[Malveaux:] The Obamas are saying aloha to Washington and aloha to Hawaii, because we know aloha can mean "hello" and "goodbye." The first family taking their annual Hawaiian vacation, soaking up some of that sun on the beachfront home in Honolulu. They're going to be there for about two weeks or so.
[Blackwell:] Now, before the president headed out for a break there was some business to take care of in Washington that included how to respond to the cyber-attacks on Sony by North Korea and defending his new policy on Cuba. Erin McPike has more.
[Obama:] We take them with the utmost seriousness.
[Erin Mcpike, Cnn Correspondent:] Condemning what he called a cyber- assault from North Korea, in his year end press conference, President Obama called out Sony pictures for pulling the movie "The Interview," following threats to theaters.
[Obama:] Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.
[Mcpike:] He insisted Americans citizens and businesses cannot be bullied into the censorship and promised retaliation against North Korea.
[Obama:] They caused a lot of damage. And we will respond. We will respond proportionally and will respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.
[Mcpike:] He also defended his most recent sweeping initiative, this week's surprise move to normalize relations with Cuba.
[Obama:] What I know deep in my bones is that if you have done the same thing for 50 years and nothing's changed, you should try something different if you want a different outcome.
[Mcpike:] The administration hopes its actions, by helping to bring more western business to the communist nation, will open it up.
[Obama:] It offers the prospect of telecommunications and the Internet being more widely available in Cuba in ways that it hasn't been before. And over time that chips away at this hermetically sealed society.
[Mcpike:] And after a frenzied year's end, he's got his game face on for the last two years to come.
[Obama:] My presidency is entering the fourth quarter. Interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter, and I'm looking forward to it. But going into the fourth quarter you usually get a time out. I'm now looking forward to a quiet timeout, Christmas with my family.
[Mcpike:] And North Korea is now saying that it was framed and wants to work with the U.S. to get to the bottom of it. I have reached out to the White House this morning and they are saying they don't have a response just yet. But we do know that there are U.S. agencies trying to come up with some options to give to the White House on how to respond to North Korea. Those look to be in the form of economic sanctions and banking sanctions but not naming North Korea as the sponsor of terrorism, Victor and Suzanne.
[Malveaux:] Erin, thank you so much. We want you to stick around, but we also want to show our audience live pictures out of Havana, Cuba. Right now the president Raul Castro addressing the Cuban national assembly. This is at the annual meeting that they have. Of course we're going to be listening in and monitoring some of the things that he has to say. If he makes any news of course we're going to bring that to you coming out of his speech. I want to also bring in John Avlon, the editor in chief of "The Daily Beast" and CNN political analyst. John great to see you this morning. You know, the yearend presser, it was really remarkable, having seen him. It seems as if he's really changing, the tone, the style. I remember 2007, 2008 covering him when he had all these promises and he acknowledged he was going to disappoint because he wasn't going to be able to deliver everything. Now he's dusted it off and seems to be going line by line, issue by issue, taking on the last two years.
[John Avlon, Editor In Chief, "the Daily Beast":] Absolutely. This is one liberated lame duck we're look at.
[Avlon:] And I think the prospect of entering the fourth quarter, as he referred to it, of his presidency is focusing his mind and is in fact energizing him. The typical way we deal with lame ducks, i.e. the last two years of the presidency, is to consider the person diminished in importance. We focus our attention on the oncoming presidential campaign. But presidents have the prerogative of changing history according to their actions, and this is clearly president who wants to play offense politically and have opponents respond to him and in some ways help shape and frame the debate for 2016. So I think this is going to be a very different script and it's going to be really interesting to watch such an energized, I think optimistic president going forward.
[Malveaux:] Sure, and his legacy as well. Erin, the president says the U.S. is going to respond to North Korea. It's also involved with ISIS in Iraq. And you have the Taliban in Pakistan, the Assad regime in Syria. Is the president at risk here of taking on too much, trying to do too much in the last two years and maybe just not being able to do anything all that well?
[Mcpike:] Suzanne, I don't think so at all. And this year has been fascinating for all of the national security issues that he's been involved in. I also want to point out, of course you covered President Obama here during his first term, and I look forward to this news conference every single year because it is so very newsy. You may remember back in 2010 is that when he said that his views on gay marriage were evolving. There is always big news that comes out of this. This particular year he was very reflective and also looking forward to the next year, but it was newsy just for that style and the tone and what he hopes to be doing in the next two years.
[Malveaux:] And John, it was newsy, as Erin said. You are dealing with so many things here that are changing Cuba's policy, easing travel restrictions, opening the door to diplomatic relations, that was a huge move. And he's also using the executive orders to get things done on immigration reform, climate change. Do you think that he's abandoned in some way the effort or the optimism of working with a Congress that is going to be dominated of course by Republicans?
[Avlon:] I think he's made a decision based on the past six years that for all the rhetoric of wanting to end gridlock that he's not going to get put in a position where he's hoping Republicans will work with him but he is instead going to try to set the agenda. And the way he's acted since that shellacking in the midterms, he's gotten off the mat and he's played offense and put forward policy proactively, executive orders on immigration, as you said, climate change deal with China, and this historic reversal of policy with regard to Cuba. These are all things that are within the president's prerogative the effectively put his political opponents on defense. Is there a cost? Absolutely. Any olive branch that the Republicans were opening, now that is a very difficult negotiation he's going to have to do. But I think part of the calculation is that Republicans are still going to have to deal with him on issues of the self-interest where there may be overlap. He mentioned something yesterday, tax reform, corporate tax reform, trade deals and possible infrastructure. And so as a result even if he alienates a lot of Republicans with these actions, they will still have to deal with the White House to get anything done on their watch over the next two years.
[Malveaux:] And Erin, I want to bring this up because you were there covering the White House now, and we saw for the first time, it was unprecedented, historic that the president addressed all female reports for his press conference. That has never happened having covered the White House for ten years. And there were so few women. We used to actually, literally, Ann Compton, Andrea Mitchell, Helen Thomas, all of us, how many women get questions on these occasions, it might be one, maybe two, but not everybody. The White House says it was also trying to make a point here, and you get to benefit from that, yes?
[Mcpike:] Suzanne, of course. And we were noticing that throughout this press conference, you may have seen on social media, you tweeted about it, and so many reporters were noticing, six, seven, eight, it was over. And then after the fact, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest actually put out a statement in response to some of the questions that he was getting about it that they did do it on purpose to make this point. And Wolf Blitzer likes to say that we all have a front seat to history, and we did. And that's another reason why this press conference was so fascinating to cover yesterday, again, because it's newsy, and they made it newsy by doing just that.
[Malveaux:] Yes, highlighting the hardworking women who cover the president, Erin being one of them. Thank you, Erin, John, appreciate it. Good to see you guys. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps admits he made a bad mistake and now he's owning up to what he is saying about his DUI and how he avoided jail time up next.
[Blackwell:] And for the first time we're seeing what happened after that infamous elevator attack between Ray Rice and his then fiance Janay Palmer. What surveillance video shows them doing just moments after police arrived.