Morning Run:  Powerball Town Revealed, Trump’s Xmas Tweet-A-Thon, Deadly CA Rain, US Airstrikes, and Kennedy Center Honors Ratings.

00:00:12
Speaker 1: Hey, good morning everybody. It is Friday, December the twenty six Welcome to your morning run and I guess rooms we know where everybody's running to this morning, to a store to return something they didn't like.

00:00:26
Speaker 2: That's or to take advantage of all the massive discounts and deals that typically are December twenty sixth I have plenty of memories with my mom scooping up Christmas ornaments for next year, Christmas wrapping paper next year. We were absolutely those people. Yes, and it was fun because it's like eighty percent off.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: You find a good deal. Then you got to go store that stuff for a year.

00:00:48
Speaker 2: But fine, it works, and it is in Atlanta. When we lived in Atlanta, there was plenty of closets.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: It works well.

00:00:53
Speaker 1: Has good morning to you all. Hope you had a great Christmas. TJ homes here alongside Amy Robot. We had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas here and it does continue today. We did want to hop on though here on December twenty six give you all a few updates about what's going on around the country, having to do with travel, having to do with weather, having to do with the President launching strikes in Nigeria, also having to do. We got ratings from the Kennedy Center Honors to tell you about at Upstein update. And also we're going to talk about President Trump was on one yesterday the Spirit of Christmas. Right, you can fill in the blank about what that is. It doesn't usually have a lot to do with revenge and vendettas robes. We talk about him and his social media a lot. He had a spree of social media posts yesterday that it was odd to think he had that much time on his answer.

00:01:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's Christmas Day. You would hope that he was with Melania, his children, his grandchildren around the tree having fun, but instead he was up all night reposting things on his truth social account. What one hundred different posts?

00:01:57
Speaker 1: Oh, we're not kidding, by several media outlet counts.

00:02:01
Speaker 3: I'll be honest.

00:02:02
Speaker 1: I didn't stop and count them all, but at least one hundred posts and reposts in which he is a lot of it the same old stuff, but some of it's new. We'll get into some of that, but can we start robes. We know now the ticket power ball ticket, we know where it was sold, in particular, we know it was Arkansas. But this little town is a place I actually spent a good amount of time and growing up because we have to go play their basketball team. Hate it going there. Cap At Arkansas.

00:02:28
Speaker 2: That's so fa. I was going to ask you if you knew the town. It's near Little Rock.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, just outside twenty miles or so half hour. But yes, you just have to travel there by bus. But anyway, it was sold there just winning power ball ticket, so you know, this little town is all a buzz. But it was at a Murphy, USA. That is what it's called. A gas station. Is where somebody bought this ticket one point eight one seven billion dollars.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, folks, we might never know who it is.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: Wow, they don't have to report in Arkansas.

00:02:57
Speaker 3: This is one of those states you can remain a Nona. Would you?

00:03:00
Speaker 2: Of course you will.

00:03:01
Speaker 3: Of course you would want.

00:03:03
Speaker 2: Every person to know that you had all that cash. Absolutely, you don't want to be hounded by the media, and probably more importantly, you don't want to be hounded by your friends and family.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: Is there any chance, though, to your point, there, Yes, we hear horror stories about lottery winners over the years, But is there any chance you're so excited that you just want to tell everybody like you.

00:03:24
Speaker 3: That's a tough secret to keep.

00:03:25
Speaker 1: Sure.

00:03:26
Speaker 2: I bet yes, If you're in a situation where you don't feel like you're going to be hounded and you're going to take that victory lap and have a little fun with it, I think that's awesome. I just think that's probably not most people.

00:03:37
Speaker 1: But also Cabot is a town of about twenty five thousand people.

00:03:41
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that though.

00:03:43
Speaker 3: They're gonna know who it is, gonna know, they know now.

00:03:47
Speaker 1: Exactly who it is. Well, whoever you are, Congratulations to you as always, folks. Top right corner of your Apple podcast app on our show page, it says follow click that little bucket button you can always get our updates. The other thing to speak on here ropes travel. Today is another very busy travel day, and it's another horrific day of travel if you're in California. Gonna be some tough stuff in the Northeast as well. A snowstorm is moving, a significant one, which could be they said this morning robes some of the most significant snow we see in New York in the past five or so years.

00:04:20
Speaker 2: Wow, And we won't be here to see it, but we're actually getting out, thankfully, just before the storm system moves our way. So let's let's cross our fingers. We're getting out. I mean I should say we're not going to be here. We don't plan on being here. You just get nervous about travel to lakes.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially after somebody says something like that out loud, and Jin says everything but that that's happening in the northeast. But California, we need to speak on our friends out there. This is now a deadly storm system. At least three people have died in the storms that continue out there.

00:04:50
Speaker 3: Ropes. We talked about.

00:04:51
Speaker 1: This, this atmospheric river dumping water out there. They say the worst is over at least as far as the rainfall, but it will continue today. And the problem is robes. It's so saturated now that any water they yet is still adding to the problem that's there. So even though the rain is light lightning up a little bit today is not necessarily going to be that helpful.

00:05:12
Speaker 2: Yes, and the high winds were knocking over trees. That's how one of the three people died in these storms. But yes, they're calling. I guess as soon as I read it, I thought Okay, that does sound familiar with the Pineapple Express. They actually have a name for the Atmospheric River and it is called the Pineapple Express. But yeah, they say it doesn't take much now at this point, they said, some places have already gotten eight inches of rain on Christmas Day, I mean Christmas, even to Christmas Day, and they now still have one hundred and ten thousand plus people without power. So all of that's tough any time of the year, but during the holidays to be evacuated, to have the roads closed. They were talking about folks who were sitting there around the TV watching Christmas movies and saw their neighbor's roof fly off. I mean, this is traumatic, dramatic, scary, life threatening types of weather that people have been dealing with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and into today.

00:06:06
Speaker 1: So the governor out there has extended some of those states of emergency to more places out there. But keep an eye on California and keep those folks in your thoughts right now, because they are really really going through it. As a state. We do need to update you as well. Something happened overnight. The President alerted us all about this strikes in Nigeria against terrorist targets there. Now, the President was the one that gave us the info. We don't have a lot, at least of this recording, most of the details, but the President didn't let everybody know. This is an area of robes he's been talking about for a while now, talking about Christians being persecuted there and killed. There are plenty of other folks out there and independent agencies. I should also say that refute some of the claims the President made, but he has used that as justification now to move forward.

00:06:53
Speaker 2: Yes, so he says that his powerful and deadly strikes directly targeted Islamic State terrorists. And yes, they have pointed out. You mentioned other news outlets that Muslim mosques have been attacked and targeted. So this is a country of Christians and Muslims, and both groups have experienced violence and deadly, deadly attacks against them from ISIS. So we even heard from Hexseth saying that and this is an important part of the story, that they were grateful. The US is grateful for the Nigerian government's support and cooperation. The Nigerian government assisted and aided in these attacks. So it wasn't as if we were attacking anything to do with the country's infrastructure in the country itself. It's specifically directed towards ISIS targets.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: And he said this is how he announced it to the world. This is and as only President drum can read it or can write it. Quote tonight, at my direction as commander in chief, the United States launched a powerful and deli strikes against ISIS time.

00:07:51
Speaker 3: No, why why I start like that?

00:07:53
Speaker 2: Yes, I know.

00:07:54
Speaker 3: No, he's the head of the most powerful military in the world.

00:07:56
Speaker 2: He wants to remind you, at.

00:07:58
Speaker 3: My direction as commander in chief is he wrote it.

00:08:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not shocking. And then he says that he ordered this deadly strike against ISIS terrorist scum in northwest Nigeria, also not necessary.

00:08:13
Speaker 1: Targeting and viciously killing primarily and this in Christians at levels not seen for many years and even centuries. With an exclamation point at the end, so you get this. This was a part of the U I guess Christmas Day dump of tweets and social media posts that the president had. But by again these media accounts one hundred plus that he put out overnight. Now the subjects he hit on. He talked about the twenty twenty election, prosecuting Obama, Gavin knew some somemoli's, a lot of familiar stuff and a lot of it robes weren't his own words, as you mentioned a moment ago.

00:08:47
Speaker 3: It was just him without any contexts.

00:08:50
Speaker 1: Actually, some of them were reposted videos without him saying anything.

00:08:53
Speaker 3: They just went up. I don't know what he was doing.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: Yes, And the one that really stood out to me, he read reposted a message that called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure accountability by prosecuting Barack Obama over the election. He was obsessed in these true social posts, regurgitating or bringing it back up. I don't know he ever has let it go, and I don't even know if two days have gone by. Rory doesn't talk about the stolen twenty twenty election, but Russia, Russia, Russia, Joe Biden, President Obama. All of these themes just kept coming up again and again as he was reposting a lot.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: And if you had it, yes, there was an I was surprised by the Epstein Epstein posts that he made. Yeah, because it was unnecessary and it was long, and so he put attention back on it again. If you haven't, you might have missed it folks, if you weren't paying attention to the news, and you should have missed it, and I think it might have been the point was for you to miss it. As on Christmas Eve, the Department of Justice said that they found a million plus more documents that they didn't know about for the Epstein case and now for the Epstein files. And now they say they need a few more weeks to get all this information out. Yes, okay, that's there. But the President had something to say about the Epstein file.

00:10:11
Speaker 2: He certainly did. And again it began so well, Merry Christmas to all, and then he goes on, including the many sleezebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to drop him like a dog when things got too hot, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn't know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so.

00:10:47
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean he felt the need to. He watches that they say he consumes a lot of media. He watches television all the time, watches cable news a lot, and it seems like, really he's reacting to something that sets him off in a moment. He really that just seems impulsive. Almost on Christmas Day to put that out, but on.

00:11:08
Speaker 2: Christmas Day, I would like a word count of how many times he used the word scum, sleezebag, loser. I mean it, wow, Merry Christmas. I mean it's they those words are dropped in almost all of his independently written posts, not just necessarily the repost, but it's it's remarkable.

00:11:28
Speaker 1: Well, for whatever reason, the President was on one last night, knick yourself out, go true social and enjoy the reads continuing here now, Rose, I didn't know, I'll be honest here, I did not know that this was a possibility or an update like this was coming about the ups crash on November fourth. But the death toll from the crash on November fourth has now gone up and Robes. The message came out from the governor of Kentucky on Christmas Day. Put this message out.

00:11:57
Speaker 2: He said, it is with great sadness that I just learned Elaine Rodriguez Colina has passed. Elayne is the fifteenth victim of the UPS Flight two nine seven six accident. He suffered severe injuries at the time of the crash and passed earlier this Christmas Day. May Elaine's memory be a blessing. That is just incredibly sad and tragic. Just I didn't know someone was clinging to life or fighting for his life all these weeks after that crash.

00:12:27
Speaker 3: It's almost two months now and Maryland did not know, and it.

00:12:31
Speaker 2: Looks days to die.

00:12:32
Speaker 1: If it was December fourth, December twenty ninth, it was tragic, which is something about a Christmas morning death like that is just.

00:12:42
Speaker 2: When I'm yeah, there was probably so much hope by his family that maybe he would pull through and pull out of it. So our hearts go out to them.

00:12:50
Speaker 1: All right, folks will stay with us here on this. It's Friday though.

00:12:53
Speaker 2: Right, It's Friday.

00:12:54
Speaker 3: Friday, Yes, count but yes.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: This Friday run a funny story in some circles, but it might not be funny at all at the White House.

00:13:05
Speaker 3: The numbers are in.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: How did the viewers respond to President Trump hosting the Kennedy Center Honors, Well, we think we got the answers. They here, all right, folks, will continue on this Friday morning, day after Christmas run You remember, of course, right rose the president.

00:13:35
Speaker 3: This was huge.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: He's gonna host the Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Senter Honors. He hadn't even attended before as president, kind of a boycott of his own all you oh you you conservative hating liberal artists over it was kind of his attitude, and he didn't attend. But this year, first year's president announcement that hey, they wanted me to host. You know, I don't want to host, but they just they beg they wanted me so bad because the numbers are going to go through the roof.

00:14:02
Speaker 3: You remember all that.

00:14:03
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the board that he appointed begged him to host, and he said it wasn't just the board, he said pretty much all of America wanted him to host. He actually said that, and then he went on to say that if he did a good job, that he might just put that as his full time job. He might leave the presidency and just become the full time host of the Kennedy Center. He even suggested that if things go as well as he thought they would, that could be his future.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: We really set this thing up, didn't we We did? Okay, point here is that the numbers are in now. TMZ had the headline initially about preliminary numbers from Nielsen about how it went and how the ratings were. Now, it aired what two three nights ago? Was it taped earlier? But it aired just a couple of nights ago, the.

00:14:47
Speaker 2: Twenty So it taped on December seventh, and it aired on the twenty third.

00:14:51
Speaker 3: Okay, so how did he do well?

00:14:55
Speaker 2: Preliminary data from Nielsen shows CBS had its quote smallest ever audience for the Kennedy Center Honors, with an estimated two point six five million viewers. That is a thirty five percent decline from the year before. And yes, Donald Trump knows ratings very well, that is a significant drop. So they had four point one million viewers in twenty twenty four and estimated two point sixty five million viewers this year.

00:15:24
Speaker 3: That's a pretty big drop.

00:15:25
Speaker 2: It's a huge drop.

00:15:26
Speaker 3: Now we knew.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: We need to note it was it aired two days before Christmas. People were doing other things, right.

00:15:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know when it aired in twenty twenty four. If there was a big distinction between the.

00:15:37
Speaker 1: Two but they wanted to at least give give a nod to that that perhaps that has something to do with it. Look, and people are watching TV differently, they are not watching as much TV. And yes, ratings generally have been declining, but that's from year to year significant.

00:15:52
Speaker 3: That's significant.

00:15:52
Speaker 2: So I could just found out. The twenty twenty four Kennedy Center Honors were aired on December twenty second, so not a big difference. It was Aday night, though, and that might be a bigger audience, bigger viewing audience than what would it have been on Monday night. I'm so bad.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: You should see her face right now, everybody. She's really trying to feacet this together.

00:16:13
Speaker 2: Thursday. No, it was yes, Thursday, it was a Tuesday night.

00:16:18
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I could have helped you out there, but I just.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: Then you enjoyed it. It's all right, that's fun.

00:16:24
Speaker 1: That was just an interesting note. Oh can't just wait stand by? What is this going to be his response?

00:16:29
Speaker 2: He's he's going to say that Nielsen got it wrong, and he's actually going to call for the end of Nielsen ratings, and he's going to want a better system put in place that's more accurate, because clearly they had a bigger audience, and that Nielsen is run by a bunch of left wing radicals.

00:16:45
Speaker 3: Wow, it seems like you've done this before.

00:16:48
Speaker 1: Uh, finally, here, focus before you go out and try to return that stuff. Something we'd like for you to take with you. It is our quote of the day, Robes. I got this is this is. This is a departure, but it is for you a little bit of a departure from what I would normally give the quote today.

00:17:03
Speaker 2: Ahead I would saying you pulled that from behind your back, like you were hiding it.

00:17:06
Speaker 3: Oh no, I just wasn't behind my back anyway. Here's your quote of the day, folks.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Quote it is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

00:17:18
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, that is.

00:17:22
Speaker 3: It's a I think it's a proverb. I think it's a Japanese.

00:17:26
Speaker 2: I'm trying to understand.

00:17:27
Speaker 1: It takes you a minute. It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. The idea there is to always be prepared for that conflict. It's better to always I guess, strengthen yourself to make sure you are you got sharp edges to make sure you're ready for what might come. Otherwise you might end up being a gardener and then when the conflict or war comes, you're not prepared for.

00:17:54
Speaker 2: Oh it is I that makes somewhere. I was really trying to figure out, Like it sounds cools, but what it mean.

00:18:00
Speaker 1: This is one I actually have the page here. This was up on my dressing room door at the Halls of GMA, and this was one where it took people. They would stop for a second in bond to this one. Most of the time they could read it and keep going, they would stopping. This is a good discussion.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: I would have been like, knock, knock, knock, because I don't remember seeing that one on your door. I would have definitely had to ask a few follow ups.

00:18:22
Speaker 3: Well, there you go, folks. Take it with you.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener.

00:18:29
Speaker 3: In a war.

00:18:30
Speaker 2: You are. Preparation is a big part of how you operate, and I appreciate it because it does look you can't prevent everything or anything from going wrong, but you can prevent a lot of it by being prepared. And you are always that and I appreciate you for being that person.

00:18:45
Speaker 3: You know well.

00:18:45
Speaker 1: We always say if things didn't work out, I would be great as doing like risk assessment for an insurance company something, or.

00:18:51
Speaker 2: An FBI agent or yes, or like yes, you could be James Bond. Your head's on a swivel.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: Nice, nice, nice, all right, folks, so that we always preciate you taking a run with us.

00:19:01
Speaker 3: But now I am T. J.

00:19:02
Speaker 2: Holmes and I'm Amy Rovoch. We will run with you soon. Have a great weekend of the study.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: M