"wolf" starts right now. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 6:00 p.m. in london and 3:00 p.m. saturday in pyongyang, north korea. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks for joining us. president obama caps off a momentous week with a news conference set to begin at the bottom of the hour. we'll have live coverage of that. the president steps before the cameras after taking a major step toward diplomatic relations with cuba. he's certain to face questions about that as well as other hot topics, including the sony cyberattack linked to north korea, immigration reform and the fight against isis. the president is expected to highlight job growth and other improvements in the economy. he will answer reporters' questions for maybe as long as an hour. it's scheduled to begin at the

bottom of the hour, 1:30 p.m. eastern. we'll have full coverage and analysis. we'll check in with our correspondents and analysts. that's coming up momentarily. first, breaking news on the cyberattack on sony pictures. the fbi is now officially publicly blaming north korea directly for the hacking. the agency releasing a detailed statement on the investigation only hours after the hackers delivered a new message and new warning to sony executives. let's go straight to our evan perez in new york. what does the fbi say about north korea's direct involvement in this attack? >> wolf, to so quickly come out publicly and point the finger of north korea, i've never seen anything like this happen on this level of cyberattacks like we have in the country. the fbi says there's no doubt that this came from north korea, that they used some of the same

infrastructure that they've seen before used in other north korean cyberattacks. and i'll read you a part of the statement from the fbi. it says, "as a result of our investigation and in close collaboration with other u.s. government departments and agencies, the fbi now has enough information to conclude that they were able to destroy thousands of computers, according to the fbi, and steal e-mails and social security numbers and other private information of sony employees and executives and they were able to hold hostage, basically, a company to force them to cancel the premier of this movie called "the interview." in other words, they forced a censorship of a major american movie company as a result of this. >> evan, you broke this story two days ago that the government

has concluded that north korea was directly responsible. you said an official statement will be coming out and it did come out a couple hours or so ago. and it followed word that the hackers have now delivered another new message to top sony executives including another threat. tell us about that. >> that's right. that was another unusual message where they declared victory and said they were going to stop releasing information from this hack and, at the same time, they want everything related to the movie to be taken down off the internet because there are some parts of the movie and there were trailers that leaked out and being shown on websites. not sony websites but other websites. >> evan, stay with us. we have a lot to cover.

we're standing by to hear from the president of the united states. he'll be holding a full-scale news conference at the bottom of the hour. let's bring in chris frates joining me from washington and bobby ghosh joining us from new york. bobby, what's your reaction to this very blunt, tough statement from the fbi and it concludes with these words, "working together, the fbi will identify and pursue and impose costs and consequences on individuals, groups or nation states who use cybermeans against the u.s. interest." >> they are naming and shaming. it's hard to know how do you make north korea pay. we already have quite restrictive sanctions against north korea. the country can do no business with any country in the world

apart with cheina. apart from strong language, it's hard to see what exactly the fbi or the united states can do about these hackers. especially since the north korean regime has a certain amount, has built in a certain amount of plausible -- they are saying that they are sympathizers, supporters. we are not doing it directly. >> but the fbi didn't hedge at all, give any questions, they said the fbi now has enough information to conclude that the north korean government is responsible for these actions. very tough statement from the fbi. chris frates is here with me. you've been doing some reporting. it's not just private companies that are vulnerable to these kinds of cyberattacks. the u.s. government is vulnerable as well. >> that's what i found, wolf. i reviewed the cyberattacks across federal government agencies and found that they are up 35%. in 2010, 34,000 cyberincidents.

last year, 46,000. i spoke to some experts and they say that this cyberspying is up. what are people going after? the army corps of engineer was hacked and what was taken was the sensitive information about 85,000 dam as across the countr and how many fatalities could happen if they were breached. so i asked, are we not spending enough money? what is going on? we spent $10 billion last year on information security and the experts tell me that's not really the problem. the problem seems to be in a lot of cases human error. these are people who are clicking on links in their e-mail, they are allowing malware in their system that allows the hackers to come in. you can't protect against the stupid user. in a lot of ways, even with all of the money that we spend, we have to figure out how to protect ourselves on a

government level and company level going forward. >> they have to learn how to protect themselves against stupid users. there are millions of users out there. they will hit a link and it's clearly somebody phishing. stand by for a moment. bobby, senator john mccain, the next chairman of the senate armed services committee, says he'll be holding a hearing. one of his first responsibilities as chairman. he says he will be doing it in the first two weeks of early january. he wants the united states to hit north korea with a cyberattack of its own. listen to what he said about the sony attack and the threat from north korea. >> i think it should be a wakeup call. it should be a wakeup call that a country like north korea has this kind of capability. imagine the capability they have to disrupt other aspects of american life so it's time we as congress, frankly, it's time that congress got together with the administration and passed

legislation on this whole issue of cybersecurity and we have not. >> that legislation has been around for a couple of years. ed royce, chairman of the foreign house committee, he's worked together with mike rogers and now the outgoing chairman of the house intelligence committee and that legislation rarely hasn't gone that far. i suspect now with what is going on, bobby, the pressure is going to be enormous to get this train moving, to get some action? >> yeah, there will be pressure on the white house and congress to do something about this but they will keep finding themselves frustrated about this situation. mounting a cyberattack against north korea, there's only a limited amount of information. there's analog. there's no equivalent of a sony corporation in north korea that has sort of -- that you can attack. a lot of north korea's infrastructure is very old and based on sort of analog

communications. the only country that has any leverage on north korea is china. the only way to get north korea to behave is to persuade china to put pressure on pyongyang and the leadership there to behave and china has always resisted that kind of temptation. so -- or that kind of pressure to make north korea behave. and so, yes, there's going to be a lot of pressure. yes, this will not stand. we've got to do something about it. the trouble is there's not a lot we can do about it. >> bobby ghosh, thanks for joining us. chris frates, good reporting on your part. president obama about to hold his year-end news conference at the white house. our jim acosta is in the briefing room. he's standing by. jim? >> reporter: wolf, president obama may be hours away from his annual family vacation to hawaii but he's not going to be in the aloha spirit when it comes to dealing with north korea. we'll be listening for his

comments that the communist government was behind the hack at sony and what he has to say about the blockbuster deal on cuba. the economy and more is coming up in a few minutes. >> all right. cnn's special coverage of the president's news conference it begins right after this. i've had moderate to severe plaque psoriasis most my life. but that hasn't stopped me from modeling. my doctor told me about stelara®. it helps keep my skin clearer. with only 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses... ... stelara® helps me be in season. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and increase your risk of infections. some serious infections require hospitalization. before starting stelara®... ...your doctor should test for tuberculosis. stelara® may increase your risk of cancer. always tell your doctor if you have any sign of infection, have had cancer, or if you develop any new skin growths. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems- these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition.

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president obama's news conference is about to start in 15 minutes. you're looking at live at the west wing. among the topics likely to come, the cyberattack linked to north korea. the fight against isis and cuba and we expect the president to highlight job improvements and coming up at this hour, let's bring in our panel for a little discussion and review of what is going on. here with me in my studios in washington, chief washington correspondent jake tapper, political analyst gloria borger, chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. also joining us from new york,

cnn global affairs analyst bobby ghosh, the managing editor of "quartz" and douglas brinkley. the democrats suffered an enormous setback in the house and senate and motivated to move quickly on so many of these issues despite the setback. >> that's right. we had jay carney on earlier and the pundits thinking that president obama was check out, that's not true. i will say, it's not making any impact whatsoever on his job approval numbers. one of the interesting things, if you look at president obama's job approval numbers, they are

pretty much immune to the ups and downs that we've covered this past year. the public seems to have, at this point, kind of made up its mind with about 52% disapproving of president obama and early low 40s, 42, 43% approving of president obama. so he goes into 2015 still struggling when it comes to the public's perception. >> gloria, you have a piece on cnn.com that's being widely read. "it's as if he has shed his clark kent-ish demeanor for the more flamboyant cape. he's no superman to be sure but he's spending an awful lot of time late tree tieing to get off the ground." >> yes. there's no secret that he was

frustrated. he felt like he couldn't do a lot of things. he didn't want to endanger a lot of democrats and that strategy didn't work so well for him but in any case, he felt leak he wanted to do more. he's got a list and checking it twice and there are things that he wants to get done. now, this doesn't mean, by the way, he's going to succeed because he's got a republican congress. they are not likely to lift sanctions against cuba. for example, they may not approve an ambassador over there and immigration could wind up before the supreme court, for all we know, but at least he's getting it on the record with executive action. and it will become an issue in the presidential campaign in 2016. >> as you know, the breaking news this morning, the fbi directly publicly officially blames north korea. the north korean government for the attack, the cyberattack on sony pictures. the fbi now has enough information to conclude the north korean government is responsible for these actions which then raises the question,

so what does the u.s. do about it? >> you always talk about how the presidents do in lame duck sessions, they focus on foreign policy. cuba, something he planned and something for his legacy but then these other challenges that he can't control. north korea, a major attack on a major company. this is a new challenge unexpected. and there will be a lot of pressure on him, how do you respond, how do you retaliate without sparking something bigger. north korea is a very testy country, to say the least, and you don't want to provoke something bigger, including the possibility of military action, another possibility of a nuclear test or missile test. these are things that we do not want showing north korea that you want to stand up. but the second thing, this is the other real challenge, how does the u.s. protect other companies from this going forward? what is the president going to say today about this? because u.s. companies have been getting hacked by chinese companies for years now at the cost of tens of billions of

dollars a year. >> congress has legislation spending on cybersecurity which has not been approved. >> they do. that's true. even with that ind coukind of legislation, it's a major challenge and companies are reluctant to call out whether it be china or north korea because they don't want to be a bigger target. our country has to figure out what we are going to do about it. >> they don't want to expose the fact that they have been cyberattacked. one other thing we'll have to pay attention to in 2015 is the fact that we have troops back in iraq. jim just reported yesterday, 1300 more troops. and that is potentially a real mess what is going on and we haven't covered it as in depth in the last few weeks. we're kind of fighting alongside iran, one of our enemies, and it's really unclear how this is going to play out especially with iran working with the shiite militias in iraq. what is going to happen over there? is there an exit strategy?

>> there will be questions on isis, syria, north korea to be sure, cuba. there are going to be a lot of significant questions. maybe the first question, we don't know what it's going to be, bobby, but the first question potentially could be, all right, you said north korea's responsible, mr. president. what are you going to do about it? what does he say? >> that's the question that's likely to stump him. i think, apart from rhetoric, there's not a lot he can offer. the south koreans who watch the northerners incredibly close because of the existential threat, the majority of north korea's hacks are against south korea. you can build up the cyberdefense and keep telling the chinese, listen, this is your franken stein's monster. one of these days it's going to turn on you. you have a stake in controlling

them and you have a stake in making them behave like a more responsible global citizen. beijing has resisted these pressures before but you have to keep working that line. >> doug brinkley, you've studied presidents. i suspect he wants to do as much as he possibly can to build up that legacy. i suspect he's reviewing all of the promises he made when he was running for the white house, when he was first elected president and wants to check off the list, did i this, i did this and i did this. that's what presidents in their final two years try to do, right? >> absolutely. and there was a the great recession. we're going to ask, how has he done with that? at the press conference, the president is feeling pretty good. these have been about the best numbers he's had thus far. we don't know what it will look like two years from now but he's going to say, we're living up to

that promise. our troops are going to be finished operations in afghanistan at the end of this year and he's going to say, i've taken part of that piece. iraq, isis, it's a big mess and a big problem. i think the president wants to feel that he's not somebody goated into war the way george w. bush was. in other words, as ugly and as flip-flop and topsy-turvy his policy has been. >> i suspect in his opening statement -- we don't know but we assume there will be an opening statement and he will look at this year and going back to the beginning of the administration when the economy was in great trouble, 6, 700,000 jobs a month being lost and there have been many, many months of continuous job approval and the economy is in better shape, by no means where it should be. everybody stand by. cnn's special coverage of

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we're waiting for the president of the united states momentarily to be walking into the briefing room over there at the west wing of the white house, open with a statement and then answer reporters' questions. let's go to our senior white house correspondent jim acosta. he's got a preview of what we can anticipate. i anticipate there will be a lot of questions, jim. >> reporter: absolutely, wolf. this room is completely packed, as is the case with the year-end press conferences. this is going to be an action-packed news conference. you're going to hear the president be asked about a variety of subjects, north korea probably the most pressing issue of the moment, that sony hack attack and what the president plans to do about it. the fbi has pointed the finger at north korea. the question now is, mr. president, what are you going to do, how far are you going to to

take this and what will your response be that you and your administration has been talking about all week. he has been, as you and jake and jim and others have been talking about, a lame duck on the loose lately, sort of the bear on the loose that we heard about over the summer. i asked the president at that midterm -- post midterm news conference, are you a lame duck? he said, technically i am but he's been trying to rewrite that playbook by going out on his own on these various deals that you saw cut with china, for example, on climate. last month, cuba on normalizing relations with the communist island. i will say, though, with one caveat, i spoke to one white house official earlier this week who said, you know what, keep in mind some of this lame duck on the loose stuff, the president being sort of unbridled, you know, after the midterms, they have been working on some of these things over the course of many, many months, the cuba deal, for example, started back in june of 2013.

the climate deal with china came together when we were in beijing but there was advanced work done on that as well as the immigration executive action that the president announced after the midterms and which we don't talk about as we did a few weeks ago. that was also a work in progress over several months. i think you're going to hear about all of those subjects. wolf, the subject of the economy is something that this president wants to take some credit for and i think we'll hear the president talk about that in his opening statement before he takes question. but wolf, you know, i think you can only look to this primer that was put out by the top adviser to the president, dan pfeiffer, in the last couple of hours which said that this has been a year in action. you heard this at the beginning of the year, this was going to be the year of action. the white house using his pen and phone and that's exactly what he did. >> stand by. i know you'll be asking -- hopefully you'll be asking a question for the president of the united states.

jim askcosta is our senior whit house correspondent. we understand what is going on. the president later tonight will be leaving for washington and heading for vacation out in hawaii with his family, let him enjoy and get some r & r, as they say. it is an opportunity, for a certain degree, for the president to gloat and say we did this and this. >> i don't know if gloating is the correct word but you're right in that president obama is always very, very eager to talk about the stronger economic numbers than he faced at the beginning of his first term. in fact, there was that moment, you remember when he came out and talked about isis and talked about bombing isis and even in that press con fenference, he started out by talking about the

economic numbers. i'm guessing he will say something about them before he takes question and pivot back about the successive months of job growth and how the economy is better than it has been in years. >> why doesn't he get more credit for the improved economy? it was six years ago as opposed to where it is right now -- >> that's what they are asking at the white house. >> what's the answer? >> first of all, you have two-thirds of the american public believing that we're headed in the wrong direction. one of the reasons is that while you've seen job creation, you haven't seen wages go up. and for the last time in the job report we had, which was terrific for this white house, you saw the beginning of wage growth. and once wage growth gets under way, people are going to start to feel that this economic recovery is affecting them. so there's kind of a lagging indicator there and that's what they are waiting for. yes, they think they should have

gotten credit for it during the midterm elections and, guess what, none of the candidates were talking about that because they didn't feel the improvement. >> the white house officials i've been talking to and other officials, they think that the cuba development, the improved relationship, the opening of embassies, exchanging of ambassadors, they think this is going to be a winning political issue here in the united states for this president despite the criticism from some cuban-american lawmakers and others. they think this is going to be a positive development. >> they have an argument for that based on the changing political makeup in. there is not this knee-jerk opposition to any sort of outreach. but this is a risky -- it's a bold but also risky diplomatic effort by this administration to some degree similar to the iran outreach. historical decades' old enemy.

hostility has not worked and there are risks. they needed another extension just last month or early this month in vienna to come to an agreement there. there may not be an agreement and if that happens the outreach will come back to haunt them. the administration is still very much committed to it but there are a lot of pitfalls to come with this exchange. >> what it's done is set the table for division in the republican party on cuba. i mean, you've seen fighting already begin between marco rubio and rand paul and rand paul supporting the president, marco rubio saying he's the worst negotiator that he's ever seen in his entire life. jeb bush saying, i don't think you should repress with regime but i'm glad that rand is out. you have seen him stick his finger in the eye of the

republican party saying i am forcing you to take positions on these things that you might not have done so early on and also it's going to affect the democratic side, hillary clinton is tied to barack obama in terms of foreign policy at the very least and, if things fail, she'll either have to defend him or support herself. >> the new senate, 54 republicans, republicans in the majority, they will be able to decide which issues coming for votes. they will be able to subpoena administration officials if they want. they will have enormous power and be the largest republican majority in the house of representatives going back to the 1920s, if you will. the president is going to have a major problem there in dealing with a lopsided republican majority in the house and senate. >> well, he's going to have what he hasn't had, which is bills coming to him, one after the other after the other potentially, that he doesn't want to sign. he's going to have the house passing a bill and instead of it

going to die in the senate, the senate is going to have to pass it and he's going to have to make a decision and what republicans on the hill are saying he's going to pass a bunch of job measures starting with the keystone pipeline but then a bunch more others when it comes to taxes, tax cuts, fewer regulations and the president is going to be put in that position of deciding whether or not to veto a lot of bills. >> bobby ghosh, we're being seen around the world on cnn and cnn international. people around the world will be watching this news conference from the president of the united states. what are they -- i know it's hard to generalize but compared to where he stood around the world six years ago, where does he stand international right now? >> well, i think it's much more meddling now international. the cuba thing is a big deal here in the u.s. but since the rest of the world was already doing business with cuba, the

u.s. embargo made no sense. the removal of the embargo, while significant, is not going to give him a big bump in the polls internationally. they will still be judging him by his performance about isis, about russia and in those areas he doesn't really have much to report. russia is not currently having problems. president putin had his press conference a couple of days ago. and so with isis, which is a huge threat, as you know, in the middle east and now progressively in other parts of the world, the president of the united states doesn't really have a whole lot to say that is good news. so that's what the world judges him much more than cuba or american domestic policy. >> just to give it some

comparison, russian's vladimir putin's news conference lasted three hours and he took about 50 questions. the president of the united states news conference will last about maybe an hour and will take a lot fewer questions than that. doug brinkley, you've studied these presidents for a long time. what advice would you give this president during his final two years in office? >> to keep being a strong executive and use executive power any chance you can. this is a congress that's not going to do business with him and don't be afraid to veto things. i think, for example, he very will likely veto keystone pipeline and on the foreign policy front, the president -- and it's all presidents, it's the media. we want to see quick action on everything. but with russia and putin's russia, there is some evidence that our economic sanctions have worked. if he can really make that case, he might be able to see those poll numbers that jake mentioned

hovering in the low 40s move upwards. the goal of a president at this point should really be trying to get the public behind him a little more, move up to 50%. i think a trip to cuba could be a big win for him on the visuals of something like that. certainly he seems to be having luck traveling, the climate deal he made in china was a big break that occurred after the media was calling him basically dead, he came up with an historic agreement. there are foreign affairs and executive powers in his last two years. >> jake, it's almost breathtaking when you think about it, a few days ago when somebody said that president obama may be going to havana and that raul castro, the president of the cuba may be invited to come to the white house and meet with the president of the united states in the oval office, we would have said, what? >> that's true. >> but those are real possibilities now. >> and i think this is part of president obama taking a page from what doug just said, making

bold -- republicans would say imperial moves, strong moves, one way or the other, whether you prove them or not. and when you look at the last 50 years of american presidents, there are only four other who is have been exactly in the same shoes as president obama has been in, meaning elected to two terms not having taken office because of a resignation or a death. they are eisenhower, raegan, george w. bush and barack obama. and president clinton. and of those other four, president obama is second from the bottom when it comes to where his approval ratings are right now. he is only ahead of george w. bush who was in a much worse place than barack obama is right now. his approval ratings were in the 30s at this point in his presidency. so there is the potential -- clinton at this point was in the 60s he had much more approval.

same thing with president raegan. >> shortly after bill clinton lost control he famously went to the podium and said, i'll still relevant. >> right. >> the presidency is still relevant and i think that's what we're seeing barack obama do and he just lost the senate he's still saying, i have executive power, i'm relevant and i can set the terms of the debate which i believe is what they are trying to do over there at the white house. >> i've covered these presidents for a while and what they really have to worry about is what they don't foresee. a surprise. like the north korean cyberattack. all of a sudden that's become a huge issue and presumably will dominate this news conference that is about to begin or isis

emerging as a threat not only to syria but iraq after the u.s. invested more than a decade, lost a lot of troops, spent trillions of dollars of dealing with iraq. stuff that isn't anticipated could become huge nightmare. >> the parts of your foreign policy legacy that are out of your control. kwoo cuba, more in your control. iraq, certainly not. the defense secretary signing deployment orders for more than 1300 troops. by february, there will be 3,000 troops in iraq up from zero just earlier this year and they are much more forward. they are going to be in a dozen forward-training places around the country. those soldiers could die. that's a foreign policy challenge this president may not foresee. of course, he's prepared himself for it but americans keeping that crisis somewhat at a distance but if american soldiers start dying on the

ground or over the air in iraq, what is the response to that policy? remember, in afghanistan, an extra thousand troops are going to remain in 2015. they are still at risk there. they will still have some combat-related missions. they are going to go against the remnants of al qaeda, do force protection outside the line of their bases. those are the kind of crises you can't foresee. >> we should note, some troops have died. they just haven't died in combat-related deaths. there have been american troops fighting isis in that region who have died. >> that's right. and that's not part of the narrative the president wanted or anticipated. his narrative was, i ended two wars. i got elected to end the war in iraq. i've ended two wars. and that is, of course, the world is much more complicated than that, as all of us have discovered recently and, again, he's trying to fix that but it's

difficult, takes a long time and he's trying to fix himself on domestic policy saying, you know what, i can do this. >> let's go back to jim acosta. he's in the briefing room waiting for the president. he's clearly running a few minutes late. there will be an opening statement. are they giving any indication what that opening statement will consist of? >> reporter: i think it's very possible that the opening statement will be about north korea and the economy and also to pick up on what gloria was saying a few minutes ago, this notion about the president ending two wars and staring down the worst recession since the great depression, i think that's really the first-term narrative for barack obama. the second-term narrative is being written as we speak and if the president comes out today -- and when he comes out today, i think he's going to fill in the blanks of that narrative. on isis, he's going to get some republican cooperation up on capitol hill. he's likely to get this authorization for the use of

military force, a new one that he wants and that republicans want when this comes to taking on isis. but cuba, immigration, those are two policies where he is really drawing swords with republicans and, to some extent, sort of cultivating a civil war inside the republican party. keep in mind, on immigration, there are deep concerns within the gop as to whether or not they should fight the president on this because they know about the demographics and what that means for 2016 and how it really helps hillary clinton if they had a civil war over that. and then sort of a gop cuban missile crisis has erupted between rand paul and marco rubio. senator rubio saying that rand paul doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the embargo and policy on cuba and rand paul in the last hour or so saying, we trade with china, vietnam, why not with cuba? you're already seeing two likely presidential contenders in 2016 fighting over this policy that

the president unleashed earlier this week. and so one thing i'll be looking for, wolf, is to whether or not the president is going to stoke some of that a little bit here in this news conference. the other thing i think will be interesting to ask about, you know, is what all of this means for hillary clinton. when we ask about hillary clinton, the sense you get from the president is, hey, i have two years left in office. let's not talk about that right now. one of the curious oddities that i find is every time hillary clinton comes to the white house, we find out that she's been snuck in and snuck out again. what is going on with that? as you know, wolf, jake and others, at the end of the news conferences we get the sometimes unpredictable questions like perhaps we've made our way through isis and north korea and immigration and all the obvious questions that need to be asked but i think at the end of this news conference it might be fun to ask about hillary clinton and what's going to happen between these two former rivals as the

president begins to wrap up his final two years in office. >> i'm sure he'll say only nice stuff about his former secretary of state. doug brinkley, one issue that i suspect will come up during the course of the questioning is the issue of race, police, grand juries, the aftermath of what happened in ferguson, missouri, and staten island, new york. this is america's first african-american president. he's been talking a lot more openly about that in recent months. and he seems to be much more willing to do so. give us a little historic perspective. >> i think he's going to talk about race a great deal more. and ferguson is one of the central issues of the year. keep in mind, jimmy carter, there is no such thing as a carter democrat. with barack obama, he's maintained 95% or something like that of the african-american voter in the united states. so he has an intense moral authority to kind of address some of these social injustice

issues. i suspect we'll be seeing him do that a great deal in these next two years and also he's gained a moral authority, the president, i think with the torture report coming out, which we haven't talked about yet. i mean, there is dick cheney talking about torture on all of the programs and the president does look more like a nobel peace prize winning president on these issues and i'll be curious whether in the next year he tries to get us out of guantanamo. he had wanted to close guantanamo. some prisoners have been moved from there recently to latin america so it will be curious to see if he gets that closed in the wake of the terror report. >> he's got problems, jake tapper, closing gitmo, guantanamo, because there's legislation right now, a law saying presumably he wouldn't be able to do so and move some of those gitmo prisoners to the united states. >> he's had trouble with that since the beginning of his presidency. he's been saying he wanted to

close it and it wasn't just republicans but democrats who stood in his way. the administration has been talking about setting up a prison in illinois and the people in that town even wanted them but democrats and republicans united to keep the prisoners of gitmo out of the united states proper and i suspect it is going to be even more of a block now that republicans are in control. >> yeah, i suspect you're right. on this issue of race and police in the aftermath of what happened in ferguson, missouri, what happened in staten island, if the president -- i believe he will be asked about it at the news conference, and -- >> the justice department investigation is going on. >> he's walking a tight line. >> he has. >> he doesn't want to come across being critical of law enforcement police officers in the united states but at the same time, there have been some problems out there. >> right. and i think he's continued to walk this fine line. he and eric holder, for example, going to ferguson, the president did not. and i think that this has always

been an issue for him. he's damned if he does and dmned if he doesn't. it's the difficultly of being our first african-american president and if he's asked about t. i'm sure he will say there are investigations going on and he wants to allow them to proceed. one thing i want to mention here, though, is that we all remarked in the first term, the no drama obama. now it's kind of all drama obama. every moment we turn, it's like, okay, obama's doing this on immigration. this huge executive order which could go to the supreme court. oh, my god, he's doing this on -- you know, this is clearly somebody who has been chaf f'if to do this as the leader of the democratic party, whatever, now he's thrown that away and said i don't have to be the cheerleader

anymore. i'm not the cheerleader anymore. i'm the executive in chief and these are the things that i can do. so it's a very different president. i'm wondering what tone he's going to strike at this press conference. >> and some of that drama is not under his own control, right? >> yes. >> it comes out of nowhere. who would have thought that we'd be dealing with a north korean attack on a very successful one and -- >> he's a cautious man, right? >> jake, if he is asked, what do you think of sony's decision to scrub, to cancel the release of this film because it depicted kim jong-un in a bad way? and it's a comedy. it's not a serious film. what do you think the president will say? he said go to the movies the other day. but this is a sensitive issue. >> it is a sensitive issue and, of course -- look, it's very easy for people to say this is a freedom of speech issue and nobody should buckle and nobody should cave to threats of terrorism and obviously that's what a lot of us feel in our

guts. there are liability issues and that's what the movie theaters were dealing with and what sony was dealing with. this threat was issued. it was made public. what if something happened at a movie theater? maybe not even a north korean or whomever is behind this attack but a copycat, a lone wolf, whatever, then there would be legal issues and these are businesses that have to deal with it. now, michael moore has pointed out that there were threats when he put out "fahrenheit 9/11" and his response was and the studio's response was to hire more security. and that's a perfectly logical argument to make. but i suspect you're not going to see president obama take a position on that. he'll probably talk about free speech, he'll talk about counterterrorism but i don't think he's going to criticize a business decision by amc theaters or sony. >> what's interesting about this, i was in china for a

couple of years. that's a place that carries out a lot of attacks on american businesses and governments, et cetera. >> cyber. >> cyberattacks. if you're stealing something, you don't want to advertise it and there's been loads of property stolen. for the companies, that gives them the ability to not acknowledge it. they don't want to publicize it because it shows they are vulnerable. this attack has been public. many american companies have suffered a similar kind of thing but not in public, which allowed them to sweep it under the carpet. >> the language is going to be important. the question is does the president call it a hack? does he call it an act of terror? we were all -- the question of the president's language on benghazi, for example, we were looking does he call it a terror attack? doesn't he? what is this? how do we describe what happened to sony? >> i suspect he's going to downplay it. >> the fbi came out today and

said north korea, they believed, was behind it. >> do you think he's going to call it cyberterrorism? >> well, i don't know. i think you're probably right. >> i don't think he will. yesterday the white house said they want a proportional response which seems to be lowering the expectations about what the u.s. is going to do. >> and president obama is -- despite the last six weeks -- a generally cautious guy. i think he wouldn't want to elevate it unless he had such definitive proof that -- and we had a response. we may not have a response. >> bobby, you study international affairs very, very closely. how is the rest of the world viewing what has happened here in the united states and how are they viewing what's going on in terms of the likely u.s. response to north korea now that the fbi says it has concluded north korea is directly responsible for this cyberattack against sony pictures? >> the attack itself sends

chills through corporations around the world and particularly in japan. sony corporation may be an american company, the one that was attacked, but there is a long standing issues and japanese corporations will scramble to improve their defenses and companies around the world. as you have been discussing in the studio, this attack is very different from the ones we've seen before. there was not an attempt to extract money. there was not an attempt to steal these movies and then sell them in the market or to take this intelligence and try to make money out of it. this was done to create mayhem. to show that they're capable of doing this. this is not something that companies have been used to. in the past, companies have been used to attacks designed to steal information and they are used to attacks designed to create a blackmailing opportunity. this is very different. this was designed to create mayhem, mischief and to expose a

company and create embarrassment. that's got to be -- there are cybersecurity companies around the world now whose business is going way up because corporations everywhere are turning to them for more security. >> you know, bobby, the problem the u.s. has now is if the u.s. doesn't respond, it potentially could encourage others to continue these kinds of cyberattacks. >> yes. and people will be looking for a u.s. response. i fear, as i've said before, that there is not a quick response available. this is a country that we've already tightened lots of sanctions around -- >> hold on, bobby. here's the president. >> hello, everybody. i really got a full house today, huh? all i want for christmas is to take your questions, but first let me say a little bit about this year. in last year's final press conference, i said that 2014 would be a year of action and

would be a breakthrough year for america. it has been. yes, there were crises that we had to tackle around the world. many that were unanticipated. we have more work to do to make sure our economy, our justice system, and our government work not just for the few but for the many. but there is no doubt that we can enter into the new year with renewed confidence that america is making significant strides where it counts. the steps that we took early on to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 2014 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990s. all told, over a 57-month streak, our businesses created nearly 11 million new jobs. almost all of the job growth that we've seen have been in full-time positions. much of the recent pickup in job growth has been in higher paying

industries and in a hopeful sign for middle class families, wages are on the rise again. our investments in american manufacturing have helped fuel the best stretch of job growth also since the 1990s. america is now the number one producer of oil. the number one producer of natural gas. we're saving drivers about 70 cents a gallon at the pump over last christmas. and effectively, today, our rescue of the auto industry is officially over. we've now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration committed and the american auto industry is on track for its strongest year since 2005. we created about half a million new jobs in the auto industry alone. thanks to the affordable care act, about 10 million americans have gained health insurance just this past year. enrollment is beginning to pick up again during the open

enrollment period. the uninsured rate is at a near record low since the law passed. the price of healthcare has risen as its slowest rate in about 50 years. we cut our deficits by two-thirds since i took office bringing them to below their 40-year average. 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're leading the global fight to 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 jump-starting 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. today more of our troops are home for the holidays than any time in over a decade. still, many of our men and women in uniform will spend christmas in harm's way, and they should know that the country is united in support of you and grateful not only to you but also to your families. the six years since the crisis have demanded hard work and sacrifice on everybody's part. but as a country, we have every right to be proud of what we've accomplished. more jobs. more people insured. a growing economy. shrinking deficits. bustling industry. booming energy. pick any metric that you want, america's resurgence is real.

we're better off. i've always said that recovering from the crisis of 2008 was our first order of business, and on that business, america has outperformed all of our other competitors. over the past four years, we've put more people back to work than all other advanced economies combined. we've now come to a point where we have a chance to reverse an even deeper problem. a decade's long erosion of middle class jobs and incomes and to make sure that the middle class is the engine that powers our prosperity for decades to come. to do that, we're going to have to make some smart choices. we have to make the right choices. we'll have to invest in the things that secure even faster growth in higher paying jobs for more americans. i'm being absolutely sincere when i say i want to work with this new congress to get things done. to make those investments. to make sure that government is working better and smarter.

we're going to disagree on some things, but there are going to be areas of agreement, and we've got to be able to make that happen and that's going to involve compromise every once in a while and we saw during this lame duck period that perhaps that spirit of compromise may be coming to the fore. in terms of my own job, i am energized. i'm excited about the prospects for the next couple of years. i'm certainly not going to be stopping for a minute in the effort to make life better for ordinary americans because thanks to their efforts, we really do have a new foundation that's been laid. we are better positioned than we have been in a very long time. the future is ready to be written. we've set the stage for this american moment. i'm going to spend every minute of my last two years making sure

that we seize it. my presidency is entering the fourth quarter. interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter. and i'm looking forward to it. going into the fourth quarter, you usually get a time-out. i'm now looking forward to a quiet time-out. christmas with my family. i want to wish everybody a measure wrimerry christmas, a happy hanukkah, a happy new year. i hope that all of you get time to spend with your families as well because one thing that we share is that we're away too much from them. and now, josh has given me the who's been naughty and who's been nice list and i'm going to take some questions. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. stng