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Trump Team Splits Over Secretary of State Post; "Brady Bunch" Mom Florence Henderson Dies at 82; Early Bird Shoppers Kick Off Black Friday Frenzy; U.S. Service Member Killed by IED in Syria. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired November 25, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:16]

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: -- on sale starting Monday. The new movie is both a spinoff and prequel going back to the story of how plans for the death star were stolen.

The next hour of "CNN Newsroom" starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. The dinner plates are cleared and Americans now scramble to get their fill of bargains. Black Friday now under way, and with it the crowds and chaos of the post-thanksgiving tradition. Some shoppers braved massive lines or midnight deals to snap up the most popular deals like electronics and toys. Others never left home, taking advantage of online retailers, stepping up their game to get - into some of that spending frenzy. In the meantime, the Trump team in- fighting goes public. Key Trump allies picking sides in the battle to become our next Secretary of State. Will it be Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney?

Let's begin with political intrigue inside the Trump transition. CNN's Jason Carroll, live in Florida this morning. Hi, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Sort of fascinating to watch all this play out publicly, this is -- this type of in-fighting is the thing you normally see happening inside inner circles but certainly not outside like what we have seen. Certainly a number of people still seem to be angry with Mitt Romney for being so critical of Donald Trump throughout the election season and we are seeing that now. This is why we are seeing tweets like this one from Kellyanne Conway saying, the following yesterday receiving deluge of social media and private communication regarding Romney. Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as Secretary of State, Conway saying that she was simply saying publicly what she's been saying privately to both Donald Trump and to Mike Pence.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump for his part, Carol, turning this into an in part a working vacation, as you know he's made promises over and over to try and save U.S. jobs and to penalize companies that take those jobs overseas to places like Mexico. And he basically pointed out a company, Carrier A.C., and basically tweeted about this yesterday saying the following. "I'm working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana). Making progress -- Will know soon!"

Carrier for its part also releasing a statement weighing in, saying Carrier has had discussions with the incoming administration and we look forward to working together, nothing to announce at this time. I should also tell you, Carol, in just about a half hour from now, the Trump transition team is going to have a call where they are going to be going over the candidates who will be interviewing for positions on Monday. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Jason Carroll reporting live for us this morning. So let's talk about that and more. Joining me now, Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor for "NY1 News," Jamie Weinstein is a senior writer for "The Daily Caller," and Josh Rogin is a CNN political analyst and columnist for "The Washington Post." Welcome to all of you.

JAMIE WEINSTEIN, SENIOR WRITER FOR "THE DAILY CALLER": Good morning.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND COLUMNIST "THE WASHINGTON POST": Thank you.

COSTELLO: Good morning, Happy Friday. So Errol, Kellyanne Conway says she's not saying anything publicly that she hasn't said privately to the president-elect, but are you surprised that she tweeted out that there's this rift among Trump supporters between Romney and Rudy Giuliani?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND POLITICAL ANCHOR "NY1 NEWS": -- I interpret it as maybe Kellyanne Conway thinking that she's got to go public, because it is one of the tested and true ways of trying to sway Donald Trump. We saw this in the campaign, where people would quite openly acknowledge Newt Gingrich among others that one way to get to him is to sort of put something out there on Twitter or on television discussions like, this one because he watches a lot of television. You know, it's a little unusual. Most of us would expect that maybe a policy memo, a political memo or conversation, maybe a meeting would be the way to convey this stuff, but I see Kellyanne Conway as doing something we have seen throughout the campaign. It's a little jarring, but you know in the name of transparency, we can get a look at what kind of discussion's going on inside the transition.

COSTELLO: So Jamie, will that really sway Mr. Trump, you know hearing maybe this discussion on television?

WEINSTEIN: Well, I agree with Errol, this is -- we saw this during the campaign itself. The best way to sometimes communicate with Donald Trump, it seems, is to go on television, to go on social media. We know he watches television a lot. But you have to give it to Donald Trump to some degree here. A lot of people didn't think he had it in him to consider someone who was so brutal to him during the presidential campaign for a top post like Mitt Romney, but the fact that these people are going so public to try to sway Donald Trump suggests to me he is very seriously considering Mitt Romney, a guy who called him all sorts of names during the primary. So that is a characteristic we didn't really expect to see in Donald Trump to look beyond such slights.

COSTELLO: So Josh, those Trump supporters who were supporting Rudy Giuliani, do they see it as disloyal on Mr. Trump's part if he picks Mitt Romney?

ROGIN: Well, that's right. What we're seeing is two fundamental -- conflicts inside the Trump transition team, one between the tower in New York and the people in Washington,

[10:05:16] who are likely to go into government, and the other is between the loyalists and the never Trump people, you know. If Donald Trump wants to reach out to the never Trump people, the Romney pick is a great way to do it. Not only would that allow him to mend fences but all of the rest of the foreign policy establishment which has been very never Trump throughout the campaign, would fall into line. And you would have a big tent sort of national security team. On the other hand, Newt Gingrich once called all the never Trump people sniveling, whining, negative cowards, OK? There's a lot of anger there. They feel like they made a bet and they won the bet and they should be rewarded, and if they aren't rewarded there's going to be some backlash for sure.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So while all of this is going on, supposedly Mr. Trump reached out to the carrier plant in Indiana to try to prevent it from moving to Mexico, Errol. That's kind of unusual for a guy who's not president yet to do.

LOUIS: Well, it is a promise that Donald Trump made over and over again. And you know we will never see him with more clout than he has right now. And to the extent that he can pull this off, it would be a real triumph for him. You know, the question is, can he do it just based on what he said would be threats of tariffs, in other words, penalizing companies that take jobs out of the country, or would he have some other kind of persuasive means. You know, right now he doesn't have any control over any of the levers of government. Right now this is all sort of hypothetical. We will see if he can pull this off and at what cost. Because you know, a company like Carrier is not going to do this I think, or do what the president-elect wants just based on threats or on promises, but we will see how it all washes out.

COSTELLO: So Jamie, how do you think those negotiations are going? Because Carrier confirmed it, they are talking to Mr. Trump or someone from his team. Like what could Mr. Trump promise them to keep them from moving the plant into Mexico?

WEINSTEIN: Well, I suppose he could promise some tax cuts or he could threaten them. I mean, honestly, this is a bit concerning, to have the president-elect of the United States reaching out to a company like this who knows what he's saying, is he threatening them. I mean, is that appropriate for the President of the United States? If you are Carrier, you might just be so worried that if you don't fall in line with the president on this, he will do whatever he can to destroy your company. So this is, I think, a -- worrisome development in the Trump transition that he is calling companies and perhaps, we don't know, threatening them -- COSTELLO: On the other hand, I think that the people who voted for Mr. Trump would be thrilled if Mr. Trump were threatening Carrier, right, Josh?

WEINSTEIN: I'm sure they would be. --

ROGIN: Listen, I don't think the Trump administration is going to be able to fix the jobs problem in America, one company at a time. If he is able to do something in this particular situation, OK, let's see what happens. But what we are all waiting for is how will he change the economic picture more broadly, trade policy, tax reform. Is he going to build the wall, is he going to start trade wars with China. These will be things that impact millions of jobs, not just hundreds or thousands of jobs. So this is fine, he's free to do this kind of stuff and no one's going to fault him if he's able to save a few hundred jobs in Indiana, but the big decisions are yet to come. And it's not clear how what Donald Trump said during the campaign would be applied to U.S. economic policy and whether or not that's really going to bring manufacturing back to the United States in the way that he promised. That's going to be a much bigger challenge for sure.

COSTELLO: OK. So I do want to touch on this, this recount thing with the Green Party, right? So, Jill Stein's Green Party has raised millions of dollars for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin's deadline is today, Errol. So, if they want a recount in Wisconsin, they're going to have to ask Wisconsin by 5:00 p.m. this afternoon. Do you think that the Green Party will do that?

LOUIS: No, I do not. And frankly, in the appeal from Jill Stein, you have to read the fine print, because she also makes clear that the donors that she's hitting up for money that there's no guarantee that any of this is going to happen. It's not clear whether they have the standing, whether they have the evidence, and of course, at the end of all this, there has to be a change in the outcome or the whole thing was a waste of time.

So you know this I all based on three improbabilities all stacked on top of each other. They are trying to make the case that the thin margin by which Donald Trump won, about 100,000 votes across three different states, were all somehow miscounted and could go the other way because without all three of those states going the other way, there's no change in the outcome. It's a really dubious kind of proposition and I think people should be very clear that any money they give to the Green Party to chase down this rabbit hole is not necessarily going to be money they will have for you know, holiday spending or anything else, or a change in who takes office in January.

COSTELLO: All right. We will keep an eye on it anyway. Errol Louis, Jamie Weinstein, Josh Rogin, thanks to all of you.

ROGIN: Thank you.

LOUIS: Thank you.

[10:10:16] COSTELLO: All right. Sad news to report this morning. She was a TV icon and she's certainly was America's favorite mom, for a long time.

That just makes you smile, right? Florence Henderson who played Carol Brady on "The Brady Bunch" died in Los Angeles overnight at the age of 82. Fans were startled by her death. She just paid a visit to "Dancing with the Stars" to support Maureen McCormick who played her daughter Marcia on the show. Let's bring in CNN's Boris Sanchez. He has more on Florence Henderson's career. Good morning.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This was something unexpected. Her manager saying, that she passed away alongside her four children last night of cardiac failure. You know, she made her name playing Carol Brady, but it seemed that even from a young age she was destined for stardom. She got her big break at 19 on the Broadway show "Oklahoma." In 1959, she was the "Today" girl on NBC, later on she was a bit of a trailblazer, the first woman to guest host "The Tonight Show" for Johnny Carson in 1961. And even just six years ago, she showed, she still had it. Her dancing chops on "Dancing with the Stars," the show you mentioned that she attended Monday night for her friend Maureen McCormick. Obviously it goes back to Carol Brady, that iconic role that she loved so much. Here she is talking about the role that made her a household name.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLORENCE HENDERSON, "BRADY BUNCH" MOM: I created the kind of mother that I wished I have had and I think that everyone longs for. I get so much fan mail from all over the world and everybody wants a hug from me. And I hug everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: I wish I could have hugged her. She really is America's mom. And it's really interesting and touching that she says that, that she played the mom that she always wanted because she had a difficult childhood. She was the daughter of a single parent that had to deal with alcoholism, grew up in very humble beginnings and she rose to be a star. She will certainly be missed. We let her into our homes and our hearts and now have to say good-bye to a lovely lady.

COSTELLO: I know. I can't believe it. Boris Sanchez, thank you so much. All right, I want to bring in the host of "Dancing with the Stars," Tom Bergeron. Hi, Tom.

TOM BERGERON, HOST OF "DANCING WITH THE STARS": Hey, Carol. I can tell you first-hand, she gave great hugs.

COSTELLO: That just warms my heart. You just saw her a couple days ago, right?

BERGERON: Yes. You know, we have been friends for, God, 20 years, and she was at the show Monday night. We were both excited that Norman Lear was there as well. And I can't really wrap my head around it. Just hearing her voice in the clip you played makes it even more unbelievable.

COSTELLO: I think it says something about her that she was there to support Maureen McCormick, you know, a kid who played on a TV show with her in 1968, and she's kept in touch all these years.

BERGERON: Yes. It was a real love and affection, when we would talk off camera about her continued connection with the cast and with her fans and we would often go out after the show because she not only participated in the show, but also would come to the audience. And we would go out after quite often for a drink and a bite to eat together. And I loved to pick her brain about her career and the people she worked with. And she just was -- she was just a lovely, lovely person. I still can't believe that I won't see her again.

COSTELLO: I think that a lot of people have a hard time believing that, you know, she was in a cutthroat business and she lasted many, many years and made a success of so many different roles. You want to believe that this person was good through and through, but she actually was, right?

BERGERON: She also -- she had a sense of humor that belied Mrs. Brady. I mean, she could go wonderfully hilariously blue which I loved before. And she was performing right up until the end. I would tease her sometimes if I didn't see her for a while I said you're out singing and giving concerts and traveling. And she would go yes, yes, you know. I mean, she was just a wonderful working actress, singer, performer who never lost the love for what she did.

COSTELLO: And I would think that you guys are going to do some sort of tribute to her on the show?

BERGERON: Well, we are back in March and I certainly hope that that's the case, because she was an important part of our extended family, and is going to be missed by so many of us.

[10:15:16] COSTELLO: Tom Bergeron thanks for checking in this morning and helping us remember a really wonderful lady. Thank you so much. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: From stuffing turkey to stuffing shopping carts, it is Black Friday and millions of Americans are out today trying to get those deep discounts. It was packed in front of the flagship Macy's store in New York City as the doors opened very early this morning. In Minnesota, more than 1,000 shoppers braved the cold and the rain to be first in line when the Mall of America opened at 5:00 in the morning. With the crowds, a little chaos, too, these shoppers were caught clamoring over electronics at a Walmart store in Mississippi. No surprise though, that Black Friday means big bucks for national retailers. This year the national retail federation expects holiday sales to top 650 billion, that's a 3.6% increase from last year.

Joining me now to talk about early shopping is the CEO and chairman of J.C. Penney, Marvin Ellison. Welcome sir.

MARVIN ELLISON, JCPENNEY CEO AND CHAIRMAN: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So J.C. Penney opened up lots earlier than other stores. Why did you make that decision? ELLISON: Well, we actually allowed our associates to vote on what time they wanted to open.

[10:20:16] And last year, we opened at 3:00 a.m., it was very successful. And we put the vote to the associates and they decided they wanted to open at 3:00 a.m. because they felt it gave us the best opportunity to win.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So this year's Black Friday seems to be going a lot better than last year's Black Friday. So, what lessons did you learn from last year's Black Friday that you cried over to this year?

ELLISON: I think, it was a couple of things. Number one, bringing new products really matters. And for J.C. Penney, we opened over 500 new appliance showrooms in the last couple of months and that's been very successful. We also learned that for our customer, toys and jewelry matter so we introduced some new categories of toys for kids and we had some really strong offers with fine jewelry that we had a great response to yesterday.

COSTELLO: So how is the traffic in your stores today?

ELLISON: Traffic is really good. I mean, this is a long season but we are off to a great start. You know, I was out and about all day yesterday in stores. We had a really early Thanksgiving dinner at my house because we made a very simple rule at J.C. Penney. If we open stores on Thanksgiving, I want every vice president and above to be working in stores yesterday, including me. So I was out in stores yesterday working and we had all of our senior level executives assigned to stores out on the front lines with our associates. We had a great time and traffic is holding up very well today.

COSTELLO: Awesome. So Black Friday seems to be going well at many stores across the country. To what do you attribute that to? Is the economy improving? Is that what it is?

ELLISON: It's been an interesting year. From a macro economy standpoint, all the indicators have been very positive. Savings rates have been strong, home appreciation has been going up for the last couple of years. Unemployment has been moderate. Wages are moderate to up. But there has still been a slight pause in consumers' confidence for the last six to ten months. So we are starting to see the holiday bring out that spending spirit that has always existed in the American consumer. So we're starting to see customers really start to kind of get engaged in shopping again. So, we are very pleased with that. We think the holiday season has a lot to do with that.

COSTELLO: So what worries you down the line as far as the economy and the retail industry?

ELLISON: Well, I think for retail, we are going through this really interesting transition of e-commerce and brick and mortar. If you would read some of the futurist and retail experts five years ago, they would say that the e-commerce business would eliminate the need to have physical stores, but now what you are seeing is most pure play e-commerce companies are opening up physical stores. And so what's happening is this transition between brick and mortar, digital commerce and how they are merging together. So I think retailers, J.C. Penney included, will have to build a really good strategic plan on how you leverage both retail footprints, both digital and physical, to serve customers more effectively.

COSTELLO: I have always heard that the physical store would be sort of the showroom and then shoppers might go home and go online and decide to buy then.

ELLISON: I think it's a combination of that, but also what we are finding out is that the most expensive and challenging part of an e- commerce business is the last mile of delivery, that last point of delivering to the customer's homes is very expensive. And so most pure play e-coerce companies, their largest expense year over year is their fulfillment costs. And so what we are finding out of J.C. Penney is that we are leveraging our physical stores to be that last delivery point. So as an example, roughly 60 percent of all of our e- commerce sales touch a physical store. And that gives us a tremendous example of convenience for customers but also speed and a cost advantage. If you are depending upon shipping to someone's home from a distribution center as your most effective way to serve customers, you will have increasing costs for the next ten years.

COSTELLO: That's fascinating. Marvin Ellison, thank you so much for being with me this morning. And dare I say Merry Christmas?

ELLISON: You can say it. In the retail world we love to say Merry Christmas. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving as well.

COSTELLO: I did, you too, sir. Thank you so much.

ELLISON: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. Coming up next in the "Newsroom," money and power, Donald Trump's potential cabinet picks worth billions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:10] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. A U.S. service member has been killed in northern Syria. It happened on Thanksgiving Day after an IED blast. Joining us with more on what happened, CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns. Hi, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. We do know this happened in northern Syria near Raqqah. We don't know a whole lot about what happened with this service member. The joint task force responsible said this person was killed, as you reported, when an improvised explosive device went off. One of the things we do know is that Americans are working in Syria, hundreds of them, in fact, serving in an advice and assist capacity to help the local forces deal with ISIS. We do not have a name of this individual and hoping of course the military can give us that. Defense Secretary did put --