Feb. 12, 2026
Morning Run: New Guthrie Demand, RIP James Van Der Beek, Olympic Highlights, No More Presidential Approval Ratings, Oklahoma Morning Execution, El Paso Mystery and Ukrainian Olympian Disqualified
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RSS Feed Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”
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00:00:01
Speaker 1: Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Morning Run. It's Thursday, February twelfth. I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ Holmes. We're a little amped up because we've been watching snowboarding. They are racing in snowboarding right now, and we just saw a couple of crashes, some excitement. There's a forty four year old American who is making his way through the competition. We find something to root for. This wasn't the plan when I woke up and now we're all in it. No, it was. It was exciting and thrilling and fun. And yeah, we've been having a blast. This is our speed when we get to wake up, when we wake up and have immediate sports action available to us. Oh boy, we're getting spoiled for these couple of weeks while the Olympics are going on.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: We'll give you the Olympic official medal count as of this moment, as of this recording, but Norway leading the way right now with seven gold medals. They have thirteen overall. Italy follows with five gold medals they had they have fourteen overall, and then Team USA has four gold medals twelve overall at this point, could expect to add to that metal count today. I think the maybe the most anticipated American athlete today is Chloe Kim. She's trying to do something three straight Olympics with a gold medal in that halfpipe and snowboarding. That is incredible. But she is racing today. I say racing, but she's competing today in a final.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: It's so fun to watch them do what they do, the tricks they are able to perform, and whoo when people do wipe out, it's it's sad and scary to watch, but my god, it is just thrilling to see them do what they can do with their bodies. It's in these conditions too, it's so unpredictable, and we've seen a lot of tough skiing today, at least in Italy.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: And what is her now. She's twenty years old, twenty five and her third Olympics. It's incredible, kind of incredible, and she's going for a thursd straight gold medal. We are gonna see men's and women's speed skating finals today. Some ski jumping is going on. The Louge team USA is competing in a preliminary hockey game match today. But the moment of the morning we saw was from an Italian skeeper skier, Federica Bringioni. Is that her name, Frederica Bringnoni.
00:02:11
Speaker 1: I think you nailed it. You nailed it.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: But this is another one of those incredible stories. This woman had an awful, awful injury a year ago, fractured leg, had to just take time off. She comes back into this competition in a competition robes. We didn't see a lot of people finishing. No, it's scary out and this was the super g but she won gold after an incredible comeback.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took out so many skiers in pretty dramatic crashes too. But they said the conditions were tough. They called it flat light, so you had overcast, snowy conditions and it was just I mean people obviously the best skiers in the world weren't able to finish this course.
00:02:52
Speaker 2: It was twenty three skiers and went down they said at least ten it was double digit double digits. Did not finish down this hill. But she wins this thing where she has a really really cool story, one of those comeback stories. And then the moment of the morning we saw was Jesse Diggins did the women's ting k in cross country and skiing. We saw a woman after woman after they finished that race, collapse in pain in ways I don't think I'm used to sing, even at the end of marathons.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Yes, and if similar to that at the point where there were three of them, I believe that just as soon as they got over the finish line. I mean, they are going uphill as fast as they can speed skiing basically, and they were in fetal position, cramping, moaning, yelling. I mean, I just thought, Wow, if I ever don't want to do a sport, it'd be that one right there, because that looks really hard and incredibly painful.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: This was not a good advertisement.
00:03:53
Speaker 1: I feel like, who gets into that? Who gets into that kind of race?
00:03:58
Speaker 2: Do you know what it's like running? It's like, may I guess way, if we show you images of our toenails falling off, you might not want to start running. But this is what we saw in Jesse Dickens on the American Robes. She had a bruised rib coming into this. These women were sucking air and fighting on these last few moments. She collapsed and for a full minute at least it felt like we heard her writhing in pain. She was screaming out in pain.
00:04:26
Speaker 1: It was crazy to see, but good for her and it was impressive as hell.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: So yes, always thank you to our Olympians that giving us great moments in the morning. We'll keep an eye on all that stuff today, but of course a lot more to get to on this morning run. We're going to be making stops in DC and Texas and Oklahoma. We'll take a dip back into Milan. Also going to head up to Canada on this run, but we have to head out to Arizona first, Tucson in particular, the search continues for eighty four year old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie. We had a few developments yesterday and the elements that quite frankly, Robes don't seem to be taking this case in the right direction of getting solved, but seems like a lot of side shows. And a part of this is that TMZ is in the mix. Again. This is what the second or third note that they've gotten. But this note, Robes did not come from a potential kitnapper. This person has written into TMZ saying that they know who the kidnapper is, but you need to pay me first before I tell you quote. If they want the name of the individual involved, then I want one bitcoin to the following wallet. Time is more than relevant. Now we do know Robes this was a legitimate bitcoin address, but it's a different address from the other ransom notes, and at this point we don't know if this is credible either.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: Ugh, it's distracting at the very least, and none of this, unfortunately, has proven to actually get authorities, as far as we understand, any closer to figuring out where Nancy Guthrie is. Now, they did find a single black glove about a mile or so from Nancy Guthrie's house. No idea if it's the same glove worn by that kidnapper that's seen on that surveillance camera of her front door, but they are testing it for DNA. We'll wait and see if that at least gives them any new lead. And just to give you an extent of what police are dealing with, they say, in the last twenty four hours since that surveillance video was released, they've had four thousand tips and they have to follow up on each and every one of them. I believe they said eighteen thousand tips over the past week and a half. It's just a little idea as to what authorities and investigators are having to go through, search through to try and get some actual actionable information to find out where Nancy Guthrie is.
00:06:42
Speaker 2: All right, we'll continue on this run. Now, we'll head to DC and guess who's coming to dinner at the White House. I always say, it's still unclear. This dinner has been talked about with the governors. The back and forth continues. We heard from the National Governors Association that the President only invited Republican governors to their upcoming annual bipartisan meeting at the White House, so they canceled it. But then the Governor's Group said that after speaking further with the President, he agreed that all governors would be invited and would attend the February twentieth event after all.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: But wait, we even heard from Oklahoma Governor Kevin sid who's the chairman of the Governor's Group. He even sent this email to the fellow governor's assuring them we got it all figured out, ladies and gentlemen. So he said he Trump was very clear in his communications with me that this is a National Governor's Association event and he looks forward to hosting you and hearing from governors across the country. So he even said that they addressed the misunderstanding and scheduling was all good. Everything's good. Everyone's invited. Record scratch here. Trump then decides to put out something on Truth Social.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: Yes, governor, your mistake is thinking you were going to get the last word on President Trump, who put out a very lengthy post on True Social But he said he called this guy a rhino. You know what that means. By now, this governor, he said, incorrectly stated his position. He said, that is false. The idea that he did not invite all governors, she said, that is false. The invitations were sent to all governors other than two who I feel are not worthy of being there. Now we'll have you know. One of those is the governor of Colorado, who he laid out agreements with, and the other is the quote foul mouth governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, black guy up there by the way. He also said that this was his defense, like, of course I invited everybody because quote I even invited the slob of a governor JB. Pritzker and horrendous California Governor Gavin Newscombe now roades he did not mention Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: Has he been invited? Yes?
00:08:45
Speaker 1: I mean that would that would imply that he did invite him.
00:08:48
Speaker 2: Why am I standing here pointing up north like Minnesota?
00:08:52
Speaker 1: If you all can see me right now, that's like something I would do standing.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: Here the guy and I'm pointing north and we're in me Oh my goodness.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yes. So anyway, he's claiming that I look forward to seeing the Republican Republican governors and some of the Democrat governors who were worthy of being invited, but most of whom won't show up. So who knows what the hell is actually going to happen. It's February twentieth. I guess we'll wait and see. And in other WTF news, after eighty eight years, Gallup will now no longer measure presidential approval ratings. And there's this is the best way I can put it. There's no digestible explanation for it. Gallup says all the words exactly. That was my kind way of saying, I call bs. Gallup said it would stop publishing approval and favorability ratings of individual political figures aka the President, and it said its decision quote reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership. What does that actually even mean?
00:09:57
Speaker 2: That's the thing. They're so smart. They knew we wouldn't understand, so they just put that all.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: It's like a word vomit. I don't even know what that means.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: Their president's approval rating has been the go to measurement for media outlets for decades. You know this, you always said. The latest Gallup Poles says the approval rating is blah blah blah year it all the time. Now specifically asked if Gallup received any feedback from the White House about this. Uh, given presidents the president's reason slide in his approval He was at forty seven percent last February. This February he sits at thirty seven percent, at least in the latest Gallup Pole. So did this have anything to do with the White House? Gallup said, quote, this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup's research goals and priorities. In quote, I'll take them at their word. Fine day, it's not a no. It just doesn't look Wait what.
00:10:44
Speaker 1: They didn't say no. They didn't say no. This has nothing to do We didn't hear feedback from the White House. They didn't deny it. Okay, that's yes.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Fine.
00:10:54
Speaker 1: When you don't directly ask answer a yes or no question with a yes or no, there's a reason.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: But some things require a little more context than just yes or no.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: It's complicated, all right, Next up on thirty years.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: We've been doing this ninety years, and we've been depending on this fornight like you trust that name when you see it. Gallup poll. Okay, these folks know what they've DoD been doing for a long time. Now this poll this guy ninety years, Eh, which changes strategy.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: We're not gonna We're just we're shifting.
00:11:24
Speaker 2: I want to take our focus. I want to take them at the work.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Okay, you know it'll be fun. Just anybody who's interested. Everywhere this story is published, go look at the comments section, and every single comment user is not buying it. Bs. I bet they'll change their mind and reshift their focus. Three years from now. It's no one's buying it. I guess that's my point.
00:11:45
Speaker 2: Such a cynical society.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: It's tough if this is the organization that we've trusted. Now we can't even trust when they tell us that they're changing, because they're not being fully.
00:11:53
Speaker 2: We don't trust anybody, No.
00:11:55
Speaker 1: We don't not these days. It's it's a sad state. But next up on the rown, we do actually have some sad news to report. The actor, best known for his role as Dawson on Dawson's Creek, forty eight year old James Vanderbeek, died on Wednesday, forty eight years old. Vanderbeek announced in November of twenty twenty four he had been diagnosed with stage three coorectal cancer.
00:12:15
Speaker 2: Hey. The announcement came from his wife on Instagram, saying, quote, he met his final days with courage, faith and grace. There as much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend. Now. Of course, vander Bleek shot to fame during the late nineties, starring and all six seasons of Dawson's Creek. Also appeared in the number of movies Farsity Blues scary movie. Also Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as well as a number of TV shows.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he made this big move from Los Angeles to Texas to raise his large and growing family during the pandemic. Vanderbek and his wife share six children together. You know you watched me this morning. I was kind of obsessed looking at all of their absolutely gorgeous family photos. The youngest was just born in twenty twenty one. All these six little toe headed kids. Their friends have actually set up a GoFundMe page for the family in the wake of his death. They say that they are facing an uncertain future. They say the costs of his medical care and the extended fight against cancer left the family out of fund so they are actually asking for folks help right now, given the passing of James vander Big.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: I didn't check the latest, but to the tune of pretty big numbers coming in on those all.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: Yests, Yes, they will be taken care of. It seems when you look and see how much people are giving and opening their wallets to this family.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Forty eight is hard to It's so sad. Stomach all right, next on the run here now turn to Oklahoma. That state is going to carry out its first execution of the year this morning. Now, many of you might be listening to this before, maybe during, or immediately after, but it is a daytime. He has a planned execution during the morning. Forty five year old Kendrick Simpson convicted of gunning down two young men back in two thousand and six. He opened fire on a nineteen year old and a twenty year old after a previous altercation at a nightclub. Corney belize he followed them in his vehicle for more than three miles and then fatally shot him both.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, this all started over them making fun of his Chicago Cubs cap. I mean, that is what happened. I mean, it's just so senseless. Last month, the parole board narrowly denied him clemency. They voted three to two, so it was a close vote. After Simpson emotionally apologized to the victims' families and a survivor of the shooting, he said, I apologize for murdering your sons. I don't make any excuses. I don't blame others, and they didn't deserve what happened to them. I'm ashamed of being the cause of such pain and hurt. But I'm not the worst of the worst. I'm not a monster. The victims' families disagreed. They emotionally told the parole Board their desire to see Simpson execute it for those murders and the lifetime of pain they say he caused him. But yes, he lost all his options. The clemency again board voted three to two, and the Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear his appeal.
00:14:58
Speaker 2: We'll keep an eye on that when we will update on that and whatever happens with that execution this morning, but it certainly looks like it's going to go through. But stay here with us on this Thursday morning run. When we come back we know more about the shooter and that mass shooting that happened in Canada, we'll tell you what's happening there. Also El Paso. You remember that airport, the airspace was going to close for ten days. Turns out it was more like ten hours, and we still don't exactly know what the hell happened. Also, an athlete from Ukraine has been booted from the Olympics before he even got to compete. Why because of what was on his helmet. Stay here we continue on this Thursday morning, run now, and the identity of the shooter in Canada's mass school shooting this week has been released. Police say eighteen year old jesse Van Rootseller, who was biologically born a male but began transitioning to female six years earlier, first shot and killed her mother and stepbrother before killing six others and eventually herself. Most of the victims were twelve and thirteen year old students who were gathered in the school library.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: Such a sad story. Police say the shooter and her family weren't actually known to authorities. They say police actually visited them in the spring for mental health issues that included self harm. But for now, there is no official known motive for this mass shooting, and given the fact that her family is dead, she is dead. They may never know the why in this case, but it is certainly will go down as one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: All right, continue on the run here now, and let's turn to El Paso, Texas. Swear they skies are clear and open for business. Apparently you remember the l Passo Airport and a strange story said it was gonna close for ten days. Turns out it was more like ten hours, but it's still not clear why. The FAA abruptly announced all flights would be grounded for ten days, starting at eleven thirty pm Tuesday evening. Very specific. Then a few hours later they said, psych. Do people say psych anymore? We was a good opportunity. Yes, I have said that in a while. This was a I liked it.
00:17:17
Speaker 1: Child of the eighties.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: Is it a thing? Okay? But yes, they said, never mind. Administration sources have now said the ground stop was put in place to test US military technology, reportedly high energy lasers to take down drones near Fort Bliss.
00:17:33
Speaker 1: And what Yes, and this is all sources say. It's not even an official statement. I just want to point that out. NBC News reported that a White House official, but again unnamed, said that Mexican cartel drones breached American airspace and that the Defense Department quote unquote disabled them now regardless of what happened, why it happened, how long it was happening. The El Paso mayor is pissed. He said officials never should have shut down the airport. He said this unnecessary decision caused chaos and confusion in the Al Passo community. You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable. He was saying medical evacuation flights had to be diverted to forty five miles away, like it had real repercussions that caused problems and certainly put people's lives at risk. He just and they were even saying that they listened to back and forth from the air traffic controllers who basically were telling a pilot, Yeah, you're gonna have to land somewhere else. We just found out like thirty minutes ago, that were grounded. So people were confused. The communication was terrible, and now there's like not an official explanation.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: So I add this to that chaos. Rolled up in the sky was talking about no no air traffic controls, all these things that hey, you take your plane somewhere else. I don't. Yeah, I got nothing. Eh? Now is this mystery?
00:18:53
Speaker 1: Is?
00:18:54
Speaker 2: What is going on? Are we in danger?
00:18:56
Speaker 1: Our Mexican cartels bringing drones into America and aerospace now we're lasering them down and having to ground planes. What the hell is happening?
00:19:04
Speaker 2: Are the cartails using them to Attagos or just to drop off packages to us?
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know. It's everything's unclear on this story.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: Upgraded like Amazon, they're doing deliveries with all right, final leg of the run here. Now, it's tough to figure out how to feel about this story. Here, the International Olympic Committee has disqualified a Ukrainian sled racer because of his helmet. This is Vladislav Hariskevitch. He insisted on wearing a helmet painted with the faces of Ukrainian athletes who have been killed during the war with Russia. But the committee International Olympic Committee, since its decision came after heros Kevitch refused to comply with its guidelines on athlete expression. Again, this memorial helmet, they said, violates the ban on political speech during the Olympic Games.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Harriskevitch took to social media to complain about the IOC's decision to disqualify and he said it was unfair and he said, this is the price of our dignity. Look, the Ukrainian President, a lot of folks have weighed on this. They felt very upset and don't think it's fair that he was disqualified for this helmet that by the way, he could have taken off and he could have put a different helmet on, he refused to do so so, And it should be pointed out that because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes and they're not even allowed to be called that, they're called independent athletes. There were only thirteen people who came from Russia to compete in the Olympics. They cannot compete under the Russian flag or under the Russian uniform. They are just considered independent athletes. So there are restrictions in place on that country based on what's going on in the world.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: He took a stand. I wish this could have been worked out. All we've long known the political statements, this wouldn't happen to be interpreted as such. I guess an argument can be made there. But they let him wear it during his training, so negotiations were going on. It's not like he had an just where if they even told him right after the race, you can put it like display it, but while you're competing, we're not gonna let you make this statement. And it seems like I don't know what to do with that one. I just hate that the kid is not able.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: To It's a tough story. It is a very tough story. But you know, I think we're going to end this episode, as we do all episodes, with the quote of the day, and I didn't even think about this, but it does. But I think it actually kind of speaks to that last story what we were just talking about. So, if your peace depends on everything going right, that's not peace. That's control. Learning to be steady and uncertainty, that's real growth. Sometimes you just have to choose. And it's so ironic because we're talking about war and victims and all of this thing, and the goal is for everyone is peace, right, But sometimes we want it to be a certain way, We want it to be the way we want it to be, and that's controlling. That's not peace. And so choosing peace sometimes is learning to be steady and uncertainty and maybe even be willing to say I'm going to put down what I want to happen or what I think should happen for the greater good of peace.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: This you said, piece of what's steady in the face of uncertain and that just what life is. Every day you wake up it's what it is. You have to This is what life is. You can decide that that's the joy of it and the beauty of it or the horror of it.
00:22:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, it's true if you really think about this. I've reread this quite a couple of times. This is something to remember each day when you wake up, because things aren't going to go right. Things are going to go wrong. It's going to happen. So if your peace depends on everything going right, that is not peace. That's control. Learning to be steady in uncertainty, that is real growth.
00:22:35
Speaker 2: Let's go out there and make it a perfect day. Ropes, you know what. I to that point. We had a moment today and we didn't freak out. We've told people. Now we are traveling, we're in Mexico, we're at a place sometimes we don't know how good the WiFi is going to be, and now doing our work depends on us having a decent enough Wi Fi to get this stuff out. At one point this morning, pitch black dark, what was.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: It, four four o'clock in the morning.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: Here, I just got up from my seat. I said, Babe, the WiFi is out. Said okay, yep, it's out. We just floated around, grabbed a drink. We never sweat. You know, nothing we can do. We didn't. I actually said to you, well, I got one. We could get knocked out and maybe we have to go do Wi fi to coffee shop webs We could have freaked.
00:23:21
Speaker 1: Out, we could have, but we didn't. And guess what, the WiFi eventually came back on. I did. It all worked out and we kept our peace and he did. And with that everyone, we hope you can keep your piece today too as well. I'm Amy Robot, thank you so much for running with us.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: She wants you to keep your peace. I want your day to be perfect, but good luck with that. Yeah, so don't listen to me. You're gonna be really let down today. And I'm DJ all we'll talk to you all soon
Speaker 1: Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Morning Run. It's Thursday, February twelfth. I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ Holmes. We're a little amped up because we've been watching snowboarding. They are racing in snowboarding right now, and we just saw a couple of crashes, some excitement. There's a forty four year old American who is making his way through the competition. We find something to root for. This wasn't the plan when I woke up and now we're all in it. No, it was. It was exciting and thrilling and fun. And yeah, we've been having a blast. This is our speed when we get to wake up, when we wake up and have immediate sports action available to us. Oh boy, we're getting spoiled for these couple of weeks while the Olympics are going on.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: We'll give you the Olympic official medal count as of this moment, as of this recording, but Norway leading the way right now with seven gold medals. They have thirteen overall. Italy follows with five gold medals they had they have fourteen overall, and then Team USA has four gold medals twelve overall at this point, could expect to add to that metal count today. I think the maybe the most anticipated American athlete today is Chloe Kim. She's trying to do something three straight Olympics with a gold medal in that halfpipe and snowboarding. That is incredible. But she is racing today. I say racing, but she's competing today in a final.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: It's so fun to watch them do what they do, the tricks they are able to perform, and whoo when people do wipe out, it's it's sad and scary to watch, but my god, it is just thrilling to see them do what they can do with their bodies. It's in these conditions too, it's so unpredictable, and we've seen a lot of tough skiing today, at least in Italy.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: And what is her now. She's twenty years old, twenty five and her third Olympics. It's incredible, kind of incredible, and she's going for a thursd straight gold medal. We are gonna see men's and women's speed skating finals today. Some ski jumping is going on. The Louge team USA is competing in a preliminary hockey game match today. But the moment of the morning we saw was from an Italian skeeper skier, Federica Bringioni. Is that her name, Frederica Bringnoni.
00:02:11
Speaker 1: I think you nailed it. You nailed it.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: But this is another one of those incredible stories. This woman had an awful, awful injury a year ago, fractured leg, had to just take time off. She comes back into this competition in a competition robes. We didn't see a lot of people finishing. No, it's scary out and this was the super g but she won gold after an incredible comeback.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took out so many skiers in pretty dramatic crashes too. But they said the conditions were tough. They called it flat light, so you had overcast, snowy conditions and it was just I mean people obviously the best skiers in the world weren't able to finish this course.
00:02:52
Speaker 2: It was twenty three skiers and went down they said at least ten it was double digit double digits. Did not finish down this hill. But she wins this thing where she has a really really cool story, one of those comeback stories. And then the moment of the morning we saw was Jesse Diggins did the women's ting k in cross country and skiing. We saw a woman after woman after they finished that race, collapse in pain in ways I don't think I'm used to sing, even at the end of marathons.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Yes, and if similar to that at the point where there were three of them, I believe that just as soon as they got over the finish line. I mean, they are going uphill as fast as they can speed skiing basically, and they were in fetal position, cramping, moaning, yelling. I mean, I just thought, Wow, if I ever don't want to do a sport, it'd be that one right there, because that looks really hard and incredibly painful.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: This was not a good advertisement.
00:03:53
Speaker 1: I feel like, who gets into that? Who gets into that kind of race?
00:03:58
Speaker 2: Do you know what it's like running? It's like, may I guess way, if we show you images of our toenails falling off, you might not want to start running. But this is what we saw in Jesse Dickens on the American Robes. She had a bruised rib coming into this. These women were sucking air and fighting on these last few moments. She collapsed and for a full minute at least it felt like we heard her writhing in pain. She was screaming out in pain.
00:04:26
Speaker 1: It was crazy to see, but good for her and it was impressive as hell.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: So yes, always thank you to our Olympians that giving us great moments in the morning. We'll keep an eye on all that stuff today, but of course a lot more to get to on this morning run. We're going to be making stops in DC and Texas and Oklahoma. We'll take a dip back into Milan. Also going to head up to Canada on this run, but we have to head out to Arizona first, Tucson in particular, the search continues for eighty four year old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie. We had a few developments yesterday and the elements that quite frankly, Robes don't seem to be taking this case in the right direction of getting solved, but seems like a lot of side shows. And a part of this is that TMZ is in the mix. Again. This is what the second or third note that they've gotten. But this note, Robes did not come from a potential kitnapper. This person has written into TMZ saying that they know who the kidnapper is, but you need to pay me first before I tell you quote. If they want the name of the individual involved, then I want one bitcoin to the following wallet. Time is more than relevant. Now we do know Robes this was a legitimate bitcoin address, but it's a different address from the other ransom notes, and at this point we don't know if this is credible either.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: Ugh, it's distracting at the very least, and none of this, unfortunately, has proven to actually get authorities, as far as we understand, any closer to figuring out where Nancy Guthrie is. Now, they did find a single black glove about a mile or so from Nancy Guthrie's house. No idea if it's the same glove worn by that kidnapper that's seen on that surveillance camera of her front door, but they are testing it for DNA. We'll wait and see if that at least gives them any new lead. And just to give you an extent of what police are dealing with, they say, in the last twenty four hours since that surveillance video was released, they've had four thousand tips and they have to follow up on each and every one of them. I believe they said eighteen thousand tips over the past week and a half. It's just a little idea as to what authorities and investigators are having to go through, search through to try and get some actual actionable information to find out where Nancy Guthrie is.
00:06:42
Speaker 2: All right, we'll continue on this run. Now, we'll head to DC and guess who's coming to dinner at the White House. I always say, it's still unclear. This dinner has been talked about with the governors. The back and forth continues. We heard from the National Governors Association that the President only invited Republican governors to their upcoming annual bipartisan meeting at the White House, so they canceled it. But then the Governor's Group said that after speaking further with the President, he agreed that all governors would be invited and would attend the February twentieth event after all.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: But wait, we even heard from Oklahoma Governor Kevin sid who's the chairman of the Governor's Group. He even sent this email to the fellow governor's assuring them we got it all figured out, ladies and gentlemen. So he said he Trump was very clear in his communications with me that this is a National Governor's Association event and he looks forward to hosting you and hearing from governors across the country. So he even said that they addressed the misunderstanding and scheduling was all good. Everything's good. Everyone's invited. Record scratch here. Trump then decides to put out something on Truth Social.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: Yes, governor, your mistake is thinking you were going to get the last word on President Trump, who put out a very lengthy post on True Social But he said he called this guy a rhino. You know what that means. By now, this governor, he said, incorrectly stated his position. He said, that is false. The idea that he did not invite all governors, she said, that is false. The invitations were sent to all governors other than two who I feel are not worthy of being there. Now we'll have you know. One of those is the governor of Colorado, who he laid out agreements with, and the other is the quote foul mouth governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, black guy up there by the way. He also said that this was his defense, like, of course I invited everybody because quote I even invited the slob of a governor JB. Pritzker and horrendous California Governor Gavin Newscombe now roades he did not mention Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: Has he been invited? Yes?
00:08:45
Speaker 1: I mean that would that would imply that he did invite him.
00:08:48
Speaker 2: Why am I standing here pointing up north like Minnesota?
00:08:52
Speaker 1: If you all can see me right now, that's like something I would do standing.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: Here the guy and I'm pointing north and we're in me Oh my goodness.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yes. So anyway, he's claiming that I look forward to seeing the Republican Republican governors and some of the Democrat governors who were worthy of being invited, but most of whom won't show up. So who knows what the hell is actually going to happen. It's February twentieth. I guess we'll wait and see. And in other WTF news, after eighty eight years, Gallup will now no longer measure presidential approval ratings. And there's this is the best way I can put it. There's no digestible explanation for it. Gallup says all the words exactly. That was my kind way of saying, I call bs. Gallup said it would stop publishing approval and favorability ratings of individual political figures aka the President, and it said its decision quote reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership. What does that actually even mean?
00:09:57
Speaker 2: That's the thing. They're so smart. They knew we wouldn't understand, so they just put that all.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: It's like a word vomit. I don't even know what that means.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: Their president's approval rating has been the go to measurement for media outlets for decades. You know this, you always said. The latest Gallup Poles says the approval rating is blah blah blah year it all the time. Now specifically asked if Gallup received any feedback from the White House about this. Uh, given presidents the president's reason slide in his approval He was at forty seven percent last February. This February he sits at thirty seven percent, at least in the latest Gallup Pole. So did this have anything to do with the White House? Gallup said, quote, this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup's research goals and priorities. In quote, I'll take them at their word. Fine day, it's not a no. It just doesn't look Wait what.
00:10:44
Speaker 1: They didn't say no. They didn't say no. This has nothing to do We didn't hear feedback from the White House. They didn't deny it. Okay, that's yes.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Fine.
00:10:54
Speaker 1: When you don't directly ask answer a yes or no question with a yes or no, there's a reason.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: But some things require a little more context than just yes or no.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: It's complicated, all right, Next up on thirty years.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: We've been doing this ninety years, and we've been depending on this fornight like you trust that name when you see it. Gallup poll. Okay, these folks know what they've DoD been doing for a long time. Now this poll this guy ninety years, Eh, which changes strategy.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: We're not gonna We're just we're shifting.
00:11:24
Speaker 2: I want to take our focus. I want to take them at the work.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Okay, you know it'll be fun. Just anybody who's interested. Everywhere this story is published, go look at the comments section, and every single comment user is not buying it. Bs. I bet they'll change their mind and reshift their focus. Three years from now. It's no one's buying it. I guess that's my point.
00:11:45
Speaker 2: Such a cynical society.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: It's tough if this is the organization that we've trusted. Now we can't even trust when they tell us that they're changing, because they're not being fully.
00:11:53
Speaker 2: We don't trust anybody, No.
00:11:55
Speaker 1: We don't not these days. It's it's a sad state. But next up on the rown, we do actually have some sad news to report. The actor, best known for his role as Dawson on Dawson's Creek, forty eight year old James Vanderbeek, died on Wednesday, forty eight years old. Vanderbeek announced in November of twenty twenty four he had been diagnosed with stage three coorectal cancer.
00:12:15
Speaker 2: Hey. The announcement came from his wife on Instagram, saying, quote, he met his final days with courage, faith and grace. There as much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend. Now. Of course, vander Bleek shot to fame during the late nineties, starring and all six seasons of Dawson's Creek. Also appeared in the number of movies Farsity Blues scary movie. Also Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as well as a number of TV shows.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he made this big move from Los Angeles to Texas to raise his large and growing family during the pandemic. Vanderbek and his wife share six children together. You know you watched me this morning. I was kind of obsessed looking at all of their absolutely gorgeous family photos. The youngest was just born in twenty twenty one. All these six little toe headed kids. Their friends have actually set up a GoFundMe page for the family in the wake of his death. They say that they are facing an uncertain future. They say the costs of his medical care and the extended fight against cancer left the family out of fund so they are actually asking for folks help right now, given the passing of James vander Big.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: I didn't check the latest, but to the tune of pretty big numbers coming in on those all.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: Yests, Yes, they will be taken care of. It seems when you look and see how much people are giving and opening their wallets to this family.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Forty eight is hard to It's so sad. Stomach all right, next on the run here now turn to Oklahoma. That state is going to carry out its first execution of the year this morning. Now, many of you might be listening to this before, maybe during, or immediately after, but it is a daytime. He has a planned execution during the morning. Forty five year old Kendrick Simpson convicted of gunning down two young men back in two thousand and six. He opened fire on a nineteen year old and a twenty year old after a previous altercation at a nightclub. Corney belize he followed them in his vehicle for more than three miles and then fatally shot him both.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, this all started over them making fun of his Chicago Cubs cap. I mean, that is what happened. I mean, it's just so senseless. Last month, the parole board narrowly denied him clemency. They voted three to two, so it was a close vote. After Simpson emotionally apologized to the victims' families and a survivor of the shooting, he said, I apologize for murdering your sons. I don't make any excuses. I don't blame others, and they didn't deserve what happened to them. I'm ashamed of being the cause of such pain and hurt. But I'm not the worst of the worst. I'm not a monster. The victims' families disagreed. They emotionally told the parole Board their desire to see Simpson execute it for those murders and the lifetime of pain they say he caused him. But yes, he lost all his options. The clemency again board voted three to two, and the Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear his appeal.
00:14:58
Speaker 2: We'll keep an eye on that when we will update on that and whatever happens with that execution this morning, but it certainly looks like it's going to go through. But stay here with us on this Thursday morning run. When we come back we know more about the shooter and that mass shooting that happened in Canada, we'll tell you what's happening there. Also El Paso. You remember that airport, the airspace was going to close for ten days. Turns out it was more like ten hours, and we still don't exactly know what the hell happened. Also, an athlete from Ukraine has been booted from the Olympics before he even got to compete. Why because of what was on his helmet. Stay here we continue on this Thursday morning, run now, and the identity of the shooter in Canada's mass school shooting this week has been released. Police say eighteen year old jesse Van Rootseller, who was biologically born a male but began transitioning to female six years earlier, first shot and killed her mother and stepbrother before killing six others and eventually herself. Most of the victims were twelve and thirteen year old students who were gathered in the school library.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: Such a sad story. Police say the shooter and her family weren't actually known to authorities. They say police actually visited them in the spring for mental health issues that included self harm. But for now, there is no official known motive for this mass shooting, and given the fact that her family is dead, she is dead. They may never know the why in this case, but it is certainly will go down as one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: All right, continue on the run here now, and let's turn to El Paso, Texas. Swear they skies are clear and open for business. Apparently you remember the l Passo Airport and a strange story said it was gonna close for ten days. Turns out it was more like ten hours, but it's still not clear why. The FAA abruptly announced all flights would be grounded for ten days, starting at eleven thirty pm Tuesday evening. Very specific. Then a few hours later they said, psych. Do people say psych anymore? We was a good opportunity. Yes, I have said that in a while. This was a I liked it.
00:17:17
Speaker 1: Child of the eighties.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: Is it a thing? Okay? But yes, they said, never mind. Administration sources have now said the ground stop was put in place to test US military technology, reportedly high energy lasers to take down drones near Fort Bliss.
00:17:33
Speaker 1: And what Yes, and this is all sources say. It's not even an official statement. I just want to point that out. NBC News reported that a White House official, but again unnamed, said that Mexican cartel drones breached American airspace and that the Defense Department quote unquote disabled them now regardless of what happened, why it happened, how long it was happening. The El Paso mayor is pissed. He said officials never should have shut down the airport. He said this unnecessary decision caused chaos and confusion in the Al Passo community. You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable. He was saying medical evacuation flights had to be diverted to forty five miles away, like it had real repercussions that caused problems and certainly put people's lives at risk. He just and they were even saying that they listened to back and forth from the air traffic controllers who basically were telling a pilot, Yeah, you're gonna have to land somewhere else. We just found out like thirty minutes ago, that were grounded. So people were confused. The communication was terrible, and now there's like not an official explanation.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: So I add this to that chaos. Rolled up in the sky was talking about no no air traffic controls, all these things that hey, you take your plane somewhere else. I don't. Yeah, I got nothing. Eh? Now is this mystery?
00:18:53
Speaker 1: Is?
00:18:54
Speaker 2: What is going on? Are we in danger?
00:18:56
Speaker 1: Our Mexican cartels bringing drones into America and aerospace now we're lasering them down and having to ground planes. What the hell is happening?
00:19:04
Speaker 2: Are the cartails using them to Attagos or just to drop off packages to us?
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know. It's everything's unclear on this story.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: Upgraded like Amazon, they're doing deliveries with all right, final leg of the run here. Now, it's tough to figure out how to feel about this story. Here, the International Olympic Committee has disqualified a Ukrainian sled racer because of his helmet. This is Vladislav Hariskevitch. He insisted on wearing a helmet painted with the faces of Ukrainian athletes who have been killed during the war with Russia. But the committee International Olympic Committee, since its decision came after heros Kevitch refused to comply with its guidelines on athlete expression. Again, this memorial helmet, they said, violates the ban on political speech during the Olympic Games.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Harriskevitch took to social media to complain about the IOC's decision to disqualify and he said it was unfair and he said, this is the price of our dignity. Look, the Ukrainian President, a lot of folks have weighed on this. They felt very upset and don't think it's fair that he was disqualified for this helmet that by the way, he could have taken off and he could have put a different helmet on, he refused to do so so, And it should be pointed out that because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes and they're not even allowed to be called that, they're called independent athletes. There were only thirteen people who came from Russia to compete in the Olympics. They cannot compete under the Russian flag or under the Russian uniform. They are just considered independent athletes. So there are restrictions in place on that country based on what's going on in the world.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: He took a stand. I wish this could have been worked out. All we've long known the political statements, this wouldn't happen to be interpreted as such. I guess an argument can be made there. But they let him wear it during his training, so negotiations were going on. It's not like he had an just where if they even told him right after the race, you can put it like display it, but while you're competing, we're not gonna let you make this statement. And it seems like I don't know what to do with that one. I just hate that the kid is not able.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: To It's a tough story. It is a very tough story. But you know, I think we're going to end this episode, as we do all episodes, with the quote of the day, and I didn't even think about this, but it does. But I think it actually kind of speaks to that last story what we were just talking about. So, if your peace depends on everything going right, that's not peace. That's control. Learning to be steady and uncertainty, that's real growth. Sometimes you just have to choose. And it's so ironic because we're talking about war and victims and all of this thing, and the goal is for everyone is peace, right, But sometimes we want it to be a certain way, We want it to be the way we want it to be, and that's controlling. That's not peace. And so choosing peace sometimes is learning to be steady and uncertainty and maybe even be willing to say I'm going to put down what I want to happen or what I think should happen for the greater good of peace.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: This you said, piece of what's steady in the face of uncertain and that just what life is. Every day you wake up it's what it is. You have to This is what life is. You can decide that that's the joy of it and the beauty of it or the horror of it.
00:22:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, it's true if you really think about this. I've reread this quite a couple of times. This is something to remember each day when you wake up, because things aren't going to go right. Things are going to go wrong. It's going to happen. So if your peace depends on everything going right, that is not peace. That's control. Learning to be steady in uncertainty, that is real growth.
00:22:35
Speaker 2: Let's go out there and make it a perfect day. Ropes, you know what. I to that point. We had a moment today and we didn't freak out. We've told people. Now we are traveling, we're in Mexico, we're at a place sometimes we don't know how good the WiFi is going to be, and now doing our work depends on us having a decent enough Wi Fi to get this stuff out. At one point this morning, pitch black dark, what was.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: It, four four o'clock in the morning.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: Here, I just got up from my seat. I said, Babe, the WiFi is out. Said okay, yep, it's out. We just floated around, grabbed a drink. We never sweat. You know, nothing we can do. We didn't. I actually said to you, well, I got one. We could get knocked out and maybe we have to go do Wi fi to coffee shop webs We could have freaked.
00:23:21
Speaker 1: Out, we could have, but we didn't. And guess what, the WiFi eventually came back on. I did. It all worked out and we kept our peace and he did. And with that everyone, we hope you can keep your piece today too as well. I'm Amy Robot, thank you so much for running with us.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: She wants you to keep your peace. I want your day to be perfect, but good luck with that. Yeah, so don't listen to me. You're gonna be really let down today. And I'm DJ all we'll talk to you all soon