Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”
Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast.
Good morning, everybody. This is your Morning Run for Wednesday, January fifteenth. I I'm TJ.
Holmes and I'm Amy Robot. And on the run today, Why it's hump day in the LA firefight, Why Hexa might be home free, Why Michelle Obama is skipping the inauguration, and why there's a lot of appointment programming coming out of DC today.
Also on today's run, a sitting president is detained, Kate Middleton is in remission, Biden is peace out, Elon Musk is sued by the US government, and it is now folks, going to cost you to use the bathroom at Starbucks.
All right, We're going to begin our run with the very latest in LA. The fires unfortunately are still burning, the winds are still high, and millions are still under critical fire danger.
But today might be the last scary weather day to get over if you will. At PDS warning was issued for areas around Los Angeles today. PDS or particularly dangerous situation you've been hearing about that. It's the highest level red flag warning the National Weather Service can issue. They're usually rare, but seem like they were a regular occurrence the past week in.
LA firefighter has got a bit of a break yesterday when the predicted high winds didn't materialize. However, today those winds are forecast to be strong again, with gus up to fifty plus miles per hour. As the National Weather Service put it, we are not out of the woods yet.
But today is the day they do. Now think if they can just get past Wednesday, get past today in the forecast for the next days after that look good for firefighters and they might actually be able to say that this situation is getting close to at least getting it over, then we can get solely into recovery and rebuilding. But here are the latest updates from fire officials. Twenty five people are now confirmed dead and wildfires. Another thirty remain missing.
The largest fire, the Palisades Fire, still burns. It's now around twenty percent contained, and this second largest and deadliest fire, the Eaten Fire, is now one third contained.
Just under one hundred thousand people remain under evacuation orders. Police say they've made fifty arrests now for various violations including looting, flying drones and so on. And get this, at least three of those arrests were for people who were trying to start fires.
That's that's mind blowing to me and just disgusting. That's just good after everything that's been lost, lives lost, like you're really you're going to continue to try and burn things that ugh.
And they don't horse know the exact cause of these fires just yet. Now, these smaller ones that they say the three people were arrested trying to start were extinguished immediately. But it's just kind of head scratching. And among the group we were talking about somebody's emmy was stolen from the house. Well, among this group that's arrested, police did say there was a group, like an organized group of folks, nine of them who were part of the group who yes, did.
Steal an emmy from somebody's terrible and a lot of them were caught on surveillance cameras. A lot of these homes had cameras, and so so there it is fairly indisputable they were caught red handed, literally on camera.
All right.
Next up on the run, the first confirmation hearing for a Donald Trump cabinet position was as fiery as expected. Trump's pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced some contentious questioning from Democrats about the multiple allegations from his past, and of.
Course we knew this was going to come off. The accusations about a sexual assault, the accusations about alcohol abuse at work and previous jobs he had, and they threw a lot of his own spoken and written words back at him about women who should not serve in combat roles in the military. There are a lot of tough, even cringe worthy exchanges between Hegseth and several Democratic senators, but for the most part, I have to say heg Seth held his own. He stayed on message, and we talked about this as well robes. They didn't seem to be able to rattle him. He never got emotional. He stayed in his length.
And when he didn't want to answer a question, he just stayed with the script and did not You're right, he really held his own and he stayed cool under pressure. Now, the exchange most of us were waiting for and potentially expecting fireworks ended up all rainbows and butterflies. The woman with all the power in the room, Republican Iowa Senator Jony Ernst, who has served in a combat role in the military and is a survivor of sexual assault. Could have been the one to put an end to Hegseeth's path to Defense Secretary.
Because it would only take one Republican defection to block Hexet's nomination from coming to the floor for a full vote. However, Erns's questioning made pretty clear when she started, and the tone of it was one thing, but the word she was using as well made it pretty clear that she was going to support him. And even if you were suspecting it and maybe thought it, she went ahead and confirmed it. She did say full on in an interview, I will support President Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense, so he's got her vote.
Ultimately, Hegsa's full nomination is in the hands of Senate Republicans and with the fifty three four but he's have ben a majority in the Senate. Heck Seth doesn't need any Democrats to vote for him. He just can't lose the support of more than three Republicans, and right now it looks like he is headed to becoming Defense Secretary. One of the things we heard in the hearings yesterday the Democrats were upset that heg Seth didn't meet with them beforehand, as has been customary, But he didn't need any Democrats to vote for him, so he didn't waste his time. Apparently like he knew he didn't need to win any of them over.
It's customary. It would have been nice, and I think it's in the right spirit. I mean, if you're not going to vote for me, you're going to end up having to work with me down the road. If I get this, I think it was probably the wrong call.
That it was those the wrong call for him not to meet.
With them, the wrong thing from an optic standpoint direct and for moving forward as far as getting through in the nomination process. What's the point, Yeah, I don't have time. I got other problems right now. I don't need to come meet with somebody who's not going to vote for me. I get it, both sides arguments. What's the point come talk. All you're going to do is come here and bash me. There's nothing for us to talk about, no way to win you over.
Just would have been in the spirit of, yes, not being partisan. It's supposed to be a position that isn't partisan. But anyway, we will see how that relationship or how those relationships develop in the future.
And whoa, we got some more TV watching today, a lot more confirmation hearings to keep our eyes on. We got the Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondy. She's going to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, is Trump's pick for US Attorney General. That happens at nine point thirty this morning.
And then Senator Marko Rubio will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his bid for Secretary of State. That's at ten am. And there will also be committee hearings for Trump's pick for CIA Director, Transportation Secretary, Energy Secretary, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget. That all happens today as well. And then South Dakota Governor Christy Nome. That's Trump's pick for Homeland Security Secretary. That's an interesting one that we're looking forward to watching. That was supposed to happen this morning, but it's been rescheduled for Friday morning. And by the way, there are four more confirmation hearing slated for tomorrow, so it's a full week of fun.
Totally random, but I forgot we have in our closet signed cowboy hats from Christina We do with her signature on them. We'll tell that story one day about why we are both in possession of Christineolan cowboy hats with her signature on it. And one day the hat's going to be worth something.
We should we should take a selfie with it or something.
Don't want to go that far, okay, well tell people about it. You don't want to document that rope. We're going to stay in DC where man, there are more things to keep an eye on coming out of there today, more appointment TV to watch tonight and this will be President Biden. He is going to deliver his farewell address in prime time. It happens to night at eight o'clock Eastern.
That's right. The White House has not disclosed what Biden is planning to say tonight, but this is his last official opportunity to highlight to defend his accomplishments as president. This is kind of eerie though. The last time Biden spoke to the nation from behind his desk in the Oval Office in prime time was back in July, and that's when he explained why he was reluctantly dropping out of the presidential race. So this will be the next time and the final time we will see him from behind that desk addressing the nation. And this is a tradition that goes back to George Washington, and presidents can say what they want, but oftentimes they use this moment to reflect on their records and warn of challenges ahead. So we might hear both.
And no matter what do you think about politics, what a moment this has to be to have. I mean, his political life is over, his political career.
Five decades is over.
Yeah, in one speech, you're gonna wrap it up and say goodbye to everybody, and it's got to be an emotional night for his whole family. But oftentimes, like you say, they try to I want to say, correct the record, but in some way try to at least put the best spin they can on the time that they've had in the White House. Certainly we'll see some of that. We've seen some of that even the past few weeks.
Yeah, they're trying to cement their legacy. And that makes a lot of sense, especially with other people commenting. And he isn't the most popular guy right now in terms of what the general population thinks of him then, so he's trying to perhaps amend or correct that e bit.
Yes, but we will be watching but stay with us here on this Wednesday morning run. When we come back, Michelle Obama is about to have another high profile absence. It's unexplained, but does she really need a doctor's note? Stay with us. We continue now on this Wednesday morning run, and up next, Michelle Obama is skipping Trump's inauguration, according to a statement from her office that simply reads, and I quote, former President Barack Obama is confirmed to attend the sixtieth inaugural ceremonies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration end quote.
That's it, nothing more, no reason given. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are also expected to attend, along with their wives, and that is customary. This will be the second glaring absence by the former First Lady.
Yes, you will remember she was absent for President Carter's funeral last week. All the other presidents and their wives were in attendance at that one, as well. The Obama's attendant Trump's inauguration in twenty seventeen. Though some pretty hilarious memes came out of that when cameras called Michelle Obama's facial expressions, Trump and his wife Milania did not attend Biden's inauguration in twenty twenty one. That one, I mean, no excuse, but that one, okay, given what was going on at the time.
Yeah, and at least they both didn't attend. It's been interesting that Barack Obama has been in attendance and Michelle has not been. And there really hasn't been an excuse. And believe I shouldn't say there's she doesn't need to. She doesn't need to make an excuse, so let me point that out, obviously, But a lot of people are concerned, and I've seen op ed's written already saying Michelle Obama isn't sick, she's just sick and tired of Trump. And she's made it very clear that she doesn't like him, she doesn't want to be around him.
And a lot of people will hear that and go, okay, amen.
Understand correct. So it could be a number of reasons. She hasn't given a specific one yet, and she may not need to or have to. But it is a little puzzling.
Folks, know, I mean, come on, we've given the new cycle the attention to something like this. They know better than anybody how this is going to be viewed. So the concern there is this something has raised, has reached such a level that she's not attending these events. Is it because Trump is there? I guess that's a possibility, But also given the history of the old that seems petty. It seems like they always meet the moment. No matter what do you do, what's expected of you as a public servant, you don't show Not showing up the inauguration is one thing. I was more surprised didn't show up at Carter's funeral.
Correct, And she isn't she the one who said when they go low, we go hi. That's that's her mantra. So this doesn't make a lot of sense given knowing, given who she is and how she has acted in the past.
So that does make you concerned.
It is concerned that.
It was trending yesterday for people asking is she sick? Like what is wrong? But the other part she has said in the past, this dude, mister Trump, with his rhetoric put my family in danger.
Right.
I ain't ever gonna get over that. I don't want to have to go sit next to this guy. Honor this guy right at a But to.
Your point, the Jimmy Carter funeral absence that one's tough to explain if that is in fact the reason why she isn't attending these events.
Maybe she saw the seat arrangement for the funeral and said, I gotta sit between.
You could have said, hey, Barack, you're gonna have to You're gonna have to buffer, you know what.
She would have been allowed.
Of course she would have, and I'm sure that would have complied.
You are literally scratching your head right now, and that's what a lot of people are doing.
Like what this just doesn't it doesn't make sense.
You hope they're okay and she's okay and everything is okay, but just what a glaring accent?
Yeah, certainly, well Michelle Obama is not going to be there, But we are getting word on who will be attending Trump's inauguration. How about the three wealthiest men in the world. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg will all reportedly have a prominent spot at the swearing in ceremony on Monday.
Did you when you were a kid at the at family holiday there was a kid's table. Oh yea, they have a billionaire's table at the inauguration.
The three richest billionaires, they at this table.
They are going to be seated together, reportedly on the platform with other notable gas like Trump's cabinet nominees and other elected officials. All three have made significant seven figure gestures, I should say, to earn favor with Trump over the past year or so, and that seven figure gesture. They made contributions to his inaugural.
Yes, well, in fact, let's detail them. In fact, Musk made an eight figure donation. Must donated more than two hundred and fifty billion billion dollars to Trump's campaign eight and is now the co chair of the new Trump agency called DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency.
Yes. So then Zuckerberg, Bezos and others. Yeah, other companies do this as well, So we're singling them out, but they are far from the only ones to do this. Donate a million dollars to the inaugural fund and adjusted content moderation policies on Meta. You saw this happen. This was a big deal that Zuckerberg did this, and it seems like he was trying to win favor and be more in line with the president elect.
And then Bezos, through Amazon, doted a million, donated a million dollars as well to Trump's inaugural fund, and decided last fall that the Washington Post, which he also owns, would not endorse either candidate for president, which caused a lot of upheople there at the Washington Post, because this tradition that has gone way back and have always gone for the Democratic president nominee presidential nominee. Correct, So that that certainly ruffled a lot of feathers. And in case you were wondering, the men's combined wealth sitting there on that stage, eight hundred and eighty five billion dollars, That is insane.
That should get you good seats.
You know what, That's a really good point.
Going to continue on a run now, And what an update we have now, a wonderful one to pass along about the help of Kate Middleton. The Princess of Wales, announced via social media that she is in remission.
Last month, excuse me, last March, she revealed that she was undergoing treatment for cancer, and that announcement came after she had major abdominal surgery, which afterwards revealed that cancer had been present.
She largely stayed out of the spotlight last year, and she focused on her health and then late last year revealed she had completed her chemotherapy treatment, and in an Instagram post yesterday she did let.
Us know how she was doing right, She said, it is a relief to now be in remission and I remain focused on recovery. As anyone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis will know, it takes time to adjust to a new normal. I am, however, looking forward to a fulfilling your head. There is much to look forward to. Thank you to everyone for your continued support and we wish her the very best. I know this is true. Yes, once you have a cancer diagnosis, you live with cancer because that threat hangs over your head. You live differently. You're in usually some varying stage of treatment for the rest of your life. A lot of us and wish her the very best. It can be a beautiful existence when you have a new found appreciation for life. All right. Next up on the Run, we're going to head to South Korea, where that country's president became the first sitting South Korean leader to be detained and taken into custody. President Yun is facing insurrection charges after he declared martial law in his country last.
Month and get this. Investigators this time brought more than three thousand police officers. Some of them had ladders to get over the barricades so they could detain President Yun. They had tried this last week. There was a six hour standoff. Ultimately they were unsuccessful. So they came with a massive police presidence this time and bodyguards. Yune's bodyguards saw it. He said, you know what, We're not even going to try this time.
Yeah. They were like, we are outnumbered. We are absolutely outnumbered. So Yun was able to strike a deal with the law enforcement that showed up so he would go with them. He said, I won't be in handcuffs. I'm going to go on my presidential motorcade, not in a police car. And so that was all worked out, and then he released a video message shortly after he was detained, saying I agreed to go with police to answer questions in order to prevent a bloody clash. He said between his bodyguards and bodyguards and police. He called the investigation and the warrant to detain him illegal.
Now they can only hold him question him for forty eight hours. After that, we will have to apply. They will have to apply for a court warrant to formally arrest him. They are trying to determine whether Un committed an insurrection when he declared martial law on December third, sending armed troops into the Assembly to seize the legislature and detain his political enemies.
He was the first South Korean president to put his country under military rules since the country became a democracy in the late eighties. The country's Constitutional Court is deliberating whether the Assembly's vote last month to impeach him was legitimate and whether Yun should be formally removed from office. The court's next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, so there will be much more to come on that story.
Next up on our run, we'll head back here to the US, where Elon Musk is being sued by the US government claiming he unlawfully got a hunt hundred and fifty million dollars discounts when he purchased Twitter.
The Security is in Exchange Commission is accusing the world's richest man of securities fraud for not disclosing his ownership stake in Twitter when he bought it. Musk purchased Twitter for forty four billion back in twenty twenty two, and at the time of the deal, Musk had already acquired significant stock in the.
Company, but by not revealing that in a timely manner, he was able to pay what the SEC called artificially lower prices for the stock, essentially duping investors out of an estimated one hundred and fifty million dollars. Through his lawyer, must says he's done nothing wrong in that the lawsuit is a culmination of a year's long campaign of harassment against Musk by the SEC.
What happens next is up in the air. Trump takes office next week and has already nominated Paul Atkins to take over at the SEC. It is unclear if Trump's SEC pick will continue to pursue this lawsuit against Musk. Ee probably has a pretty good show of that, bye bye.
Been pretty good at that. Yeah, getting out of lawsuits. But they're all flying around. I mean, I don't know obviously, but to everyday Americans, do they care about some sign this didn't sign it in in time in a ton of fifty.
Here, and I don't think so.
Yeah, all right, we got a final leg here of our run on this Wednesday morning, and on this final leg folks, there's going to be a change. Bathrooms are for paying customers only. You see these signs kind of everywhere in the small shops. Yeah, sometimes seem like they're handwritten. Right, Yes, bathrooms are paying customers only. But the signs are about to start going up at Starbucks stores around the country after the company announced yesterday that it is ending its open door policy.
That policy allowed anyone to hang out in its shops or use its restrooms even if you didn't make a purchase. Well, now you're going to be required to make a purchase. This is a reversal of a policy Starbucks put in place after that twenty eighteen incident where two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks.
Yeah, and that accident police were called after the two men came in, sat down, were waiting for a friend to arrive. That was all caught on camera camera, and it caused a change in policy. There are well cause that change in policy at the time, and now that one is being reversed. That was a huge You remember that that was a huge pr mess for Starbucks because it was all on camera.
Right, So, yeah, that change in policy, along with offering new customer incentives is meant to lure people back into the stores by creating a more welcoming environment. The focuses on paying customers. You know, I remember I haven't had to use the Starbucks restaumant a long time. But there was a time, and maybe this was before twenty eighteen, where you had to have a receipt and on the receipt it gave you the code to get into the bathroom. So that was how they did it, and maybe that's what they're going to go back to, where your receipt gives you a bathroom code and only then can you use the bathroom. Or sometimes they have you know that like in the gas station you have a key. You have to ask for the key, but to get the key, you had to have purchased something.
But the idea in the first place of having an open door policy is for people you want to go in and just work on your computer. They wanted to create that kind of environment. But days everybody knows there's a lack of public race restroom facilities in a lot of cities, so people would just go into the Starbucks. But they say that was creating an issue because you have the mental health crisis, you have a homeless crisis, and it was creating a different environment. So now they're trying to go back to the original environment.
I mean, I support that. I think it makes sense for you to use a restroom you should have to purchase something, and that makes a lot of sense to me.
But they do have lagging sales. They're trying to do something. They have a new CEO, they're trying to make some moves to try to get those numbers back up. All right, we shall see which which part you want to do here as we do the quote.
Of the day, which, well, I'll say, consider this as you go about your day today. We have today's quote of the day, read by our very own TJ.
Holmes, and that quote is never pass up an opportunity to say something good about a person behind their back. I do believe ROVs. This is from the file of my pastor. But I always loved it. Everybody is going to talk about somebody behind their back today. Everybody is will what if we all said something good about somebody behind their back? I love, love, love doing that. People will never ever know how good I talk about them or how good you talk about them. You never get credit for it. But do it.
It's much better than the well, you know what I always say, when you talk about somebody behind your back, it always gets back to that person. It does ultimately, And how about it get back to that person that you said something nice, you said something kind. It's almost always the opposite. So I love this idea and I will put it into practice today. Let's read it for you one more time. Never pass up an opportunity to say something good about a person hind their back. That's awesome. That's the kind of gossip we want to hear. And hope that that We'll give you a little I don't know a little assignment today and we want to wish you a very happy Wednesday. I made roadback everyone.
And I'm TJ. Holme. Always appreciate you running with us. We'll see you beg you on the run tomorrow