Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Morning Run.
It's Friday, May twenty third.
I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ. Holmes and on this Friday Morning Run. Just when you thought that war between President Trump and Harvard University couldn't get any worse, well you won't believe what Trump has gone and done now essentially kicked every international student out of the Ivy League university.
Meantime, a judge says Trump cannot shut down the Department of Education and orders fired employees to be reinstated. Also on the run, an apocalyptic scene as a small plane crashes into a San Diego neighborhood, killing all six on board and injuring several others on the ground.
Also this morning, police say the suspect accused of killing that young Israeli couple in DC confessed, telling officers I did it for Gaza. Also another big day in the Ditty trial. The much anticipated witness rapper Kid Cuddy took the stand, describing Diddy as a Marvel supervillain.
Plus, police arrest a fourth person for helping one of the escaped inmates in that New Orleans jail break five though, are still on the run this morning.
And it might not be so easy to pinch your pennies anymore, because there ain't no more. The final batch was ordered by the Treasury Department as production of the copper coins come to an end, and a commencement speaker like none other. How would you feel about taking advice and inspiration on your big day from Kermit the Frog? You gotta stick around here, Robox feelings about this one a little later.
It remains to be seen.
For me. I need to hear more, so we will be doing that in just a moment. But we do begin our run on this Friday morning in Washington, DC. Just when you thought this thing could not escalate anymore, President Trump has gone and made another unprecedented and some already say very illegal moves in his ongoing fight with Harvard University. The administration has now taken away Harvard's ability to enroll international students.
Okay, let's say that one more time. You're hearing it correctly. Harvard is not allowed to accept, enroll, or retain students from other countries. All foreign students got to go. This would mean its current enrollment of about seven thousand international students will either need to transfer to another school or they're going to have to leave the country.
Okay, so how can the administration do this? Well, schools have to have a Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification and that comes through the federal government in order to accept those students from other countries. Homeland Security terminated Harvard's certification, which effectively bans the school from having international students or from hosting foreign professors or researchers, etc.
Yeah, and don't just take our word for it. Homeland Security wanted to clarify and said this in a statement. This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status end quote. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Home said the move is because the university has refused to turn over records for foreign students. But Trump v. Harvard has been bubbling
for months now. The President cut two point six billion dollars in federal funding to the school, saying the school hasn't done enough to fight anti semitism on campus. And this also comes after the school refused a list of administration demands for changes on campus.
The White House said they've turned their once great institution into a hot bed of anti American, anti Semitic, pro terrorist agitators.
Harvard says it's.
Working quickly to provide support and guidance to its campus community, who is well.
I can only imagine reeling at this point.
They have to be freaking out. We're talking about sixty eight as a quarter of their student population made up of foreign students, but they have so many more. It's a total of ten thousand. When you throw in like the professors, the researchers, the visiting professors, all these folks who come in, they have to leave the school. As of this moment, they don't know what to do. Harve's trying to figure.
Out what this is catastrophic?
What do you do now? A lot of other universities are probably out there recruiting. Now, hey, you can come over to us. Our certification is just good. But you know what's gonna happen next. The next move is going to be what a lawsuit? Expect that. But but yeah, this is being described as an illegal overreach by the administration. But yes, this is going to be caught up in court. But you know, all those four students, just that uncertainty of knowing whether or not you can continue education or
even stay in the country. That sucks.
I cannot even imagine what they must be thinking and feeling right now, and all the families of those students worried about their children.
I mean, this is just an absolute mess.
All right, let's continue our run here on this Friday. And actually, no, you can't shut down the Department of Education, mister president. That word from a judge yesterday who not only blocked Trump's executive order to shut down the DOE, but he also ordered that all fired workers be reinstated.
That's about thirteen hundred employees who were fired back in March. That was a part of the president's effort to shut down the department, which has been his publicly stated goal from.
The beginning from the campaign.
But in court, the administration argued that those fired employees were just a part of restructuring the department. The judge did not buy that, though, saying the record abundantly reveals that Defendant's true intention is to effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute.
Yeah, so authorizing statute translation, Congress created the department, so it would need to take another act of Congress to shut it down. You know what everybody said from the very beginning when Trump said he wanted to shut down the department. The judge ordered that those thirteen hundred fired employees should be reinstated. The administration vowed to quickly challenge the judge's ruling.
More lawsuits, all right.
Next up on the run, a horrific and tragic scene in San Diego after a small plane crashed into a neighborhood, killing all six people on board and injuring at least eight others on the ground.
Yeah, the co founder and at least two employees of a music talent agency Sound Talent Group, died when their plane hit an electrical wire and then crashed into a military housing complex. This happened around three forty five am local time. There was dense fog in the area, and according to the National Weather Service, there was only about a half mile of visibility at the time of the crash.
Air traffic radio transmissions showed that the pilot was concerned about the fog as he approached the airport. The Sesna was just two miles from the airport from landing when it went down. The scene on the ground was and still is apocalyptic. The debris field from the crash is a quarter mile long.
Yeah, multiple vehicles and homes caught fire. First responders said this looked like something out of a movie. One hundred people had to be evacuated from their homes because of the damage and the fuel spill caused by the crash. The San Diego Police Chief told reporters there was a jet fuel or there was jet fuel going down the street and everything on fire all at once. It was pretty horrific to see, he.
Said, Yeah, an authority scene.
Many families will be out of their homes for quite some time. The Sound Talent Group put out a statement saying, we are devastated by the loss of our co founder, colleagues and friends. Our hearts go out to their families, into everyone impacted by today's tragedy and today investigators will be back at the scene all day trying to piece
together what exactly happened. They say this is just an absolute disaster area, so it's going to take them some time before they can even move the parts of the plane on Saturday, so this is going to be a while before they figure it out. But they will be looking for that flight data recorder to find out what happened because there was no distress call. The last thing they heard from the pilot was you know, I'm three miles out, will be landing shortly, and then they never heard anything else.
Right, we will continue our run now. The next leg takes us back to DC, where we got new and chilling details about the murder of a young couple where both Israeli embassy staff members. The Justice Department is investigating the shooting and now as a hate crime and an act of terrorism.
The suspect, thirty one year old Alias Rodriguez, of Chicago, was in court yesterday and has been charged with murder. According to police, Rodriguez confessed to officers on the scene saying.
I did it. I did it for Gaza.
The affidavit details the incident in which the young couple was coming out of an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. It happened around nine o'clock on Wednesday night, when Rodriguez walked past the couple, but then turned towards them and fired yeah.
So he essentially waited to get past them, they described, and their backs were to him. He turned to them as they were walking away from him. And the woman, according to police, tried to crawl away after initially being shot. The suspect you could see on video, according to police, followed her, walked behind her as she was trying to crawl away. Said he even reloaded and fired at her again.
Now police say this weapon was legally bought in Illinois in twenty twenty, say he traveled to DC with it on the plane, legally carrying it because he declared it to the airline and it was in his checked bag. So the Justice Department hasn't decided yet, but they are considering seeking the death penalty. And of course wrote so much talk about the young couple thirty and twenty six, but we're about to get engaged. Recently, I think he just bought a ring within the past week.
It's devastatingly sad, and I believe I read that he fired twenty one shots at them.
This is disgusting.
So yeah, we will see what happens there at the Just Department, maybe seeking the death penalty, all right. The next leg of our run takes us back to Lower Manhattan where Shan didty. Combs was described by a witness yesterday as a Marvel super villain that was just one of a number of remarkable revelations and moments that at this point we should probably come to expect from the Diddy trial.
And yesterday the much anticipated testimony from rapper Kid Cutty, who briefly dated Casey Ventura, the ex girlfriend of Sean Combs. Now Kid Cutty, whose real name is Scott Muscutdy, testify that he believed Combs was behind a break in at his home as well as an incident in which his Porsche was torched by a Molotov cocktail.
Cutty said, at a meeting in La to try to squash their beef, he walked in and saw Sean Combs was standing there. This is me quoting him staring out the window with his hands behind his back like a Marvel supervillain. People in the courtroom actually cracked up when he made that comment. Cutty said, did he denied blowing up his car at that point, but then years later when the two ran into one another, he said, Diddy apologize.
Also on the stand yesterday, there was a forensic computer expert with Homeland Security testified about going through the laptops of Casey Ventura. Also a makeup artist who once worked for Ditty described some scenes she saw in which there was abuse, alleged abuse of Casey Ventura, Cassie Ventura. And then the manager of an La hotel was on the stand.
Managed a hotel that apparently Combs frequented. Now, the manager said they had a guest profile for Ditty that included notes to the hotel staff on how to deal with this particular guest. Sean did he komb?
Yes? What did those notes say?
Well, here's what they said, always spills candle wax on everything and uses excessive amounts of oil. It goes on to instruct their staff to place the room out of order upon departure for deep cleaning. It also said to please authorize an extra one thousand dollars when guest stays with us to cover any room damages. Who testimony wrapped yesterday for the holiday weekend and will resume on Tuesday.
But what a day in court.
That was incredible. It's in the system when this guest checks in, heads up, these are your notes. They talk about keeping other people away from the hallway because of smells and whatnot. They knew what that. I don't know if they exactly.
Knew what was amazing?
He was able to do what he did for so long, with so many people knowing or having an understanding of what was potentially happening, and yet crickets until Cassie Ventura filed her civil lawsuit.
All right, folks, we will continue on the run here on this Friday morning. On the next leg takes us to New Orleans, where police have made another arrest in the case of ten inmate escapees. As of this recording, five inmates are still on the run, and police say there's a fifty nine year old woman now who's been arrested for giving money to one of the escapees through an app That inmate remains at large and now Connie
Weed and has her names. She's been charged with one felon account of being an accessory after the fact she had reportedly been in contact with an inmate via phone before and after his escape. Of course, we're talking about these ten men. They escaped, been about a week now that they've been on the run. They escaped in the early morning hours May sixteenth, after ripping a toilet off the wall and escaping through a hole behind it. I didn't get this, didn't know this ropes, this detail until
this morning. Yeah, they were gone for seven hours, so.
If this is crazy, it reportedly took authorities more than seven hours to realize the inmates were missing. So they escaped around one am according to that surveillance video.
That's a good head start, that's right.
And then they weren't reported missing until eight thirty in the morning. And then get this, that news of the inmates escape didn't get reported to city police officers until ten thirty, two hours later. So there is a lot of finger pointing about the lapses in time. And if they had been more on top of things these they say all ten men would have been rounded up immediately.
This is going you talk about the people who've been arrested here so far, I wouldn't be surprised that they are more arrest and people fired for what has taken place. Because your behavior essentially put the public at risk.
That has absolutely been intimated by officials saying they are going to be There is going to be massive investigations about this, but the main focus right now is finding these five men because one of them has been convicted of killing four people. Prosecutors have had to leave the state to get away because they fear for their lives and their families' lives, witnesses, people have had to have had to go into hiding because they're so concerned about especially one particular inmate who is.
On the loose right now.
So it's not just the were talked about this one arrest, but three other people have been charged with helping the inmates, including a maintenance worker who's accused of shutting off the water so the inmates could remove the toilet. His story is the one that has changed. He said he was threatened and that's why he did it. And now his attorney came out and said no, no, no, no no, there was a plumbing issue and he was just doing his job and cut off the wart.
That's what Sterling Williams is now saying. Yes, but two other women have also been charged after helping some of the escapees with transportation and food. And again yeah, police are warning New Orleans residents to remain vigilant, saying the five men at large are armed and dangerous.
All right, folks, well stay with us here on this Friday morning. Ron when we continue in a moment, no more pennies for your thought. It's gonna take a nickel or a dime or a quarter because his pennies are not gonna be available anymore. We'll explain also, you've spent all that time in college and get to your big day, you commencement speech, and who gets up on stage a green puppet. We continue now on this Friday morning ron with the last and final order of pennies. It was
made by the Treasury Department. Early this year, Trump announced the US would stop producing new pennies. No more shiny new pennies than I can put in my loafers.
I just love that as No, no more new ones.
Because a twenty twenty four US Mint report showed the cost of making a penny increased by twenty percent. It currently costs more than three and a half cents to make one penny. That makes no sense, all right, So stopping penny production actually is going to meet an immediate fifty six million dollars in annual savings for the US. Back in February, Trump said he would rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it's a penny.
At a time.
Okay, so the nickel we're looking at you now. The US Mint also loses money making the five cent coin. It costs more than thirteen and a half since to make each nickel. No company would run like this if it cost you more to produce your product than the product is actually worth after you make it, no business upbrates that way.
It doesn't make any sense.
And also the Treasury Department had pointed out that the penny people just don't use it anymore, and I think probably it probably goes the same with a nickel too, because we're all paying.
Through our cards or Apple pay.
You know, we're not really using coins that much anymore.
Can I ask you and everybody else when you walk down the street and you see a penny or a nickel on the ground, do you even pick it up anymore?
Nah? If it's on its head, sometimes I think it's good luck of luck. But that's the only reason why not, because I need it. I don't walk around with pennies at all. All right, for the final leg of our run, this is your favorite story, TEJ. You've been waiting for it all morning long. Four years of college, one hundred thousand dollars intuition, graduation day comes and your commencement speaker is a frog.
It's not just any frog. It's not just any frog or this one is a quote star of stage, screen and swamp. Obviously we have to be talking about Kermit. Can you remember is there another famous frog I'm missing? There was one on some a cereal box or something.
One that you can kiss and turns into a prince.
What Yeah, frogs those frogs? Yeah, you kiss and he turned to a prince.
Yeah?
Is that how it goes?
Yeah?
Man, I need to brush up on my fairy tales. But we're talking about Kermit. The frog was a commencement speaker. He had the honor of being the commencement speaker last night at the University of Maryland.
And Kermit does have a deep connection to the university. It's where Jim Henson, the Muppets creator, attended college, graduating back in nineteen sixty.
There's even a statue of.
Henson and Kermit on campus. But what kind of advice does a green puppet actually have to give?
Apparently pretty good?
Okay, it wasn't. Some of these speeches they crack a few jokes and they don't always land. His didn't. Some didn't. He cracked a joke. It was an outdoor ceremony, so he was talking about the weather. At some point he said, weather calls for a one hundred percent chance of frog. Yep, there were crickets. Another joke, He said, I can tell that you have all worked your tails off, and as a former tadpole, let me tell you, losing your tail is a really big deal.
These are dad jokes.
Maybe we'll call them frog jokes, all right. He mentioned his friend Jim Henson and said he had a hand in everything.
I did you like that?
But I'm bomb?
No? Still, okay, nope, how about this one. My whole life, I've tried to appreciate who people are, even if it's a pig who hogs the spotlight.
No, no, there were kind of crickets in the arena too.
No, not laughing, good thing on the inside.
Okay, So to the more poignant moments, and there was some good stuff in here. You can if you didn't know who delivered it, you would take these messages just fine. How about this quote, always be on the lookout for old friends you just met. That's pretty good. Okay, that's pretty good. Also another line, that's the thing about love, It sticks with you even when you were apart. Talking about friends and relationships and folks you might be leaving
at your graduation, right you okay with that one? Okay, okay, oh yeah, all right, Kurr's picking up some steam here. Stay connected to your dreams, no matter how big or how impossible they seem. Dreams are where we figure out where we want to go, and life is how we get there. Oh yeah, he's he's warming up now, ain't he?
Okay?
And one more for you. Life's like a movie, right your own ending.
Okay, I mean all right, okay, here's his best line, all right, according to you, so I'm going to read it. This is what TJ says was Kerme's best line. As you prepare to take this big leap into real life, here's a little advice. If you're willing to listen to a frog, rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side, because life is better.
When we leap together.
Boom.
Okay, that was sweet. Boom, that was sweet.
Okay if it was boom, come on, Okay, he landed his plane.
Well, he incorporated leaping and he's a frog, so it was a little silly with still pointing you didn't okay. I listened to the entire commissment dressed this.
Morning, and you were laughing.
I saw you laughing, but it wasn't necessarily funny.
Okay, you were laughing at him, not with me.
Some people were rolling their eyes. Were really sitting here listening to a frog give my commisment address. But he's done it before, We've seen him in others. But he ended it with a song about rainbows, which you don't see that a lot of commencement addresses. It's different. But as a graduate who just spent one hundred thousand dollars, as a parent who just used all that money, and you get to this moment, do you care who the message comes from?
I mean it matters, you know what I would say. At least it was memorable.
You're gonna forget this one.
And yes you can laugh even at the frog if you weren't laughing with him.
Who was your commencement speaker?
I don't remember.
I don't remember mine was you know what it was?
It was some elected congressman and I don't know who it was. And it was very, very uninspiring. Sorry, if someone wants to look up our graduation, you're to figure that out, because now I feel like I just threw an insult at someone, but it was not memorable.
Mine was a woman. I think that's all I got.
Mine was a man, and I think he was an elected official.
They'll remember Kermit.
What about the woman? What did she do? Any clue she spoke?
Have no idea, folks. We gave you all those quotes from Kermit, but we are going to leave you on this Friday with you our quote of the day, something we like for you to consider as you go into the weekend.
Yeah, this one is time perfectly for what we were just talking about and the fact that it is Friday, we're about to head into the weekend. So here is our quote of the day. The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. This comes from a French writer from the seventeen hundreds, and it's pretty cool that even back then they understood you can be busy, you can be doing a bunch of If you aren't finding a way to enjoy your life, you have wasted a day.
And so we haven't wasted today. We have been laughing this morning. Even this episode has gone longer than we anticipated because we have been laughing and having a good time. So hopefully you can get some laughs in today and this weekend. With that, folks, we always appreciate you running with us and I am Robock.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mhm mm hmm