(Friday) Morning Run: Attacked While Sleeping, Mayor is a "MILF", American Idol Trial Takes Turn, Trump v Press Cont'd, Death at Colosseum, Gov Wants Lt Gov to Resign, Starbucks Closings, & MORE!

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Morning Run with Amy and TJ.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: An iHeartRadio podcast. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Morning Run. It is Friday, September 25th. I'm Amy Robach.

00:00:11
Speaker 1: And I'm TJ Holmes. And yes, Robes, happy Dolly Parton Day. Today, yes, it's a new movement, baby. Everybody is picking up on today. being Dolly Parton Day after her death. So happy Dolly Parton Day. And yes, you looked at me.

00:00:27
Speaker 2: Oh, now I get it.

00:00:28
Speaker 1: There it is.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: It took me a second.

00:00:29
Speaker 1: I knew it would get to you.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: I kept trying to figure out why September 25th, what the significance of this day would be for Dolly Parton. And then I started getting it. A, it's pretty cool. It's a Friday. But yes, the date is 9- 925.

00:00:46
Speaker 1: Boom!

00:00:48
Speaker 2: As soon as I was asking, I read a news article, and I'm like, I still don't understand why today. And then as soon as my brain just calmed down for a second, 925. I get it.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: That's pretty cute, ain't it? It is very cute.

00:01:03
Speaker 2: I actually love it.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: This is better than May the 4th to me, right? It really is. But yes, it's Dolly Parton Day. I believe California, like, officially has adopted it. Yes.

00:01:13
Speaker 2: And other.

00:01:13
Speaker 1: Places are picking it up. But I thought that was it. That's a very cute tribute. If they make this a national holiday, a federal holiday, I'd be okay with it.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: They should. And the cool thing is if you just start looking up what different cities are doing, New Orleans is going to town with it, L.A., New York City. Cities all across the country, Nashville, obviously, are getting into the fun. And that is just awesome. Because that's what Dolly Parton was, fun. She was about living your life, enjoying your life, giving back. They also say, hey, donate a book to your library. if you want to pay homage to Dolly Parton today.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: And it's, what? Yeah, this is one month. She died August 25th. Do I have the date right?

00:01:51
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I can't 100%.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: Yes, but it's been about a month. But they had a cool way. And this morning, you walked in. I have it playing on the TV and the big screen behind us right now. I got it. nine to five. Yes.

00:02:03
Speaker 2: I love that movie. It is such a good one. And yes, she did die August 25th. Your memory is weird. I'm good.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: Uh, but yes, good morning to you all. No matter where you may be, hope you're getting off to a good start on this Friday. If you're in the Northeast, we certainly know what's on your mind right now with this North, uh, Northeaster. We'll explain a little more about that, but on the run this morning, we'll be making stopped in Edgewood, Pennsylvania. We'll make a stop at the white house briefing room. Also we'll stop at the Coliseum in Rome. We'll, Also make stops by St. Paul's, Minnesota, Trenton, New Jersey as well. But Robes, let's start with the fine dining. Hell of a scene last night.

00:02:40
Speaker 2: Yes, I always love the menu and the decor of a state dinner, and I love getting the details. It sounds so delicious, it makes me hungry even this early in the morning. For sesame-crusted sea bass with braised baby bok choy and roasted garden eggplant. Mmm. Lost me at the eggplant.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: Lost me at the sesame crusted. Listen to us. We weren't invited. That sounds amazing. And we're criticizing the menu.

00:03:04
Speaker 2: I'm not an eggplant fan. All right. Well, that was all on the menu last night for the state dinner for Chinese President Xi and his first lady. And my goodness, the guest list was insane. It was basically every billionaire in the world, every tech giant, AI giant. They were all there. Yes, think Jeff Bezos. Think Elon Musk and other billionaires. But Melania really made a choice. The bow, I'm not a big fan of a big bow. Her, and the fact that she didn't wear a dress, like high-waisted leather pants it looked like with a beautiful crisp white shirt with this unbelievable bow. I would never have chosen that, and yet she nailed it.

00:03:45
Speaker 1: She always nailed it. I cannot understand how she does this. It's impressive. I don't care if the movie Melania has a 14% Rotten Tomatoes score. She has a 100% rating on her attire. Yes. She never fails. But anyway, the state visit is going to continue today with more talks, but also a visit to the National Archives. So Trump can show President Xi our country's founding documents. It's nice. Take a little tour around. Check our stuff out. Sounds fun. The two did hold substantive meetings yesterday in which AI Taiwan, the war in Iran were all discussed. This is their second meeting in It's the first time President Xi has been to the United States in some 10 years.

00:04:27
Speaker 2: And guess what? It is still unclear at this hour if American news networks will be able to cover Trump. That state visit today. This has been up and down and all around, but let's get you caught up. The media outlets were banned from the White House. Yes, they had their media credentials eventually reinstated yesterday after some delay, only to find out last night that the White House wasn't done denying them access.

00:04:52
Speaker 1: Yes. So, yes, they finally had some of their access restored. The three media outlets that had been kicked out. Federal judge granted a temporary restraining order to CNN, Politico, MSNOW, after the president banned them. Now, the judge said their access was to be restored immediately, but reporters showed up yesterday. They were still denied access. Like we just said, they got it back eventually around noontime. But last night, CNN and MSNOW are still reporting that their reporters were denied access, their producers were denied access to actually cover the arrivals for the state dinner for the Chinese president. So the pool situation, we still haven't figured out what access they're going to be allowed. Here are your badges. But the judge didn't specifically address some other things.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: It's almost as if he's just keeping them on their toes. Like sometimes you get in, sometimes you don't. So you're creating just chaos for news organizations trying to cover. what they're assigned to cover. And for his part, the president responded to the day's developments by attacking the media outlets. On his true social, the president wrote, CNN and MSDNC's ratings have dropped considerably. The primary reason is no credibility. They only write badly about a man who won the election in a giant landslide, winning all seven swing states. The popular vote and 86% of the counties, etc., and whose popularity has grown because of the unprecedented success of our country, is having on both the world stage and at home. This is ridiculous, babe.

00:06:24
Speaker 1: See, I put it in here on purpose.

00:06:25
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous.

00:06:26
Speaker 1: I put it in here intentionally. Obviously, we don't have to have this to tell the story we just told. But Robes, he speaks like this, and I don't think people study his social media and things he says constantly that will have you shaking your head.

00:06:41
Speaker 2: It's just crazy.

00:06:43
Speaker 1: He's constantly calling people losers always. He's still talking about, oh, yeah, they won't cover me and give me nice coverage even though I won the election. So don't say anything bad about me because I won. He's going back to look at these numbers. You have nothing bad to say about me. It's every single day. You and I know this.

00:07:04
Speaker 2: But still, yes, we see it every single day. And I'm still shocked by it. the ego, the hubris, the grandiosity of everything he says about himself, it still shocks me.

00:07:16
Speaker 1: Maybe it shouldn't. It will continue.

00:07:26
Speaker 2: All right, next up on the run, millions of Americans, as we said at the top of the podcast. episode. Under weather watches and warnings, there is a rare September nor'easter and it's expected to bring coastal flooding and high winds.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking mid-Atlantic up through the northeast today through Saturday or Sunday. We say through Saturday or Sunday. We have this morning been watching all the updates and they're different from last night. They are still trying to pinpoint, trying to figure out exactly what the greatest impact is going to be and when. But it is going to cause all kinds of fits this weekend. It's going to be a stay indoors type of weekend. All your outdoor plans in the Northeast are shot this weekend.

00:08:06
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. And I guess now the latest was that it looks like maybe Sunday will be the worst of the day, at least for us here in New York. But that might mean folks north of us. We'll have problems going into Monday even with the commute. That's going to be tough for everybody up and down the eastern seaboard. Next up on the run, though, the most visited attraction in Italy, the Roman Colosseum, is closed after a worker fell to his death. It happened late Tuesday when officials say a 22-year-old fell 30 feet to his death. That is awful.

00:08:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was described as a skilled, high-altitude rope-access worker. Now, here's the thing, Robes, is that the Coliseum, this happened on Tuesday, it was only supposed to be closed for the day. It's now closed for the rest of the week. And Robes, there was a lot of back and forth. They didn't finish the investigation. So the authorities were like, hey, this is too fast to be opening up again. But then the union was like, this is a man's life. And you're just worried about tourism and get this thing open as quickly as possible. So there was some pushback. But yeah, the Coliseum, you know, a lot of people travel from all over the world to go to that spot in particular, closed for three days this week.

00:09:16
Speaker 2: My goodness. All right. Next up on the run, the governor of New Jersey has given the lieutenant governor of New Jersey a deadline of today to resign. There's an investigation that was commissioned by the state that found that the lieutenant governor, his name is Dr. Dave Caldwell, quote, engaged in serious repeated violations of state policy and failed to uphold the responsibilities of this office.

00:09:42
Speaker 1: What did he do? He was accused of making a number of specific inappropriate comments around women and about women. Also, of the ethics violations, they say he allegedly tried to get a state job for a woman he was dating. They also say he's accused of bringing guests to events but not paying for their attendance. So it kind of runs the gamut. He does deny the allegations, and even though the governor has given him a deadline of today, she can't just kick him out. She can sideline him as far as his assignments and make sure he doesn't do a lot of work for the state. But unless he gets impeached, there's really nothing they can do to him.

00:10:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Cory Booker has already spoken out against him as well, so the pressure is mounting against him. But so far, he says, I ain't going anywhere.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: Is he right? He's a pastor as well.

00:10:25
Speaker 2: Yes. Yep. All right, next up on the run, speaking of politicians in peril, a Minnesota mayor thinks she's a MILF. That's according to a new lawsuit that accuses St. Paul mayor... Did we... Kaylee.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: Kaoli?

00:10:41
Speaker 2: Kaoli, I think Kaoli. We've done a story on her before and there will be more coming because this story just continues to give. Yes, Mayor Kaoli, she's been accused of sexual harassment. The suit is being brought... by the city's male police chief, Axel Henry, who earlier this summer filed a sexual harassment complaint against the mayor.

00:11:01
Speaker 1: And you remember, we did that story at the time, and they sent a letter, his lawyer, it was in April, and said, heads up, there might be some litigation coming, and sure enough, here it is. The lawsuit now details the allegations, but also accuses the mayor of retaliating against him for that original complaint. Now, a big part of that original complaint, Robes, just included something that she said was a joke. But she sent out a message about Wiener Wednesday.

00:11:26
Speaker 2: Yes, we had to.

00:11:27
Speaker 1: Look it up.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: It was a little confusing. But yes, she is the first woman elected mayor of St. Paul. And she's accused of grabbing the police chief's upper thigh. under a conference room table during a budget meeting. There's nothing sexier than a budget meeting. She was bored, right?

00:11:46
Speaker 1: She had to spice it up a little bit.

00:11:48
Speaker 2: Maybe she was just playing horse, a little game of horse, seeing if the horse wants some corn.

00:11:52
Speaker 1: Obviously, we're just being silly. These are just allegations.

00:11:54
Speaker 2: Yes. She's also accused of making references to the size of the police chief's manhood, as well as referring to herself as a MILF. Can you do that? Is that like a thing, to refer to yourself as a MILF?

00:12:06
Speaker 1: Well, is she saying a mom I'd like to or a mayor I'd like to? Oh. Which one is it? Oh. I hadn't thought about that. She has denied the bulk of the allegations against her, though she previously apologized for her attempts at humor is what she called them. She said they missed the mark.

00:12:22
Speaker 2: That was the Wiener Wednesday thing.

00:12:25
Speaker 1: It is an actual promotion that hot dog stands and companies do. But obviously she was referring to it from a sexual nature.

00:12:33
Speaker 2: She had a meme in there. It was bizarre. All right. Next up on the run. This is a frightening story. A pediatrician is dead. His wife is in critical condition after they were both brutally attacked as they were sleeping. in their Pennsylvania home. Dr. Idris Evans and his wife suffered multiple stab wounds on Thursday.

00:12:56
Speaker 1: He's actually a pediatric critical care physician. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, but his wife was able to tell police that they woke up to a man stabbing them in bed. Robes, just imagine that rude awakening. And she reported, Robes, this sounds like an Awful scene that went on for a little bit. She said the man, she described him as psychotic. He made repeated references to God during the attack, even referred to himself as God during the attack. And the kid's part of this, Robes. This woman is a damn hero. This mom is unbelievable.

00:13:31
Speaker 2: I get chills from head to toe thinking about this. Your husband's being brutally stabbed. You're being stabbed. She was able to yell to her kids who were at home during the attack that they needed to run to the neighbor's house. The kids were able to do that. They were unharmed. And they eventually arrested this man, 32-year-old Elijah Hemingway, after locating him hiding behind a home in the neighborhood. There's no motive. But reportedly, she said that she heard her husband call him by his name. So they don't know what the relationship is, if any. But she did hear her husband say his name. And sure enough, they arrested Elijah Hemingway.

00:14:11
Speaker 1: Also in his underwear during the attack. This is a bizarre story. We're going to have this. More on this coming up in our feed a little later this morning. Going to dedicate an episode to this. Continuing now, we'll have an episode on this next story as well as we've been following the American Idol murder trial in Robes yesterday. Another stunning story. Day of testimony. I don't know how many more words to use to be descriptive about the stuff we're hearing in court.

00:14:35
Speaker 2: Yes, name them and that's what happened. Caleb Flynn, who competed in season 12 of American Idol, is accused of shooting his wife in February of this year and then staging his home to make it look like an intruder committed the crime, much like what we just heard in real life in Pennsylvania. But his motivation, according to prosecutors, was that he wanted to be with the woman he had been having a year and a half long affair with.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: This was Aaliyah Botner. She's the one that's been on the stand for the past couple of days testifying about their relationship, and Robes, so much of her testimony involves the defense and the prosecution having her read through what are books and books and books of text messages. They say they have a little over 100,000, and they've been plucking out the ones that are really the most damning. Robes constantly saying, I hate her, and he was saying, I want to kill her, and they were just going back and forth. It's been very difficult stuff to hear, but yesterday... Rose, we were talking about how she has been pretty stoic. She cracked yesterday on one particular text message.

00:15:34
Speaker 2: Yes, because she had to admit, she had to read aloud where she said, I want to kill her. And he said, that makes two of us. And she started, she broke down, she cried, she said... I feel so bad that I wrote this or I feel terrible that I wrote this.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: She prefaced it before she read it out loud.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: I hate that I wrote this.

00:15:57
Speaker 1: That was the one she cracked and she knew she was going to have to say that in front of everybody.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: God, that was tough.

00:16:02
Speaker 1: That was awful. That continues today. Today, officially day seven in that trial. We will have a full breakdown for you on the feed here in a moment. as well but stay with us on this Friday morning run when we come back an all-time NBA legend and OG if you will has passed away at the age of 93 also Macklemore got kicked off one tour he is about to start another one we'll explain Starbucks seems like they're on every corner they're going to be missing from about 250 corners coming up we'll explain and Ed Sheeran is supposed to be finally playing Gillette Stadium this weekend we'll.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: See Welcome back, everyone, to your Friday morning run. And the first ever NBA MVP has died at the age of 93.

00:16:57
Speaker 1: I get happy to see people go to 93. You know, it's always sad to lose someone, but man, what a life this dude had. Bob Pettit is the name. 11 seasons with the St. Louis Hawks. All-star every year. Robes that he played. He's from LSU, actually. He actually played basketball at LSU. But he led the Hawks to a championship in 1958. 1956, though, he was the first ever NBA Most Valuable Player.

00:17:23
Speaker 2: Wow, and I didn't, this is kind of a fun fact. He and Kobe Bryant are the only two players to win All-Star MVPs four times.

00:17:32
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool.

00:17:33
Speaker 2: That is cool. He's a Hall of Famer.

00:17:35
Speaker 1: The numbers, though, baby. That's a big deal.

00:17:37
Speaker 2: To me, these numbers, I don't know. Mean nothing? No.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: He averaged for his career 26 points and 16 rebounds. He would be the highest paid player in the NBA probably with those numbers in today's league. It's ropes. He would make $ 50, $ 60 million a year with those numbers. It's unbelievable.

00:17:55
Speaker 2: Thanks for that perspective.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: Yes, NBA lost a good one here. Next up on the run, ropes, Macklemore. You can't stop this, man. Didn't he have a song, Can't Stop Us, Can't Hold Us?

00:18:06
Speaker 2: Can't. I'm going to have to let you read that.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: Anyway, yes, Macklemore, you know he got dumped from the Ed Sheeran tour. He is about to go back out on the road. He has announced his own free Palestine tour. We don't know who else is going to join him, but in his announcement, Robesie said he'd been reaching out to other artists who also stand with Palestine. We don't know who else is going to possibly join him, but right now, just three dates in October in Dublin, Paris, London, and all that money is going to go to Palestinian causes. So did you find the song, baby?

00:18:38
Speaker 2: Oh, it's Can't Hold Us. Yes. And by the way, he literally made his message became his mess, which is now going to become his.

00:18:47
Speaker 1: Well, the mess became the message.

00:18:49
Speaker 2: Right. Or the message became the mess because he was sending a message, but it got all messy. And now he is taking lemons and turning it into lemonade. How about that? All right, next up on the road.

00:19:01
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.

00:19:03
Speaker 2: It's Friday.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: You got any more you want to throw in there? Mess, message, lemonade, turning champagne. Oh, my God.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: Let's move on to coffee. How about that? Starbucks will be on fewer corners. The company plans to close another 250 stores this week. And we say another 250 stores because it was just one year ago that the company closed 627 stores in North America and Europe.

00:19:27
Speaker 1: Now, the chairman, who's fairly new, I think he got there 2024, he claims the stores are being closed because they're not delivering financially or they're not delivering an excellent customer service. Don't know the locations just yet, but, I mean, they got 18,000 around the world, so 250 is a lot, but they have some left.

00:19:46
Speaker 2: They have quite a few left, yes. We don't know. how many more concerts Ed Sheeran has left at this point. Don't know. Ticketmaster says it is going to give people refunds who don't want to go to Ed Sheeran shows this weekend at Gillette Stadium. And that makes sense because Gillette was in the center of all of this with Robert Kraft as the owner.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, Robert, this was the stadium that Robert Kraft says he wasn't going to let Ed Sheeran play if Macklemore was on the lineup. So the concert, one is tonight, one is tomorrow. So Ticketmaster said, yes, you can get your money back, but they didn't do this out of their own free will, Robes. They had to get a little nudging from the Massachusetts Attorney General, whose office said they received 200 complaints from people who struggled to get their money back after the lineup changes. Macklemore was dumped, as you know, for his Free Palestine comments at the New Jersey shows. That prompted all of Sheeran's opening acts to quit in solidarity with Macklemore. Now, Robes, The Attorney General said they have a legit case to get their money back because of the substantial change in the lineup that they thought they were paying for. Does that make sense?

00:20:55
Speaker 2: My goodness. Yeah, it does. And fans just need to submit for refunds 24 hours before the show. So if it's for tonight, you've lost that chance. But if you have tickets for Saturday night, you still got time. And yes, he's got the two shows this weekend. But this is... Look, they've talked about plummeting ticket sales, prices going down. Like, this is not... Not what Ed Sheeran was hoping for.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is funny or not to you, baby. What's happening today, tomorrow, in the Northeast?

00:21:28
Speaker 2: A Nor'easter.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: Robes, it's possible the shows get canceled because of weather.

00:21:33
Speaker 2: That makes so much sense in Boston.

00:21:35
Speaker 1: Robes, TMZ is actually reporting that they have stopped the construction of the stage because of the anticipated weather. What the hell? If these two shows in this place that was at the center of this get canceled.

00:21:50
Speaker 2: Because he threatened to not allow them to play there.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: What if the show doesn't go on anyway?

00:21:55
Speaker 2: That's some funny universe karma, Mother Nature, ha ha ha ha ha.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yes, there is a Noi Easter that is coming. It's going to hit hard tonight and in the morning. Right now, they're telling us those are the worst days of it. This is outdoor. What are they going to do? Oh, my goodness. So keep an eye on that.

00:22:12
Speaker 2: All right. And for your quote of the day on this Friday... How can we judge people for their choices when we know nothing about their options? I love that. We look at the news. We look at people. We judge them. We don't know what they're up against. I just thought this is such an important thing to remember before you form an opinion about somebody or judge somebody. How can we judge people for their choices when we know nothing about their options?

00:22:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to talk to you about this when we get off. Because that fired me up. I can remember incident after incident after incident in life where that is the case. People think you're supposed to be in their situation. Why didn't you just do this? That was available to me. Why didn't you just do this? No, Muff, no. That's, man, people take that, they will change your life if you carry that quote around with you.

00:23:07
Speaker 2: It spoke to me when I saw that this morning. It kind of just hit me and I thought, wow, I've never thought about it like that. So anyway, hope you carry that with you this weekend and hope you stay dry and stay safe if you are here in the Northeast. But we always appreciate you running with us. I ended strong, baby. I ended strong.

00:23:27
Speaker 1: You stay consistent, baby, throughout the whole thing. You never recovered. You never got better. You stayed exactly where you were.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: Oh, yes. I'm Amy Robach, everybody. The flawed individual that I am.

00:23:38
Speaker 1: And I'm TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.