The Philip DeFranco Show - American Authoritarianism Takes Shape In Minnesota & Over 12,000 Feared Dead in Iran Protests

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

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Trump's FBI is now investigating Renee Good's possible connections to so-called activist groups at the same time as Trump's Justice Department is Refusing to investigate the Border Patrol agent who shot and killed her in broad daylight and now Several attorneys in the Department Civil Rights Division, which has already been gutted by the Trump administration They're resigning in protests. Right, and all of this is the situation in Minneapolis is set to just get even crazier You've got a thousand CBP agents now in the process of deploying to the city in addition to the roughly 2000 federal agents that DHS announced would be deployed to the area last week just a day before goods death. Though, I'll say, notably, there is now a chance

that a federal judge could get in the way, and that's because the state of Minnesota, along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, they're suing the Trump administration. The named defendants that you're seeing include Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Nome, acting ICE director Todd Lyons, and CBP Commander Gregory Bovina.

In this lawsuit, it's asking a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order to halt or at least limit the federal government's operation in the state, arguing that the operation is a federal invasion of the Twin Cities. Also alleges that the federal government's unlawfully commandeering state resources and by

violating Minnesota law and city ordinances. And with that, arguing that this isn't really about immigration enforcement, but rather, is an unconstitutional act of political retaliation. Saying Minneapolis and St. Paul are now the latest of the cities widely considered to be democratic cities with elected leaders who do not politically align with Trump to be flooded with federal agents. With that, claiming it these federal agents flooding the city have used unlawful tactics that undermine public trust in state and local law enforcement. They provide several examples, including the arrest and chokehold of a Somali American one week after the operation was first announced back in December. You can also have things like the use of pepper spray and other heavy-handed tactics being used outside of a high school just hours after Renee Good was killed.

And really a big thing with this list is that it's just growing more and more every day. But also, very notably, what's happening, it goes beyond allegations of brutality and excessive force. Right, it's also about rights potentially being violated in other ways. And so, for example, the lawsuit refers to an edited video posted to social media of a Border Patrol agent telling a man that they had pulled over that he is under suspicion because of his accent, right? This was also the day that Renee Good was killed. And since then, you've had a video making the round. filmed by someone identifying herself as a citizen confronting an agent who repeatedly asked her, where were you born? Also, another video appears to show federal officers ramming the door of a home,

entering and arresting the man inside, all just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed agents. With the woman then coming out of the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man, which also appeared to be what's known as as an administrative warrant rather than a judicial warrant. And that's an important distinction because it was signed by an immigration officer and not a judge, right? So the warrant doesn't authorize force entry into a private residence. Instead, and bear with me, because I'm talking like rules and laws still matter, it would only authorize arrests in a public area. And actually with that, Illinois and Chicago have now just filed a somewhat similar lawsuit

against the administration. Reducing agents of unlawful and dangerous tactics, including arresting people without warrants or probable cause as well as things like swapping and altering license plates and using tear gas and other chemical weapons on bystanders and arguing that Border Patrol and ICE agents have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law. But of course, the Trump administration has denied any wrongdoing with a White House spokesperson saying in response to the Illinois lawsuit, this reads like a far-left manifesto,

not a serious lawsuit, and adding, Chicago's lawsuit uses aggressive rhetoric meant to smear law enforcement officers and incite violence against them. You also had a DHS spokesperson similarly being dismissive about the Minnesota lawsuit and actually accusing the state's attorney general, Keith Ellison, of prioritizing politics over public safety.

Though very notably, that is a statement that many, including Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, would probably disagree with, right? With him telling the New York Times is The Daily podcast that the city has gotten a pretty dramatic increase in 911 calls from people in the community related to a lot of the street enforcement that's happening. I mean, it's everything from people are being arrested and their cars are left in the roadway, sometimes blocking the street. And at one case left when it wasn't even placed in park and was

rolling down the road. We had another time where there was a dog in the car and they left the dog in the car. Wow. I mean, even this morning, we've gotten calls for individuals who were pepper sprayed by ice. It's just a variety of calls for service that we then have to manage and triage that were not happening before. O'Hara also affirmed that American citizens are being stopped by ice, but then also added, they're not stopping family members of folks who are Norwegian or Irish. That's not happening. Right. And then O'Hara also questioned whether ICE agents are well enough trained to handle the kinds of encounters that we've been seeing. And while you didn't have O'Hara taking an explicit stand regarding Renee Goods killing, he did say,

The number one is you don't place yourself in the path of the vehicle. That's like traffic stop 101. You don't do that. You know, a big thing with all this is that neither he or any state or local official has any say in the handling of this case. Right, because Trump's Justice Department has blocked authorities in Minnesota from participating in what initially was meant to be a joint FBI and state criminal investigation. And that, it's going down as some senior administration officials immediately labeled good as a domestic terrorist after she was killed. Right, even though investigators, they barely had time to collect and assess the facts about the case. Now, Trump's DOJ, specifically the DOJ's assistant attorney general for civil rights, has decided that his division won't investigate goods killing at all.

Which is especially odd because that's usually the case for a shooting involving law enforcement. And actually with all this, you now have at least four senior officials resigning from the division, from which more than 250 attorneys had already left over the course of Trump's second term. And on top of that, you've had another six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigning in protest as well, including the one who's been overseeing the massive fraud investigation that Trump's pointed to to justify the ICE operation in the city. Right, and notably you had him and the others making this decision not just because of the lack of investigation of the agent who shot good, but because senior DOJ officials pushed instead for a criminal investigation into good herself. And in fact, with that, the department's focus is reportedly her possible connections to activist groups protesting the administration's immigration crackdown.

Or with that, looking into a number of things, including who took part in the type of neighborhood watch activities that Good may have been involved with. Or with Trump's DOJ officials reportedly believing they might be instigators of the shooting. And while, you know, Trump administration officials have repeatedly vowed to crack down on left-wing activists in the past, this stands out because it has the potential to involve people not accused of committing any violence. With that you have former department officials reportedly warning that such a wide-ranging inquiry raises the chances that forms of political protests could be criminalized. And of course, that's as these protests might only be gaining steam, especially because as we talked about yesterday, the polling against ice is bad. ICE has become very, very unpopular with the American public, and we've seen some Democrats tying all this together with other issues that might prove important to voters. With Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, for example, recently telling reporters,

I want everybody to understand the cuts to your healthcare are what's paying for this. Nearly a trillion dollars in healthcare was taken out and given to ICE. So understand how these dots connect. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face. That is what this administration is doing. That's what the Republican Party did. You also had Ilhan Omar, the representative for Minnesota's fifth congressional district, which includes the entire city of Minneapolis, making a similar argument on X and Dadding, ICE isn't making us safer, it's terrorizing our communities.

All while, you've also had her going after Elon Musk for pushing misinformation about her state. Because, for example, you had Musk suggesting on X yesterday that Omar, who was born in Somalia, is only in office because of undocumented Somali immigrants, a claim that Omar responded to by saying, you are one of the dumbest people on Earth. My district is literally a majority white district. And adding, your conspiracy theories are laughable and should have no place in a society that cares about facts. Right, and actually on the topic at Elon Musk, we need to talk about the international battle that's been brewing over his AI chatbot, GROC. Especially as the US government is currently doing their damnedest to protect and enable pedophilia. And this actually isn't connected to the Epstein files, right?

There have been growing concerns around the world surrounding AI-generated sexual images of people, especially with children. In front and center of this very important conversation has been GROC AI, especially after it began allowing users to edit images with text prompts back in late December. A move that, shocker, led to a flood of non-consensual AI-generated photos of women in their underwear on X, as well as sexual images of children. Right, and you've been seeing more and more people speaking out, including popular creators like Twitch streamer Sweet Anita. Saying as an onlooker and a target of the Grock bikini trend, I can't help but feel as though our bodies are being used to bolster usage statistics just to impress investors

all while we pay the price. And saying these deepfakes of unclothed women and children, they're still getting posted every single second. I don't know how the people running X could in good conscience choose to profit from that. At this point, it looks so intentional to me. I'm disgusted. It makes me sick that Twitter has been turned into such a dark place. Right, and in response to this backlash, you saw X-A-I saying two big things.

One, they promise to take action against any images generated of children. And two, they limited image generation in editing to paying subscribers. So seemingly, A, they're fine with non-consensual images of just anyone else as long as they're not children. And B, you can still use the tools, but you have to give them money.

They are actively trying to monetize from this scandal around children. Which is why for many, whether it be Sweden either be Sweden, or, international leaders, this was nowhere near good enough. In fact, this whole thing it led to Grakax as being blocked in Indonesia and Malaysia, with Indonesia's Minister of Communications and Digital Affairs saying in a statement, the government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space.

Leaders in the UK are also concerned with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starrmer, spokesperson saying that just limiting image generation to subscribers is, quote, not a solution and is insulting to victims of sexual violence. With the UK's communications, watchdog, offcom launching an investigation into X itself. And specifically, they're investigating whether X's failed to comply with the UK's online safety act, which requires platforms to keep users safe from illegal content online. And there, you had UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall saying, it is vital that AFCOM complete this investigation swiftly because the public and, most importantly, the victims will not accept any delay. And if Ophcom determines that X did break the law, they can

force the platform to take steps to get into compliance or remedy any harm they've caused, as well as potentially imposing fines, or maybe even getting a court order to block X from functioning in But you see, the Trump administration, they've taken issue with the international threats against X and Grau. You've got the State Department Sarah Rogers, accusing the British government of wanting the ability to curate a public square to suppress political viewpoints that it dislikes. Adding, let's wait and see what Offcom does and we'll see what America does in response, saying nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech. And actually in the House of Commons, you had Kendall pushing back against the State Department's accusations saying, this is not as somewhat claim about restricting freedom of speech, which is something that I and the whole government hold very dear. It is about tackling violence against women and girls.

It is about upholding basic British values of decency and respect and ensuring that the standards that we expect offline are upheld online. It's about exercising our sovereign power and responsibility to uphold the laws of this land. But all of this, it's not just about social media platforms that lean right these days. It's the Trump administration being all in on GROC.

Or you've now got Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegset announcing that GROC's gonna be operating inside of the Pentagon network along with Google's generative AI engine. With Hegset saying, very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department. And somehow it's even more concerning than that sounds. Right in his speech about this, Hegset went on to say that his vision for AI military systems means that they operate, quote, without ideological constraints that limit

lawful military applications. With the men adding that the Pentagon's AI will not be woke, that is a direct quote. But also, you know, on an international scale, the risk of social media, it goes beyond GROC or even just AI. Back in December, Australia's new law requiring social media companies to stop kids under 16 from having accounts on their platforms went into effect. And that's resulted in meta alone, reportedly blocking more than half a million accounts on their platforms, including some 300,000 Instagram accounts and 170,000 Facebook accounts. But also with this, in a new blog post, you had meta pushing back hard saying, we call on the Australian government to engage with the industry constructively to find a better way forward,

such as incentivizing all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy preserving, age-appropriate experiences online instead of blanket bans. And again, making the argument that age verification should happen at the app store, saying that it's the only way to ensure, quote, consistent industry-wide protections for young people. You know, this law, from the very beginning to its passing now, it's been closely watched by several governments. You know, that includes the entirety of the EU as well as just the state of Florida. Because this is the most firm set of restrictions that we've seen on teenage social media so far. In this policy, there's no exemption for parental approval, either you can or you can't have an account.

Though, also unsurprisingly, we've already seen teenagers finding workarounds, like using platforms that aren't banned yet, or using their parents' accounts or even using a VPN. Right? And you're even seeing things like Reddit, arguing in their lawsuit that the law is just ineffective and adding that it will isolate teens from the ability to engage in age-appropriate community experiences. And then there's more we're going to dive into in just a minute. But first let me say, you know, I've learned this the hard way. One bad hire, it can cost more than just waiting to hire at all.

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That's ZipRecruiter. That's ZipRecruiter. Smartest way to hire. But then getting back into the news, right, more news you need to know, the war over the future of the Democratic Party, it's raging right now in California. But with the party's progressive wing pushing for an unprecedented wealth tax on billionaires and moderates in the party vigorously pushing back. And you know, the background of this is I'm sure a lot of y'all are well aware of the wealth

inequality that exists in America. At least, you know, anecdotally, but going into the numbers, as of 2022, the top 10% of family is held nearly 70% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% of families held just 3%. I mean, it's so bad that you have historians often comparing it to the gilded age of the late 19th, early 20th century. In California, while being the least affordable state and suffering from a widening budget deficit, it's also home to more billionaires than any other state. That has led to some going, hey, why don't we just take some of that wealth from the billionaires and use it to fix some of our problems?

And so Wynn walks in this proposal, which would make anyone with a net worth above a billion dollars pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their assets. With that, applying retroactively to anyone living in the state as of the new year and the payment would be due in 2027. There would also be the option of paying it in installments over five years, but then you'd have to pay more in total. And things like real estate, pensions, and retirement accounts would be excluded. Now, if you caught wind of this story from right-wing media, you'd probably get the impression that this policy is actually being pushed by radical left Governor Gavin Newsom. Why would a Newsom, the governor of California, even think about this idea of Gavin Newsom, of course, wants a wealth tax. And that's sort of like what Gavin Newsom is doing. You, all of you, need to pay more taxes, but not pointing any fingers at himself.

But here's the reality. Newsom passionately opposes this tax because he claims that it's going to drive billionaires out of the state and hurt California's economy. In fact, Newsom has smothered previous wealth tax proposals in their cribs before, and he's promised to veto any such bill that reaches his desk. But also I'll say this latest proposal, it's different because it's coming from a healthcare workers union and not state lawmakers. So rather than going through the legislature, they're trying to pass it as a ballot initiative this November. And reportedly, they've already begun collecting the nearly 900,000 signatures that they need to get it there. But still, you had Newsom telling the New York Times yesterday that he's been relentlessly working behind the scenes to snuff this thing out and that he'd fight the measure if it reached the ballot.

So there is a wealth tax proposal in California that I think you are adamantly against. Yes, I am. And we have a mayor that's coming here in New York who would like to, to have a wealth tax if he could. You couldn't be more diametrically opposed. Yeah, well, I want to be a big tent party. It's about addition, not subtraction. But here's what the war over the party's future is happening, right?

Because others disagree with that big tent idea. So for example, you have Senator Elizabeth Warren, who argued in a speech to the National Press Club that Democrats need to be more progressive, not less. Revising our economic agenda to tiptoe around that conclusion might appeal to the wealthy, but it will not help Democrats build a bigger tent. And it definitely will not help Democrats win elections.

By definition, the top one-tenth of one percent of the economic ladder doesn't have a lot of votes. So when the question is raised whether Democrats should build our tent by sucking up to the rich is sure not about attracting their votes. It's about attracting their money. But with Aldesia of Newsom saying ideological diversity, it's actually our strength, not our weakness, and that different Democrats appealed to different constituencies.

We recognize it's important to focus on growth but also focus on inclusion. We have predistribution Democrats, we have redistribution Democrats, and therein lies the dialectic and therein lies the debate within the Democratic Party. So much punditry's been done about, well, as the future of the party, Mandami, at the same election that occurred, well, as the future hold on, Virginia is the future New Jersey. But Warren's argument is that there's not enough room in the tent for all that. The Democratic Party cannot pursue both visions

at the same time. Either we politely nibble around the edges of change or we throw ourselves into the fight. Either we carefully craft our policies to ensure that the rich keep right on getting richer or we build a party that ferociously and unapologetically serves the needs of working people. Now with all this, you know, you have Newsome conceding

that he might feel differently about a national wealth tax, but he argues that a state level one, just one in California, it's simply impractical. You can't isolate yourself from the 49 others. We're in a competitive environment. People have this simple luxury, but people of that status.

They already have two or three homes outside the state. It's a simple issue. Now, at least anecdotally, we have seen some billionaires making moves to relocate to states like Florida and Texas before the January 1st deadline, supposedly to evade the tax just in case it passes. With those, including the likes of, if this video gets suppressed, you know why.

Google co-founders, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and possibly Oracle founder Larry Ellison. In fact, Teal donated $3 million to a committee opposing the tax and that's expected to be the first of several major contributions from Silicon Valley leaders hoping to quash it. Some sources also telling the times that they estimate that more than $75 million is gonna ultimately go toward that effort.

Also others are playing around with the idea putting their own tax-related initiatives on the ballot just to confuse voters. But also, I'll say there appear to be people in this tax bracket who don't seem to care that much, including NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang, who is now one of the wealthiest men on Earth. We work in Silicon Valley,

because that's where the talent pull is. Whatever taxes, I guess, they would like to apply, so be it. Maybe I'm perfectly fun with it. Now, with all this, right? In the middle, you have California's nonpartisan legislative analysts and the governor's department of financing that the tax could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from income tax revenue per year if wealthy residents leave,

but they also estimated that the tax itself would probably deliver tens of billions of dollars in one-time money for California. So it's a short-term versus. long-term thing. And so with all that you have the healthcare worker union's chief of staff telling the times that the concern is overblown, saying the overwhelming majority of billionaires have chosen to stay in California past the January 1st deadline, saying only a very small percentage left before the deadline, despite weeks of Chicken Little talking points claiming a modest tax would trigger a mass departure. And with that, she argued that Donald Trump's cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and Affordable Care Act subsidies

made a wealth tax definitely necessary if it wasn't already. And so with this, under the proposal, 90% of the revenue from the tax would go toward health care with a rest. then going to food assistance and education. But as far as Newsom, you have him telling the times that this will be defeated, saying there's no question in my mind and adding, I'll do what I have to do to protect the state. And you know, ultimately, we'll have to see if he's right, especially as it's not just him versus the union

in this upcoming fight. Or because you have people like Representative Roe-Connor who like Newsom's being considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, throwing his support behind the tax. With Kana writing in a recent viral post, I echo what FDR said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave.

I will miss them very much. And adding, my district is $18 trillion, nearly one-third of U.S. stock market in a 50-mile radius. Saying, we have five companies with a market cap over a trillion dollar companies. If I can stand up for a billionaire tax, this is not a hard position for 434 other members or 100 senators. AI was created with our tax dollars. ImageNet was created by Fay-F Lee at Stanford using NSF money. This was a visual database. Hinson presented at an ImageNet conference his famous paper.

The seminal innovation in tech is done by thousands often with public funds. NSF, DARPA, Stanford, Berkeley, San Jose State, Santa Clara, and the U.C.s are the foundation for what has made Silicon Valley a powerhouse. It's why we won five Nobel Prizes this year in the UC system. And adding, we cannot have a nation with extreme concentration of wealth in a few places, but where 70% of Americans believe the American dream is dead and health care, child care, housing, education is unaffordable. What will stifle American innovation, what will make us fall behind China is if we see further political dysfunction and social unrest, if we fail to cultivate the talent in every American and, in every city and town. So yes, a billionaire tax is good for American innovation, which depends on a strong and thriving American democracy. But also now, reportedly a loose collection of Silicon Valley executives are mobilizing on

WhatsApp chats and conference calls to oust Kana over his support for this tax. Though we will have to see what happens there, right? He easily won his last election, and he's currently sitting on a very comfy $15 million campaign cushion. Plus, this sort of effort could backfire since he could play the billionaires are trying to take me down card. And in fact, it already appears that he's doing that in his recent fundraising emails. Also, you know, while we're talking about money and possible state-level face-offs, I mean, we need to talk about how we could be looking at the biggest labor showdown that New York City's healthcare industry has seen in decades. Right, because yesterday, nearly 15,000 nurses at some of the

city's top hospitals went on strike. And the union that represents these nurses, they're demanding more robust staffing levels for patients, higher wages and protections against violence on the job. And with that, you've got the union accusing management of refusing to agree to safe staffing levels for patients threatening to discontinue or cut the nurse's health benefits and alleging that major hospitals are trying to walk back staffing protections that nurses won during a strike in 2023. With nurses then also securing significant raises, increasing minimum pay nearly 20% over three years, and boosting starting pay well over $100,000. Now specifically with these new strikes, you have nurses walking out of New York, Presbyterian Columbia, Montefiore Medical Center,

and the main campus of Mount Sinai Hospital as well as two other major hospitals within the Mount Sinai system. With the main thing being that they're among the leading hospitals in New York City. being a massive deal on its own, it could also impact so many other people. I mean, just late last week, ahead of this anticipated strike, you even had New York Governor Kathy Hochel declaring a state of emergency, saying that a disaster is imminent and warning that a strike could impact the availability and delivery of care, threatening public health, and safety. All of this is going down as the city's hospital systems already under strain

from record high flu cases and hospitalization. So also I'll say is while that was last week, according to reports, hospital executives have been expecting this, and they've been preparing for weeks to make sure that their facilities continue to run an event of a strike. With the hospital trade group saying they've been securing contracts for travel nurses and reserving hotel rooms for them. Also, New York's Department of Health instructed hospitals not impacted by the strike to be prepared to receive patients from medical centers that are affected. Right, and with all that saying that hospitals where nurses are striking have the ability to freely transfer patients, even against the patients will. Now that said, that's not to say that there have not been direct impacts on hospitals where the nurses are striking. Where some of the hospitals had to cancel scheduled surgeries and accelerate discharges during the weekend to reduce patients,

while also planning to transfer infants out of neonatal intensive care units. Still, you had leaders at the affected hospitals saying that their facilities will remain open and that they are prepared to provide safe patient care even if the strike drags on. And to that point, I'll say currently it's not clear when and how this is going to end. So far, the impacted hospitals have widely rejected the nurse's demands with many specifically taking issue with the demands for increased wages, some noting that the nurses in these institutions are already highly paid. You also had the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association saying that the nurses' demands were so outrageous that there is no way they can concede to what the union is asking for and adding. the healthcare system is under siege financially. Now, to that point, it is true that the current state of the country does complicate their demands, right as the New York Times explained.

Hospitals are expecting lean years ahead, as many New Yorkers lose health insurance and billions of dollars in federal care health funding to the state start to dry up, the result of domestic policy law, President Trump signed in July. You have the nurses union hitting back on the hospital's claim that they do not have the money to pay their nursing staff, noting that hospital executives collect multi-million dollar salaries. And so, for example, you have records showing that the head of New York Presbyterian received more than 26 million dollars in compensation in 2024. Right, and with all this, it also seems like major players inside of the city, they're on the union sign. Are you at New York AG, Tish James is doing a statement of

support for the strike and yesterday you had Mayor Mumdani himself showing up to a large gathering of striking nurses outside of New York Presbyterian Columbia Hospital where he delivered a few remarks and cheered on the strikers. And there you had Mumdani saying that the value of nurses is not negotiable and adding. There is no shortage of wealth in the healthcare industry. That's right. Especially so at the three- privately operated hospital groups at which nurses are striking the wealthiest in the entire city. So know this. New York City will do everything in our power to ensure the sick and injured can continue to receive high quality care. And we will do so while refusing to abandon those who have

time and again refused to abandon us. We will not choose one or the other. And then there's more you need to know more we need to dive into in just a minute. But first, let me take a second to sponsor myself because right now over a beautiful bash.com, we are restocked with our signature collection and revamped prints. Right over the break, we were working with our manufacturers not only to make sure that, you know, the shirts and the hoodies they were top-notch, but also that the prints on them were even better. Really vibrant, longer-lasting, even when you don't follow the washing instructions like I don't. So right now you can snag our new thriving gear. For me, it's a sarcastic wear. Along with our emotionally exhausted line, God is testing me and I refuse

to study, a silly goose in this economy, and even more. of course at Beautifulbastard.com. But then, finally today, we've got updates around Iran that we need to talk about. Starting with the news that Iranian authorities have provided death tolls for the first time since the protest broke out and it's much higher than previously reported.

Right, today you had an unnamed Iranian official telling orders that the total number of people who have been killed in the protest is 2000, including security personnel, but also that official didn't give a breakdown of who they said had been killed. Now, you know, with that, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the death toll being given

by Iranian officials. But a very big, notable thing is that you also have human rights activists in Iran, a US-based monitoring group that's been accurate in the past updating their data today and reporting that same figure, saying that at least 2,000 have died. Right, a huge jump from the roughly 500 that they estimated yesterday. And this new figure, it is devastating, it is horrifying, and as the Associated Press reported, the number of dead dwarfs that in any other round of protests or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Also with this, you had HRA reporting in an earlier update that at least 10,721 people have been arrested. That's actually also relevant to the death toll because today you had human rights groups now reporting that Iran is set to execute the first protester tied to the latest wave of unrest. According to the group Iran, human rights, the man in question is 26-year-old Erfahan Sultani and he's set to be sentenced to death by hanging tomorrow. And with that you're seeing US outlets reporting that the protester has been charged with waging war against God, which is a real crime punishable by death in Iran. And while you have many, including another rights group calling for international support to stop the hanging right claiming that the demonstrator's only crime is calling for freedom for Iran, unfortunately, and horrifically, this is very likely going to just be the first of many executions. But as we talked about yesterday, even before the protests, Iran has dramatically escalated executions over the last year. And of course, while all that's going down in Iran,

there are a few important updates that are happening here in the U.S. that we have to touch on. You know, yesterday you had Trump announcing on truth social that he was imposing a 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran, effective immediately. Because there weren't a ton of details, you had experts speculating that he's likely relying on the same act that he used to impose other sweeping tariffs, though notably legal challenges to those measures are currently before the Supreme Court. But then also beyond that, the fact that these tariffs are set to go into effect immediately is incredibly significant. Because normally when tariffs are imposed, they're delayed with a built-in lag time, so importers have enough time to change their plans and

avoid the new harsh fees. And so here, you have experts saying that immediate tariffs would be incredibly disruptive to international trade because goods from many of the countries impacted here are already en route to the U.S. And so with all this, you have a former cheap economist for the International Monetary Fund explaining this policy is, quote, profoundly self-harming for the U.S., and it will not change the Iranians' behavior one iota. Also, as far as which countries will be impacted, there are a good number, but the nation probably most significantly affected is going to be China. Because China is actually Iran's largest trading partner by far, with exports totaling $22 billion in 2022. And a large chunk of those exports is actually oil.

China buys 90% of all of Iran's oil exports. In fact, for China between Venezuela and Iran, that's 20% of their oil imports. In Venezuela, there are only 4% of that. And for Iran, we're talking nearly $2 billion a month and at least 5% of Iran's entire economic output. And so unsurprisingly, all this has China fiercely opposing the new tariffs and a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington describing the taxes as illicit. Adding, the country will take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests. But of course, it's not just China that's going to be impact. India is also a big importer of Iranian goods and other major trading partners include Turkey, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates.

But also, I've got to say, you know, that the tariff announcement is not the only important message that Trump has delivered in a super cryptic truth social post over the last 24-ish hours. But you also had Trump writing Iranian patriots keep pro-eastern. Protesting take over your institution Save the names of the killers and abusers They will pay a big price I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials Until the senseless killing of protesters stops help is on its way make Iran great again And so with that you had many going okay, what do they mean they'll pay a big price? What does he mean? Help is on its way Is that confirmation or a continued threat of military intervention because like we talked about yesterday

Trump and White House officials have said that they are leaving the door open for that option but they want to pursue diplomacy first But then with that you have to ask if he's going for diplomacy How do you do that if you cancel the meetings with the officials? And so that's just another reason you have people with eyes on Iran, with bated breath, wondering what is going to happen next? But that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is where your Tuesday, Philip DeFranco's show is going to end. Thank you for watching and being a part of another daily dive into the news, which on that note, I'll see you right back here tomorrow. And of course, in the meantime, for breaking news and other things, maybe not even covered in the show, follow me on my socials. Okay, love you, bye.