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First of All with Victor Blackwell

The Major Warning Sign In New Jobs Report; Black Unemployment Rises To Highest Level Since October 2021; Will President Trump Face Backlash Over Fewer "Black Jobs"?; Aired 8-9a ET

Aired August 02, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:00:43]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: First of all, who's taking the black jobs now? This new jobs report was disappointing enough that President Trump fired the government official who tracks labor data. Nationwide, only 73,000 jobs were added in July. And numbers for May and June were revised downward. And there's one number that suggests that things are going to get worse.

Among Black Americans, the unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent. That number hasn't been that high since October of 2021. We all remember that post-pandemic period well. And so did President Trump on the 2024 campaign trail, he promised millions of new jobs to black voters. July was the second consecutive month that the unemployment rate for Black Americans climbed. Now that's relevant to every worker.

Our CNN business team explains that a higher percentage of Black Americans are in temporary jobs or lower-income jobs and those tend to be the first jobs employers cut when they're concerned about the economy. And that's why I want to underline this, because these numbers matter, not just because it affects black people. The reality is that Black Americans may feel it first, but all Americans could feel this next.

So here to talk about this and much more, Ernie Suggs, Race and Culture Reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Jason Lee, Senior Editor at Bossip, and Michael Harriot, founder and writer at ContrabandCamp. He's also the author of "Black AF History, the Un- Whitewashed Story of America".

Gentlemen, good to have you. Ernie, let me start with you to fire the Commissioner of the BLS, Dr. Erica McIntarfer, because he doesn't like the numbers. Here's what the president said after that firing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going forward, why should anyone trust the numbers? And if you're --

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, you're right. No, you're right. Why should anybody trust numbers? So you know what I did? I fired her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Why should you trust the numbers?

ERNIE SUGGS, RACE AND CULTURE REPORTER, ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: Well, I don't know if you can trust the numbers now. If you're going to fire the person who created the numbers that you don't like. Right. So President Trump said these numbers are rigged, that she, even before the election she was rigging the numbers for Kamala Harris is what's something that he also said. So now if he bring, when he brings someone new in and those numbers are favorable towards him because he said the numbers are rigged against him, how are we going to trust these numbers.

So I think this is another example of the Trump administration kind of rigging the system for him, kind of guiding the system for him. While, like you said in your intro, black people and American workers are suffering from this because we're going to being fed false information while we're suffering and, you know, can't afford to eat.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Michael, let me come to you. That 7.2 percent unemployment rate, highest since October 2021. The pitch to America was economic, specifically to black voters and black men. More jobs, lower prices. Remember the platinum plan, 3 million jobs. And now we see these numbers.

MICHAEL HARRIOT, FOUNDER AND WRITER, CONTRABANDCAMP: Yes. I wonder what happened to all those black jobs. Right. But remember now, you know, economists always say that the economic recession hits Black Americans first. So you could almost predict favorably since the last 50 years a recession by the number of black jobs or how the unemployment rate affects Black Americans. It historically has always been about double the. The white unemployment rate. But what we're seeing now is going to get worse.

The numbers from all of those layoffs at government jobs, which are disproportionately held by Black Americans, haven't hit the jobs report yet. So it's going to get worse for black folks before it gets worse for Americans, but it's going to get worse for Americans.

BLACKWELL: Jah, the question is, I mean, the President's not on the ballot again, right? Although Steve Bannon says he might be. He's not on the ballot yet. Does this come at a political cost for his party? Because they're all up in the House and many of them up in the Senate in 2026.

JASON "JAH" LEE, SENIOR EDITOR, BOSSIP: Well, it's going to be interesting to watch. I'm not sure if it's going to come at a cost to his acolytes or not. They seem to be on board with anything that he says, anything that he does. And with maybe the exception of the Epstein situation, they pretty much roll with anything that is going on in MAGA's universe. So it'll be interesting to watch whether these things actually cause discontent amongst his followers.

[08:05:14]

BLACKWELL: And Jah, let me stay with you on this. Speaking of elections, the former Vice President, Kamala Harris, she announced that she's not running for governor of California. She announced she has a new book coming out, 107 days, about her campaign for president. She was on with Stephen Colbert, and here's how she described her decision to stay out of the race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FMR. U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: When I was young in my career, I had to defend my decision to become a prosecutor with my family. And one of the points that I made is, why is it then when we think we want to improve a system or change it, that we're always on the outside, on bended knee, or trying to break down the door? Shouldn't we also be inside the system? And that has been my career.

And recently I made the decision that I just, for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: What'd you hear there?

LEE: I heard someone who is tired. I heard someone who has fought, who did what she thought was the right thing to do for a very long time outside of even, you know, running for president, and she's tired. I think she's come to the realization that a lot of people have always come to. And this thing that she brought up has always been a -- I don't want to call it a fight, but I guess a discussion amongst black people about what is the way to achieve freedom.

Is it about fighting the system and tearing it down? Is it about being a part of the system and doing what you can from the inside to make sure that our voices, our thoughts, what we want is represented in a system that may not favor us. And she just seems very tired.

It almost sounds like she got a cold bucket of water. That kind of made her come to the realization that, okay, maybe this thing is not what I thought it was. And you can almost hear Colbert in the audience. It was almost an audible gasp when she said that. Because people want to feel hope. And hope can go two ways.

Hope can inspire you and motivate you to do your part and make us all become the best version of ourselves? Hope can also maybe sometimes provide a veneer that keeps you from seeing the bleak reality of what's going on around you.

HARRIOT: Yes, and I think also what you hear there, too, is when she says the system, she's not just talking about the political system. She's also -- you have to also think that she's talking about the Democratic Party too, right? Like, she stepped in for them and then like after she lost, running a 100-day campaign, they kind of laid the blame on her. And I think that she's seeing the party structure as well as the American political system and feeling like both are broken.

SUGGS: But I'm also hopeful, and I'm glad that she's back. I'm looking forward to reading her book. And I think that this is an opportunity for her. While she is tired, I think she is tired, and I think black women are tired, black voters are tired, Democrats are tired. She does represent something. And I do think that book, when it comes out, when she talks about that 107 Days that she tried to get this country back on the right track, is going to be very enlightening and it's going to set up a path for her, possibly with her deciding not to run for governor to perhaps, you know, consider running for president again in 2028.

Because the field's going to be wide open. Everybody's going to be out there trying to be the next president.

HARRIOT: Or maybe like the not political, right? Like we keep thinking like the political system or the system of that's broken will be fixed by politicians, and maybe it won't.

SUGGS: Yes, yes. I mean, I think. Yeah. And Kamala Harris may be the perfect person to fix it.

LEE: And maybe, you know, Michelle Obama has talked about the same thing too, being tired. So maybe there's like a coalition of tired black women who can come together and help do something outside of the political system to help us all better and do better.

BLACKWELL: The coalition of tired black women, sound like an avengers. Fantastic.

Let me ask you this. There's one new poll that came out from the AP that caught my eye that found that there are fewer people now in the country versus 2021 who believe that Black Americans, Asian Americans as well, face quite a bit of discrimination. That number was 60 percent in April of 2021, down to 45 percent now. And the number of people believe that blacks face discrimination, little or none at all, up eight points from four years ago. What do you think informs this?

HARRIOT: I think what informs that is history, right? Like, we know that this is why movements and, you know, protest movements exist. Because there's never been any time in American history where the majority of Americans, especially the majority of white Americans, have thought that a racial or movement for equality have fought for it, right?

[08:10:11]

We know that most every referendum for slavery fell the civil rights movement. A month before the March on Washington, 83 percent of white Americans said that they disapproved of the March on Washington. We know with the anti-lynching movement it took 100 years to pass a federal anti-lynching bill. So like I don' know if this tells us anything except that this is the same America that we've always lived in. And maybe it's getting great again for what Trump wants to make it, but I don't know if it because movements exist because of this, not alongside this.

Because it is impossible to change people's minds. Their minds change after change happens. BLACKWELL: All right, gentlemen, we will have you back later in the

show. Jah, Michael, Ernie, thank you so much for coming in. We'll talk in a moment.

But first, it's the collegiate equivalent of pulling the reverse UNO card. The president of a conservative college is targeted for supporting DEI. He was expected to be fired this weekend. Instead, he got a raise.

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[08:15:56]

BLACKWELL: A university targeted by the Trump administration over DEI just did something few people expected. George Mason University, led by Dr. Gregory Washington. He's the first black person to hold that office. The Trump administration's Education and Justice Departments have opened four investigations into GMU's diversity and inclusion policies. House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are asking for an interview. They claim there is a pervasive culture of intolerance at George Mason that violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act.

The faculty issued a statement of support for Dr. Washington. With all this pressure, they were worried that he would be fired at a meeting of the school's governing board yesterday. Instead, he got a raise.

Solon Simmons is here. He's the president of George Mason University's Faculty Senate. Good to have you, sir.

I read that one member of the faculty called it high noon at the O.K. Corral when it came to the decision from the Board of Visitors on Friday. Are you surprised that one he wasn't fired, recommended a resignation, but instead that he got more money?

SOLON SIMMONS, PRESIDENT OF FACULTY SENATE, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: Well, look, it was a dramatic moment, I will say. We showed up there early. I got there around 8:00 in the morning. We had protesters there. And protesters. What I mean are just normal teachers just out there wanting to make sure to show support for their university.

There was media. We had a really boring meeting. You know, these meetings often tend to be boring. You know, Robert's Rules and what have you, and so on. Very quickly got through the main business. Although they did pass a DEI resolution. I don't want to skip that over that. That happened with it unanimously, without a discussion.

And then finally we got to the business of the closed executive session. I asked to be there. I'm on the board as an on-voting member. They held it in executive closed session.

So were all just waiting. People waiting different places, behind the scenes, talking, chatting. It goes on an hour. You think, okay, fine, goes on two, goes on three. You're wondering what's going on in there.

You know, people taking bio breaks and what have you, and you can't try to catch glimpses of what's going to happen. And then went in, and then you sit there and it. Very quickly, we recalled the order, and then they passed a resolution. You didn't even know what it meant.

But what it meant was they approved his plan and he got a raise, probably gets a bonus, and he's allowed to join a national association that he wants to be a part of, is on the board. So it was surprising. I can't say that I didn't know which way it was going to go. And we were all kind of gaming it out and looking through the members and saying, which way is this one going to go? Which way is this one going to go? Because a lot of these people were new.

So anyway, it was a surprising moment. We're extremely happy. I think it's great for the university. I mean, how are the investigations go? Just that we take our time and we allow the process to go forward. You know, we don't believe that there's anything going wrong, but we don't know the legal cases. You know, we don't know the complaints. So all we wanted to do in the faculty senate was just make sure we dotted the I's and crossed the T's and took our time, you know what I mean? And just allowed it to play out. And I think that it went that way.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about the complaints. Let's go into the complaints, because there's a letter that Dr. Washington wrote in 2021, and he called on the university community to adopt a broader shared understanding of what BEST means in recruiting faculty and staff. And here's a part of the letter.

"If you have two candidates who are both above the bar in terms of requirements for a position, but one adds to your diversity and the other does not, then why couldn't that candidate be better even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate. There are some people going to hear that says that, say that, well, wait a minute. I've got better credentials, but I don't add to the diversity, so I'm not the better candidate. How is that appropriate? What's your answer to that in your support of Dr. Washington?

SIMMONS: Yes, well, I don't know. That came out of a FOIA request so I don't really know the status of that and what's going on with it. As I say I that wasn't the experience I've had in any of the searches that I've witnessed or been a part of. That's just not how we -- I don't know who's how that was playing out.

This is what I will say about this. Greg Washington said that when he came on in 2020, you know it was a dramatic moment. I mean it's hard to remember this but the issues were almost exactly reversed. We had students a huge protest that wanted to tear the statue of George Mason down.

You know, we have a nice statue that everyone wants to take the picture with when they're graduating and all that. They wanted to tear that down and say, this guy's a slaveholder and, you know, we can't celebrate him. We need to change the name of the university. And so this, I mean, he was an African American president, came into a difficult situation. We were pretty calm through all that and relative to other places. And so that was the context in which he was trying to manage (inaudible) in all situation. [08:20:25]

BLACKWELL: Do you agree with the sentiment of that message I read from the president?

SIMMONS: Well, I think that everyone ought to be treated the same. I think all we ever cared about was equal opportunity. I mean, that's what I certainly stand for. And, you know, I think that we believe in diversity in George Mason. My colleagues very clearly said that.

But you don't want to be biased against anybody. You don't want anyone to be discriminated against. That's not what this is meant to be about. And I don't see it at the university.

BLACKWELL: All right, Solon Simmons, thank you so much for being with me this morning.

SIMMONS: Great.

BLACKWELL: All right, so add this to the list of things I didn't think I'd have to talk about on this show. Sydney Sweeney or American Eagle. But the debate around her great jeans ad, it is a mess. So we'll try to sort it out. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:35]

BLACKWELL: So many people have a take on this ad from American Eagle and actress Sydney Sweeney's great genes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SYDNEY SWEENEY: Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.

UNKNOWN MALE SPEAKER: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Even Vice President J.D. Vance weighed in. He supports the ad. And now the brand is responding with this statement. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, is and always was about the jeans. J-E-A-N-S. Her jeans, her story will continue to celebrate how everyone wears their American Eagle jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.

All right, Ernie Suggs, Jason Lee, and Michael Harriet are back. Michael, you wrote about this week. Denim jeans are not passed down through generations, right? So it's not this double entendre, as you wrote.

You say it's subconscious nod to the increasingly vocal online race science. HARRIOT: Yes, I think that's what it was. And I think, you know, it's

impossible for anyone to think that, like Sydney Sweeney and the marketing executives and the people who wrote the copy and the people who did the lights and the people who mic'd her up, nobody saw this, right? They knew what they were doing.

So let's, like, this is a billion dollar company, so let's dispense with that. But the thing I think is important to point out because of the, you know, like when all the races are mad and you're like, you're on that side, right? Like when all the races are defending something, then it might be wrong. But the thing is, I want to point out, is that no one is actually offended or outraged.

When you point out that something is racist, it doesn't mean you're personally insulted. As a matter of fact, the idea that something has to affect you personally for you to point out that something is wrong is like a moral judgment or moral characteristic. So nobody's offended. Nobody's mad. Nobody thinks that Sydney Sweeney is going to, you know, inspire mobs, lynch mobs. They already did that at the Capitol a couple of years ago.

But the thing is, we want to point out that, like, oh, we can see what you're doing. You know, we can see you. Right. We hear the dog whistles. And I think pointing that out is important. But nobody's like thinking that Sydney Sweeney's coming to get them at night.

SUGGS: Yes, but also when you talk about. Someone had to know what was going on. You know, this wasn't done in a vacuum. There's no way that a billion-dollar company, you know, every email that we send out, every tweet that we send out as a corporation is vetted through orders. So the fact that this happened is troubling.

But it also sends a message to brown and black women, sends a message to queer people, sends a message to people who have different body types that our genes are not the same. You know, our genes are not perfect, our genes are not good. So that's a troubling aspect of this whole community.

BLACKWELL: Megyn Kelly has it from a different angle. She says -- actually, let me let her say it for herself that she says what she's had enough of. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, AMERICAN JOURNALIST: We're sick and tired of the nonsense where you are not allowed to ever celebrate someone who is white and blonde and blue-eyed. That we have to walk into a room apologetic for those things. Or we have for the past five years.

And in a way, this ad is the final declaration that we're done doing that. It doesn't mean we're better. But you know what? We're no worse than any other race or any other hair color or eye color. And we're sick of being told that we are by having all of our representation, to use the left's terms, removed.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIOT: I think what's important to note about that is that, like how

they conflate the two things, right? Nobody's arguing that something is bad with being blonde and blue eyed. They're celebrating and pointing out that being blonde and blue eyed is better and somebody saying there's something wrong with that. So that's two different things, right?

Like, no, this -- I mean, I don't think the blind blue eyed contingent of America is suffering right now. Right. But for them to say we're better because we're blind and blue eyed is a totally different thing.

LEE: Well, to me, this whole thing is outrage farming, right? They're looking for angles. Even if maybe if you're being as generous as you can possibly be and say, okay, maybe they just like, to your point, maybe somehow everyone involved just this flew over their head.

The company is called American Eagle. They are speaking to a very specific group of people. When they do these marketing, they're not doing this in some type -- they're not guessing. They know who they're talking to when they pick Sydney Sweeney, when they shoot the ad a certain kind of way.

[08:30:22]

But this isn't a situation where they're -- we're missing some point. They know what they're saying. We know what they're saying.

BLACKWELL: There's even an ad where they had jeans spelled G-E-N-E-S and then walked by and crossed it out.

LEE: And rise (ph) jeans.

BLACKWELL: -- and spelled it J-E-A-N-S. So --

HARRIOT: Right.

BLACKWELL: -- it's kind of clear --

HARRIOT: But even if they didn't read it that way, isn't that even the worst condemnation? Because that means, like, so many people are dumb at that company that they didn't know what they were doing and they didn't anticipate that public response.

SUGGS: Well, let me tell you how dumb that company is. Their stock prices went up 4 percent to 10 percent as well.

HARRIOT: Right. They know what they're doing.

SUGGS: So, yeah.

LEE: And if I take my cynicism even a little further --

BLACKWELL: Take it further.

LEE: -- This is a company who has been praised when they, a couple of years ago, they launched a denim hijab and Cosmo, Teen Vogue, a lot of these fashion magazines, even just people on Twitter on social media were praising them for this inclusivity. And they still operate -- American Eagle still runs their DEI practices. They haven't shut that down. So if I am very cynical about this, there's some executive up there who I wouldn't be surprised at all if they said, well, we can probably get away with this because we have inserted enough cultural goodwill and good faith that even if some people are mad about this, we can do this and it'll be OK because we can point back to our Coco Golf ad and these other things that we've done for black and brown people that makes this OK.

BLACKWELL: Yes. All right. Jason, Michael, Ernie, thank you so much for being part of the conversation this morning.

All right, so listen, I went down a rabbit hole this week. I went looking into the story of a black truck driver that social media said was missing. What I found kept surprising me the more I looked. The story of Eric Darnell is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:51]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now here's a story that hit my algorithm this week that you might not have seen on T.V.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another black truck driver has gone missing. What is going on?

BLACKWELL: Have you seen this post about this black truck driver who vanished mid route? It's going viral. His name is Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Darnell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He just went missing in the middle of one of his deliveries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he was headed to Memphis, coming from Phoenix, Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was talking to his wife at 3:45 that morning, got off the interstate to get a cup of coffee, and then she never heard from him ever again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Outside of Little Rock, Arkansas --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where his truck was found. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they said his phone had just stopped ping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His wallet was inside a truck, that don't even sound right. His keys and his logbook was gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And his family is looking for him. And he was the provider of his family with kids and all that.

BLACKWELL: And then this story got even worse.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eric Darnell have been found --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Deceased. He was hung.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With a rope tied around his neck and he was hanging from a tree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they're saying it could have to do with hate crime.

BLACKWELL: So now at this point, we wanted to learn more about Eric Darnell and tell his story. But the more we look to it, the odder it seemed. We called the Birmingham Police Department, the Jefferson County, Alabama Sheriff's Office, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, that's according to the story where he's from, but they had no record of a missing Eric Darnell. And CNN researchers found no evidence of a 38-year-old Eric Darnell in the state of Alabama.

We reached out to the Little Rock police and the Pulaski County, Arkansas Sheriff's office, they have no report of a missing truck found with a wallet inside. We're still waiting to hear back from state law enforcement, though.

And so now what about the photos? Well, CNN analysis and an expert at the University of California at Berkeley determined that the photo of the driver is fake. And that picture of the truck is likely AI generated too. However, we did find this man.

ERIC DARNELL, MAN THEY SAY MISSING: My name is Eric Darnell.

BLACKWELL: Are you a trucker?

DARNELL: I am not a trucker, no.

BLACKWELL: Are you 38 years old?

I am 38, yes.

Do you live in the Birmingham area?

DARNELL: I do not.

BLACKWELL: When did you first hear about what was going on with this missing trucker story?

DARNELL: I heard about it earlier this week, but I ignored the mentions and the notices that I got. They came from people on Facebook that I had no connection with. So I naturally assumed it was just some type of spam. A friend of mine who I actually knew had privately messaged me and sent me that same screenshot. And I'm just like, hey, I'm getting this a lot. It's -- no, can't be.

And he was like, no, it's going viral on TikTok. And then I was like, well, send me the link. He sent me the link. And there I was, all over TikTok. My family, we just lost our father recently.

So for my siblings, my mom, to get phone calls and messages, you know, sending their condolences, I'm also an educator, I had past students and current students reaching out to me, making posts, sending their condolences. That was a lot for them.

[08:40:02]

BLACKWELL: Listen, the people who shared this story, they meant well because they know that there are racial and gender disparities in the coverage of and the investigation of missing persons. And social media can be a way to share real stories. However, there's no evidence that the story of missing trucker Eric Darnell is true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Crazy. Coming up, I speak with a woman who says that she was kicked off of a flight. And because there's no other explanation, it must be race. She makes her case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:45:00]

BLACKWELL: There's an update in a case we've been following out of Homewood, Alabama. The family of 18-year-old Jabari Peoples has been fighting to see police body camera footage of the shooting that led to his death back in June. Well, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency says they've released the video to local law enforcement now that their investigation is complete. And a team for one of the family's attorneys tells us that they expect the family to be able to see the footage Wednesday. No word yet what the investigation found or whether the video will be released publicly.

We will stay on this.

All right, my next guest says that she was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight because she's black. Dr. Briana Hicks says that she was berated on a recent flight by a male attendant over use of a cell phone. And when she reported that incident to other attendants, the male attendant blocked her from returning to her seat, made her leave the plane. We reached out to Southwest Airlines but have not heard back. This happened in November. Dr. Hicks has now filed a lawsuit against the airline and says she was singled out because she was the only black person seated in the exit row.

Dr. Briana Hicks is with us now along with her attorney, Lauren Bateman. Thank you to you both. Dr. Hicks, let me start with you, this was a flight From Chicago to D.C. this is, I guess about the time where they give the instructions to the people sitting in the exit rows. Tell me what happened.

DR. BRIANA HICKS, FILED LAWSUIT AGAINST SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: Yes, so you're exactly right. I fly all the time. And when you sit in the exit row, you have the responsibility of paying attention to the flight attendant as they're sharing the regulations and the rules. And in that moment, I was putting my phone on airplane mode really briefly and I was still paying attention actively to the flight attendant. And in the midst of looking down briefly, I guess the flight attendant was caught up on me looking down and then immediately went into pay attention.

And it wasn't the way -- it wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. It was very diminishing. It was like a reprimand. And I reassured him that I was paying attention. In fact, my phone at that point was on my lap face down.

And I continued to listen and he continued to mention, put your phone away. And at that point I became confused. As I looked around, everyone had their phones out and I began to question why is he continuing to pick on me despite me actively listening to him and despite me reassuring him that I was paying attention. And he was berating me to a point where I voiced to him, please don't disrespect me, please do not talk to me in that manner, I'm listening. And I just began to feel as if I was going to lose in the situation.

So I immediately shut down, and I just listened to him and paid attention. And in that moment, the lady who was adjacent to me, a white woman, she spoke up and she said, why are you focusing on her and picking on her? We all have our phones out. And that was true. Everyone in the exit row had their electronics out. For some reason, there was a focus on me.

BLACKWELL: Well, let's -- Let me --

HICKS: So it was very uncomfortable.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about that focus on you, because I read your lawsuit, and it comes down to this, and let's put it up, the flight attendant targeted Dr. Hicks on the basis of her race. There was no other factor that would have led him to treat her differently and substantially worse than the similarly situated white passengers in the exit row who were holding or using electronic devices.

And so, because there is no other explanation, it must be race. Am I -- am I interpreting that correctly, Dr. Hicks?

HICKS: So in the experience, the ultimate situation is you don't understand it until you experience it. And what I appreciated about the lady who was sitting next to me, she was experiencing it with me, though, not me, and she called it out immediately. I was thinking to myself, like, is this real? Am I experiencing this? And she mentioned, why are you picking on her? And that's exactly right. You could see in his countenance, it was about making a point of me, diminishing me, calling me out. Because at a certain point, when I completely focus on you, what else do you have to talk with me about and reprimand me for?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

HICKS: And even with that, as he got my verbal affirmation that I was complying with the rules, he went to the front of the plane, and I was shaken up. You know, this is my livelihood at cost, I fly all the time.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

HICKS: And I did not want to be taking the risk of being banned from an airline, let alone a flight.

BLACKWELL: Understood.

HICKS: And I didn't think what happened. Yes. So --

BLACKWELL: Let me get your attorney in here. I want to get to Lauren here. How do you make that case? There is no explanation other than if we can't explain it, it must be race. You may have to convince a jury of that, Lauren, how do you do it?

LAUREN BATEMAN, ATTORNEY, PUBLIC CITIZEN LITIGATION GROUP: Well, the courts evaluate these types of claims all the time by looking for similarly situated comparators who don't have the protected characteristic. And that's exactly what happened here. So Dr. Hicks was the only black passenger in the exit rows, and yet there -- she was surrounded by white passengers who had their phones out, in some cases were even typing on their laptops during the exit row briefing. So there's no other basis for her different and worse treatment other than her race.

[08:50:26]

And then the other -- the other reason we know that this was invidious race discrimination is that it was contemporaneously clocked as such by a white passenger sitting next to Dr. Hicks who intervened on her behalf, who asked the flight attendant why he was treating Dr. Hicks differently from the rest of the passengers. And of course, the flight attendant had no answer to that question.

BLACKWELL: All right, Dr. Briana Hicks and Attorney Lauren Bateman, again, we reached out to Southwest, they did not get back to us. Thank you both for your time and sharing your story.

Art Is Life is next. This week, we go inside an artist studio that's doubling as a safe space for immigrants. First, a reminder to tune in for the new CNN original series, "American Prince JFK Jr."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's pretty much the most famous guy in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unless you know him personally, he is a myth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John became the biggest celebrity in America when he was conceived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boy who would be king.

JOHN KENNEDY JR., SON OF JFK: Hello, I'm John Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a pressure if you're a Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John was just like a little bit more of a free spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His mom was a cultural icon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jackie had raised John to be media savvy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wanted to maybe break some rules. And then he did.

KENNEDY: Ladies and gentlemen, meet George.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had the foresight to understand this is where the country is going. He was like the number one pinup in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Carolyn Bessette.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She made John more attractive and John made her more attractive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a couple, they were sought after.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They don't know the real story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are so many people who wanted John to fail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was enormous pressure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They wanted quotes. They wanted scandal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He would be followed more than I was followed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being John Kennedy, Jr., there's less room for error.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very good to be the son of a legend.

KENNEDY: It's complicated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "American Prince JFK Jr." Premieres Saturday, August 9th on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:56:56]

BLACKWELL: When you think about the Hamptons, wealthy people probably come to mind first. Same goes for the type of people who get their portraits painted. Well for Art is Life this week I spoke with an artist who was challenging both those notions and honoring his immigrant neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK WEBER, ARTIS, "MELTING POT" PORTRAIT SERIES: I'm Nick Weber, an artist in Springs, East Hampton. The idea sort of was happening before I even realized it. I first worked out here in the Hamptons, the famous Hamptons, as a landscaper, and I worked with a bunch of Mexican guys who were really cool to me and taught me how to use all the machines and everything. And I did some paintings of them. You know, as I started to hear the rhetoric heat up about 10 years ago, I just felt like, that's not true, these are not bad people or horrible people.

These are actually, in my experience, many of the best people I knew. That's when I started to get more intentional about the series and say, all right, well, I'm going to really make a statement here about what I see as really incredible human beings.

I have three qualifications for the series right now. You weren't born in the United States, you do live here right now. And you came into my life in an organic way. And as I started painting the series, this series told me where to go.

This is my friend Gonzalo down here. And he came, he put his hands on his thighs like that, and he literally didn't move for an hour and a half. Lubo (ph) right there, been through a lot in his life. He was a boxer in Bulgaria and he defected here -- he defected here in 1988. Mona is the calmest person I've ever met right there.

Mona's from Jamaica. There's people from every place here. There's Japanese. There's in the middle, Ukrainian. And I have a man from Haiti there, my friend Mark.

They've all been tested. They've all been through a lot. And done a lot to get here, done a lot to stay here. This is a patriotic series celebrating immigration. Whatever you want to say about the history of this country, it's had its problems, its issues, but in certain ways, it's been a great country, and in certain ways, immigration has been our superpower.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Nick says the plans are in the works for putting these portraits on public display. And you can keep up with his "Melting Pot" series by visiting nickweberstudio.com or by following him on Instagram at nickweber, one B.

If you see something or someone I should see, tell me. I'm on Instagram, TikTok X and Blue Sky. And if you missed a conversation, check out our show's website and you can listen to our show as a podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Smerconish is up next.