The Philip DeFranco Show - Coffeezilla Exposes Bricks & Minifigs CEO in LEGO Scandal?!

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Go to https://sundaysfordogs.com/phil to get 50% off your first order of Sundays for Dogs! - Get Early Tickets to Join Us on Tour! https://linktr.ee/crashingouttour  - BEAUTIFUL BASTARD Premium blanks, signature fits, and the new tie dye drop. Go get your new favorite shirt! 👉 https://beautifulbastard.com LISTEN TO THE SHOW iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-philip-defranco-show/id1278424954 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ESemquRbz6f8XLVywdZ2VWATCH CRASHING OUT w/ PHILIP & ALEX Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCergKLoy-Yv9zlPk3XQYK7Q?sub_confirmation=1 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DkU87umhGH9mH1z24Bi9w?si=6sSdjhVNQjyVeBQDLiXcyg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crashing-out-with-philip-defranco-and-alex-pearlman/id1843429519 JOIN OUR COMMUNITY 📸Instagram: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco  🐦Twitter: https://twitter.com/phillyd  🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipdefranco TODAY’S STORIES 00:00 - Coffeezilla Claims RecklessBen Missing LEGOs Aren’t Worth $200K 12:30 - Sponsored by Sundays for Dogs13:28 - Ms. Rachel Called a “Demon” for Singing With Children Whose Parents Are Detained  17:35 - Bill Gates Testifies in House’s Epstein Probe 25:42 - Trump Threatens to Hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” 27:46 - New Rules for Sports Betting on Prediction Markets 30:02 - A Woman Used Social Media to Track Down Her Mom’s Killer in Mexico Previous coverage on Reckless Ben/Bricks & Minifigs: https://youtu.be/CObo84yLItk?si=u1oRX9spCXSvkEcC https://youtu.be/IsiheMUvOy8?si=PEqqMCAMiSn3zqU4 https://youtu.be/N8_H5Pj3dWA?si=zr4ogokAXpvDFj6l https://youtu.be/9Mfs2Qa5oCo?si=lDbkfy_z1eEa4eIf https://youtu.be/r2RFgOSezAg?si=AHp_sqHjUJ2idtCk THE TEAM Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino, Victor Sledge   ———————————— #DeFranco #RecklessBen #Coffeezilla Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Make your move this summer. Performance Auto Group's three-day sale. 72 hours of savings. Shop now at performance.ca. 3-day sale. Driven by Performance Auto Group. The reckless Ben Lego theft scandal that's taken over the internet just had another shocking twist after CoffeeZilla got involved. As opposed to Miss Rachel's scandal as some of the worst people on the internet calling her a monster.

Trump's Epstein problem is back and crazier than ever after a new bombshell report dropped, and a daughter hunted down her mother's killer in Mexico. We're talking about all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco's show you daily dive into the news, so buckle up, make sure you're subscribed and let's jump into it, starting with this. You thought it was done, and then CoffeeZilla came in like a wreck and just blew the lid off of this reckless. Ben, Lego scandal situation, appearing to possibly uncover the true value of the collection, seeming to many online to catch the CEO of Bricks and Minifigs and lies, and even accounting for the majority of the Legos. Right, and quick recap for the stragglers who maybe are coming in

late, and just also to refresh your memory, an Oregon man by the name of Brian Mansell, entered into a consignment deal with a Bricks and Minifix location in Salem, Oregon, to sell his father's massive collection to Star Wars Legos for a 65% cut. And at that time, the store's owner, Crystal Gorman, made an announcement saying that the collection was estimated to be worth around $200,000, but then back in 2024, the store was seized by corporate and taken over by two men by the name of Josh Johnson and Brandon Best. And when that happened, Brian's Legos, they went missing. And he said he was not paid.

And so then enters Reckless Ben. It turns the whole thing into a viral investigation that quickly spirals out of control. He gets arrested twice on accusations of stalking, his car research for heroin, his Airbnb was rated for the missing Legos. He flees to Mexico. And now, he's facing a RICO lawsuit by Bricks and mini-fix. A lawsuit that's now silenced him on the topic. And with his latest video saying that if he talks about it again or even mentions the company

at all, Ben's going to lose his lawsuit and all the money that the GoFund me raised for Brian. And so with this whole thing, there have been a number. of big pressing questions, starting with where the hell are these damn Legos? Right, Crystal's accusing the new owners of stealing them. Corporate Bricks and Minifix is accusing Crystal of stealing them. And there's also accusations that Ben stole them and on and on and on. Stolen Legos all the way down. And that is where CoffeeZilla comes in. Like, Cesar posted a deep dive investigation to the whole situation interviewing Crystal, Ben and Eamon McNeff and his brother Matt, the respective CEO and CEO of Bricks and Minifigs

corporate. And even for Coffeezilla, it was a long, winding path to get to the real heart of this whole story with very conflicting stories. McNeff's, they stood by the claim that there was only between two to five K worth of Brian's Star Wars Legos when the store was seized by Brandon Best on November 14th, 2024, saying that anything else left from the collection was was either stolen by thieves, Crystal, or held off-site. With Matt McNeff claiming at one point that he saw Crystal take a car to Legos out of her car with a jacket draped over it. But you got Crystal saying that all the remaining unsold Legos that were listed on her spreadsheet were in the store when it was taken from her. While she did confirm that Brian's Legos were briefly kept off-site to prevent that while the

store installed safes, she also firmly claimed that they had been returned to the store before the night of the takeover. But one of the main takeaways is that by this point, coffee's a photos and videos from both Crystal and the Mcnaffs as well as the spreadsheet that Crystal kept regarding Brian's collection and the sale records for the last couple of years at the Salem store. So he and his team, they combed through all of it to answer the question of where is this $200,000 Lego collection? Where did it end up? Well, the first big thing that you should know is that apparently it is not worth $200,000. In Crystal Gorman's inventory, which has a high and low estimate value of these various Lego items, the real estimated value is about $107,000. They give high estimates and low estimates, but that's right. there in the middle and for simplicity I'll just be using averages and estimates here but understand that you know these numbers are not firm given that they're unsold Legos it's just rough possibilities but the point is it's worth nowhere near two hundred thousand dollars and the idea that the two hundred thousand dollar

figure is incorrect that's something that bricks and mini-fix has actually been saying for a while but Crystal also confirmed it to coffee the spreadsheet says about from between 85,000 to 120 something something in the midpoint about 107 or something like that of what was inventory. Does that sound right to you? Yeah. My original assessment of about $200,000 was going up to his father's house and looking in three different rooms with all the sets. It was before I'd actually gone through and had set numbers and done an actual like evaluation. I looked at it and went based on as things progressed and as I started to delve more into the actual inventory and evaluating it, that number changed.

But we put out the press release well in advance. of the event itself, so that press release went out before I had those full numbers. So we went, this is a nice even number that will grab attention and bring people into the store. But at that $107,000 average, Crystal's record showed that about $24,000 worth of the collection was sold and that Brian was paid $17,000, which ends up matching up with that 65% deal that was made with the store. And so then the basic math here says that there should have been more than $80,000 worth of the collection left in the store when it was seized. Except the McNeff brothers, remember, claim that there was a max five grand worth of Brian's

in the store. And Socoffey's a lot hired a team to go through the photos in the videos of both Crystal and Brandon Best took of the store stock on November 14th, and he found a lot more than $5,000 worth. In the end, I ended up with about $21,000 of Legos matching Brian's collection that can be proven to be in the store on the night of November 14th. Now, to state the obvious, that's about three to five times what corporate estimated, at least on their press release. Now, yes, there are inherent errors in these estimates. Maybe we picked up some Lego that matched Brian's collection, but wasn't Brian's. But even though this is a bigger number than corporate said, I have to admit, even with pretty generous assumptions being made, there's still a huge gap of about $61,000 here that I just couldn't find.

And that brings us to the next point. Coffee revealed that Brian had a signed deal with a company called M&R Productions, which shared photos of the Legos that Brian had sold them. But coffee found that some of the Legos in the... Those pictures appear to match the sets that Crystal have listed as being in storage on our spreadsheet. And he says this is kind of a missing puzzle piece. Now previously, I was told that all of the stuff in storage was put back in the store, but there's a bunch that's on this list that I can't find in the store that seemed to appear in these pictures.

Now, I've been assured, by the way, that most of these Legos were not part of the inventory spreadsheet. They were never given to bricks and mini-figs. This is a separate part of the collection. I did a check and 100% of the items that match the Brian collection inventory just so happened to be listed with a location of storage. With coffee finding that when he considered the side deal, that's about $10,000 to $20,000 that's not actually missing. So at this point, it appears that coffee's accounted for about $60,000 of the $107,000

value estimate on Brian's collection. And so he starts to look at the internal sales records from the Salem store, but those records show that about $51,000 in sales went through that matched Brian's collection, nearly double the $24,000 that Crystal cited in her records. And those discrepancies were largely chalked up to layaway deals, which, if you're not familiar, is when a customer makes a down payment on a product and later pays it off to avoid someone else buying it out from under them. But Crystal categorized layaways as having been sold already,

and Coffey found that there were 98 of those deals that totaled between $15,000 and $25,000. But then also Josh Johnson, one of the new owners, he told coffee that there were only two to three items on layaway when they took over the store. And also other people at Bricks and Minnie Figs told him that layaways, they're pretty rare, which is something that even Crystal admitted. But she also said that this collection, It was a different story. Outside of Brian's collection, I think at the time,

we maybe had two used sets on layaway outside of his collection. It was not a common thing traditionally. With they're going on to estimate that about half the layaways weren't actually sold because people would put bulk items on layaway, but then not buy all of them. And actually certain items would get put on layaway multiple times before they were actually sold. And William Coffey pressing Crystal on her bookkeeping,

he still never really got clarity on why items marked his layaways were also listed alongside final sales prices. But even with the layaways, Coffey found that still $10,000 worth of Bryan's collection that were marked as sold on the store's internal records weren't on Crystal spreadsheet. She said that it was possible that things sold and just wasn't updated on her inventory, but if then that's the case, it seems like Brian wasn't paid for those items, at least based on Crystal's accounting.

So if you add all that up, coffee says that there's only really $10,000 to $20,000 worth of Brian's Star Wars Legos that are still unaccounted for. But Brian himself is still short, somewhere between $50 to $83,000, at least by Coffee's map. The value range that he and Crystal established earlier was $85,000 to $120,000 with $10,000. being the average. Coffee says that Brian's owed 65 to 70% of the total value from the Legos, though it's unclear where he's getting that 70% figure from, because a copy of the consignment deal reviewed by a local paper said that the deal was for him to get 65%.

But regardless he had coffee arguing that bricks and mini-figs, they should just make things right rather than drawing this whole thing out into the monster that it's become. Regardless of what a franchisee does, the new one, the old one, the company behind it must stand behind their product, their service, and I can't imagine a better example of a company doing the opposite. Unfortunately, Bricks and Minifix has chosen to deflect and dodge responsibility at most opportunities and created a really awful customer experience that has snowballed into this crazy series of events. But instead of taking accountability for that, they've taken an aggressive legal strategy, which I told him personally was a horrible idea. But also his coffee

zilla made his way through this insane deep dive. It looked to many online like he managed to catch the McNeff brothers in what people say could be several different lives. With the first being Crystal's history and their knowledge of it. Right, a men, McNeff supported his accusation that Crystal had stolen Brian's Legos by saying that she had a history of retail theft on a record that she hadn't disclosed to them. But when Coffee asked Crystal about it,

she said that that incident they're referring to, it happened when she was 19 years old, she's in her 40s now, and she said she absolutely told them about it before she was even hired. Right, so she had some colorful things to say about McNeff choosing to bring that up. This, something that happened 25 years ago, has no reflection and no bearing

on what happened in the last last two years, my management of the store, what happened the night corporate seized the store, it is another deflection. And it infuriates me. You're going to try to publicly embarrass and shame me for somebody that was manipulated by local police departments when she was pregnant and 19 years old. Fuck you. That's my response to that. Then there were the photos of the inventory from the day that the Salem store was seized. Right. Matt McNah said the photos that branded a take and included every single Star Wars Lego item in the store that day. And they even made an inventory of it coming out to between $5,000 and $10,000 in value.

But then coffee pulled up Crystal's photos from that same day to see if they lined up. So I think the important thing is making sure that all of these are in the inventory for Mansell. Sure. Sure. That's cool. 75041? Yep. The Voltrejoid.

75169. 169 I'm not seeing. So there may be... Okay, so there's one that is not on our list. Let's try this. 10-240? Okay, nope, not seeing that one either. What about 9-493?

I don't see that one either. So maybe those were locked at the time, and Brandon did not get those pictures. And see you have people saying, clearly Brandon didn't capture all the boxes in the store, which also calls into question their claim that there were only $5 to $10,000 worth of Star Wars Legos in the store when it was seized.

And finally, there's the real big one that we get at the end coffee's video. Are you at a Min McNeff claiming that corporate was never sent crystal spreadsheets where she was documenting the sale of Ryan Star Wars Lego collection? We never got that. That was never sent to us at corporate, by the way. Y'all don't have the, y'all do have the spreadsheet though, yeah? That was shared online, but months after we asked for it. It says it's, I'm just, I'm so confused. It says, I'm on the, I'm on the file right now. It says storage used owned by BAM Franchising Inc. Owner Salem.org or OR BRicks and minifigs.com. What are you looking at?

It says owner salem. dot or at bricks and minifigs.com. That's you guys. It says owned by BAM franchising, Inc. It says created September 6th, 2024. When I look at it, this is the Mansell list, I believe. So this would have been created under, like, so we have the, we have the, we all. You'll definitely have this.

Y'all have access to this. Well, I thought I had no idea. And so I'm going to let you take from that, whatever you will, but at least Coffeezilla's conclusion and all of this is that, well, no one seems to be 100% in the right. There is definitely something weird going on. But between really what appears to be like a mix of bad bookkeeping and the blame game and just an entire mess, we may never really actually get to the bottom of this.

And so for now, we're just going to have to wait to see how things continue to unfold, what updates we get. And in the meantime, of course, I would absolutely love to know your thoughts, opinions, and reactions on the situation we've been trying to keep up with. Never really thought there'd be a Lego scandal, let alone it'd be something that has taken over the internet for more than a week. And then there's more that we gotta dive into in just a minute. But first, let me thank a sponsor, pay some bills and say, you know, I will admit it. At one point, I got myself scanning the ingredients of my own dog food right before dumping mystery gravel into my dogs bowl.

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And my favorite part is that your dog immediately acts like you suddenly learned how to cook. And it can support digestion, healthier coats, fresh your breath, and that kind of energy burst that you love to see in your pets. Plus, there are no synthetic preservatives or sketchy byproducts hiding in the ingredients, just like little nutritional jump scare. So hey, just scan that QR code or click the link or go to Sundays for dogs. for 50% off your first order. It's half off to upgrade your dog from surviving to thriving. And then, Devon, right back into the news, we should talk about someone who has been described

as a demon, a crazy woman, a complete propagandist, and that person is children's YouTuber Miss Rachel. Because you had a ton of people just absolutely furious that she sang songs with children whose families have been separated by ICE detention centers. I know, this monster, somebody must stop her. Won't someone think of the children? Oh, she is, that's her.

And the specific it here is Miss Rachel went to Delaney Hall, in New Jersey where detainees said that they've been subject to neglect in poor living conditions. Reclaiming they've been given expired and inedible food, sometimes with maggots in it. Others say they haven't been able to access necessary medical care for cancer, diabetes, and other serious conditions. And so some detainees, they started a hunger strike and there have been major protests from citizens outside, resulting in some demonstrators getting arrested. So this week, you had Miss Rachel teaming up with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice to call for the Center's closing and speak to children whose parents or other relatives are detained there. So you had her sharing a photo of her, hugging a child, and writing. But the Swedish children who's They just want their parents home again. I spoke with a 13-year-old whose dad is in Delaney. He's a wonderful father, she said, tearing up. He's been in the US for 20 years. He worked driving a truck. Her dad has to miss her graduation, their birthdays. It makes no sense that their family has been ripped apart. Why are we traumatizing kids and kids? I'll sing from here and you sing from there.

Together we'll swing down the walls everywhere. But our hearts rising up like the sea, Together we'll sing until everyone's free. But her compassion for these families and the choice to sing with these kids, it is pissed off the anti-Miss Rachel Crowe. You've got accounts like Libs, a TikTok, sharing that video and saying, Parents, keep your kids away.

Others writing things like evil at it again, and this is so sick. Why do they always have to go after the kids and drag them into their insanity? Do not let your children watch this commies propaganda. And again, this is their response to a video of a woman who makes educational comments. content for toddlers singing songs with families whose relatives are in detention centers.

That is the apparent act of sheer evil that they're up in arms about. But of course also, Miss Rachel has no shortage of her own supporters. And if you go to her comments, she's being praised as a hero and a role model for her work. Notably, her effort to help kids that are impacted by the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, it doesn't really even stop at Delaney Hall. And I mean that both generally and also because she went to DC yesterday to deliver letters written by kids who detained the Dillie Family Detention Center in Texas, where which is another facility that's faced a ton of criticism and calls for it to be shut down. According to Amnesty International, They dealt with prolonged incarceration without due process, denial, a medical care, and inadequate access to clean drinking water.

Families, they're separated while detained, children and babies, they experience weight loss. And so you had Miss Rachel directing a social media video at those kids saying, I'm at the capital in Washington, D.C., and I have your words right here in your letters, and I'm delivering them to members of Congress because they need to hear your voices. Your voices are so valuable. You have human rights and your rights should never be violated and no child should ever be a detention. The letters, if you take the time to look through them,

they're heartbreaking saying things like, we are not criminals, I want to go home, and I want to get out of here and go back to my school. They don't treat us well here. There are many children. We are kidnapped. It's saying I miss my friends, my teacher, my house, my bed. Others saying, I've been 113 days in detention. Saying ICE used me to catch my mom and now I'm in jail and I'm in jail and I'm I am sad. And Miss Rachel also wrote a letter of her own telling Congress members,

one day, each of us will have to answer for what we did when we learned what was happening to these children. Right, and all of this is coming as there's a ton of outrage around how ICE has been treating young kids especially. You've got a report from the Marshall Projects in MS now, claiming that ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers aged three or younger since Trump took office. And according to their data, on average, there are 25 kids in custody on any given day, but some days it's even higher than 50. And you've got child development experts saying that this is probably the most harmful time of their lives to have them in detention. So yes, you've had a ton of Lawmakers condemning these child detentions, calling for the Dilley Center and texts to be shut down.

But also, this is going to be an uphill battle. Because despite all the concern and the outrage, yesterday, Trump signed a $70 billion bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the end of his term. Democrats slamming the bill is a blank check for Trump and ICE without any guardrails or oversight. But also, well, you've got Trump, you know, looking to the future when signing this bill, and I want to talk about his efforts to outrun his past. And with that, I mean his association with Jeffrey Epstein. And to be clear, Trump has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

Though also a reminder, he has been found civilly liable for sexual abuse, which a judge clarified described great. But regarding Epstein, one thing that's been very clear is just how much Trump wishes that people would shut up about it. And to many, you had them thinking that was actually a big part of the reason why he started this war with Iran so that everyone would have to focus on all that. But now one of the things we're seeing is that the New York Times seems to be making it even more clear that his administration's focus, it really hasn't been about getting justice for the survivors. It's been about protecting his reputation. Or well, Trump, he avoided talking much about it himself, the Epstein issue, it became a key focus of his election campaign. And then, a month into his term, he would then, Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying that they'd soon be making good on the promise to release Epstein's alleged client list. It's sitting on my desk right now to review.

With the then famously, a few days later, blindsiding the rest of the Trump administration by inviting right-wing influencers to the White House and then handing them binders that you claim contain the Epstein files. But as you probably remember, nearly all that material inside, it was previously released. And then a few months later, you're the Justice Department and the FBI jointly releasing a memo saying that their review had found no client list and that no more information was forthcoming. And that reportedly, despite opposition from Deputy FBI Director at the time, Dan Bongino, who, along with FBI director Cash Patel, had been key figures in popularizing conspiracy theories related to Epstein's death. And on the day that the memo was released, Bongino reportedly lost it with Bonnie yelling.

You fucked this thing up from the start. Some senior officials in the White House, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, they reportedly believe that the Epstein issue really only mattered to a small corner of the internet and that the whole controversy, it was just eventually going to blow over. The Bonino reportedly warned them that they were making a mistake saying it's not an online story. You don't understand. And it turned out the unlikely happened.

Dan Bongino was right. Which, hey, you know, even at broken clocks right twice a day. And it wasn't long until Wiles was sitting down in a conference room and asking him, hey, let's get on the same page with him reportedly responding. I warned you guys about this the whole time and you ignored me and exactly what I said was going to happen, happened. And now you're pretending I was in on this, I was never in on this. With him then reportedly storming off, but then not quitting right away to avoid hurting Trump. And according to the times, he privately complained that this whole mess it cost to millions of dollars in podcasts, where he had new time with his family and some of his audience.

And while Trump, he was reportedly also fuming at this mess that had been created, and even caused him of his formerly die-hard supporters to question him, he went to social media and called the Epstein issue a democratic hoax. With him then, famously slamming members of his own party who he described as past supporters and weaklings who had bought into this bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.

And then a day later, and this is where it gets really interesting, top members of his administration finally gathered in the situation room. Which if you do not know, is the secure bunker where top officials meet to discuss and make decisions on classified in high-steaks national security issues. It is the actual room where Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, along with other senior national security officials, watched the SEAL Team 6 raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

But now with this administration, it became the place to figure out the Trump Epstein problem. With reportedly Wows and Blair there, along with press secretary Caroline Leve, communications director Stephen Chung, and then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Bondi and Patel joined on speakerphone. Right, and J.D. Vance, actually, he took a seat at the head of the table, telling the group, This is a huge problem. And that's as it said, he'd already been privately pushing for the administration to release the Epstein files, even urging a congressional investigation. He had some senior officials reportedly under the impression that he had come to believe that other elites had taken part in Epstein's crimes.

So also, according to the Times, his apparent panic stem from worries about how the Epstein issue had begun dividing the Maghameau. And allegedly, one of his right ideas for managing all this fallout was to have Tucker Carlson interview Galane Maxwell in prison and hope that she'd state clearly that Trump had not been involved in any of Epstein's crimes. And that says he also continued pushing for the files to be released in their entirety, predicting that Congress would force the matter eventually and arguing that it would look best in the long run. But then you had Blanche, you remember, is also Trump's former personal defense lawyer, instead suggesting pushing the court system to unseal the grand jury testimonies from past Epstein-related cases. And the idea there was, hey, any of the information that's going to come out, it's not going to be too damaging

or maybe even more likely the situation's going to be that the request would just get refused. And then, Team Trump, they could shift the blame away from the administration on to whichever judges made that decision. But ideally, one's appointed by Democratic presidents. And then Blanche also floated the idea of interviewing Maxwell again, but he He volunteered to do it himself, though he noted that she'd likely ask for something in return. And you would White House counsel James Warrington, who was also in the room noting two options. A pardoned or a reduced sentence, which several people quickly shot down. Though at least according to the times, not for the reasons you would hope, with Chung reportedly saying,

pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls would create a huge PR problem. And then Blair added, we can't offer Galeigh and Maxwell anything. A, I don't know why we would. And B, if we give Gleine Maxwell any sort of break whatsoever. And then she turns around and says nice things about us or says nice things about us and we give her a break, it will undermine the entire point of her saying good thing, saying that will feed the conspiracy theory, period. If there's nothing for her to say that hurts us, we shouldn't have to offer her anything. And of course, we covered it in the end.

You had Blanche ending up interviewing Maxwell. She told him that she hadn't seen Trump do anything wrong. She was then soon transferred to a minimum security federal prison camp with little explanation until almost five months later when Blanche suddenly claimed that Maxwell had faced, quote, numerous threats against her life and her previous lockup. But in any case, at the time of this meeting, the plan that Trump reportedly landed on was calling for the release of the grand jury material. And then, almost at that exact moment, you had the Wall Street, Journal, which of course is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, they published their report showing a Trump had been among the friends of Epstein to contribute to the special birthday book put together

for Epstein in 2003. Where with Trump's hand-drawn offering, depicting a nude woman in several lines of text, ending with the words, the every day be another wonderful secret. And apparently since cell phones aren't allowed in the situation room, a staff member brought in printed copies of the whole article for everyone to see. But with this, I'll say, they did have some idea that this was coming. Trump had already called Murdoch and the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal to try and the story accusing the journal's editor-in-chief, who's British, of hating America.

And with that, he also threatened to sue, which he then did, but that case also was dismissed by a judge, though there, I should note, actually, just a couple of weeks ago, he tried again with an amended complaint. So we're going to see what happens with that, but, I mean, going back to the Situation Room, high-ranking officials, they reportedly spent even more time there in the weeks and months after that meeting to discuss the Epstein issue with the Times writing. Situation Room itself had become inseparable from the crisis. And after a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee, they discussed plans to just release all the files and then have someone appear on Joe Rogan's podcast to promote transparency from the White House.

They then also talked about the unsubstantiated allegations of the files that might do the most damage to Trump and they discuss whether they should hold those damaging files back and if so, how they could do so while technically complying. Though in the end of course, the Epstein File Transparency Act got passed and the Justice Department ultimately released what at least they say were all the files after the deadline and while also egregiously violating the privacy of victims. And we have the Trump DOJ saying the case is closed, the House committee, they're still investigating and they've interviewed several people including former President of Bill Clinton, billionaire Leslie Wexner,

and most recently billionaire Bill Gates, who sat down with the committee yesterday. And while Gates, he hasn't been accused of any crimes, he shows up several times in the files that were released by the Justice Department. So in one email, for example, Epstein appears to allege that he helped get Gates medicine to treat a sexually transmitted infection contracted

while he was cheating on his wife. And then there are also photos showing Gates next to some women whose identities are unknown with Gates claiming yesterday that he opposed with them because Epstein had asked him to. You also had Gates emphasizing that he came to the oversight committee voluntarily. He also said that he supported the release of all the files and that he hoped

that his testimony would help lawmakers find justice for the victims. With him also describing his decision to associate with Epstein as a grave error in judgment, while continuing to claim that he never witnessed and had no knowledge of Epstein's ongoing criminal conduct. With that, I will say notably, he also acknowledged having at least some idea of Epstein's past behavior, with Democratic Representative Melanie Stansbury saying, he admitted that he knew of Mr. Epstein's reputation. He admitted that he knew that he had been convicted of sex crimes, but ultimately in his words, he viewed this narrow relationship as being an acceptable means to access wealthy donors.

With that, you would Gates claiming that he had ties with Epstein, only after it became clear that any donors that he could meet through this man, they weren't interested in supporting Gates' charitable causes. But then Gates claimed that Epstein tried to weaponize his knowledge of Gates's extramarital affair, in addition to many lies that he layered on top, to pressure him into re-engaging. So if nothing else, for a number of people, this may offer some insight into the way that Epstein operated. But still, there are so many questions that remain unanswered. And actually, with this news, I would be very interested, what are your thoughts around everything, Epstein?

Like, with where things are right now, how do you feel? And also, do you feel like Trump has killed the attention on this, whether it be by diverting it to Iran or any of the other general chaos or I don't know. And I ask because, you know, most people I talk to, whether it be kind of normies or even people that are at least somewhat in the news space, they're, they get to a place where it seems like they're just so exhausted that it feels like it's impossible to keep up with anything. But then for our last block today, I've got more news you need to know that I'm going to cram together. First up this morning you had Trump saying that it would be hitting Iran quote very hard tonight and then taking Karg Island at

some point in the not too distant future. Right. And all of that, to take control of their oil and gas markets, and if that happened, it would have been the third night in a row that we exchanged strikes. The Central Command just announcing last night that they attacked Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites. And from there, Iran fired back with Jordan reporting intercepting 20 missiles launched from them. Kuwait, they temporarily closed their airspace and said that they were also intercepting hostile aerial targets. And in Bahrain, they said the same thing, urging citizens to take shelter after an 11-year-old girl was injured by falling to breathe from the drone interception. And with that, you had officials continuing to call for an end to all

this with a UN Secretary General saying no more attacks, no more excuses. And he had Qatar's foreign ministry condemning the resurgence of Iranian strikes on Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait, saying that Iran should spare the region the consequences of these unjustified attacks. But also, honestly, you've got a lot of people scared that things are going to get much worse, even if it's before they then get better, judging at least by what we've heard from officials this week. And if we need to negotiate with bombs, we'll negotiate with bombs. Right, you also had Trump making claims that he's been sneaking around the Iranian blockade, rubbing it in their faces. You know, we've been taken out millions of barrels of oil.

Nobody knows it. You know who doesn't know about it? Iran until right now. With that, I do wanna stress that none of that's actually been confirmed yet. And you've got people right now saying that he's just desperate to make it look like he is in control of the Strait of Hormuz and the war in general. But also as that was happening, it didn't look like Iran

was backing down either with their foreign ministry calling the ceasefire meaningless, saying they would remain determined to target the source of US attacks. With this morning's threats, you had Iranian officials say, the unhinged US president imagines that bombs can get him out of the quagmire he himself created. But Iranian missiles will sink him even deeper into it. But Trump now says that he's called off the strikes that he had planned for the night, saying he's canceled them based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved.

And there we don't have the specifics of apparently what those talks have been like. But also, you have been in remembering, Trump's kind of given us whiplash with all these negotiations for months, saying things, different things happening. And so really, who knows what's happened there? And at least for now, it looks like we're to be waking up to just one of several possible updates tomorrow morning. Which on the note of updates, we have some around prediction markets. Because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they just put out a 260. seven-page notice of the proposed rules for sports betting on sites like Kalshi and Polymark. Right, and so while users, they're free to bet on final scores, tournaments, or stats,

the new rules, they'd ban bets on things like fistfights during a game, injuries, or pre-college sports, things like high school games. And when it comes to casino-style games, they also propose banning bets on games entirely based on luck, like roulette. But it also seems like poker and other games a chance that, quote, can also be significantly affected by skill would be fair game. And then also, one of the big hot button issues is that they will not allow any bets involving terrorism, assassination, or war, since they can present, quote, significant national security risks and therefore raise public interest concerns. And while you have many going, hey,

these rules, they're a step in the right direction. Some critics say, you know, these prediction markets, they're nothing more than illegal gambling. It's still not enough. We're saying that without the same level of regulations that you see for the more traditional gambling industry, prediction markets, they've run into case after case of people cheating the system. And while they've at least, at the surface level, appear to be trying to fight things like insider trading, without that high level regulation, it really hasn't been all that effective. And so the American Gaming Association, which represents the casino industry, they say the prediction markets let users gamble outside the state and tribal regulatory frameworks that protect consumers,

claiming that they override voter decisions, bypass key consumer protections, ignore state and tribal laws, and avoid licensing and taxes. But a huge key thing is that CFTC chair Michael Siegel, who's a Trump appointee, he said that the CFTC will, quote, continue to be an aggressive policeman

when it comes to insider trading on their markets. And adding that he views what's going on with sports betting and prediction markets as a different model than traditional sports gambling altogether, saying the conventional sports books and casinos are entertainment and they have a lot of authority to be able to kick people out when they keep winning. It's saying when you go to the derivative,

markets that's not allowed. You keep winning. Great, you take your earnings. But for many, there really hasn't eased any concerns. That's just one aspect of what people don't like about traditional gambling, which is why you've got folks like Mick Mulvaney, executive director of gambling, is not investing a group against sports event contracts saying that CFTC shouldn't even be a national gaming regulator. And he's definitely not alone in this fight. You have states like Arizona, Minnesota, and New York and legal fights with the CFTC over prediction market regulation. But then also, as far as the prediction markets themselves, you have Polymarket responding to this proposal saying, We are fully supportive of the CFTC's initiative to provide clarity for prediction markets

and remain committed to working toward a federal framework that protects the public and supports innovation, saying we look forward to commenting on the commission's proposed rule. That's as a spokesperson for Kalshi said that they're still reviewing the proposal. And then for your last story today, a woman just put her mom's killer behind bars by tracking him down through social media after he spent the last 12 years hiding in Mexico with a new family. So back in 2014, Juan Miguel Roman Bauderas took Amelia Ignacio to Red Lobster, where he then stabbed her 27 times and then fled to Mexico with a one-wee wait ticket that he bought beforehand.

And Ignacio's daughter, Kiani de Jesus, she was only 11 years old when that happened. She said that her mom had been suffering from severe abuse from this guy at the time. He said he even burned her hand on the stove once for stealing a few quarters as a child. And so with all of this, when she got older, she started trying to get the word out

about her mom's murder through social media. Saying I was posting pictures of him, old pictures of you know, my family. I was posting pictures of my mom every day. I was contacting people on social media like Instagram, Facebook. And eventually the Instagram account, primetime tea time,

finally picked up her mom's story. Without her, we wouldn't have been able to get the ball rolling at all. We tried, we pushed a lot, and she was the only person to respond to us. And as soon as we started, you know, connecting with her, everything just one by one by one just started falling in order. With the help to social media, she tracked her mom's killer down in Mexico where he had started a whole new life under the name Pablo. He even had a new family. But he eventually got arrested back in 2023 and in February of this year, he pleaded guilty to first degree of murder.

The reason we're talking about this now is that he has finally been sentenced. Though ahead of that, his attorney tried to argue that he was a changed man with no criminal record and had taken responsibility. for his crime, asking the court for only 20 years. But the judge instead sentenced him to the maximum time that his plea deal allowed. And so with that, De Jesus can finally start closing this chapter. I'm glad that I did it, I'm glad he got to hear it from my words too, so it makes me really happy to finally get to close all of this.

The judge herself telling me that she was really proud of me and made me really happy. It made me feel like all of the work that I did was, you know, for something good to finally come out of it. But that, my friend, you beautiful bastard, is the end of your Thursday, Philip DeFranco Show, dive into the news. Since this is likely in my last video until Sunday, but I've got a special upload that you're not going to, you're going to have no idea what it's going to be. But you're going to want to tune in. Let me just say,

thank you so much, not only for watching today's show, thank you for everything. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here, Sunday.