Be a partner in making the lives of ordinary cubans a little bit easier, more free, more prosperous. The cuban people are no more free today than they were before obamas terrible deal. Gwen so after a year filled with accomplishments as well as setbacks, who would want to be president . Well, jeb bush for one. Dont be afraid to shake things up. And dont be afraid of change. Especially in your own life. En we examine the lame duck and potential for an extended clinton bush designy. With the reporter covering a remarkable week, david sanger, chief corespondent for the new york times, tom gjelten, National Security respondant for npr, john harwood, chief washington correspondent for cnbc. And the National Political competentant for the Washington Post. Expandant for the Washington Post. S this Washington Week with gwen ifill. Washington week is provided by how much money do you have in your pocket . 40. 20. Could something that small make an impact on Something Big as your retirement . If you start putting money towards your retirement and let it grow over time for 20, 30 years, that retire the challenge might not seem to big after all. Funding for Washington Week is also provided by the annenberg foundation. The corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. Thank you. Once again from washington, moderator gwen ifill. Gwen gening. President obama and f. B. I. Both pushed back at the north korean government today, elevating what had been a hollywood story of packing a Terror Threat into an international standoff. The spark improbably was a seth rogen movie, one that fictionalized the assassination of Korean Leader kim jongun. Today the picture was yanked from theaters, the decision the presaid was wrongheaded. We cannot have a society which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they will start doing when they see a documentary that they dont like or news reports that they dont like. Gwen Strong Language that springs from years of confrontation with an isolated nation that has long posed a regional and global threat. Now its a cyber threat that some dictator someplace, as the president put it, is posing. David . That dictator was supposed to be the subject of a movie that somewhat crudely and many would say rudely positived his assassination. Whenever we have been on the show before and talked about north korea, its always about the threat of their nuclear arsenal. Gwen right. So the whole idea that theyre at once isolated, stalinnist, disconnected from the net and yet able to pull off what was clearly one of the most sophisticated Cyber Attacks the u. S. Has ever seen and the most destructive one we have seen on american soil is pretty mindblowing. Gwen isnt that where the world is now . Its not the biggest threat or bloodiest threats. We have seen other threats which came to fruition this week which were bloodier but certainly just as scary. Isnt that where we are now . Not only just as scary but a lot more useful than Nuclear Weapons or even conventional weapons. Nuclear weapons have an on off switch. Once launched it, you cant sort of judge how big the explosion is going to be and you know what the retaliations going to be. Gwen and they have trouble getting rockets. They do. And youre usually safe to stand wherever theyre aiming. In this case the aim was pretty good. Cyber weapons sit on a stat, you can turn it up and down like the heat in your home. And in this case is, north korea went quite brilliantly inside the computers at sony pictures. Sony was completely unprepared for this. They pulled out full movies that had not been released, which astoundingly were unencrypted. They pulled out the salary levels of many of the sony executives. Proving once again everybody at this table went into the wrong business. And they pulled out, you know, y notes about jean Jolie Angelina jolie. But what was really important about this, they also wiped the hard drives, did a destructive tack and that and threat on theater goers that turned it to a corporate attack to National Security. How do we know that it was the North Koreans and not, say, a bunch of disgruntled sony employees . How do we know they did it by themselves . We dont necessarily know they did it by themselves. They may have gotten some outside help. The president interestingly said today he didnt think any other country was involved. Gwen but he didnt say anything about nonstate actors. He did not say anything about nonstate. And you would think sitting in pyongyang and a way to drive studio executives crazy is release their salaries. But in any case thats what they ended up if you believe the f. B. I. Doing. But your question is just the right one. What the f. B. I. Turned out was evidence that these tacks were similar to some other attacks that were believed to have been done by the North Koreans, including one on south korean banks and media last year. But they didnt reveal what i suspect is the strongest evidence, which probably comes from classified monitoring systems. David, one of the things you and i and others have heard before is that actors with the capability to carry out a massive cyber attack dont have motive and actors with the motive probably dont have the capability. Do we now see an actor with both capability and motive to really carry out a devastating attack on the United States . They certainly had the motive because they declared that this movie intended as comedy was actually an act of war. The capability i think surprised a lot of people in the u. S. Government. Attacking sony is the same as being able to bring down the electric grid or telecommunication systems, we dont know that. But its one of the things you have to worry about when you think about what the american response would be. The white house said they would respond in a proportional way. What is that, if its not the north korean film industry, which dont think is a big, fat target. What is the option what are the options for the United States to do . Is there any danger of escalation . There certainly is danger of escalation. In the old nuclear world, people used to talk about making sure you had something called excelation dominance, you could control escalation. Not in cyber. In this case the president would seemed to have ruled out say bombing north korea. But i could imagine financial sanctions. You could even mansion counterCyber Attacks but youre into that escalation problem. Gwen and also into the problem of years trying to deal with north Korean Leaders who just do not respond to normal pressure, levels of pressure. Thats absolutely right. So that makes you wonder would more financial sanctions even be effective . Gwen exactly. Thank you, david. Five decades of ice cracked this week as president obama announced he would restore diplomatic relations with cuba. Setting the stage to heal and economic, hemispheric and political fracture so deep it took the popes ininvolvement to bring it about. Few noticed when the president shook hands with cuban president raul castro there at Nelson Mandelas funeral a little over a year ago. But we now know 18 months of secret talks led up to this weeks announcement. I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result. More moreover, it does not serve americas interest or the cuban people to try to push cuba towards collapse. Gwen staunch anticastro activists, including some members of congress, are not persuaded. This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie. The lie and illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to Political Freedom for the cuban people. Gwen tom gjelten is author of bacardi and long fight for cuba. The book that taught me everything i need to know about cuba. What do the president s actions do immediately . As you say, he can establish diplomatic relations. No question about this. That is squarely within the authority of the executive branch. Congress can quiver about how much money is spent on an embassy or ambassador. But he clearly can do that. Then theres the issue of the embargo, which prohibits certain things but often prohibits things in kind of general way. For example, it very much limits travel to cuba with certain exceptions. Well, the executive branch can say what those exceptions are. So by making a lot of exceptions, you can undermine that aspect of the embargo. Same thing, for example, with financial relationships. Embargo says Financial Institutions are very limited in what they can do with some exceptions. Again, the president can fiddle with those regulations and make it possible, for example, for people to use credit cards in cuba. So even though there is an embargo in place, theres a lot the president or any president can do to undermine it really. Gwen is the big difference here the presence of raul castro, even though hes in his 80s as well, instead of fidel castro . I think thats a huge difference, gwen. Fidel when i was working on this book, i found a quote from him from 1961 where fidel said, a revolution cannot survive without an enemy in front of it. And that really was his guiding thought for many years. Many is exstenl existential need for the u. S. To be an enemy. Raul is more pragmatic. Theres much he wants to do. And hes willing to take a risk, and theres a Political Risk for him gwen for cuba. Yes, regime, to not have the United States as its enemy anymore. One of the critiques of this from ileana, who we saw in the setup and marco rubio and others is the president got a bad deal. He was fleeced in the deal. What is the right way to think about what the United States gave and what we got and whats reasonable to expect . John, this really was a unilateral deal. Theres very little that you can see that cuba gave. I mean raul castro came out and said, we are still going to have socialism. We did not have to give up any of our principles. One thing that they did give up, which is, you know, what gwen just asked, is this idea of the United States as enemy. And now they are committed to a collaborative relationship with the United States which could be politically awkward. But gwen they gave up alan gross. There was a prisoner swap there that they they saw that as prisoner swap, not as something thats really recession on the part of their system. The president referred to two other cases of american engagement with former adversaries. He named china, where again the concept was if you engage them, you can change them and vietnam. Now, in chinas case you could argue we have not changed the chinese as much as we thought we would. Vietnam, harder case. When the castro brothers look at those two examples, what lessons do they draw . Well, theres more Political Freedom in china by a long shot then there is in cuba. I think theres always a wariness about the kwline model. Vietnam is less democratic and i think that might be of the two of the more likely options. The one thing is that president obama has basically laid out this idea, as you say, that engagement will actually produce democracy or lead step by step to democracy in cuba. And i think that is the questionable thing. 50 years of isolation did not do it, he said. You can also make the argument 50 years of engagement with cuba on the part of every other country on the planet hasnt made any difference either. Can you look at it either way. What about the domestic politics of this . We heard nearly everybody being talked about for the republican nomination in 2016 with the exception of rand paul coming out against this. It used to be going soft on cuba was essentially surrendering florida, a key swing state in an election. Is there a new calculus out there . There is a new calculus, karen. The percentage of voters in, as you know, percentage of voters in florida, cubanamerican voters who voted democratic, has gone up and up and up. President obama got more of those votes than his democratic predecessors have. Theres also i think still a feeling among a number of cubanamericans, not the ones in congress necessarily, that may be this will be a way to work for more democracy in cuba. Gwen and theyre younger. They are younger. If you really get involved and really take sang of the leverage you would now have, maybe you can produce it. So generational change . There is a big and also a chronological dont know if its chronological is the right word, cubans that arrived in the last 25 years have a much more nuisanced view than cubans who came 50 years ago. Thats an important difference. Gwen thanks, tom. The president s actions on cuba are the latest in remarkable row best yearend push from the white house. Washington week contributing compantant john harwood is here with the friday focus. Today the United States of america is changing its relationships with the people of cuba. The president s move on cuba this week stunned washington and the world. But no one should be surprised by his approach to his job this year. He declared it plainly back in january. I have a pen and i have got a phone. Andky use that pen to sign executive orneds take executive actions, administrative actions that move the ball forward. In a state of the union address, he announced executive action to raise the minimum wage for some federal contractors. At the united nations, he rolled out one of several moves to curb climate change. Last month after congress failed to act on immigration reform, obama kept his promise to act himself. His directive shielded millions from deportation if they paid back taxes and pass background checks but does not provide a path to citizenship. There are actions i have the legal tort to take as president. The president is taking actions that he himself have said are those of a king or emperor. Not an american president. So when the president spoke on cuba, his goitalone approach was as familiar as republican outrage. Neither the american nor cuban people are well served by a rigid policy thats rooted in events that took place before most of us were born. Its just another concession to a tyranny. By the obama administration. On cuba, like his other goals, obama can do a lot more with congress but hes decided some progress on core priorities is better than none. Gwen like that pen and phone, john. Is this a new muscular action thats a brandnew thing for a president . Or is this something thats always been done . Its always been done to some degree. Bill clinton towards the end of his administration enacted executive orders and regulations that protected a lot of environmental took a lot of environmental measures, ergonomics to reform the way workplaces function and physical condition for workers. President bush, like every president on Foreign Policy, made his great mark with the wars in iraq and afghanistan. And thats something president s have a unique capacity to do. But i think what is different here is the scale of what hes doing on two big domestic policy issues that have been very difficult to legislate. Gwen now Foreign Policy issues. Correct. But on climate, hes using the e. P. A. To do something he couldnt get through congress and on immigration, hes taken a substantial step towards a priority that he and president george w. Bush shared could not get through. And so the fact that on both of those issues, cubas a little different case because as tom said, the president s power to make Foreign Policy and engage in diplomatic relations, i think its character exercise of executive authority than we have seen. So whats left . Are there going to be more of these . What shoes do people think are likely to fall . I think especially on the environment, the president , he has continued to look at different ways, methane gas, other regulatory steps that he could take to achieve the commitments that he agreed to with china, for example, on climate and the attempt to get a global deal on carbon emissions. That is one. I think the president in part hes got to focus on how to make these withstand legal challenge because certainly youre going to see legal challenges and a swept president can reverse them. President congress and president bush reversed president clinton on the ergonomics order. How does that play out . You have president and congress. What is the scenario where they actually go to court, so to speak . Well, you will have industries and businesses, utilities, suing over the limitations on carbon that are being imposed. And if the administration cannot craft a sound legal basis that allow thats to withstand pressure, especially as long as the Supreme Court is tilted towards republican appointees as it is, thats going to play out and probably wont be completed during his presidency. But thats a legal challenge that will play out long term. John, the Washington Post said the president had the worst year in washington. Could you argue these kinds of actions, if he carries them forward to the next two years, could actually create you any kind of legacy . Maybe lame ducks are dead. Absolutely. I would argue it refutes that idea. If you look at the substance, remember the president ran for office to do things. If you look at the things he attempted to do, immigration reform, accomplished big swath of that this week. Climate change, got something done. Health care law, rocky rollout last year but it had a successful close to the initial enrollment. Had a lot of people and theyre continuing to make progress there. Substantively, the president had a pretty good year. Gwen thank you for that friday focus, john. Finally, how is this for change of pace . Little 2016 politics. Republican president ial hopefuls like marco rubio who we saw and rand paul staked out opposite arguments on the cuba debate. Ted cruz and paul ryan weighed in as well. But all eyes were on former Florida Governor jeb bush, who confirms hes thinking about actively exploring, thinking about running for president , which sets us up for the year of the dynasty, with Hillary Clinton dominating the democratic speculation and bush on the other side. Bush, clinton, where have we heard this before, karen . What do you mean . If they both get their nominations, it would wil have been 24 years over the last bush and clinton race. Gwen in that case is, lets try it again. Its interesting. I went back and did the math. If youre 38 years old or younger, you had lived through only one National Election in your lifetime where there has not been a bush or a clinton and or a clinton either running for president or on the ticket as vice president. Gwen that means none of us remember. All 38 and younger. Yeah, i saw that coming. Go ahead. Its just really extraordinary the degree to which these two families have come to dominate politics in a country that after all whats founded by over shaking off a monarch. Karen, what do you what is your actual assessment of the underlying strength of those two die naft of candidates . On the one hand you will see Hillary Clinton can be fairly old, seen yesterdays news. Not exactly change in a new direction. Jeb bush has not been on the ballot a long time. Bush overhang gwen i might add, also fairly old talking about age. Sure, fair enough. Are these actually powerhouse candidates or do you see flaws there . Having these names gives you a big head start because it gives you name recognition. It gives you money. It gives you organization and it it gives you a really big base of people who are ready to go out and work for you because they have been attached to your family for a long time. It cant, as Hillary Clinton learned in 2008, it cant overcome what is basically a weak message or weak candidacy. And theres some disadvantages there too, as david the axelrod, president obamas strategy presented to me, youre driving a used car. Somebody else may have put the dings in this car but you still have got to drive it. Or as george w. Bush used to say, i get half my dads friends and all of his enemies. Karen, george w. Bush and jebs mother, barbara bush, said really there has to be some other families in this country. Gwen she took it back. She did. She changed her mind on that. I think somebody may have advised her that sent the wisest thing to say before your son announces. What do polls show americans think of that . At this point again, these candidate business virtue of their names, immediately become the frontrunners. Lets face it, this country has always had sort of mixed feelings about this. George washington in his first inauguration wa so anxious not wore an ught as old he old brown cloth suit and called him, even though they wanted to, his highness. And by the sixth president two adams, roosevelts, kennedys. Theres something magical throughout our history with names like this. Karen, we have yet more clintons and bushes perhaps waiting in the rings, right . Theres yet another george bush. I covered the campaign this fall of george p. Bush, son of jeb bush, who won Texas Agriculture commissioner. Doesnt sound like a big job but he won it in a land slide. Campaigned his heart out. A lot of people think the big super bowl of texas politics someday will be jorks p. Bush running for governor against dynastic name there. Gwen what did this do for other candidates left out in the shadows by the huge dynasty . I can name half dozen on the republican side, couple more on the democratic side. It creates a space for being an alternative to this person. Again, Hillary Clinton was almost exactly the same spot in 2008 as she was now. Who would have thought that this the guy with a foreignsoundsing name who barely entered the senate could have come from behind and beaten her . The name, creates a space for alternative and also it cannot overcome. Gwen nothing is a done deal until its done. Thank you, karen. Thank everybody else too. Were out of time for now but we plan to keep talking online. You can join us there on our Washington Week webcast extra. Streaming live at 8 30 p. M. Eastern and all week long at pbs. Org washingtonweek. Among other things, we will talk about the weeks other big stories from the secret service to pakistan. Keep up with me and Judy Woodruff at the cbs newshour and in time for lastminute gift giving, check out our holiday reading list online. Make your friends and family just a little smarter. Happy hanukkah, Merry Christmas and see you next week with a special yearend wrapup here on Washington Week. Good night. Zp Corporate Funding for Washington Week is provided by prudential. Additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. Thank you. Next on newsroom. Bumpy road for services from uber to fly wheel, Disruptive Technologies changing transportation and sparking lawsuits. Coverage california, reaching out to insure 2 million more in the state. Plus founder of the webby awards and impact of technology in our lives. The key thing is that we have created. I think we need to feel like we have more agency in how we use it