Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Good morning everyone, It's Tuesday, April twenty second. Welcome to Morning Run.
I'm Amy Robox and I'm TJ Holmes. And on this Morning Run, commemorations all over the world for Pope Francis, and we have just learned this morning when the Pope's funeral will take place. As cardinals around the world pack their bags for Rome and Conclave preparations.
Get underway, President Trump continues his public attacks against the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and US docks continue to nosedive. Plus Trump comes to the defense of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth despite a report that he's already looking for his replacement following a second group chat controversy.
Also on the Run this morning, you really didn't think Harvard was gonna let two point two billion dollars go without a fight, did you? They're not. Also, your student loan payment is due for the first time in five years, and the DOE plans to force people to pay up.
Plus, Homelands Security Secretary Christy Nomes Pirst apparently wasn't that secure even under the watchful eye of Secret Service, costing her one thousands and a whole lot more. Plus House Republicans have renewed their efforts to prosecute New York mayoral candidate and former Governor Andrew Cuomo for statements he made five years ago.
Plus on the Run this morning, NFL Hall of Famer and ESPN host Shannon Sharp accused of rape in a fifty million dollar lawsuit. Also, a group claims to have proof that Scott Peterson is innocent and taking its claims to court, and the government is suing Uber. Want to know why, Maybe she'd just go check your Uber receipts.
We'll explain that we certainly will. But we begin our run this morning in Rome, where the Vatican has released the official cause of death for Pope Francis. The eighty eight year old Pontiff died from a stroke and irreversible heart failure. The Pope's death certificate noted that the Pope fell into a coma in the hours leading up to his death on Easter Monday.
Also, the Vatican has just announced that his funeral will be held on Saturday at ten am local time. President Trump says he and First Lady Milania Trump will travel to Rome for the funeral posting we look forward to being there.
Last night, the Vatican held its first public commemoration of Francis with a sunset Rosary prayer inside Saint Peter Square, and also in keeping with tradition, Vatican officials locked and sealed the doors to Pope Francis's formal residence with red ribbon and a wax seal.
Yeah, this is part of a Catholic ritual. When the seat of the papacy is vacant, it marks the end of Francis's term as Pope and the beginning of the conclave process. During the conclave, the role of Ray Fines will be played by Cardinal Kevin Farrell. He's an Irish born American cardinal who will serve as the Vatican's administrator
during the conclave period until a new pope is chosen. If, of course you are familiar with that all to popular and Oscar nominated film Conclave, Yes, this is the role that Ray Finds was playing during that movie.
Yeah. And by the way, Conclave I saw was just put now on Prime video. We were looking for yesterday was it had left Peacock but now it is on Prime So if you do want to watch Conclave, to catch up. It is an interesting, fictitious but somewhat historical adaptation of what we may be seeing in the next coming days. Some cardinals have already begun to make their way to Rome from around the world, and they'll continue to do so over the next fifteen days or so
to officially elect a new Pope. Cardinal Timothy Dolan here in New York City is giving a noon mass in honor of Francis at Saint Patrick's Cathedral today and then he will head to Rome for the funeral and the conclave process.
And tomorrow morning we are expecting the Vatican to move the body of Pope Francis in his simple wooden coffin to Saint Peter's Basilica so mourners can pay their final respects. Pope frances will lie in state until the night before the funeral.
And we would encourage all of you all to check out a podcast we did yesterday on the passing of Pope Francis. Also interesting. You've seen a lot of the world leaders have paid their respects and talked about the impact Pope Francis has had on the world and on their country specifically. But we also saw a pretty cool display. Last night, the Empire State Building was lit up in golden white and honor Pope Francis. The Eiffel Tower also
went dark in honor of the Pontiff. Well next up on the run, President Trump publicly attacked the chairman of the Federal Reserve once again, and once again, the stock markets tumbled.
Trump called the Fed chair Jerome Powell, a major loser for not lowering interest rates, writing on social media, there can be a slowing of the economy unless mister too late, a major loser, lowers interest rates now. So he gave them two derogatory nicknames in one sentence. Impressive, mister Trump. The financial experts will tell you that Trump's tariffs have already caused market declines, and that steady stream of insults against power it's not helping matters now.
The S ANDP closed down nearly two and a half percent. It's lost sixteen percent since February. The Nasdaq also fell more than two and a half percent and is down eighteen percent since the beginning of the year. The Dow also fell a thousand points, and the US dollar dropped to its lowest level in three years.
Last week, President called for Powell to be fired, saying his termination could not come fast enough. The President now has his people looking into the matter, trying to figure out if he has the power to fire him or not. There is a long standing Supreme Court ruling from nineteen thirty five. It upheld Congress's authority to create independent federal agencies like the Federal Reserve, and board members can only be terminated before their terms are up for cause.
Powell has already said publicly he would not step down if Trump asked him to, and buy Trump's words, he didn't ask him to, but he's telling him he wants him to. Trump could always just wait Powell out as TERMUS FED share ends a year from now, on May fifteenth, twenty twenty six.
We continue now on this morning run and next up. Despite the headlines, Pete Hegseth is doing a great job as Secretary of Defense according to his boss. His boss being President Trump, who has publicly stood by his seemingly constantly underfire Defense secretary. After reports this week that Hegseth shared sensitive military information in a group chat that this time included his wife and his.
Brother, Hegseth also went on the defensive, saying this is what the media does they take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputation. NPR is reporting that, despite what Trump told reporters yesterday, the White House is in the process of looking for a new Defense Secretary to replace hegsas.
The White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levell denied Levitt excuse me? Carolyn Levitt denied MPR's report, posting on ex that the President stands strongly behind Hexath. Several Democrats have already called for hexas resignation. No surprise, it's been a rough couple of days of revolving doors at the Department of Defense. Monday, the Pentagon announced hegsas chief of Staff is leaving his position and will now handle special projects at the DoD.
And that all comes out after several top aids to Hegseth were fired late last week as part of a leak investigation. And yes, it was just last month that Hegseth was lambasted after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat with senior White House officials discussing real time military strikes in Yemen.
Next up on the Run Now we continue our ongoing and popular series called Hood and Gone ensued Trump now today's plaint of Harvard University, the prestigious Ivy League school, has filed suit against the Trump administration for what you guessed it withholding that billions of dollars in federal funding.
The White House announced it was freezing two point two billion dollars in federal funding to Harvard after the school refused to make changes that the administration wanted, including changes in admission policies and hiring practice, among other things. Harvard claims the administration is unlawfully keeping the money from them as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard.
President Trump, however, claims he wants to root out anti Semitism at elite schools after several with a site of protests about the Israel kaza War. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, the Harvard president said, and I quote, the government has not and cannot identify any rational connection between anti semitism concerns and the research that Harvard does.
All right, next up on our run, listen up, use student loanees out there. A major change is just around the corner, and it could force millions to start repaying their student loans, whether they like it or not.
Yeah, the Education Department just announced that they will resume involuntary collection of federal student loans that are in default. What does involuntary means means they're about to start garnishing some wages and possibly taking any state and federal payments you're owed, such as your tax refault.
An estimated five million of these loans are currently in default. But President Trump hit pause on student loan payments during his first term, giving people a reprieve during the pandemic. President Biden extended that pause and expanded on student debt relief, but Supreme Court has ruled his plan is in unconstitutional.
So this is now actually going to be the first time in five years that people with federal student loans will have payments due. The Department of Education says they'll unpause payments May fifth. That's when they'll start, and people will start getting notices in the next couple of weeks. Secretary Linda McMahan of the Education Department put it this way, Americans will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies. It was a policy, however,
that was very helpful of people during the pandemic. To have those extra dollars they didn't have to worry about was great. But you get used to not paying a loan for five years and all of a sudden it to do that's going to throw you off.
Yes, certainly, well all right. Next up on the run, the woman in charge of our nation's security, who is being protected by the Secret Service, had her purse stolen out of Washington, d c restaurant.
This should be impossible to happen. Homeland Security Secretary Christi nom acknowledged that the thief got away with her Drynse apartment keys, passport, Homeland Security badge, blank checks, and about three thousand dollars in cash. Law enforcement says the Secret Service reviewed the restaurant's security camera footage and saw a white male wearing a medical mask steal her, post her bag and leave the restaurant.
Yeah, it happened at the Capitol Burger restaurant on Easter Sunday. The Secret Service has now launched an investigation and is monitoring any use of gnomes stolen goods and for whatever reason, the Department of Homeland Security felt like they needed to explain why she had so much cash in her purse, which doesn't require an explanation, but they said her family was in town. She was using it to pay for
the dinner, to buy Easter gifts. So she had all of that in her purse, prepared to spend away, and instead a thief took it all away.
That's what they want to explain. Can you explain to me how the woman in charge of this nation's security, how anybody is allowed to get close enough to her to steal her purse with include it her security bage. I don't care about the three thousand dollars. I don't give a damn. Yeah, I care. How somebody got this close to her in a restaurant should be impossible.
It should be impossible, and especially when you have secret Service guarding you, that is disturbing beyond belief.
I should wait, maybe she left it sitting somewhere accidentally. I need to hear those details. Homeland Security is still the HHS Secretary's purse, and he doesn't have a purse. But you get my point, Yes, I do. Anybody but the Homeland Security Secretary. We can tell you on our run here. We will stay in Washington where a Congressional committee wants former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo prosecuted and
has asked the Justice Department to do just that. The Republican led House Oversight Committee says Cuomo lie to Congress when he gave testimony about New York's COVID response.
The committee chair said Cuomo made criminally false statements about how he managed the pandemic in nursing homes and called him a man with a history of corruption and deceit now caught red handed lying to Congress. But Cuomo's spokesperson calls that's statement nothing more than a meritless press release that was nonsense last year and even more so now.
Yeah, you see, this is the second time around. The same committee referred Cuomo for prosecution previously, but the last time they did it was during the Biden administration and nothing ever came of that. So the Republican chair thought, hey, I'll give it another go with the Republican president and his handpicked attorney general.
Now, this could complicate things for Cuomo, who is currently running for mayor of New York. He resigned as governor amid sexual harassment allegations in twenty twenty one, so he does have some skeletons in his closet hanging over his head, but right now he is the leading candidate in the Democratic primary, which will be held in June. We'll see if this has any impact on his pulling numbers once you.
See the matchup that's coming. One is the current mayor who just had charges dropped against him for federal corruption. Another is the former governor of New York who possibly is facing a Department of Justice prosecution.
And those two will likely go head to head in November. We will see how the city of New York feels about either man.
Nah, it's a good town. Stay with us here on this Morning Ron. When we come back, a former a former NFL tight end who is an NFL Hall of Famer and an ESPN host, has just been hit with a fifty million dollar lawsuit. Also, Scott Peterson is innocent, and a group says they can prove it. Stay with us. We continue now on this Tuesday Morning Ron with NFL
Hall of Famer and ESPN host Shannon Sharp. He has responded to a fifty million dollars sexual assault lawsuit filed against him, calling it a blatant, cynical attempt to shake him down for millions of dollars.
A woman only identified as Jane Doe filed the suit in Nevada, claiming Sharp raped her on two occasions, was abusive, and even threatened to kill her during what she calls a rocky, consensual two year relationship. She claimed she met the former all pro tight end at a gym in twenty twenty three, when she was nineteen and he was fifty four. Now.
She said they started a relationship in which he became more controlling and violent over time. This is all according to the lawsuit. Sharp called it full of lies, distortions, and misrepresentations, vow to fight the allegations vigorously in court. Sharp is host of the popular Chayshay Club podcast and there is a regular on ESPN's First Take.
Now.
The Atlantic is reporting that he will in fact be in his regular spot today on the air on ESPN's First Take, but they say he is not expected to address the allegations at all, So he's going to go business as usual.
All right. Sharp won three Super Bowls during his playing days, two with Denver, one with Baltimore. When he retired, he was the all time leader in catches, yards and touchdowns for tight ends. And by the way, this is of note the Jane Doe represented in the lawsuit by the same Texas lawyer, Tony Busby. You should know his name by now because he's the one who's brought all of those civil cases against Sean Diddy Combs. He also brought it against Jay Z correct So yeah, that's gone now.
But he certainly has been litigious over the past couple of months, years, perhaps even.
And people hear that name and they are quickly dismissive in some of these suits. What's going to come over them? But he also represented the massage therapists of twenty plus of them who are assumed the Cleveland quarterback to Shan Watson and got settlements in that case. So people to kind of roll their eyes at this point when they see his name. But still he's gotten some results.
He's become the Gloria Allred of women who are fighting back against famous men. Apparently.
Wonder how Gloria Hills about you making that?
Well, I mean she's been I mean she has been that lawyer for so many women.
Oh, we continue here on this Tuesday morning run now with the La Innocence Project. It has asked a court to overturn Scott Peterson's murder conviction, saying he is innocent of killing his wife and their unborn child, and they claim they can prove it.
Yeah. The group filed a four hundred page petition with the California Court of Appeals after it conducted a year long investigation. They say Peterson was denied his right to due process and a fair trial. But they also claim to have evidence of Peterson's innocence, in particular scientific evidence that shows the date of death of Peterson's unborn child was later than prosecutor's claim.
Also Scott Peterson's lawyer's claim to have an expert in water movement that can prove that Lacy Peterson's body was not dumped where prosecutors say it was. Peterson, you might remember, was convicted of killing his wife, Lacey, and their unborn child. That conviction was in two thousand and four. This was a case, of course, that captivated the country.
It certainly did. Lacey was just twenty seven years old. She was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve of two thousand and two. Her body was then found in the San Francisco Bay the following spring. The la Innocence Project says every aspect of the prosecution's theory as to how the crimes in this case were committed has now shown to be false.
Peterson, who is now fifty two years old, has always maintained his innocence and repeated that in this latest filing, writing I did not and could never harm or kill my family. He was previously denied a new trial in twenty twenty two. However, his death sentence was overturned in twenty twenty so he's now serving life without parole. A lot of legal experts who have looked at this filing were impressed by its detail and the work that had
been done. The Innocence Project certainly has a record of actually being successful in getting people literally off death row in some cases. But now we have to wait see what this court does, if it does anything, So the Innocence Projects say they'll wait for that to determine what their next moves can and should be.
Yeah, it is. It's fascinating, and I know a lot of people are waiting to see what happens in that case for the final leg of our run today, have you checked your latest uber receipts. Perhaps you should once you hear why the Federal Trade Commission is suing the ride share app.
FTC claims Uber has been charging you, the customer for its Uber one service without their consent and has made it too difficult for people to cancel the service. I didn't know what this was. The Uber one subscription. It's a monthly fee that gives members free delivery and discounts on rise ye.
I didn't know what this one was either. But the FTC says that in addition to enrolling people in the plan without their consent, Uber has also charged customers before the billing date, automatically charging them before that free trial period ended. The FDC goes on to say that when customers do try to cancel, this is crazy. They got
very specific here in the lawsuit. Some users, they say, were forced to click on as many as twenty three screens and take thirty two actions before they were able to cancel.
Well, if they're keeping over it, I have a bunch of people I would like for them to sue. Uber has pushed back lawyers, saying that the FTC rushed its investigative process and it's complaining against Uber is based on misunderstandings. The company maintains that it does not sign up or charge people without their consent, and that customers can now cancel on the app within twenty seconds or less. I don't know. I've just picked up my phone. I don't
know if I'm signed up or not. I don't even know how to check.
I think you have to go into these settings of your Apple phone to see what your subscriptions are. But it is a little unnerving, and no, there were so many reports from folks who said that, and you would I saw you yesterday trying to cancel something, and I thought of you when I was reading the frustration by so many customers saying that when they would get a notice from Uber saying you need if you want to cancel, you'll have to notify us, then there was no way
to notify them. They couldn't find a number. When they found a number, the number referred them to go on to the app, and it was this vicious round robin where you literally could not cancel the subscription. Sound familiar, babe.
I'm not going to call out this home security company that has been charging me since last summer for a home I no longer own. I tried to cancel last summer. They said it was done. I tried to cancel again a month ago, they said it was done, and I was on the phone again yesterday trying to cancel. I will update you in a month. Yes, I'll be trying to cancel once again.
It's about an hour long phone call each time, where you're transferred to at least three people, but sometimes even more, you know FTC.
I hope they got a complaint line. I'm calling them today. They'll probably put me a hole too. But we like to leave you with something positive. Man, this whole rundown today is just seems like a lot of negative stuff. Sorry about that, folks, but we like you leave with something a little more uplifting. Is our quote of the day. We'd like for you to consider this as you go about your Tuesday.
Yes, if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. That is from Booker T. Washington. It reminded me of something that I would imagine Pope Francis would have said as well, because that was certainly how he lived his life. And so, yeah, when you're feeling down, you mentioned this as well.
The remedy.
The remedy is to go be of service to someone else. And so I just I love the way Booker T. Washington put this so quote of the day for your Tuesday once again for everyone, if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. And with that, everyone, thank you so much for running with us. Let's try to have a more positive morning run tomorrow. We'll look for some feel good stories. They're out there.
You know, I took it out of the rundown. Sharon Loketti of Kenya won the Boston Marathon yesterday and she beat the previous record by two and a half minutes. Wow, So how about that. Let's say congratulations with that amazing fore I took it out of the rundown this morning. Had so much going on, I need the positive something Yeah, uplifting. Congratulations a record in the most famous marathon in the world. She beat it by two and a half minutes. She
beat her closest competitor by nineteen seconds. They essentially had a sprint a run in the final mile. So there you go. That's positive.
Thank you for that.
Yes, with that, folks, I'm gonna go try to lift up some other folks today. That's the only way I can lift myself up. I'm DJ. I'll see you tomorrow. We will see you all tomorrow. See see it was supposed to be a positive note. Okay, let's end this. Let's say something nice. I'm sorry this isn't going I.
Can't wait to run with you tomorrow morning. TJ.
All right, there it is folks. We'll see m