Speaker 1: And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast.
It's Tuesday. Today is the sixteenth day of December, Year
of Our Lord, twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan.
And yeah it's We've got up got a lot of
updates for you today. It's another tough day of news
that we A lot of it happened over the weekend
and is still information still coming out about it. We've
got the update from Brown University. We've got the update
on the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. We've
got a new report about the economy out about jobs
that I want to bring to you. We've got Ford
Motor Company making some big changes, and a new terror
threat in Los Angeles for New Year's Eve. So we'll
get to all of that. Let's start with the murder
of Rob Reiner and his wife. This is it's still
just ugly. It just is. I mean, there's all kinds
of video. I told you yesterday that I found an
interview when they were when Rob Reiner and his son
Nick were promoting the movie Becoming Charlie. They did the
media tour, and that on one of the tours was
with Howard Stern and I thought it was fascinating. But
now we're finding out that there's a whole bunch on YouTube.
You want to go listen to it. It's it's it
just makes you pause. I know, over the years doing
the radio show, I had people call when we would
do topics about mental illness or drugs or both. It
just got me every time. But there were people that
called and said, I have a brother, or I have
a son, or I have somebody that is mentally ill
and in a dangerous way, or on drugs and in
a dangerous way. And that's exactly what the writers were
dealing with.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: We had a young man who had a drug addiction.
And yeah, I mean, I always say addictions are an illness,
it's medical, and so how do you get that addiction
gene changed? But I would have these people calling, they say,
I can't get any help for my relative, for my
loved one. The mental health people won't keep them more
than seventy two hours. You can't fix some body that's
mentally ill in seventy two hours. And you can't you
can't give them, you know, some sort of magic wand
that takes away their drug addiction. And so it's apparent
now that even though when they made this movie, Becoming
Charlie was nine years ago, twenty sixteen, and they went
around and gave a lot of interviews. I got a
clip from one of them here, but it what do
you do? And in one interview I saw with Rob
Runner that was where he was. You could tell he
was frustrated, he was exasperated. What do we do. They're
a wealthy family, so it wasn't a matter of writing
checks to get somebody to cure their son. But that
did not do it, and it wasn't tough love necessarily,
but the son, Nick went out and just went around
the country being homeless. Here's let me start with this
little bit of a part of the interview. When they
were out promoting Becoming Charlie.
Speaker 2: It forced me to have to see more clearly and
understand more deeply what Nick had gone through, and I
think it forced him to see things that I had
experienced during this process, and it definitely brought us closer together.
Speaker 1: Sad it may have brought them closer together, but it
didn't last. And that's where I look at this and
I go the Nick Reiner thirty two years of age.
I don't understand there's a whole story about the fact
that they were at a holiday party at Conan O'Brien's
house Saturday evening and that there was a blow up
between Rob Reiner and his son Nick and it was
embarrassing and everybody. They were loud and everybody heard it.
And so the other part about this, which is also weird,
I got a clip of a lady here from La
magazine talking about the fact that there was a ritzy party.
It was. It was dress up. It wasn't just come
by and whatever you're wearing. No, it was a dress up,
ritzy Christmas party that Conor O'Brien threw at his house,
and that apparently he told his son that it's going
to be full of a lot of famous people, and
apparently it was. It was a real Hollywood thing. And
Conan O'Brien, it's the same with Rob Brunner, Conor and O'Brien.
I think some people don't like his humor. I've always
thought Conan was very funny. He's got a podcast out
about Uh, Conor O'Brien needs a friend. It's a lot
of them are just hilarious. It's a funny man. But man,
i've he is so far left. He is such a liberal,
so I can see where he and Rob Reiner would
get along because they're both politically on the same wavelength.
But apparently this was a rich seat party, and that
Nick went once they got there. First of all, he
was in a sweatshirt and jeans, and everybody's dressed to
the nines. So why did Conan I'm sorry, why did
Rob Reiner and his wife bring him? Why didn't they
leave him at home? He's thirty two years old. You
don't get a babysitter. Are they working that? At one
point there was in the history of him living at
his parents home. He lived in the guest house for
a while, and then apparently he told people he totally
crashed the guest house, which, in other words, lots of
property damaged there. But I don't understand why they brought him.
If he was in his sweatshirt, I don't understand why
they brought him anyway, It wasn't for their children. And
when he got there, he went around with a blank
stare on his face, going up to people going are
you famous? Because he was told there were going to
be a lot of famous people there, and he was
going around asking people if they were famous, which is
just weird. James Wood a very conservative man that is,
pipes up on X all the time with lots of
very conservative views, very pro Trump. He also, despite the politics,
has a lot to say in honor of Rob Runner.
Speaker 3: Rob literally saved my career and really put me back
on track in a way that was so important and
rewarding in my life. And he really fought for me.
But when people would say to me, well, what do
you think of his politics? I would say I think
Rob Reiner is a great patriot. Do I agree with
some of or many of his ideas on how that
patriotism should be enacted to celebrate the America that we
both love.
Speaker 1: No, but he doesn't agree with me either. Well, I
like what James Wood said there because I think and
there's a number of people in the audience who have
complained about They've sent me some email or whatever. I
can't understand why I believe certain things or why I
don't believe certain things. And it's okay if you believe
something that I than me. It's okay if I believe
something different than you. Not the end of the world.
There's James Wood and Rob Reiner and James Wood's had
nothing but thanks for Rob Reiner. So this afternoon Nathan Hakman,
who is the Los Angeles District Attorney, came to the
microphone with the news, Well, Los Angeles District Attorney's office
had a bad audio feed, and so we first announced
that yes, there will be murdered charges with special circumstances
because he used a knife. And then they finally got
their audio problem solved. And here's what Nathan Hawkman had
to say after that.
Speaker 4: I want to announce that they're just that they are charges.
Charges are not evidence. Evidence is something that we will
be presenting in a court of law to meet the
standard of proof we meet in every criminal case, which
is beyond a reasonable doubt towel twelve jurors who will
unanisually have to find that we've met that standard to
prove the charges we bring to court.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 4: With respect to the process Nick, once he charges get
filed this afternoon, Nick Reiner will be then brought to court.
He is going through medical clearance, something that everybody who
who gets arrested and gets held in the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department jail goes through. Once he is medically cleared,
he will be brought to court to be arraigned on
these charges. At that point he will enter a plea
of guilty or not guilty. Now, prosecuting these cases involving
family members are some of the most challenging and most
heart wrenching cases that this office faces because of the
intimate and often brutal nature of the crimes involved. Rob
Reiner was a brilliant actor and director, an iconic force
in our entertainment industry for decades. His wife, Michelle Singer Reiner,
was inequally iconic photographer and producer. Their loss is beyond track,
and we will commit ourselves to bringing their murderer to justice.
Speaker 1: So he went on at some length thanking everybody in
the District Attorney's office, and then got around introducing LAPD
Chief Jim McDonald.
Speaker 5: Well, good afternoon, and thank you all for being here today.
And it's with deep sadness today I address the tragic
loss of Robert Michelle Reiner. On December fourteenth, twenty twenty five,
LAPD officers from our West Los Angeles Division responded to
a death investigation at the two hundred block of South
Chadbourne Avenue, which is in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.
Upon entering the residence, they discovered the bodies of mister
and Missus Reiner. Detectives from our Robbery Homicide Division Homicide
Special Section immediately initiated a comprehensive investigation. The evidence gathered
led to the arrest of their son, Nick Reiner, who
was taken into custody later that night without incident, and
the Exposition Park section of our city Today, the Los
Angeles County District's Attorney's Office has formerly filed charges against
mister Reiner for the murder of his parents. This case
is heartbreaking and deeply personal, not only for the Reiner
family and their loved ones, but for our entire city.
We extend our deepest condolences to all of those who
are affected by this tragedy.
Speaker 1: And then the chief went on to thank everybody that
worked on this case at the LAPD. They obviously are
still doing a lot of work. Women from LA magazine,
Lauren Conlin, was asked about the whole Reiner situation.
Speaker 6: Was reported that Nick actually recently moved back into the
home with his parents after you know, possibly hitting rock bottom.
It was very well known in their orbit in the
family orbit that Rob and Michelle had pretty much done
everything that they could up until this point. I mean,
as parents, we always do the best that we can.
And there's actually a line in the film Being Charlie
that Rob and Nick worked on together where the father
in the film says something along the lines of you know,
I'd rather you hate me but still be alive. And
Rob had said, you know, this absolutely rings true, and
he admitted this as well, that maybe he didn't react
the way he should have reacted when he found out
that Nick was doing drugs back in twenty fifteen. I
think the knee jerk reaction was to ship him off
to a rehab and that, you know, caused some rifts
in the family. But again, we do the best that
we can as parents, and so I think that upon
discovery of their bodies, Roamy, the daughter, the youngest daughter,
she had said, you know, I think you should look
at my brother, and she told this to the police.
Speaker 1: A family friend, Heather Michaels, kind of gave us more
of an update on what had been the status of
Nick Reiner.
Speaker 7: He was sort of in and out of the home,
not really particularly living there, and other's reports, oh he
was winning on the streets.
Speaker 1: At the time.
Speaker 7: He was homeless, but that kind of goes along with
the issues that folks like he deal with.
Speaker 1: So obviously he was still having difficulty trying to get clean.
Back to the lady from La magazine, Lauren Comlin, of.
Speaker 7: Course, and the night that I believed they were killed.
Speaker 6: I mean, I know that we are still learning a
lot about this case, and it's an open investigation, but
I do believe they were killed.
Speaker 7: Shortly after this party.
Speaker 6: It was reported that they had this argument at Conan
O'Brien's house and that Nick appeared to be out of sorts,
a bit, maybe a little high.
Speaker 7: Everybody was dressed up. Nick was in a sweatshirt, you know.
Speaker 6: Later that night, we do know that he checked into
a hotel that was about, you know, fifteen miles away
from the family home.
Speaker 7: So yeah, he was in and out.
Speaker 6: And what is very very disturbing, I guess or to me,
was that onlookers notice when he checked into the hotel,
he appeared to be a little off, but he had
no type of visible wounds on his face, on his hands,
on his body, So that telled me no defensive wounds,
So I wouldn't be surprised if he did something to
his parents. Again, totally my opinion, pure speculation, but you know,
in their sleep, and again it just it breaks my heart.
And I also want to point out he's not in
fortt this morning for an arraignment. He's actually in court
for a grand jury proceeding. So they're going to decide
what if any I mean, I'm assuming there's going to
be charges, but what if any charges will be filed
moving forward?
Speaker 1: So the charges are first degree murder with special circumstances.
Josh Ritter, defense lawyer, weighs in on the severity of that.
Speaker 8: My reaction is it's expected, you know, crime like this
double homicide, you're likely going to see first degree murder
with special circumstances. To the question that was being asked
during that press conference about how long will this take,
it's going to take significantly longer given that it is
a special circumstance case. It just complicates things further. But
the other thing it does, though, they don't have to
indicate at this point whether or not they're going to
pursue the death penalty, but the default is going to
be life without parole on a special circumstance murder case,
which means to me, if I can further kind of
read the tea leaves here, is that given that he's
only looking at and the only thing that the people
are at this point going to be willing to offer
is life without parole, we're likely looking at a case
that's going to head to trial. So this idea that
maybe a plea deal might be worked out, I think
the chances of that have become very slim.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to Brown University. The police there
and the mayor are getting a lot of criticism, tons
of criticism about the fact that they just seem to
be not very good at what they're doing. But I
have to remind you remember when the four college students
were stabbed to death in Moscow, Idaho, and there's a
lot of criticism about the Moscow police. There was some
small town tin horn. They didn't know what they were doing.
It took them I think five weeks, but they got
their man. They got him. So I'm hesitant to criticize
the police department in Providence, Rhode Island. But they have
this afternoon, they have new enhanced video showing more of
who this person is and if anybody knows this person,
they're going to recognize him. It's not a clear view
of his face. He has a mask on and he
has a beanie cap on, but the coat that he's
wearing and the way he walks, I think somebody who
knows him is going to go, I know who that is.
Start with Nicole Parker, former FBI agent.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's unfortunate, but that does happen in investigations. But
one thing I would like to point out is that
there is a fifty thousand dollars cash reward for the identification,
the arrest, and the conviction of the shooter. And right
now they really seem to be relying on the public's assistance.
There was a delay in getting these photos out. They
were you know, I've heard a lot of explanations as
far as well, you know, they were waiting until Monday
when businesses were more open and canvassing. The neighborhood's getting ring,
doorbell camera information and footage, and it really it will
be up to the public. I believe in this investigation.
I have always said human intelligence is still the most powerful.
In my opinion, someone knows the shooter and they need
to turn them in. But what I find very puzzling
and alarming is I myself went in and I looked
at the twenty twenty five annual security for Brown University,
and I did a keyword search as one hundred and
seventy pages, on one page did I see the word CCTV.
I looked up other keyword searches and was baffled that
there really wasn't much in there. But what was even
more befuddling to me is that around January of twenty
twenty five, Brown University was most concerned about President Trump's
executive orders to take away the DEI initiatives, and they
were running at a forty six million dollar deficit, and
they were concerned at this time, and they were even
slashing expenditures from other areas so that they could meet
their diversity programs. And as someone that comes from law enforcement,
safety is number one, and I believe that all students
on that campus would say that they would agree that
they would feel more comfortable being safe than having a
diverse campus on that day. And it's absolutely tragic, and
I think it should be looked into. What was their
security posture leading up to this? All of the doors
were to be locked. I did a search on that
as well. With key lock cards, they're supposed to be
locked at night. The campus is supposed to be locked
at night and on weekends. And I do think that
there is some explaining to do. But ultimately we do
know that the responsibility lies with the shooter. I will
never take that away, but this is a wake up
call to all universities. Check your campuses and make sure
that you are keeping your students safe first and foremost.
Speaker 1: I tell you so, they're still looking for him. I'll
just tell you the way he was walking around the neighborhood.
There's lots of video of him out there, but you
still can't really have a good identification of his face.
I'll bet he lives right in Providence. I think he's
I think he's a local guy. Here's another former retired FBI,
Stuart Kaplan, not thrilled with the way the investigation is
being handled.
Speaker 10: Look, early mistakes on or during an investigation can have
a cascading impact on the progress of trying to apprehend
this person. And the biggest blunder, quite frankly, from what
I've heard, is the lack of containment of the eyewitnesses.
The students that were in the classroom. The witnesses. Once
the shooting stopped, they scattered. Law enforcement failed to contain them,
and that became a huge blunder. You know, keep in mind,
we're looking at a photograph that now is more than
seventy two hours old. The likelihood of this individual wearing
the same clothing obviously is slim to none, and so
it presents a huge lift for law enforcement to try
to identify this individual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's not real thrilled about it. James Gagliano
also a former FBI guy.
Speaker 11: This is his reacc Yeah, we still don't have motive,
and that's going to be a big piece of this.
But the aperture of the investigation is opening up every day.
We're getting more and more video. Why is that this
only happened sixty five hours ago. So you remember the
Luigi Mangioni case five days to find and capture the shooter.
In the Tyler Robinson case where he shot and killed
Charlie Kirk took about three days. Most people were away
for the weekend in those surrounding neighborhoods. Now they're coming
back home, they're going looking at their ring cameras and
we're getting a better idea on this brought out the
Washington Post column written by Jim Garretty.
Speaker 1: In that column, a student back.
Speaker 11: In twenty twenty one had written and complained about the
surveillance state at Brown. Brown University is a quarter mile
by a quarter square mile. It's a postage stamp, and
there are eight hundred security cameras blanketing the campus. If
he was on campus, we've got to find better videos.
Speaker 1: Well, it's an interesting point, but it is a small campus.
But one of the reporters that I was watching from
earlier this morning is that's there is that the campus
is compact in this postage stamp area. It's not very big,
but that the building, that engineering building, is on the
very edge of the campus next to a residential area.
So if you come through the residential area, the first
building that you come to from one of the directions
is the engineering building. So we didn't have to go
through the campus. So now they're running around through the
neighborhood and they're picking up all kinds of video of
this guy walking around by where the homes are near
next to the Brown University campus. Casey Jordan is a
behavioral scientist, looked at it this way.
Speaker 12: Well, these images are game changers, and that's the really
good news. But the bad news is they're coming out
sixty five hours this morning since the shooting, and they
really would have benefited from having these images earlier from
these residences, ring cameras and security cameras. I mean, the
bottom line is that now we have a lot more
to go on, and it's a little late in the
game because the first forty eight hours are the key.
But we now know it was a nine millimeter gun.
We have an idea that he's about five foot eight.
We could tell that he was stocky. But now that jack,
now that we have good images of it, we know
that it's two tone, and that the front bib of
it is like a dark army green, a grayish green
that's more distinctive. The gait of this particular culprit, if
this is indeed our suspect, is distinctive. He seems to
have an issue with his hip, a little knee knocket,
maybe a little problem with his left leg. And all
of this is super important because somebody out there is
going to see these images and it's going to remind
them of someone they know, and that person that they
know may have a beef with Brown University, because one
thing the police are now saying is that they do
believe Brown University was a specific target. This was not
just random venue that he just walked in off the street.
That something about Brown attracted this shooter to that classroom
on that day. Now they're not saying there was a
specific class or a specific person in there, but think
of anybody who fits this description who may have a
conflict or a beef with Brown.
Speaker 1: And finally, John Miller, former NYPD also weighs in on
what's coming out.
Speaker 13: Today extraordinarily helpful and more relevantly with someone who knows
that person because they might have insight that goes beyond
the wow, that kind of looks like him under all
of that clothing and mask too, but they've also been
acting strangely or they had a particular animist towards that
college or students. So you know, they're hoping that these
will generate that light bulb moment from someone who say, wow,
I think I know who that is. Beyond that, they
have other leads, I mean active leads, promising leads that
point to you know, different people. Now we know that
these are fluid investigations. You can have the most promising
lead in the world and that can wash out. You
can have nothing and something can come out of the
ether very quickly and pan out. And that's basically on
day four where we are. They're working those but they're
also hoping this video generates that other call yep.
Speaker 1: So it's a piece of a time and they're working
away on who this guy is. I think he looks
if you actually know the guy, you would recognize him
because they call him stocky. He's got a great, big
beer gut. He does have kind of a funny walk.
I'm sure somebody knows who that guy is, all right.
The other news today, not involving crime, was things about
the economy. These are the reports that were delayed because
of the government shutdown. Retail sales last month unchanged month
of November. You would think retail sales this time of
the year would be up, but it was expected to
go up, but it did not go up. It was unchanged.
Jobs created, payrolls added. They were guessing about forty five thousand.
It turned out to be better a lot, not very strong,
but it was better sixty four thousand. The unemployment rate
went up to four point six percent. It's the highest
in four years. If you go back July was four
point two, August four point three, September four point four,
October four point five, and now we hear in November
four point six the unemployment rate is increasing. Usually you
would say, oh, that's good. People are actually going back
into the workplace to look for jobs that maybe been
sitting at home collecting a welfare check or something. But
in this particular case, what the statisticians are scratching their
heads about about immigration and the fact that we had
so many people that were illegally in this country that
had jobs that are not having jobs right now. Alison
Schrager is an economist, and she kind of weighed in
on that.
Speaker 14: Not really, I mean, I think we keep getting these
We sort of have a me you know, labor market
and you know, still sort of worrying inflation, and you know,
if you're looking for an excuse to cut further, you
could probably find it by saying the labor markets weakening,
I'm gonna do something about it. What strike jumps out
at me is we still have very strong labor growth,
which suggests inflation is not going to go well below too.
I think when you look at the Summary of Economic
Projections or here FED officials, they seem to think that anyway.
They're really like, at the very least ending QT, maybe
we have more rate cuts next year. Seem to still
think that inflation is going to magically go back to
two percent. And I think this is just another data
point that suggests that's just not magically happening. It's actually
going to be an interesting experiment, not necessarily good for humanity,
but interesting for economists that you know, there's always been
this sort of debate. You know, an economists were quite
strident that more immigration boost wages for everyone, labor fallacy,
all this stuff, and now we actually have a big
pullback in immigration when it's going to happen with wages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's still a lot of uncertainty even though
we're getting numbers again, and a lot of uncertain yet
of this. Kevin O'Leary, mister wonderful, was asked about this
s a business owner.
Speaker 15: I think it supports the FED twenty five basis point
rate cut. However, this data is soft and slightly inaccurate
because of the forty three day shutdown. Everybody realizes that,
you know, if it wasn't for that. I'd say the
data set trend is definitely for higher unemployment, which is
one of the big mandates for the FED. But they're
in a very difficult boat now because inflation is still
a three point one percent. Every rate cut now is
going to be heavily scrutinized and debated. They had a
lot of descent three out of it. Yeah, and so
that really is what the market cares about. Can we
get more rate cuts on the other side of the
year end?
Speaker 8: And I'm not.
Speaker 7: Sure, Multician, Well, first law, you're correct.
Speaker 15: I look at it through the lens of an investor.
I invest in all eleven sectors of the S and P,
and most of it in companies between five and five
hundred employees, so I have a pretty good read of
what their concerns are input costs. So we don't talk
about tariff's that much, But the truth is many of
them are not in terms of input on goods and
services that we don't make here in America, things like
bananas and pineapples and podash and box site for aluminum.
Why tariff things we don't have, That's one question that
people start to ask.
Speaker 2: Makes no sense.
Speaker 15: So that policy on tariffs I would have thought would
be resolved by midterms, which to me are starting to
come into the focus starting January February. We need more
work to finalize reciprocal tariffs that will show up because
they're so high in some cases, that's why there's inflation.
I know there's a debate about it. You talk to
my companies that are yeah, but I mean you're making houses,
or you're part of the housings sector, which is giant,
and your software lumber is tariff to twenty five percent.
That's an input costs. I got to see that fixed.
If you're making a lumina for car parts box site
twenty five percent tariff, that makes no sense. So it's
time to focus down on that, and I think the
administration will do that because I'm not the only guy
whining about it.
Speaker 1: No he's not. I'm part of the winding choir as well,
So we'll see. I mean, you've you've got the large
group of illegals that have been moved out, You've got
a large group of federal government employees that no longer
worked for the for the government. You've got tariffs that
have been added as input costs. So a lot of
these economic important then you had the government shut down
where we didn't have numbers. There's a lot of this.
It's I report them to you, but I think a
lot of people are going these are really vague. We're
going to need more information for really know how this
economy is is handling all of all of these changes.
So Wall Street did did not handle the changes all
that well. Today. The Dow Jones industrials started off this
morning down a little and it just kept going, finishing
down three hundred and two. The Dow nowt at forty
eight fourteen, pee down sixteen. The Nasdaq went up not
much but fifty fifty four points higher. The price of
goal down three dollars to forty three point thirty two,
and the price of oil, I haven't seen this in well.
You got to go back a few years. Oil down
a dollar sixty five, down to fifty five dollars for
a barrel of oil. So that's it for today. Thanks
again for coming by. I appreciate it. We'll be here tomorrow.
I hope to see you then.