Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio podcast. Good morning everyone, It's Monday, April twenty first. Welcome to Morning Run.
I'm Amy Roebuck and I'm TJ. Holmes and on the run this morning, breaking and shocking news. This morning, Pope Francis has died, just a day after the faithful and the world saw him frail but still triumphant as he gave the traditional Easter blessing and greeted crowds. We do have everything you need to know about this fast moving, breaking story, as information has been coming into us for the past several hours. We'll give you the very latest as we know it.
Also on this busy morning run, that Eastern truce between Russia and Ukraine did not last very long, and more states reporting measles cases. Plus the Pentagon needs a new cell phone policy.
Also on the run this morning, Supreme Court justices were up late Friday. Trump probably wishes they'd gone to bed early, and turns out that White House, how else list of demands to Harvard wasn't actually ever supposed to be sent to Harvard whoops.
And the most famous marathon in the world gets underway this morning. Plus Wendy's is trying to make up with Katie'll let you know how that's going. But first we do begin this morning run with that sad and breaking news. Pope Francis has died at the age of eighty eight.
The Vatican said he died at seven thirty five am Local time. That's about two thirty five am on the East coast here in the US. So this happened while most of us were sleeping and a lot of people waking up to the news this morning. Francis, as they put it, returned to the House of the Father Vatican, saying his entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and his Church. That dedication was on full display over the past several days.
It certainly wasn't. Perhaps that's why it felt so shocking when we heard the announcement early this morning, because he had seemed to be improving. You and I looked up at each other and just stared. There were no words. We were genuinely shocked. Yesterday and for the past couple of days, the Pope made several unannounced Holy Week appearances despite his weakened condition.
As the doctors remember told the Pope needed to take it easy. And why wouldn't they tell him that he'd been in the hospital for a month. Yes, they told him to avoid large crowds, I think specifically ropes. He talked about even not being around children.
Yes, a lot.
Yes, he was in the hospital for thirty eight days. He was fighting bronchitis initially turned into double pneumonia. His doctors only recently revealed that the Ponta nearly died on two occasions in fact, and one of them they were making a decision. The doctors were to end treatment of the Pope, but it was his personal nurse that came in and said, nope, you try everything, you do, not stop. And they were able to keep him going and he
was able to leave the hospital. And yes, even though despite the doctors telling him to take it easy, it's been fascinating to watch him or it was over the past several days, continuing to do his work to the last minute and fulfill his papal duties.
Yeah, he was fascinating and it was inspiring. Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, the Pope appeared from the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica to give his traditional Easter blessing without help
from any breathing apparatus. A lot of people noted. He said, brothers and sisters, Happy Easter, and with an assistant reading his Easter message, which will now perhaps be his final message, Francis called for peace and an end to the war in Gaza, saying, I appeal to the warring parties, call a ceasefire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.
The pope later greeted crowds in Saint Peter's Square from his popemobile for the first time since his hospitalization. This was a very busy and turned out to be final day for the Pope. Earlier, in the same day all of this, on Easter, he held a private meeting with Vice President J. D. Vance. Officials said the two had an exchange of opinions, as they put it, over migrants, refugees and prisoners.
Yes, and Vance is a devout Catholic. He released this on X today, tweeting I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him. I was happy to see him yesterday though he was obviously very ill. But I'll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful. May God rest his soul.
And a lot of talk and attention is going to turn, obviously to what happens now with the church. Well, there's going to be now nine days of official morning, the conclave where cardinals gather to choose the next pope. That's not going to start for at least another fifteen days. The pope will be taken to Saint Peter's Basilica, where he will lie in state for three days. But it won't look quite the same as previous popes.
That's right. Instead of an elaborate coffin made of Cyprus lead and no, Pope Francis opted for a simple wooden coffin lined with zinc. And he just made some of these changes recently. He didn't want mourners to come see his body, as we have seen with other popes raised up on this large platform. Instead, his body will remain in his coffin with the lid removed, and mourners can pass by and pay their respects. Pope Francis will also be the first pope in more than a century to
be buried outside the Vatican. He'll be buried in his favorite church, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome. The last pope to be buried there, by the way, was in sixteen sixty nine. But he is going to be remembered throughout the next days. We haven't heard from a lot of world leaders yet. People are just waking up to this news, but there will be so much more reaction in the company is about what this pope meant to the world.
And it's rare. This will be one of those cases where an eighty eight year old man in poor health who'd just spent a month in the hospital, where his death can be shocking, shocking because of what we just saw him do for Easter, and shocking because of the direction he seemed to be going. But in all he was doing, he was living like a man who knew something we didn't know, who knew he was dying, who
knew he was going to die. We talk about this all the time with people, whether you can your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, can you live like this could be your last day? And it seemed like and there was something just poetic. Sad as it is, but there is something beautiful about what we saw him do over the past two months.
Yeah, and what he was able to do on the holiest day of the Catholic calendar year on Easter, that he was able to give that final message of peace, That he was able to give that final blessing to the crowds that had gathered there to see him on Easter Sunday. It is fitting for a pope like Pope friends.
There any better way to put it. He got one more Easter in Yeah, and then past seven hours later.
Yeah, It's almost like he was waiting for that, like he wanted to get to that. And then once he fulfilled that last and final duty, I can go. He could go there you go now.
Well again, a sad day for a lot of folks, but wow, what the lessons he taught us over the past couple of months. We will continue, though, here on this Monday morning run with a different type of Eastern message, this one from President Trump. Yes, he issued an Easter message to the world via social media yesterday that included words of hope and well wishes for people around the world, and then he unloaded.
That's definitely a good way to put it. He unleashed a long, strongly worded, and sarcastic happy Easter message directed at Democrats as well as judges and law enforcement officials that he deems as obstructions to his agenda. But he saved his best and most biting stuff for former President Biden.
Now this is how he started it all. This was part one of his Easter message. And he says, quote Malany, and I would like to wish everyone a very happy Easter, whether you are heading out to church or watching service from home. May this day be full of peace and joy for all who celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is risen boom bam done. Nice. Could have left it there, but ahh, there is a part too. Now and Robes, I debated about this. We are not going
to interpret this for you. We are just going to read now in its entirety, the second part of President Trump's Easter message to the world. Robes take it away.
Happy Easter to all, including the radical left, lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring murderers, drug lords, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane and well known MS thirteen gang members and wife beaters back into our country. Happy Easter. Also to the weak and ineffective judges and law enforcement officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never
be forgotten. Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed millions of criminals to enter our country totally unvetted and unchecked through an open borders policy that will go down in history as these single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was by far our worst and most incompetent president, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
But to him, to the person that ran and manipulated the auto pen, perhaps our real president, and to all of the people who cheated in the twenty twenty presidential election in order to get this highly destructive moron elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very happy Easter. I love that he added sincerity when clearly it was anything but happy Easter.
And that's it.
It's not going to look. Everybody else is out there and they can interpret it. We're just going to read it to you in its entirety. That is what the President of the United States passed along to the world on Easter, not even Easter. Easter. We will continue here on this morning day morning run with the Supreme Court. This weekend of the Supreme Court, they told the Trump
administration stop doing what you're doing. The Justice has issued an emergency order in the wee hours of Saturday morning that blocks the administration from continuing to deport Venezuelans held at a detendent center in Texas.
These Venezuelans have been the center of intense and ongoing court battles recent weeks, as the administration has been deporting to Venezuelan migrants under the rarely used Federal Alien Enemies Act, which allows for quicker deportation if people deemed a threat to this country. The Court votes seven to two. They voted to seven to two to halt the deportation after hearing an emergency appeal.
Yeah, the Court didn't explain its reasoning in the order. But this is a big deal because this has been an ongoing controversy with President Trump. Yes, this is a part of his immigration agenda, in trying to have a safe border, in trying to get people out of the country he deems are dangerous. So this is a major ruling that they have shut this down at least temporarily. Now. They didn't explain their reasoning, like I said, in doing so, but two justices who dissented, they sure did make their
feelings known. These two justices were Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Alito wrote, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower court a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order. So some strong dissent there.
Don't know where that case is going next. Before now, this controversial deal, and they've been talking about one person in particular who was accidentally deported that case. That story continues, Supreme Court. Things stop for now. This isn't over just yet. But that was an important.
Update this COO all right, Well, next up on the run. So much for an Eastern truce between Russia and Ukraine. Now both sides are blaming the other for breaking what was announced to be an end to fighting for thirty hours in honor of the Easter holiday.
Yeah, on Saturday, putin announced the truce to start later that day at six o'clock local time, and and at midnight in Moscow. On Sunday, Ukraine agreed, but then Ukraine the president Zelensky, he claimed its front line had been attacked more than two thousand times since the beginning of Sunday. What he's talking about, they'd been hit some twenty three hundred times by artillery fired by Russia. So that's where
two thousand times. It sounds like a lot, but they've been counting how many of those.
Long yet, and Russia was counting too, because it claims it defended itself against hundreds of drones and shells coming from Ukraine in the same time period. They gave specific numbers, saying Ukraine fired four hundred and forty four times from guns and mortars and carried out nine hundred drone strikes. Very specific. Zelenski said Russia was only trying to create a pr campaign and an impression of a ceasefire, while Russia insists its troops strictly observed the ceasefire.
Yeah, even though there was still some fighting, Zelenska made it clear over the weekend that he still would like to extend the Eastern truce for some thirty days. We will continue here on this Monday morning run. And as a general rule, yeah, you're not supposed to keep things from your spouse, But if you're the Secretary of Defense, does that include war plans? Is that okay? Do you have to tell your spouse about that?
Well?
The New York Times is reporting that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a US military strike in a second group chat that yes, included his wife.
And to be clear, this was a different group from the one that set off a controversy last month. In that case, a journalist was accidentally added to a signal group chat with top security officials, and in that chat details of an upcoming US military strike and Yemen were revealed. Well, the Times is reporting that Hegseth used his personal cell phone to discuss those same military plans in a separate group chat that included his wife and his brother.
Yeah, thirteen people, according to the Times, were on that chat, but none of them were cabinet level and none of them had any business discussing any war plans. Several people who were on it were advisors to Hegseth, His brother included who is officially an advisor to him, but it is his brother. His wife was on it as well. She has no official role. She doesn't do anything at the Pentagon. A Pentagon spokesperson contends that no classified information was ever shared or therefore, let it go.
People, all right. Next up on the run, turns out the whole escalation between Harvard University and President Trump might have been a big old mistake. That is a pretty big oopsie. Remember that email Harvard received from the Trump administration that had that list of demands about hiring and admissions practices, the one that Harvard refused to comply with.
Yeah, that same list of demands that set off the whole back and forth that ultimately led to Trump taking away two point two billion dollars in federal funding. Yes, that same list of demands that the Trump administration threatened out to remove the university's tax exempt status. Yes, that list of demands should never have been sent, according to The Times. Yes, it came from the White House Task Force on Anti Semitism, and it should not have been sent and was actually never even authorized.
Well, a senior White House official trying to do some cleanup says the Administration stood by the content of the letter, though, and what it took issue with was Harvard's decision to publicly refuse the administration without continuing discussions. Here's what the White House said. It was malpractice on the side of Harvard's lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the Anti Semitism Task Force, who they
had been talking to for weeks. Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign.
The White House says, said the task Force and the Trump administration simply wants to ensure that schools like Harvard that received taxpayer money follow civil rights laws. President Trump claims he wants to cut down on anti Semitism at elite schools after several were the site of protests about the Israel Gaza war.
Harvard is not buying though, this notion that it should have checked in with the administration after receiving the email to make sure that the email was actually the email they should have received. They said that the email was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, and was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official, so they had no reason not to believe that the letter was in fact intended for them.
All right, folks, save with us here on this Monday Morning Ron when we come back. Yes, measles is showing up in more states. Also, Wendy's is trying to do a do over with Katie Perry, but their stopping short of an apology and Minecraft as characters in a video game.
Are no match for vampires at the box office.
We continue now. Next leg of our Monday Morning run takes us to measles, which is now spreading, with three more states now reporting their first cases over the weekend, bringing the total now to more than eight hundred cases across twenty seven states.
Louisiana, Virginia, and Missouri are all now reporting their first measles cases, and all three cases are linked to international travel. In Missouri and Virginia, both patients are children, their vaccination status unknown right now, but in Louisiana, the only information we have on that patient is they are unvaccinated and live in the New Orleans area.
The authorities are now working on alerting people who may have been exposed to these newly documented patients right now. This year's cases have nearly tripled the numbers total numb number of measles cases in all of twenty twenty five. For this year continues, at the current rate, we could reach our highest number in more than three decades. Six states have declared measles outbreaks Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Kansas, Indiana,
and Michigan, Texas. Of course, with the overwhelming bulk of the cases, that's where the outbreak and all of this pretty much began, all right.
Next up on our run, Wendy's is trying to smooth things over after starting a beef with popstar Katie Perry, but was not willing to go so far as to give an actual apology.
Yeah, after Perry returned from her star studded flight to space aboard Blue Origin, wendy said on social media, can we send her back? In a later post that showed her kissing the ground when she got out of that capsule, Wendy's mocked her with I kissed the ground and I liked it.
They also posted when we said women in stem this isn't what we meant ouch. I didn't realize they didn't just double down, they tripled down.
Well.
After all of those tweets, Wendy's explained its actions this way, we always bring a little spice to our socials. But when has a ton of respect for Katie Perry and her out of this world talent. That does not work for me enough. How do you have a ton of respect for somebody after you're mocking them continuously online?
Can anybody just say, Okay, how about this just take a joke. It's supposed to just be a little funny. I don't know, Yeah, how'd you take it? Seemed unnecessary? Like why are they going after Katy Kerry?
Yeah?
And they like they singled her out, which was a little strange. And then, like I said, it wasn't just one kind of off like you know, handed remark er fun It was like multiple.
But this good marketing. Then we're talking about Wendy's and we normally never would have. Is that all they wanted to do?
Possibly? And if so, it works?
Bring a little spice? Do they have the spicy chicken? Is this a whole thing?
Where's the beef? Like I thought they were going to play off that maybe a little more too for those of us in the eighties who remember that campaign.
They're playing us all. We continue here on this Monday morning run with the box office a new winner, and we are actually trying to get out to see this pretty quickly. Minecraft a Minecraft movie. Look, it's been doing Gangbusters biggest movie of the year actually the box office,
but now make room for Sinnus. Yes, vampire movie, a horror flicks at nineteen thirty two, starring Michael B. Jordan, Written and directed by Creed and Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, it brought in forty five point six million dollars domestically and as won the weekend Fox Afice.
Yeah, we're so excited about this. Sinners only cost ninety million to make, so they're on their way to being very profitable. Hopefully. They're getting rave reviews from critics and moviegoers alike, scoring ninety eight percent on Rotten Tomatoes and getting an A on Cinema Score that's where people who actually go to see the movie give it a ranking. It also drew in a refreshingly diverse audience thirty I
don't know how they get these numbers. I don't know if you have to give your ethnicity when you're buying a movie ticket, but this is what they said. Thirty eight percent of moviegoers to this movie. We're black, thirty five percent white, eighteen percent Hispanic and five percent Asian. But they were touting just how universally appealing it was.
Somebody just sitting outside in the theater click think he's black.
Yeah, I mean, seriously, how do they get that? I was really confused?
Oh man, Minecraft Movie. Though it was close second forty one point three million dollars for its third week, That is great. Actually, it's now at nearly seven hundred and twenty one million dollars in global ticket sales this weekend. Strong opening for centers is most likely great news for the next couple of weeks. Given the incredible reviews and the power of word of mouth. We will see this will probably do some kind of a review on it.
But Ryan Coogler is one of the few directors out there that can bring people to the box office with his name. Yep, this work. This is an original piece. This is not some Minecraft movie based on a video game or some other older ip. This is great.
So this is innovative, really cool horror storytelling. I'm so excited to see this, all right. Also excited about today because next up on the Run, we want to wish a big old good luck to all of you runners out there. Today is the one hundred and twenty nine Boston Marathon. It's the world's oldest marathon and it always falls on Patriots Day, which is always the third Monday of April, which is today.
So we got the first wave of runners. It's going to start running around ten o'clock Eastern time this morning. They'll have until five thirty the finish line closes at that time. Most runners need about six hours to finish this thing. It's one of seven major marathons around the world.
Who just added the Sydney It was a Sydney because I had six and then I realized, wait, wasn't there a seventh one third? So used to saying six majors Sydney now me, So, yes, there are seven majors.
This is one of the seven. Boston is the big one, and it's one that if you're trying to do all the majors, A lot of people wait to do this one last because it is considered probably the hardest one out there because of the route and because of elevation. It has a heartbreak hill towards the end. The last place you want to be on a hill at the end of a marathon. That kind of breaks people.
Yeah, I'm petrified to do this marathon.
I don't.
It actually gives me like fear in my heart. At mile twenty there is a full half mile stretch up hill, and it's the last of four difficult hills on the course. They're known as the Newton Hills. So when you think you're done, you got a full half mile up. The race is not just hard to run, it's hard to get into. Race officials received a record thirty six three hundred and ninety three applicants this year. They had to
turn away more than twelve thousand qualified runners. And when I say qualified runners, if you are in the age group between eighteen and thirty four, you have to be able to prove you can run the marathon in three hours. That is unbelievable. And for women three hours and thirty minutes. This is in the youngest age group. And to get in, even if you qualified with that, you still had to beat it by almost seven minutes to get in. That's
how competitive this is. That's how unbelievably athletic and impressive these runners are in the Boston Marathon.
Thank good luck to them. And this is what we are, those weirdos. We will be watching TV today watching people run. It's fun, it's wonderful. We're marathoners, so we absolutely get into it. Yes, we're looking forward to that today. It's
very busy morning, this morning an unexpected one. We're going to leave you with a quote of the day, as we always do, but this one comes to us that we just got last Thursday, and it's coming to us from Pope Francis, and we can't say enough just how Yes, he's an eighty eight year old man frail had been in the hospital, but it was shocking to hear this morning that he had passed. It's beautiful, but it was shocking and it is sad, given we thought he was
on the way to recovery. But something he said to us last said to us. We didn't talk to him personally, but what I'm saying said to us all when he was leaving a prison last week that he visited on Thursday, Robes, where he in the past has washed the feet of the prisoners before performing something that Jesus did. He didn't do it this year because he says he wasn't in good enough health to do so. But a reporter asked him something on the way out and that's where we find our quote of the day.
Yes, the Pope said, I am living as I can. And the question he was asked is how are you planning to spend your Easter. They were trying to figure out if he was going to be making an appearance or if he was going to be doing any official duties as pope, and his quote was so simple, I am living as I can. And I went back to go look at some Pope Francis quotes and you came up. You said, you know what, I think? He said something
really powerful. It was really short, but it was so applicable to so many, so many people who were suffering, so many people who don't know what tomorrow brings, so many people who may be ill or just not in a good place. It's so powerful. I am living as I can. I love that.
So with that, folks, take that with you on this Monday, a day to reflect a lot of people just wrapping up. We saw a lot of people out for enjoying time with family on Easter yesterday. It's always something beautiful about even the colors. There's something that's beautiful about It doesn't matter if you're a Catholic or not. Even religious or not, even Christian or not, but there's just something about it
in this guy. SA very good example over the past two months of how to live and how to serve. So no matter what you think about him in policy, it is another day for all that stuff with the Church. It's just he's a man who set a great example.
Yeah, and it's about renewal, it's about rebirth and perhaps just him now. I love the idea of him returning to the Father, as the Vatican put it. So it's just a lot to think about and a lot to reflect on, and hopefully a lot to inspire all of us today. And with that, thank you for running with us on this Easter Monday. I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ.
Holmes. We'll see you on the run tomorrow