Morning Brew Daily - Winter Storm Causes Travel Chaos & US TikTok Deal Finalized
Episode Date: January 26, 2026Episode 765: It’s a NYC snow day! Neal and Toby recap the Winter storm that has swept across the majority of the US, causing a mass cancellation of travel plans for airlines. Then, vibe-coding is st...arting to pick up steam as amateur user-made apps spike up in app stores. Plus, a deal to spin off TikTok from its Chinese parent is finalized, bringing the popular social app closer to home. Meanwhile, free-soloist Alex Honnold pulls off the tallest urban ascent of Taipei 101 with no ropes or protection. Finally, a preview of the week ahead! Get your tickets for the Morning Brew Variety Show! https://tinyurl.com/MBvariety Explore Indeed’s full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Learn more about Lightspeed at https://www.lsvp.com Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens.
And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work,
costing their employers greatly in lost productivity.
Luckily, AFLAQ plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses.
Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbredaily.
That's aflack.com slash morning brewdaily.
Good morning, Brue Daily show.
I'm Neil Fryman.
And I'm Toby Howell.
Today, the winter storm led to more flight cancellations than the pandemic.
Then the rise of vibe coding has created a major vibe shift on Wall Street.
It's Monday, January 26th.
Let's ride.
Good morning and welcome back to the week.
Tensions are high in the United States and especially in Minneapolis,
where federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti and I see you
nurse on Saturday morning. Predi was fatally shot just over a mile away from where another 37-year-old
U.S. citizen, Renee Good, was killed by an ICE officer several weeks ago, which sparked widespread
protests in Minneapolis against ICE agents throughout January. Videos from the scene, which spread all
over social media, contradicted the government's initial claims that Preddy was a domestic
terrorist, and several Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into the shooting. In an interview
with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump declined to say the officer did the right thing as top
officials claimed and said they're, quote, reviewing everything.
Minnesota CEOs are speaking out, too, with over 60 business leaders of Minnesota-based
companies from Target to United Health, signing an open letter calling for, quote, the immediate
de-escalation of tensions and asking state, local, and federal officials to work together
to find real solutions. Every local professional sports team also signed the letter, including
the Timberwolves, links, Vikings Wild, and Minnesota United. The pushback from corporate
Giants comes after hundreds of smaller businesses in the Minneapolis area also shut down as they
back protests against ice in their city. Meanwhile, this has greatly increased the odds of a government
shutdown. Last week, the House passed bipartisan bills that would fund most of the government
passed the deadline, and it was expected to get through the Senate this week, avoiding a shutdown.
But after the shooting, a number of Democratic senators said they wouldn't vote for a funding package.
That includes money for the Department of Homeland Security, which the House versions do.
Republicans need seven Democratic votes to pass the funding legislation, and it looks like those
will be impossible to come by after what happened in Minneapolis.
On Kalshi, the odds of a partial shutdown went from 11% before Saturday to 76% last night.
It's going to be a tense week of deliberations to keep the government running past Friday,
but that's looking unlikely as of now.
If Toby and I sound a bit different this morning, it's because we're recording the podcast in our
homes, our first ever bedroom pod.
That's of course due to yesterday's winter storm, which closed our office today and probably changed up your routine too.
Weather forecasters said it was going to be the big one, and it delivered.
Winter storm fern unleashed heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain from the southern Rockies to New England,
impacting more than 200 million people.
As of this morning, over 820,000 homes and businesses were without power, mostly in the south,
as ice weighed down power lines.
Travel ground to a halt, literally.
Airlines canceled more than 11,000 U.S. flights for Sunday.
the most for a single day since the start of the pandemic.
At Reagan and D.C., all flights were axed on Sunday,
nearly 90% in New York's LaGuardia,
and close to half at Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson,
the world's busiest airport.
And if you were stranded over the weekend,
it might take a couple days to get back home
because already more than 3,000 flights have been canceled for Monday.
As for snow totals, at least 17 states got more than one foot.
Toronto received 18 inches, nearly a record,
and for the first time in more than 10 years,
DC, Baltimore, Philly, New York City, and Boston all received at least six inches of snow.
Toby, this was a monster and its impacts are going to linger for at least a few days.
I was looking at the satellite view of this storm, and Monster is putting it lightly.
It is covering 40 states.
The only state that looked like it was totally spared looked to be Florida, which of course
Florida is spared.
But even Florida and Georgia in the Panhandle region, we're getting temperature and tornado warning.
so even the southern states weren't fully spared.
I want to dive into where the power industry is kind of how it's facing in this massive storm,
because obviously when cold temperatures hit,
power demands on the power grid go up dramatically.
And who is stepping up to the plate right now?
It's mostly, you know, traditional fossil fuels like oil and natural gas.
The largest grid operators were relying on natural gas for about 30% of their power yesterday.
And that has caused this crazy spike.
and natural gas prices as well.
Future prices for natural gas jumped 70% in the U.S.
over the last week of trading.
And it's only going to get worse as, you know,
gas producing parts of the United States
are facing these really low temperatures
and demand is only going to keep spiking.
Yeah, everyone was looking at Texas specifically.
Five years ago, there was this massive winter storm
Uri that knocked out the power grid down in Texas,
which is not connected to the grids elsewhere in the United States.
So they had a lot of,
They did a lot of weatherization efforts in the past five years to beef up their infrastructure.
And it seems like for the most part, that held study this time around.
I was looking into some natural gas traders were also saying, how can we stay online during this crazy event?
They were holling up in hotels to ensure that they still had connection to the intercontinental exchange
so they could trade their natural gas future prices.
So it was interesting that there was like a weatherization of the actual natural gas grid and the actual electric grid.
and also the people that were trading on those exact things that were powering the grid as well.
So Texas was definitely people were looking, would they be able to handle this a little bit better?
And it does seem like they are handling it a little better.
And what was unique about this particular storm is that it did hit the south,
and it hit certain states and cities that don't typically see a lot of cold weather,
nasty weather, ice, snow, the like.
So if you were in Nashville, the talk of the town was this new snowplow called Dali Plow.
And she was part of a new fleet of snow plows that the city invested in.
They have five new trucks.
They cost about $350,000 a piece.
Nashville has been growing like a weed over the past couple of decades.
There's a lot of northerners coming down there to move and they feel to live.
And, you know, Nashville and other southern cities are not necessarily prepared.
They don't have all the infrastructure that northern cities do to carry away the snow.
And so just like, you know, an inch or two can.
kind of parallels, paralyze the city. So Nashville is investing, you know, over millions of dollars here
to improve their snow infrastructure. And meanwhile, in northern cities, they're only beefing up their
tech to give people more accessibility and transparency into how this snow removal operation
is going. I was absolutely glued to this website called Plow, NYC. And did you see this, Toby?
No, see, this is the difference between you and me. Continue your story. And then I have a little
anecdote here. Okay. So I was looking at Plow.
NYC, which is this very intricate map of New York City, and it shows you exactly how many streets
have been plowed in the last hour, in the last two hours. And maybe they took, New York City
took inspiration from Toronto, which has their own snowplow tracker called Plow T.O, which has a
live map. They also have this vintage design around it that just makes it very pleasant to look at.
So these are how cities are sort of beefing up their capabilities, whether it's in the actual
physical snow plows or the tech to give people more insight into travel and, you know,
how their lives are going. Here's why I was laughing at you is instead of being glued to plow NYC,
I went for a run, Neil. I just saw the city streets myself and I could report. There was a lot of snow
to no one's surprise, but it was fascinating to see how New York was handling the situation. They
equipped garbage trucks with snow plows, and these things were just hooking down the road, just blowing
snow everywhere, clearing the roads for everyone. And one last anecdote on this, too, about New York
city. If you thought you were a kid and you got to sleep in, you had a big snow day coming up.
Uh-uh, not necessarily the case. The rise of remote learning has made it so that snow days
don't really exist as they once did. You don't get the day off. You don't get to stay at home
and sit pop cocoa and watch cartoons. You still got to log on because now the infrastructure
is there to support remote learning. So Monday, you're not getting a day off from homework kids.
You actually are going to have to still go to school, even though it's probably going to be
on your couch.
Moving on,
the rise of vibe coding
is bringing back
a golden era
for apps not seen
since the Fruit Ninja
and Doodle Jump days.
After three years
of essentially zero growth,
December saw 60%
year-over-year rise
in new iOS app
releases, according to data
from the VC firm A16Z.
Vibe-coded apps
are sort of a catch-all term
for apps created
using the assistance
of AI agents like Claude Coding.
It's how I,
despite never coding before,
could coax an AI agent using normal language instructions to create the Uber for Dogs app of
my dreams. The avalanche of apps has created a trickle-down effect that is being felt on Wall Street,
too. Software giants like Salesforce, Adobe, and ServiceNow have all dropped more than 30% over the
past year. And an S&P index of small and mid-sized software stocks is also down more than 20% over
that period, according to the Wall Street Journal, who points out that the release of Anthropics
Claude, the preferred tool of a lot of vibe coders, was a key inflection point marking the downturn.
Neil, your technical friends have probably been blabbering nonstop about the transformational
power of these coding assistants. Now we're seeing the impact of this technology from the amount
of apps flooding app stores to the software companies these micro solutions are disrupting.
In the most bullish scenarios, people say we're looking at the early signs of a new economy,
an entrepreneurial boom. We haven't seen the likes of since maybe the...
the PC revolution a few decades ago.
Alexander Wang, who leads META's super intelligence efforts,
he is one of the youngest self-made billionaires ever.
He said, actually, the Bill Gates's and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world are right now.
They're teenagers, you know, who are instead of doing their homework on a remote day,
are actually vibe coding new apps.
So the potential here among people who are proponents of vibe coding is just absolutely revolutionary.
You're giving coding tools to people who did not know how to come.
code earlier and you are basically teaching them a new language or allowing them to not learn a
new language because that's really what's happening here because me or you or I like we don't know
the language of coding so it was very inaccessible to us but now because of vibe coding we can just
essentially type in natural language prompts to all of these apps that are flooding the app store
and elsewhere to say like build me a website I want X, Y and Z build me an app that has this feature
and we can just use English to code instead of using coding
languages to code. And, you know, among those who say vibe coding is bringing about a revolution,
you know, that is what the potential is here. I mean, you mentioned language. Not only do you not
have to know the language of computers or the technical language of coding, you don't even need to
use grammatically correct English to do it or grammatically correct normal language to do it. So not
only is there not a language barrier in a technical sense, it actually has reduced the normal
language barrier as well, which is fascinating to watch and hypothetically democratizes this tech
for a lot of people around the world. New company formation in the U.S. has been declining for decades.
And so a lot of the bullish figures in the tech space are saying this could totally reverse
that trend and allow a flood of new ideas to hit the marketplace, as we are actually seeing
in the app store right now. There are plenty of people who are pushing back on the potential for vibe
coding too saying, hey, this is cool, but it's not actually as revolutionary as its proponents think.
They talk about the security flaws of a vibe coding app.
You're not going to push out a vibe coded app to mass amount of users because they're just huge
critical vulnerabilities that come with it.
You haven't, you know, there aren't traditional software engineers working on this, building
in protections around cybersecurity.
They're saying this is less economic revolution and more just shifting where the hard work
begins and they don't necessarily view the vibe coding as wiping out a class of software engineers
because those will still be needed. They say that you're not going to vibe code Slack or you're
not going to vibe code sales force. You're not going to vibe code these huge software companies that
are feeling the pain on Wall Street right now under competition from vibe coding and chatGBT and other
AI tools more broadly. But that's the main argument here that vibe coding can get you started,
but the things that really make software flow and work well
will still be left to two software engineers that are human.
Still, it's undeniable that AI is adding a layer of risk
when you are investing in software companies these days
because one, it just does lead to more new competitors
hypothetically entering the software markets.
And then two, this maybe is an even bigger risk.
Companies are building software in-house these days
rather than buying it.
And again, that's probably not going to,
you're not going to in-house build Salesforce unless you are a really, you know, high functioning
engineering company, which you actually have seen Klarna do. They did build Salesforce in-house,
but where it leads to revenue pressure is customers test alternatives. And then they refuse to
pay for upgrades or add-ons. Like, you know, the smaller features that Salesforce says,
hey, you need this. So like, let's increase your package here. Companies will go,
we can actually just build that odd on ourselves,
which hypothetically is going to compress margins over time
for these giant software companies that have until this point ate the world.
They've done very well.
They seem to be a bulletproof investment.
Now it looks like they're not so bulletproof.
All right, we're going to take a quick break
and come back with my winner of the weekend.
Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill.
Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot.
Good news.
Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon
and we'll give you a better deal.
So get away from that.
phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here. Bring your
AT&T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network.
A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon. Best network based on route metrics, best overall mobile
performance U.S. second half 2025. All rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer
mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional terms, conditions,
and restrictions apply. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot.
Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179.
like the next grill three-burner gas grill,
or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill
and bring big flavor to your backyard.
Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights
that bring it all together.
Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot.
Now through May 6th.
Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details.
You said this place was steps from the water.
We just haven't found the steps yet.
How much did we save?
Enough.
Enough to get lost.
Or you could book a stay with Hilton.
Welcome to your oceanfront room.
Just steps from the water.
The Hilton sale is on now.
Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app
and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected.
When you want savings, not surprises.
It matters where you stay.
Hilton for the stay.
All right, let's move on to Winners of the Weekend,
the segment where we pick two things that stayed extra cozy through the storm.
I won the pre-show sledding race, so I get to go first.
And my winner is Bite Dance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok.
Late last week, a deal was finalized to create a U.S. version of TikTok,
resolving the long-running squabble.
But if you look under the hood, it's a lot more favorable to bite dance than initially thought.
Let's start with the deal itself, which formally establishes a U.S. TikTok majority owned by a consortium of major investors,
including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Emirati firm MGX.
It caps off a nearly seven-year saga in which the U.S. forced Bightans to divest its American TikTok operations over concerns that the Chinese government would use the video app to spy on its 200 million American users and influence public opinion.
To assuage those concerns, TikTok says, American tech giant Oracle will protect user data in a secure cloud data environment regularly audited by third-party cybersecurity experts.
But here's where critics say Bightance got one over the White House.
TikTok's algorithm, consider the crown jewel of its entire business, will still belong to BightDance,
which is going to license it to the U.S. TikTok.
And not only will BightDance continue to own the algorithm, it will, quote, manage global
product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising,
and marketing, or in other words, they still control the app's core operations.
Toby, this isn't as clean of a break that was initially expected.
Yeah, the algorithm has always been the crown jewel of TikTok right now.
and actually a lot of creators are very nervous about the USification of the TikTok algorithm.
Anecdotally so far, some creators have already seen an algorithmic shift.
Trump has joked in the past about wanting to make TikTok, quote,
100% MAGA.
And some creators have started posting that they have seen increased censorship immediately
upon this transfer into US.
It's just one-off anecdotes right now,
but the algorithmic integrity of the US app is,
going to be paramount to keeping U.S. users intact because that's what got them hooked in the
first place. And then also, if you are TikTok USA, you kind of just got an annoying amount of security
risk offloaded onto your plate. Now Oracle takes responsibility for U.S. data storage.
Oracle takes responsibility for compliance and regulatory assurances. It's whenever something
might go amiss on a security front, we can't just blame Beijing and can't blame.
in bite dance anymore. Now the buck stops with Oracle, which maybe is more annoying than just
having, you know, TikTok be this Chinese-owned entity that you could always kind of say,
oh, they have security issues. Now the buck stops with Oracle. Now, you're at Morning Brudeley's
social media whisperer. Like, where do you see TikTok going from here? What's its business prospects?
I mean, actually from a financial perspective, it's absolutely crushing it as 200 million users
just in the U.S. alone. Bike dance, more broadly, is going to post.
a $50 billion profit for 2025. That rivals meta. So this company is doing really well from a
financial perspective. But after this seven year long drama, are people still going to be using
TikTok? I had this remarkable growth trajectory. And, you know, some in the industry are saying,
I think Instagram once again may have killed another app. Josh Kaplan, who's our friend who used to
work at Morning Bruin, is now very, very involved in the creator space. He gave an interview saying,
and he thinks Instagram has a more robust ecosystem.
YouTube has their shorts program where you can bring people in
and then use it used for long form as well.
And he says that TikTok is just not as conducive to building that community.
He says he doesn't hear people saying that they're TikTokers anymore.
Like that term is maybe a relic of 2021 and 2022.
So I think TikTok, even though it's been saved through this years-long process,
I think still needs to figure out where it stands in the ecosystem,
whether it held this commanding lead that it did.
I really do think it comes down to does feed behavior change, do creator incentives change, do
monetization mechanics change under U.S. ownership? Those things have proven pretty sticky,
despite maybe some cultural headwinds shifting more towards the Instagram and YouTube's of the world.
TikTok is a very sticky app. Like everyone has gone down these doom scrolling rabbit holes.
Like its algorithm is something that is extremely powerful for attention. If something messes with that,
then I turn into a TikTok bear for sure.
But if they continue to have this incredible attention,
like vacuuming algorithm,
it's not going to go away anytime soon.
Again, though, if algorithm shifts do happen,
then it could be a pretty perceptuous decline, honestly.
It could go down very quickly
if people aren't getting the same sort of, you know,
dopamine fix that they were getting in the past.
My winner of the weekend is Alex Honnell
because, well,
He's still alive, and that's sort of the ultimate win when scaling a 1,667-foot skyscraper with no ropes or harnesses.
Honnold's urban-free solo attempt of the Taipei 101 skyscraper went down Saturday night and was broadcasted semi-live on Netflix with a slight 10-second delay.
He made the climb look easy, even the middle 64 floors, which featured bamboo boxes that required eight floors of overhanging climbing before balconies provided at reprieve.
Viewing, however, was not so easy.
Seeing Honnold up there with the wind buffeting him around led to instantly sweaty palms.
At one point, he tried to high-five some kids through the glass,
but they were too focused on their phones, prompting him to say,
kids these days live, before continuing his ascent.
He took a break to wait to his wife, too, who was watching indoors on the 60th floor.
What makes the whole climb even more baffling was how little he was paid in context to how impressive the feat was.
Honnold collected mid-six figures for putting his life on the line for Netflix, according to reports,
which is a lot of money until you compare it to the over $90 million Jake Paul collected
for getting his face rocked in his Netflix bout with Anthony Joshua.
Neil, I'm never complaining about my fifth floor walk-up ever again.
So I watched this live.
I did, and it was one of the more remarkable things I've ever seen.
The most impressive thing.
Like, it was astonishing to watch.
Your heart was in your mouth for the first half hour.
But then when he got up to the middle rungs and he was doing the same move over and over again,
I honestly just like was kind of looking at my phone.
You know, I just had complete confidence in him.
And sometimes when the broadcast went completely silent,
they had this setup where there were a few commentators.
And they just went completely silent.
And it was just him.
You heard a little of the wind.
and he was just climbing and in the zone
was just one of the most amazing things
I've seen in perhaps a vindication of Netflix's
live strategy where you really didn't know
what was going to happen. This guy is on the face
of a skyscraper thousand feet
up and I don't know. I just, I thought
it was pretty incredible television.
A few other details that I thought were pretty interesting.
He does listen to music while he climbs
and the music he listened to was
tool. He loves really, he loves
like pretty heavy rock to listen to.
Which is rock music. Yeah, rock music.
He knows how long,
of the songs is and it helps him keep pace i mean he rocketed up this thing 91 minutes is is very
fast so he just used that to pace himself another really interesting detail was that this skyscraper
taipei 101 was the home to a lot of or surrounding it was a lot of new york uh new year's eve
fireworks so every single balcony he would clean off his he would clean off his shoes and that's
because there was soot from the fireworks left over from new years you know a few uh weeks ago which i thought
That was super interesting. And then the final detail that he was talking about after, well,
during and after the climb was that it's very unusual for him to have a crowd watching him,
where he climbs, he climbs El Capitan and other rock formations in the middle of nowhere with no one
watching him. Here there were thousands of people watching him from down below, cheering him on.
There were people also in the windows, which was like the craziest scene you've ever seen.
People were in the windows while he was climbing. He was waving to them. And so he said that it was actually,
it was weird for him, but also somewhat energizing and motivating to kind of play up to the crowd.
The best take I saw that this was a low risk, but high consequence activity.
High consequence because if you mess up, you fall and die, but low risk because of his skill
and preparation. So the odds of me falling when climbing at, 100%. The odds of Alex falling is
closer to 1%. And that was the take that every climber had. This wasn't even close to L.
Capitan. Normies were like, holy moly, this is the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my life.
And then people were kind of posting some clips from Free Solo once again and going,
you guys don't even understand. Like, this was a one in the difficulty scale compared to a
10 for El Capitan. So it really was kind of a walk in the park as crazy as that says that might
be to say. But for Alex Honnold, like, he's just built different. All right, it's Monday. So here's
what you need to know to stay ahead in the weekend.
head. Wall Street may be buried under a foot of snow, but the action is only heating up with a
hugely consequential week for financial markets. On Wednesday, the Fed will meet for the first time
since Chair Jerome Powell revealed he was under criminal investigation, with pretty much everyone
expecting the central bank to hold interest rates steady for the foreseeable future. And that'll be
bookended by a heavy slate, I mean slate, of earnings including tech titans like Apple, meta, Tesla,
and Microsoft, as well as corporate giants like Boeing, GM, and Starbucks. Yeah, let's start with the Fed.
the Fed definitely is pausing their interest rate cutting cycle because the main uncertainty right
now is not actually policy, but how Jerome Powell is going to defend Fed independence amongst
all this pressure on the Fed right now.
So that's probably the biggest drama from this latest Fed meeting.
As for earnings, I'm very curious about a lot of companies.
Is Meta going to talk about the flood of new apps that are coming to app stores and how
that might boost their advertising business?
Is this Apple going to tell us more about Gemini-powered Siri?
Is Microsoft going to talk about the fact that Anthropic is kind of eating their lunch in the productivity side of things?
Anthropic, actually, we didn't mention this earlier, just launched a Claude Code for Excel, which is something that everyone's like, Microsoft.
How the heck did you not do this before that?
So it's going to be a very spicy slate of earnings for sure.
Attention over achievers.
If you want to file your taxes as early as possible, you can do that starting today.
as the IRS begins to accept tax returns for 2025.
Tax season, which runs through April 15th, may not be as painful this year since refunds are expected to come in, on average, $1,000 higher than usual due to the GOP's tax bill passed in 2025.
As for CPAs, we are sending our thoughts and prayers over the next few months.
This is news you can use because I certainly did not know you can start to file now until you just told me.
But you will.
Will I be doing anything about it? Absolutely not. April 14th or the morning of April 15th, here we come.
In sports, Super Bowl festivities kick off now that the big game is set. Yesterday, the Patriots and
Seahawks book their ticket to Super Bowl 60, an unexpected rematch from perhaps the best Super Bowl
of all time in 2015. The game featuring two young quarterbacks will be held at the 49ers
stadium in the Bay Area two Sundays from now. Here's my favorite Super Bowl fact. The last
three times a new Pope was elected, the Seahawks have not only made the Super Bowl,
they made the Super Bowl as the number one seed.
So there is some sort of divine intervention going on right now.
2005, Pope Benedict was elected.
Seattle made it to Super Bowl 40.
2013, Pope Francis was elected, made it to Super Bowl 48.
And in 2025-2026, Pope Leo, Seattle has somehow made it to the Super Bowl.
Once again, what is going on with the papal kind of influence on the Seahawks?
There's something, there is something going on.
I have a few other Super Bowl facts.
One of them is that this Super Bowl, Super Bowl 60, is going to be the third time that both head coaches share the same first name.
And of course, that name is Mike.
All three cases, both coaches were named Mike.
We had Mike Shanahan versus Mike Holmgren, Mike Tomlin versus Mike McCarthy.
And then this year, it's Mike McDonald versus Mike Rable.
And then the other fact, this is super cool.
This comes from Kendall Baker, who writes to Yahoo Sports newsletter.
Five schools have.
have produced a U.S. president and a Super Bowl winning quarterback.
I won't go through them all, but some include University of Michigan, which is Gerald Ford
and Tom Brady, Delaware, which is Joe Biden and Joe Flacco.
Now, if Drake May wins this year, he's the quarterback for the Patriots, UNC will become
the sixth school to produce a U.S. president and a Super Bowl winning QB because they'll have
Drake May and then, of course, everyone knows this.
The UNC alum that was a president was James K. Polk.
Is it embarrassing that obviously I knew the sports side of all of those, the president's side.
I was like, if Neil asked me, I'm drawing a blank here.
I feel better because I would never get in Polk anyways.
All right, that is all the time we have.
Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful start to the week.
If you want to get in touch, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com
or DM us on Instagram at MB Daily Show.
Let's roll the credits.
Emily Milliron is our executive producer.
Raymond Lou is our producer.
Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake.
Hair makeup is resting up after a bruising snowball fight.
Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.
Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.
Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars.
Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava theater stage on April 30th.
The powerful vocals of Demi Levato on May 17th.
And the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th.
Tickets on sale now at Yamavat.
Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary.
You in? Must be 21 to enter.
