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Holiday Shoppers In Full Force Despite Inflation; Heavy Rain To Drench Much Of Central Plains And Southeast; Trump Hosted Holocaust Denier Along With Kanye West At Mar-a-Lago; Thursday Marked Nine Months Since Russia Invaded Ukraine; "The Progressive Liberal," A Wrestler Fans Love To Hate; Trump Losing Support Among Republican Voters. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired November 26, 2022 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LISA LING, CNN HOST, "THE IS LIFE": And you style her, you do her makeup? Everything?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes, I do. A lot of YouTube videos.
LING: You do a pretty good job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAULA REID, CNN HOST: Well, don't miss the season premiere of "This is Life" with Lisa Ling tomorrow night at 10:00 Eastern here on CNN.
And the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
[18:00:25]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On Saturday, they estimated that more than 60 million Americans will get out there to do that Holiday shopping. Many of them plan to do it in stores.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are a little worried about inflation, that is why we are hoping to get some sales.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't mind spending money. It's only once a year and you only live once.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything has gone up this year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think as we go out and look for gifts, we're really mindful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Both of these systems are going to be moving across the country over the next 24 hours, so even if your travel plans aren't today, but maybe they're tomorrow, these systems may end up impacting you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there's definitely that extra headache or stress added to be on the road during this time.
EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: In more than two dozen counties across the State, early voting underway here.
HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: This is a fight that we're going to win.
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): To show up and vote.
Are you ready to win this election?
REID: Top of the hour in Washington, I'm Paula Reid, in for Pamela Brown and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.
The Thanksgiving Turkey has surrendered the spotlight, it is now the season of shopping. And this year, the Holiday squeeze on your wallet is even tighter. prices are rising, a recession may be looming, and your gift list isn't getting any shorter. But President Biden is hoping to lead by example, working in a little holiday shopping for the second day in a row.
Now CNN's Gloria Pazmino is out and about among the shoppers in New York City. All right, Gloria, what are you seeing out there? I've done quite a bit of shopping over the past few days, but what are you seeing outside of the ground in New York City tonight?
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm doing the best thing you could possibly do, which is to wait until the last minute to get all your shopping done. But you talked about wallets getting tighter, Paula, and I am not seeing any evidence of that here from the people I've been speaking with. They are saying they're looking forward to spending the money that they have.
And let me just paint the picture of what it looks like now in terms of the economy because we have been talking over and over about inflation and prices are going up and things economically are, you know, still a little bit shaky.
Inflation 7.7 percent last October. Despite those numbers, retail sales are expected to increase in this Holiday season. This Holiday shopping season is expected to break records.
Today alone on Saturday, a day after Black Friday, more than 60 million Americans are expected to go out and hit those stores and try to get those discounts, those deals. We spoke to a few of those people that are out here and asking them whether or not they are worried about inflation, about the economy. They are all looking forward to the season, looking forward to shopping, and looking forward to spending their money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I came in here knowing what I wanted to buy and I came out with that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This weekend, because it is you know, Black Friday weekend. So we caught some of the sales, but inflation is definitely -- yes. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like it's been a really rough go the last
couple of years, so I just want to have a fantastic Holiday season and celebrate with my family and buy some nice things for them. So, I was happy to spend the money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAZMINO: And a bit of advice from those shoppers, at least for me. They said, don't use your credit cards if you can help it and go in there with a plan, which means that I still have time because I don't have a plan. So, I will wait until the last minute to get all that shopping done -- Paula.
REID: Hey, everybody has their own way to approach Holiday shopping. Good for you, Gloria. Good luck.
And some 55 million Americans are traveling this Thanksgiving weekend, and weather is adding to the snarl and the biggest surge in the nation's airports is just ahead.
CNN meteorologist, Gene Norman joins us now. All right, Gene, which areas of the country are going to have the most problems over the next day or so?
GENE NORMAN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Paula, it's all going to be along the East Coast because today's rain in the South will be tomorrow's travel trouble along the East Coast.
We've seen lots of showers and thunderstorms pushing in from the south, and right now, we're not seeing any airport delays that are specifically tied to weather. We did have that earlier with Dallas and Houston, but right now, just a 30-minute delay being reported down in Tampa, also in the Orlando area, but that's mainly due to volume.
The storms that we're tracking are still pretty potent here along sections of Southern Mississippi, Southern Louisiana and eventually, making their way in to Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
[18:05:06]
NORMAN: No warnings at the moment, but there was a tornado touchdown just to the west of New Orleans earlier this afternoon, but some of these storms could pack a punch, especially along I-10 later on this evening and on into the overnight hours. The yellow shading area indicates the places that have the best chance of seeing that kind of rough weather.
But those storms are going to push to the North. Heavy rain overnight, St. Louis over to Cincinnati and then it is all along the East Coast. I-95 is going to be a soggy ride.
And then on those airports, well, it's going to be tough, too because the storms moving through, the volume is going to push the delays at least into the moderate category. These orange shaded airport symbols that you see here. And out West, we are also tracking a new storm system that's going to
bring some snow, some significant snow out West, and we're talking about anywhere from one to three inches of rain along parts of the south into the sections of the Ohio River Valley, so again, it could be soggy along I-70, I-80, and then out West Paula, a really tough slogging here across sections of the Rockies where there could be a foot of more of snow in some of the higher elevations.
Wherever you're heading tomorrow, I hope you get there safely.
REID: All right, Gene Norman, thank you so much.
So whether you're flying this weekend or sometime in the future, what can you do to ease the frustration?
Well, I want to bring in a travel expert, Clint Henderson is a managing editor at "The Point Sky." Clint, thanks so much for joining us.
I want to show some of your tips to dealing with delays and frustrations. Let's go down the list. First of all, you say have a backup plan. So, what exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean have other flights in mind? Be prepared to rent a car? What are you getting at?
CLINT HENDERSON, MANAGING EDITOR, "THE POINT SKY": So all of the above. You want to make sure you know what other airlines fly the route that you want to take. So, if something goes sideways with American Airlines, for example, and you need to get to Seattle, you should know what other airlines operate that flight. So when your flight gets canceled or substantially delayed, you can call American and say, "Hey, put me on this Delta flight." Know the flight number, know the information, have that plan in your back pocket, so you can be one of the first people to be rebooked if something goes wrong.
Same thing with renting a car. If obviously, you're not going to drive to Seattle, but if your trip is a little closer, renting a car might be the best option if there's a lot of delays.
REID: And you suggest installing the airline app on your phone. Now people who travel all the time, most people have a few of those airline apps on their phone. But a lot of people don't. So what would you tell them is the benefit of using that space on your phone to download the app?
HENDERSON: So, you're going to be a savvy consumer if you have that app in case something goes wrong. So not only could you potentially be alerted to a delay, or cancellation via the app, you could also be one of the first people to rebook yourself if that flight gets canceled, so that enables you to rebook yourself right away as you run to the Customer Service Counter, and you call the airline and you ping them on social media.
You want to be able to rebook yourself, because remember, there's less flights now. Flights are full. So you want to be one of the first people off that plane to be able to try to get on the next available flight before everyone else does.
REID: So I am really interested in this tip. You say, people should follow the airline on social media. Now, we know airline social media, it's a little festive-esque, a lot of airing of the grievances. How do you convince consumers to want to follow Airlines on social media? What is the value?
HENDERSON: Okay, so the value is if your flight gets substantially delayed or canceled, and this has happened to me before, you can ping them on social media, and let's face it, if things are really going sideways, going haywire, they might not respond to you quickly.
But I have been able to book myself on a flight via Twitter Direct Message to American Airlines. So, it is possible, follow them on Instagram, follow them on Twitter, if something goes wrong, try that avenue. Because if you're having to go get in the Customer Service line, who knows how many people are in front of you. You should be using all the tools in the toolbox. You know, try to rebook yourself via the app, get on social media, call the airline and stand in that Customer Service line.
So those are a few of the reasons you want to follow them on social media.
REID: And really quickly, you also say, be your own best advocate. What do you mean?
HENDERSON: So fight. You've got to fight for your rights and you've got to you got to be an educated consumer and you have to know when to ask for things like hotels, compensation, or another flight and if you are your own best advocate, you're going to be ahead of 90 percent of the people on that flight. So, the best advice we have at "The Points Guy" for you.
REID: Fight peacefully, right? We don't need any more violence or anger outbursts at the airport.
HENDERSON: Absolutely.
REID: All right, Clint Henderson thank you so much.
HENDERSON: Nice to see you.
REID: And in Georgia, tens of thousands of people are already taking advantage of early voting that kicked off today in the crucial US Senate runoff.
[18:10:07]
REID: This is what it looked like in Atlanta at one polling site where cameras weren't allowed in. CNN saw lines of voters wrapping around the inside of a gymnasium. At another, CNN saw voters waiting over an hour to cast their ballot.
Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger, Herschel Walker are battling it out with less than two weeks to go. A Court ruling this week cleared the way for early voting this Holiday weekend in as many as 22 of Georgia's 159 counties.
Now, to the fallout from former President Trump's dinner with Kanye West and White nationalist and Holocaust denier, Nick Fuentes. The former President is now acknowledging the dinner with Fuentes, but says he didn't know who he was.
Now, CNN national political reporter, Maeve Reston has more.
MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, Paula. So the backlash is growing over Trump's decision to host the rapper, Kanye West and White supremacist and Holocaust denier, Nick Fuentes, a podcaster who has a large and growing following on the far right.
And as you know, Paula, West became engulfed in controversy in October after repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories during an appearance on a podcast. But this week, he showed up at Trump's private Mar-a- Lago club with Nick Fuentes, whose beliefs are so offensive that he has been banned from most major social media platforms.
Sources told our Kristen Holmes that Fuentes was a guest of Kanye's and was not invited by the former President, but that they sat at a Thanksgiving dinner table with others for roughly two hours at Trump's outdoor patio table.
And a source briefed on the dinner said that Trump was engaged with Fuentes and found him to be very interesting. Fuentes, who was at the Capitol on January 6th made it clear to the former President that he had a good understanding of Trump's base and told him that they prefer it when he speaks off the cuff and ad libs during his speeches.
So, at one point during the dinner, sources told Kristen that Trump declared that he liked Fuentes and in a video that West posted on Twitter, a Mar-a-Lago debrief as he called it, he claimed that Trump is really impressed with Fuentes.
But this is creating considerable controversy for Trump who announced that he is running for President as you know, just over a week ago, and he has already made several attempts to explain Fuentes' presence on his social media platform, Truth Social.
And I just want to read you the President's statement on this. He said: "This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a- Lago. Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport."
So of course, he had the opportunity there to condemn the ideology or apologize for hosting a Holocaust denier, and he did neither of those things.
Back to you -- Paula.
REID: Maeve Reston, thank you so much.
Well, President Biden is weighing in on the former President's decision to host Fuentes. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. President, what do you think of Donald Trump having dinner with a White nationalist?
What do you think of that, sir?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You don't want to hear what I think.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And the White House is condemning Fuentes' appearance at Mar-a- Lago in a statement, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates says: "Bigotry, hate and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America, including at Mar-a-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned."
Former President Trump has of course kicked off the 2024 White House race, but he could be losing ground to other Republicans who will run the numbers.
Plus, after two weeks, we still don't know who is responsible for the deaths of four University of Idaho students. Now, investigators are getting a big assist from the State government.
And Ukraine works to get all its power back after relentless Russian airstrikes on its infrastructure. We're going to break it all down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:18:25]
REID: On this Holiday weekend, the search goes on for whoever fatally stabbed four University of Idaho students nearly two weeks ago. Police in Moscow say investigators are going through more than 260 pieces of digital evidence sent in by the public, including videos and photos.
CNN's Camila Bernal is watching all the developments, including a new one.
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, it's been so frustrating for the families, the friends of the victims, but also for the entire community, because two weeks later, we still don't have a motive, we don't have a weapon, and we do not have a suspect.
Authorities saying they are going to need more time. They are still processing the scene. They're looking at things like blood, footprints, tire marks, and they've already taken about 4,000 pictures of the scene. They've already collected about a hundred pieces of evidence. They're going over all of this in addition to all of the tips they've received, it's about a thousand tips so far.
They've talked to 150 people more or less about this investigation, trying to piece everything together. And not only are they going to need time, but they're also going to need money, and it is part of the reason why Governor Brad Little already pledging a million dollars in State emergency funds to try to solve this case.
In terms of the details, the timeline, everything has remained pretty much the same. We know all four students were out on Saturday, November 12th. They came back home at around two in the morning and they are believed to have been killed in the early morning hours of the 13th.
[18:20:10]
BERNAL: We know they were all stabbed multiple times. They were likely all sleeping. Some of them did have defensive wounds. So possibly some of them fought back. But there are still a lot of questions in this case.
One thing authorities do continue to say and that is that they believe this is a targeted attack. They will not give the reason for this, but they say this was targeted.
Of course, so many questions still that need answers, and it's part of the reason why people are still scared and why they're still so frustrated -- Paula.
REID: Camila Bernal, thank you so much.
Now, take a look in the middle of your screen, you will see a man waving for help in the Gulf of Mexico, stranded in the water for hours 20 miles from land. He fell from a cruise ship that set sail from New Orleans on Thanksgiving Eve.
Now, this is usually not the type of accident that usually ends well, if you've ever been on a cruise ship. They're huge. They move very quickly. But this time, it did.
Nadia Romero with the incredible drama, leaving rescuers amazed -- Nadia.
NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Paula, this is really a remarkable story. I mean, just think about someone falling over the edge of a cruise ship and then surviving for up to 15 hours in the water before getting rescued. That's what we're talking about here.
Look at this timeline. So, the sister of this man says she last saw him about 11 o'clock on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at a bar at the cruise ship and then didn't see or hear from him until about noon on Thanksgiving Day, on Thursday, that's when she alerted authorities on the cruise ship. They then reached out to the Coast Guard, and then it was all hands on deck using airplanes, a helicopter, boats to try to find this man in the water and they did being able to spot him and then pulling him out of the water by helicopter.
Now the Coast Guard tells us that he was suffering from shock, from dehydration, from hypothermia, but he is alive to live another day.
I want you to hear from a Coast Guard member who says in his 17-year career, he's never seen or been a part of anything like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were out there doing what we practice what we joined the Coast Guard to do. And the fact that he was able to keep himself afloat and above the surface of the water for such an extended period of time, it is just something you can't take for granted and certainly something that will stick with me forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMERO: And the longer that somebody is missing or in the water, that search area begins to expand and expand, and so it really is what the Coast Guard is calling a Thanksgiving Miracle they were able to find this man alive -- Paula.
REID: A miracle indeed. Nadia Romero, thank you so much.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Nine months since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Prime Minister of Poland says Russia is using "death, starvation, and hypothermia to break Ukraine."
Retired Colonel Cedric Leighton is here to walk us through the impact of Russia's brutal tactics and a tough test Ukraine now faces in withstanding power outages and the cold.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:27:46]
REID: Russia's widespread missile attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure knocked out power across the country. Their national power supplier says it is now meeting about 75 percent of electricity demand. Residents still without power can visit any of Ukraine's new invincibility points. These are pop-up stations offering shelter, power charging, hot water and internet connection.
Ukraine's President Zelenskyy however, isn't entirely happy with the rollout of this program, criticizing how many stations aren't working properly in Kyiv.
And joining us now is CNN military analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.
All right, Colonel Russia has shifted its strategy from holding territory on the ground instead to attacking infrastructure. What do you make of this?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So this is a really big deal, Paula, and one way to illustrate this is through this satellite image.
This was taken back in January, so before the war started. This was taken this week in November. So, you see how few lights are actually visible right here, and it is really kind of analogous to the pictures that you see of North Korea at night.
This is kind of what Russia is trying to do to Ukraine. North Koreans did it to themselves. The Russians did this to Ukraine. And you can see, you know, this would be Kyiv, right in this area, but everything else is basically blank over here. There are so many villages that had light here, nothing.
REID: That's really amazing. I mean, how have you seen this situation evolve based on where we were in the spring to now.
LEIGHTON: So what you see here, this is a very quick look at how quickly things have changed over the course of these last few months, the last nine months, but as you go through this, one of the key things to think about is how much work really went into this by the Ukrainians to actually do this.
By the time we got to today, the Ukrainians have this territory. They took over this territory. And as we go to a slower time lapse, you can see that the Russians were almost in Kyiv at the very beginning of this war. They almost took Kharkiv, which is the second largest city. They had all this area in the South. They had the Northeast, they had all these different places.
But then the Ukrainians moved forward.
[18:30:30]
Around Kyiv, they moved -- the Russians out toward the border this way, around Kharkiv. By the time you get to May, you see how fast they're moving in this direction. So this is a really tremendous achievement by the Ukrainians to do this. Of course, they had a lot of Western help.
So in the summertime, you looked at a lot of static movement in - almost no movement along these areas here very, very much a World War I like atmosphere. But then as July morphed into August and then September, you can see that this is going to change quite a bit. A few Russian advances here.
Then all of a sudden, by the time you get to the middle to the latter part of August, you see the moving around Kharkiv and protecting that second city. And then all of a sudden, by the middle of September, the Ukrainians have this territory right here, so that is huge.
And then by the time you get to October, you start seeing movement in the South. This is - what you'll see next is when they took the Kherson region, that part of the Kherson region that is to the west of the Dnipro River and that is exactly how the Ukrainians were able to do this.
REID: And we're hearing that Germany is offering some support to Poland. What is happening and how significant is this?
LEIGHTON: So what they're talking about there, Paula, is the Patriot missile system. This is an anti-aircraft and an anti-missile defense system. And what it is designed to do is it's designed to knock out missiles and aircraft out of the sky. And it can also knock out drones, depending on which system you use.
Of course, this is built by the United States. But the same type of technology is used by the Israelis in their Iron Dome system. Now, what the Germans were going to actually do was they were going to bring this system into Poland so that the Poles could be protected in their particular area.
But what the Poles want to do is they want to move this system into Ukraine, so that you can actually protect this entire expanse of Ukraine. So what you would need to do is you would need to set up Patriot systems in places like this in order to protect the main cities, as well as major installations and that's how they would want to protect these areas. But they need NATO support and NATO approval to do that.
REID: And we know Vladimir Putin, very good at propaganda, what's his latest move to try to convince people that things are going well?
LEIGHTON: Well, one of the things that he did on happens to be on Russian Mother's Day is he met with these mothers of Russian servicemen who are stationed in Ukraine, some of which were apparently widows from previous engagements. And what he's been trying to do here is he's trying to - he's realized that there's the possibility of discontent among the Russian population because of what has happened to the troops, their failure to provide logistically for the troops and he's brought these ladies in to try to convince the general public that he is a caring person, that he's caring for the soldiers.
But, of course, the facts on the ground are completely different and those soldiers have not been taken care of by any stretch of the imagination.
REID: Absolutely no photo op can contradict that. Well, Colonel, thank you so much for helping us break it down. Really appreciate it.
LEIGHTON: You bet, Paula.
And they say politics is a contact sport, but an indie pro-wrestler worries it may be getting too heated after some fans tried to fight him all because of his in the ring persona as the progressive liberal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEAU JAMES, INDEPENDENT PRO WRESTLER: We felt it coming. We pushed it too far.
DAN HARNSBERGER, INDEPENDENT PRO WRESTLER: It's a different kind of hate now and it's at a level that I haven't experienced previously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:37:31]
REID: Well, some fans of Donald Trump don't have to wait until 2024 for a possible matchup against President Biden, they've already got it, complete with full Nelsons, pile drivers and maybe the occasional atomic drop. CNN's Elle Reeve has the story of how a popular villain on the local pro-wrestling circuit is a reflection of our national politics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is politics in America right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Baby killer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Channeled through a pro-wrestling ring.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARNSBERGER: I just criticize their way of life and tell them how they need to follow a real man like myself or my hero Joseph R. Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): The Progressive Liberal Dan Richards is a wrestler who fans in Appalachia love to hate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES: When I grab a hold of him and I'll look in the crowd and say hit him in the mouth and they all come through the seat, yes, I hit him in the mouth. And they go he did that for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Dan and his mentor, Beau James, came up with a gimmick when Trump was first running for president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES: I said, my god, if we had a guy that was the anti-Trump, and we could send him to the ring in these towns, how much heat would we get?
HARNSBERGER: They want to see you get your ass kicked, that's the heat one.
JAMES: It's the greatest feeling in the world. It's a high.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Now that politics has gotten so intense, it's getting too real for Dan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARNSBERGER: The response to me and people who think like me are more violent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Dan really is liberal. I first interviewed him in 2017, which now bizarrely feels like a more innocent time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (on camera): So in 2017, you wore like an all over print Hillary shirt, very Hillary-focused.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill me.
REEVE (on camera): Like what pieces of current events do you pull from to sort of trigger people?
HARNSBERGER: Well, I've got Biden collage shirt and one of Kamala Harris. The Biden one triggers more people than anything, because I don't think half these people even know who Kamala Harris is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Dan says he gets more heat now than when Trump was in office. He thinks fans feel like they got their hero taken away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)--
JAMES: There's so many people who think an election was stole. I sell realism and emotions. It gets an emotion out of people. So whatever the headlines are that week, that's what we're going to use.
REEVE (on camera): Did you ever talk about the election being stolen?
[18:40:00]
JAMES: Yes. If Dan wins by cheating then his opponent can go the microphone, like I do, and I say a lot of these good people here tonight think you stole that just like an election was stolen, the building goes nuts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): They usually wrestle in Appalachian counties. Some went for Trump by more than 80 percent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES: It's a small mountain town, poor county, poor community, no hope. He represents to them everything that's put them in that position.
REEVE (on camera): And do you think it's changed in the last five years, how intense it is?
JAMES: Yes, it's more dangerous.
HARNSBERGER: The moment I realized things have changed, I think is when I had rocks thrown at me and someone tried to light me on fire and someone pulled a knife on me.
REEVE (on camera): So recently?
HARNSBERGER: Yes. I mean, that was a month ago.
JAMES: People are even more frustrated, they're even more divided. So now here's this guy in our town, saying this stuff that we see on television that we don't agree with, so we can't get those people, we can't get the politicians, let's get him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): They'd advertise Dan would be wrestling Beau in Stickleyville, Virginia, a community of about 330 people. Fans came ready to boo, Dan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX ADKINS, INDEPENDENT PRO WRESTLER: We all have our own opinion, but his especially in this area is a lot different and everybody wants to punch him in the face.
JESSE PROFITT, WRESTLING FAN: We love wrestling, first of all. But to come and show the liberal like, hey, you know what we stand for.
REEVE (on camera): Yes.
PROFITT: And definitely not the left side.
REEVE (on camera): So do you want to see him get beat me?
PROFITT: Yes.
REEVE (on camera): Do you want Trump to run again?
PROFITT: Amen.
REEVE (on camera): You do?
PROFITT: Yes? Okay.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REEVE (voice over): Corey Smith wrestles as White Trash Millionairere. He doesn't like Dan's politics, but he's off the Trump train.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COREY SMITH, INDEPENDENT PRO WRESTLER: I don't see how things could get any worse, but with Trump, we would find out. REEVE (on camera): You think so?
SMITH: I believe so, yeah. When you stop putting America first, start putting yourself in what you want to do first, I'm jumping off any train.
REEVE (on camera): You got to tell me when that moment was.
SMITH: Twitter. If I'm at my job and I'm constantly tweeting, I'm getting fired. I want somebody that leads this country by actions not by words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): The crowd was loud for other matches, but when Dan walked out it was next level.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible)--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Then he got out of the rev them up more. A guy looked ready to fight Dan. Some fans fought each other.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give me some (inaudible)--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Beau cut the match short. Backstage they said the crowd got too hot too fast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES: We felt it coming, we pushed it too far.
HARNSBERGER: It's a different kind of hate now and it's at a level that I haven't experienced previously. So anyone who doesn't think it's getting more violent and on what side it's coming from needs to have a reality check.
JAMES: You have to know how to let it breathe. You have to know how to hear, feel it, live it. You could be great and do all the athletic moves, all the stuff. If you don't know your audience, it doesn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REEVE (voice over): Elle Reeve, CNN, Stickleyville, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Everything Elle Reeve does is incredible. All right. Well, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
And still ahead, we dig into the polling on whether the former president still has a grip on the GOP like he used to and how late is too late to reach for those Thanksgiving leftovers. We'll run the numbers with Harry Enten next.
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[18:48:21]
REID: And Donald Trump seems to be losing ground with Republicans despite announcing his 2024 campaign for president. CNN Senior Data Reporter, Harry Enten, joins us on this Saturday night to run the numbers. All right. Harry, what's going on with the former president's appeal within the GOP?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes. So the first thing we should notice that Donald Trump is still ahead in the - in national primary polls, right? But that lead has been shrinking and you can see that compared to Ron DeSantis.
Look at this, if you look a little bit over a year ago, look at that, he had a 41-point advantage he was at 53 percent. Then we saw DeSantis slowly climbing up, 15 percent in the early part of this year. By the middle part of this year he was at 23 percent. But Trump was still basically holding in the low 50s.
But look at what's happened since the election. Trump has actually fallen below that 50 percent mark. He's now at 44 percent. Ron DeSantis is at 32 percent. That once 40 plus point lead is now down to just a little bit more than 10 points. There are a slew of other candidates that are basically pulling right now in the low single digits. But at this particular point, when you look at the polling, you see Trump still ahead but DeSantis is really nipping at his heels.
REID: Yes, he is. Those are some really interesting trends. I know back in 2016, the question of electability came up again and again. Clearly, people were wrong with their concerns about him being able to get elected. But this time around, it appears that question is rearing its head. Once again, what are you seeing in the numbers?
ENTEN: Yes, I think part of the reason why Trump is someone who actually lost in 2020, let's not forget that, despite whatever garbage he spews out.
[18:50:02]
A lot of Republicans formally believed that in fact he was the Republicans' best shot at beating the Democrats. But look at this trend line. In 2019, 78 percent said that Trump was Republicans' best shot at beating the Democrats in the 2020 election. That number fell in 2021 after he lost a 50 percent.
But still, the plurality thought he was the Republicans' best shot. But look at it now, just 35 percent believe - of Republicans believe that Trump is the best shot at beating the Democrats in the 2024 general election and I think that is part of the reason why you're seeing Trump's numbers slip against DeSantis is because Republicans more than anything else, more than anything else want to beat Joe Biden in the Democratic Party come 2024.
And if they don't believe that Trump is their best chance, they may go in another direction. It's kind of this mirror image that we saw in 2020 with the Democrats, where the reason - one of the big reasons they got behind Joe Biden was because they believed he was their best shot at beating Trump. Now, it may be the reason that Trump is losing support, because they don't believe Trump is their best shot at beating the Democrats, whoever the nominee may end up being.
REID: What's driving this change? Is it the results of the midterm election? Is it all the criminal and civil investigations? Is it the fact that they have another potentially viable front runner? What's going on, exactly?
ENTEN: I mean, it doesn't hurt, right, that Ron DeSantis just won in Florida, which we can argue whether or not it's a swing state that he just won there by 19 points and won reelection. I mean, if you're winning in Florida by 19 points, that's a pretty good argument for your electability.
Meanwhile, for Trump, the electability argument goes in the other direction, right? You can see this here in the exit polls, favorable view or approve of Donald Trump's job performance, look at that. In 2018, 45 percent; 2020, 46 percent. Those aren't great numbers, but they're certainly much better than the percentage of all Americans right now. Those who voted in the 2022 general election, just 39 percent had a favorable view of Trump. So yes, it's not so surprising that that electability argument may be going against Trump at this particular point.
REID: Well, President Biden, of course, has not announced for 2024 campaign, but you've learned that he's actually already gaining ground with Democrats.
ENTEN: Yes, this is interesting, right? So essentially, should Joe Biden run again, look at that, in July, it was just 40 percent. Then in August in 47 percent, leading the nos at 47, 43. Now look at that, 51 percent of Democrats believe that Joe Biden should run again. That's not a great number, but it's certainly much better than it was in July and now the clear majority believe of Democrats that Joe Biden should run again, I think that midterm performance where Democrats did historically well, for the presidential party played a big role in that.
REID: All right. Shifting away from politics to more pressing matters, because some of us are still coming out of our Thanksgiving food coma and there are, of course, leftovers in the fridge for many of us, and I have heard that you have numbers on how long most people keep eating them. Can you please share this critical information, Harry?
ENTEN: Yes. Tonight is the last night. We get tired, just 37 percent of Americans say they're tired of eating turkey leftovers tonight. But by tomorrow, it's 59 percent. So serve that turkey now, because by tomorrow, your family might not eat it. Truth is I've been sick of turkey all this time. I vastly prefer chicken and duck. They're just better birds.
REID: Duck, well, you're fancy. I have some sausage stuffing my husband made, it's really good and I'll be using it for the next few days until it's gone. Harry Enten, thank you so much.
ENTEN: Thank you.
REID: And be sure to check out Harry's podcast Margins of Error. You can find it on your favorite podcast app or at cnn.com/audio and we'll be right back.
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[18:58:23]
REID: And which holiday movies do you watch every year? In my house, it's a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or you can settle in for CNN behind the story - stories behind all of the things that we love to watch at Christmas. Here's a preview of the CNN Original Series Tis The Season: The Holidays on Screen.
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DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I can't think of Christmas and Christmas Eve without thinking of It's a Wonderful Life. It's my childhood. When I was little I would get into the big chair with my dad and we would watch the movie because it was my dad's favorite movie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember seeing it the first time with my family and crying and being shocked and a little bit embarrassed by the emotions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know how many times I've seen It's a Wonderful Life. I always see something new.
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REID: Well, Tis The Season: The Holidays on Screen premieres tomorrow night at eight here on CNN.
And thank you for joining me this evening. I'm Paula Reid. The 2000s is up next. But before we go tonight, we want to remember and pay tribute to one of the show's biggest fans, Pamela Brown's dad, John Y. Brown, Jr. passed away earlier this week.
You may have noticed, Pamela has been off recently. She has been at her father's bedside in the hospital for weeks as he battled an illness. Her dad would often talk to Pam after the show, giving her thoughts and encouragement that only a father can.
Now, in addition to being the father of five, John Brown, Jr. was Kentucky's governor from 1979 to 1983. [19:00:04]
In fact, he'll lie in state inside the Kentucky state capitol on Tuesday. He was also a successful businessman, turning Kentucky Fried Chicken into a household name here in the United States and around the world. Brown would go on to own several sports teams including the Boston Celtics.
John Y. Brown Jr. was 88 years old. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Pamela and her entire family.
Good night.
