Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio podcast. Hello everyone, this is your Morning Run for Thursday, June twelfth.
I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ Holmes and on the run this morning, it was a matchup robes. A lot of people wanted to hear last year, Trump versus Newsome. Well, they're not getting it on a ballot, but they're getting it on a court docket. Today. Those two are going to face off in court all over what's happening in the streets of LA. But now it's not just La. We'll tell you how busy it was around the country last night with these anti ice protests.
And coming up on the run. Singer and music legend Brian Wilson, the co founder and genius behind The Beach Boys, has died. So many honoring the man who created the soundtrack of Summer for millions.
Also, a lot of folks are honoring longtime and beloved MTVVJ Ananda Lewis. She's passed away at the age of fifty two after a five your battle with breast cancer. Also this morning, another day of headlines in the Diddy trial with his former girlfriend on the stand. Now for the sixth day in.
A row plus singer and convicted sex trafficker r Kelly says prison officials are trying to kill him. He's asking for help from President Trump and the courts to release him to home detention. And there's a partial guilty verdict for former movie producer Harvey Weinstein after wild accounts of a hostile jury room.
Also, former ABC News correspondentary Moran breaks his silence after being let go from the network for a late night tweet against the Trump administration. And two hours and fifty four minutes and an AURA sleep score of fifty four. And it was all worth it for me to see Game three of the NBA Finals last night, Rhodes. I made a mistake not long ago, and I went to sleep on a game earlyer than I should have, and I missed the comeback. It's not gonna happen again.
How you feeling today with that less than three hours of sleeping?
Look look at my face.
You look pretty tired.
I am chipper as I can be.
This is the eyes. It's in the eyes. It's gonna be lids, all right. We're going to begin our run with more on those protests in LA and across the country. President Trump will face off against California Governor Gavin Newsom in court today, and we say face off, so to speak. Newsom and his state sued the Trump administration after the President sent in National Guard and Marines in response to all that on rest in downtown LA. They're challenging the constitutionality of Trump's moveth.
All right, So with all that's getting worked out in court, things were a little calmer on the streets of downtown LA for the sixth day of anti ice protest. The curfew seem to be working for a second straight night, though there were sporadic clashes and authorities at one point declared unlawful assembly around city hall. These protests are catching on in more than a dozen US city San Antonio, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Denver, Spokane, Seattle, New York, just to name a few.
Yeah, New York. We watched it again from our apartment window, seeing all the folks gathering, but again fairly peacefully, with a lot of signs and a lot of shouting and even marching bands. The Texas governor announced he will be deploying his States National Guard in anticipation of demonstrations there. We've already seen some in Austin and in Dallas. There was also a protest outside the arena for Game three
of the NBA Finals, which TJ just mentioned. Will have much more on that that, of course, happened in Indianapolis.
I will continue our run now. With the co founder and creative mastermind behind the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, has passed away at the age of eighty two. His bandmate said Wilson wasn't just the heart of the Beach Boys, he was the soul of our sounds. The melodies he dreamed up and the emotions he poured into every note changed the course of music forever.
Wilson's family made the announcement of his passing on social media, saying they are heartbroken and at a loss for words right now, adding that while they are asking for privacy, they realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Wilson founded The Beach Boys in the early nineteen sixties and with his brothers, his cousin and a good friend, and by nineteen sixty three they had their first big hit. I think you might have heard it before surfing USA
from there. Their hits are endless and timeless. My nineteen year old has the Beach Boys on loop. She loves their music.
So here we go. Help me, Ronda, I get around California girls. Good vibrations. God only knows. Wouldn't he be nice?
I could sing all of those right now. They're just so familiar.
See here's the weird thing to me. I can too. But I never grew up with Beach Boys in the house. And I'll be honest, you say the name Brian Wilson, it didn't come to mind. That is not an insult to It's more of a compliment. I never sought out their music, but it was ubiquitous, ubiquitous in my life. It's everywhere, to the point I know the lyrics to every single one of their songs, even though I didn't grow up seeking out the music.
Ah and they it's their sound was so fun. It was like summer fun, happy good times, Like you feel joyful when you hear their music. Yeah.
So thirty singles in the top forty with worldwide sales of more than on one hundred million. Wilson had several career achievements. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Beach Boys. That was in nineteen eighty eight. He's also in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he was also recognized by the Kennedy Center Honors.
After his wife died last year, Wilson's publicist and his manager became co conservators of him because he had a major neurocognitive disorder and he needed full time care and a full time care giver. Wilson is survived by his daughters. You might know them Carney and Wendy. They are two thirds of the singing trio Wilson Phillips, and five other children he adopted with his second wife, as well as grandchildren. But so many celebrities have reacted to the passing of
Brian Wilson. I love what Elton John said. He said that Brian Wilson was the biggest influence on my songwriting ever. And if you love the Beach Boys and you followed them, we certainly have them in studio with us several times, but John Stamos would sometimes be the drummer for them when they would go on tour. He said, Brian Wilson didn't just soundtrack my life. He filled it with color, with wonder and some of the most unforgettable emotional joyful moments I have ever known.
It's got to be one of the most influential groups in the history of music. And to lose and to hear them say, yes, it was a group, but to hear them say that he was the key, he was the mastermind. I mean, this is music royalty, this is music legend and genius that we just lost on a level we don't see that often.
Yeah. I'll be definitely playing some Beach Boys music today.
All right, I want to continue on the run here with another sad passing. Ananda Lewis, long time and wildly popular MTVVJ, has died at the age of fifty two. She was with MTV for its heyday, hosting several shows including Total Request Live and if you have a certain age, certainly remember TRL.
Yeah.
Her sister released the statement saying that Lewis was now quote free and in his heaven lyon Ah.
This is deeply personal for me because this is just so sad. Lewis was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in twenty twenty, and she spoke openly about her decision to go against doctor's advice to have a double mistectomy. And it's a decision she said she ended up regretting. She admitted this in a CNN interview just last year. This is what she said. Her plan at first was to get out excessive toxins in my body. I felt like my body is intelligent. I know that to be true.
Our bodies are brilliantly made. I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way. She says. I wish I could go back. It's important for me to admit where I went wrong with this. So she started out with stage three breast cancer. She didn't go through with the treatments her doctors had suggested, and then her cancer unfortunately metastasized, became stage four and sadly, Lewis passed away. She leaves behind the sun, but her sister.
She said so many beautiful things about her, and so many people have wonderful memories of her. And I appreciate the fact that she went on and said that publicly because some of these decisions, all of these decisions truly about your body and dealing with cancer, are deeply personal. But she wanted to let other women know that she regretted her decision not to have surgery.
Well deeply personal, you say, and I guess every decision feels like it's life or death. And she for her to come out admit I was wrong. I wish I'd done something different. She talked about she needs to be around for her son. This was tub, but it was important. Look, she left a hell of a legacy. And you remember she was the it girl. She was hot is anything I'm hot, not talking about physically, which is thoughtful. She was very beautiful, but she was just the it girl
everywhere doing everything for a long time. And she had a great energy. And she's one of those. She's a dear friend of a dear friend of mine and first met her at a wedding that I was actually m seeing and so her energy everything you saw on she jumped out at you with a wild, infectious energy about her. And so that's tough, but a lesson. She has taught us all and we appreciate that. So stay with us
here though on this morning run folks. When we come back, we'll get you updated about what's going on in the Diddy trial. Also let you know what happened in the Harvey Weinstein trial. This guy is uh, yes, he's just been found guilty, but what in the world is going on in the jury room? Also an update on r Kelly. He says, get me out of prison right now because somebody is trying to kill me. All right, welcome back, folks. We will continue on our run now with the Diddy trial.
This is officially week five, day twenty two of the trial, and today Jane will be back on the stand for the sixth straight day, testifying under that pseudonym to protect her identity. Jane dated Shawn Combs up until last year and is a key prosecution witness, one of four victims the government has based its case on.
She has been testifying to a pattern of abuse and control by Combs in which she felt obligated, she says, to participate in so called freak offs. Yesterday, under cross examination, Jane cried several times as the defense went through some loving and at times explicit messages between her and Diddy, and at times having Jane read her own words aloud. The defense has been trying to establish the Jane's participation in their hotel nights or freak offs was consensual and not a matter of coercion.
Deamn part of making the case, they pointed out that Jane had a two month stretch of her relationship in which she saw Diddy one on one. There were no freak COFs, point there being that doesn't sound like coersion, does sound like sex trafficking? You showed up for two months and this seemed to be a one on one relationship as well. She is expected to spend this day on the stand as well, supposed to be her last day.
And get this, The prosecution told the judge they expect to rent their case as early as next Wednesday and by the latest next Friday.
All right, and then the defense gets to make their case to the jurors as well. But before testimony even begins this morning, as I mentioned jurors, well, the judge is expected to address the government's request to kick one juror off the jury. This has been a developing issue all week and yesterday prosecutors told the judge that after investigating one particular juror, they concluded he showed a lack of candor with the court. That raises serious questions.
Now, what does that sound like? Lack of candor with the court. It sounds like he kept something.
From them, tell them something that they needed to know.
It needs to all right, So it has been made clear this week what exactly the issue is with this juror, But whatever the issue is, that the defense has no problem with this juror and is asking the judge to keep him, saying the government is making a quote thinly veiled effort to dismiss a black juror. Now, if juror were to be dismissed, would be the first time that
a jury has been dismissed in this case. In Robes, I've forgot to mention here what was a few weeks ago the judge got on to Diddy for making too much eye contact and acknowledging and almost communicating with one juror in particular.
So we don't know if that's the same juror, but we will have more information today when that trial resumes next up on the Run, Though, singer and convicted sex trafficker are Kelly says there is a murder for higher plot against him in prison, orchestrated by prison officials. The fifty eight year old Singer has been behind bars since twenty twenty two, serving a thirty year sentence for racketeering and sex trafficking.
His lawyers are asking that Kelly be moved from federal prison to home detention after they claim three prison officials have been plotting to have a fellow inmate kill him Okay. His attorneys released this statement, quote, Federal officers have solicited the murder of R. Kelly because he intends to expose the corruption underlying his federal prosecutions. We have filed our
motion to make sure that they fail. The only thing that can protect mister Kelly behind the prison walls now is the fact that now the world is watching, and we will call on the courts and President Trump to help put an end to the corruption that now threatens mister Kelly's life.
Kelly's lawyers provided a sworn statement from that inmate, who says officials offered to release him because he has a terminal illness if he murdered Kelly. That inmate also claims he was previously instructed to order beatings and killings of other inmates by prison officials and says he was transferred this spring to the facility where Kelly is being held and placed in the same unit as him to carry
out their orders. The Bureau of Prisons had no comment on these allegations, saying they will not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings. This is a wild story.
Um, it sounds like some wild conspiracy theory. But we will see how this one plays out. But asking for r Kelly to be released immediately at sinhom that's probably not probably a tall order, not gonna happen, all right, we go from a Diddy to R Kelly to now Harvey Weinstein. Yes, we turned to the Harvey Weinstein trial, where there's a partial verdict in the case and apparently
a hot mess in the jury room. The former Hollywood heavyweight has been on trial in New York for sex crimes, and after five days of deliberations, the jury came back yesterday and said guilty of criminal sexual misconduct against one woman, not guilty of that same charge against another woman. But then the jury said they were deadlocked on a third count of rape.
And before all of this there was some unusual jury activity. First, the jury four persons sent a note to the judge which read, cannot go back inside with those people. Those people being his fellow jurors. His note led the judge to call him into his chambers for a meeting in which the foreman said the jurors were attacking each other. Yea.
He told the judge he didn't feel safe going back in there because one juror told him he'd see him outside. What is happening? So how the judge handle all this, you might wonder. He told him to get their butts back in there, come back today, continued deliberating and try to come to a conclusion on the one count they're deadlocked on. And a reminder, all this going on, this was part of a retrial. He was previously convicted of some of these charges and then that was thrown out
on a procedural matter. But even forget all that, he's already serving a sixteen year prison sentence for convictions in California.
And this is in New York. So it's actually kind of I don't want to say his point less because I know the victims want justice and all of that, but he's already serving sixteen years. He is in extremely poor health, so any more years on his sentence, I don't know how actually how much time he'll actually serve extra beyond this sixteen years. But we shall see what
happens in court today. All right, Next up on our run Terry Moran has spoken, and he did not give an apology or even an explanation for his blistering tweet that cost him his job at ABC.
I at least wanted an explanation. Maybe I wanted to know what this was about. But Moran was initially suspended after his social media post in which he referred to both President Trump and his deputy chief of staff as world class haters. He said a whole bunch of other very personal stuff in there attacking them. But ABC News went further after initially suspending him and announced yesterday that Moran wouldn't return to the network.
Moran had an announcement of his own yesterday, posting a video on x of himself sitting behind a desk with a bookshelf behind him, and he spoke directly to the camera. He starts his message with this cheeky line. For almost twenty eight years, I was a reporter and anchor at ABC News. As you may have heard, I'm not there anymore.
Okay, And that's where he left it. He said, I'm not there any or I'm now here. On substack, he's announcing that he is doing something with Substack. He didn't give a lot of details about what he'll be doing, but said he wants to get at it on the important work that we all have to do.
So everything sounds fairly deliberate and intentional.
Yeah, they announced that he's not coming back to the network, and hours later he announced that he's got something else cooking.
Okay, all right, Well that was one of our conjectures that perhaps he went out with the blaze of glory intentionally. All right. The final leg of our run takes us to Indianapolis for Game three of the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. This was the first NBA Finals game in this basketball crazed city in twenty five years, and their hometown Pacers made it a special night. Yeah.
They won this game one, sixteen, one oh seven in front of a really fun, exuberant home crowd. It was cool to see them. This is love, this is Indiana, this is where basketball was born. They breathe the stuff, so.
That measures that's what you think of.
It's really cool to see them having a nice moment again. So now the Pacers up to one in the series. Game four is going to be Friday night in Indianapolis, as well.
Okay, at least if it's Friday night, you can sleep in on Saturday mornings, so maybe I'll even watch it with you dead.
It's worth it. But maybe we should get through my eyes.
I swear you're so heavy. Okay, oh, I know it's very true, all right, so we'll get through this very quickly. Here is our quote of the day, something we'd like you to consider it as you go about your day today. You might use this one too, TJ. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. That is from Henry Ford, and I love that the power of our thoughts. It's real. So if you think you can stay awake, TJ, you can.
And if I think I can't, I'll probably be napping soon. But with that tug that with you today, folks, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. And with that we always appreciate you running with us.
I am Tjing and I'm Amy Robot. Have a wonderful day today and will see you on the run tomorrow. M