11-21-24 Afternoon Rush - BREAKING NEWS - Matt Gaetz Steps Down & Jussie Smollett Case Overturned! Plus The Sun Doubles Down On Bachelor Maria & Pete Davidson Story!

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 Welcome to the Rush Hour. Your daily dose of pop culture for your Rush Hour ride. Buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian, Dave Neal. Good afternoon, folks. It's Thursday, uh, November 21st, 2024, and I've got all your pop culture entertainment news in one place, and it's a wild one. I know I always say that, but So much to get into huge day today.

Jesse Smollett's conviction overturned in the Supreme court in a surprising decision. Plus breaking news, Matt Gates nominated to be the U S attorney general has removed himself from consideration. This is wild. I'll get into that story. And we've got a banana duct tape to a wall selling for 6 million.

Why? I don't know. And an update on the Staten Island Bakery that Whippy Goldberg called out. They are not going quietly into the night. And also the Sun Magazine smut rag doubling down on their Bachelor Maria and Pete Davidson story. Plus I've got billionaire beef happening between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and I am primed to share that tea.

I'll have that for you now. All those stories and so much more coming up next on The Rush. All right, let's start with the Jussie Smollett story. This is crazy. In Illinois, Supreme Court overturned the conviction. If you don't remember, it was like he claimed that there was a hate crime against him, and he had a noose around his neck when he called the cops, and then it came out that the guys that, uh, perpetuated the hate crime were actually paid by him.

I don't understand how this could be overturned. He was sentenced to 30 months probation with the first 150 days to be served in Cooke County jail. He made an emotional and defiant exit as the bailiff took him out of the court following his conviction. So this Illinois Supreme Court ruling said, today we resolve a question about the state's responsibility.

To honor the agreements it makes with defendants. The court said simply the state is bound by the agreement. So it doesn't necessarily mean he was found innocent. It sounds it just kind of, because the initial, his case was initially, I don't know if it was dismissed or if it was not prosecuted, but there was some shady business going on.

So then with the public outcry, they actually investigated it. And I guess the Supreme court saying you can't do that. Um, uh, the lawyer said that. Uh, the lawyer for Jussie said the case was swayed by popular opinion, but prosecutions should be based on facts. The public wanted Jussie convicted and he was not interested in reasonable doubts.

His lawyer notes celebs and other well known people face an uphill battle in court nowadays. Well, I don't know if that's true. I mean, uh, again, the case goes all the way back to January, 2019, when Jussie initially claimed he'd been the victim of a hate crime. Two men shouted, this is maggot country, and aren't you that f word, n word from Empire, as they put a rope around his neck and threw a liquid on him, which he believed to be bleach.

Two men turned out to be brothers, Abim Bola and Ola, who were friends with Jussie. They told police Jussie had paid them to stage the whole attack. The reversal of Jussie's conviction is reminiscent of Bill Cosby's case. He was actually doing time in prison when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed his conviction, citing a deal prosecutors had struck to not prosecute him in exchange for him sitting for a deposition in the Andrea Constand case.

So here's what, uh, Jussie's lawyer had to say with the initial surprise reaction. Give us your reaction to a pretty stunning reversal of fortune for Jussie Smollett. It's it's it's you know, I I didn't see I don't see it as a surprise. Obviously. We're ecstatic. We're happy Um, but really my position is it shouldn't have gone this far This prosecution was not a prosecution.

It was a persecution and prosecutions ought to be based on fact Not on vindictiveness. And that's what this seemed like. And that's has no place in our American jurisprudence. And so I'm very happy. One thing I want to really emphasize here is this was not a divided court. This was a unanimous decision by our Supreme court.

And that speaks a lot as to what I'm saying now. No, but it seems to me as though the court wasn't ruling on whether or not Jesse was guilty. It was whether or not he already had an agreement with the prosecutors. This is what I hate. And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is what I hate about lawyers and the legal system.

They'll make it seem like, Oh, Jesse won. Sure. It looks like he won on some sort of technicality, but, uh, you know, they're not prosecuting or at least talking about the actual issue at hand. Wild stuff. All right. Artificial intelligence is coming for Jesus. That's right. The Father, the Son, and the automated spirit, says TMZ.

A church swaps priest for new media messiah. One church in Switzerland is taking religion into the modern age, introducing an AI hologram of Jesus, who is doling out advice to parishioners. Theologian Marco Schmidt. Who works for the church told TMZ. The experience is similar to that of a Catholic confession with churchgoers stepping into a confessional booth at St.

Peter's Chapel in Lucerne for a private moment behind a closed door. However, rather than a priest greeting them from a screen, the face of ai, Jesus pops up looking exactly as you'd expect with a young face, long black hair, and a beard. AI Jesus has already left an impact. This is, this is so dystopian that I'm talking about AI Jesus.

Uh, I don't, you know, can you just imagine him glitching and you're like, Oh my gosh, the Holy Spirit. Uh, what happens if Jesus glitches? Well, turn him off and turn it back on. I mean, is this blasphemy? God created us in his image. So anything we create was because of God, right? I don't know. I don't know, folks.

Uh, I've got a Christmas movie update, uh, hot frosty. Have you guys seen this on Netflix? Horning up the holidays for ladies during a winter dry spell. Netflix is new holiday rom com. Hot frosty is melting the ice in the bedroom for some couples this winter. According to a renowned sex therapist, Dr. Laura Berman.

Oh boy. This is just, I mean, have you seen this? So it's a. Sexy movie, I guess it because it's, I'll tell you the premise and I'm not going to give anything away. It's a yellow light for me here at the rush hour. We have a red light, yellow light, green light system. It's not a red light, which means I do think you might like it, but it's not exactly a great movie, but, but, uh, a lady finds a snowman who's sexy.

And then he. The snowman turns into a real person, but he's like still a snowman. So he's ice cold. So he always has his shirt off. I mean, it is blatant exploitation. I'm not against it, but it is what it is. Here's what Dr. Laura Berman had to say about, um, I guess how it's horning up. The lady is on Netflix and some studies that have shown that women who read romance novels, they haven't translated that to watching romantic movies, but it's basically the same.

Um, have an increase in sexual desire. So, if you're wanting her to get more in the mood, maybe watch a movie like this with her, and it might stimulate a little action afterwards. Well, I think we mostly see women being portrayed in risqué ways, um, and objectified, so to speak. We don't see hot guys being objectified that often.

Often in service to women's arousal. Um, and it's interesting to me because I talked to so many women and it's like, mine too, we're all a sucker for Hallmark movies, but it's like this well known secret that nobody talks about, but the net, you know, the streaming services definitely know. So I think it's a great idea to combine like that Hallmark movie model that women love and slide in there a little male.

Sexy objectification. Geez. I mean, call it out. Why don't you? All right. Uh, so look, here's my thoughts on the movie. Is it good? I mean, depending on what kind of Christmas movie you want, it's definitely not meant for like your kids to watch, but it's not like super rated. Are I have to say about the male lead?

He was in Schitt's Creek. He's a good, good actor. I like him, but his body fat percentage is zero. So as I'm watching this movie, I'm all I could think about was, is How miserable he must have been because he couldn't have anything but a pistachio and a glass of water every day. I mean, I'm talking 0 percent body fat to the point where I think he was too skinny.

I think he, you know, like, I think like there's like a surfer body type that's sexy. And again, Who am I to tell you what the sexy male body type is, but this guy was so skinny. I mean, you could see his like veins pulsating during every take. I mean, I don't know. Hey, maybe you guys, maybe you ladies like that.

What do I know? Clearly not enough. All right. An update on the Staten Island case. You guys might remember that whoopie Goldberg claimed that there was a bakery that was, uh, Uh, I guess persecuting her unwilling to do business with her because of her political affiliations. Well, that bakery came out and said, you're absolutely wrong.

Our boiler was down and now rep Nicole Malia Malia Takis, very Greek. If you ask me, is standing by a Holterman's bakery a week after whoopies accusations that the Staten Island institution is snubbed, snubbed her according to our politics. And if you don't know, out of the five boroughs in New York, you got Queens.

Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island. Out of the five boroughs, Staten Island is like its own thing. It's like a, it's like a red borough, which again, no, no offense to it. Uh, but like they have to do business with the rest of New York, which I'm sure is very blue. Here's what the, their representative had to say.

So which is the ones that Whoopi came to, that she actually wanted? These are the ones? So we would like, we would like, you know, yesterday Whoopi Goldberg doubled down and, uh, said once again that she was denied these baked goods because of her politics. Uh, I think she should apologize. This is a small business, and somebody going on national TV like that could break a business.

And this has been an institution on Staten Island for 146 years. So all we ask is for an apology, um, and we hope everyone enjoys the snacks. And when you stop in Staten Island, make sure Did y'all Did you send any over to the view? No. No? No. We brought them here. Okay. We brought one to the speaker personally.

Of course, you can hear the, the, the police cars in the background. That's so Staten Island. Did you send any to Whoopi? No, we're here. Uh, so yeah, look, I mean. If Whoopi doesn't have proof that they did deny her because of her political idea, uh, affiliations, then she should apologize. But then again, to be quite fair, Whoopi Goldberg never said the name of the bakery.

You know what I mean? So the bakery is clearly capitalizing on this, but I don't blame them. All right. More content coming your way right after this. All right, we have some serious stories to get to, but first, let's do something stupid. And this is the duct tape banana that just sold at auction. What the heck is going on at the Sotheby's auction house, just so I can understand it because I don't get it.

An artist named Maurizio Catalan went to a fruit stand on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and bought a dull banana for 35 cents. That's wild. Duct taped it to the wall of the Sotheby's auction house, and then they started the bidding on this work of art. A half dozen people or more bid and the final price was 6.

2 million. How do they explain that, Tony? So the guy, the guy who bought it is a crypto rich guy named Justin Sun, runs a company called Tron. In a statement, he says that the artwork quote, represents the cultural phenomena that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and cryptocurrency. If I didn't know better, I would think that you're punking us.

I'm not punking you. I'm not punking you. And this is a kind of a growing phenomenon. The art was initially displayed in Miami at Art Basel a few years ago. Oh yeah, I remember that. And when the banana rots, what happens? So there's instructions for replacing it. By the way, uh, the destiny of this particular banana from the Upper East Side fruit stand for 35 cents, the buyer, Justin Sun says, in the coming days, quote, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience.

honoring its place in art history and popular culture. Some people have too much money. Yeah, this is why we need to tax the billionaires, right? This is what we talk about when we talk about a marginal tax. Uh, my thought, I have several thoughts. A, I've got a jar of peanut butter. I will sell him for a million dollars, which will go great with that banana.

Uh, and I'll give, I'll throw in the bread for free. We'll do a banana and peanut butter sandwich. I'll toast it for you. I'll drizzle some honey on for free. But the peanut butter is a million dollars. And B, I think this is some form of money laundering, right? You, it's like buying artwork. Um, you know, like if you bought a painting, the paintings worth 10 million, you can walk that painting across borders, but you can't just bring 10 million in and out of a country.

I don't, I don't exactly know what the scam is here, but there's something scammy happening, but yeah, bro, join the patron patron. com slash Dave Neal. I've got a banana tier, which is a million dollars a month. If you would like to join. Um, I will eat bananas every day in your honor. Um, all right, well, let's go to some others.

We've got a lot to stories here. Uh, speaking of, uh, people that are worth too much money, Elon Musk is throwing billionaire shade at Jeff Bezos. Um, so Elon Musk, um, I guess. Called out Jeff Bezos because he said privately, uh, Jeff Bezos said, just learn tonight at, Oh, he said, just learn tonight at Mar a Lago that Jeff Bezos was telling everyone that Donald Trump would lose for sure.

So they should sell all their Tesla and space X stock. Um, and then of course, in response to that, yeah, Jeff Bezos posted his own tweet saying, nope, 100 percent not true. Uh, okay. You know what I mean? Can we get that billionaire death match boxing match going? So, you know, already either way, look, look, do these.

Guys do a lot of good. Yes. But do we have a broken tax system that leads them to be worth that much money? Absolutely. There's someone like Jeff Bezos. I saw this clip where he was like walking through his factory and one of his guys like, like stopped him to talk for 20 seconds. And the guy was like, Hey, you know, it's so nice to, you know, work for you.

I've really enjoyed the experience. And they did the math on how much Jeff Bezos and that guy made during that interaction. The guy made like A dollar, you know, or like 40 cents, you know what I mean? He made like 40 cents and Jeff Bezos made like 8, 000. So it just goes to show the, the disparity between the sort of upper class CEO class, the ownership class, uh, in the billionaire class, that top, top 0.

1%. You know, there's like, what, what does Bernie say? There's like three guys. In our country for people in our country that are worth more than the bottom 50%. That's a crazy world we live in. That's an absolutely crazy world we live in. Well, speaking of crazy, we have several crazy stories to get to, uh, Matt Gates was nominated as attorney general, which is a huge position.

And of course there was an ethics report coming out on Friday that was supposed to reveal, uh, the Venmo payments, uh, that he made between. Uh, what appears to be dozens of women for sex, some of which he flew into New York, which is called sex trafficking, and one or two of which were underage. So, uh, he was set to, I guess, be cross examined, uh, in his nomination.

They said it was going to be like the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, but on steroids. Well, now it's reporting that this just happened. He decided to step down and rescind, uh, his nomination. This is just, uh, dropped like a bomb here on Capitol Hill, the idea that he has now decided to, uh, withdraw from consideration as the next Attorney General.

In fact, every single senator, uh, that I've seen as I've walked from where I was in the Russell office building to where I am here at Will Rogers, not a single one of them, uh, seemed to be aware of the information. They were finding out, uh, about it just like the rest of us, uh, through, uh, Matt Gaife's ex feed.

So this is not something that was necessarily communicated to the rank and file senators that were. We're gonna be charged with the confirmation. Um, and, and it is just a, a complete 180 in terms of the language and the posture that we had seen from Gates and from Republican senators about the pursuit of this nomination.

We saw, uh, the president elect Donald Trump just a couple days ago when he was, uh, in Texas saying, uh, that he was still committed to his nomination and did not want to see, uh, gates, uh, removed from that position and, and gates. Even last night after he left a day's worth of meetings, he was here all day long, seemed upbeat and positive about the prospect that he had to become the next attorney general, despite the headwinds that he was facing.

And despite the real concern that many of these Republicans were expressing privately. Here's my thought. My thought is that the ethics report was leaked. He saw how damning it was and said, you know what, let's, I don't need this. That that's my thought. I'm not really sure exactly what happened. All right.

Let's, uh, let's match that with some more crazy. This in the pop culture world, uh, Pete Davidson leaves mental health facility as inner circle pressures Maria Georges to publicly deny their fling. This was reported by the U S sun. This is the same senior investigations and exclusives reporter named Jessica Finn.

The comedian has been sober for four months. Uh, multiple sources exclusively told the U. S. Sun that Pete's inner circle pleaded with bachelor alum Maria to shut down dating rumors and also insists he never went to rehab. Again, that's probably because that's true. Um, But the report continues. Pete has been sober for four months and everyone around him is really proud of him.

So when it came out that he was in treatment and dating Maria, they went into protective mode and an Instagram story earlier this week, Maria wrote, never dated Pete. She followed up in a second Instagram story saying he's been sober. Can't believe this stuff. It's very insulting to his recovery. The insider explained that asking the bachelor star to put out that statement was a well intended misstep.

They also claim that Pete is a. Dated Maria on a very limited basis. So when they were linked as a couple, Pete's loved ones were concerned and jumped in to protect him. Pete is concerned about the privacy of different people he's involved with. What the hell is this story? Um, so they're doubling down that the story's real.

Um, and what is a limited basis even mean? What do they constitute as dating? Did they go get? coffee together. I have no idea. I'm siding with the privacy of Pete and Maria and saying this is absolutely ridiculous. They would double down on this story. Um, all right, well, let's go to some Taylor Swift news.

Why don't we do that? Actually, I'd say what I got a quick, fun Taylor Swift story. We'll get to that after the break. Well, Rob Riggle, one of my favorite character actors and veteran, uh, has his first episode of his new podcast out Riggle's pick, uh, or of the season. And he interviewed Travis Kelsey, pretty big get, and of course he says, Hey, I don't care.

I get, I expect, I respect your privacy, but I need to ask about Taylor. Hey, get in line. I respect your privacy, but at the same time, I've got, I've got a stack of letters here from Swifty Nation. Uh, yeah. Oh, wow. They're all written out. Nice. That's a strong nation, too, by the way. That's one of the strongest I've ever ran into.

It's amazing. And it's, it's been so fun to watch, uh, uh, watch her attend football games and stuff because she's bringing a lot of fans to the game. But here's a, a Swifty says, you know, Swifty for life. Now that's I couldn't come up with anything different for myself. Swiftie4Live asks, uh, who do you think you are?

I'm not even kidding. Don't even answer that. Okay? There's, you know, there's actually there's just pages of that. They all say who do you think you are. A lot of that and also just things like how do you play football? What does a tight end do? Just stupid, yeah. Your dreams aren't bigger than you, then there's a problem with your dreams.

Yay! Don't get caught up in, in where you're at in life. You got to dream big out of here. I couldn't agree more. I, yes. Why dream small? That's the dumbest thing on earth. Why dream small? And I wish they dreamt of a better bit to run, but Hey, you know what I mean? You can miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take.

Right. And speaking of taking shots, Elona on dancing with the stars, rugby Olympian, uh, of course, rumored to possibly be in the running as the next bachelorette also says she wants to go on amazing race with her partner, Alan. Have a listen. Down to do some other type of reality show or a show about rugby you and Alan just Do you know anyone at amazing racing you put Alan and I on that?

We want to do amazing We're not convinced. We'll work out well together. No put us on amazing race. We're going to win I don't even know what we're doing, but we're gonna win it. He can drive stick Um, because I can't if that's a big thing you need to be able to do that because in countries, you know, I I will Oh, my dad's a mechanic He made me hold a flashlight my whole childhood because I can't, you wouldn't let me do anything, but I held that flashlight.

I feel like I'm, how are you with heights? I'm good with heights. Okay. Listen, I'm, I'm also good with heights, so boom. I am an amazing race winner. Okay. And I haven't even done it yet. All right. So there it is. He can drive stick and he can hold a flashlight. I mean, if you just. Cut me a check for a million bucks already.

All right. You know, you, you know, me, we're a big Lindsay Lohan fan club. She's out doing the late night circuit in here. She actually talks about the first, the only, the last time she auditioned, which was for the parent trap, she played twins. She also spoke about how dumb some people she worked with were.

I mean, the first movie I auditioned for was the parent trap and I didn't, I haven't auditioned since that. Is it true that a Disney executive asked you at the premiere of that movie if your sister was there? Yes. Michael Eisner. Michael Eisner asked you that? Where's your twin? And I was like, and I was so young, I don't even know how I thought to say this, but I'll never forget what I said.

I said, well you should have paid me double because I don't have one. Actually, the truth is, as far as I know in the Screen Actors Guild, that you do get paid for every character you play. Now, again, scale when you're getting paid is like 900 bucks a day. When she was, uh, you know, in Parent Trap years ago, it was probably half that.

And so I'm sure she was getting paid more than the scale. So technically, she probably was getting paid for both characters. Um, alright, well, I mean, just wild, wild. I mean, what a day. All these breaking stars. I always say it like we got some wild stuff, but isn't this crazy? What's going on out there? And again, I don't even think this is heavily political.

It's pop culture. I mean, the Matt Gaetz story is pop culture. Jussie Smollett is pop culture. But here's a story I think we can all get on. It involves the airline industry because look, I'm pre check. I know humblebrag. You do the interview and they approve you so that you can go through the security without taking your belt off and not losing your pride.

Yeah. And every single time I go through pre check, there's someone in front of me, who's not pre check that tries to sneak in that line. And they always kick you out. And it's like, dude, why'd you feel like you could have done this? This ain't for you. And the same thing happens, uh, when you're boarding airplanes, you know, there's like, if you're, uh, uh, you know, group C, but you try to sneak into group B, they usually don't do anything about it, but now it looks like a new solution is coming for this problem, a new solution to a very old familiar problem, crowding at the gate when it's time to board a plane.

This is coming from American Airlines, and essentially it's going to call people out if they attempt to board the plane before it is their turn. American uses group numbers to board, but still sees a crowd of people that sort of rush the door when they start the boarding process. It's irks flyers. Some have dubbed it irks.

Gate lice, even though airlines hate that term. So I'm saying it. They're not. They acknowledge that gate crowding is a pain point. American thinks it's found a solution. And after about a month of testing. They're ready to take it national this week. That is the sound of someone trying to board when it's not their turn.

When I say group A, then you can come up, okay? American Airlines has been testing a new boarding system in Tucson and two other airports. Those flyers tried to board just a little early and are asked to wait until their boarding group is called. American will now add 100 airports ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

With more in the coming months. I look, I like this. I like, uh, gentle, I like gently sort of urging people to not do something they're not supposed to do. And I love, I love watching the reaction of people when they like realized they've been caught and they're like, well, I didn't, Oh, whoops. Sorry. I thought it said, Hey, but it really says D whoops, you know?

And it's like, all right, your shit stinks. Just like the rest of us get the, get in the back of the line. You're on a spirit airlines flight. There's bullets flying in the air. You know what I mean? You don't, you're no better than us. All right. Well, uh, what a weird way to end. We, we try to jam pack as much content as we can into the day.

And I think we did that today. Uh, so do me a favor. If you like what we do, I really mean this. I'm, I'm reaching out to you out there, Samantha. I'm talking to you, Billy. Uh, share us with a friend. Maybe you have a best friend. Maybe you have someone who likes pop culture, entertainment news. Maybe you like my bias or my tilt, my slant, as it were.

Share us with a friend or a group chat. It really helps us continue to grow the channel. It's been a great year, but I encourage you, if we can keep growing, we're going to keep adding new fun opportunities to the podcast. And, um, I appreciate everyone who's helping that, uh, happen. So thanks so much guys.

And we'll see you in the morning. I'm Dave Neal. This, Oh, and by the way, I will have a live stream tomorrow around 10 a. m. central time. So, uh, I'll be live on YouTube. You can go check that out. Then, uh, we'll see you over there. I'm Dave Neal. This is a rush. The rush hour is a twice daily pop culture and entertainment news podcast hosted by standup comedian, Dave Neal.

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