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Interview With Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA); National Retail Federation Estimates A Record 186 Million People To Shop From Thanksgiving Through Cyber Monday; Winter Storms Disrupt Post-Holiday Travel. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 28, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Congresswoman Dean, this morning, we're learning these new details of the first degree murder charge against the suspect who is accused of shooting Sarah Beckstrom, the National Guard member. I just want to get your thoughts this morning on what happened there in D.C.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Well, it's good to be with you, and I hope you and your family enjoyed a restful Thanksgiving. But aren't we all heartbroken at this Thanksgiving tragedy. This beautiful young woman, 20 years old. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, taken shot the day before Thanksgiving, and dies on Thanksgiving.

What a uniquely sad, sad horror. And of course, we are all praying for Army Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, 24 years old. You know, we take a look at this time of year our troops deployed around the world, in this case, in the heart of Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House, and how proud we are of these troops, and how we see commercials for them, and our hearts are warmed that they are serving us, but also worried for them.

This is just such a hard -- it's hard to make any sense of it whatsoever. But I'll just start by saying I'll continue to keep these members and their families in my prayers.

SIDNER: I do want to get your thoughts on how the President is now responding to the shooting of the two National Guard members. Here are some of the things that he says he's going to do. He posted some of them. He's saying that he's going to permanently pause all immigration from so called Third World countries, as he put it, to allow the system to fully recover, terminate all of what he called the millions of Biden illegal admissions.

He's also ordered a re-examination of all green cards from 19 countries. Do you agree with any of his plans, or do you see some of them as potential overreach to punish refugees who had nothing to do with it? How do you square this? DEAN: I wish he would stay focused on the sadness and offer sympathy,

continuing sympathy to these families, but these sweeping decisions that the President is making, I wish he would say, let's take a look at exactly what happened here. How were these people in this setting and at this risk? Who is this suspect? What were his motivations? One person taking such an awful act of violence, possibly political violence, does not equate to 19 countries and immigrants from all over the world.

It's just a leap that makes no sense whatsoever. It is hectic. It is the way of this administration, and I wish the President would focus on that which he came into office to focus on. Bringing peace to our country and around the world, bringing prices down, and not making sweeping -- sweeping accusations against all immigrants. It's just unamerican, as we celebrate this Thanksgiving season. We are thankful for the immigrant population who comes and makes our country richer. Most of us are immigrants.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you, moving to another huge shift in foreign policy. You're -- you're on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and President Trump is now saying that the United States will begin very soon taking action on land against alleged drug trafficking networks in Venezuela. And I'll just let you hear and our audience, hear what he has said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We've almost stopped. It's about 85 percent stopped by sea. You probably noticed that. People aren't wanting to be delivering by sea, and we'll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that's going to start very soon. We warn them stop sending poison to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: When he says, by land, do you intimate that? Do you think of that as he is going to put troops on the ground, and if so, does the President have the legal authority in your mind to do just that?

DEAN: Well, I am on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have been alarmed by the number of vessels that this administration has taken out without a single consultation of Congress. Just last week, I guess it was, I took a look in a skiff, because I'm a member of Foreign Affairs, at some documents around the sinking of these vessels and the murder of the people on those boats.

Nowhere in there was there evidence of what was going on. Of course, there is the likelihood, or the possibility, at least, that drugs could be smuggled in that way. But you need to come to Congress. You need to come with the evidence, and there is a much saner, safer and intelligence driven way to get at these vessels and to get at the transfer of drugs that would come anywhere near our country.

[09:35:00] Going on land, you got to come to Congress, and it is not a simple task. I wish the President would go back and focus on making sure that the full Gaza-Israel peace plan is implemented. I wish the President would, in a non-hectic way, deliberate and send serious people to discuss and to implement peace in Ukraine, peace for the people of Ukraine, and now to threaten another war. This is just one hectic administration move after another.

Think about it. The President was in office for four years. He then had four more years to prepare to come back. You would have thought he would surround himself with more serious people and get at the business of peace and prosperity for this country.

SIDNER: It is interesting what you say, and notable what you say about the fact that you have seen documents. You said you went to the skiff to look through some of the documents when it comes to Venezuela, and you said you saw no evidence of sort of drug running in those documents at all.

DEAN: What I can say is, I can't tell you what was in the documents, but I wanted to see specific evidence about each of these vessels. I didn't see it.

SIDNER: All right. Well, we'll have to wait and see if you get more details, we'll certainly have you back. Congressman Dean -- Congresswoman Dean, thank you so much. I do appreciate you coming on, on this day after Thanksgiving. Brad?

DEAN: Good to be with you, Sara.

SMITH: Happening today, millions of holiday shoppers across the country are waking up on this Black Friday hoping to score some money saving deals. The National Retail Federation estimates a record 186 million people will shop from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.

Joining me now to discuss this year's shopping trends, we've got Matthew Shay, who is the CEO and President of the National Retail Federation. Good to have you here with us, and thanks for joining us on a big day that kicks off this blitz of retail shopping. I mean retail sales, they're expected to grow for the key holiday months. Do you believe that that's volume driven or a by-product of higher prices for the most in demand part of the shopping basket.

MATTHEW SHAY, CEO & PRESIDENT, NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION: Hey, Brad, good morning. We're looking for a record holiday season this year. Our forecast that we released on November 6 predicts that we're going to have between 3.7 and 4.2 percent growth over last year's holiday so it'll be more than a trillion dollars in sales for the for the first time ever. So a very big holiday.

And I think that's really driven by the deals that are out there, the promotional opportunities, and consumers really thinking about the holiday season as a special time of year. They prepare for it, they plan for it. And we're seeing consumers behaving in smarter and savvier ways than ever, really timing their -- their purchases, looking for sales, finding those opportunities to get the right gift at the right price, and retailers are meeting them with affordable opportunities to really serve them what they need, when they need it, and at the price they're looking for. So we're looking for a great, strong holiday season.

SMITH: Matthew, it's hard not to recognize the lengthier promotional cycles, the ease of comparison shopping online as well for consumers. What levers are retailers needing to pull to stand out on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and this holiday season at a whole?

SHAY: Yeah, Brad. This is the event that retailers plan for all year long. They work very closely with their supplier partners, with vendors, with their teams internally, on marketing, on inventory, on pricing, and then testing the consumer market, of course, constantly to find out what's -- what's being purchased and how consumers are responding.

So I think we're in a very good place. Inventory has been managed very, very effectively, and the CEOs and senior retail leaders with whom we've had conversations have made it clear that they're ready. They're prepared. They've dealt with the uncertainties that are out there that we've been talking about all year long, and so they've got the inventory in the right places, at the right prices, and they'll be able to meet consumer demand throughout the next -- throughout the next four and a half weeks.

SMITH: You allude to it, but one of those uncertainty is tariffs. How have retailers been positioning themselves to outlast an higher average tariff rate, knowing that they're also going to have to woo consumers who are very well aware of those tariffs?

SHAY: Yeah, it's certainly true that consumers have a high degree of awareness about pricing because inflation has been lingering in the economy for the last five years. It's something that consumers think about constantly. There's a high degree of price sensitivity, and retailers have been preparing for this by again, working with their vendors. But you know, the nature of the tariffs were sort of on again, off again all year long, start, stop.

And retailers are purchasing inventory many months in advance. So lot of good -- lots of these goods were brought in in advance of tariff implications. So they were brought in at pre-tariff prices.

[09:40:00]

They're able to pass along those savings and discounts to consumers, and they're also able to work across their entire supply chain so as not to raise prices on consumers. I think retailers have been very, very conscious of price sensitivity on behalf of consumers, worked very, very hard to give them great value and have a really strong holiday season.

SMITH: All right, we know this is the Super Bowl for retail. Matthew Shay, thanks so much for taking the time. Sara?

SHAY: Thanks, Brad. SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much, Brad. More than 200 firefighters are battling right now this huge fire in downtown St. Louis. Officials say this fire that has hit several buildings could burn until Sunday. More details on that coming up.

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[09:45:00]

SIDNER: You know what Thanksgiving weekend signifies? No, it is not just leftovers and shopping. It's also the start of the Hollywood box office season. The holiday season is upon us. CNN's Senior Data Analyst, Harry Enten away.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Senior Chief. What is --

SIDNER: Senior Chief Data Analyst, Senior President Chief.

ENTEN: There we go. Oh, I like president. That's good.

SIDNER: Harry Enten, I demoted you, but then I gave you a bigger title. You're welcome.

ENTEN: That's a big promotion.

SIDNER: Let's see. What is the biggest weekend for the box office.

ENTEN: You know, I was in the spreadsheets last night. I was on that IMDb, and I was a little bit surprised on this. Top holiday Box Office Weekend. Thanksgiving is actually Numero Uno. Of course, it does help that there's five days to that weekend, maybe just a little bit Memorial Day, pretty gosh darn good. New Year's in third, one of course, it falls on a weekend, same with Christmas and July 4, which I thought would have been higher up.

SIDNER: Me too. Who I would have thought that like the summer? No.

ENTEN: Nope, nope. I mean, the summer box office is pretty gosh darn good. But it turns out that Thanksgiving takes the cake. I think last year was north of $400 million, or something along those lines --

SIDNER: OK, so what's going to take the cake this weekend? What are you seeing now?

ENTEN: What are we what are we seeing here? What are the projections? How about Zootopia 2? At least $125 million in that domestic box office. Wicked 2 or I had to look this up, Wicked for Good.

SIDNER: Yes.

ENTEN: I am not a wicked person. I'm sorry to say. I'm not sure I'm exactly a Zootopia person either. But I think I'm more Zootopia than I am Wicked. $110 million plus, of course, this has been out for a little bit of time. It did quite good last weekend. So you put on top of that, at least $110 million. That movie is making B-A-N-K at the box office, but I'm not quite sure

I'm going to be one of those who's going to be watching. I prefer to stay home to watch my movie.

SIDNER: I like how you said you're not a wicked person, and that's debatable. But you don't like Wicked, fine, you're going to upset a lot of people with that one here. What about those who might want to sort of catch up on the potential Oscar nominated films.

ENTEN: OK, so you know, let's take a look here. This is Chance of Best Picture Oscar Nominations according to the Prediction Market Odds. Look at this. One Battle after Another, 98 percent chance of getting a Best Picture nod. Hamnet at 95 percent. Sinners, which I've heard, is absolutely terrific at 93 percent. I had not even heard of Marty Supreme, that has a 90 percent.

Apparently it's about a table tennis player. This is my type of film, because I like to think I'm athletic. But you know what the truth is, the arm hurts these days from too much junior varsity baseball, so I prefer perhaps a little table tennis on the side, and I can take my girlfriend on that. And I believe Laura, you're going to get crushed the next time we play table tennis. You are going down.

SIDNER: OK. You are going down because I will table tennis you. I'm ready. Let's go.

ENTEN: Let's go.

SIDNER: We could be like Olympian status.

ENTEN: We can be -- I think that that is our next career choice after we get canned from this show.

SIDNER: Until you've actually seen the Olympians do it, and then it's --

ENTEN: And then it's --

SIDNER: -- impossible. Harry Enten, it is always a pleasure.

ENTEN: Pleasure is mine.

SIDNER: Thank you. We'll be right back.

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[09:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SMITH: A ground-breaking aircraft is aiming to get in on the flying car craze and transform air travel, and you could be seeing them in the sky sooner than you think. Our Jim Sciutto has this CNN Exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What if you had a plane that could

take off and land in a space not much bigger than your backyard? I got to see it for myself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, that was quick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty fast.

SCIUTTO: This is Electra's Ultra Short meant to compete in the new flying car craze. That is a relatively cheap to operate aircraft that can get you from pretty much anywhere on the map to pretty much anywhere else.

MARC ALLEN, CEO, ELECTRA: And we can save them half the time, right? I mean, half the time you spend in a commercial airplane or on the road or in a train, this will get you there twice as fast.

SCIUTTO: How does it work? The science is pretty crazy. Its eight electric motors don't just move the plane forward. They generate their own air flow over the wings, which, in the physics of flight, then generates their own lift for the aircraft.

ALLEN: You've experience something very few people have experienced. The airplane is going super slow. The wing thinks it's going super- fast, because we're just accelerating all of this air over it, and then some really unique design structures, just rises right up. So the wing just lifts the airplane up at about 150 feet of ground roll.

SCIUTTO: You create your own lift.

ALLEN: You create your own lift, and then you just fly on that lift like an airplane.

SCIUTTO: Because the plane creates its own lift, we took off at just about 30 miles an hour, about the speed of a racing bicycle, something of a nod to the bicycle-building Wright brothers, who invented the world's very first flying machine. From the air, you get the feeling of floating, sort of like taking a ride on a drone.

Plus it's a hybrid with turbo generator charging batteries that run the prop, sort of like a flying Prius, and less fuel means a lower cost per mile than helicopters and many flying cars. The idea of the Ultra Short is to solve another problem with many flying cars.

While they can take a passenger or two, the Ultra Short can take multiple passengers and cargo and go as much as 10 times as far, about 250 miles. Electra already has more than 2000 planes ordered, mostly from airlines and the U.S. military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:55:00]

SIDNER: And guess what? We will not be affording that because I think it's right around $10 million for that one, but there's another one. It's $190,000, maybe you can swing that, not I. SMITH: The financing is going to look a little different on any of

these versus a normal passenger vehicle that we have right now.

SIDNER: Good luck getting financing on that bad boy.

SMITH: All right.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for being here and filling in on this day after the holiday and you're filled with turkey.

SMITH: Sure. My pleasure.

SIDNER: This has been CNN News Central. The Situation Room, up next.

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