Morning Run: Trump is Targeted, Helene Strengthens, and Diddy's Kids Speak

Published Sep 26, 2024, 10:07 AM

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 our Heart Radio podcasts. It is Thursday, September the twenty sixth. I'm TJ.

Holmes and I'm Amy Roboch. Thank you for coming along on the Morning Run with us.

And on the Run today, after two assassination attempts, Trump says someone else is trying to kill him. Also, the mayor of New York is facing a federal indictment this morning.

Plus Hurricane Helen could be stronger than first predicted, and Diddy's kids speak. Also, a school counselor arrested for sexually abusing instead of counseling students.

And show me the money they didn't. So a big time college quarterback quit and it's sending shockwaves throughout college sports.

Let's head out on our run now. Two recent assassination attempts on former President Trump and now comes words someone else is still trying to kill him. Trump said earlier this week he'd been briefed by US officials who told him there were quote real and specific threats on his life from.

Iran, now maybe coming from him. Maybe people took it with a grain of salt. But then the National Security Council came out and in fact confirmed that briefing did happen, and they've been tracking Iranian threats on the life of Trump and other high ranking US officials. But they've been tracking these threats for years. US officials believe this is all in retaliation for the killing of a top Iranian general back in twenty twenty.

However, US of visuals say there's no connection. There's no indication at least that the two previous attempts on Trump's life, the one in July the one earlier this month, were in any way connected to Iran, despite Trump's suggesting otherwise. So those were separate incidents. But the threat from Iran, according to officials, is real.

They say's real, but they wanted to make sure they let folks know as well that this wasn't necessarily a new plot in development recently. They've been tracking these things for years. They are there, but they're not saying there's some new plan out there to get Trump. But it just goes to show this is still scary. The two assassination attempts to hear that officially, somebody else is trying to come.

Right and they do want him. They've asked him and his team to change his travel plans to make different accommodations, specifically noting that Trump plane just says Trump, I mean, it's a huge target. So he will see if he's willing to. They say, this is someone who doesn't like to make changes, but he has agreed at least to not play golf in his golf courses for now because of what happened earlier this month.

That say, it's shame he'sn't even has to do that. But our next leg of the run bring those back to New York. And it's going to be a difficult day for New Yorkers waking up all of us to find that our mayor is facing a federal indictment.

And we don't know the details yet of that indictment. But Mayor Eric Adams himself came out. He made an on camera statement last night. He said it is now his belief that the federal government intends to charge him with crimes and if that's true, those charges, he says, will be entirely false based on lies.

Okay, so what's going on here? For the past year, New Yorkers and really folks around the country had been following this story because there's been kind of a steady drip drip drip of information amid federal investigations into Adams and members of his administration. The Fans were looking into illegal contributions to the Adams campaign from the government of Turkey.

And federal agents. We've seen them searching the properties of some of Adam's top associates. At one point, Adam's cell phone other electronic devices were seized by authorities. This was all part of a sprawling corruption investigation. His police commissioner quit amid the investigation. His education commissioner quit amid the investigation. His health commissioner has quit. His top lawyer quit, saying she could no longer serve effectively.

Adams was defined in his statement last night. He also said he would not step down and ask New Yorkers for the night quote prayers and patients. The indictment is expected to be unsealed today and we could robe see the Mayor of New York in court today.

Yeah, and he would be the first sitting mayor of New York to face an indictment. And you mentioned, TJ that this is nothing that any New Yorker wants to see or hear, regardless of your political affiliations. This is something this city that we're proud of. And he came in with such high hopes. We met him very early on in his mayoral debut and he was you know, he was a former police captain. This is somebody who was going to clean the city up. He was going to make big changes. And so it's sad to see that that's where we are right now.

It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, you support this guy or not. Just as a New Yorker, you don't want anybody, you don't want the city to be going through all of this. And it's been a year of investigations and corruptions and videos of FBI agents walking out with boxes full of items from these homes. That's awful. And you mentioned we've interviewed this dude several times. We spent a lot of time with him actually and even socially, so we see this guy as I mean a little more connected to him maybe than most. It's not about politics, just as a city we're really it just feels awful that your city is being highlighted in such a way, and correct your leaders are under federal investigation. It's it's awful again, Innocent to approvement. Yeah, guilty. Don't know what the indictment is yet.

Yeah, and there's a lot more to come out today and we will be following that of course for you. On the next leg of this Morning Run, We're gonna read for you the words of Sean Dittycombe's kids, who have now spoken out for the first time since Ditty's arrest last week.

Yeah, they put this statement out on Instagram, but they didn't address the charges against their dad. Instead, they focused on the rumors resurfacing about how their mother died.

Yeah. These are the four kids that Comb's shared with Kim Porter, that's his former partner. She tragically died of pneumonia back in twenty eighteen at the age of forty seven, and there have long been conspiracy theories about her death, many people pointing the finger at Combs, suggesting he may have had some role in her death, even though her death was ruled pneumonia and natural causes.

Okay, so you can imagine there though, that speculation has come back given all that's going on with Diddy right now. So the kids, Quincy, Christian, Jesse, and Delilah on Instagram put out this statement and it says I quote. Our lives were shattered when we lost our mother. She was our world, and nothing has been the same since she passed. While it has been incredibly difficult to reconcile how she could be taken from us too soon, the cause of her death has long been established. There was no foul play. Grief is a lifelong process, and we ask that everyone respect our request for peace as we continue to cope with her loss every day.

They go on to say, we are deeply saddened that the world has made a spectacle of what has been the most tragic event of our lives. Our mother should be remembered for the beautiful, strong, kind and loving woman she was. Her memory should not be tainted by horrific conspiracy theories. Now, there is a book out there that is claiming that their mother kept a diary of sorts, and it point the finger at Ditty for what this book claims was abuse against her. And the kids say this isn't true. There was no memoir that their mother was writing, and she has no part in this. That book, by the way, right after Ditty's arrest shot up to number one on Amazon. It's since fallen. But these kids want to make sure that anyone who is thinking about reading the book or buying the book knows that this has nothing to do with their mother.

Kind of disgusting. That's somebody whould attribute that to her. Maybe take advantage of the what's happening right now to make money off of a book. That's kind of disgusting. I can't imagine what these kids have gone through. We're going to turned to Florida now, and look, all eyes have been on Florida all week. Forecasts were right, they were right for days about what this storm was going to do, how strong it was going to get. But we didn't hear anybody predicting all week that Hurricane Heleen would be a category four. But that's what they're saying now, Ropes.

That's right, and they believe Helene is going to make landfall somewhere in the Big Bend area of Florida. That's just near the Panhandle Tallahassee. It's actually inland, but they're saying that major city could bear the brunt of the storm. Of course, that it could shift in either direction. Tampa is in the crosshairs, and again the Panhandle is as well. But winds are expected to reach one hundred and thirty miles per hour by this afternoon, and they could get even stronger, many believe by the time it makes landfall.

Its forecast had become one of the largest storms in the Gulf over the last century. And because Helene is so large, four hundred miles wide, we're talking here. Five states have made emergency declarations, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, as well as Virginia.

And we always talk about the wind speed when it comes to hurricanes, the category it is, but it's actually the storm surge that takes the most lives, and for Helene, it's predicted to be as high as twenty feet. Officials are calling that catastrophic and unsurvivable. And to put it into perspective, one official said this, I'm going to quote him. We're talking about single story homes that could be completely covered with water if the predictions are true. I can't stress it enough. I'm asking everybody please stay safe, do the right thing, make a plan, and evacuate. And that really does put it into perspective.

And we are we do. We focus so much on Florida, and rightly so. But it's weird to think that a the storm is coming. Landfall in Florida. Hey, Atlanta heads up right. Everybody as far as Atlanta and places in the Carolinas inland are expecting this thing to turn up and produce I mean some the flooding rain. So we've seen plenty times. There are deaths that will take place, there are nowhere in Florida. Unfortunately, sometimes for.

Correct rainfall like that. They were saying Atlanta could get as much as eighteen inches or at least a foot of rain. That's incredible, but even scarier further north in Appalachia where they have so many mountains and potential for mudslides. They're saying it could be catastrophic in that area once it makes its way further north. So this is going to be a story that is going to continue for days. But of course, landfall again expected later tonight.

I stay with us here on the morning run coming up. A guidance counselor was supposed to be counseling the students. Police say instead she was abusing them. Stay here, we are back here on our morning ron and we head to California next, where a high school guidance counselor has been charged for having sex with a sixteen year old student, but police believe there are other potential victims and our asking them to come forward.

Julie Tischan is facing sex crime charges for assaulting the boy on multiple occasions. Police say this happened between February and March of this year. She was the guidance counselor at Yula High School. This is in West la It's an Orthodox Jewish school. Not surprisingly, she no longer works at the school now.

Police say she used her position of responsibility to gain her victim's trusts. As they put it, and you pointed this out to me yesterday, Robes. This is a pretty telling quote by one of the police officers saying rather than advising them, she was abusing them. She is facing five years in prison and convicted. She did plead not guilty in the student in this case. The reason this came about the student did tell his parents yep, about it, and the parents ended up reporting the student the guidance council.

Yeah, and what you said earlier, Police, for whatever reason it put it out there that they do believe there are multiple victims, and they've actually put out a one to eight hundred number. They're asking if you have been in any way impacted by this woman, to please come forward because they want to hear your story so they believe there is much more to this story. All right, We turned now to Los Angeles where there was a hijacked metro bus. There were passengers on board, the police were in slow pursuit. Any of this sound like a familiar plot.

Except for the slow part of Yes, it sounds like the flick with I'm Forgetting the Driver Sandra Bulleck.

Yes, Keana Reeves in Speed.

This is actually La was where that movie took place, and La is where this story takes place, and it has really, folks, a deadly ending. Listen to this. What Rose was just describing happened yesterday in the early morning hours on the streets of LA when a man hijacked a metro bus. Passengers were on board, and then he led police on a slow, hour long pursuit.

Yeah, police say. The arm man got on the bus, then held the driver a gunpoint, and then demanded that he keep driving through downtown LA, but not before he shot and killed one of the two passengers who were on board.

The bush police eventually I had to use spike strips to disable the bus swat team then got in there arrested the suspect. The second passenger who's on board was found hiding in the back of the bus. That second passenger was on harm But yes, in fact, one person was shot and killed in the sensient.

Yeah, the hijacker has been identified as fifty one year old Lamont Campbell. He's facing multiple charges, including murder. Police really have given props to the bus driver in this story because he was able to push a silent alarm. They all have them on the bus, so he was able to do that, which got police to the bus. And they said when the police approached it, that's when the hijacker told the bus driver to drive. So they said he rolled out and so just kept going very slow. But the bus driver maintained his composure the entire time, which is remarkable. And there are also concerns because look, we've got the Olympics coming. There are going to be you know, million, millions of people, thousands of people, and they all are going to be encouraged to be using public transport like buses, like trains, so they have an extra layer of pressure to try and make sure something like this or these types of occurrences don't keep happening, isn't crazy.

I saw that they have a little emergency, like, wow, really they'll need that, I guess. So it's a shame that it's needed. But it came in handy here, And we were just a few months removed from this happening in La somebody else hijacked the bus. That wasn't a deadly situation there, but somebody else take a bit of a joy ride on a bus there. So they're trying to get this under control and also trying to put some measures in place that would keep weapons from being able to be taken or at least be detected if they're going to be on a bus. But this is a wild story to hijack a bus. Thank goodness, it was the timing.

I was just gonna say. It happened just after midnight. If it had happened during the day or the morning commute, it would have been a very different story.

All right. And on our leg of the run today, we're going to turn to college sports. We had to know this was coming, but still it sent shockwaves through college sports. Yesterday, a star college athlete quit over a financial dispute with his.

School quarterback Matthew Sluka was the star of the undefeated, top twenty five ranked UNLV. In fact, this is the first time that school has ever been ranked, and they really had hopes of going to the college playoffs this year. But after their three and zero start, Sluka suddenly announced he's quitting the team, leaving the school and looking for somewhere else to play next year.

This doesn't make any sense, so why would he do this? They didn't show him the money. His representatives say the school promised him one hundred thousand dollars when he transferred from Holy Cross, where he spent the past several years playing. Transferred from there to UNLV. When that one thousand dollars didn't come, Sluca said, I'm out. He's gone quit. Three to zero, doing well start, leading the team, first time ever being ranked, and he bounced.

Wow, yeah, he quit the game. He quit just three games into the season, but that allows him to red shirt and save a year of playing eligibility. So Sluca claims he had a verbal agreement with an assistant coach for that one hundred thousand dollars. Here's the deal, though he never got it in writing. And then you hear from the school who says he was never officially promised that money. In fact, they said they've never heard of it, and they would have.

And they even go further than that in saying Sluk and his reps are violating NCAA rules and state law by making any financial demands for his continued play. This is a scary story in a lot of ways. We had to know what was coming with all the NIL deals and whatnot. And schools are allowed to directly pay athletes, not just the sponsors and doing commercials and whatnot. But schools are allowed to give money to athletes. And he expected one hundred k. And the coach even said that this dude thinks he has a higher value somewhere and he's not getting compensated the right way. So wow, he's saving a year of eligibility. He is a senior, so he'll get to play somewhere else next year and see if he can make some money.

Yeah, I mean. And the president of UNLV I love what he said. He said, if somebody is getting paid one hundred thousand dollars, trust me, I'd know if somebody was promised one hundred thousand dollars, trust me. I'd know that was a pretty definitive statement there. And you know you're hearing from other coaches who are weighing in and it's to your point what you were saying, TJ. They're all saying, this is so unfortunate because it's turned into a pay for play. Yes, and there are going to be more situations like this that occur because that is what is happening with this new role.

And please, folks, please understand these college quarterback, especially in the big conferences, like they can easily ask for half a million to a million dollars at these big schools. They can easily ask for that and say you're not gonna pay me that, I'm going to go to this other school over here and try to get it from them. This is allowed by the rules and the law. Now, so yes, this kid is gonna I don't know where I come down on this. If I'm upset with the kid because he quit on his team, or I'm upset with the school or whoever might have whispered in his ear that thing. We just don't know. But this is where we are, and we might be going to the point where we have to put college athletes under contract that they can't break.

Well, then they're professional athletes at that point, and that takes away the whole beauty of college sports. I have always been a college football fan, and a lot of the reason is these kids are in it with their heart, with their soul. They're playing for their college. Now you're having them play for themselves, which creates a completely different atmosphere around collegiate games, and that's to me, that's potentially extremely disappointed.

These are not amateurs anymore. When you watch Georgia this weekend, you're watching professional athletes. H well, they're pros anyway. The good I mean they're playing Alabama.

I mean it is uga.

They're playing Alabama. It's like an NFL game, as we get anyway, Okay, bad.

Example, my bad, all right, but you know we'll be watching regardless. Well, thank you everyone for running with us on our morning. Ron. We're going to see you right back here tomorrow.