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Cowboys QB Extends "Grace" To Jerry Jones Over 1957 Photo; LeBron James "Disappointed" By Media Response To Jerry Jones Photo; Deshaun Watson Returns To Field Since Suspension Over Allegations; 263,000 Jobs Added In November, Jobless Rate Holds At 3. 7 Percent; Gas Prices Lower Today Than Day Russia Invaded Ukraine; Top 10 CNN Hero: Tyrique Glasgow Working To Stop Violence, Rebuild Lives. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 02, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:20]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING. Coming up this hour, LeBron James wants to know why the media is not making a bigger deal out of that 1957 photo that surfaced last week of the Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at that desegregation protest in Arkansas. The Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is also weighing in.

Plus, this morning, gas prices are going down. Good news, they are now lower than they were when Putin actually attacked Ukraine and started that war that has now been going on for months. Also this morning, the White House investors Don, Poppy, and, Kaitlan, we are awaiting the key November jobs report. We will have it for you in just a few moments.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: But first, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who is biracial, is now addressing comments made by LeBron James, who suggested there was a double standard in the media coverage of this photograph right here that you're looking at on your screen. That was published by The Washington Post, which shows Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, at 14 years old, looking over as a crowd of white students attempt to block black students from entering a school in 1957.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAK PRESCOTT, DALLAS COWBOYS QUARTERBACK: Whether LeBron is talking about the picture, I mean, I think that's on Jerry to address, right? I mean, in the same sense, it's 65 years ago and how times have changed. I mean, look, the man's resume since then, right?

And as I said, I give grace. And I think that's a conversation in question not only for him, but for you guys and how you all feel, how accountable you all been in covering and discussing the disparities and differences in race.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: We want to get now to Bomani Jones, he's a host of The Right Stuff podcast and one of my favorite shows on HBO, it's the "Game Theory with Bomani Jones," which will kick off its second season on HBO and HBO Max come January.

Good to have you here. Thank you so much.

BOMANI JONES, HOST, HBO MAX "GAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES": Appreciate it.

LEMON: I think we -- in order to talk about this, we need to hear what LeBron had to say, and then we'll hear from Bomani. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKES FORWARD: As a black man, as a black athlete, as someone with power and a platform, when we do something wrong or something that people don't agree with, so every single tabloid, every single news coverage, it's on the bottom ticker, it asks about every single day.

But it seems like to me that the whole Jerry Jones situation photo, and I know it was years and years ago, and we all make mistakes. I get it. It seemed like it's just been buried under, like, oh, it happened. OK, we just move on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Bomani, you have Dak Prescott saying -- he's basically saying it was a different time. And you have, you know, LeBron saying, hey, it's a double standard. What do you think?

JONES: I mean, it was tricky with LeBron because his first thing was, well, why didn't you ask me about this, but you asked me about Kyrie because you know Kyrie. Like you actually know the human being. That will be why you would be asked about one and not asked about another.

And I do think that there's a larger point that comes up here that when somebody like Jerry Jones gets in one of these things, nobody really wants to be the person to say that the old man is a racist. Like it makes people feel a little uncomfortable. They don't like that. They would prefer to move on.

But players, in particular, and often black ones, have to answer for these things and have to answer for each other in these circumstances where owners never have to answer for anything. The interesting thing about Jerry Jones is he's the only one that actually does answer questions and actually does take them.

But, no, he's not going to get pressed on this the way athletes generally are. And black athletes, in particular, wind up getting pressed when these sorts of things come up. I do, however, subscribe to the camp that's on this one with, I don't know what you want me to do with something that was 65 years old and to do was a teenager.

Like, I personally am not going down that road. I'd much rather focus on the long Washington Post story. Thousands and thousands of words. They use that picture as a metaphor to reflect Jerry's poor record in hiring, which I think is far more important than getting into the, hey, man, what were you doing back in 1957? That doesn't matter that much to me. What happens now or more importantly, what doesn't happen now? That's the one that I lean on.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That was a fascinating piece. We had the journalist behind it on the program last week, and I thought what struck me the most to your point was, you know, sports reporters saying to her, Jerry Jones has such power across the NFL. If he were to lead on hiring a black head coach, that would change the league.

And the fact that he said to that reporter, I get that. I understand that, right. The significance of the power that he holds and the change he hasn't made yet.

LEMON: But he needs to do something rather than just saying, I get that.

HARLOW: Right, right.

JONES: Yes.

HARLOW: The change he hasn't made yet.

JONES: Well, I think it's less about the actual hiring itself than what he said in the story was, I hire people I know. And the way that he talks about the ruling rule, which requires is that you interview a black or brown person for every coaching job, and there are a few others that come down there is, is he's like, that's not how hiring works.

[08:35:08]

And the point is, right, it's not how hiring works. That's why we need to do something different, because the way that you do hiring doesn't do right by these people. So if Jerry were to say, which I think is most important, hey, we've got a broken way that we do things. And maybe if we tweak it a little bit, we can do something different, and we have to move out of this idea that we stick with the people that we know.

That would be more impactful to me than anything else, because the truth is, he's had the team for 30 years. I think he's made five coaching hires. One time he hired his college teammate. One time he hired his college coach, right? One time he hired a dude that played for him many years and let that dude keep the job for almost 10 years, and everybody thought that he was mediocre.

He sticks with what's familiar, and that group of people is going to have to do something different to change it. And I think that part, if he would just say, hey, we need to do things a little bit differently, that's the part, I think, that would go to farthest.

COLLINS: Can I ask you about Deshaun Watson? Because he is returning. It's his first game he's going to play since January 2021 because he has been suspended. 24 lawsuits were filed against him. All but one of them were settled. I know some of the accusers actually going to go to the game. Myself and their attorney. What do you think his return to the field signifies?

JONES: Well, it signifies that the NFL is like, OK, let's keep it going. You know, they just want to keep business going as usual. Now, the one thing the NFL thought that they were going to get out of him was some public display of contrition, and he ain't doing that.

He didn't do it from the beginning. After he put out the statement saying, hey, I made mistakes. He then came out and said he was going to stand on his innocence when there were questions asked of him this week about it. He just wants to keep it moving and go talk about something else.

I don't think that's really going to work for him, because until you answer for it, people are going to keep asking questions. You can ask Kyrie Irving about that. It didn't stop until he demonstrated the contrition that people look for.

HARLOW: That's what I was wondering. The difference between Roger Goodell's decision here in Adam Silver's, you know, and the Nets.

JONES: Well, the -- there's some structural differences in play there, right? Like for the NBA, this was a team issue, right? Like, this is something that the team is supposed to deal with and so they went from there. With Goodell, they tried and they tried because they just stick their thumb in the way and try to figure out what public opinion says. And public opinion says people think he's nasty.

Therefore, they were going to try to do something with him. But the diabolical brilliance of the NFL, when you stop and think about this, he's coming back now. And I believe this is week 13, everybody's deep into the football part of it. If you give a sports media an option, they're always going to talk about the football instead of talking about the other stuff because everybody showed up for the football, only some people showed up for the other stuff.

So here we are. This is actually maybe the least interesting game on the NFL slate. Like, if you want people to pay attention to football, this isn't the one. They're playing against a terrible team. The brows themselves aren't actually good. And so, what's going to happen is, he's going to comeback in this tail end of the season and people aren't really going to pay too much attention to him.

They're already dealing with the comeback to Houston game. It's going to happen first, whatever it is. They're just getting all of that out of the way right now and hoping that by the time he comes back around next season, they will have moved on and they can get back to talking about football.

But nothing I've seen from Watson has demonstrated to me that if he had a problem before, that anything's been done about it. Like, he was asked a question like, hey, what have you done? You know, what have you learned in this process? That's a bit of a legal and a medical thing. They just ask what you learned, man. All people want to hear from him at this point is, yes, I need to change the way that I was doing things. He didn't even really have to get specific about it. He won't even do that. And that would worry me greatly if I were the league and if I were to do.

COLLINS: And that's why the accusers' attorneys -- you know, a lot of them want to move on, which I understand, but that's why they said they're going because they don't want people to forget that.

JONES: Oh, and the attorney, well, they might want to move on. Oh, he wants to be there. This is how you get more clients. This is how you get more calls. And this is in his city. Like, this is his comeback game to Houston. Oh, they're going to be out there. The question is, people in my line of work, how much attention are we going to pay to him once he gets there? Like, how much oxygen are we going to give it? Because there still is an element of this that is patently ridiculous.

LEMON: Well, Bomani Jones, you can listen to his podcast, The Right Stuff, and you can watch him on HBO and HBO Max "Game Theory with Bomani Jones." Thank you.

COLLINS: Thank you.

JONES: Thank you.

LEMON: Good to see you. Thanks. We appreciate you coming in.

Just moments ago, the Labor Department releasing the November jobs report. So let's discuss now. CNN's Chief Business Correspondent and Anchor of Early Start, Christine Romans joins us.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A strong month, another strong month. 263,000 net new jobs added to the economy. The jobless rate right there at 3.7 percent. It's been in this band close to a 50-year low of 3.5 to 3.7 for months now.

And last month, you guys, was revised higher. Last month was stronger than they first forecast. 284,000 last month. So you have a job market that is still going strong here. It appears to be impervious to the Fed's six months of interest rate hikes here. Wages also rising about 5.1 percent.

Look, everyone have been cheering for a little bit of a healthy cooldown. Now this is a little bit less than last month. Last month was revised higher. It's less than the monthly job creation of last year. So you are seeing a deceleration, but from a very, very strong level.

[08:40:06]

The White House is looking for a Goldilocks report, right? Not too hot, not too cold, just right. This is still pretty warm.

COLLINS: Yes.

ROMANS: I mean, this is still pretty warm job market. COLLINS: It's so funny because you see it, you're like, good jobs report. This is great.

ROMANS: It's great.

COLLINS: And Jay Powell was like, no.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: it's almost too good, in fact. And I think we can show Futures. Futures actually plunged just as soon as the report crossed. I mean, the Dow Futures, last I checked, were off about 370 points. Actually, and now they're closer to Dows off about 1 percent, Nasdaq's off about 2 percent and the S&P off about 1.4 percent.

Here's the reason why. It's not the cooling that Powell would like to see, right? And so, the concern is, do these hot wages, as Christine pointed out, 5.1 percent on an annual basis. Does that start to trickle into prices --

ROMANS: Yes.

SOLOMON: -- that we pay? Because if suddenly your boss has to pay you more to work because the labor market is so tight, well, then they start to pass on that off into higher costs. And that's the problem.

HARLOW: Romans, is there any chance that some of this hiring is seasonal because it's the holidays?

ROMANS: Yes, maybe. I mean, they'd have seasonal adjustments for all of these data series. But, you know, guys, COVID just blew a hole into all of the seasons. I mean, we are --

LEMON: You're looking at me.

ROMANS: I know. Because you always say, look, we're coming out of a really unique and painful period in the American economy. We're trying to get back to normal. So reading these -- measuring the economy has become so much more difficult. I think what we've learned this week, taking it all together, the economy is not just one economic report. This one is like the Super Bowl of economic reports.

But this -- what we learned this week is the economy is doing OK, showing remarkable strength and inflation is cooling.

LEMON: All right, then, should the Fed just slow down? Should the Fed just cool their jets a little bit?

ROMANS: I think they are going to. I think they are going to next week. I think they're going to only raise by 50 basis points. And the Fed chief has telegraphed that and he has said we're going to watch very carefully to see how the numbers are responding.

SOLOMON: Yes.

ROMANS: You know --

SOLOMON: The only other big report --

ROMANS: -- it's just such a unique moment.

SOLOMON: I know. The only other big report they get before they meet is CPI --

ROMANS: Yes.

SOLOMON: -- which -- but, I mean --

HARLOW: Tell people what that is.

SOLOMON: Consumer Price Index report. It's the inflation report. When we talk about prices rising, that's usually the report that we're talking about. But to Christine's point, I mean, Powell has been very clear about telegraphing what's going to happen and we still think interest rates will likely cool a little bit. Their rate hikes will likely cool.

ROMANS: Say, I've been calling this a yes about economy. Yes, people feel terrible about the economy, but they're spending a lot of money. Yes, you know, inflation is a big problem, but gas prices are coming down and the job market is still strong.

Yes, we're raising interest rates like crazy. But really the only place you're seeing weakness in the economy is the housing market and it needed to cool down. Last year was a crazy year in housing. So it's like the yes about economy. And I don't think there's really one takeaway.

LEMON: When do we go, oh, my gosh, gas prices are down and the jobs market is great, but, uh, that's not good.

SOLOMON: When inflation is back down to where we're not talking about it again.

COLLINS: That's why the job support used to be the end-all be-all, and now it's the inflation report that is really what everyone pays attention to.

ROMANS: You know, look, we're doing -- I'm doing PCE, price index reports on CNN, I mean, that never would have happened four years ago.

HARLOW: That never used to happen.

ROMANS: But now Wall Street, Main Street, the Fed, every -- you know, White House, they all want to see these numbers because it's so critical for how people feel about their finances and where we're going.

HARLOW: I think, do you think that's how -- I mean, that Brian Moynihan, Bank of America CEO, who was on earlier this week, is right?

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: Yes. That the recession will be mild and short? ROMANS: I think they're still in Fed's Chief Powell said at it this week. There is still a path to stick us off landing and they're going to do everything they can to try to stick us off landing. And several people said to me, look, if this is what a pre-recession feels like, this is the best pre-recession I've ever seen.

LEMON: Even if there is, because, I mean --

SOLOMON: Right. I mean, if we're talking about a mild recession, we're talking about what, like, unemployment at 5 percent. To be clear, that still means millions of people are going to lose their job. So, you know, obviously we're sensitive to that, but it's a question of how long does it last, how severe will it be? And those are the questions we're talking about.

We should say part of the reason why we expect it to be mild is because we're sitting on so much money compared to before the pandemic --

ROMANS: And mild recession is better than terrible entrenched inflation.

SOLOMON: Yes.

ROMANS: That's what we're trying to stop here.

LEMON: All right.

COLLINS: We'll be watching closely to see what those inflation looks like.

LEMON: And, by the way, we're all slipped right in here.

SOLOMON: Here I am.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: What was the genie thing you were doing the other day? Was that you, the --

LEMON: You were doing that --

ROMANS: That was me.

LEMON: -- and you said, you stick (INAUDIBLE).

ROMANS: He said, how did you get in here? So I was just like, look at my nose. And we sit here.

SOLOMON: Don, your wish is my command. OK, careful.

COLLINS: Rahel, Christine, thank you both so much for breaking down those numbers with us.

Speaking of gas prices, we were just talking about, they are dropping. They're lower, actually, right now, today, than they were before Russia invaded Ukraine. We'll give you the details on what those gas prices look like ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, guys.

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[08:48:52]

COLLINS: If you are filling up your tank this morning, gas prices are actually now lower than they were before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. That is our morning number today. So let's go to CNN's Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. Harry, good news?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I would say it's pretty freaking good news. If you look -- take a look at gas prices down 31 percent since the June peak. Their current price of 3.45 is nearly equal to 3.38 a year ago. So gas prices are basically where they were a year ago. Much better for folks who are trying to commute to work or take their family somewhere nice.

COLLINS: OK, but on that front, switching topics completely, we have -- here are some of our new favorite, chicken spots are adding items to their menus. What does this have to do with the price of chicken, though, in the country? It's a real issue.

ENTEN: Yes, it is a real issue. You know, talking about things that hit the American pocketbook, this is why we're so interested in chicken prices. Look at this. The price of a boneless, skinless chicken breast down 70 percent since last spring. It's currently the lowest level since early 2021.

So again, when you're talking about gas prices, you're talking about chicken breasts. Those things may not seem related, but the fact is they're the types of things that really sort of hit the Americans in their pocketbooks. When those prices were high, it really hurt them. And now those are going lower. Folks have more money to spend on perhaps other things that they enjoy.

[08:50:05]

HARLOW: Stocking stuffers.

ENTEN: Yes, stocking stuffers.

COLLINS: You're putting chicken in your stockings?

HARLOW: No, on other things.

LEMON: Yes, big screen televisions. Thank you very much.

COLLINS: Thanks, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

LEMON: Hey, listen, this is just in. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as he is being ordered to pay millions to Sandy Hook families over his lies about shooting. More on that ahead.

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LEMON: We are just one week away from announcing the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year, who will be chosen by you, our viewers. Tyrique Glasgow is one of the finalists here. He was shot eleven times when he was a drug dealer in his South Philly neighborhood. But since returning home from prison just a decade ago, he has been a force for good.

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[08:55:03]

TYRIQUE GLASGOW, CNN HERO OF THE YEAR CONTENDER: When you run a block, you're the one who -- the community people know. It's a dangerous life, but it's a normal life.

Going to jail really woke me up. If our community was going to follow me for some of the negative stuff, I just said, let me see if they're going to follow me for something positive.

You can grab what you want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make yourself at home.

GLASGOW: In 2019, we opened up our community engagement center, which used to be at the community drug house, but now it's a safe place for our children.

How many people here got kids?

We provide clothing, food, vegetables. We have hot meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One chicken.

Giving people what they need not only helps them, because it consistently stays safer here.

The shootings are down and the hope is up.

That's what you're here for.

My relationship with the Philadelphia Police Department is cool. Seeing the officers in a different light, it builds trust and it builds confidence. They need to see that all cops aren't bad.

It's really about your heart and what you want to do. We're trying to create a safe haven environment for the whole neighborhood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So go to cnnheroes.com right now and make sure you vote. I can get the words.

COLLINS: You almost make it.

LEMON: I'd almost fade (INAUDIBLE). COLLINS: It's all going to be so good.

LEMON: I know.

COLLINS: I'm burden, yes.

LEMON: Do you have a good week?

HARLOW: We had a great week.

LEMON: Yes?

HARLOW: Yes.

LEMON: It's been fun. I know they're saying, we got to go. We got to go, everybody. Have a great weekend.

COLLINS: Have a great weekend.

LEMON: "CNN NEWSROOM" starts right after this break.

HARLOW: See you Monday.

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