Ron DeSantis Enters The Presidential Race – Mo News Rundown

Hey everybody, it is Thursday, May 25th, you're listening to the Mo News podcast, I'm Mo Schwannunu. And I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. And we read all the news, read between the lines, and remember Tina Turner, Jill a giant of rock and roll. So good, Mo Schwannunu. I gotta say, this one hit me hard. I love Tina Turner. Yeah, it's really amazing when you go through the decades and we'll remember her later in this podcast, just the hits over the decades and then her ability to relaunch herself in the 80s with many of the hits we remember from childhood. I mean, I remember my mom blasting it in the car as we were growing up, going to school, going to work, et cetera. And so I think it's one of those where, you know, you always thought Tina would be with you. As you said, we'll discuss that a bit later in the podcast. For now, let's get to some of these headlines. The 2024 Republican race gets one more candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. We've been listening to his announcement on Twitter and have the highlights. South Carolina passes a six week abortion ban. What this means for abortion access in the South target is removing some of its tried merchandise after intense backlash from some customers who confronted and threatened workers. The latest on a new paramilitary group of Russians biting alongside Ukraine. The haloton is trying a rebrand focusing more on its app and less on its bikes. And we say goodbye, of course, to the queen of rock and roll Tina Turner has passed away at the age of 83. We're going to take a look back at her career. And most has on the same history. This is TV series finale week. We have a couple more shows that ended in the past couple decades, a little bit of Oprah and I'll give you a clue with this sound effect. I have no idea what you're talking about. It might make sense. But I appreciate that. Thank you. All right, let's get to some news after some initial tech issues for about 25 minutes. Ron DeSantis declared that he is running for president during a live audio event with Elon to Musk last night. He is stepping into a crowded Republican primary contest that will test his strength against former president Trump, who does currently lead him in the polls by double digits. DeSantis is a 44 year old second term governor from Florida. He had a multi pronged rollout Wednesday, filing with the federal election commission. He also posted a video to social media. He did an interview with Fox News and then a live Twitter event. Here's a bit of the video that he posted on social media. Truth must be our foundation and common sense can no longer be an uncommon virtue. In Florida, we prove that it can be done. We chose facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder. We held the line when freedom hung in the balance. We showed that we can and must revitalize America. We need the courage to lead and the strength to win. I'm Ron DeSantis and I'm running for president to lead our great American comeback. He tried to discuss it even further in a first of its kind conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk on the Twitter spaces audio platform, but it crashed repeatedly, making it virtually impossible for most users to hear that announcement in real time in the first half hour. Eventually, once it got going, DeSantis touted his accomplishments when it comes to immigration, his fight against Disney. What he calls the woke mob and how he managed COVID like avoiding mask mandates, vaccine mandates and keeping in person school. He also talked about his agenda for the country for the next four years. He said on Twitter, quote, American decline is not inevitable. It is a choice and we should choose a new direction, a path that will lead to American revitalization. DeSantis is considered to be Trump's strongest Republican rival, even as the governor faces questions about his campaign trail personality and his lack of relationships across the Republican ecosystem. He's generated significant interest among GOP primary voters by casting himself as a younger and more electable version of the former president who turned 77 next month and can only serve one more term. The ultimate Republican nominee is expected to face President Biden on the general election ballot in November 2024. So this is round one here, at least what we expect now in May of 2023 to be Ron one, Ron versus Don Ronald versus Donald. We will see how this plays out. And if these two end up being the two main contenders for the Republican nomination, that's where polls have them right now have more on that in a second. Jill, I was watching coverage of the Twitter rollout and was interesting. I went over to Fox News to see how they were covering the Twitter audio glitches, etc. And they had a headline calling it a disaster and amateur hour Fox of all places where they've been very, very sympathetic to Ron DeSantis and of course participated as well in the rollout on Wednesday night. So once it got going, Twitter was a pretty comfortable chat. Elon asking friendly questions. There was another person involved, David Sacks, who has a podcast call all in. He's a big in the finance world. Is close with Elon, also a DeSantis endorser. And they had a couple friendly Republican guests who also joined as part of this chat, asked questions, effectively softballs to DeSantis here. And the knock on DeSantis is that he has avoided taking questions from critical questioners. He's often fighting back at them at press conferences. He says, that's a good thing. He's not going to give time to the traditional media that's just going to criticize him and that is unfair to him. He's there for the little guy. He's fighting corporations, fighting wokery, doing his own thing, all about freedom, etc. I was listening to the Twitter spaces conversation and it wasn't a huge surprise, but it was almost like every other word was bashing mainstream media or legacy media as they called it. Well, it works for both of them, right? Because Elon wants to bash them. DeSantis wants to bash them. You know, Elon is trying to create Twitter as an alternate space. And so the two of them see eye to eye on that. And that's one of the reasons DeSantis went to Twitter as part of his rollout here. It's an interesting contrast to Trump, Joe, because while Trump will openly call places like CNN, the New York Times, fake news, he also loves doing interviews with them and is always looking for their attention and their praise. It's a symbiotic relationship, the media gets the ratings that Trump gives them. He loves the attention, even though in many times, in many cases, it's negative. And DeSantis is like, I'm avoiding that altogether. I'm going to do what Trump can't do and says he does, which is I will actually cut them out. Now, that could work for Republican primary in reaching those voters. Twitter has become a more conservative space in the past six months. Of course, he then went to Fox News. So he is speaking the Republican base with these venues. Of course, at some point, should he win the nomination, he'll have to run across America, which means he will need to reach out to other media venues. By the way, I just saw that CNN is going to be hosting a town hall with Nikki Haley on June 4th. Obviously, they had a very controversial town hall with Donald Trump. But I think you make a great point. It will be interesting to see who DeSantis decides to talk to back to the polls here for a second. So they knew poll out last night, a national poll that gives you a sense of a royal Republicans are as DeSantis enters the race now. Trump, 53%, DeSantis, 20%, and then Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Ramaswami, the rest, all lingering at about four or 5%. So that's where they are nationally. Of course, the Republican primary is fought state by state. So we will await the numbers in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida. Those are the first states they'll be voting in January and February of next year. But again, it does appear right now in the polls that DeSantis is in that kind of second position. And Trump maintains the first position. It is eight months until people begin voting, until Republicans begin voting. So there's a lot of time between now and then. And the Trump folks are very pleased to see as many people get in this as possible. Because when you have DeSantis at 20, but then 5% for Pence and 5% for Haley and 5% for Scott, you're effectively taking people who would consider alternatives to Trump and splitting them up. And that is what Trump hopes. He wants the more the merrier to get into this race because he's going to have his core following and the anti-Trump people within the party or the people who are just looking for an alternative to Trump are splitting their vote right now. So that's going to be something to be watching in the coming months. So some recent history here as we watch this Ronald versus Donald battle here. While Ronald was once very close to Trump, he was desperate for Trump's endorsement. This is something Trump often mentions in 2018 as DeSantis was trying to break through and become the governor of Florida. Trump takes credit and he should get some credit for helping DeSantis win. And then you saw DeSantis really adopt some of the former president's personality, his populist policies, his rhetoric, even his mannerisms, how he moves his hands. It's almost like he has studied Trump and saw his popularity and adopted some of that. And again, that's the knock on it. Nikki Haley was in an event on earlier this week where she said, DeSantis needs his own personality. He needs to stand for, you know, he just tries to mimic the policies and the personality of Trump. Who is he really? So that was interesting that Nikki Haley, who's not really willing to criticize Trump, is already willing to go after DeSantis because again, she sees him as a threat for the anti-Trump vote. Now, DeSantis will argue that he is more electable than Trump, who faces his multiple legal threats, those criminal charges in New York that we'll see go to trial next March. We told you about that on the podcast yesterday. And of course, Trump is presided over multiple national Republican losses, the 2018 midterms, the 2020 presidential election. And then of course, the lackluster performance in 2022 that many Republicans again blame Trump for, for the candidates that he endorsed and for his messaging around that. So that's where DeSantis is making his argument. He's also going to say Trump only has four more years left. He's just out for revenge. He can't get anything done. You know, we support the same positions, but I'm going to be more effective than him. And that's the argument that at least he's going to start with this spring. The question that Nikki Haley asked, which I think is a question that a lot of people are asking is who is Ron DeSantis? They may be heard a lot about some of his controversial policies, but don't totally know about him and his bio. We break down a lot of his policy positions and also a lot of his biography in the newsletter today. So definitely check it out. But really briefly, he is 44 years old. He is married. He has three kids. He went to Yale undergrad Harvard Law School. He's in Iraq, war vet, lots of stuff. I don't think people necessarily realize about him. Yeah, it's very interesting because he goes against elites. And yet he went to Yale undergrad and Harvard law, which is interesting. And by the way, mimics a bit of Ted Cruz, who also has an Ivy League education, but again, as part of that Republican rhetoric criticizing elites. So it's always important to go check out their bio, et cetera. And one of the big things to watch for with DeSantis is will he have the charisma on the campaign trail? That's a knock on him. Is he quick on his feet? He's gone to great lengths as governor to avoid unscripted public appearances, too many exchanges, unscripted exchanges with the media. And so that's going to be tough to do on the campaign trail in the coming year, year and a half if he's able to make it out of the Republican nomination. So those are a few things you guys should be looking out for. All right. Now to Tina Turner, the queen of rock and roll. She passed away on Wednesday at the age of 83. Her family says that she died peacefully after a long illness in her home near Zurich, Switzerland. They say, quote, with her, the world loses a music legend and a role model. She's known for her powerful gritty voice and her magnetic performances. She was born in Nutbush, Tennessee as Anna May Bullock. Ike Turner discovered her when she was 17 years old when she grabbed the mic to sing at his club show in St. Louis back in 1957. She became famous in the late 1960s as the singer of the Ike and Tina Turner review. But after years of physical and emotional abuse, Turner left her husband, Ike, only to launch what has been described as one of the greatest comebacks in pop music history. She had massive hits in the 80s with what's love got to do with it, private dancer, and that song that we played at the top of this podcast, The Best. She sold more than 180 million albums. She won 12 Grammy awards and she sold out stadium tours across the globe. Jill, you mentioned that she was born Anna May. When she meets Ike at 17 years old, before marrying him and becoming Turner, she changes her first name to Tina, apparently inspired by a comic book heroine, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, based on just a powerful voice that he heard from her. So that's how Anna May Bullock became Tina Turner. Some of you may have seen the film from the mid 90s, What's Love Got to Do with It, a fabulous movie that you should check out if you haven't watched it already. Angela Bassett plays Tina Turner. She was nominated for an Oscar for the performance. She put out a statement following Tina's death on Wednesday saying, I'm honored to have known Tina Turner. I'm humbled to have helped her show. I'm humbled to have helped show her to the world while we mourn the loss of this iconic voice and presence. She gave us more than we could have ever asked. She gave us her whole self. More tributes now, President Biden put out a statement on Wednesday calling Tina Turner a once in a generation talent that changed American music forever. Mick Jagger writing on Twitter that Tina Turner was a wonderful friend, inspiring, warm, funny, generous. She helped me so much when I was so young and I will never forget her. And then this from Oprah now, which I'll also post to the Instagram feed, Oprah on Tina Turner. She is our forever goddess of rock and roll who contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn't know existed. When she claimed her freedom from years of domestic abuse, her life became a clarion call for triumph. I'm grateful for her courage for showing us what victory looks like wearing manolos and a leather skirt. She once shared with me that when her time came to leave this earth, she would not be afraid but excited and curious because she had learned how to live. A powerful words there from Oprah about her friend Tina Turner. In recent years, Jill and people may not have seen much of Tina. She had battled a number of health problems, including cancer and then after retirement and in 2018, she faced a family tragedy when her oldest son Craig took his life at age 59. Her younger son, Ronnie, died just last year. A lot of hardships for Tina Turner, but she never felt sorry for herself. She once said, quote, people think my life has been tough, but I think it has been a wonderful journey. The older you get, the more you realize it is not what happened, it is how you deal with it. Amazing, amazing words from Tina Turner. Such a loss, but she has left us with such incredible music. I was already hearing it on the streets of Brooklyn on Wednesday, Jill, within an hour of the news. I could hear it blasting from a few cars as I walked the street. All right, we've got a lot of news to get to, including today's speed read. But first, we want to tell you about a couple exclusive offers for Mo News listeners and think a couple of our partners this week. We're so happy to be partnering again with Bullen Branch. They're a brand that helps you get an amazing night's sleep. They have a great sale right now for Mo News listeners, which I'll get to in just a second. Remind that Bullen Branch betting in sheets are made with 100% traceable organic cotton. It gets softer with every wash. We have a couple sets at home. We've been loving them and they have been bought by millions of people around the world. One great part of Bullen Branch, by the way, they focus on the supply chain on organic cotton in India. It's better for the environment there, for the farmers who grow it. But let's get to the deal here. 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Again, that is athletic greens.com slash Mo News M O N E W S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. Okay, time now for the speed read from NPR South Carolina's state Senate has passed a six week abortion ban sending the bill to the governor's desk where it is expected to be signed into law. South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed a previous bill called a heartbeat ban into law in 2021, but it was struck down by the state's Supreme Court in January. The new ban prohibits all abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected. That's generally at about six weeks of pregnancy or four weeks after conception with limited exception. Now, under this new law, abortions are permitted to prevent the death of the mother also in cases of rape and incest. And if the fetus has a fatal anomaly. Now, anyone who violates the ban is guilty of a felony and upon conviction will be fined $10,000 face prison time of up to two years or both. Physicians and medical providers that are found guilty of performing illegal abortions will also have their license revoked. Planned Parenthood already saying it's going to challenge the ban in court, noting that there are only three abortion clinics in the state and a range of limitations on access imposed by state lawmakers. Also according to Planned Parenthood, South Carolina ranks 43rd in the bottom 10 of all states with the highest maternal mortality rates. Women in the state are three times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than the average American woman. Yeah, the argument there from abortion rights supporters is that forcing women to carry to term is actually putting women's health at risk. Joe, you mentioned that the state Supreme Court had overturned the previous heartbeat ban. Republicans are confident that this time around this one will pass muster. They've tweaked the language around the right to privacy and hope that this will stand up on the Supreme Court. You've also had some changes in the state Supreme Court and it was just a three to decision last year. So that's something to watch here. Probably in this argument in South Carolina, there was a group of five female senators, the only five in that body who fought against the bill. The group adopted the term sister senators. They told ABC News that the short holiday week near the end of the legislative session would be the time that men would quote, shove it down our throats. After three attempts, these senators filibuster failed to block the bill from passing. The group of women were very different. Three Republicans, one Democrat, one independent, but they were all united in the fact that they believe that this bill is bad for women in the state. None of them say they viewed themselves as women's rights advocates or feminists and said they were all pro-life, but feel that this bill goes too far. So 15 states now have ceased nearly all abortion services since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. Abortion options for women in the deep south now are now closing fast. That includes bans across the region, including Florida's six week ban that awaits a court ruling right now, and then North Carolina just north of the border there instituted their 12 week ban recently. From Reuters, Target, which rolled out its gay pride collection at the start of May, is pulling some products from its stores after facing customer backlash, saying it is now acting to protect employee safety. Target is offering more than 2,000 products like clothes, books, music, and home furnishings as part of its pride collection. The items include gender fluid mugs, quote, queer all year calendars and books for children aged two to eight titled, bye bye binary, pride one, two, three, and I am not a girl. Target said in a statement, since introducing this year's collection, we have experienced threats impacting our team members sense of safety and well-being while at work. Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior. Target's been celebrating Pride Month for more than a decade, but the company says this year's collection has led to an increase in confrontations between customers and employees, and incidents of pride merchandise being thrown on the floor. Emos, we've heard from some people in the Monus community about this. Yeah, a whole variety of views. A few people who said they will not be shopping at Target anymore. They were offended by this merchandise, especially being in the front of the store. Then there are people who are praising Target for carrying it, including same-sex couples in the Monus community with kids who say, this is fine. Then there are a number of people, I think this is actually the majority, who say, everyone should take a deep breath, not yell at store employees over things they don't like, view merchandise like any other store, meaning if you don't want to buy it, don't buy it, and if you don't like it, talk to a corporate about it. So, yell at teenagers who have nothing to do with it, who happen to just be store employees, actually heard from the parents of one teen who say they're worried about their kids' safety in North Carolina at a Target store, and that their child has been facing threats. So that's where things stand in a number of cases. You've seen Target stores in more conservative areas move some of this merchandise to the back of the store in a less prominent location. And of course, it does come on the heels of conservative backlash against Bud Light after Anheuser-Busch, the brewer that owns Bud Light, promoted the beer on social media last month using transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. That led to a huge backlash and calls among some on the right to boycott Bud Light. Bud Light's actually seen decreased sales in the past 60 days over that. We'll be doing more on that on the Monus Instagram account in the coming days. Now you're seeing the same push around Target. Now while the Pride collection products are under review at Target, the only ones that have been removed so far are from a brand called Abprelin, which has come under scrutiny for its association with a British designer named Eric Carnell, who apparently had some Satanist connections. And so he had designed merchandise with images of pentagrams, horn skulls, other satanic products. So that led to some backlash. So they pulled those products. There's been a lot of viral stuff on social media and I just caution folks against believing everything you're seeing. There were a bunch of TikToks that had said that there were transgender swimsuits for children that were described as, quote, tuck friendly for male genitalia. It turns out that despite the TikToks, those swimsuits were not marketed towards kids. They're not in kid sizes. They happen to just be for adults, but other TikToks, viral conservative TikToks, said otherwise. So just letting folks know to dig in here on this story. There's some truth to it. There's some people manipulating it at the end of the day. It appears Target is dealing with some of the same backlash that Bud Light is. And as you mentioned, Jill, a number of these major stores, whether it's H&M, Target, et cetera, have been celebrating Pride Month for more than a decade now, but just in this era, especially as we're dealing with transgender laws and pushback on LGBT issues, you're seeing it get a little more hostile this year. All right, let's head overseas from the BBC, the Russian commander of an anti-Putin militia that conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week from Ukraine said yesterday that his group would soon launch more incursions into Russian territory. The commander of what's called the Russian volunteer corpse spoke to reporters on the Ukrainian side of the border after the Russians repelled their raid. The Russian military said it had routed the militants who carried out their attack using armored vehicles and pushed those who survived back into Ukraine. The volunteer group allegedly used US weapons, but the US and Ukraine said that they have nothing to do with this group, that the attack was carried out by Russian citizens, what they call homegrown internal Russian strife. Jill, there's a lot of players to keep track of here. It comes as we've seen allegedly other autonomous groups fighting on behalf of both sides, militia units within Ukraine fighting with the Russians. Now you have Russian groups who are anti-Russia, but not associated with Ukraine, but apparently using US weaponry according to one report. So this Russian volunteer corps is made up of Russians fighting for Ukraine from Ukraine against Putin. Right now, allegedly they have more than 100 members. So we have a bit of doubt as to what they're capable of, but certainly they're getting a lot of attention this week with the raid they conducted. They say they have more plans and that, quote, you should just be a little patient and wait just a couple days. That's according to their leader, Dennis Kapustin. Now add this to the mix to make things even more complicated. The ADL in the US describes Kapustin as a Russian neo-Nazi who's lived in Germany for years now fighting on behalf of Ukraine against Putin. Kapustin said his group is right wing and apparently was asked if he minded being called a Nazi and he said, I don't think it's an insult, adding I have my own set of views, a patriotic set of views, a traditional set of views. But I don't praise Hitler. I just wanted to add that because again, when you dig below the surface, it's not as simple as black and white. This side and that side, you have multiple paramilitary forces fighting on multiple sides here with multiple opinions. So oftentimes if you might hear the Russians say, you know, the Ukrainians are a bunch of Nazis and we're fighting the Nazis. In this case, literally this guy Kapustin is called a neo-Nazi. Now again, the Zalinsky in the Ukrainian say we don't have to do with them, but I'm sure they don't mind the fact that there's a militia who's putting a dent in the Russians on their behalf. Okay, also from the BBC, France has now banned domestic short haul flights where train alternatives exist. This is all in an effort to cut carbon emissions. The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two and a half hours. The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities like Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux while connecting flights though are unaffected. Critics have described the latest measure as quote symbolic bans. Airline industry groups say that banning these trips will have a minimal effect on CO2 output and that government should instead support real and significant solutions to the issue. Airline groups would say that the French government had face calls to introduce even stricter rules. One climate group said scrap all plane journeys where trains can take you four hours or less. That was reduced to two and a half hours after objections from some regions. One of the reasons this works over there, Jill, is because they have those fast trains. Can you imagine in the US you can't really get many places in two and a half hours on a train even like DC on the Xcela, which is the fastest train in the US. I use fast and air quotes for this if you're listening because literally it's one of the slowest fast trains in the world. That gets you to DC in more than two and a half hours. I think it typically takes you just about three hours. This wouldn't really be able to work here in the US given how slow our trains are but certainly in Europe and in other parts of the world the governments there are trying to put a dent in CO2 to the extent that they can. Okay, now from TechCrunch, Peloton is rebamping its workout app to offer users three different tiers including a new free tier and an upscaled one that costs 24 bucks a month. The company is looking to rebrand as a fitness company for everyone as opposed to just being known as an in-home bike company. In terms of what's available with these tiers, there's various amounts of classes and access across various fitness categories from strength, meditation, outdoor walking, yoga and more. Peloton's revamped app also includes a new gym function that lets users take the app into the gym with them. This is the first time Peloton's done something like this and which workouts are actually written out and demoed in a supporting video and designed to be done at the user's own pace. Really interesting. It's worth noting that the new tiers are not substitutes for the standard 44 bucks per month Peloton subscription that is required for doing classes on the company's home equipment. Jill, did you get a Peloton in COVID like was trendy? I did, Moshe. And I used it but I'm not the biggest bike person but I love this idea now because I don't really use the bike but I love the app and I do a lot of their outdoor runs and yoga. I actually do a ton of their classes. Yeah, I've done the yoga a few times. I also have family and friends that have used the app. It's interesting they're making this pivot. I mean they certainly have struggled. Their stock has collapsed. They've had a few recalls on their bike. So they're clearly trying a new tack here and the question is whether it'll work and just what the state of exercise is and gyms, home gym, studios, etc. post COVID. Where does that fall? Especially as we're kind of seeing in the workspace, the work from home thing, the hybrid thing go. So how does it work in the exercise realm? So the company's new CEO, Barry McCarthy told investors recently that the company's path to the promised land is its mobile app. We should add Peloton made nearly $290 million from subscriptions last quarter and lost more than $17 million on hardware on those bikes that are sitting collecting dust. I know Joe people have had trouble even trying to resell them. They put them up and they're trying to get other people. I have you guys tried to sell your Peloton bike yet? No, because I think we're still convinced that we're eventually going to start doing it. We're still in that mind frame. It's a really good drying rack I'm told by many people. All right, now time for On This Day in History. We begin in 1895 with playwright Oscar Wilde who was convicted on this day of a moral charge in London. The Irish playwright was sentenced for two years in prison. The July visit Dublin a few years ago. There's some statues devoted to him. You might remember the portrait of Dorian Gray. We had to read it in AP literature back in high school. That was one that I got the cliff notes for. All right, let's fast forward to the 20th century. On this day in 1961, these were the words of President John F. Kennedy. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. That was part of JFK's speech to Congress on this day in 1961. The US would actually make good on that pledge land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. They would fulfill that goal in July of 1969 with the Apollo 11 mission. Jill, I feel like there's so few times these days, at least in the past couple decades, where you can make such a big pronouncement, set such a big goal and actually achieve it on deadline. Most, I'm just trying to put myself back into the mind of somebody listening to that in 1961. It probably felt so far-fetched. And the fact that they did it in less than a decade is pretty incredible. Oh, it was incredible because at that time, people don't remember this because we actually got to the moon first, the US did, until 61. And even just a couple years after that, the Russians had beat the US to every other space achievement, the first person in space, the first satellite in space, the first animal in space, the first woman in space. The Russians were literally ticking off every single first in space. So they go big or go home, if you will, double down, triple down, whatever metaphor, gambling metaphor you want to make. So he says, they beat us for everything else. Let's go to the moon. Let's say we're going to do that first. And that was effectively the first real thing the US beat the Soviets to in nearly two decades of the space race. The Russians, of course, would never end up landing people on the moon. They had a couple failed missions. Actually just about that time, they could never get the rockets right, but pretty incredible. On that note about Russia, that's why I loved For All Mankind, which is a show on Apple TV, sort of this like alternative history about the space program. Highly recommend if you're interested in this stuff. Speaking of space, Star Wars premiered on this day in theaters 46 years ago, May 25th, 1977. We actually marked a couple weeks ago, May 4th, May the 4th be with you, but the original George Lucasfilm actually premiered on May 25th. All right, from premieres to finales, a couple TV finales to mark this week, the series finale of home improvement aired on this day, May 25th, 1999, 24 years ago. Does the clue make sense now, Jill, at the top of the pod? So I never really watched that show. So that's why I didn't get it. What was the noise? So Tim Allen would make a noise as part of the theme song. And like this was part of his thing. He would be crunting. And then in the theme song, it ends with him saying, it's hammered into my memory. All right, finally, we said goodbye on this day, May 25th, 2011, wow, 12 years ago now, to the Oprah Winfrey Show. The long running talk show helped make Oprah one of the most influential, richest women in the world. Jill, of course, she didn't need the talk show anymore. She's launched O Magazine, the Oprah Network. I mean, she's bigger than just that talk show. And she continues to wield a lot of influence and still command a lot of attention. Had the opportunity to work briefly with her when she was doing some 60-minute stories for CBS over the course of the past couple of years when I was there. I watched her show every day. For me, it was must-see TV. And I feel like I haven't had that in my life for so many years. Of course, Gayle King was always just Oprah's best friend. And now Gayle King has an amazing career at CBS. Right, Gayle would go on to have her own talk show, then go to fill in the morning Joe, then head over to CBS. I had a great opportunity to work with her. I'm also very thankful to her. She, with the team there at CBS, put out a welcome message, a congrats message for the baby this week. So thanks to Gayle and the team over there. All right, we could go on, but we've got to go. We want to thank everybody for listening to the Mo News Podcast. Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and review us in the App Store so we can continue to grow. And stay tuned later today if you're a Mo News premium member for a special podcast. Alex and I put together talking about, well, our personal news, the pregnancy, etc. We also do a live gender reveal. We found out the gender while we were taping the podcast. How did you find it? Did you just have it in an envelope and you opened it? We had gotten an email with the blood work with the result. It was an attachment. And literally while we're taping it, I won't give away too much in the pod. We basically make the decision during the podcast that let's open it. Let's do this. And so we record as we're finding out. Very cool. If you're not a Mo News premium member and you're interested in listening to this podcast and have early access to other pods, the members only Instagram feed, etc. You can join right now, mo.news slash premium. Again, mo.news slash premium. Monthly members discounted annual memberships, lifetime memberships, all available to you. All right. Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Mo News Podcast. ♪♪♪ Thank you.