12-9-24 Afternoon Rush - Assassin Suspect FOUND at McDonalds! & Taylor Swift Tips Employees $200Mil & Podcast Studio Comes After Laura Owens For Defamation!

 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 everybody on this Monday afternoon. Rush, December 9th, 2024. Let's get into all of your news. I got it all in one place on today's episode.

We've got Taylor Swift wrapping up her 2 billion tour. Find out how much money she, she tipped her staff along with what she had to say on stage, her final night performing. And also this is the biggest story of the day. It looks like the suspected assassin in the New York city shooting has been detained in Pennsylvania.

I guess they're still calling him a person of interest and not a suspect, But now they're also saying they might have found his, uh, gun on him. I'll have all of the updates there along with the new law, possibly banning TikTok. What does this mean for all of us? And Shailene Woodley is set to star as Janice Joplin in the musical biopic.

It says it took her seven years to prepare for that role. All right. I got all those stories and so much more coming up next on The Rush. Well, let's start with the biggest story of the day. United healthcare CEO murder suspect. They call it a person of interest, but it's pretty much the suspect is detained.

This is new information that's come out in the last hour. Uh, apparently news organizations were in central park of reporting live where the dive teams were sifting through the ponds looking for the weapon, which by the way, I can't imagine what they're finding, how many weapons are thrown in. Central Park.

You know what I mean? Who knows? Either way, here's the reporting live breaking news update. Hey, Harrisville, we never know exactly how quickly these things are going to move. All morning I've been in Central Park as these dive teams have been doing everything they can to find what I was told was the weapon because they couldn't track it down.

Now investigating. Investigators and NYPD police sources here is telling Fox News that they believe they found a man who matches that same description of the gunman who killed that CEO in Midtown Manhattan. They found him at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Okay. That's like a five hour drive from where we are right now.

So if he was found at a McDonald's, could he argue that he has suffered enough? Does that count as time served? We knew that the person of interest had possibly hopped on a bus and fled town. Now we're being told they believe. They have that person of interest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. So we kind of talked about this earlier when I checked in with you, person of interest suspect, they're keeping it at person of interest right now.

And they're just saying he matches the description, but not only does he match the description for people watching at home, he also, according to. We're going to talk a little bit more about this in just a moment. But first, let's take a look at this. This is a picture of a man in the photo. We have a lot of investigative sources who are telling Fox News he had the weapon they believe was used in this murder in his pocket.

So this is what happens. I'm told from police, and it's still developing. But this person's at this McDonald's in Altoona. We've been putting these pictures out all across the country because it's been a nationwide manhunts. They've been asking people. Do you recognize this man in the photo? We want to talk to him.

We think he was linked to this ongoing investigation. Well, somebody Harris said that McDonald's in Pennsylvania recognized him, called it into local police. And here we are right now. So if this ends up panning out and they are going to question this guy in Pennsylvania, we could have a huge break in this case.

This comes as that CEO is having a private funeral right now in Minneapolis. All right. So this is interesting because like, first of all, why was he at a McDonald's? And again, I'm not trying to like give him advice or anything, but you would think if you were really trying to, I don't know, maybe you would go to the drive thru.

Did he have a, you know, would you wear fake facial hair, put on a KN95 mask? It seems to me that there'd be a million ways to disguise yourself. Uh, so I wonder what it was that tips people off. It's not like he's been on the loose for six months and got lazy. It's like, was the dude trying to get caught? I mean, very interesting stuff.

Well, now the, uh, The UnitedHealth, CEO is warned that he'll be next. Um, that is the CEO, that's the boss of the last CCEO, Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. The parent company of UnitedHealthcare was trying to reassure employees with a message about their business only for that to provoke immediate backlash.

Here's what he had to say. I'm sure everybody has been disturbed by the amount of negative, and in many cases, vitriolic media and commentary that has been produced over the last few days, particularly in the social media environment. And I want to reassure you of a few things. Firstly, we are going to continue.

To make sure that we put patients, consumers, and members first. And of course he goes on and on. And I think, I think, well, would you call this tone deaf? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they understand the bigger issue here. You know, the reason why people are upset, it's not because a guy was gunned down and we have in the audience is soulless.

No, it's because he represented a company that, you know, puts profits. Billions of profits ahead of people. And it's really the whole industry. That's the problem that being private insurance companies get to decide if you qualify for the healthcare that you've paid in for, I mean, doesn't it make sense you pay for something, you should receive it, but now they use artificial intelligence to sort of, I guess, dispute claims, and then you have to run it up the ladder.

I mean, So multiple things can be true. And I've said this all the time. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But also if you're not receiving, seeing the results you want in, in through, you know, done through the proper channels, people burn things down and we've seen cities get burnt because of stuff like this.

Uh, you know, where big, big systemic changes happen from people taking things into their own, own hands, whether it's. whether it's valid or not. All right. People took this into their own hands. Ray gun, the musical remember Ray gun. She was the break dancer from Australia. Well, they are pulling the musical after controversial break dancer calls in her lawyers, boo, let the musical play out a musical inspired by viral Olympic break dancer.

Ray gun shut down hours before it was due to open on Saturday. After lawyers representing the athlete threatened legal action. Oh, come on, do the musical. Steph Broadbridge, an Australian comedian who wrote and intended to star in Ray Gunn, the musical said in a video post on Instagram that the break dancers lawyers got in touch with the venue and threatened legal action.

Oh boy. I'm going to have to get a clip of that video. I don't have it right here, but I say, let it play. You know, if, if you can't do Ray Gunn, the musical, you know, uh, call it stray gun, the musical, you know, you've got to change it. You've got to change it up or something. New law. Banning TikTok in the U. S.

if it's not sold to an American company is now one step closer to reality. A federal appeals court upholding the law designed to force the Chinese owned company to sell TikTok to an American company or be blocked. The ban set to take effect on January 19th, the U. S. says it is concerned China could steal personal information from the 170 million users.

TikTok is now expected to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. So, so here's the deal on this TikTok ban. It's, you know, the news is going around the way, where I stand on it is we need better transparency about what information we're giving people. Uh, and, and by that, I mean, if, if they're going to be making, if all these social media companies are gonna be making billions of dollars, not off of the product, but using us as the product, shouldn't we all get a cut of that?

And, uh, I don't think the problem is just TikTok. I think it's Facebook. Which, you know, Instagram's owned by Facebook and it's, and it's a lot, it's, it's a lot of social media companies, probably Snapchat too. I don't know what their biometrics are, uh, but you got to start somewhere. And what, what would you rather, uh, would you rather ban the, the giant, giant social media platform that's essentially run by, uh, one of your four, uh, a foe.

Uh, I think that's a good place to start now. I don't think it should be banned, but I think they do need to get somebody in leadership. That's, you know, an American that can look out for what's best. Here for us. And again, that's not, you know, me trying to sound like, um, I don't know, in any sort of way, like I think there's giant sinister motivations by the people that work in Tik TOK, but we can't just trust that.

If we're going to be giving all of that information to a foreign country, I don't think you can just trust that. All right. Well, we'll see what happens there. I got your Taylor Swift story. It's the end of an era, the era's tour. That is. She crushed it at her final concert. I'm going to share what she had to say coming up next.

All right. Taylor Swift, boy, has she made a couple billion ends. The era's tour crushes it at her final concert. The commonly used phrase, all good things come to an end applies not only to us mere mortals, but also to Taylor Swift. After almost two years, 149 shows, spanning five continents and record smashing ticket sales, Taylor Swift.

The pop superstar has finally come to the end of her tour. Turns out it was the most profitable concert tour ever grossing 2 billion and was virtually sold out from start to finish with their Swifties relishing every moment. Here's what she had to say, thanking her fans. I thank every single one of you for being a part of the most thrilling chapter of my entire life to date, my beloved heiress tour.

Thank you for being with us tonight. Would you give us one more song? And then she does her last song.

I mean, look. I'm not a huge Swifty, but I do love, I love, I'll definitely watch the documentaries that are made from this. Uh, absolutely. It's just incredible. She literally changes the GDP of countries, states, cities, towns when she performs there. So it was her last gig in Vancouver and I mean, what a long tour.

She went through three different boyfriends during that tour. Uh, here's another clip. We have toured the entire world with this tour. We have had so many adventures. It has been the most exciting, powerful, electrifying, intense, most challenging thing I've ever done in my entire life. We've gotten to perform for over 10 million people on this tour.

Tonight,

we get to play one last show for you here tonight in beautiful She's like, what? Country man again, I think that's going to be incredible. And by the way, I feel bad for Travis Kelsey. How is he supposed to entertain her as a boyfriend? You know what I mean? It's tough enough being out there, uh, dating somebody, you have to come up with stories that are fun and you gotta be, you know, jovial she's performing in front of 10, 000 adoring fans.

I mean, imagine if he's got any gripe, he's like, honey, you know, your breath kind of stinks. She's like, I, I travel the world. People love me. Don't forget my breath. Uh, so either way, but look, I've said this time and time again. I think Taylor Swift is a great person. I think she does with her platform as much as she can for good.

And she seems like a good person. Well, people. com is now reporting Taylor Swift gave away a whopping 197 million in bonuses to ERA's tour performers crew on top of their salaries. And let me tell you something. I'm sure they were getting pretty good salaries. Over the past two years, she gave out 200, I mean, 197 million.

She should have rounded that up to 200, but either way, including to truck drivers, caterers, dancers, and musicians. Um, yeah, so this is just incredible. And I mean, look, did she make a fortune? Yeah, but we all know people that make a lot of money that are Scrooge McDuck about it. Uh, but good on her just in the North American leg of the tour.

Last year, she gave out 55 million in bonuses. We're told she was handing out a hundred thousand dollar checks to her drivers. Um, Uh, just incredible stuff. So she sold 2, 077, 000, 000 in ticket sales, but what did she make in merchandise? What did she make in all the other things that go along with that?

Not to mention, what is she making by streaming her music? My guess is she had a several hundred million. I mean, She's a billionaire that, you know, she, she can do no wrong. Um, and you know, we are not exactly, uh, at the size of Taylor Swift, but hey, you know, I got advertisers too. I got to do my job too, Taylor.

And today we're lucky to be joined by our sponsor VEA. This holiday season, unwind and recharge with VEA, whether you're enjoying a quiet evening at home or embracing the festive cheer, VEA's Premium THC and THC free gummies will help you find your perfect holiday balance. Let me be the first to tell you a little edible with the in laws, never a bad thing.

Put that in the stocking stuffer. They are, they is well renowned for their award winning THC and THC free gummies and vapes THC, a flower soothing topicals and calming drops all crafted with the highest quality hemp source from trusted independently owned American farms. Best part, they legally ships to nearly all States in the U S in discrete You know, geez, I bought my lady a gift the other day and it didn't come in a discreet packaging.

It was spoiled. The box showed the product on it. So we don't need that. We appreciate the discreet packaging. So this holiday season, gift yourself some peace of mind. If you're 21 plus, check out the link to VEA. In our description and use the code rush hour to receive 15 percent off. After you purchase, they ask you where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them we sent you the holiday season enhancer every day with VEA. So we'll have that code for 15 percent off in the description. And other things I have in the description are a link to support our single mom, Christmas wish list. We've got so many moms to get to. We have Stephanie with a little boy named Wayne, Jeanette with a girl named McKayla and Brittany, uh, with a girl named.

So many out there, they've all got great gifts on their wishlist. If you purchase anything on those wishlists, they go directly to the moms. I don't touch a thing and we appreciate the support. So many of you guys, I think we've had hundreds of gifts already purchased and it means so much. Thank you guys.

Thank you guys. Thank you guys. All right. Well, what else do we have in the wild world of going on out there? Oh boy, here we have, uh, Kelly Ripa, is that her name? And Mark Consuelo, Consuela, they of course host a daytime TV show together. And it looks like you could hear the crowd groveling at this guy when he calls out his wife for not apologizing.

Empathy, empathizing and apologizing. I do that. I don't think I think I can name on one hand the amount of times I've heard I'm sorry But I know it's not rare to husbands Like, husbands just don't hear, I'm sorry, from their spouses, it just, that never works. When we do something wrong, we will apologize.

She said it as a future sense. When we do something wrong, we will apologize. Not, I did something wrong. Physically speaking, after almost 30 years of marriage, you're probably gonna do something wrong, like, maybe 12 times a year. Once a month, I would say maybe 12 times in total. So, uh, you know, all true, you know, whatever, fun, fun, ha ha morning stuff.

But Hey, I kind of tend to agree with him here. I mean, look, uh, squeaky wheel gets the grease. Here's my advice to my gentlemen out there. If you're in a fight with your lady, the best thing to do is find out what you did wrong. Even if it was only 1 percent of the issue, uh, find out what you did wrong.

Apologize. Be specific and get the hell out of that fight. No point in being right. Single men like to be right. Men in relationships know how to apologize. That's just how I feel about that. Now you might say, Oh, ladies got to apologize all the time. Sure. Maybe. I mean, every relationship is different. I'm one of those.

It's like never expect an apology because sometimes the apologies are sometimes the apologies are given in a nonverbal way. You know, you can tell if someone's sorry, or if they were hungry, you ever have someone hangry. They just, they're just mean to you because they're angry. I don't need a written apology.

Like I can move on. You know what I mean? I'm all about coexisting. Uh, that's, that's how we make a relationship work. All right. Well, here's an update to a story. We actually haven't been covering, but it's in the big mainstream news. Daniel Penney acquitted in New York city subway choke chokehold case jury decided on lesser charge.

So this was a man who. Um, killed somebody in a New York City subway. He, I guess, had them in a chokehold and he was, I think, ex military. I could be wrong, uh, if I'm, you know, if I could be mistaken. But there was a jury of seven women and five men. They deliberated since Tuesday, last week in the case, deadlocked twice on Friday, telling the judge they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

He was facing charges of second degree manslaughter and the negligence count. Prosecutors moved to drop the manslaughter charge and the judge allowed it instructing the jury to consider only that count. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it's a really sad story. Uh, but the reason why he was subduing the man in a fatal choke hold was because he was threatening passengers on a subway.

He, Oh yeah, he was a Marine veteran, 26 years old and was charged a whole full year ago. And again, look, it was an interesting story. And I think at the very least it should lead to conversations about mental health in our country and how we need to do a better job. of a country passing laws to protect people that have mental health issues, drug issues and mental health issues make up a, uh, you know, and addiction issues make up, you know, such a high percentage of homeless, uh, in violent encounters with unhoused people and also people that, you know, are on the streets, uh, literally living on the edge.

And it shouldn't be pedestrians that are forced to deal with, uh, you know, what can be very violent situations. We should, as a country be providing for those out there that are lost as if they were our own family. If we had a family member that was off their meds and needed help, you know, we would try to help them.

Right. Wouldn't we do that? Um, so just kind of a sad story. Well, I've got some updates from Hollywood, uh, including, uh, an update from Shailene Woodley and how she'll be starring as Janice Joplin. We'll have that story for you next. Okay. Before I get to the Janice Joplin stuff, um, I had a pretty interesting day on YouTube today.

I interviewed, uh, a, I interviewed the lady, Layla, who runs the podcast studio that has been defamed by. Bachelor Clayton Eckerd's accuser, Laura Owens attorney. I know it's a lot. Uh, but, uh, if you haven't go check that out, uh, it was interesting. Yeah. They're filing a bar complaint against the attorney. It took them six days to take down his tweet, which included false information about the uh, quality of the sound in their podcast studio.

And they're raising money, um, uh, online for their legal funds. So another interesting twist of events going on. over there. And you know, I've been covering, this is what's really tough. Okay. So my niche on YouTube is bachelor nation news, but also like there's only so much news in bachelor nation you can cover.

And right now it's a very quiet season. Uh, so I've been covering obviously the Clayton Eckerd trial along with here on the podcast. So many other stories, we've covered 10 different stories already. Well, I got a comment from someone saying, Dave, I love your channel, but I've stopped watching because all you talk about is this Clayton thing.

Now this Clayton thing is a. Pretty big investigation going on into fraudulent behavior. It's wildly interesting. And it's like, what do people want me to do? You know? So it's been very tough on YouTube, uh, to those that only want bachelor content. And I have to remind people, I have a North star. I have to follow that is what is interesting to me.

And sometimes what is interesting to me might not be what's interesting to some of my audience and that's okay. But what we have to learn as you learn on stage as a comedian is don't be a hack. A hack. Tells the audience what they want to hear. A comedian tells the audience what they have to say. And, you know, I think you guys get that because we have a, you know, more eclectic, uh, sort of, uh, you know, uh, con you have more eclectic content here, where we'll cover a whole bunch of wide stories, but yeah, this.

Bachelor crowd. And again, I know it's only a small percentage, but they have to understand like sometimes in life, there's bigger things to talk about than, you know, someone's eyelid surgery and bachelor nation, which God bless the eyelid surgery. So I'll actually be addressing that on tomorrow's YouTube.

As I continue to remind people in January, we'll be moving the podcast to YouTube, which means I'll have all of the content I'm giving to you right now, also available in video format. I'm very much looking forward to that. I think it's going to help grow the channel, but I also think it's going to lead to people going.

We want more bachelor content. So you're going to get it folks. Don't, uh, you know, just let, let your boy do his thing. And speaking of which, Olivia Wilde was in the news here. The Hollywood reporter talks about choosing art over audience approval. I don't make movies. So people love them. The Hollywood actor turned Helmer told the Red Sea Film Festival directors have to choose between being a celebrity or an artist, and there's truth to that.

It's like, are you going to choose to do what might make you the most amount of money? What might be a good in the short term? Or are you going to build a career that has a lot of integrity to it? And that doesn't just exist with actors or podcasters. Like what's the integrity that you have in your life?

If you choose that, you'll be rewarded long term. There may be friction in the short term as people go, I didn't sign up for this. And it's like, okay, That's fine. My boat is going to be chugging along in the direction of my dreams, and I'm going to try my best to bring along as many people as possible, but if it ain't for you, there's more boats in the Harbor, right folks.

All right. Shailene Woodley, let's end on her. She is going to sing as Janis Joplin in the musical Biopic. She said, I had to find my own voice across seven years of prep. My wife is going to love this. My wife loves Janis Joplin. Step aside, Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. There's a new iconic singer biopic in the works.

Some people call it biopic. Biopic, I go biopic in the works with its lead star transforming on stage into a rocker. Uh, Oh, this has to be one of the coolest movies. You know, I feel like if you're an actor and you get the chance to play a rock star, who wouldn't want to do it? Who wouldn't want to play a rock star?

You just, uh, geez, it sounds like such a lifestyle. The project was announced earlier this year and received a 2. 5 million tax credit from the California film commission. Woodley is leading the feature and also producing with production set to take place across the country. 30 days. All right. Well, um, yeah, we'll have to hear what the voice sounds like.

Very interested there. I mean, she's a fantastic actress. Everything I've watched her in is good. So whether it's the highest box office, who knows, but I tell you, she knows how to make a good product. News, I think it's out, but you're going to be playing Janice Joplin in a biopic. Yeah. I couldn't think of a more perfect.

I'm so excited. I couldn't think of a more perfect person to do this. Wait, why? Because I feel like you can rock this out and be like a full on, a party rock star. Like Janice Joplin would, I think that you would nail this. I'm, I'm really excited. We've been working on it for seven years now and it's just, she's so, she's such a groovy chick, man.

Yes, she is. She really brought the light to this planet, you know, in a really singular way. And it's been so much fun to dive into her story, but also work alongside Linda Perry, who's our music producer on this. No. Is a legend. All right, so I'm excited. I'm in. I can't wait to see it. Uh, there it is. Um, I guess it's not going to be, I don't think they have a release date, right?

They've just started working on it. Uh, but I wonder what seven years looks like for her. Like, Did you like, what does she mean? She's been working on it for seven years. Has she been just like singing Janice Joplin songs in her car for seven years? Or is it more to that story? I really don't know. So anyway, I don't have any updates on the, uh, on the arrest of the, of the, uh, uh, assassin, but.

But I guess they're calling it, uh, saying it's Altoona police handwritten document recovered and arrest shows ill will towards corporate America. So there was an update from eight minutes ago. We don't think there's any specific threats to other people that mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill will towards corporate America.

Maybe more good can come from all of this. Maybe we can, as populists, like the majority of our country can come together and realize corporate greed. Well, yes, that's capitalism. Uh, it needs to stop, you know, and we need to go back to taking care of ourselves and taking care of our country and everyday Americans.

Maybe that'll be some good that can come from it. So they say this seven minutes ago, by the way, I'm just getting these last updates, so this is going to go a few minutes long, seven minutes ago, man arrested in Pennsylvania, had a ghost gun that may have been 3d printed. He was in possession of a ghost gun capability of firing a nine millimeter round in a suppressor.

Oh my gosh. Could you imagine that? It had to be done, says document found on the person of interest. So he had a note that said it had to be done. These parasites had it coming. I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done. Wow. All right. Well, tomorrow morning, we'll have more on the story.

It's all breaking right now. A man says he was just sitting there eating when McDonald's employees called police. Oh, we had a snitch. All right. Well, I guess you can stop digging through the ponds in Central Park. Uh, more on this in the morning. This, uh, That's it for me now. 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 lives too short for a boring ride. So join Dave as he covers the top news stories of the day. Don't be caught clueless at the water cooler. The rush hour with Dave Neal features all the viral TikToks and podcast clips you need to hear.

Plus, feel good stories and some motivational stuff too. A perfect compliment for your commute. Featured in Time Magazine, Washington Post, and Us Weekly. Get your rush hour on today.