The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.21 Super Messy Chris Pratt Backlash Controversy, AOC, 545 Missing Children, & More

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Wednesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show. Buckle up, hit that like button, otherwise it will absolutely destroy your windpipe. That accidentally came out a little more aggressive than intended, but with that said, let's just jump into it. And the first thing that we're going to talk about today is this Chris Pratt situation, because internet, you made the Avengers actually assemble. Okay, so this situation actually began last Saturday. And that's when someone on the internet sent out a tweet saying, hey, pick a famous Chris to get rid of with a ton of people going with Pratt. And as far as why a lot of people chose Pratt, I mean, you had people giving a number of different reasons, but also a decent number of them gravitating towards

they believe that he is a Trump supporter. And the thing is there, you know, his political views are not exactly clear, though many believe that at the very least he is conservative. With several people pointing out things like he wasn't on the list of Avengers stars who were hosting a virtual fundraiser to support Joe Biden.

That list including the likes of Don Cheadle, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr. and Zoe Saldana. With others pointing to and saying that Pratt supports an anti-LGBTQ church. And there, if you don't remember, that claim actually picked up last year when actress Ellen Page famously accused Hillsong Church

in Los Angeles of being anti-LGBTQ. Though there later Pratt claimed that claim was absolutely untrue, saying that the church opens their doors to absolutely everyone. But also with him saying, My faith is important to me, but no church defines me or my life, and I am not a spokesperson for any church or group of people. He also recently kind of mocked and made jokes about other celebrities telling people to vote, writing in an Instagram post, The heroes before us did not spill their blood to only have their sacrifices wasted by your apathy. "'The upcoming 2020 People's Choice Awards "'is the most consequential vote in the history of mankind

"'times a million infinity. "'Vote for Onward for Family Movie of the Year or else. "'You will die, no hyperbole.'" You know, on the other side of this big discussion of where Chris Pratt stands, we saw reports from CNN saying that he donated money to Barack Obama's campaign back in 2012. Also, his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt,

who's the daughter of former Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has notably shown support for Biden. But it's unclear if Chris shares the same views. I will say, I've always taken him as kind of an independent libertarian type. He is also, if we look into it, on the record saying he doesn't support either political party.

Back in 2017 saying, "'I don't feel represented by either side. "'I really feel there's common ground out there "'that's missed because we focus "'on the things that separate us.'" But also, Pratt don't feel represented by either side. "'I really feel there's common ground out there "'that's missed because we focus on the things "'that separate us.'" But also, Pride hasn't come out either to confirm or deny anything, show support for one or the other. You know, for a lot of people,

especially in 2020, being silent is a stance. Where you have a lot of people who will look to a person in a position of power, not utilizing it, and go, oh, well that says that they're kind of okay with the status quo, what's happening. It is a show of support. Though, of course, whatever that person actually stands for is not known because they may be doing a bunch of stuff

behind the scenes. But what we eventually see here is a number of people on the internet turning this dislike of Chris Pratt into somewhat of a meme. Right, jokes at his expense, referring to him as the worst Chris. And eventually with this backlash and this mockery, we saw the Avengers assemble.

Marvel co-stars coming to defend him, like Mark Ruffalo who tweeted, "'You all, Chris Pratt is as solid a man there is. "'I him personally and instead of casting aspersions, look at how he lives his life. He is just not overtly political as a rule. This is a distraction. Let's keep our eyes on the prize, friends. We are so close now. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn writing, sorry, just finding out about this nonsense. Chris Pratt is the best dude in the world. I've spent hours and hours sharing my deepest truths with this man as he has with me. Please stop assuming what he believes politically or in any other way because he's a

Christian. Zoe Saldana quoting Tupac and then saying, you got this, Chris Pratt. Your family, friends, colleagues, and everyone who's ever crossed paths with you knows your heart and your worth. Robert Downey Jr. also sharing a photo with Pratt and saying, if you take issue with Chris, I've got a novel idea. Delete your social media accounts, sit with your own defects of character, work on them, then celebrate your humanness. At Pratt, Pratt, Pratt, I got your back, back, back. Well, yes, we did see a lot of support for those actors, their messaging and their support of Chris here.

We also saw a lot of people taking issue with it, sparking a debate, accusations of hypocrisy, with many pointing to when women and actors of color joined the MCU, they faced bullying and harassment online. There was essentially silence for most of the co-stars. Right, people pointing to the treatment of Brie Larson, Anthony Mackie, Tessa Thompson, Zendaya. Right, people saying they endured bullying,

racist remarks, even death threats without the same kind of quick support that Pratt received. But ultimately, that is where this story ends right now. And as far as my opinion, I'm gonna kinda repeat something here and expand on it. You know, yesterday, while talking about James Charles, I said you cannot bully someone into activism. By doing that, you ultimately create

this hollow no-win situation. And to add onto that with this story, I also think that if you attack someone for not sharing their political affiliation, not sharing their political feelings, it has a high probability of backfiring on you. And understand, I say all of that as someone that's been actually very, very happy

seeing how many more people this year have felt comfortable sharing their opinions on politics, on this election, being more outspoken, even though they're very likely going to lose followers. But simply put, you're not gonna win hearts and minds by attacking someone for not joining your cause publicly. And once again, understand I say this as someone that, yes, I think if you're someone that's like,

I don't care about politics, that usually falls in one of two camps. You're either incredibly privileged to have that opinion because you know it's not gonna really impact you or people you care about that much, or, and I think this is often the case, there are a lot of people that are exhausted and feel defeated by the political system.

They have the mindset of shit's fucked, always gonna be fucked. And I think sometimes those people end up getting inaccurately accused of being privileged. Yeah, I guess to oversimplify things, I think when it comes to a situation like this, it's a healthier alternative to choose the carrot over the stick. Try to build,plify things, I think when it comes to a situation like this, it's a healthier alternative to choose the carrot over the stick.

I try to build, empower, grow, support what you see as the good that is happening in the world rather than kind of tearing down someone else's building. But yeah, with that said, I do wanna pass the question off to you. It actually feels like there were kind of three questions here.

One, what are your thoughts on this Chris Pratt situation in general? Two, what are your thoughts here regarding the criticisms and allegations that you're seeing castmates being hypocritical? And more showing support here rather than in those other cases that they mentioned. And three, in 2020? Two, what are your thoughts here regarding the criticisms and allegations that you're seeing castmates being hypocritical? Right, more showing support here rather than in those other cases that they mentioned. And three, in 2020, right, in these divisive times,

what are your thoughts when someone says, I don't care about politics? Do you think that that makes sense? Yeah, I get it. Or do you think that comes from a very telling place or a privileged position? Any and all thoughts you have on this topic, I'd love to see in those comments down below.

Then let's talk about an update to a story we covered yesterday that seemingly came out of nowhere then became big international news. And that of course being representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her first ever Twitch stream last night. Although it really was much more of that

and could show kind of the evolution of campaigning in the future. Right, so if you missed it, I mentioned yesterday that AOC was planning to play Among Us with some big internet stars in an effort to encourage voting. We saw a ton of creators reach out and we ended up seeing her play it with a ton of them.

With that full list, including people we mentioned yesterday like Pokimane, Hasan Piker, Jacksepticeye, as well as Valkyrae, who according to reports is the fastest growing streamer in the world, corpse husband, moist critical, as well as representative Ilhan Omar and her daughter. And as far as the stream itself, it went on for more than three hours,

pulling in very impressive numbers, with reports saying that she peaked at over 435,000 concurrent viewers, meaning that this is the third highest individual stream by viewership in Twitch history, only behind that Ninja Drake collab, around 628,000, Shroud's return, 500,000. But also this situation with AOC's stream

is a little bit different because those were only the numbers from her individual channel Right part of the reason why among us is such a big hit and why AOC's concurrent numbers probably were much much higher You can have ten people in a game and oftentimes all of those people are streaming So there were multiple streams last night with hundreds of thousands of people watching those other streams last night And while it is very interesting to see those numbers and I very much look forward to seeing the number of people in total That went to these streams. I think the success of this stream highlights

another evolution of politics. One, because yes, you could look at this as just a massive stream, but you could also look at this as one of the biggest get out the vote efforts we've ever seen. That was a big part of why she said she was doing this stream and during the stream she's saying, "'Register, vote, vote early.'"

And two, as odd as this situation may have hit your ears when you first heard about it before it happened, it also does make sense. I mean, think about how many times during an election cycle do you hear things like, a lot of this kind of comes down to could I have a beer with that candidate? Right, that whole idea is I wanna get to know you as a person, do I like you as another human being?

And sitting down to play video games with another person is how a lot of people get to know one another now. And it'll be interesting to see not only what AOC does, but now that she's kind of kicked the door open for other representatives, what does that look like for others? And then let's talk about this major update regarding immigration and family separation.

So yesterday, if you looked in news sites, you may have seen headlines saying that lawyers could not find or reach the parents of 545 children who had been separated at the US-Mexico border. And that is a pretty big deal, but also before we get into the details of the search efforts for the parents,

let's talk about the context of this. How these parents and children got to be separated with no real way to contact one another to begin with. So if you're unaware, thousands of families were separated back in 2018 under President Trump's zero tolerance policy, but a federal judge ordered that those families should be reunited and within weeks, many were.

But the reality is that there are actually many more families who were separated because we later learned that the Trump administration was actually already separating families in a 2017 pilot program. And under that pilot program, as the Washington Post reports, US officials were taking incomplete or inaccurate data from families and parents, with some parents being deported without being given the option of reuniting with their kids

in the United States, right? And so it was not ordered that families separated during the pilot program be reunited until last year. And so with all that time passing and much of the information of the parents being outdated or wrong, actually getting those families back together was easier said than done. But with this order, a steering committee,

which includes the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations was created to find those families and is required to give updates on their status, which brings us to the latest news here. Yesterday, we had representatives for the US Justice Department and ACLU filing an update on the search for these parents in court. And according to that filing,

the government provided a list of 1,556 children and the focus is on currently reaching children whose membership in this case is not contested and who have available contact information for a sponsor or parent. And as of yesterday, the steering committee has attempted to reach the families of all 1,030 children who fit that bill and have successfully reached the parents

or their attorneys for 485 kids. But math, that still leaves the 545 children whose parents have yet to be found or contacted. With two thirds of those parents expected to be in their respective country of origin. There have been efforts to contact these families via phone, but those have not been successful and are not expected to be successful.

There are also other efforts though, to find and contact these parents that are in the works. And actually regarding this, you had Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project telling NBC News, there is so much more work to be done to find these families. People ask when we will find all of these families. And sadly, I can't give an answer. I just don't know, but we will not stop looking until we have found every one of the families, no matter how long it takes. The tragic reality is that hundreds of parents were deported to Central America without their children who remain here with foster families or distant relatives.

And like was said earlier, finding these parents is a very difficult task. With Nan Chavone, the legal director for Justice In Motion, which carries out on the ground searches for parents, explaining some of this process to the post, saying that attorneys take the minimal, often inaccurate or out of date information provided by the government and do in-person investigations

to find these parents, which is an arduous and time consuming process on a good day. With the report noting that these people are traveling to remote mountainous villages where outsiders might be suspect, where there might be language barriers. The task has also grown much, much harder

during this pandemic, right? Think about it, you have curfews and lockdown rules, essentially stopping justice in motion from being able to take on these efforts. Though in yesterday's filing, we did see the steering committee say that limited physical on the ground searches for separated parents has now resumed

where possible to do so. With efforts to protect the health of these workers, as well as the communities in these various countries being a priority. And on top of the search efforts for the parents, there's also one for the children, right? According to NPR, for the most part, these children initially went into a shelter system

before being placed with sponsors. But Gelernt also told NPR about 360 of the children. Right, according to NPR, for the most part, these children initially went into a shelter system before being placed with sponsors. But Gelernt also told NPR about 360 of the children that have still not been located, with other reports saying that those kids are likely still in the United States. And while reuniting these families may take a long time and involve incredibly complicated work, the matter is still very pressing.

With Gelernt telling NPR, "'Some of these children were just babies "'when they were separated. "'Some of these children may have now been separated "'for more than half of their lives. Almost their whole life, they have not been with their parents. But ultimately that is where we are with this story.

As of right now, we're gonna keep our eyes on any updates, but I do wanna pass a question off to you. What are your thoughts on this? Then let's talk about Purdue, Pharma, and the opioid epidemic. Because just this morning, we got the breaking news that Purdue is now set to plead guilty to three criminal charges related

to fueling the country's opioid epidemic. Notably, those guilty pleas come as part of a massive settlement worth more than $8 billion. And for some context here, Purdue is the manufacturer of OxyContin, right? It is a powerful and addictive painkiller that's believed to have driven the opioid crisis.

Right, for reference, since 2000, opioid addiction and overdoses have been linked to more than 470,000 deaths. And so with this settlement, which is the highest profile display yet of the federal government holding a major drug maker accountable for the opioid crisis, Purdue will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy

to defraud the United States, with Purdue admitting that it impeded the Drug Enforcement Administration by falsely representing that it had maintained an effective program to avoid opioid misuse, as well as admitting that it had reported misleading information to the DEA to boost its manufacturing quotas,

both of which are notable because Purdue had told the DEA that it had robust controls to avoid opioid misuse. But in fact, instead, according to the Justice Department, it had disregarded red flags their own systems were sending up. Along with that, Purdue will also plead guilty to two anti-kickback or bribery-related charges, with it admitting to violating federal law

by paying doctors to write more opioid prescriptions, as well as admitting to using electronic health record software to drive up opioid prescriptions. With the plea deal reading that Purdue knowingly and intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid and abet the dispensing of medication from doctors without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice.

Now, like I also mentioned, those pleas are part of a more than $8 billion in settlements, which will be split several different ways. In one deal, the Sackler family, which owns Purdue, will pay $225 million to resolve civil fines. And as part of the main deal, another 225 million will go directly to the federal government in a larger $2 billion criminal forfeiture.

However, the government is also expected to forego the rest of the figure. In addition to that, $2.8 billion would go to resolving Purdue's civil liability and another 3.54 billion will go to criminal fines. But, and it is a big but, because Purdue actually filed bankruptcy last year, those figures also likely will not be fully collected

as the government will now have to compete with other claims against Purdue in bankruptcy court. And actually on that note, since Purdue is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, a bankruptcy court will also need to approve the settlement. But according to Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, the agreed resolution, if approved by the courts, will require that the company be dissolved

and no longer exist in its present form. However, that does not mean that Purdue is fully gone or that it will even stop making OxyContin. In fact, as part of this settlement, the Sacklers would relinquish ownership of Purdue and it would then transform into what is known as a public benefit company. Essentially meaning that it would be run by the government

with money from limited Oxycontin sales as well as from sales of several overdose reversing medications being pumped back into treatment initiatives and other drug programs aimed at combating the opioid crisis. And for its part, the Justice Department has endorsed this model. However, we have also seen a lot of pushback on this deal,

including from state attorneys general and Democrat members of Congress who say it does not go far enough, arguing that it does not hold Purdue or the Sackler family fully accountable, especially the Sacklers, because unlike Purdue, they do not have to admit any wrongdoing here, with New York Attorney General Letitia James saying,

"'While our country continues to recover "'from the pain and destruction left by the Sacklers' greed, "'this family has attempted to evade responsibility "'and lowball the millions of victims "'of the opioid crisis. "'Today's deal doesn't and lowball the millions of victims of the opioid crisis. Today's deal doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands of deaths or millions of addictions caused by Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.

Also a coalition of 38 democratic members of Congress saying in a statement to Attorney General Bill Barr, if the only practical consequence of your department's investigation is that a handful of billionaires are made slightly less rich, we fear that the American people will lose faith in the ability of the department to provide accountability and equal justice under the law."

Though, here, while this settlement does not include any convictions against the Sacklers specifically, as the Justice Department noted, it also doesn't release them from criminal liability and a separate criminal investigation is ongoing. But still, in addition to all those other people speaking out you also have 25 state attorneys general

asking Barr not to make a deal that includes converting Purdue into a public benefit company, urging the Justice Department to avoid having special ties to an opioid company, conflicts of interest, or mixed motives in an industry that caused a national crisis. Essentially saying you can't run this new company

while also holding the original one accountable. With those attorneys general instead arguing that Purdue should be privately run, but with government oversight. But ultimately that is where we are with this. And like I said, we're gonna have to wait and see if this settlement is finalized in bankruptcy court. But with where we are right now,

do you think that this is any kind of justice served? Is this a meaningful penalty, a meaningful punishment? Will we see more happen? Or is this kind of just more of the same of what we've seen from big industries? That penalties are just part of doing business for these companies. They're essentially thought of as almost taxes

to do predatory and horrible things. Because as I often do with stories like this, I personally am left unfulfilled, feeling like there is no real justice here. If someone's caught pushing Oxy on the street, you're talking jail time. But if you break the law at a high enough level and it is incredibly profitable,

even if you caused so much more damage, like an almost unthinkable, if you're trying to make a comparison, amount of damage, you get to substitute years in prison and accountability with money. And it feels like yet another example that if you live in the United States, yes, we live in the same country,

but also do we really live in the same country? Do we actually live by the same set of rules? And I think if you're paying attention, the answer is an obvious no. Hey, like with everything we talk about, whether you agree or disagree with me, I'd love to know your thoughts. And that my friends is where I'm going to end today's show.

As always, thank you for being a part of my little family that cares about the news. Also, if you're new here, you wanna join, hit that subscribe button, maybe tap that bell. And hey, if you're in the US or Canada, give me a text at 813-213-4423. Also two people on the text line, thanks for being a part of that little secret thing

we did yesterday. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.