The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 07.17 Andrew Tate Goes After Accusers, What Really Happened To Carlee Russell, SAG Scabbing & Today's News

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil  & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/d4unF_Tqz4Y Check out our daily newsletter! http://dailydip.co/pds  Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillydefranco/?hl=en  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - Carlee Russel, Missing After Calling 911 About a Toddler on the Highway, Found  1:54 - Andrew Tate and His Brother Are Suing Their Alleged Victims 2:56 - SAG Strike Prompts Conversation on Royalties, Scabbing 6:27 - U.S. & China Holding Climate Talks Amid Record Global Heat Waves 9:03 - Sponsored by Squarespace 9:53 - Biden Rolls Out $39B in Student Debt Relief for 800,000 Americans 11:43 - 2024 House Control Could be Decided by the Courts in Gerrymandering Cases 13:15 - Typo Sends Millions of Sensitive Military Emails to Russian-Ally Mali 14:15 - Ukraine Hits Bridge Between Russia, Crimea Student Loan Forgiveness Resources: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-provide-804000-borrowers-39-billion-automatic-loan-forgiveness-result-fixes-income-driven-repayment-plans  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #AndrewTate #CarleeRussell ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about Andrew Tate going after one of his accusers to the tune of $5 million, Scabbing becoming one of the biggest fights with the actor's strike, The confusing mess of Carly Russell's disappearance, The worst may be yet to come with this crazy weather we're experiencing, Your student debt may be about to be forgiven, We're gonna talk about all that and so much more in today's brand new Philip DeFranco show, You daily dive into the news, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, we need to talk about this wild, confusing mess of a story around Carly Russell.

Because she's a 25-year-old woman from Alabama who went missing most of the weekend. This starting Thursday night at around 9.30 when Carly called 911 because she saw a toddler walking alongside the interstate. And according to Carly's mother, the dispatcher told Carly to stay with the child until police arrived. Carly then reportedly called her brother's girlfriend who stayed on the line as she got out of her car and called out to the child. The girlfriend then reportedly hearing Carly scream, the phone drop, and then nothing but the sound of cars driving by. With Carly's family quickly tracking down her phone's location, and when they got to the scene, they found the police were already there. They found her car and some of her belongings, but there was no sign of Carly or the child. And so for the next two days, there was a frenzied search with tens of thousands of dollars in rewards being offered by crime stoppers and an anonymous donor.

And early on, one witness coming forward saying they saw a gray car and a man standing outside Carly's car at the time of the incident. But then after police reviewed the security footage, a local police chief said, from the time that she stopped to the time that the first officer hits the blue lights and gets to the scene, we do not see another vehicle pull over or anything like that. And then at 1045 Saturday night, after nearly 48 hours of searching, Carly Russell just knocks on the front door of her family's home completely alone. But they're then quickly taken to the hospital for an evaluation and returned home Sunday afternoon. Carly's mother posting a statement on her Facebook on Sunday saying that Carly is home and safe and asking for privacy while they try to recover from the terrifying weekend. And while police have

reportedly taken a statement from Carly, they have not released any information regarding what actually happened to her and how she got back home. Saying in a news release, the details of that statement are a part of the ongoing investigation, which is expected to continue over the next few days. But what we do know is that there were no calls about a missing child at the time that Carly said she saw a toddler alongside the interstate. So something we're going to keep our eyes on because this is too weird for it to just end here. And then Andrew Tate and his brother are now going after his alleged victims. With the Associated Press reporting that Tate and his brother have filed a lawsuit against a woman in Florida, where they claim that

she falsely accused them of imprisoning her in Romania, leading to their arrest in the country. And according to AP, the brothers are seeking $5 million with the suit that they filed in Palm Beach, and they're also going after the woman's parents, another woman who lived at the Bucharest estate, and a male friend of the woman. But the brothers having long denied the allegations, and the lawsuit doubles down on that, further claiming this woman is a serial liar, manipulator, and schemer who exploits vulnerable, often wealthy men with good intentions for sexual, financial, and emotional profit. Notably with this, a law firm representing some of Tate's accusers released a statement saying, we are deeply concerned by these developments, which in our view amount to nothing more than a crude and malicious attempt to spread disinformation,

disclose personal and private information, and attack those brave enough to speak out against their abusers. Notably, while that firm actually doesn't represent the people being accused of defaming the Tates in this new lawsuit, the law firm told Rolling Stone that its clients actually wanted to make a statement in solidarity. And according to Vice, the lawyers who are actually representing the woman

in the suit say they are aware of the filing, but do not believe it has any merit and they're evaluating next steps. And then actors are officially on strike, joining riders on those picket lines, making history, right? This is the first double strike since 1960. We've seen a lot of support,

a lot of talking about what's at stake. And with that, also a different reaction. But the number of actors speaking on the situation and trying to frame things properly for the public, right? Because part of the public reaction are people going, hey, this feels like a lot of rich actors going, hey, we want even more money. And then several speaking up going, you know, it's not about me. It's not about like Robert Downey Jr. or whatever massive names out there. This is about the currently existing working actor. This is about the currently existing working actor. This is about the next big name that's gonna try and come through and break out. We're really talking about what is at stake

for every career for every actor, starting with residuals, because just like writers, actors have seen that source of income dry up with the popularity of streaming, which just like writers makes it harder to get by during times when they're unable to land a gig. And with that, you had tons of actors speaking out, this including the likes of Sean Gunn,

who plays Kirk on Gilmore Girls, talking about it on the picket lines. That show ended years ago, but it remains incredibly popular on Netflix. And while Gunn isn't a lead in it, he is in a whopping 137 episodes of it. But still, it has been one of the most popular show for a very long time, over a decade. It gets streamed over and over and over again. And I see almost none of the revenue that comes into that. Now, notably, that clip was originally shared by The Hollywood Reporter,

but they ended up actually taking it down because, quote, it did not note that the residuals Gunn was referencing are paid by the studio and not the streamer, Netflix. But to Sean Gunn's credit there, and I think it's really important to note this because the way that The Hollywood Reporter touched on it, it made it sound like Sean Gunn was lying.

He never claimed otherwise, and his whole point was that actors don't see cash for Netflix views because studios pay the meager fees based on licensing, which is also why you had so many other actors also calling the situation out, and those including actors like Kimiko Glenn, who's in Orange is the New Black, with a video she posted in 2020 resurfacing where she revealed that she only made $27.30 in residuals for the show at one point, and another actor from the show is saying he kept his day job because it actually paid better than being on a hit TV show, and others are sharing how little they get paid in residuals now. And keep in mind, the fight around residuals

is just one aspect of this whole situation, with there being more that we're going to touch on as these strikes continue. But in addition to that, there's been a lot of focus on what about the promotions around movies that are set to release. Actors can no longer promote their movies on red carpets, at premieres, at festivals, because that would be considered working with a studio to promote work on their behalf. And so we're already seeing things like the weird premiere of the Haunted Mansion. We saw Disney making the choice because they didn't have the actors to just have Disneyland characters walk the red carpet. But with all this, you had people accusing people who were playing the characters of scabbing. People saying, you know, they're picking up work in place of those on strike, though plenty of people came to their defense,

saying it's very much not. This is underpaid non-union labor doing their job, not jobs that would otherwise be union. These are also people exploited by the same system. And this is not scabbing. These are park employees, and the premiere was at the park, and they are contractually obligated to participate. These performers had no choice. And misplaced righteous anger helps no one except the studios.

And scabbing, in general, has been one of the hottest topics with this strike. With some concern that we might see tons of influencers scabbing, and some warning, now that SAG is on strike, entertainment corporations are going to start to reach out to influencers and creators to fill the spot of those on strike. Fucking don't. Support the strike. If you ever want to join SAG, don't scab.

With the primary concern not being that influencers are going to star in movies, but rather used to replace actors for promotions. And so with that, you have some warning that you'll be blacklisted from the union if you cross the line. And so with that, you have tons of people trying to share SAG's guidelines

about what kind of work is and is not allowed right now. With all that, what I will say is, while I have no intention of ever actually joining SAG, someone with an audience, someone with a following, someone that gets paid to promote certain things, I have made it clear to my sales team, as long as there is a strike, I will not be doing any promotion for TV shows or movies. But ultimately, that is where we are. Now, good luck to all those striking, and also, I guess, good luck to the guy that pissed Ron Perlman off. That is a man it seems like would be a bad idea to anger.

And then, it's so damn hot right now. And that statement's pretty true across much of the Northern hemisphere right now, as countries are struggling with ongoing heat waves and record temperatures. Looking internationally, Spain and Greece expect to reach about 108, 104 in France, 102 in Serbia, 109 in Italy, with one of the hottest spots being parts

of Sardinia, which will hit 115. And these extreme temperatures leading authorities throughout Europe to warn people to drink plenty of water, to please stay inside. In some places like North Macedonia, they're telling people who work outside to finish by 11 a.m. Meanwhile, in Madrid, they just stopped some outdoor services. They provided shelter to any homeless. But the reality there is that even that may not provide much relief because a lot of European households just don't have AC. I mean, take Spain, for instance. They're consistently one of the hottest countries in Europe, but it's believed that only about 30% of the houses there have air conditioning and that number only slightly rising

in the areas of the country that are known for being especially hot. Which I mean for comparison say we look to California which has a climate profile similar to Spain. Over here like 70% of all households have AC and we're actually low for the United States where 90% of homes are believed to have AC. Which on that note the United States is also getting pummeled by the weather right now. For over a month now, almost the entire South has been struggling with temperatures over 100 degrees. Though compared to some places, that's actually cool. Central and Southern California getting hit with temperatures between 107 and 115. Hell, even coastal California approaching 100 degrees, which is pretty hard to do because the very cold Pacific Ocean cools about a mile inland. All that nothing compared to Death

Valley, which hit 128 on Sunday and that approaching the hottest ever recorded temperature of 130 degrees, which was also in California. There, there are claims of like 134, but many experts have had issue with that. But the biggest part of this news is that it's believed that all of these heat waves could continue for upwards of a month, which not only means there is a good chance that the record could be broken, but also the length of the heat wave really matters because the longer it is, the more dangerous it becomes as people struggle to stay cool. And the climate getting worse doesn't just mean hotter summers and colder winters,

but also crazier weather effects in general. Take South Korea, for example. They're in the middle of their monsoon season, meaning it just rains constantly. And while generally the country is built to handle it, this weekend there was so much rain that it caused major issues. In mountainous areas, there was major flooding

leading to homes getting buried and destroyed, killing dozens. And in another tragedy, the banks of a river broke and water rushed into a nearby tunnel, trapping people in their cars as the tunnel filled completely with water. In the end, there are at least 13 people dying. And all of this leading their conservative president to saying the country has to completely overhaul how it handles extreme weather and adding, we must accept that climate change is happening and deal with it. And he's not the only leader looking to tackle this issue. With both the US and China now making moves to restart climate

talks together, which many think is a prerequisite for any serious solution to the problem. Because we're the biggest economies, the largest investors in renewable energies, and also the largest polluters. With it estimated that about 40% of all fossil fuel pollution comes from both of us. But as we wait to see what comes from those talks, in the meantime, you should expect the weather to continue to get crazy. Because we're not just looking at a potential new norm for heat waves, but bigger hurricanes, stronger monsoons, and colder winters.

And then, for any of you focused on getting your business off the ground, creating a place to share your homemade goods, or even a personal blog to get all those thoughts out of your head, I got a fantastic solution for you. That's why I want to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Squarespace. You know, I've been partnering with Squarespace for years now, and I have to say, it's just so easy. There's nothing ever to install, patch, or upgrade. And creating a beautiful website with Squarespace's Fluid Engine is so easy. You just drag things where you like, no coding necessary. And if you need a starting point, Squarespace has a bunch of great professional templates. Plus, Thank you. analytics and their award-winning customer care team via email or live chat 24-7. So go check it out, see why so many others love it and why you are too, and start your free trial today over at squarespace.com slash phil. And when you realize you love it, just make sure you enter an offer code phil to get 10% off your first purchase. And then if you have a student loan debt, listen up,

because you may be one of hundreds of thousands of Americans that are about to have their student loan debt forgiven. With the Biden administration recently announcing that it'll cancel $39 billion in debt for 804,000 Americans, which notably is much less than Biden's initial effort to forgive $400 billion in loans for tens of millions of borrowers. But of course, this new conservative Supreme Court shut that down last month, and so his options were much more limited. So as far as with this new plan, who qualifies? This new policy specifically targets the 8 million Americans who use what are known as income-driven repayment plans, or IDR plans. Under those programs, student loan borrowers

make payments that are capped at a percentage of their income. And after they've paid a certain amount of time, typically either 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan, they're then eligible to have their remaining debt forgiven. A few people actually ever have their loans forgiven under those programs.

And that notably is in large part because for decades, the loan servicers that collect payments from people with IDR plans have made many mistakes. Right, improperly tracking payments made by borrowers that should have helped them qualify for forgiveness. And servicers also gave people in IDR programs horrible guidance and advice

that prevented them from making qualifying payments, including improperly steering them into long-term forbearances. Well, yeah, that allowed borrowers to temporarily stop making payments and still keep their loans in good standing. It didn't count as credit toward getting their loans forgiven

and still force them to accumulate interest, which is actually something some servicers got sued for. And so as a result, those errors improperly put many people years behind in having their loans forgiven. And so the Biden administration's efforts here are gonna help push more people with IDR plans to the 20 or 25 year threshold by allowing partial or late payments

and certain months spent in forbearance to count towards having their loans forgiven. So if you or someone you know happens to be in that 8 million, keep an eye out. You should be getting contact by the education department shortly, but also I'm gonna link down to resources below because you know, it's the government, and when has that

ever actually worked properly? And in addition to all this, the department said that they would keep identifying new groups of borrowers who reach their threshold to have their loans forgiven every two months for the next year. And importantly, while this latest announcement pertains to just around 800,000 people, the Education Department has previously said that around 3.6 million borrowers with plans will get at least three years of credit toward loan forgiveness. And then, y'all, control of the House of Representatives in 2024 could come down to a few court cases. With Axios reporting that cases involving gerrymandering in Alabama, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio, quote, will play an outsized role in determining

which party holds the House majority next year. In Alabama, more districts that are more likely to swing blue will likely be added after the Supreme Court made a very surprising decision last month where they ruled that the state had racially gerrymandered its districts and needed to redraw them. And the Supreme Court's decision there is also expected to overturn Louisiana's map and could actually affect several other southern states. Meanwhile, just last week, an appeals court in New York sided with Democrats and ordered the state's map to be redrawn. While Republicans have vowed to appeal the case to the state's highest court, which notably did previously strike down the Democrats' map, key thing, it is now composed of judges that are more liberal. And that decision

especially will be key because New York alone could determine the majority. With Axios reporting that the GOP can't afford to lose more than four House seats in next year's election, but adding, Republicans in 2022 won six congressional districts in New York State that President Biden carried. And even small tweaks to the map could make competitive districts unwinnable for Republicans. But also importantly, at the same time, Republicans are expected to gain three seats in the House in North Carolina. And that because the state Supreme Court overturned its own past ruling, making partisan gerrymandering illegal. Then you've got Ohio, where the state Supreme Court is set to decide the future of the state's current map. Notably, that court declared the same map illegal in 2022, but it was still used in the midterms because there wasn't enough time to fix it.

And Axios explaining there that while Democrats did perform well under the new map, winning all three of the state's contested battleground districts, the Republicans still hold 10 of the 15 House seats in the GOP-leaning state. And adding there that the Ohio GOP may actually prefer to keep the political status quo to avoid a more aggressively gerrymandered map from being overturned. So obviously, a lot at play. We're going to keep our eyes on it and see what happens. And then, millions of U.S. military emails with insanely sensitive contents have been sent to the country of Mali,

which, hey, key thing, is a huge ally of Russia and an employer of the Wagner Group. But the craziest thing about this whole situation is this wasn't because of like some inside leak or a covert spy operation from a foreign agent. It was due to a typo, with the Pentagon confirming today that instead of using the military's domain for emails, which is.mil, people incorrectly wrote.ml, which is the domain for Mali. Now, notably, according to reports, none of the missent emails have been marked classified, but many contain highly sensitive information about American military personnel and installations, including base staff lists, medical data, and identity documents. But still, a wild failure, especially because the guy who was contracted to manage Mali's country domain for the last decade told reporters that he first noticed the issue

when he first started working on the domain, and he actually tried to repeatedly warn U.S. authorities, with him renewing that warning now because his contract is actually set to expire this week. And when it does, control of Mali's domain goes back to the government. And he said there, the risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US. So yeah, fun times. And then let's talk about the war in Ukraine. There's the ongoing counteroffensive, which is making slow but steady progress. And then this weekend, there was Ukraine's attack on the controversial Kerch Bridge, which connects mainland Russia and Crimea. Right before Russia invaded again in 2022 and took over southern Ukraine, it was the main way Russia got goods and supplies into the

peninsula. Even though Russia now controls other routes into Crimea, it's still a major artery for the region. And it's because of this, and its status as a symbol of Russian aggression towards Ukraine, that Ukraine tried multiple times to damage the bridge, with past attempts being minorly successful, but Russia being quick to repair it. This time, though, the damage seems to be more substantial, although Ukraine seemed to only manage to damage the bridge. The past attempts being minorly successful, but Russia being quick to repair it. This time though, the damage seems to be more substantial, although Ukraine seemed to only manage to damage the part of the bridge used for trucking and civilian travel, with there being a parallel section that's used for trains, and that likely being the preferred target

if they wanted to damage Russia's war effort. Either way though, very big deal. Not only because many Ukrainians see it as a symbolic victory, but also because it's believed they used a special type of naval drone, which would be a sign that its technical capabilities are increasing, which if true,

makes it possible that it's only a matter of time before that bridge is effectively unusable. Also as far as Russia, they're not happy with the attack with officials suggesting that the West may be complicit and pro-Russian accounts online calling it a terrorist attack because civilians were killed. But in addition to that, many think that its biggest retaliation was canceling

the Black Sea grain deal. Though there are conflicting beliefs around this because that deal was actually set to expire today anyway. But there had been hope that it would be extended amid pressure from Turkey and other countries. Especially because without the deal, tons of countries face starvation concerns as Ukraine was a major source expire today anyway. But there had been hope that it would be extended amid pressure from Turkey and other countries. Especially because without the deal, tons of countries faced starvation concerns as Ukraine was a major source for their grain. And ultimately here, it's unclear what solution, if any, can actually be worked out. But at one point, there was

speculation that Turkish warships could escort Ukrainian grain shipments, but then that was shot down by Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey who called it nonsense. But for now, we'll have to wait to see how things develop or maybe better put, devolve. And that is where today's daily dive into the news is going to end. For more news you need to know, I got you covered right here or in those links down below. And if you've already seen everything I have to offer, don't worry, because my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.