess your impressions and what people have said to you? ROBERTSON: There is a huge sense of anger and frustration. We saw

that outside the school. There were families there who live in the neighborhood. They were protesting against the government. They said -- and they were shouting, you know, we want more protection from the Taliban. They're afraid. They're concerned.

We've been inside and seen what's left, the aftermath there. And it's harrowing. You can't walk through there without thinking about all of those parents, all of those army officers whose children went to the school and now are without their children, they are grieving. These are people whose job it is to protect the country, but they couldn't even save their own children just a few miles from most of them from where they live.

So when you walk through there, those are the impressions that you have. You are seeing where all of this carnage happened and you realize it's a big scale. You realize this is horrible. But you have in your mind these poor families who are out there suffering and, of course, the general population who wants the government to do something about this.

This school in Peshawar, it could be any school in Peshawar. It could be almost any school across this country. And that's what has people here worried, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I hate showing the pictures. But we have to show the pictures to show the true realty, the true horror there in Pakistan.

Nic Robertson, thank you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We've been reporting so much in the cyber terrorism against Sony. It's so vast, so sweeping, it is mind boggling when you look at all of this. It will take a year for Sony to go through and sort through all of the details that were stolen. In fact, the sweep was so enormous, people who haven't worked for Sony for years and years have been impacted here, including, according to my next guest, this gentleman, ireporter David Kronmiller says he worked for Sony 11 years ago as a project supervisor. He's in L.A.

David, thanks for coming on.

DAVID KRONMILLER, FORMER SONY EMPLOYEE: A pleasure to be here.

BALDWIN: So I guess I should greet you by saying I'm sorry. I mean, how did you even learn -- how did you even learn that your information had been stolen? And it's such a violent, intimate way.

KRONMILLER: Yes, it is. And it is violent intimate way, you know. I learned it through the news media, you know, hearing about the initial hack and then on facebook, a friend of mine who is used to work with that Sony. And I worked for Sony from 1997 to about 2003. And she hooked me up into this facebook group for ex-employees that were impacted. I thought I would be in the clear because I had worked for them for so long ago, but it turns out that my name was found within some of the documents. I don't want to say what I was -- what information they have out there. I kind want to be vague about that.

I'm lucky in a lot of ways compared to other employees who are especially current employees and recently ex-employees because some of the people have had, you know, much more data stolen than mine. I've read on this facebook group that I'm a part of where other people who used to be employees are, you know, have had their Social Security numbers and addresses found on black market sites and their children's information as well on black market sites.

BALDWIN: And I do find it a little bit of irony and realizing it's your, you know, electronic information out there (INAUDIBLE) that was hacked and then, we know, we all turn to the internet and to facebook to then try to get help, you know. That's my aside.

But here you have now this lawsuit. I'm sure you heard about this. Two former Sony employees, you know, filing suit against Sony for not better protecting their data, their information. Are you in that camp? I mean, does your blame -- does the onus fall on Sony?

KRONMILLER: That's a good question, you know, I think to who is to blame ultimately are the people who did the hacking. There's no reason to attack a movie studio over a feature film. It's a bit of parity, it is a bit of silliness, it shouldn't be that kind of thing. And even if for some reason they are doing it for different reasons, they are still the ones who are ultimately responsible.

You know, as far as the lawsuits, I haven't made up my mind about which way I am going on all of that. I'm sort of waiting to see how, you know, the next few weeks pan out and I don't really have, you know, much of an opinion outside of, you know, some people are feeling like they need to have help for years to come. I mean, I'm going to have to deal with this and other people are going to have to deal with it more so for the next several years.

BALDWIN: How so? Be specific. I mean, we're not talking about, you know, the information that apparently is out there now. But when you say years, what do you mean?

KRONMILLER: Well, when you put something out on the Internet, it's out there forever, theoretically, you know. And you know, the thing that I think is most disturbing about the hack is not just the hackers themselves that have done this and they have been malicious, but that they left the information out there for other hackers to pick up, you know, when it comes to identity theft and learning about, you know, people's identities being stolen and used, you know, either maliciously or just to hurt their financial records, people you know, getting fake credit cards and things like that, you know, that's going to go on for years.

I mean, there's thousands of employees that were impacted by this. Not to mention, you know, theoretically -- we'll find out once the federal investigators start delving into the information of what was actually taken, you know, how it impacts other industries and other companies that worked with Sony. So it may even be bigger than just the former and current employees.

BALDWIN: It's frightening. It's tough to wrap your head around it.

David Kronmiller, thank you for sharing your own personal story and good luck.

KRONMILLER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Defiant, at times angry, petulant Russian president Vladimir Putin saying the west is to blame for his country's problems. IS Russian economy on the verge of collapse? Erin Burnett joins me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Russian president Vladimir Putin held his annual marathon news conference today. And he was defiant, he was optimistic. His country's economy is in crisis. Mind you, there was no way around that. It is currency dribble (ph) falling in value. Inflation is more than double. But the government expects it. The price of oil, which it relies on a lot, is failing. And while he was speaking for three hours, leaders of the EU approved a new round of sanctions on Crimea, the land Putin annexed banning any investment there.

So to my right is Erin Burnett as in Erin Burnett "OUTFRONT." So good to see you.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, OUTFRONT: Good to see you.

BALDWIN: Listen, you have traveled the world. You were in Russia when it tanked during the last financial crisis. You have seen this with your very eyes, people rushing out and buying things with cash.

Let's begin with the news conference. Putin says the economy is going to get better.

BURNETT: It's out of his control. Ultimately, that's the reality, which he as a dictator and a strong man is unable to admit, but the truth is it's out of his control. You have oil prices dropping, that's their biggest asset.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BURNETT: And the ruble dropping which is affecting regular people. I mean, we saw this when we were there. At the time, people were running into car dealerships. They get all of their money in cash. And there was (INAUDIBLE) Russia even then because this plunge in the currency is a story they've seen before.

They kept their money in cash. And then when something happens and all of a sudden it is going to be worth a lot less, they want to spend it. So they would go buy cars, they are buying hummers for cash, at the dealerships we were at.

So I called GM today. They said they have increased prices in Russia 10 to 20 percent on cars in the past couple of weeks. So if you were going to buy a $20,000 car, you go on a week later, it's $24,000. So you can see why you would take all of your savings and buy whatever asset you could, even though cars depreciate quickly in value, they want that asset because their money is not going to be worth anything. So that is what you're seeing that happen with iphones, with cars, with everything.

BALDWIN: It's incredible. How stable is Russia? How much have these sanctions really worked?

BURNETT: So they have worked. You know, you hear Putin say he hasn't decided on whether he's going to run for re-election, which is really incredible. A lot of people said it was impossible for him to be able to do. But it's also impossible for a lot of people who has had absolute power to give it up. He's been in power since the spring of 2000 running this country.

BALDWIN: Spring of 2000.

BURNETT: The other day, for the first time, I heard a businessman say to me, you know, he definitely won't be reelected, was his point of view, and maybe he'll even be gone before that, implying some sort of a coup. Now obviously, those people don't think that.

But there is a discussion about his stability, whether he can keep people satisfied because when you have prices rising so quickly, salary is obviously (INAUDIBLE) quickly. So people's quality of life, their security, their confidence in their leadership, that's the biggest risk he's got.

BALDWIN: You mentioned oil.

BURNETT: Yes.

BALDWIN: On top of everything else, the plunge in oil prices, how much is that really hurting them?

BURNETT: So you would think it would be killing them because that's the biggest asset that Russia has, they sell oil. And it is hurting them. No question about it. Ironically, as the currency has dropped more, it's helped this problem a little bit. And I will explain why.

BALDWIN: Why?

BURNETT: Oil, no matter where you buy and sell it around the world, is priced in dollars. It's a big benefit that this country has that we don't fully appreciate. You always buy it and se;; it in dollars. So if you're Russia, you are selling your oil to the rest of the world in dollars.

BALDWIN: In dollars.

BURNETT: So you're getting in dollars, not rubles. And those dollars now, as the rubles are plunging, are getting you more and more rubles. So, it is actually crushing (ph). Few months ago, it was about new fewer rubles. Now it's getting you more rubles. So you have a little bit more money. So plunge in the ruble has actually cushioned the drop in oil for Russia and companies a little bit. But I want to emphasize that broader issue they are facing with inflation, with this quiet, it is much more significant. Big problem.

BALDWIN: We will look for so much of this. Interesting conversation with the president of GM on your show tonight at 7:00, Erin Burnett "OUTFRONT" here on CNN.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here. Let's go to Jake Tapper here in New York. "The LEAD" starts now.