The Philip DeFranco Show - Joe Rogan Slams Trump Voters

Starting point is 00:00:00 Joe Rogan just slammed Trump supporters, but there's actually more at play here that you've got people missing. The Ed Shear and McElmore PR disaster just got bigger. Hackers cracked open to flock camera and exposed what's going on inside. And what's going on with this Asan Piker Axios controversy? We're talking about all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show you daily dive into the news starting with this. As the Trump's spell finally broken or the rats fleeing the ship or the conmen and grifters looking for a life raft, that it appears that the shift that we were starting to see earlier this year is getting heavier and heavier. Because like with everything else, Trump, he's been making the midterms all about him, and we've also then been seeing just implosions across the Republican Party.

Starting point is 00:00:36 And while usually to a certain degree, the midterms are seen as a referendum on the president, that appears especially true with Trump here and when you have a party that also controls both chambers of Congress. And while that might not historically be an issue for candidates that, you know, are in parts of the country where they're just all in on Trump, one, turns out that's not universal. And two, it is a major liability for candidates that are running in the swing districts and states that are going to determine control the country. And so one of the things you're seeing now is this growing number of Republicans who were trying to distance themselves from Trump. Right, just this morning you had Representative Maria, Elvira, Salazar, or Florida running this absolutely wild ad breaking from Trump. Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy.

Starting point is 00:01:22 The same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. And so one, that's a standout ad on its own. Two, and this is huge, she represents Florida's 27th congressional district, which actually voted for Trump by nearly 15 points in 2024. Though I will also say her district is very interesting because in 2020, it went for Biden and it's nearly three-quarters Hispanic. And so Salazar's break, it could be a strong indicator that, one, even the swing district voters who elected Trump by just huge margins and now turned on him.

Starting point is 00:01:48 And two, the Hispanic voters who were very essential to Trump's 2024 when they're souring on him even more than we may have realized. That of course, is that Salazar is not the only Republican who's broken or distanced themselves from Trump recently. Earlier this month, you had political reporting, quote, many Republicans facing tough elections, even in areas that the president carried by double digits in 2024, are wary of tying themselves too closely to Trump as his approval rating continues to drag. And you also had them reporting that multiple battleground candidates have explicitly told Trump's team they do not want him to visit their districts before the midterms. And that's as top Republican pollsters have actively advised some vulnerable incumbents and candidates not to even talk about Trump on the campaign trailer, at least limit direct references to him. you had journalists identifying at least around a dozen Republican Congress members in competitive races who have quietly removed or downplayed references to Trump on their campaign websites. And you had it widely reported that numerous battleground Republicans skip Trump's first ever midterm convention convention convention with Axis reporting that only around 100 lawmakers and candidates were expected to attend.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Also, just this week, you saw seven House Republicans defecting and joining Democrats and voting to stop Trump from continuing the war in Iran, which was huge. I mean, most of those members, they're facing tough re-election bits. And a big thing there is that two of the members who bucked their party, they're both locked in these tight races in Iowa, which has been hit particularly, bad by Trump's pointless war. Right, Iowa, they're a major ag state. And the war, it's caused the price of a key agricultural inputs like gas, diesel, and fertilizer to skyrocket. Right, a lot of people, including these people, they're getting ruined by these diesel prices, just those alone. It's gotten so bad you even had Fox News running the numbers. And now you've got these rising concerns that Trump's going to alienate farmers, which is another key part of the base that got him elected in both terms. So the trend of Republicans running away, distancing themselves from Trump, it's a huge deal.

Starting point is 00:03:19 Even if their actions aren't as loud as Salazar as though, really quick side note, do not believe Salazar. Everyone knew that all this shit, this craziness was all gonna happen. There's in your face video of her pushing Trump's bill that provided $75 billion to ICE right before she voted yes on that legislation. And we have to fund ICE and and DHS ICE and and Border Patrol. So understand she welcomed in this stuff that she's now trying to separate from. But still, even if their actions aren't as loud now as Salazar's, it still underscores the same point. What used to be as strong R is now a lean R. Lean R's are now toss-ups. Tossips seem to be go into the Dems. And there's a belief that Trump is so unpopular with at least the larger

Starting point is 00:03:54 Republican base, you gotta get away from him, instead of pandering to the diehard Trumpers. And a big key thing here is it's not just political leaders, right? In the world of pop culture, and just culture in general, you've been seeing some of the most prominent voices in conservative media distancing themselves from Trump and his most hardcore supporters. Tucker Carlson, of course, definitely one of the most notable that comes to mind. He really split from Trump over the Iran war, repeatedly accusing him of betraying the MAGA movement and even apologizing for leading his audience into supporting Trump. And now, even have Joe Rogan chiming in in a new way.

Starting point is 00:04:20 Because yes, he's been increasingly critical of the president that he's been credited with helping elect. And also you close and open your eyes for one second, and then he's in the Oval Office being buddy-buddy and chummy with him. So I've always taken note of it, but also I haven't given it too much weight. But something that really stood out is that in this most recent episode of his podcast, he tore into the people who still support Trump. Trump supporters are fucking nuts, man. They're rabid. He represents something other than just a person to them. Oh, it's Christ.

Starting point is 00:04:46 Yeah. Well, he represents something, a leader that they wish they had. you know? Yeah. Which is a real problem in our society in general with leaders. We look to them as if there's something different than every other person that's ever been a leader before. Like this is the one.

Starting point is 00:05:01 This is the one that's gonna save us. Right, so the Rogan pivot, it's hit a different level now. And while I will say this is important, do not go and give Joe Rogan credit. The people who are now distancing themselves, especially the public figures, right, they're not making some world-shattering heroic leap of fate. The rest of us knew that the last two years was going to fucking happen. They were saying that it was. and people were calling you crazy for saying that.

Starting point is 00:05:22 And now, the writing's been on the fucking wall. Trump's favorability has been plummeting for months now. His approval rating, it slipped as low as 33% across major national polls. And he's losing support with key demographics that helped him get reelected, like rural voters, young folks, and Hispanics. Right, his approval rating has also tanked

Starting point is 00:05:37 in America's largest farm states as diesel prices of surge thanks to the Iran war. And you've got the Republican establishment terrified, right? It's gotten so bad that Republicans are pouring tons of resources and millions of dollars into ruby red Senate in house races and states and districts that Trump won by, huge margins in 2024. And the thing is, they're not stupid to do this. Poll after poll has shown that Democrats are leading their Republican counterparts in key races that are going to decide

Starting point is 00:05:57 control of both the House and Senate. Right here in my home state of Georgia, you got polls across the board showing John Assoff up by big margins. So you still have Democrats concerned because in the governor's race, Keisha Lance Bottoms is trailing Rick Jackson. Also in much closer, Senate races, James Tilarico is slightly ahead of Ken Paxton in Texas. Abdul Alciette, he's just narrowly leading Mike Rogers over in Michigan. Also in North Carolina, one recent survey found Roy Cooper polling 15 points ahead of his Republican challenger in the race to Philips the Senate seat that's been vacated by a Republican. And while, of course, I always say,

Starting point is 00:06:23 polls or polls, anything can happen. I don't give them all my faith, a lot of faith. Seeing these trends, it appears that something's happening. And Republicans appear so worried that you've got them sending J.D. Vance, the second command of the country, to spend his precious time campaigning for a Senate Republican in Kansas. A state that literally has not elected a Democrat through the Senate since 1932. And it's a similar story in the battle for the House, right?

Starting point is 00:06:45 The D-T-T-C says that they're contesting 58 Republican-held seats, including some that Trump won by as much as 20 points just two years ago. Meanwhile, you've got Trump desperate, basically just trying to bribe everyone by saying, hey, I'll give you $5,000 to every American if Republicans win the midterms. And you've got J.D. Vance out here. Oh, my God, yesterday, this is my favorite thing. Pathetically begging the American people to just give Republicans another chance. There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. He's like a day away from doing the homelander, I'll suck your dick meme. But give you guys a few more years to what? Start more endless wars? You're gonna try and get gas up to 10 bucks?

Starting point is 00:07:29 Diesel up to 20? Seemingly doing zero for affordability, insurance prices, electricity prices, gas prices. Seem to be completely disconnected from the American public that's suffering, but you're like, hey, don't believe your line eyes, your insurance costs are completely normal.

Starting point is 00:07:41 But Trump avoiding what people want and instead is like promoting AI data centers and flock cameras in your backyard. I mean, ends up being no wonder that you got Republicans, trying to get away from that train wreck, even though the Republican elected are part of that train wreck. It feels like we're weeks or months away from them,

Starting point is 00:07:55 you know, talking about Trump like dear leader and being like, oh, you mean that guy and that big house? Said his name is Donald Trump. Am I pronouncing that right? But of course, the key thing is that none of this matters, none of the polls, none of the reactions or anything, unless you get out and vote. And y'all, it is bigger than these midterms,

Starting point is 00:08:11 it is bigger than the next fucking three years. You're gonna have to, I'm gonna have to vote every time that is necessary like it is the most, important election like your life depends on it for the rest of your life because it does. And if you think your vote doesn't matter, shut up. I love you. It does. One, if it really didn't, they wouldn't be trying to take it away from you. They wouldn't try to suppress it. And two, every election, remember, there is more to vote on than just who's the president, who's the governor, who's the senator. Right. Make sure when you go in and vote, you vote all the way down the ballot.

Starting point is 00:08:39 Right. It's the local ones. It's the little ones. It's the things that sometimes don't get the most attention that actually affect your life the most, even though the big ones also really do matter. But then, while you've got Trump seemingly causing problems for Republicans who're trying to get elected or reelected and they're just being general chaos on the Democratic side, once again, you're seeing this debate playing out around Hassan Piker. Right, he's a Twitch streamer, political figure. He was interviewing a lot of candidates. He was promoting a lot of candidates this cycle. Right. And you've seen Republicans looking at Hassan Piker as maybe a way to attack Democrats. So of course, last week, one of the weird ways they did it was putting up his thirst trap at their Trumpapalooza event. No! They f***in' pique! Which I said last week on tour and I stand. and buy it. If anyone ever does a hippies on me, please, yes, only use my thirst trap photos. Because I don't care if people love me or hate me as long as someone out there is call me big dog. That's really why I've kept up the fitness journey. Initially, I was like, I want to be healthy and be able to play with my kids. Now I just want to be healthy for the occasional big dog.

Starting point is 00:09:32 But getting back to Hassan, this morning, you had Axios running a headline saying that Hassan thinks that America is worse than Al-Qaeda pound for pound. With that, apparently stemming from an interview that he did with the Axiose show, which is going to air in full tomorrow, but this was the first quote and clip that they led with to promote it today. What we've seen so far that this is actually caused backlash, not just for Hassan, but also Axios as well. Because on one side, the general reaction is, what the fuck are you talking about? What an insane thing to say? And on the other side, you're people saying, hey, this headline is intentionally leaving out context as clickbaiting to make his comments appear

Starting point is 00:10:00 more extreme. But here's the clip they ran. You once said that America is the top dog in terrorism. Yes. Do you think America then is worse than al-Qaeda? Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes, we've caused tremendous terror all around the world. I think that that is not only terror that we are waging on regular civilians in nations in the periphery, but it's also having consequences on ourselves. It's having dramatic consequences on the home front. One clear example of this is what we did in Minup, right? There's no distinction between blowing up a school, triple tapping it with Tomahawk missiles. If you're killing 140 school

Starting point is 00:10:41 girls, that is an act of terror. This doesn't mean that all Americans are terrorists. But the reality of the matter is we have to create an environment of accountability to ensure things like that never happen again. So following that getting posted, you saw immediate criticism from really all kinds of people, though definitely the right was especially quick to hop on it. Or with the Republicans account, sharing a snippet of the interview and then calling Hassan a Democrat spokesman. You're the likes of Spencer Prack calling him Hamas, Piker, a former DHS spokesperson saying he should leave the U.S. And a Republican representative from Arizona arguing that Hassan is a perfect, albeit sad representation of how extreme Democrats have become in recent years. So possibly the most consequential Republican to speak out here was Mike Rogers, who you saw sharing the clip and addressing his post to Abdul El-Sayed, saying,

Starting point is 00:11:21 Enough is enough, condemn Piker once and for all. Or because Mike Rogers is El-Said's opponent in the very closely watched Michigan Senate race, and Hassan at one point had campaigned with El-Said, which has proven to be very contentious. While they've tried to do this in other avenues, Republicans have repeatedly been using Hassan against him in an attempt to paint El-Said as some extremist. So that's why you've probably seen any number of clips or quotes where, you know, El-Sayed's being asked about Hassan, and like earlier this week he said, The reason I talk to Hassan isn't because of Hassan.

Starting point is 00:11:46 It's because of the three million people who pay attention to what he has to say. But also he had also giving Axios a statement about this Al-Qaeda clip saying, I do not agree with a statement on Al-Qaeda, nor do I give much weight to the statements made by a social media streamer, saying, I am more concerned with the dangerous policies of Donald Trump and Mike Rogers that are raising the prices of gas, groceries, and healthcare for Michiganders. But then also, like the back and forth, it wasn't just limited to Republicans. Because Hassan has ended up being such a key part of midterm races, and overall has become a large figure in democratic and leftist politics, you had a lot of

Starting point is 00:12:14 Democrats themselves upset with his remarks. Because for some extra context here, according to Axios, Republican-affiliated groups have spent nearly $3 million in ads attacking just El-Sayed over his affiliation with Hassan. So when you hopped online, you saw people arguing things like, By doing these interviews, Hassan is just feeding the GOP propaganda machine, and it does a disservice to the candidates he supports? Asking, does Piker want Abdul to lose?

Starting point is 00:12:34 What the fuck is he doing? Others arguing, if you want to help elect candidates, you have to decide whether you want to be the story or you want your work and the candidate to be the story. And others adding, was the quote taken out of context. Yes. Even with context, is this deeply out of touch with where most Americans stand? Yes. Is this an unnecessary distraction at best and actively damaging at worst to Democratic candidates' chances 47 days out from the midterms?

Starting point is 00:12:54 Also, yes. And I mean, you even had some conservatives saying, thank you, Hassan. Might I recommend that you do more interviews? Saying Republicans in Michigan appreciate your contribution. But then also, if you look online, there were a lot of people that were angry at Axios. Right, some feeling like Axios's headlines and tweets promoting the interview were made to cause outrage and didn't fully represent Hassan's comments in the actual video, arguing things like, Just post the actual quote, pound for pound as far as the number of deaths, then let people decide if they agree with that. As well as the quote versus the headline is actually a tremendous example of why normal people resent and distrust corporate media.

Starting point is 00:13:21 And you even had a son making that case, writing, oh, this is why they were farming the interview, saying, I give a nuanced answer about acts of terror this admin has caused and they clickbaited. But they'm also sort of doubling down and expanding on his remarks there by saying, Donald Trump and the Republican Party are Epstein-class terrorists, saying Trump is murdering fishermen off the coastlines of South America, we continue to arm Israel's belligerents, we are choking Cuban, to death for no reason. We are terrorizing our own neighbors with an unaccountable Gestapo force, saying the modern day Republican Party is al-Qaeda. Also, Trump armed al-Qaeda in Yemen when he was president the last time. And while with this, you've got people sounding off and, you know, their cam, sharing their opinion, their takes. It's very possible that the situation's just going to grow from here because, again, this is just one clip. The full thing's getting released soon. We might also see more clips in the future. And we don't know yet what was said in the rest of the

Starting point is 00:14:05 interview, you had Hassan apparently telling a reporter that this was the most contentious interview he's ever been involved in. Very likely, there's going to be more waves here. And then there's even more we got to dive into in just a minute, but first, let me thank a sponsor. Because I think one of the easiest financial mistakes to make is assuming that because you haven't bought anything huge lately, you must be doing great. And that's because it's usually not one giant purchase. It's 20 smaller things quietly adding up before you notice. And that's exactly why I like today's sponsor Rocket Money. It takes all those moving pieces and gives me a much clearer view of what's actually going on. I connect my accounts and see my spending,

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Starting point is 00:15:05 Scan that QR code to get started today and unlock even more features when you sign up for premium. But then, Devin, right back into the news, if you told me in 2012 that the thrift shop guy, the cold-ass honky guy, would rebel against the A-Team guy to become the face of a powerful, incredibly important political movement, I would have gone, huh? Also, get out of my way. There's important Megan Fox News I got to cover. But here we are in the dumpster fire that is 2026, though. Maybe it's feeling a little bit more like a maybe hopeful dumpster fire, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:15:31 But of course, in the news, we've had McElmore being removed from Edgier and Stadium tour after speaking out about Palestine and showing imagery of scenes from Gaza. Right, and during a few shows, the Shirin's Loop tour, you had Maca Moore taking a moment to some version of, quote, I wanted to stand up on stages across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart, free Palestine, saying my message is for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated equally and with dignity, which then ended up being very controversial for some people. And then on Monday, you had McElmore announcing that it was kicked off of the tour because Robert Kraft, who notably is the pro-Israel billionaire owner of the Patriots in

Starting point is 00:16:00 Gillette Stadium, an APEC PAC donor, a man who has received an award from Netanyahu with Netanyahu saying there is no greater friend Israel than Robert Kraft. And so he called up Shearren and said, Macklemore is not allowed to perform at my stadium after that. Then you had Kraft, rallying around stadium owners who said, if McElmore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues. And instead of standing up to the stadium owners, taking a stand, you had Shearin essentially being like, okay, we'll just get rid of them.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And on Tuesday, you had had Shearin releasing a response to McElmore's statement saying, Maclemore's coming off tour was the promoter's decision, not mine. With the men talking about how there's pain cause on both sides and saying that he avoids politics at his shows because there are children there. And while you had no shortage of people picking apart this thing, one of the big lines that I think rubbed a lot of people the wrong way was him just saying, I am not complicit. Also, he made a big deal about his supporting acts,

Starting point is 00:16:43 saying he would not abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living, which ended up really standing out because every single one of his tour openers then pulled out. Are we talking Lucas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and Phineas? With Phineas saying, Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed. I stand with Palestine and its people. Even the Irish band Bioga, which performs As Sharon's own backing band,

Starting point is 00:17:03 quit saying we are Irish people who understand colonialism and saying as founding members of the Irish artist or Palestine movement, we are committed activists for justice and will continue to be. So in the eyes of many, Shiren was left with as many openers and bands as he spines he has. Also, I got to say, I think this is why I fuck with the Irish and just over the last 20 years have vibed with the Irish so much. They are not shy in sharing whether they fuck with you or not. The Irish radio station classic hits radio, they just took his music out of rotation for the quote, foreseeable future.

Starting point is 00:17:30 And now at Shiren's next show being set for this Saturday at Lincoln, financial field in Philadelphia, you got a lot of people going, hey, are you going to see people boycott the tour after all this? Is he going to cancel the tour? Is this something that it's just online or it's something that's fixable? And while it's being said that Ed Sheareran or his people, they're scrambling to men fences, I mean, the PR crisis, it already seems to be out of control. Especially because new things have been continuing to happen. You had Macamore posted another statement on Wednesday announcing that he's donating the million dollars that he made from the tour to six organizations working to support the Palestinian people. He then with that also invited Kraft to match his donation writing. Whatever we disagree about, Perhaps we can agree on this. Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth. With Meckamore also emphasizing that he wants to bring the conversation back to the Palestinian people, saying, I will continue to stand with the Palestinian people in their fight for liberation.

Starting point is 00:18:17 When the new cycle moves on, which it will, don't move with it. Free Palestine. And then actually later that day, we got a new statement from Kraft saying that he had seen McElmore's call for a donation and he'd spoken to Shearan. Writing Ed Shearin called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis. And adding Ed now plans to reach out to other ben. new owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges. And then, in the eyes of many, you had Kraft kind of basically bragging about his supposed efforts to create opportunity for

Starting point is 00:18:41 Palestinians over the years. And with this, what I'll say is, well, we do know where McElmore's million bucks is going because he listed the organizations on Instagram. As far as like Shear and her craft's money, at least right now, it's vague, right? They said the aid in the region. And actually today, you had Miss Rachel announcing that she's matching McElmore's donation and invites every wealthy white celebrity to do the same, saying she'll be donating to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. You know, as this whole situation, it took over the news cycle, we've been hearing from everyone. I mean, everyone from AOC to Tucker Carlson sharing strong opinions. It's not just what has happened with the act and not just in removing McElmore from the lineup.

Starting point is 00:19:14 But when you see what Robert Kraft did to line up all of the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way, it's become clear that this is not just about one music artist or two music artists, But this is about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue. In this case, the genocide in Gaza. But it doesn't stop there. You find yourself in middle age doing things you never thought you would do, which is like defending political rappers on your podcast, never thought I'd be here. But it's not a defense of anyone person. It's a defense of the truth of the literal meaning of words and the intent.

Starting point is 00:20:00 of the words and of reason, but above all, it's a defense of the inalienable right of every person to express his conscience, whether you or I like it or not. This is a veto by one guy, likely against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the American population. So don't tell me this is a product of the market at work. This is censorship by the billionaire Epstein class. And generally across the political spectrum, you're seeing a lot of people coming out on McElmore's side, though, not everyone, and that includes Pink and Dave Portnoy. Right with Pink, originally calling for Maclemore to be dropped from the tour because of his pro-Palestine comments. In Portnoy, he called McElmore an anti-Semitic 9-11 truther. And while you had plenty of

Starting point is 00:20:40 people hitting him back at the merits of those claims, you also had people just kind of generally mocking it. For example, one of the top replies to Portnoy saying that he backs the ban, being the man who wrote a book called Cancel Me If You Can't Celebrating Billionaires Canceling Macalore, saying the irony is not lost on anyone. But then others noting he's taking certain things out of context. and others saying you're not even listening to the words that McElmore is actually using. You know, from here, we're going to have to see how a number of things play out. Is more money raised and donated? Do we find out where some of this money actually is going?

Starting point is 00:21:06 What's going to happen in all aspects to Ed's next show? Will any of this change the public's opinion on Shearin's saying that he is not complicit in a situation where he's a headliner with a net worth of an estimated $400 million where he immediately followed the stadium's owner's orders and silenced McElmore? Time will tell, and of course you can always share your opinions, reactions and predictions in those comments. Right, and then let's jump from getting censored. to getting exposed.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Because you just had a group of hackers given us an unprecedented look at how exactly flock cameras work. Right, how they're detecting cars and people and the way they communicate with the company. And this is actually thanks to a new joint investigation between 404 Media and Wired, where they analyzed data from a flock camera that was torn down

Starting point is 00:21:41 and cracked open by a hacking group. And when they spoke to 404 media, they started by posing a question. Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us, saying we liberated hardware in the field, disarm them, and proceeded with reverse engineering of the cameras and associated solar equipment. And so you had this hacking group able

Starting point is 00:21:56 to get into the camera's Android system, where they found something similar to a mid-range smartphone. Where the cameras reportedly run on roughly 20 flock-built apps that handle everything from detecting motion and taking pictures to classifying objects, uploading data, and receiving remote updates. But one of the big key things they found on the hard drive was an encryption key that gave the hackers access

Starting point is 00:22:11 to the treasure trove of videos and pictures this camera took. We're talking over a million images of passing cars, motorcycles, and even people. And according to the analysis of the code, whenever something moves into view, the camera takes a rapid series of pictures. And so when a typical vehicle passes, it's like 28 pictures,

Starting point is 00:22:24 but sometimes the camera can take up to 100, It's as the camera takes a bunch of different exposures to capture both the license plate and the wider scene, and then it scans the images, selects and crops useful frames and sends it all off to flock. And over the course of 21 days, the specific camera photographed more than 50,000 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. With it on a typical day, logging up little more than 3,000 vehicles, but on its biggest day, it hit just under 4,500. And notably, it looks like the camera itself doesn't actually appear to read the plate or identify the vehicles make, model, and color. Reportedly, that happens on flock servers, and that is where the larger flock system comes into play. And as you had Wired reporting, Flock can use this type of data along with police, files, and commercial data to identify drivers,

Starting point is 00:23:00 find vehicles that repeatedly travel together and search for people based on patterns of movement. But that said, it does appear that the cameras themselves can interpret what they're seeing. Right, in some cases, it mistook bumper stickers, dealership frames, and other graphics for license plates and cropped them out as if they were plates. And in one case, it highlighted an American flag patch on a motorcycle saddlebag as a license plate. But it's not just vehicles. The system also reportedly identifies people. Right, you had wired saying that they pulled the system from the camera's files and they ran some test showing that the camera regularly identified people. including a selfie of a reporter. And the test included running the system

Starting point is 00:23:28 against the videos that they found on the camera itself, some 27,000 short video clips. And they watched the flock system detecting people on 11 of those clips, all of them people on motorcycles. So also definitely worth mentioning here is that this camera specifically was placed somewhere that you're not gonna see a lot of pedestrians. Now with this, you have flocks saying they don't do face recognition and wired in 404 media, they seem to back that up,

Starting point is 00:23:46 saying that with at least this investigation, they found no evidence of any facial recognition software beyond what's standard on the Android OS and even those weren't enabled. There was also another weird bit about the camera storage, apparently the logs had some 27,000 errors, about a lack of space, along with tens of thousands of other errors, crashes, and reboots. And all the while, every two minutes, code checked that the camera was still running and logged the message, who's a good boy? Which that's not like a weird joke. I'm not kidding. That is a message that reportedly appeared 12,000

Starting point is 00:24:11 times. And so you've got millions of images of cars and people on a machine that is constantly crashing and it calls itself a good boy every two minutes. Normal stuff, you know, now, now it is important to know that not everything was accessible, right? 404 Media and Wired report that a lot of the most sensitive storage on the automatic license plate reader was still encrypted. But still the fact that hackers gained as much information as they did, that's insane. And in fact, Flock was even warned last year that something like this could happen, that really anyone with the know-how could exploit the camera's flaws and gain root-level access to the footage. Except what you had at the time was the company brushing off those findings, downplaying them,

Starting point is 00:24:41 saying in order for that to happen, a hacker would actually need physical access. But then the company also promising that, hey, even if someone did get physical access, you couldn't get to any footage, images only stayed on the device briefly before being sent to the cloud. Except, this hacking group apparently blew all of that out of the water. And so when Wired in 4-4 Media reached out to flock to ask them about that, they responded with, quote, the unauthorized removal and tampering of a flock camera is illegal. And when asked about the encryption key being on the camera and giving anyone with the skills to get into it access to the footage, they said that they have a process for security researchers to report potential vulnerabilities,

Starting point is 00:25:09 and they hadn't heard anything through that system. And adding, if the individuals identified legitimate vulnerabilities, we encourage them to submit their technical findings through our vulnerability reporting process so our security team can review them and take any appropriate action. Though in response to this group of hackers saying that they're concerned about drawing too much attention to themselves and becoming the subject of an investigation. Which is fair, considering the first thing Flock said was sounds like y'all were committing some crimes. And the fact that in the past, you had the CEO of this company saying that people that people were against these cameras were essentially terrorists. And while I understand that he's apologized for that statement, that still stands out.

Starting point is 00:25:40 Remember with this latest thing, you know, the act of taken down cameras, either just to disable them or to reverse engineer, it's gotten under a lot of people's skin. And in fact, even those against flock and license plate readers in general, they get a little bit concerned that those actions, they might be playing into their hands. Or with Noel Pichardo, for example, a former Rhode Island cop saying, I think that type of vigilantism will only crystallize the police and the state at large in their belief that this tool is necessary. But also, we added, the longer the state continues to ignore the groanings of their constituents who are against this type of surveillance, the more this will happen. Though I do think the things that we've seen online that have ranged from people

Starting point is 00:26:14 like trolling the cameras where they're like holding a protest sign that's in front of them, right then all the way to people destroying them. That has been very interesting to watch. Now, to be clear, I would never encourage anyone to do this. But when I see these things, I do think of two things. One, it is a symptom of people genuinely being concerned about this and being dismissed by a lot of their local politicians. So I think it's important that the actual problem is addressed.

Starting point is 00:26:36 And two, it makes me wonder how much the videos of the destruction or the trolling of these cameras have led to people then finding out about the situation and then informing themselves about the situation. Though again, this is not an endorsement or promotion of you doing something illegal. Do not be stupid, stupid is a world, a world-defining phrase we have lived by for the last two decades. If you can believe it, there's even more we got to dive into in just a minute, but really quick, let's thank a sponsor. Because remember when the biggest privacy concern online you might have is accidentally liking an old photo from 2012? Yeah, those days are gone.

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Starting point is 00:27:45 monthly report with insights based on your exposures and ways to improve your privacy. And they can't harm you if they can't find you. So scan that code or go to incogni.com slash defranco and use code defranco for 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com slash defranco, code defranco. Take control your personal data before someone else does. But then diving right back into the news from that for your final block today, let's cram in some more news you need to know quickly. Starting with the news that for nearly two decades, no one really could figure out what happened to these four missing women in Philly. There were no bodies, there was no trace, nothing. But then all of a sudden everything changes.

Starting point is 00:28:15 right? Because you got this guy, 44-year-old Eugene Horish, reportedly decided to get high in a parking lot at 8 p.m. 1 night. With the cop then coming up, Horish, he's in a BMW with another woman. The cop asked for ID, and the woman gives him an ID, except it's for one of these missing women. Now, she claims that Horish gave that ID to her, and he was ultimately arrested on drug and gun charges. But now, the cops, they believe they've accidentally stumbled onto a serial killer. Though also, there's a chance it's not Horish himself. Because after the news broke, the family of Horish's stepmom went to local news and claimed that everything was all of a sudden starting to make sense, claiming she was last seen at Horsh in his father's home in 2016 before

Starting point is 00:28:46 disappearing. And you also had prosecutors saying that they recovered a video showing Horsh's father, a massacist adult filmmaker who died last year, strangling a woman to death. Though at the time, they wouldn't say who she was. But the cops also finding an unsigned note reverencing Ted Bundy and methods for disposing a trash as well as over one and a half million images and videos of victims on hard drives. And while reportedly they've also interviewed other people in those videos, they didn't reveal what they said or how big this whole operation might actually be. And now, while none of the bodies have been found yet so these women can't be officially declared dead, you did have the cops believing that two urns found in the home

Starting point is 00:29:15 belonged to two of the women. Actually, with that, yesterday, they identified a fifth victim being tied to this investigation with them believing that she's the woman that Horish's father strangled on video. But for now, Horsh, he hasn't gotten any new charges. So whether he actually killed some of these women or he just covered up his dead father's crimes, those are possibilities and a mystery to the police, or at least they haven't spoken on this publicly yet. Also, in very different news, you have the Fed raising interest rates for the first time since 2023, and you've got Trump pissed about it. So those rates, they're getting a 0.25% bump, landing us somewhere between 3.75% and 4%. And apparently, they could go up even more by the end of the year.

Starting point is 00:29:46 And as far as the end goal here, is lower inflation rates. They've been trying to get us down to 2%. But with gas prices, AI investments in the war in Iran, you got Warsh saying the plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long. According to Trump, you could say the same about interest rates. Because for years, you've had him pushing to get those down. And he actually said that Warsh wouldn't have even gotten his nomination if they weren't on the same page about that.

Starting point is 00:30:06 But now you have him going up. Trump is not happy. you got him saying, lower the interest rates and fast, claiming they should be 1% or less because we have the best credit in the world by far. Which, by the way, is just a lie. Canada, Australia, Germany, plenty of other countries are beating us there.

Starting point is 00:30:19 I love America, but it doesn't help us to just lie about it, though I understand why he would. But Trump, he also continued to toss around the idea of cutting off any country we have a trade deficit with. That, of course, comes with its own economic risks as well. But then also, what's interesting about this is that Trump actually talked to Warsh ahead of the announcement and said that he might as well vote with the board

Starting point is 00:30:35 because it's just not going to matter. And so his anger really doesn't seem specific with Warsh, but maybe the rest of the committee, right, saying that they're hostile, very political and that they were doing the wrong thing, calling them a bunch of politicians. But still with all that, by going against the president on this, you have finance experts saying, Warsh and the committee are sending a clear message that the Fed will not tolerate inflation drifting further above target, even in the face of political pressure from the White House. So there, I would add, for now, and I guess we'll see.

Starting point is 00:30:58 And then last up in the news today, let's talk about Diddy apparently creating his own money problems, right? Because his legal team, they just filed a motion to drop him, saying that he's over six months behind on his legal fees. Right, this is the firm that was representing him in his $100 million defamation lawsuit against Next Star Media, Courtney Burgess, and attorney Ariel Mitchell. Right, and it's all connected to what he calls outlandish claims about Burgess having videos of him sexually assaulting minors and celebrities at his freakoffs. But even with all that on the line, his legal team says he's become so hard to deal with that they can't do it anymore. Claiming he's, quote, declined to make himself available for timely, substantive, and direct communications about his cases. But then, actually, I did he saying that he was the one who dropped them.

Starting point is 00:31:33 I mean, I made the decision to switch lawyers because I won't let anyone take advantage of me by overcharging me. and running up bills that were never approved, and adding that any talk about unpaid fees is just part of our dispute over those unapproved charges. One, the firm's denied all that, and two, with $100 million wrapped up in a case with these types of accusations, I do not think that making enemies out of your lawyers

Starting point is 00:31:51 is the best move, but hey, who knows? But that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your Thursday show. Now, this is probably the last show for this week before I see you right back here next Monday. So we'll end today with a little housekeeping, some updates, and a little promo. First up, I'd love to see you sometime

Starting point is 00:32:04 between September 25th and October 3rd. We've got that chance, because I've got five more live shows. We're going to Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, PA. And while Chicago is sold out, you can still get tickets to the other four, all at crashingout tour.com, links in the description and top comment. Also, while the live show is a different thing, if you want a little bit of a taste of something that's close, you should definitely check out today's brand new episode of Crashing Out or rather yesterday's episode. It's your weekly 90-minute, cathartic, funny, ridiculous podcast with myself and Alex Perlman. And three, I'm not going to include the code in the description, but just because you made it here to the end of the video, if you go to beautifulbastor.com and use code big dog. for the next 72 hours, you get 25% off.

Starting point is 00:32:39 Take yourself some premium core two blanks, or there's an emotionally exhausted graphic tier two. We're gonna be rolling that stock over soon, so enjoy. Thank you, I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here next time.

The Philip DeFranco Show - Joe Rogan Slams Trump Voters

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