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CNN Live Event/Special

Thanksgiving in America. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 28, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All across the United States, a day to give thanks, for family, friends, food, football.

[10:00:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Put that turkey in the oven and gather round for your front row seat to festive, colorful parades coming to you from cities all around the country.

BERMAN: Have an uncle who drives you nuts? This will distract him. A cousin you haven't seen in years, get her a chair. She will love this. Incredible chefs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of my favorite side dishes.

BERMAN: Entertainers, athletes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

BERMAN: Song, dance, revelry, musical amuse bouche before the feasting and the napping.

HILL: This is a CNN special event, Thanksgiving in America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Live pictures from Chicago there. You can see the parade full on. I think that turkey is named Teddy the Turkey. Chicago, it's Teddy the Turkey. In New York, it is Tom the Turkey. Unclear if they are related.

But either way, they have a lot to talk about. It is the top of the hour now. We are live from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Ooh, there's Houston right now.

HILL: A lot happening in Houston, and there is a lot of recognition of the Olympics, of the Paralympians and the Olympians in the area. This is a big deal.

BERMAN: That's Carl Lewis.

HILL: It sure is. He's the Grand Marshal.

BERMAN: Carl Lewis, multi time Olympic gold medalist, Carl Lewis, there he is dancing. He's going to take his time on this parade route. Normally, he's very, very fast.

HILL: but he wants to savor the moment. He wants to really stay in it.

BERMAN: All right. So much going on today, we're bringing the balloons, the bands, we even have a taste of some delicious Thanksgiving dishes from your favorite celebrity chefs. Right now, Goku, hero of the manga series Dragon Ball. Actually, I love Dragon Ball.

HILL: Do you? I didn't know that.

BERMAN: Really, really, really cool, some fantastic art, great stories. That began 40 years ago. This morning, we're celebrating Thanksgiving from every corner of the United States. Ooh.

HILL: Oh, hey, here's Snoopy.

BERMAN: Oh, I don't know if you guys can see this, but Snoopy is going right by us right now. We see Snoopy going by. There's Snoopy's foot, confirmation of Snoopy's foot.

HILL: This is the 50th anniversary of the Beagle Scouts, by the way, the ninth version of Snoopy here in New York City. It looks bigger in person.

BERMAN: Yes, Snoopy does look bigger in person. He's held up well, though, after all these years.

All right, let's get to Houston where we just saw Carl Lewis, the Grand Marshal at parade, getting ready to go. But the star of the parade is no doubt Rosa Flores. Hi, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Erica and John. Welcome to the Houston Thanksgiving Day Parade. You know, this is the 75th annual. We just do things bigger in Texas. Why the princess dress? Why not? It goes with the boots, doesn't it? It goes with the boots. You have to wear the boots if you're in Texas. A cowgirl with a princess dress, why not?

Let me tell you about this parade because I take my duties very seriously. There are going to be 21 balloons, 19 floats, and about 250,000 people. You can see a lot of them are already here, many of them from Houston. I've made so many friends here today, including Belen. We've been talking princess to princess because she's a princess as well. And, Belen, who's your favorite princess?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cinderella.

FLORES: Cinderella is her favorite princess. What's your second favorite?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Snow White. Snow White.

FLORES: Thank you so much. We're going to talk more princess a little later, okay? Now, here in Houston, we're expecting these very large crowds. And, Erica and John, I take my duties as a princess very, very seriously because the weather here is beautiful. And I hear that you guys have bad weather over there. So, I'm going to be scooping up some Houston weather. I mean, I am like scooping it up right here, because if you've ever been to Houston, you know, it's always about 60 degrees, zero humidity, and it's always beautiful like it is right now. So I'm going to scoop it up and I'm going to send it your way so you guys can have better weather.

(INAUDIBLE) into my next one, my next costume change. I got to let you go, but you will see and hear more absolutely from this legend here in Texas when I see you next.

BERMAN: The plot thickens.

HILL: This is amazing. If you didn't see Rosa in our last hour, she was dressed as a turkey and doing the turkey dance.

[10L05:02]

So, the costume change, very important, I can't wait to see what you have next for us.

BERMAN: Our Thanksgiving princess has been caught by a Texas cowboy. What will happen next? Stay tuned, everyone. We will get back to Houston shortly.

HILL: Even we don't know what's going to happen next. So, we're here and the suspense is, it's palpable.

Rosa, we'll see you shortly. We're going to take a trip now to the Motor City, I believe.

BERMAN: Yes, let's get right to Nick Valencia, who is in Detroit on the parade route there. Oh, I can't wait to see what this guest says.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John and Erica, you're not going to find me dressed up in a costume, but we got probably better guests here to do that for us here.

Who's this right here? Who do we have?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Cash, Cash Knickerbocker (ph).

VALENCIA: Cash Knickerbocker? Cash Money, how are you? You're dressed like a Lion for your ten-in-one team, right? You guys excited to be out of here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my gosh, so excited.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm happy to be out of the house.

VALENCIA: You're happy to be out of the house. I'm having so much fun out here, it's not even that cold, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Once you're moving, it's not that cold.

VALENCIA: All right, thank you guys so much. Happy Thanksgiving to you guys.

This is just one of the many guests here in the stands. We've got grandstands, hundreds of people, thousands of people out here. This is the 100th parade here in Detroit. They took two years off, though, for the war. It was founded by J.L. Hudson in 1924. He saw a similar type of parade in Toronto. He thought it would have success here. And 100 years later, it's still going on. It's the America's Day parade sponsored by Gardner White.

And this is really representative of the heart and soul of this state. And you have people like Gail (ph) who have put this, this parade on your bucket list. Tell me about it. You came out here at 12 years old and you had it on your bucket list. Talk to me about it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wanted to be in this parade. It just looked like so much fun. The people that are walking, they look -- they're just so energetic.

VALENCIA: And everybody's smiling out here. Do you know how -- what a luxury it is for a news reporter to smile on T.V.? This is so fun.

Okay, talk to me. You actually got to march in the parade though?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but it wasn't -- a couple of years ago, Henry Ford hospital, and I've worked for Henry Ford for 47 years. So, they asked different employees and they asked me. And I was like, yes, I'm so excited. We had to be here like at 6:00 in the morning to start, but it was just amazing. It was so much fun.

VALENCIA: Were any of you guys crazy enough to run the turkey trot this morning? Who ran it? Come in here. We want to highlight the runner. Well, you didn't run, but you have run it in past years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have run it several times. It's very fun.

VALENCIA: That kicks off the parade, right? It's like a 5K and a 10K. We saw people dressed up in turkey costumes. Somebody looked like Forrest Gump. There was a guy with a cigarette in his mouth running earlier. What was -- talk to me about it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, so it depends on the weather. The last time I ran it, it was super rainy, but like 60, so it was kind of weird weather, but --

VALENCIA: How does this compare -- if you guys want to turn towards the camera, how does this compare in terms of weather and years past? I mean, I'm literally cold. I should have probably brought a beanie here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty normal.

VALENCIA: Yes, this is tame compared to what you guys get in Michigan. So, tell me, you know, when you think about Detroit, I think a lot of people still think about the blight, people think about maybe the bankruptcy, but this is about -- the story here is the revitalization, and this really is like an example of all of that, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely. It's really grown and it's fun to come down here because there's so many activities now and so many people that --

VALENCIA: Between the parade and the football game later. Give me this towel here. I want to put this stuff on. I'm a Lions fan today. I grew up in L.A. without a team and I'll root for your Lions today. Go Lions, guys.

Erica and John, I'll throw it back to you. We'll have more from Detroit throughout the morning. Thanks, everybody.

BERMAN: It's like 85 percent of the people in the crowd. They're wearing Lions gear. The Lions in first place, favored right now to make it win the Super Bowl for the first time in the history, by the way, of the Super Bowl. It's a big time to be a Lions fan.

Nick Valencia, our thanks to you. Give them a roar, the Lions game, which doesn't start until we're off the air.

Erica, just so you know, the Lions play Chicago. They play the Bears today. Let's go to Chicago now. Whitney Wild is there, the 90th year of the Chicago parade. Ooh, and you've got to guest, Whitney.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, we sure do. We are so excited. We have John Vincent here. He has sung, you know, all over the country, all over the world. He sang today. You have such a beautiful voice. It is such a gift to Chicago. John is a Southsider.

John, what does it mean for you to be here today?

JOHN VINCENT, RESIDENT NATIONAL ANTHEM SINGER: It's very special. I'm thankful. First of all, because of my I want to say my best friend is here. We just put my dad on hospice. He has Parkinson's dementia and we're going to spend Thanksgiving with him. So, being here, I know he's watching on T.V. Hi, dad. I love you. I'm thankful for that to start off with.

WILD: And, John, I'm using the National Anthem for the Cubs for more than a decade. You've sung for all the major sports teams. Just talk to us a little bit about what makes the city of Chicago so special, Chicago sports so special.

VINCENT: The fans are passionate. It's the people. At the end of the day, what makes a place special are the people.

[10:10:00]

And Chicago has the greatest people. I grew up here. I've been here my whole life and it's home. It'll always be home. And I love New York. I love L.A. I love, you know, traveling, just went out to Italy, but Chicago will always be home.

WILD: Like you said, you're a Southsider living on the north side now. And I know you have such a, such a personal story that you'd like to share with people. So, can you just give us a sense of your personal story? I know you've struggled and you've persevered. So, tell us what is your message for people who might be having a tough time this Thanksgiving.

VINCENT: My thing is don't ever give up. on yourself. I'm going to say it on national T.V. right now. I have obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety. I got -- you know, I knew that since I was a young person saying that in my late teenage years. And I have tremendous sisters that always stood by me, older sisters that gave me the courage to go out, go seek help and not feel so crazy and out of place. And once you realize that, you don't feel so intimidated anymore. And I was bullied as a kid and stuff like that, but you can change that into a positive. And that's what I'm thankful for. Also it's the people in my life who have done that for me.

WILD: All right, John Vincent, you have a beautiful voice, a beautiful story. We're so glad to have you this morning. Thank you so much for being with us.

VINCENT: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

WILD: All right. John, thank you. All right, John. Erica, back to you guys.

HILL: All right. That was great, Whitney. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Things really kicking off, getting going in Houston. I think we got a little live music down there.

BERMAN: Let's listen in, Houston, Texas.

HILL: There you go, a little bit of the action from the streets there in Houston for the parade Just kicking off a short time ago. Lots a lot happening in Atlanta, big, big race, the largest Thanksgiving Day half marathon in the country.

Our colleague, CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is there, and the weather looking pretty fantastic behind you, Allison.

BERMAN: It must be nice.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I was going to say, I know we got lucky. Now, I will say we had rain in the very beginning too, but our rain cleared out pretty quickly, unlike yours. And, yes, the sun is shining now, folks are crossing the finish line after completing the half marathon, a lot better at this than I am. But you know what? They're trying to clear some room for all the food that they're planning to eat later on today.

Here's the thing though, even though the rain has ended here, it's not the same case for other areas across the country. So, let's take a look. You still have some rain showers from Georgia all the way up through Massachusetts right now. That does include New York. That does include Boston. The thing to note, though, about New York City is we're going to start to see the rain begin to lighten up here in the next couple of hours.

Finally, for some folks there in New York City inland, however, the big concern is going to be snow. As we go throughout the day, the interior portion of the northeast could see several inches, if not even as much as a foot of snow before the day is done today.

Across the rest of the country, one of the other concerns is going to be the temperatures dropping. Not too bad for today, but the bottom really drops out once we get into Friday and especially Saturday and Sunday across the eastern half of the country as those temperatures begin to drop back to maybe more what we would feel like in December and January rather than in November.

But, again, the rest of the country, if you live in the Central U.S., guys, or you live in the west, much nicer travel conditions. If you've got some last minute or even some local travel to do for the holiday, you should be in much better shape than those folks a little bit closer to the East Coast.

HILL: All right. Meteorologist Allison Chinchar, we appreciate and I love the turkey earrings, by the way. One of my cousins just texted me, she loves her earrings.

BERMAN: We've been hearing from people around the country about the turkey earrings.

All right, Thanksgiving in America, it is fully underway. We are on the parade route in New York. You can see some of the bands going by here, people waving from the tops, very, very exciting.

Ahead for us, Martha Stewart takes time out from her high marathon. Find out why she's not having turkey this Thanksgiving.

But, first, our very own Wolf Blitzer tells us what he is thankful for this year.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm thankful this year as I am every year for my loving family, my good friends, and for my health.

[10:15:00]

I'm also thankful for CNN, which I love.

Finally, I'm thankful that my Buffalo Bills are looking very strong. And as I say every year around this time, let's hope they go all the way. Go Bills.

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BERMAN: All right. Live pictures from Philadelphia, and there he is, Santa Claus making his way through the streets.

[10:20:00]

Yes, it's Thanksgiving, but the Thanksgiving parade here in New York and Philadelphia have always actually been a celebration and a look forward to Christmas.

HILL: Look, I feel like it's never too early to, you know, put in a good word with the big guy. So, we'll get things started. You know, Thanksgiving's a little late this year. Always nice to see Santa.

BERMAN: That's Detroit right now we're looking at. Get some people catching some rays on the streets of Detroit in that parade, which dates back 90 years. They're having a lot of fun there today as well.

HILL: There we are back in Houston getting a shot of things there. A lot happening in Houston, especially with our good friend Rosa Flores who is there.

A little wet here in New York City. We'll get back to Houston in just a minute. Oh, look, speaking of Santa, I see a Santa balloon.

BERMAN: There he is, flying over Central Park West, a rainy, rainy Central Park West.

A little bit further down on the avenue and to the left, that's where we find our Harry Enten waiting and watching as the parade goes by. Hello, Harry.

HILL: Flap those wings.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Hello, Mr. Berman. Look, I know -- I'm going to flap these wings. I know Rosa dressed up as a turkey last hour, but the bottom line is I am actually going to eat myself. I have a diced turkey drumstick here. I bet you've never seen turkey on turkey crime, but it is happening here on Central Park South.

Let's take a bite of this. Let's see how it goes. It's not half bad. It's not half bad. I got to tell you, eating a turkey when you're a turkey is pretty gosh darn good.

Now, right now, we see them -- we see some folks behind us, but it's been pretty empty. It's been pretty empty the last few minutes, but I'm hoping that Santa eventually makes his way down here.

Look, folks, if you're going to have a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, my suggestion to you is to fry it. A fried turkey is the best. This is roasted. It's okay. But I'll note that the vast majority of Americans roast their turkeys. We're talking 63 percent. Only about 20 percent of Americans fry their turkey. I had a fried turkey last year. It was pretty gosh darn good.

Oh, look at what we have coming down the street right now. How about a train on the street? I'm not used to it, but the bottom line is this, guys, I taste delicious. BERMAN: That was just Jimmy Fallon who went by you, Harry, went by you and said, hey, there's CNN's Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. That's what Jimmy Fallon just said as he went by. Because it could only be you, Harry.

ENTEN: He loves data. Who doesn't love data? Of course, it could only be me. I'm the only guy who would dress as a turkey and eat a turkey. Yes, everyone loves data. You love data, John Berman. Everyone loves data.

BERMAN: And fried data tastes better than roasted data. It turns out to on Thanksgiving Day.

Harry Enten, thank you very much. Keep doing what you're doing, I think.

We just saw a Santa float go by here. Let's go down to Houston now. Santa is getting close there escorted by 12 reindeers there.

Rosa Flores, I think, is in Houston watching all of it. Rosa?

FLORES: Can you guys hear me?

BERMAN: We can.

HILL: Yes.

FLORES: Oh, I did not realize.

Well, guys, I am here with a legend here from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. And, Dick, you got to tell me, how is it that you rope?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's a good question. You just swing it around your head and throw it.

FLORES: That's very scientific. Can you show us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

There you go.

Now, the Houston livestock show and rodeo has two floats in the Houston parade here today. And not only is the Houston live show -- livestock show and rodeo, not only are they part of the parade, they're also part of the community. And one of the things that really stands out is how much it is a family affair.

Now, I want to introduce you to these two individuals that are part of the rodeo. Now, this is Wendy Lewis Armstrong and her brother, Vernon.

Now, when I read your bios, I was so moved by the contributions that your father has given to the Livestock Show and Rodeo. I am so sorry about his passing. And I wanted to ask you, how special is it for you to be here, to be a part of the rodeo, and to, in essence, follow in your father's footsteps? [10:25:01]

WENDY LEWIS ARMSTRONG, V.P., HOUSTON LIVESTOCK SHOW AND RODEO: Well, I will tell you the rodeo is a family affair and taking on the realms of my dad and the work that he did was definitely important to me and my family. My brother also decided that he wanted to be a part of the committee and a lot of my family is a part of the committee.

It is 35,000 volunteers. And I would say a good number of us are family volunteers because we believe that the rodeo is a big part of the city of Houston. We want to give back to our community. So, it's all about the rodeo.

And I will say my dad probably didn't think I was going to make it this far in a rodeo. So, I'm very blessed and lucky to be a part of this amazing organization and all the things that we do for our great city.

FLORES: One of the other things that stands out about the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is how much it gives back to education. Now, Vernon, you can tell us about that. You received a scholarship. Millions of dollars have been given to students. Tell us about how special that is and how it changed your life.

VERNON LEWIS, DIRECTOR, HOUSTON'S TREASURY DEPARTMENT AND RODEO SCHOLAR: Of course. So the rodeo -- Houston Livestock Show Rodeo is a really good foundation for the community. And for me, it says they help pay it forward and give me the opportunity to actually pay for education and so my family wouldn't have any financial burden.

So, I lost my father when I was 16 years old. I have a twin brother here, my older sister. So, the rodeo has done a really good job to making sure my life and my family life and as well as the whole community is all involved financially.

FLORES: Thank you so much for sharing that. And I think we can all relate to being around the Thanksgiving Day, having a meal and some of those chairs being empty because our loved ones are not with us. And this is such a beautiful tribute to your father.

And to everybody else who's watching who might be praying for their loved ones today, it's a really special day. Yes, we have a lot of fun, but it's also a great day to remember our loved ones.

Erica, John, back to you.

HILL: All right. Rosa, that was great and great to learn a little bit more about that and about their family as well. Rosa, thank you.

Well, like so many, we here at CNN are so grateful for the men and women who serve our country every day. We're going to take you overseas now for a closer look at how some members of America's military are spending this Thanksgiving miles away from their loved ones.

Also we've got pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, or perhaps you say pecan pie. We are talking a whole lot of pies with Martha Stewart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA STEWART, ACTRESS: This is my pie pie chart. And this year, I am making about 40 pies. Stay tuned. I'll show you what I'm doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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