[Lu Stout:] All right. Coming to you live from Hong Kong. Welcome back. This is "News Stream." A second woman is accusing Democratic U.S. Senator Al Franken of inappropriately touching her. Lindsay Menz says she asked for a photo with Franken in 2010 at the Minnesota State Fair, but she was horrified when he grabbed her bottom during the picture. She posted the picture on Facebook at the time, commenting that the senator was a creeper who molested her. Franken tells CNN he doesn't remember taking the photo, but he feels badly that she felt disrespected. A long-time journalist, Charlie Rose, is also facing accusations. CBS suspended him after eight women accused him of sexual harassment. The Washington Post published accounts from the women who described groping and nude calls from Rose. Some said Rose got naked in front of them. CBS says it is investigating. PBS and Bloomberg said that they have stopped airing Charlie Rose's show. Rose apologized in his statement to the Post, and says he accepts responsibility for his actions though he doesn't believe all of the allegations are accurate. The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to block AT&T's takeover of Time Warner, CNN's parent company. It says the deal violates anti-trust laws because AT&T could use its control of programs to harm competition, but the company's hired lawyer says the vertical merger is one that is routinely approved because it doesn't remove competition. The case has raised eyebrows because the U.S. president said he will consider blocking the deal while he was home to campaign. A lot to get to hear. CNN's senior medial correspondent Brian Stelter is with us from New York. He joins us now. Brian, before we get into that political cloud of suspicion, CNN versus Trump
[Brian Stelter, Cnn Senior Media Correspondent:] Right.
[Lu Stout:] How is AT&T and Time Warner responding to the DOJ lawsuit?
[Stelter:] The companies say it's inexplicable that the government has decided to step in here because it breaks with decades of legal precedent, normally a so-called vertical merger like this one where it is a content owner and a distributor coming together. Normally, those kinds of deals are approved by the U.S. government with some typical predictable conditions attached. That's what happened seven years ago when Comcast and NBC got together. This deal is pretty similar, but the reaction from the government is very different. The Trump administration decided to take a very hard line on this case, saying that this deal would be anti-competitive, it would harm consumers and thus has to be blocked. So that is the battle line. The battle lines have been drawn in this case. We are going to have a judge appointed today and then this battle begins for months. I think at the very least, this will take several months to be litigated.
[Lu Stout:] The legal battle begins. We know how Donald Trump feels about CNN through his speeches on the campaign trail, his tweets. Last year, Trump spoke out and on the record against any sort of merger between Time Warner, again, the parent company of CNN, and AT&tT. So, how strong is the feeling that his lawsuit is really a political power play?
[Stelter:] Certainly AT&T and Time Warner executives are privately suspicious. I don't think they necessarily want to say that publicly. But we heard AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson say to press conference yesterday, he doesn't know if the Trump and CNN is a factor, but her understands why there are so many questions, giving them usual nature of the government's objection to this deal. So AT&T in court if this gets to the point where there is discovery process. We will try to find out if there were communications between the Trump White House and the Justice Department. What is of course so unusual about this entire year, 10 months of the Trump presidency, is that President Trump shares all these feelings on Twitter about CNN, about the Justice Department, about his enemies. You know, he has publicly said that Hillary Clinton should be investigated by the same Justice Department that right now is suing AT&T. So because of President Trump's vocal criticism of his opponents, it creates a much more interesting court battle. You know, this issue of whether Trump tried to interfere is going to be a key issue. But to be clear, the White House and the DOJ have basically denied there has been interference from the White House. According to the government, these are career officials who decided to bring this lawsuit because they are trying to stand up for consumers.
[Lu Stout:] Got it. And this is why you call it the antitrust battle for the ages. Brian Stelter reporting for us live. Thank you, Brian.
[Stelter:] Thanks.
[Lu Stout:] Now, LaVar Ball, the father of one of the U.S. college basketball players recently arrested in China says he doesn't know what role President Trump played in getting his son and teammates out. The three UCLA students were allowed to fly back to the U.S. last week after being arrested for shoplifting. And they thanked President Trump for his help. Mr. Trump was upset over LaVar Ball's reaction, calling him ungrateful in an angry tweet. Now, Ball since told CNN's Chris Cuomo, he rather thank the Chinese leader.
[Lavar Ball, Father Of Ucla Player Accused Of Shoplifting:] If he said he helped, that's good for his mind.
[Chris Cuomo, Cnn Anchor:] What do you mean good for his mind?
[Ball:] If you helped, you shouldn't even have to say anything. If I helped somebody, I don't walk around saying, you know, I helped you now, come on now, you give me some love, I helped you. Come on, for real? I would say thank you if he would have put him on his plane and took him home. Then I would have said, thank you, Mr. Trump, for taking my boys out of China and bringing them back to the U.S. There's a lot of room on that plane. I don't know.
[Cuomo:] Why do you
[Ball:] I don't know. If I was going to thank somebody, I'd probably thank President Xi.
[Lu Stout:] Referring to President Xi Jinping of China. Now, there was this somewhat positive end to the interview though with Ball wishing the U.S. president a happy Thanksgiving. Now, in the hours ahead, President Trump is said to wield his power on to turkeys. The birds named Drumstick and Wishbone, they arrived in Washington over the weekend for this longstanding tradition. They had been nestling in a suite at a luxury hotel, apparently relaxing before their big day, and the president plans to grant them clemency from Thanksgiving dinner plates at a Rose Garden ceremony. After that, they will join pardoned turkeys from previous years at the Gobbler Rest exhibit at Virginia Tech University. And that is "News Stream." I'm Kristie Lu Stout. Don't go anywhere. "World Sport" with Christina Macfarlane is next.