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CNN This Morning

Target Sounds the Alarm Bell on Holiday Shopping; New Research on Processed Foods. Trump Picks Brooke Rollins For Secretary Of Agriculture; Concerns Growing Over Chinese Spy Campaign Targeting Phone Calls & Texts Of Senior U.S. Political Figures; Senators Bracing For Confirmation Battles Over Unorthodox Trump Cabinet Picks; Zelenskyy Say War Could End In 2025, He Awaits Trump Proposals; Storms Could Mean Messy Thanksgiving Travel For Millions Of People; Biden Set To Pardon Thanksgiving Turkeys In Annual Tradition; 72,000 Pounds Of Ready-To-Eat Meat, Poultry Recalled. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired November 24, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

[07:00:00]

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): -- talking to several taller robots on display. Do you ever go home? Come home with me. URBI then leads the other robots out of the showroom. The incident went viral online and many assumed it was a hoax. We now know it was an experiment.

The company that designed the potential theft wanted to see if a robot could take command without directly involving humans. Turns out they can. Luckily, no bots were stolen. The exit was locked down in advance.

Still, it's risky business when AI robots can adapt human-like behaviour.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST: Wow.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: So, let me figure this out, right? You have one rogue robot who says --

WALKER: Yes.

BLACKWELL: -- in this case, let's walk out. It could say other things. And the other robots say --

WALKER: OK.

BLACKWELL: -- revolution. Yeah, that's scary.

WALKER: That's a little scary. Just a little.

BLACKWELL: That's scary.

WALKER: Wow, that's incredible.

Lynda Kinkade, thank you for that report.

The next hour of CNN This Morning starts now.

BLACKWELL: Good morning. Welcome to CNN This Morning. It is Sunday, November 24th. I'm Victor Blackwell.

WALKER: Good to be with you, everyone. I'm Amara Walker. Thank you for being with us.

And here's what we're working on for you this morning. President-elect Donald Trump gets one step closer to rounding out his Cabinet, announcing another pick yesterday. And what we're learning about Trump's Mar-a-Lago meeting with the NATO Secretary.

BLACKWELL: More than 80 million people are expected to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday, which starts earlier this year than ever. We've got to forecast.

WALKER: Retail giant Target set off alarm bells when it posted lower- than-expected earnings just ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. The clues that gives us about the economy and what people are spending on.

BLACKWELL: Plus, one man basically donated his body to science for a month. He stayed in a hospital and only ate ultra-processed foods. But the experiment tells us about the impact of those foods on your body.

We're starting, though, with President-elect Trump, who has announced his choice for another key position in his administration. Last night, he picked Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary.

WALKER: Rollins, an attorney, has a degree in agriculture development, but currently runs the America First Policy Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Trump transition team. She'll be tasked with running the department's 29 agencies and nearly 100,000 employees.

CNN's Arit John joining us now. Arit, what more can you tell us about Rollins?

ARIT JOHN, CNN REPORTER: This is another example of President-elect Trump choosing people to round out his Cabinet who have -- he has deep ties to. The America First Policy Institute was founded in 2021 after he lost the election as sort of a collection of former Trump allies.

In this case, Rollins was his White House domestic policy adviser. And now we're seeing her being selected for this role. And when you look at what AFPI was proposing in terms of agriculture, they were -- they've been critical of President Biden's expansion of food stamps. They've been critical of China buying farmland.

And so we expect that Rollins in this role would sort of push those policies. And we'll also be looking to see what changes or what suggestions or what policies she has in terms of school nutrition policies.

BLACKWELL: So the NATO Secretary General traveled to Florida to meet with the President-elect. We know that President-elect Trump has been very critical of the organization. What do we know about the meeting?

JOHN: NATO put out a statement after the meeting saying that this was a discussion about the threats that face the alliance. But this was also a meeting of the recently elected new president, President-elect Trump, and the new NATO Secretary General who was elected in October.

And this is a case where NATO allies are worried, especially when they look at what President Trump has said in the past. He has questioned the relevance of the NATO alliance. And he said that America might not defend NATO allies who are not contributing enough to the NATO alliance.

And then National Security Adviser Mike Waltz or President-elect Trump's proposed National Security Adviser put out a tweet on X afterwards saying that a strong NATO that is able to deter attacks is one where every country is putting in its fair share. So I think it's pretty clear that the new administration is still projecting that NATO allies need to contribute more.

WALKER: All right, Arit John, appreciate your reporting. Thank you very much.

A long-running Chinese cyber espionage campaign could become one of the biggest national security challenges facing the incoming Trump administration.

[07:05:06]

American telecom executives and national security officials met at the White House on Friday to share information on the Chinese spy efforts. The spy campaign has targeted the phone calls and text messages of some of the most senior political figures in the U.S.

Officials are still investigating the full scope of the hack and its impact on national security. China has denied the hacking allegations.

We're joined now by Reese Gorman, a political reporter for NOTUS. Reese, good to see you. Let's talk about Trump's latest Cabinet pick. And this Secretary of Agriculture post was one of the last major Cabinet posts left to fill.

And for those of you at home who are wondering, wait, what is it again that the Department of Agriculture does? Among many things, it oversees welfare programs like free school lunches, food stamps. It also regulates the food industry along with the FDA, which is under the Health and Human Services Department, which RFK Jr. has been tapped to lead.

Reese, if you can talk a little bit about how this job then is likely to play a pretty significant role and how that will impact the work of RFK Jr. and his vow to make America healthy again. REESE GORMAN, POLITICAL REPORTER, NOTUS: Yes, 100 percent. I mean, Brooke Rollins and RFK Jr. are both staunch allies of now soon to be President Donald Trump again. And Brooke was actually in the running to be as chief of staff early on in the year.

She was mentioned up there along with Susie Wiles. Obviously, Susie Wiles beat her out for it. I mean, this is, I mean, this is obviously RFK Jr. has come out and said he wants to get kind of these pesticides out of our food. He wants to get fluoride out of the water.

And he wants to do all these things to, quote unquote, "make America healthy again". And a lot of that he does have kind of power over, but that also falls to the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins.

So Brooke Rollins is somebody who is in line with RFK Jr. on a lot of this and as is Donald Trump. And she's also a staunch ally and loyal person to Donald Trump. So, if Trump wants her to do something, she's likely going to do it. And this is kind of -- this could work entirely hand-in-hand with one another.

WALKER: What about when it comes to Trump's sweeping tariff plans and his policy and what kind of role she might play in that if she is indeed confirmed? Because it was the agriculture industry that was hit pretty hard in his first administration with his tariffs.

GORMAN: 100 percent. And tariffs are a key part of Donald Trump's economic plan. And in order to do it, he needs someone that's, again, loyal to be able to do what he wants. There's a lot of members of Congress right now that are very skeptical about his tariff plan.

They believe that the tariffs must go through Congress. Trump, obviously, has a differing view at times where he believes that he can just implement tariffs. And having a secretary that is in line with that belief is very important because if -- they also think that, oh, we probably go through Congress and you're not going to get your tariffs.

And so this is somebody who does agree with tariffs, just like Donald Trump. And so she's going to be helping him out in implementing these tariffs for sure.

WALKER: Brooke Rollins is not as a controversial pick as some of the others have been. Reese, how do you expect the confirmation process to go for some of these controversial picks, especially given, you know, Matt Gaetz's abrupt withdrawal? Do you think that that could potentially embolden Senate Republicans to challenge some of the other provocative picks are reporting is that, you know, senators are bracing for confirmation battles?

GORMAN: Yes, I believe that it will -- I don't think it will necessarily embolden Senate Republicans to go against some of these picks. I think it might do the opposite. I think they kind of saw Matt Gaetz and they kind of got their kind of sacrificial lamb in Matt Gaetz, being like, oh, kind of took him out.

And now a lot of these, I think it will be harder to go against Donald Trump, especially with the base looking like, oh, Senate Republicans already killed one of the people that we thought was the most conservative attorney general, that he killed his nomination.

And so why are you going to do this to the other two here? Which the other two really most controversial ones right now are -- three, rather, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, and RFK Jr. of Health and Human Services.

The others will have a relatively simple time getting through. I mean, they will have tough confirmation hearings, but they're not as controversial as a lot of these. And Democrats, especially, are trying -- are going to try to slow up a lot of these confirmation processes as Republicans have done with some of these generals, some of these judges.

They're just going to drag out the process through the confirmation hearings. And something that we reported at NOTUS over here, that Democrats are basically saying, look, what goes around comes around. This is karma. You guys slowed up a lot of our nominations.

You held a lot of stuff up, and we are going to make life difficult for you to get some of these confirmations through. And that's kind of what you're going to see, especially with the three most controversial picks.

[07:10:08]

On the flip side, the other ones will likely have an easier chance of getting through, but I think Republicans are now going to more or less coalesce around a lot of these picks, minus your kind of three Republicans, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John Curtis now out of Utah, who are much more moderate than a lot of the other Republicans are.

But they can afford to lose those three. But I do think the vast majority of the Republican conference over the Senate is going to coalesce around these nominations.

WALKER: Got it. And Reese, before we go, I do want to point to this new Pew research poll that shows, following the election, that Democrats are less optimistic about their party's future than they were at any point in the past eight years. So 49 percent say they're pessimistic compared to 28 percent who felt that way after the 2020 midterm elections.

What is that conversation sounding like within the Democratic Party as it is having an identity crisis and what the plans are for the future and who will be the face, the voice of the party? Are they rallying around Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader?

GORMAN: You know, I think definitely House Democrats, I mean, they're rallying up. He didn't really have a challenger this go-around so he's already the minority leader. But I do think you're seeing this kind of also play out in the public.

You're seeing Seth Moulton come out and kind of air his grievances with the Democratic Party. You're seeing Ritchie Torres doing the same thing. I mean, obviously you saw Dean Phillips last year going into this year, do the same thing.

And there's also a number of that poll as well that shows that 50 percent of Americans align better with Republicans and I believe it was only 47 percent of Americans say they align better with Democrats. This is also a very concerning poll for Democrats --

WALKER: Right.

GORMAN: -- and an internal conversation they're having with one another that -- from the Democrats I'm talking to.

WALKER: Reese Gorman, good to have you. Thanks so much.

BLACKWELL: In Ukraine -- an air defense system shot down dozens of Russian drones overnight. In total, Ukraine's Air Force said it shot down 50 out of the 73 drones launched in areas across the country, including the capital Kyiv, which has recently seen nearly daily aerial attacks.

Despite this recent attack, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy says -- suggested that the war with Russia could end next year and that he's waiting on President-elect Trump's proposals on resolving the conflict.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translation): As for when the war will end, when Russia wants this war to end, when America has a stronger position, when the global South is on the side of Ukraine and on the side of ending the war, it will happen. I'm confident in that. It will not be an easy path, but I'm confident that we have every chance to do it next year.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is live in Kyiv. Nick, hello to you. What's the latest?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, I mean, it's important to contextualize the comments of Volodymyr Zelenskyy there. When he says the war could end in 2025, that's not some wildly optimistic statement about how well it's going or about how some compromise with Russia is imminently available to him.

That's a reflection of the cold reality, frankly, of an incoming Trump administration which has made it clear, the president-elect, that he thinks he can end this war in 24 hours and he wants the killing to stop. And also, at one point, did even suggest that Zelenskyy should never have let the war start.

So, it's a complicated political future for Zelenskyy that emerges in January, he said. It could end. He could potentially meet Trump. They could discuss the parts of a peace plan during that conversation. We can see accelerated diplomacy around the president-elect with the NATO secretary general going to visit him in Florida, as you discussed earlier.

That's all part, I think, of trying to bring home to the incoming White House the gravity of the situation here. You heard Zelenskyy there talking about the war will end if Russia wants it to. Well, there is this ongoing dynamic here where Ukraine and its allies want to put themselves and Ukraine in a position of strength.

Peace through strength is the phrasing they're always trying to push towards Donald Trump, hoping that will appeal to his notion of American supremacy. But it's complex because the situation on the battlefield is having two severe problems at the moment.

The first is the escalation between Washington and Moscow. That's been dramatic in the last week. President Biden giving Ukraine authorization to use ATACMS longer-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia, something that he had shied away from for months, saying it would be too escalatory.

And then, because Russia's brought North Korean troops to the front line, allowed Ukraine to do it. Ukraine did it within 24 hours being given the green light. And then Moscow, who I think many analysts have thought were shying away from expressing anger over the various red lines they'd set, did finally in their perspective, make a move and fire what the U.S. has called an experimental intermediate range missile at Dnipro.

[07:15:05]

Not to a particularly surprising industrial target, but the scene was quite shocking to many Ukrainians. A multiple warhead ballistic missile dropping non-nuclear. That kind of device is normally for a nuclear payload, dropping conventional explosive over Dnipro.

Putin saying this kind of weapon can get through all Western defenses. He may be exaggerating there, according to some analysts, but we've had a very stark week here and the battlefield increasingly bad for Ukraine, making the negotiations they'd likely see in January ones where they'll be on the back foot, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Nick Paton Walsh for us in Kyiv. Nick, thank you.

All right, whether you are flying or driving for Thanksgiving, weather, W-E-A-T-H-E-R, seemly there (ph), could be an issue depending on your destination.

WALKER: CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is tracking the forecast. Hi, Allison. What are you watching? Did you get that? Did you get that?

BLACKWELL: Yes --

WALKER: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Got a pint or two myself. Not all Betsy Klein? ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: No.

BLACKWELL: All right.

CHINCHAR: Look, there's going to be some travel issues, but for some areas, you are going to have good days this week and then you're going to have some rough days. So if you have some flexibility in the travel, maybe wise to kind of keep an eye on the forecast.

So let's take a look at what we've got. We start with today. You'll notice most of the eastern half of the country, smooth sailing here. No real issues. Today, the focus is going to be out west. We have multiple systems that are going to be coming in.

The first one starting today, then another one coming in on Monday. And so it's going to be day after day of watching these systems as they traverse across the country. Here's now a look. Fast forwarding to Monday, the big issues are going to be across the Midwest, but then also taking a look out to the west.

You've got separate systems there that we're going to be keeping an eye on as well. Now we fast forward late into Tuesday. You can see that system in the east really starts to expand. So now you have those rain showers beginning to creep up into portions of the southeast, but also still along the Great Lakes in the Northeast.

The secondary system out to the west now starting to spread into the Rockies, bringing rain and snow to much of Eastern Colorado. That system there, that's going to be the big concern as we go into the middle portion of the week, because now we fast forward into late Wednesday that really starts to take shape across the central portion of the country.

And by Thursday, you're looking at most of the East coast, top to bottom, looking at the rain showers. That is the forecast for Thursday. But the big question is, what about the parade? Unfortunately, it looks like we may have some shower chances, guys, on the latter end of those parade hours. And you're going to need to bundle up temperatures at the warmest in the low 40s.

WALKER: Cold and rain, never a good combo.

BLACKWELL: Poor Snoopy.

WALKER: He'll be flying.

BLACKWELL: Thank you.

WALKER: Tomorrow, President Biden will use his presidential powers to officially pardon a Thanksgiving turkey.

BLACKWELL: It's a holiday tradition going back to Abraham Lincoln. CNN's Betsy Klein joins us now from the White House. Betsy, last time you gave us foul and cornucopia and we were trying to count the puns. What can you tell us? BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: I'm back, Victor, and we have 57 days to go in the Biden term and President Biden looking forward to using that presidential pardon power this Monday. You might say for foul reasons as he welcomes the national Thanksgiving turkeys here to the White House for their pardons.

Now, we expect the President to talk turkey and to make a cornucopia of jokes here before heading on to the New York area where he's going to have a friendsgiving dinner with troops and the Biden family later this week expected to travel to Nantucket for the holiday.

But let's just serve up a little bit of presidential history here. The rumors of the first presidential turkey pardon date back to the Lincoln administration when the president's young son asked him to spare his pet turkey from the Thanksgiving table.

And then in the Wilson administration in 1920, a pair of turkeys from Texas and Kentucky duked it out here at the White House, according to newspaper reports from the Time. But the first documented turkey pardon, as we know it today, happened in 1963 during the Kennedy administration.

And for modern presidents, a moment of levity and to make much ado about stuffing at this national annual roast and to give thanks. Victor and Amara?

WALKER: The first documented Thanksgiving puns right here.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

WALKER: He's tallying of your puns (ph).

BLACKWELL: I got five. I got five.

WALKER: That's pretty good, Betsy.

BLACKWELL: I'll be keeping and put some tally marks. Betsy, before we let you go though, cranberry sauce, jelly the whole cranberry.

WALKER: None of them, say none of them.

KLEIN: I'm all in Ocean Spray jelly.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

KLEIN: I want it cold --

BLACKWELL: Yes.

KLEIN: -- and serve with a fork with me.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

WALKER: OK.

BLACKWELL: Listen -- WALKER: That just makes the two of you on this network. I bet you most

are either into the chutney, or the kimchi.

BLACKWELL: No.

WALKER: Betsy? Betsy?

KLEIN: Maybe a chutney.

BLACKWELL: Yes, right, right.

KLEIN: I can be convinced.

BLACKWELL: As far as we're going.

WALKER: All right, I'm over it.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Betsy.

WALKER: Betsy Klein, good to see you.

BLACKWELL: Still to come, hard turn here. This outbreak of listeria prompting a recall of thousands of pounds of meat products, what the CDC is saying about the outbreak.

WALKER: Plus, Target is expecting a surprisingly weak holiday shopping season. What this could predict for the retail industry?

[07:20:06]

BLACKWELL: And ultra-processed foods make up 70 percent of the American diet. What new research tells us about how it's impacting our health.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: And here are some of the top stories we are following this morning. Chuck Woolery, the original host of Wheel of Fortune has passed away. Many remember him as a charming host of the iconic dating show, The Love Connection.

[07:25:11]

Woolery passed away yesterday at his Texas home with his wife by his side. He was 83 years old.

Fred Harris, a former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, has died. Throughout his political career, Harris championed civil rights and anti-poverty programs for minorities and the disadvantaged. He served eight years in the Senate, first winning in 1964, and he ran for president in 1976. Harris was 94 years old.

Wealthy nations have pledged $300 billion annually to support poorer countries by 2035. Now, the United Nations Climate Change Conference ended with criticism from many developing nations who feel the amount is just too low and that the deal favors the interests of fossil fuel producing countries.

The agreement does not require mandatory contributions from richer developing countries like China and Saudi Arabia. And fall short of the $1.3 trillion, economists estimate, is needed to help developing countries tackle the climate crisis.

BLACKWELL: This morning, we're learning more about a listeria outbreak that health officials say has led to the death of at least one child and made nearly a dozen people sick. CNN's Rafael Romo has more. Rafael?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Amara, the possibly contaminated products were made before October 28th and were shipped to retailers nationwide according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The food products on the recall were produced by Yu Shang Food Inc., a food company based in Spartanburg, South Carolina. We're talking about more than 72,000 pounds of meat and poultry ready to eat products. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the contaminated products have caused at least 11 illnesses in four states, nine hospitalizations and the death of a baby.

Some of those illnesses were reported in California, two in Illinois, and one each in New York and New Jersey, according to the CDC. The Department of Agriculture says some of the products included in the recall are Yu Shang brand cooked chicken, Chinese brand spicy duck necks, and braised pork belly in brown sauce, among others.

In a statement, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service reported that the problem was discovered after performing routine testing and follow up activities of finished product by Yu Shang Food in late October. The USDA says the recalled products tested positive for listeria monocytogenes.

Additional testing confirmed the presence of listeria and those products, as well as environmental samples collected by FSIS. The USDA says that consumption of food contaminated with L monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, persons with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns.

Some of the symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headaches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. Yu Shang said in a statement to CNN that although the woman reported eating the company's product before she became ill, there was no proof, they said, that they were the cause.

Officials say if you bought any of these products, you should throw them away or return them to the place of purchase. Earlier this year, officials reported other listeria outbreaks, including last month and contaminated salmon being sold at Costco and over the summer involving Boar's Head deli meat. Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: All right, Rafael, thank you. Well, a lot of people this time of year, they tend to spend a little bit more loosen those purse strings on Black Friday. Will this holiday season be as lucrative as it has been in the past for these big stores?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]

BLACKWELL: Black Friday is just a few days away. So, here's the question. Are you going to save your money or are you going to go out and spend? And Target reported lower than expected earnings last week, which scared a few people. But other retailers known for good deals like Walmart and T. J. Maxx, they say they're getting great numbers.

Katherine Cullen with the National Retail Federation joins us now. Katherine, good morning to you. So, let's first talk about this Target report. Is this a Target issue because of maybe their price point versus some competitors or is this a harbinger for this season?

KATHERINE CULLEN, VP, INDUSTRY AND CONSUMER INSIGHTS AT THE NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION: Well, first of all good morning. We know that retail is a very diverse industry. There's a lot of shopping going on, particularly this time of year. As you noted, we've heard from some other major retailers that they're expecting strong shopping from our own forecast for this season and what we're hearing from shoppers on the ground right now is that they're excited for the holidays. They have product in stock. They're expecting to go out and spend. And we're actually looking forward to record numbers of turnout around busy times of the year like Thanksgiving weekend.

So, we're expecting steady growth and maybe even sales as large as up to $989 billion for the last two months of the year.

BLACKWELL: Which is remarkable because just two and a half weeks ago, people were telling us that the economy is tough, prices are too high. When we look at the estimation -- or the estimate from the National Retail Federation 183.4 million people expected to shop in store, online, and the amount spent per person is up as well.

[07:35:00]

So, even if they're spending more money and more people are shopping, are they're changing where they shop what they're shopping for?

CULLEN: That's a great question. And you know, it's important to remember that the holidays for a lot of people, they're an essential time of year. You want your kids to have the toys that they want. You want it to feel special. So, people are really going out, they're, of course, being smart with their budget. But there's telling us that they're spending a little bit more than last year, especially on gifts.

Of course, they're looking maybe to save a little bit where they can. So, we're seeing certainly people taking advantage of early online deals, shopping across a lot of different retailers. We know today's consumer, today's customer goes out and does a lot of research, they're reading reviews, they're price comparing and that shopper is coming to you very, very knowledgeable. And they're also, you know, heading to thrift stores, heading to secondhand shops, heading to discount retailers.

You've got a shopper today who is not afraid to go to a lot of places, whether that's online or heading to stores to make sure that they can find the best items for the season.

BLACKWELL: Yes. I talked a little earlier about buying something on Etsy, which a few years ago wasn't a thing. So, we're not just going to the doorbuster at 5:00 in the morning and waiting overnight anymore. So, Black Friday used to be a day. Now, it's weeks, and for some companies, months long. I've read a report overnight about mention of pre-Black Friday, back in October. Are there still better deals available on the day?

CULLEN: That's always the question of the season, right? Do you buy now or do you hold off? What we're seeing is that, you know, Black Friday, Thanksgiving weekend, it's not the kickoff to the season that it used to be. Shoppers like to get a head start, but we are seeing that a lot of people still expect Black Friday, Thanksgiving weekend for those to be the really strong deals, for those to be some of the best deals of the season.

We have heard from retailers that they're planning a lot of promotions around this time of year, certainly previewing some of those deals, but saving some of those great markdowns for this weekend for the couple of weeks heading into it, certainly. But if shoppers are feeling a little uncertain of whether they should buy now or hold off, we're also seeing a lot of retailers saying, hey, don't feel too worried. We'll price match. If this goes down later in the season, if you see a Black Friday deal on our site, that's a little better than what you saw say in earlier in November or October, we will honor that. So, you're seeing that assurance as well on the part of retailers because they know people want that great price.

BLACKWELL: That is key is that hold on to that receipt because you can get some money back later in the year. Katherine Cullen with the National Retail Federation, thank you so much for being with me. And join CNN for the ultimate Thanksgiving morning watch party featuring celebrity appearances and live view of parades across the country. John Berman, Erica Hill, they're hosting. Thanksgiving in America starts Thanksgiving Day at 8:00 a.m. Eastern on CNN and streaming on Max.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Before you reach for that frozen meal or that bag of chips, take a minute and read the ingredients. New research is trying to find out how different ultra-processed foods can impact our health.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

WALKER: Ultra-processed foods can be up to 70 percent of a typical American diet. Yet, there's no U.S. Policy on how to label them and no clear evidence on how different types can impact your body.

BLACKWELL: But dozens of volunteers are now allowing researchers at the National Institutes of Health to study what happens to them when they are fed ultra-processed foods. Here's CNN's medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sam Rosada (ph) has been living in this hospital room at the National Institutes of Health for two weeks.

TIRRELL: Do you have like wearables on like tracking everything?

SAM ROSADA (PH): Yes. So, I do have a couple of these sensors.

TIRRELL: He's not sick. He's a participant in a clinical trial. One of the first of its kind, measuring his movement, his blood, his gut microbiome, even the air he breathes, all to try to better understand how our health is affected by ultra-processed foods.

TIRRELL: Oh, I think your food's coming in.

We saw the kind of food he got and eggs and spinach and yogurt, but we don't know that could be processed. It could be unprocessed. That's part of the trial.

TIRRELL (voice-over): Ultra-processed foods contain additives and ingredients you wouldn't find in your own kitchen. They were shown in the previous NIH study to drive overeating and weight gain, according to researcher Dr. Kevin Hall.

TIRRELL: Are ultra-processed foods just junk foods?

DR. KEVIN HALL, SENIOR INVESTIGATOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: What we often think of as junk foods probably captures a big chunk of the ultra-processed foods kind of category. But there's a lot of things that people would be surprised that are in the ultra-processed foods category and, you know, could potentially be healthy for you. So, things like whole grain breads that you might buy from the supermarket. Most of those are considered ultra-processed because of some of the additives and preservatives that are in there as well as how they're manufactured. There's a lot of debate about whether or not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you.

[07:45:00]

TIRRELL (voice-over): And that's what this trial is trying to find out.

DR. HALL: What are the mechanisms? What is it about this category of foods that is driving people to over consume calories?

TIRRELL (voice-over): Dr. Hall's team has two ideas about what might be causing people to overeat some ultra-processed foods, their energy density or how many calories are in each gram of food and their hyper palatability, when foods contain just the right combinations of salt, sugar, fat, and carbs to make us not want to stop eating them.

TIRRELL: This is where they prepare all of the food, and they don't just prepare it, they weigh it before it goes up, and when it comes back after the participant has eaten.

TIRRELL (voice-over): Each day, participants in the trial are offered a total of 6,000 calories and researchers measure how much they choose to eat. The trial is a month long and each week has a different diet, minimally processed or different kinds of ultra-processed.

Sam was in an ultra-processed week during our visit, but one with foods Dr. Hall doesn't expect will drive him to overeat.

TIRRELL: How is that ultra-processed?

SARA TURNER, CLINICAL RESEARCH DIETITIAN, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: It's all based on the ingredients. So, the eggs that we used in that omelet, the egg whites were a liquid egg product. So, it has ingredients in it that make it ultra-processed. It's not just egg.

So, our yogurts, the pancake syrup that was in the yogurt, those all have ultra-processed ingredients in terms of added flavors, added sweeteners.

TIRRELL (voice-over): The next day, Sam would switch to meals that were more energy dense and hyper palatable, the ones expected to lead to overeating.

TURNER: So, you can see that these are all foods that they're ultra- processed and you can see that the volume compared to this is quite different as well.

TIRRELL: Wow. That is really illustrative. I mean, just looking, you need two trays of food for this one. And one tray of food for this next diet, when you're getting the same number, you're offering at least the same number of calories.

TURNER: Correct. Yes.

TIRRELL (voice-over): All to help understand what ultra-processed foods really do to our bodies.

TIRRELL: And this trial is still running. It still needs to recruit a few more participants who all need to live at the NIH hospital for a month in order to get enough results. They hope to have those results by next year. And those could help potentially inform the FDA or policymakers as they think about how to handle ultra-processed foods.

But also, it could give us, as consumers, more information about when we go to the grocery store, what kinds of choices we want to make for ourselves and our families. That is the hope for research like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much. And we'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

BLACKWELL: Another crazy day in college football. Several schools hoping to make the playoffs lost yesterday.

WALKER: Carolyn Manno joining us now. Try to make sense of it all for us this morning. Hi, Carolyn.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS COMMENTATOR: Hi. Good morning. Buckle up. This is turning out to be the perfect year for the brand-new 12 team playoff. More spots means more schools have a chance. And two of those, 21st ranked Arizona State and 14th ranked BYU. Here now, Arizona State at five with the ball in the final minute, but on fourth down with seven seconds left. Quarterback Sam Leavitt launches the ball out of play to try and run out the rest of the time. Sun Devil students rushing the field to celebrate. The stadium crew started tearing down the goalposts. But after review, the officials determined that the ball touched a fan in the crowd with one second left.

So, instead of game over, it is BYU ball. Meaning, that everybody had to get off the field. And when they finally did, this happened, BYU heaving the ball towards the end zone and amazingly, it's caught. But the receiver gets tackled two yards short of the score. So, here come the students once again. Arizona State holding on 28-23.

Seventh ranked Alabama, one of the teams on the losing end of things, the tide held to just a field goal on the road at Oklahoma 24-3 the final. And after an impressive last few weeks, Bama couldn't move the ball. Jalen Milroe under pressure all night. They couldn't stop the run either. Alabama losing three games for the first time since 2010, putting them in serious jeopardy, if not eliminating them from the playoff race.

Colorado's hopes of playing for the Big 12 title, taking a big blow courtesy of Kansas, who beat a ranked opponent for the third straight week. Jayhawks running back Devin Neal gashing Colorado's defense for 280 total yards and four touchdowns in the 37-21 win.

Under the lights at Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame tasked with taking down one of the most surprising teams in college football this season. 19th ranked Army and the Irish did just that thanks to a big running night and some shutdown defense, handing Army their first loss of the season, 49-14 in the Bronx.

And we end with the much-hyped battle between fifth ranked Indiana and number two Ohio State. The Hoosiers coming in 10 and 0 for the first time in school history, but also facing a ranked opponent for the first time in the season. They were on the road in front of more than 100,000 fans, no less. And they did hang in there for a half. But the ending was familiar in this one. Ohio State taking advantage of special teams miscues the big one, a return punt 79 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter. So, the Buckeyes win 38-15. And after the game, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti was asked if he thought his team still belonged in the 12-team field. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CURT CIGNETTI, INDIANA HEAD COACH: Is that a serious question? I'm not even going to answer that one. The answer is so obvious. Thanks, guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: And, Amara and Victor, I have a feeling we're going to be hearing that from plenty of coaches over the next couple of weeks before the field is officially set on December 8th.

[07:55:00]

I mean, what is he supposed to say? Of course, they belong. Everybody belongs, but only if you can get it.

WALKER: Awkward pause. Carolyn Manno, thank you and happy Thanksgiving to you.

MANNO: You too.

WALKER: Thank you, everyone, for being with us. Have a happy Thanksgiving. You as well, Victor.

BLACKWELL: You too. Enjoy it.

WALKER: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Inside Politics Sunday with Manu Raju is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Reality check. With a flurry of new picks. Trump's cabinet comes fully into focus.

[08:00:00]