The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.21 Andrew Tate vs Coffeezilla Situation is Out Of Control, Why Moldova’s Crazy Election Matters, & More

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him... Kickstart your passion project with a free trial today: https://www.Squarespace.com/Phil  & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  Like my hoodie? Get one for yourself right here! https://beautifulbastard.com/products/bearly-alive-hoodie We also just restocked our color 3-packs @ https://BeautifulBastard.com 15 Days Until Election Day! Make Sure You Are Registered to VOTE: https://Vote.org  – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Coffeezilla Accuses Andrew Tate of Ponzi Scheme in New Investigation 04:57 - Elon Musk’s Million-Dollar Giveaway to Registered Voters Could Be Illegal 08:15 - Sponsored by SquareSpace 09:33 - Biden Admin Proposal Would Require Insurers to Cover OTC Contraceptives 13:11 - Iran Reportedly Hired the Hell’s Angels to Silence Critics Abroad 17:43 - Moldova Narrowly Votes to Join EU ——————————   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 Associate Producer on Iran Gangs: Chris Tolve ———————————— #DeFranco #AndrewTate #Coffeezilla ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news. And we have a lot to talk about today, but first we got to start with easily the most requested story today, and that is Andrew Tate, right? Because the investigation into his crypto schemes,

it just got released by CoffeeZilla. While many of the details are very interesting, a lot of this focuses on accusations that Andrew is a massive hypocrite for previously criticizing influencers who involve themselves in crypto, only to jump in headfirst himself. Crypto Twitter are full of the biggest degenerate losers on the planet. They're losers. Crypto is the only scenario I can think of where

you can make a whole bunch of money while benefiting society zero. Ray Coffey sharing that clip, but then saying eventually take kind of pivoted. My problem with crypto is that it instigated a culture which I didn't like. I didn't like the crypto culture as a whole because the culture was based on getting in early, which I mean, I guess you could argue is a skill, but to a degree is luck. Gambling, rug pulls, staying anon, hiding like a little coward in a hole. Once I decided I was going to fix it, I decided I had to come up with an idea that allowed people to make money from the things they should make money from, which is hard work. With Coffey then summarizing this whole rebrand. There it is. The Tates are here to fix crypto. It used to be full of scams, rug pulls, and anons before Andrew Tate got involved. But now

everything's about to change. But Coffey didn't just say, hey, you're being a hypocrite. He then went into Andrew's history with crypto promotions and claimed that he has a history of pumping up coins that later reached massive lows, beginning with a coin called Roos. Honestly, this is your textbook Ponzi coin, exactly the type of thing Tate would call a scam a year ago. But now he and his brother heavily promoted it over multiple videos. With him then going on to claim that while Andrew and his brother Tristan were promoting it, the price did well. But after, the price went down 90%. And then on top of that, its treasury wallet got hacked.

And this is according to CoffeeZilla, Andrew promoted several other coins that later tanked. But then he also said that this pattern, it's not even Andrew's biggest crypto problem. The main project Tate keeps promising, which is real world token. All of those others, if you want to believe Tate, were just promotions. Tate claims that this is the coin he's actually behind. Which if you're unfamiliar or you've forgotten, or you try to purge your mind of anything Andrew Tate related after we cover it,

the real world is Andrew's paid subscription course, which promises mentorship and community building. So this, as many others have likened it to a get rich quick call. And so now you have Coffey saying that Andrew's promising real world tokens to those who stay subscribed to the course. But with the idea being that those who stay on course

will eventually earn profits from the school. So imagine you sign up for the real world. You start to make money. You focus on your tasks. Then you can invest that money in the real world token and get paid every single month, a monthly dividend from the profits of the school. All right.

I think I get it. So you got the people at the bottom. They're paying up into the course, into the school. Then you got the people higher with higher power levels. They're making money from people at the bottom with the coin. And then all that money flows up. It's just kind of this nice little pyramid scheme. With Coffey then notably adding that Andrew had previously said that he was actually working with the SEC on this.

But then he has also said things like, SEC, come from me. I'm in Romania. There ain't no SEC in Romania. We're f***ing scammers. So understandably, a lot of the news is about all of that. But at the same time, another aspect of the situation is the fact that this investigation in this video was coming. Because we knew that this video was going to drop after last week when Andrew tweeted a screenshot of an email Coffees of Lysenum asking for comment on an upcoming story.

You can pause the video to read all the questions. It's just several questions about his crypto habits. And in response, rather than Andrew answering the questions or ignoring it, he basically launched a hate campaign against Coffee. Right, of all the possible things, telling his followers to email him and call him gay. But Andrew then later posting a video saying

that for every person who calls Coffee gay and dislikes his eventual investigation video, he will buy more of a coin he promotes called Daddy. And this is prior to uploading his investigation, Coffee put out a separate video calling Tate out. Legit, I have hundreds of these emails all freaking out, ironically, on behalf of an alpha male who's also freaking out about questions that he refuses to answer, about an investigation that none of them have seen, but they're planning to dislike in advance to own me

and to prove to their daddy that they're gonna be, they're good little boys. Right, and Coffey also addressed all of this in his investigation video as well. Let me just see if I get the plan right here. The plan is dislike and call someone gay so the alpha male you like buys daddy coins for you. You can almost smell the desperation. Get rich quick by hurdling slurs at a journalist.

And as Coffey's videos were coming out, you had Tate tweeting, having the power to randomly pump any coin on the chart is super fun. And adding he wants to pump everyone's bags and give you all money. All of this is you have many seriously doubting Tate's power these days.

Because one, if you look at a lot of the Tate stories these days, or just even social media in general, a lot of Tate being in the news or in the news cycle is him getting ratio. And this is right now, if you use the return YouTube dislikes extension, it shows on CoffeeZilla's video, it has like 183,000 plus likes, but only 1,400 dislikes.

You know, with all this, I gotta ask, what are your thoughts on this whole situation? But then, is Elon Musk buying votes and is he about to single-handedly swing the election? Because there's been a lot of confusion, debate, outrage, and dismissal of how big of a deal all of this is. And while you may or may not have heard all the details about what's going on here,

the thing that probably got the most attention is when he made this announcement at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday. I have a surprise for you, which is that we're going to be awarding a million dollars to, randomly, to people who have signed the petition every day from now until the election. Within a couple of minutes, the first lucky winner was walking up on stage to accept a giant check. But then, a nearly identical scene playing out the next day at a rally near Pittsburgh.

And like Musk said, these people, they apparently signed that petition. And specifically, they signed a petition that says it's in support of the First and Second Amendment set up by Musk's very own Trump super PAC, which also Musk has already given $75 million to himself. But also, here's the thing, right? Not anyone can just sign up, or at least if they want that money. Because according to the website, this program is exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. You know, so the swing states, and they actually get paid just for signing up. In Pennsylvania, they get $100, and voters in other battleground states get $47 per referral. And very notably here, this petition was launched before some of these states' registration

deadlines, including Pennsylvania's, which is today. As far as why more money for Pennsylvania, it's because people are predicting that Pennsylvania might be the most important swing state this year. But then with all this, you have people saying, you know, this isn't about some petition, it's about getting people to vote, as well as making a mass mad dash to gather contact information to support last minute campaigning. And while using petitions to collect data

on potential voters is pretty normal, you have experts saying that everything else about this scheme may make it illegal. And that because federal law makes it a crime for anyone who quote, pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting. It's a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

And in fact, you have people like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro saying that Musk's giveaway was deeply concerning and is something that law enforcement could take a look at. One of the biggest questions at play here is whether or not Musk has really found a loophole. Because the experts, they're divided. You have folks like Brad Smith,

former Republican chairman of the FEC, saying this is something of a gray area, but not that close to the line. Arguing he's not paying them to register to vote, he's paying them to sign a petition. And he wants only people who are registered to vote to sign the petition. Saying, so I think he comes out okay here.

But then this is others say the conditioning, the payouts on being a registered voter in a swing state, it at the very least shows Musk's real intentions. And at the most it could be illegal. With Rick Hasson, for an example, an election law expert at UCLA saying in a blog post that Musk's sweepstakes was clearly illegal vote buys. As well as then David Becker, a former DOJ official

and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research saying, this isn't a particularly close case. This is exactly what the statute was designed to criminalize. But of course, illegal or not, the damage or the impact or whatever you want to call it, it may be done already. With some also speculating here that Musk's banking

on a Trump presidency to shield him from potential prosecution. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens from here and in the meantime, do not forget to vote. I got my early voting out of the way over on Friday. Of course, early voting is underway in a number of states already. If you haven't already, highly recommend you go to vote.org. You can check your registration, register to vote, see what's on your ballot. It's also got this handy dandy section just underneath that where you can select your state. You just boom, click, and it gives you everything

you need to know, including a link to find your polling place, as well as any and all information you might need to vote the way that you want because you know Each state can be different and check in on your like-minded family and friends to make sure they do the same right after today's show I'm going to harass my parents with a smile because they're florida voters and in addition to the presidential race There's important shit that's being voted on this year But then taking a quick break from the news, you know How many of you kicked off 2024 promising to finally turn that passion project into profit launch Launch a business, lucrative side hustle, or just a little hobby that brings in some extra cash.

For me, I'd been wanting to launch a book club for a long time now, and that procrastination recently ended thanks to my friends and the sponsor of today's show, Squarespace. Because y'all, in less than an hour, DeFranco's book club was born and it had a home. Because Squarespace has all the tools

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I mean, we even leveraged Squarespace for our very own daily newsletter, The Daily Dip, where over 50,000 of you beautiful bastards keep up with our coverage in your inboxes, take part in daily polls, giveaways, and now you can even get PDS show notes with sources over there. So why don't you kickstart your own digital space today

with a free trial at squarespace.com slash phil or just scan the QR code on screen. And hey, don't forget to use code phil for 10% off when you're ready to launch. That's squarespace.com slash phil. And then, you know, in the world of politics right now, understandably everyone's focused on the election. Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, the final two weeks of rallies,

final TikToks and photo ops, and finally the discourse about how effective and or staged those things are. But, easy to forget, President Biden is still the president and his administration is still trying to do things. Which brings us to the news today that's very likely gonna get overlooked because of all the noise,

that the Biden administration just introduced a plan that would drastically increase access to contraceptives and other reproductive healthcare for millions and millions of Americans. But just this morning, the administration announcing it had proposed a new rule that would make over-the-counter right OTC family planning methods completely free for people with private health insurance.

And we're talking condoms, spermicides, and emergency contraception like Plan B, as well as the first ever over-the-counter birth control pill, O-Pill, which the FDA approved just last year. And specifically, and a key thing, the proposal would require health insurers to cover these OTC family planning methods,

which would absolutely be a major shift because while Obamacare mandates that most private insurance companies must cover contraception at no cost to the patient, that just applies to prescription birth control. And they currently are not required to pay for OTC alternatives. But also this rule doesn't just impact OTC options,

it also would expand the choices people would have for free prescription birth control. And it does this by requiring insurers to cover all approved drugs, unless they have a therapeutic equivalent that's already being covered, which then makes a much wider selection of birth control pills and IUDs available at no cost.

Right, and all of this coming amid complaints that people seeking certain kinds of birth control can face serious costs because insurers only need to cover one kind of a drug within each category of contraception. But of course, there are many different types of pills, IUDs, and other preventatives in each category. You know, I really cannot emphasize how significant this new rule would be.

I mean, according to the administration, it would significantly increase coverage of contraception without cost sharing for 52 million women of reproductive age with private health insurance, which is why administration officials say that if this rule is finalized, it will represent the most significant expansion of contraception coverage

under the Affordable Care Act since 2012. Though a much bigger deal here is the timing. Because this comes as people have been struggling to access prescription contraceptives since Roe v. Wade was reversed and more than a dozen states banned almost all abortions. With reproductive health advocates saying that it is more important than ever to ensure that these tools are more easily available. Because unfortunately, as we've talked about before, these bans have made being pregnant actively dangerous for everyone. Not just those seeking abortions. I mean, they've made emergency care harder to access and drastically increased maternal mortality rates

in states with bans. Bans have also made it harder for people to access contraceptives. And that, because since Roe was overturned, health clinics and abortion ban states have been forced to close their doors. But those clinics, they didn't just provide access to abortions, they also provided birth control

and preventative care, which is why it's now that much harder for women to get birth control prescriptions filled and prevent pregnancy in states that ban them from getting abortions, they also provided birth control and preventative care, which is why it's now that much harder for women to get birth control prescriptions filled and prevent pregnancy in states that ban them from getting abortions and jeopardize their lives when they do get pregnant. I mean, for example, in the first year since Roe was overturned, Texas, which has a strict ban, they saw a nearly 28% decline in filled prescriptions

for oral contraception. And then beyond all that, far-right conservatives have also been attempting to limit access to some forms of birth control even more by spreading misinformation about how different methods work, like falsely claiming they cause abortion. And even though polls have consistently found widespread bipartisan support for access to contraception,

Republicans have repeatedly voted against measures that enshrine rights to contraception at both the federal and state levels, which is why this new proposal from the Biden administration is being widely viewed as an essential effort to safeguard access. Now, with that said, as far as what happens next, in order for this rule to be implemented,

it first has to go through a 60 day comment period. While it can take months or even years for federal agencies to respond to comments and issue a final version, key officials in the administration say it'll be possible to finalize this policy before the end of his term. Though of course, there is this other little thing

that's happening between then and now, and that's the election. And if Trump were to win, which right now it stands as a 50-50 possibility, it's unclear if they were able to push this through, if Trump would keep the widely supported rule or if he'd roll it back if he assumed office. So for now, we'll have to wait to see

how things continue to play out. But then you wouldn't think that Islamic theocracy and an American biker gang have that much in common, but that's actually what we need to talk about right now. Turns out they both enjoy a little hobby that brings lots of people from all different beliefs and backgrounds together, violence. That thing older than history itself,

whereby one human tries to cause as much damage as possible to another human's body. Gangs, the Iranian government, they love that shit, so they actually make a great team. With in fact, Iran reportedly hiring the Hells Angels, yes, the Hells Angels, as well as other criminal syndicates in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and South America to threaten, murder,

and kidnap its critics abroad. With all of this getting detailed in a new investigation by the Washington Post, right, at least 14 of the 88 assassination, abduction, and other violent plots linked to Iran over the past five years involve these groups, which enables this regime to murder other countries' citizens on other countries' soil,

yet they maintain plausible deniability. Right, and they don't always hire criminals directly. Instead, they work through middlemen, with perhaps most prominently an alleged heroin trafficking kingpin based in Iran by the name of Najeeh Sharifi Zindashti. And he emerged as this top dog from a regional drug war a decade ago.

And since then, he's been tied to multiple killings of journalists, dissidents, and activists, with US criminal charges alleging that he organized a plot to kill an Iranian defector and his wife living under false identities in Maryland. And to pull it off, Zendashdi negotiated a 350K contract with two Hells Angels members, including a full patch member by the name of Damian Ryan.

But unfortunately for this trio, they communicated through an encrypted messaging service known as Sky ECC, which was a popular software among criminals because it disabled their cameras, microphones, and GPS trackers while adding a kill switch to delete incriminating data. But fun little thing, in 2021, international authorities and GPS trackers, while adding a kill switch to delete incriminating data. But, fun little thing, in 2021, international authorities infiltrated the service,

conducting hundreds of raids and arresting dozens of people, including the Hells Angels pair, who were snatched up in Minnesota and Ottawa. Though understand, other times, their plots have succeeded. Right, take for example, Poirier Zarate. He's an Iranian-British journalist for Iran International, the London-based, Saudi-funded satellite

and online news platform that bypasses Iran's censors, which is something that became a real threat to the regime after the killing of Masa Amini in 2022 when it broadcasted footage of protests. So in 2023, a suspected associate of the thieves-in-law in Eastern European Criminal Network flew to London and was caught photographing Iran International's headquarters, which unprompted the outlet

to move its operations to a studio in Washington, where it believed that it would be safer. And Zirati, in in particular was moved in and out of safe houses by London police, given a secret way to signal rescue units and had monitoring devices installed in his home. But after several months, they returned to their London studios

and Zerati came home to his four-story apartment building, with him crossing the street to his car on his way to work one afternoon when a disheveled man caught his eye. Right, that man asking for money, but Zerati kept going and then a second man emerged from behind some foliage, with him then grabbing Zerati's arms, holding him still, while the first man, for money, but Zarate kept going, and then a second man emerged from behind some foliage, with him then grabbing Zarate's arms, holding him still,

while the first man, now smiling broadly, stabbed the journalist's leg repeatedly as he screamed, with him then running away to a getaway car driven by a third man, leaving Zarate bleeding out on the sidewalk, with Zarate, who luckily survived, later telling the BBC that he immediately knew that this attack was political because they didn't take his phones, watch,

AirPods, or wallet, with him also going for his leg rather than his heart or his neck, suggesting that they weren't trying to kill him. Instead, they meant to send a warning. But according to British police, the assailants were not from Iran and had no discernible connection to its security services. So although they've been identified, they're still at large and Iran can deny any involvement. And this is the regime allegedly orchestrated at least five lethal plots in recent years against journalists from Iran International. And you know, outsourcing your covert operations

to criminal proxies like this, it comes with a few upsides besides just making it harder to pin on you. First, great news for bargain hunters. It's relatively cheap to hire criminals. Though, of course, the downside is that they're less professional. But secondly, even if they fail,

the costs are negligible. With a US intelligence analyst telling the Post, rather than putting Iran's own agents at risk, two guys they barely know will spend 20 years in jail. And so the regime feels confident enough to go after everyone, from an exiled journalist in Brooklyn to a women's rights activist in Switzerland to LGBTQ activists in Germany,

with British intelligence and Metropolitan Police reportedly tracking more than 16 plots from Iran over the past two years alone. And, I mean, as you might remember, last month, a Pakistani man with ties to Iran was arrested for allegedly plotting to hire a hitman to kill a politician who appeared to be Donald Trump. With that apparently meant to be revenge

for the former president's order that assassinated the then leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. And however you feel about Donald Trump, you better be glad that plot didn't work. Because at the very least, if it had, we'd be looking at a historic international crisis, possibly even a war. But also like with all this, we need to keep in mind

that even if Iran's gotten more brazen with its use of criminals recently, these assassination plots are not new, right? I mean, according to one count, since 1979, the regime's agents have killed more than 440 Iranians outside its borders. And that's not counting all the non-fatal attempts as well. With the point being, if you are an outspoken critic of the regime,

there are few places where you can feel truly safe. And apparently, even the United States isn't one of them. Then in wild election news and specifically international election news, we gotta talk about Moldova. And for the small percentage of you that do not know about Moldova, which by the way, number one source of Moldovian news,

that's why the people watch me, it's this little country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. And its current president, Maya Sandu, she was elected in 2020 on a pro-European platform. With that then leading to 2022 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country officially applying to join the EU. With the soon after being granted candidate status along with Ukraine, and by 2023, they started talks about what that process would look like. And last May, we saw the Moldovan parliament voting to hold

a referendum on adding EU membership as a strategic goal in the constitution. With that referendum scheduled for the same day as the next presidential election. But while all of that was happening, Russia was making plans to pull Moldova back into its sphere of influence. Because the country's actually been described as a testing ground for Russian hybrid warfare and election interference. And so actually with that, a man by the name of Elon Schor

has been the main conduit for the Kremlin's efforts. He's this Israeli-born pro-Russian Moldovan oligarch who's been sentenced in absentia for stealing nearly $1 billion from Moldovan banks back in 2014. Which just so you understand how insane that is, that was roughly equivalent to 12% of the country's GDP at the time. But before he could be caught, he fled Moldova, spent some time hiding out in Israel, and eventually obtained Russian citizenship. From there, he's just been wreaking havoc. I mean, last month, for example,

he said that he would pay voters the equivalent of $28 for registering with his campaign and more if they voted against the referendum. With then Moldovan police saying a few weeks ago that as many as 130,000 Moldovans may have been bribed. And then last week the authorities announced they had uncovered a program in which hundreds of Moldovan citizens were brought to Russia to learn how to stage riots and other unrest. And then going beyond that,

there's just been a massive disinformation campaign. With some of the big things they're trying to push being that joining the EU would plunge the country into war, or that it would mean kids being brainwashed into becoming gay or transgender, which is an insane thing to say when it would obviously be much easier to do that thanks to RuPaul's Drag Race

and that one episode of The Last of Us. And so, you know, with all this, you actually have multiple US agencies supporting the Moldovan government with its efforts to counter Russian interference. And overall, support for Sandu and a yes on the referendum, it seems strong. But then as the results started coming in,

it wasn't looking good. That is until the votes of Moldova's large and mostly pro-European diaspora started trickling in. And then yes, just barely, it brought the yes vote over the threshold. Within the end, preliminary results showing it was a difference of less than 15,000 votes. But then this also is now top Russian officials

have already tried to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the vote with the Kremlin spokesperson calling the election campaign unfree and saying, the first thing that we see is of course, such mechanical, hard to explain surges in the number of votes for Sandu and referendum participants supporting the integration

in the EU. But of course, it's not hard to explain, I just did it. Right, it's kind of like a different version of mail-in votes being counted later in the US and favoring Democrats. That doesn't mean there's some kind of massive conspiracy. Though of course, the reality of the situation won't stop there from being conspiracy conspiracy and the spreading of it. But then in any case, as far as the presidential election, Sandu came away with around 42% of the

vote. And this is her closest challenger. A pro-Russian candidate earned around 26% of the vote, which means that the two of them will now face off in the second round on November 3rd. And if, as expected, other pro-Russian parties and voters throw their support behind him, this runoff could be exceptionally close. And this notably as Sandu wrote on X before the final outcome was clear, that criminal groups working with foreign forces had attempted to influence Moldovan elections using tens of millions of euros, lies and propaganda.

But they're then going on to say, we have clear evidence that these criminal groups aimed to buy 300,000 boats, a fraud of unprecedented scale. Their objective was to undermine a democratic process. Their intention is to spread fear and panic in the society. But for now, you know, it's not over. We're gonna have to see how that second round goes. And as far as the EU membership, despite the referendum,

it is still years away and it's gonna be a source of tension in the meantime. But that, my friends, brings us to the part where I say, thank you so much for watching. For more news that you need to know that you might've missed, YouTube thinks that you'll like this one. And over here, well, that's just a video of me

info dumping about my fantasy football team to my wife this morning.