10-4-24 Afternoon Rush - Dancing With The Stars Dancer Artem Claims Ex Made Up Story! & Election Denier Gets 9 Years in Jail & Trump Responds To Wife's Pro Choice Comments

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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, everybody. Happy Friday to you on this October 4th, 2024. I've got all of your entertainment. Pop culture and political news all in one place.

And there is a lot to get into a real current a copia of content today. On the afternoon, we hear from pommel horse, Prince and Olympian, Stephen Adorazic, he's such a great example of doing what you love and doing it. Well, we'll get some tips about living life from him. Plus, Donald Trump comments on his wife, former first lady Melania's new memoir, promoting pro choice.

Also, a candidate running for Congress is taking heat for posing with a fake family, and a resurfaced video shows Diddy on Kimmel discussing his house parties with Justin Bieber. And also we've got disgraced dancer Artem Chigvintsev claiming his soon to be ex wife Nikki lied about And he's got pictures to support his case.

Also, we've got election denier getting nine years in prison. What a wild time to be alive. I'll have all these stories and more coming up next on the rush. Well, we have breaking news to report. Did everyone get enough toilet paper stacked up? A potential economic crisis has been averted after striking dock workers strike a tentative agreement on wages, including a 62 percent wage hike over the course of the next six years.

Let's have a listen to the today show. Starting today, tens of thousands of union workers will return back to work after heading to the picket line on Tuesday. It's good news because the shutdown could cost the U S economy. Up to four and a half billion dollars a day in a lengthy strike could have led to higher prices and shortages of goods ahead of the holiday season.

The union released a statement on Thursday expressing they had reached a tentative agreement on wages and they've agreed to extend the master contract until January 15th. That's when they said they'll return to the bargaining table to negotiate all the other outside costs. Standing issue. So here's what we know so far.

Sources telling CNBC that under this tentative deal, workers will see a near 62% wage hike over the course of six years. The union remember, had additionally or originally asked for 77%. Um, this increase would potentially raise the top longshoreman's wage to just over 63 bucks an hour. At the end of that six year deal, that's an increase from 39 uh, dollars an hour.

Now, NBC News has reached out to the union for. Any more details, but have not heard back. This is the difference that we have between union workers and non union. You've got companies like Amazon with non union workers and their drivers are peeing in Gatorade bottles and trying to, you know, schlep your packages around town for, uh, you know, uh, for, uh, uh, a low wage.

Uh, the solidarity that can come from collective bargaining shows the power that exists. And you might say, Oh, 60 an hour? But. The, uh, shipping owners are making billions. So it's not like there isn't money to go around. Uh, they just, uh, have realized that, Hey, if you want to play a game, the collective power between the workers is stronger than the bosses.

You really love to see it. Well, now we have the international longshoremen association, which represents these 45, 000 striking dock workers, uh, speaking about the power that they actually hold. Have a listen. Liz, let me explain something to you. These people today don't know what a shrike is. Right. When my men hit the streets, from Maine to Texas, every single port, a lockdown.

You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell ya. First week, be all over the news every night, boom boom. Second week, guys who sell cars can't sell cars cause the cars ain't coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week. Malls start closing down. They can't get the goods from China. They can't sell clothes.

They can't do this. All right. And he goes on and on. And, you know, these guys don't even know what a strike is. Let me tell you about a strike. So the strike was short lived because I think they understand, uh, you know, the bosses saw the solidarity between the workers and they go, okay, let's just give them what they want now.

And we'll come back to the bargaining table. And when they go back to the bargaining table. In January, trust me when I say the ball is in the worker's court. All right. So interesting stuff there. And in other, let's, let's do some light news. We've got Steven Adorosik, of course, he's transitioning from the Olympic games to dancing with the stars and he's on the UGG It's Joe show, Joe Volpis on TikTok.

Here's what he had to say about kind of transferring that expertise from the pommel horse to the dance floor. So you go from the Olympic games to dancing with the stars pretty, pretty quickly. Yeah. Was it a hard transition going from that to this now? The transition itself, like, you know, from the outside, it wasn't very hard of a transition because I went from doing something extremely elite, extremely like hard on my body to something that's like softer and more like people don't have expectations for me to dance.

There's not much pressure. But like the thing that was really hard is like the last like five months of my life, I've been. I've been so locked in to gymnastics, and it's like every day I wake up, eat, sleep, and breathe gymnastics, and like, you know, finally after the Olympic Games, I was like, I, you know, I should have some time to relax, like a couple months to chill and let my body heal.

Was that, that was the plan, right? Yeah, that was the plan. And then like, you know, I blew up at the Olympics and so many opportunities came my way. And, you know, I'm the type of guy that doesn't like to turn anything down and I just want to enjoy it. I think it's part of like my victory. So once you get that call for Dancing with the Stars.

How quickly until the show actually started? Um, yeah, so I got the call while I was still at the Olympics, actually. Amazing, and of course, Dancing with the Stars very smartly jumped on the chance to have Stephen join them. You know, this is what I love about the Olympics, it's almost as if there's a There's a part, there's people that just consume the Olympics, whatever's on TV, right?

And then there's that kind of like new generation Z sort of look for the next meme. Like what's the next thing going to be? And you know, it's, uh, the South Korean sharpshooter, you know, she goes viral and then she becomes, you know, she gets a role in a new movie, you know, as a, as a, an assassin. Right. And now it's like, how, how dare Steven Nadorozik.

Close his eyes as he prepares for pommel horse. And with those Clark Kent glasses on and high cheekbones, we ate him alive. And you know what? He effing delivered. He was so good. And I could tell you this. I did not have on my bingo card that my favorite athlete of the year was a guy who specialized in the pommel horse and they don't call him pommel horse Prince for nothing.

By the way, I think I'm the only one who calls him that either way. I love hearing specifics of, you know, what people do and, and, uh, you know, like I could, I could talk all day and I'm, I'm no Olympian, I'll tell you that, but I could talk all day a day about the split finger fastball, the circle change up, how to throw a two seam or I could tell you a few things about, uh, you know, junk pitches out there.

So I'd love to hear the specifics of such a niche sport. Here he is talking about the misconceptions of men's gymnastics. One thing that I do differently than a lot of pommel horse specialists or gymnasts in general is I don't even wear, like, the wrist supports. I think that, like, doing That's a personal choice?

That's a personal choice, and it's a belief that I have that, like, the event itself is, like, a sort of rehab for your wrists and muscles. So, like, as you're doing it without that support, um, you're kind of exercising them as well to make them stronger. What do you think is the biggest misconception with Pommel Horse while you figure out that Rubik's Cube?

Yeah, no, the biggest misconception for sure is like, and it's kind of just like the misconception about gymnastics in general, is how easy we Just so you know the visual, as he's answering this question, he's also solving a Rubik's Cube. The legend of Steven Nodarozyk grows larger. Make it look like it is our job essentially to make gymnastics look as easy as possible.

So like when people see me sort of just like spinning, that's what they think it is. Like, they just think I'm spinning around for a minute and then I'm done. Uh, there's so many years of technicalities that go into that training where it's like. Borderline impossible the stuff that we can do is as athletes and as he answers he has solved the Rubik's Cube All right, folks.

I got a lot to get into. I'll tell you what before we take a break Let's just do one more you guys love Steven and Doris ik so much. Let's do one more here He is talking about his critical performance where he won bronze and how he could have done better and all that your performance of pommel horse was Was there things that you think you could've tweaked?

Uh, so like, at the Olympics, um, especially like, in, like, the first couple competitions, so I competed three times. There was the preliminaries, and then there was the team final, and then there was the event final. Preliminaries went great. I missed one tenth of, uh, difficulty marathon. I just played it a little bit safe.

I was a little bit hesitant, but like, I knew in the moment, like, it didn't have to be an all out thing. Like, competition. Like, I did my job and it was okay to lose a tenth. Was that a game time decision? Like, you made that while you were doing it? Yeah, yeah. And every now and then it is good to have those game time decisions.

Because like, you know, especially for like, qualification day, it's not that big of a deal if you miss a tenth. But when it came to team final, now that one I missed out a lot. But like, at the same time, it was just like, you know, prelims. There was a game time decision, and like, so many things were going against me at that team final.

Um, as a specialist, to sort of have to wait until, you know, competition. I mean, not only is that like a stressful situation to be in, but it's also like physically difficult. You know, what's so interesting is it's kind of, I'm going to relate this to stand up. When you're doing standup, you have a set of jokes that you want to perform.

You know what you're going to start with, you know what you're going to finish with. But as you're walking to the stage, something might happen that changes the Everything. And they always say you have a plan until he gets punched in the face. And it's kind of that idea where here he is, he's got his plan of the best that he wants to do, but depending on how risk adverse he needs to be, or depending on if, uh, you know, uh, maybe, maybe the competitor before him did something more challenging.

So he needs to rise to the occasion. It's just so interesting to see how locked in they are and how I guess how they're, I mean, they're experts. They're experts in every move they make with their body and they can just change things on the fly. Fascinating stuff. Okay. We have a lot of content to get into another dancing with a star story.

Tragically, this is about a domestic issue with Artem. We'll have that for you right after a quick word from our sponsor. Well, it's a heavy story to cover, but it is right down our alley for what we discuss on the show, and that is a domestic issue between Nikki Garcia, Nikki Bella, and her husband, soon to be divorced her ex husband, Artem Chigvintsev.

She is a former professional lawyer. You know, wrestler, uh, you know, uh, worldwide wrestler, what do they call them? You know, the fake wrestling and she, and he is a former pro dancer. I believe he was Caitlin Bristow's professional dancer. Well, something went down and, uh, between them and the cops showed up.

Uh, after he called the police, he called the police saying she was throwing shoes at him, uh, and then he, and then he called them back and said, Hey, you don't need to show up. We're good. And then the police showed up anyway. They saw what apparently would be physical marks on her, which means they can arrest him for DV domestic violence without needing her to say, you know, you know, say, you know, what, anything that happened, basically, they can just say, Nope, we saw it.

We're going to arrest him. And then I believe she got a restraining order on him and we haven't heard from him. And again, I'm not. You know, sadly, as a he said, she said, and the biggest loser here is the fact that they have a baby involved, a two year, uh, a young baby, uh, but let's just read the article.

Artem Chigvintsev is firing back at Nikki Bella and their ugly divorce, claiming the completely made up domestic violence allegations that landed him behind bars. Allegations she detailed in a restraining order she obtained Monday. In new legal documents, Artem painted the retired WWE star as the aggressor with anger issues that led to his arrest in late August, ultimately destroying their two year marriage.

Artem filed photos with the court showing injuries to his hand, elbow, and the back of his head, claiming Nikki was responsible for it all. On October, excuse me, on August 29th, Artem says he was cooking breakfast for the now estranged couple's four year old son, Mateo, in their Napa County, California home.

He says Nikki was also present, stressing over what to wear to an upcoming Netflix event. The former Dancing with the Stars pro says Nikki started arguing with him over his failure, in her view, to adequately toast the bread. Uh, this is so sad because I feel like It's so common to argue about things that are not, that are kind of superficial, but there's always a deeper meaning.

Artem says their dispute escalated after Nikki chastised him for placing two food options, a quesadilla and chicken tenders in Mateo's lunchbox. Artem says he left the kitchen and went into the living room where he helped Mateo get ready for school. Nikki allegedly came into the room, yelled at Artem.

saying he couldn't even put Mateo's shoes on properly. Artem says he defended himself, which only made Nikki angrier, prompting her to throw the sneakers at him and strike him in the chest. Now listen, folks. This is a clear he said, she said. And we've shared in dozens of episodes Sort of her version of the story and we've, I think, very fairly covered it.

So I think it's appropriate to hear, you know, now that he's coming out with his response as Nikki screamed about getting a divorce. Artem says, Matteo just stood there frightened and confused. I'm sorry. This is just, it's really heartbreaking. This is just such a heartbreaking thing. You should never, you know, Fight in the first place, let alone in front of your child like this.

Artem says he pleaded with Nikki to calm down and brought Mateo upstairs to his room to protect him from the escalating situation. Artem says Nikki followed them to the bedroom and tried to force open the door while he held it close with Mateo crying next to him. Uh, and again, it goes on and on and on.

Um, Artem says he attempted to fend off Nikki as the two ended up grappling on the floor. He says he broke free, called 911 from his cell phone, telling the dispatcher what happened as Nikki shouted threats in the background. Now this. This would be available. This is, you know, when you call 911, this information becomes available, which we don't need to play it, but I'm just saying for the record, it's not like a he said, she said in hindsight.

So in the moment, because you wonder, and you do have to wonder this, just critically thinking, if she was the one That was in danger. Why would he call 911? Why would he want the police to get involved if she was the one in danger now at the very least it's messy It's toxic. It's horrible And hopefully they can kind of get down to the bottom of this In artem's account of the incident.

Nikki said at one point. Do you understand here? This is gonna go now artem. You just ruined my career and you know it that being because he called 911 on her In Nikki's version of events, in her restraining order against Artem after the breakfast disagreement and the shoe throwing incident, she claims she tried to get into Mateo's room when Artem opened the door and tackled her to the ground.

Listen, and this is again, when you have a, when you have a child, you cannot be using it as leverage in your fight, uh, but again, whether, whether you're trying to protect the child or not, it is like, this is just so heartbreaking, uh, for this poor, poor four year old. I mean, he is going to carry this. with him for the rest of his life.

Absolutely. Um, so the cop cops arrived. Artem says he gave his account and Nikki provided her story, which he says was a pack of lies to get him arrested for DV. Artem was then carted off to jail to pose for a mugshot. What's curious if police had observed injuries to Artem when they arrived at the house, standard procedure would have been to arrest Nikki for DV, but that didn't happen.

So the, and this is where it gets interesting. The Napa County district attorney decided not to charge Artem due to insufficient evidence. So what's fair is fair. As he was not charged with a crime in the court filing, Artem sought a temporary restraining order against Nikki and the judge signed off on it.

And as you know, Nikki filed for divorce from Artem after their nasty altercation. It's unclear if they have a prenup. That's where they stand, folks. That's the story. It's a bummer. And, um, I don't know what else to say about it. And just to get the bummer stories out of the way, we'll end on some better news.

Here is a throwback clip of Diddy being interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel with Bieber next to him. Of course, in hindsight, we're looking at these clips. This one is a 13 year old clip from 2011, and we're seeing the possible coercion by Diddy to make sure. Folks like Justin Bieber stay silent about what's going down at his, you know, quote unquote freak offs with you guys Are you working together?

I'm not I mean, I think that we uh We've become like we've become friends in a strange way, you know Yeah, yeah I mean to a lot of us he's like a A little brother, you know what I'm saying? He's not afraid to call and ask for advice. He's somebody that in the industry wise, the record industry is a strong family.

And he's somebody that, you know, we definitely have our arms around and we want to protect him because he's such genuinely a nice person besides his talent. You know what I'm saying? He's one of the greatest kids that you could ever know. Justin, you,

you know, Diddy bought his son a Bentley. Maybe, you know, he could buy you one also while you're out here. He got me a Lamborghini. Oh, well, that's nice. I haven't gotten it yet, though. Yeah, I know. When is that coming, that Lamborghini? We talked about this last time. He had the Lamborghini for a day or two, and he got access to the house.

And he knows better than to be talking about the things that he does with Big Brother Puff on national television.

Apparently not. Something, everything ain't for everybody. Now could that have meant, you know, the fact that he bought an underage guy a Lamborghini or something else? Who knows? You know, with Diddy in jail and all of the things coming out, everyone is screening every interview looking for, uh, you know, possible clues to some of the monstrous activities going on.

Well, here's a bizarre one. A GOP candidate poses with friends family for a campaign video. Inside Edition has the scoop. Now, take a look at this photo from a campaign video. The man is running for Congress in Virginia, and it sure looks like he's posing with his wife and three daughters. The issue? He isn't married and doesn't have children.

As Alison Hall reports, his opponent says he deliberately staged a fake family. A bachelor running for Congress is taking heat today for posing with what some are calling a fake family. That's not his wife and three daughters. Hey folks, Derek Anderson here. GOP candidate Derek Anderson from Virginia lives alone with his dog.

This campaign video also includes footage of him seated at the head of the table with the family. That's not his. If you want to run for Congress, your spouse and your children are typically part of the package. But, what if you don't have either? If you're a Virginia Republican congressional candidate, Derek Anderson, well, you borrowed them from a friend.

Alright, so this is just ridiculous. I mean, but hey, that's the world we live in. I mean, did he not think he would get exposed? And what about, I mean, it's just so laughable. Now, in the real sad news here, you guys remember a few weeks back I had Allie Phillips on Driving with Dave. She had a terrible day.

you know, real terrible issue where she had to travel out of state to get an abortion because she couldn't get one in, um, you know, in, um, the state of Tennessee, uh, and her baby wasn't viable. It was a real tragedy. Um, she of course, uh, lost the baby before even making it into the abortion clinic. Well, she's running for office now in Tennessee and, um, her opponent, uh, is a running a smear campaign against her.

She posted this on her Instagram. Her Instagram is Allie4Tennessee, A L L I E. The letter, the number four, TN. She posted this, Yesterday I learned about a piece of hateful mail the Tennessee Republican Party sent out attacking me by featuring photos of my seven year old autistic daughter, Adalie. I'm running for office because I stand for Tennessee values, those of family, kindness, inclusion, and diversity.

I value the hardworking individuals that make Tennessee what it is today, and I believe in helping our neighbors, not harming them. Most of all, I believe in integrity, especially here in politics. Attack me. Attack my policies. Make up stories about me. Do your absolute worst when it comes to trying to sway voters away from me.

But do not come after my baby, you know, very powerful stuff here And she's considering a lawsuit because apparently there is a law about not using someone's child in in publications without their consent And of course, this was signed off by the treasurer of the Republican Party in Tennessee So it's just it's sick stuff It's getting ugly out there folks.

And my hope is that people have enough critical thinking skills, um, to really do their research for every single person they're voting for up next. We've got Trump responding to Melania's new memoir where she admits she's pro choice. Alright, here it is, Donald Trump being asked about Melania supporting a woman's right to choose after his nominated justices helped overturn Roe v.

Wade. Melania's memoir about championing, championing abortion rights and reproductive freedom. When you read it, what were your thoughts? We spoke about it and I said, you have to write what you believe. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe. She's very beloved. Uh, people love her.

Former first lady. I can tell you that. But I said, you have to stick with your heart. I've said that to everybody. You have to go with your heart. Uh, there are some people that are very, very far right in the issue, meaning without exceptions. And then there are other people that I view it a little bit differently than Alright, so there it is.

And look, I mean, you know, he's kind of scapegoating by saying, well, we wanted to send it back to the states, but, um, you know, these sort of human rights issues and these, uh, women's rights issues, I don't think they should be states issues, I think they should be something we decide about federally. And I think, um, I think the voters have kind of made up their mind on that, as it is a losing issue for those that, uh, are on the ballot for pro life.

It's a losing issue. And that's not an opinion, that's just what's happened out there. As we've seen, um, since Roe v. Wade Was overturned. Um, now what's really interesting is speaking of losing issues here is another person has bit the dust. That's right. Former, uh, election worker and election denier, Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, uh, following her letting conspiracy theorists have access to voting equipment.

Uh, a Western Colorado judge showed her no mercy. Elections have consequences. And so does breaking the law in search of election rigging. Tina Peters sentenced today to nine years in her election tampering case. Colorado's best known election denier, the former Mesa County clerk, was defiant till the end, arguing with the judge at sentencing and bringing in a parade of fellow election conspiracy theorists to defend her.

R. Mark Salinger was in court in Grand Junction where Peters laughed at prosecutors, lectured the judge, Then was led away in handcuffs. Yeah, Kyle, I want to tell you a little bit about Tina Peters Day. This is the Mesa County Justice Center right here, where earlier today, Tina Peters stood in front of the judge for 40 minutes pleading for him to give her probation to give her a lenient sentence.

So how did that go? Just down the street right here across the parking lot is the Mesa County Sheriff's Office detention facility where she is spending tonight and likely many more nights to come. All right, so She's locked up for nine years now. She'll probably get off with only a year served. You know what I mean?

They're not gonna She's This feels This What I'm about to play for you feels like a conversation somebody's gonna have with their parent at Thanksgiving. That's what it feels like. But it is a judge trying to reason with someone who is not admitting any fault whatsoever. In the machine. Whatever it tabulates is.

Whatever it tabulates. No, it doesn't. It changes. You're not letting me finish. Okay. Please. Whatever it tabulates is, whatever it tabulates my hand vote. My ballot remains the same. They counted those ballots. I understand. Did they not? I understand what you're saying, your Honor. Did they count the ballots?

No. The ballot images were changed and that's what the total shows. Okay. I'll move off of this 'cause I can see that. It, you know, I would encourage to read, uh, the report number three. I've read them, ma'am. You've read all of them? I've read those reports. So she's grilling the judge, and it, I mean, I truthfully mean this, this is triggering some people, but doesn't this feel like a Thanksgiving conversation?

Well you just have to to read it. Do your research. I read it, but you know, she's not talking to a random person. She's talking to a judge who has sentenced her to nine years in prison. Uh, wild stuff, folks. Look, we had a crazy week. I've been over here in New York city. I want to thank people for coming out to my standup shows.

It's been a ton of fun. Um, I'm exhausted. I'm going to take the wife and the baby out to go hang out in the park and get some Italian food and go enjoy the rest of our stay. I, uh, went to the High Line in New York City, which is a beautiful park, to interview Davia Esther. Davia was on Zach Shallcross season of The Bachelor.

She also was on Bachelor in Paradise. We had a very interesting conversation, uh, about why she thinks It didn't really work out on the show for her, her life in the pageant world, life in New York, dating guys here. And we actually talked about your inner child, had a really good conversation about, um, different types of dependency and neediness you bring into relationships and overcoming that and, uh, thriving and finding ways to sort of, uh, live, live that life you intended.

really, it was a really interesting conversation and I'm going to have that for you starting at midnight tonight. And that'll be my weekend episode of driving with Dave. Uh, but we're calling it walking with Dave and Dov. So you can go check that out here on the audio only, or you could go to the YouTube and check it out there as well.

Uh, everyone, I want you to have a fantastic rest of your day and a fantastic weekend. If you're new here, because we have new people every week, I want to let you know what we do on Fridays. We, we end the episode by walking out of our office. Kick the door in double middle finger pistols up in the air and tell your boss to go fuck himself.

Have a good weekend, everyone. I'm Dave Neal. This is a rush. The rush hour is a twice daily pop culture and entertainment news podcast hosted by stand up 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.

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