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Best Deals Online on Cyber Monday; Wrongly Identified Man in Jail for Four Days; Christie, Clinton Surge in New CNN Poll; Romney's Son Tweets Heroics After Wreck; Coaches Behave Badly; Anderson Cooper Hosts CNN Heroes

Aired November 29, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield, in for Brooke. Thanks for joining us on this Black Friday holiday.

The weekend is off to a rip-roaring start right now, but there's one more shopping event we still have to look forward to after today ends, Cyber Monday.

Online sales, the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend, they tripled -- tripled. Web shoppers spent almost $1.5 billion last year on that day. That's a record for a single day of online shopping.

So how do you find the very best deals, because the "Inter Webs" is full of millions of things?

Brad Wilson is back to help us navigate Cyber Monday. He's the founder and editor-in-chief of BradsDeals.com.

Here's what I have always wondered. There's a lot of hype about Cyber Monday. Is it as great as it sounds?

BRAD WILSON, FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BRADSDEAL.COM: It is now. It wasn't always.

I didn't like it a lot for the first four or five years. The last two or three, much better.

It's turned into the day that I do most of my shopping, and that says a lot.

BANFIELD: So can you give me some of the top tips -- just the general, the overview for doing your shopping at your computer on Monday?

WILSON: Sure. So one is, if you -- the banks are being very generous with credit card sign-up bonuses.

If you have a card you just got that has a cash bonus for spending a certain amount of money, for example, the Chase card right now, I break out.

You get $200 if you spend $500 on your card. That's a great way to get additional savings off the top.

Another thing that is important is free shipping is basically the rule. If you're not getting free shipping, you're doing something wrong. There's a coupon code or a competitor site that probably has the same item for less.

Another important one is you want to try and shop at online only stores. That's because for most of us, there's still a sales tax savings in doing so.

If you're shopping at Overstock.com or Amazon.com versus Walmart, you can save up to 10 percent that way.

BANFIELD: That's a good tip. Good. What about the stores you don't know? Should you be doing anything when you don't recognize that?

WILSON: You know, a good dose of common sense combined with -- I actually like using a good, strong credit card that has policies that back you up in case you're worried about that kind of thing. The combination of the two goes a long way.

Another important thing is to not forget coupon codes. They're so easy to get. Takes 30 to 60 seconds to find one.

There is the actual dollar amount or percent off amount of the coupon codes is never bigger than on Cyber Monday.

If you have a particular store in mind, I would wait until Monday. Odds are the best discount of the season will be that day.

BANFIELD: Brad, what are the top two best deals on Cyber Monday?

WILSON: You know, they're probably both at Amazon.

I put together a list, but two I really like is a Dyson vacuum that's going to be $179, and also the Roku is doing to be $39.99.

Another sleeper is $100 in iTunes gift cards for only $79.99.

BANFIELD: That's clever.

One other thing I want to point out which I read that I had no idea. The best time to shop on Cyber Monday is 12:01 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., so the first hour, and 9:00 a.m. to noon.

Just not as high traffic? Is it that simple?

WILSON: You know, there's two dynamics. One is there's a lot of things on sale for the entire day. Those tend to start at midnight. The best deals there vanish. They vaporize.

You want to get in there. You want to stay up late and try to knock some of those out.

Then there's also a lot of rolling deals throughout the day that are only valid for an hour or two or three. More of those are in the morning, and it tends to taper off later in the day.

So, you know, you want to stay up an extra hour or two and then pay attention.

BANFIELD: Great stuff. Brad Wilson, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving long weekend to you.

WILSON: Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

BANFIELD: If what a college student says is true, when the police in Maryland ignored one letter in his name, it ended up costing him four days of his freedom. That name? Jawon Johnson.

He told our Baltimore affiliate, WJZ, he spent four days behind bars after an officer mistakenly identified him.

See one is Jawan, and one is Jawon. They sound the same. They might have as in the name, but what a difference.

He is a freshman at West Virginia State University, spells his name with just one "A."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAWON JOHNSON, COLLEGE STUDENT MISTAKENLY JAILED: Never thought I would be sitting in jail, especially for something I knew for sure I didn't do.

I told them that the picture wasn't me. They continued and insisted on the fact it was me. They said I was in the cell for 23 hours a day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Twenty-three hours a day for days. WJZ said when he was transferred to federal court, well, that's when officials ran his fingerprints and sent his picture to the prosecutors, and oops, realized they had the wrong man.

CNN's legal analyst, Paul Callan, is back with me now. These are the kinds of cases where I like to say, is that where you ask the prosecutors and the government to bring a wheelbarrow so you can haul the money away that you want to sue them for?

Or do you just not have that luxury of suing the government when they make a bad mistake like that?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, as bad as the facts look in this case, it's still a tough time suing the government.

I'll tell you why, because the government is going to come in, cops are going to say, hey, his name was virtually identical. You know, Jawan, Jawon with the "A" and the "O," close name-wise.

There are reports, now, I'm not sure, I haven't seen confirmation, but one of the reports was the birthday of the two men was the same. The third thing that I heard is that the real Jawon looks a lot like this poor guy, the college student Jawan, so now the police are in a bind. What do they do? Let him go?

Let's say it didn't apply in this case because he was a material witness to a burglary and that's a whole different set of facts, but let's say it was somebody accused of murder, and you said, gee, there's one letter off in his name. I guess we'll let him out.

Then he goes and killed somebody else, the cops would get sued in that situation, wouldn't they?

BANFIELD: You're right.

CALLAN: I'm saying you have to prove negligence.

Now, I think he's got a great case after one day in custody, because after one day in custody, hey, run the prints. This is Baltimore, Maryland. The kid is from Washington, D.C. Call a cop in Washington, D.C., and find out if they got the right person.

Plus, he's a witness. He's not a criminal, so give the cops the benefit of the doubt for one day, but three days? Get out the wheelbarrow and let's give this kid some cash.

BANFIELD: And how about four days? Haul out your silo. Fill it with cash.

CALLAN: You know. So there you go.

BANFIELD: I do want to say this, Paul. CNN did reach out, trying to get a response from the police in this case.

We didn't get one, but the police did give a response to "The Baltimore Sun." We're going to run the response they gave to the newspaper.

It says this, "Besides the similar names, the two Johnsons had the same birthday, a quick comparison of a photo on the warrant and Jawon Johnson's driver's license seemed to match up.

"When you have a similar photo, name, and date of birth, the stars looked aligned. We honestly thought everything was on the up-and-up."

Kind of matches what you were saying, but four days?

CALLAN: Sadly, it's not really going to be a wheelbarrow. A smaller amount, but I think he would get something in a suit.

BANFIELD: OK, Paul Callan, thank you. Do appreciate your insight as also.

CALLAN: OK, thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: A dramatic accident after a driver veers off the road, one of the first people to respond has ties to a former presidential candidate, and he's being called a hero for rescuing four people, two of them kids, inside that car.

But then also, he's getting criticism for what he did, too. What? Seriously, a hero gets criticized? What on Earth did he do? Find out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Chris Christie is up, Marco Rubio is down, Hillary Clinton is way up, but then again, she could shock the planet and decline to run for president. What would that do to the Dems?

A new CNN poll out today about the race for the White House, 2016, pretty interesting stuff.

Our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is working today on this holiday Friday. He's live in Washington.

So let's talk a little bit about Hillary Clinton right now, and November 2013 because, quite frankly, isn't that what everyone wants to talk about is, who is going to do the deed in November 2013? She's mopping the floor with other Democrats right now.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: She really is. Let's put the numbers up on screen. This is really no big surprise, Ashleigh.

We know if the Democrats were to pick their nominee right now, it shows Hillary has a commanding lead, 63 percent. Joe Biden is the nearest challenger at 12 percent.

Elizabeth Warren, who a lot of Democrats say keep your eye on, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, she could be the spoiler in the next cycle, the Howard Dean, Barack Obama, who was the spoiler who ended up being the president.

And then two governors, Governor Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo, and then Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland, who a lot of people say keep your eye on, Martin O'Malley.

What if Hillary Clinton does not run? She decides, I have given it my shot, I'm not going to do it again. Joe Biden then vaults to the front.

He doesn't have the same commanding lead Hillary Clinton does when she's in the running, but Joe Biden way out in front of Elizabeth Warren. That's when Democrats would have to start wringing their hands.

Frankly, Governor Cuomo in New York, he's showing a fairly strong position here in this "minus-Hillary" field.

All of those numbers should make Joe Biden nervous if he's the one who is really the front runner and the establishment pick in 2016 and not Hillary Clinton, if she decides not to run, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I want to be clear that is not Chris Cuomo on that list. ACOSTA: His numbers would be way up.

BANFIELD: I hear you. I would so vote for him.

But he lost out to that good looking thing in People magazine to his brother, which I think is hilarious.

You're going to do more on the Republicans in the lead, sitting in for Jake Tapper.

ACOSTA: Not surprising Chris Christie is out in front, but what is interesting is the rest of the pack. We'll show the numbers and break them down in 15 minutes.

BANFIELD: Top of the hour, get yourself a coffee, settle in, and we'll toss you the baton in a moment.

I love this story. I really do. Political pop, one of Mitt Romney's sons is being called a hero, all of this after a terrible wreck.

Not so terrible, everyone is OK, but take a look at the picture. Police say a driver missed an off-ramp in Utah, crashed into a home. Everyone in the home is OK.

The first people to arrive on the scene saw it happen, Josh Romney, Mitt Romney's son. He tweeted out this picture. He lifted four of the people inside the car to safety, and they were mostly OK.

Really, they were doing all right, but some people are now criticizing him, saying he shouldn't be posing and smiling in front of the wrecked vehicle.

I'm just going to say it, Thanksgiving. Thankful that Josh Romney was there to help the people get out of the car and that they're all OK.

Thank you, Josh. Period. Who cares?

How far will you go to win a game? A few professional coaches are making big headlines for blurring the lines between competing and cheating.

One of them, this guy, Jason Kidd, oh, what a stunt, spilling a drink to gain an advantage.

That's not my assessment. And he's not the only coach. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Brooklyn Nets head coach Jason Kidd, former famous player, may have just made the most expensive soda spill in the NBA, maybe of all time.

Have you seen the video? The Nets were out of time-outs at the end of Wednesday's game, and Kidd seems to mouth the words, "Hit me," to one of his players.

OK. It's there. But on another camera angle, you can really see him say, "Hit me." There it is. Yep. Then, oh, there goes the soda.

So they collide. He drew up a play during the clean up. The NBA is fining him $50,000 for this stunt.

He's not the only coach catching some heat. CNN's Nischelle Turner is back along with Mike Freeman, an NFL writer for Bleacher Report.

OK, Mike, I want to start with you. First of all, when I saw that, I just was dumbstruck.

I don't know a lot about sports. I'm not like Nischelle, who is awesome in everything.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Oh, come on.

BANFIELD: But I saw that and I thought it was a one in a million thing. And now I'm hearing from a lot of sporting people, there's shenanigans that goes on.

MIKE FREEMAN, NFL WRITER, BLEACHER REPORT: Oh, there's -- all the time, Ashleigh.

Nischelle know this as well. There's a saying in sports that, if you ain't cheating -

TURNER: If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.

FREEMAN: -- you ain't trying.

TURNER: I knew he was going to say that.

FREEMAN: Yes. That happens all across the sports world.

One of the things that we focus a lot on in sports, we focus on the players that try to cheat, the performance-enhancing drugs and things like that, but this goes on in the coaching world, too, this stuff.

Coaches are desperate to win. They want to win as much as the players do. And they don't want to lose. They don't want to get fired. They want to try as hard to get over as players.

And sometimes those coaches venture into areas they shouldn't and we have seen it, these last two examples. I think it's very, very common.

BANFIELD: So, Nischelle, I want you to weigh in on the thing I was watching, and even me as a complete football moron, was astounded watching the Steelers coach, Mike Tomlin, I think his name is.

And it looked like he might have cost them a touchdown here. He's on the sidelines. He's like in the way of the play.

TURNER: Yeah, we've seen Jacoby Jones --

BANFIELD: I'm doing play-by-play. Look at this. I'm an idiot, and I know that's wrong.

TURNER: Well, you know, you're looking at Jacoby Jones there last night during the Steelers/Ravens game.

And you see Mike Tomlin there on the sideline who's standing in an area where coaches are banned from standing during the game.

He's watching the jumbo-tron and Jacoby Jones has sprinted free from the defender and he's probably going to score a touchdown on the return.

Mike Tomlin at the very end kind of gets out of the way, but it's just enough for Jacobi Jones to have to slow down and cut inside so the defender tackles him and saves the touchdown.

You know, Mike Tomlin says of course, I wasn't -- I didn't do this intentionally, but when you see him after the play, he's kind of got this smirk on his face like, Did I do that? The whole Urkel thing, remember that?

And now the NFL is actually looking into this. They are -- and they are saying he should have either been penalized or the Ravens given a touchdown in this situation, because he did prevent, they believe, Jacoby Jones from scoring.

But you know, Mike is right. This goes on a lot, and coaches and players do a lot of kind of funny things sometimes to try and get over the best they can by just bending the rules enough.

I mean, we heard Joe Flacco, who's the quarterback for the Ravens last year during the Super Bowl, say he was caught on NFL Films audio saying, Trip him. Just trip whoever comes by and try to prevent him from getting a touchdown.

They want to win. You're right.

BANFIELD: All our CNN viewers who love you for your entertainment reports probably don't know that you were a sideline reporter for Fox Sports.

TURNER: I was.

BANFIELD: And you were just -- and you are one of my favorite people, period. That's all I'm going to say, Nischelle Turner.

Thank you. Mike Freeman.

I love you, too. I will just give you cool props. What about that?

Thank you both. Happy weekend to both of you.

Were back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: CNN is honoring everyday people who just so happen to be changing our world. On this Thanksgiving weekend we wanted to give a hat tip to CNN's Heroes.

Our multi-talented correspondent Nischelle Turner has a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER: It's that time of year again when giving back to others is in the air.

Hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper, this year's annual heroes event is packed with emotion --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.

TURNER: -- and unforgettable moments --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

TURNER: -- a night when Hollywood's brightest stars come together --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It shines a lot on people that don't do it for the light.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the people to get excited about. It kind of makes your jaw drop.

TURNER: -- to shine the spotlight on 10 remarkable people who are changing the world --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is like the Academy Awards for good people.

TURNER: -- like a great-grandmother who used her life savings to turn a bus into a classroom --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get on the bus, everybody, CNN Hero Estella Pyfrom.

TURNER: -- and the woman who started a drill team to keep kids off the streets --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) and the pride of Camden, New Jersey.

TURNER: -- turning the tables on a traditional awards show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not the only hero in this room, and none of us as heroes stand alone.

TURNER: CNN Heroes puts these everyday people center stage.

SARA BAREILLES, SINGER: I want to see you be brave --

TURNER: It's a star-studded event with a few surprises.

And a heroic ending that you don't want to miss.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": The 2013 CNN Hero of the year --

TURNER: A night to gather together to celebrate the human spirit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Watch it all this Sunday at 8:00 p.m.

I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Have a great weekend, everyone.

"THE LEAD" starts right now.