The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.11 This just doesn't make any sense...and its scary that more people don't see that.

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Lets talk about key issues with some of these allegations... Go to https://NordVPN.com/phil & use code PHIL to get 68% off a 2-year plan plus 1 additional month free AND a surprise gift!  WATCH My NEW Doctor Mike Podcast!: https://youtu.be/UK9UrckN5HM   Follow me off of Youtube: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco -- WATCH Full “A Convo With” Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/ACW  LISTEN On The Podcast Platform Of Your Choice: http://LinksHole.com WATCH the ACW Clips channel!: https://youtube.com/ACWClips -- 00:00 - Election Fraud Allegations 08:00 - Sponsor 08:55 - COVID Is Spiking Across The Country 12:04 - The Death of Hong Kong's "One Country, Two Systems" -- ✩ SUPPORT THE SHOW ✩ ✭ BUY our GEAR, Support the Show!: http://ShopDeFranco.com ✭ Lemme Touch Your Hair: http://BeautifulBastard.com ✭ Paid Subscription: http://DeFrancoElite.com  ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩  Election Officials Say There Is No Evidence of Voter Fraud: https://roguerocket.com/2020/11/11/postal-worker-recanted/ Cases Increase Across Country: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2020-11-11 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html All of Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy Lawmakers Resign After China Ousts Four Others https://roguerocket.com/2020/11/11/hong-kong-legco/ ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ Governor DeSantis Hires Controversial Figure to Data Analysis Role: https://roguerocket.com/2020/11/11/goc-desantis-data-hire/ U.S. Deports Migrant Women Behind Allegations at Georgia Detention Facility: https://roguerocket.com/2020/11/11/detention-facility-allegations/ ——————————     Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright Produced by: Amanda Morones Art Director: Brian Borst  Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Cory Ray, Neena Pesqueda, Brian Espinoza Production Team: Zack Taylor, Luke Manning  ———————————— #DeFranco #HongKong #Pennsylvania Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So let's just jump into it. Voter fraud. Two words that if you have friends or family that are right wing, and in the last week, there is a 60% chance you've seen those words in all caps. This despite Trump lawsuit after Trump lawsuit failing in court, where we've seen numerous examples of how baseless these Trump lawsuits are.

This despite election officials nationally saying there were no irregularities that affected the outcome. Election officials who are often characterized by people like Ted Cruz as Democrats. You know, we're talking about those lefties, even though that's not really the case. We've seen a number of Republicans in key States, including just this morning,

we heard from Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt, who said he's not seen any evidence of widespread fraud. What evidence of any widespread fraud have you seen in the count in Philadelphia? I have not. If evidence of widespread fraud or evidence of any fraud at all is brought to our attention, we take a look at it and we refer it to law enforcement,

as we always do in every election. I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all and see them spread. And I realize a lot of people are happy about this election and a lot of people are not happy about this election. One thing I can't comprehend is how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true. Also of note there, we saw Schmidt commenting on one of the most popular conspiracy theories about the election.

What information is not true? To be clear. Just the other day, I saw something that had a long list of people that they said were dead voters who voted in Philadelphia. So when we took a break between everything else that we're doing, we looked it up, each one of them, to see what their vote history was. Not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died. It's one of these things that kind of bounces around out there, that echoes around, that people say from one to another, they heard something or they heard from someone

who saw something that they think might have been X, Y, or Z and it's really impossible to keep up with those. Also that note that he ends on is incredibly important because it's like what we've talked about for months now. You have this fire hose of misinformation and lies that has been going nonstop. So it becomes impossible to fact check everything. One spreads far faster than the other.

But also even when you have Republicans like Al Schmitt that are saying, no, this is the reality of the situation. It doesn't matter because almost immediately we saw Donald Trump doing what he always does. He either says, oh, that person was a secret, never Trump, or they're a rhino, right? A Republican in name only. They're not supporting your president,

even though the president spews lies so often. He's not supporting your president. He's not one of the good ones. And then finally in this section, because like I said, it's gonna be impossible to talk about every single ridiculous baseless claim. The final thing that I wanna touch on here is a number of the allegations

that have gotten so much attention, so much traction being shared as definitive proof that the election in a certain state is illegitimate or the results would entirely flip the other way to Donald Trump's favor, even if they were true, would not have that impact. For example, this Project Veritas situation. So if you're unfamiliar, last week, Richard Hopkins,

a US Postal Service employee in Erie, Pennsylvania, claimed that his supervisors were backdating ballots that were sent in after election day. But then, this week we see reports that he recanted his statements in interviews with investigators, with him then last night claiming, no, he didn't go back on his statement

in another video posted by Project Veritas that has also been flagged by Twitter as a disputed claim about election fraud, with him saying, I'm here to say that I did not recant my statements. That did not happen. That is not what happened. That video also gets retweeted by President Trump. Of course, so many people see it.

Also in an update, you had Project Veritas posting what they said was the full raw and unedited audio from Hopkins' interview with the federal investigators. Some pointing to moments where the employee says that the original affidavit that he signed was actually written by Project Veritas' lawyers and that he didn't feel 100% comfortable with it. Then agreeing that he will voluntarily work with the investigators to amend it. But you had James O'Keefe of Project Veritas saying that and that he didn't feel 100% comfortable with it. Then agreeing that he will voluntarily work

with the investigators to amend it. Oh, you had James O'Keefe of Project Veritas saying that it was showing coercion tactics were used by federal agents to force him to alter his story. So because there's this argument over the validity of his claims, I'm not gonna even do what you think I'm gonna do.

I'm not gonna say that this guy is lying. I'm not gonna say that maybe he was confused, he misunderstood the situation. Let's say what he is saying is true. Not truly saying that's the case, but for the sake of argument. Because no one is saying that voter fraud never happens. It's just that it is incredibly rare and not widespread

in any way that could actually affect a national election. Okay, but main thing, right? The allegation is that employees at the Erie Postal Service facility were backdating mail-in ballots that arrived after election day. And that would be notable in Pennsylvania because the state decided,

"'Hey, as long as you mail this ballot on November 3rd, we can still receive it by Friday. Election day was Tuesday, but hey, if it comes in the mail by Friday, it'll count. But if you mailed it after the third, right, the fourth or the fifth, that vote is not gonna count. So the allegation is that votes that should not have counted are being counted.

Now immediately using the largest numbers we can use with this story, we can see that it will not impact the Pennsylvania election. And that's because Pennsylvania officials announced yesterday that only 10,000 ballots arrived after election day. With Erie County election officials also saying that just 129 of those late arriving ballots

came from voters in the county. So even if we said the exact opposite of reality, right? We talked about it as incredibly rare to see any sort of voter fraud. Let's say it is guaranteed a 100% fraud rate. Every postal worker committing crimes after election day still wouldn't be enough to change the results in Pennsylvania because Joe Biden has an around right now

47,000 vote lead. And we can also be confident about that 10,000 number because the Supreme Court actually ordered Pennsylvania officials last Friday to segregate mail-in ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. on election day. Then let's hone in on and get more specific regarding these specific allegations. Because remember, thus far,

we have only talked about statewide. What would it look like? What would it be like if every single postal worker was committing the fraud that was being alleged here? Because when we look closer, right, and we look at the reporting from local news, which by the way, no matter where you are, please support your local news.

It is dying out there and it is so incredibly important for even national coverage. But when we look closer, we see the Erie Times News on Tuesday morning reviewing the only 129 mail-in ballots that Erie County election officials said were postmarked November 3rd, but arrived at the Erie County Board of Elections

after election day. A review which they conducted in the presence of Erie County Board of Elections chairman, Carl Anderson, as well as others. What they found is that of those 129 ballots, only two were postmarked November 3rd and were processed through the Erie Postal Facility where Hopkins worked.

All right, so understand with this allegation, we're not talking about even 10,000 ballots. We're not talking about 129 ballots. We are talking about two ballots. Once again, in this hypothetical exercise, I'm not saying the US postal worker is lying and I'm not saying that he's misunderstanding the situation. I'm saying, what if what he's saying is true?

Because that would also mean that these postal employees were committing electoral fraud on two ballots they didn't know who the votes were going to. And here, it just doesn't feel like it makes any sense. Of the late arriving ballots that went through the Erie facility, two were postmarked November 3rd, but nine were postmarked the 4th or later.

So the question there becomes, as actually a reporter for the Erie Times News explains, let's say Hopkins is telling the truth. The question then is why would the Erie Postmaster and others backdate two ballots and not the other nine without knowing which candidate received any of the votes on those ballots in the first place? Especially when all those 129 late arriving ballots

in the county were incredibly split. With reportedly Biden getting 62, Trump getting 58, Jorgensen eight with two right ends. And so we say all of that to bring it back down to one, if we say this guy is telling the truth, we're talking about potentially two impacted votes, but also two, to leave this hypothetical exercise, a lot of the explanations and the thought process

that would go into committing this kind of fraud don't seem to make sense. And finally three, so far it appears that there is zero proof these are unsubstantiated claims and that's where we are with it for now. But also see how much longer that took to explain than just making a claim and posting it somewhere. And that's why I'm incredibly concerned

not only of the distrust and the damage that we're gonna see from here to January 20th but what the hell our future looks like. But then jumping back to the news, let's talk about the thing that Donald Trump said was going to disappear numerous times over the past however many months and said on November 4th that the media

would no longer talk about it, the coronavirus. But it has not disappeared. And now after November 4th, we are still having to talk about it because, I mean, Donald Trump was right. We were rounding a corner. He just didn't tell us into a wall. Coronavirus has now infected over 10.3 million Americans,

killed 240,000 of us, and actually yesterday, we broke another record. Yesterday, the United States recorded 139,855 cases. According to the data and the reports that we're seeing, over the past week, there has been an average of 123,315 cases per day, which is an increase of 69% compared to the average two weeks earlier. Also, one of the key numbers here involves hospitalizations

where right now, according to the COVID tracking project, currently 62,000 Americans are hospitalized. That is a record for our country, which makes sense because on top of that, 17 states have reported single day record hospitalization. And while the level of bad, of course, is different state to state, I mean, one of the places

that's looking kind of grim right now, you've got Texas becoming the first state to hit over 1 million cases in a single state. Also, it's especially severe in El Paso. There we're seeing reports that tents are being set up so patients can be cared for in parking lots. Convention center became a field hospital. And in some cases, ICU patients were airlifted

to other cities to free up space. The city also having to more than double the amount of mobile morgues that it has. Also in North Carolina, there's a shortage of healthcare workers and hospitals are at full capacity. And actually because of that, the state's governor is allowing healthcare workers

who have tested positive for COVID-19, but are asymptomatic to continue working in COVID units at hospitals and nursing homes. And of course, with all this news, we're seeing some states ramping up restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease. On Sunday, we saw Utah governor Gary Herbert announcing a state of emergency.

Our hospitals are full. This threatens patients who rely on hospital care, from everything from COVID-19 to emergencies like heart attacks, strokes, surgeries, and trauma. We must work together to keep infections low until a vaccine is available. And as a part of that emergency declaration, the entire state is now under a mask mandate. Meaning, businesses must require their employees to wear masks and to tell customers to wear them as well, and those who do not will be subject to fines. People in Utah are also not allowed to host

or attend social gatherings for those outside of their household for the next two weeks, among other limitations. In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds announced new restrictions that take effect today, which prohibit indoor events of 25 people or more or outdoor events of 100 people or more unless everyone over the age of two wears a mask. Also you're seeing things like at restaurants there,

groups will be limited to eight people and masks will be required at certain businesses like salons, barbershops. Then we saw on a national level, the Centers for Disease Control updating their mask recommendation to say that masks are not just to protect others, but in fact, you are also protecting yourself

by wearing one. With them noting that masks with multiple layers of cloth with higher thread counts have demonstrated superior performance compared to single layers of cloth with lower thread count. With them adding, adopting universal masking policies can help avert future lockdowns, especially if combined

with other non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing, hand hygiene, and adequate ventilation. And I mean, for now that's where this story ends, though it's not where it ends because you're still living it. And while of course, yesterday we did get some hopeful news regarding the possibility of a vaccine,

it's not a now thing. We still have to live through and get there. And even with that, as so many experts have said, we need to care about mass. But I feel like for the most part with this, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir on this topic, which is why I'll move to the final story today, the continuing erosion and death of democracy in Hong Kong.

And the specific reason we're talking about Hong Kong today is because the city is now set to lose nearly 20 pro-democracy members in its top legislative body, that being the Legislative Council or LegCo for short. And that is because earlier today, a committee within the National People's Congress, right, China's top legislative body, passed a resolution targeting

pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong. With that resolution saying that any lawmakers who support Hong Kong independence refuse to acknowledge China's sovereignty over the city, threaten national security, or ask external forces to interfere in the city's affairs should be disqualified. And of course, as a reminder here, back in June,

China passed a national security law aimed at cracking down on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And since then, China has effectively taken control of the region, even though it was supposed to remain autonomous until 2047. Now, going back to this newest resolution aimed at Hong Kong's lawmakers, I mean, just minutes after it was passed,

we saw the Hong Kong government announcing that it would be disqualifying for legislators in LegCo, effective immediately. This for what they called endangering national security, AKA, we've been looking for a way to get rid of you. And for these four, I mean, it was really just the further hammering in. I mean, all four had already been barred

from running for reelection because back in July, they called on foreign governments to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong. But still, even with this, you had one of those now disqualified lawmakers, Dennis Kwok saying, "'If observing due process, "'protecting systems and functions,

"'fighting for democracy and human rights "'would lead to the consequences of being disqualified, "'it would be my honor.'" Now with this ousting, this purge, that left 58 members in LegCo, 15 of which were democracy lawmakers. However, just hours after those first four were disqualified, we then saw every single pro-democracy lawmaker in LegCo, 15 of which were democracy lawmakers. However, just hours after those first four were disqualified, we then saw every single pro-democracy lawmaker in LegCo

announcing they would resign beginning tomorrow. Meaning what already felt inevitable is just around the corner. LegCo will soon be completely stacked with Beijing loyalists. Which is why we saw the chair of Hong Kong's Democratic Party saying, There are separation of power in the under the stipulation of the basic law.

But today the decision made by the central government simply say that all the separation of power will be taken away and all the power will be centralized in the chief executive. Of course, chief executive is the puppet of the central government. And later adding, we can no longer tell the world that we still have one country, two systems. This declares its official death. And as far as the other side here,

as far as what that puppet, chief executive Carrie Lam had to say, I mean, look, it's all propaganda. Lam saying she welcomes diverse opinion in LegCo, but also saying that the law had to be applied. Going on to deny that LegCo is essentially about to become a rubber stamp parliament, right? A government and a body that will essentially pass

anything Beijing tells it to, with Lam saying, there are many occasions, even among the so-called pro-establishment members, that our proposals did not get through. But I mean, hell, at the same time, even China's representative office in Hong Kong was far more transparent, saying the city must be ruled by loyalists.

Now, with all that said, you might have the question of, well, why did those other 15 resign? Isn't it more important to still have players in the system? But there, as Reuters points out, Stang could have been perceived by their supporters as legitimizing Beijing's move and led to discord, which is why this move appears to be a display of unity. In fact, we even saw them announcing the resignations

while holding hands. Together we stand! Together we stand! But still, that show of unity doesn't take away the fact that this is a very dark day for Hong Kong. It's something we've been expecting for a while. I mean, especially once that national security law went into effect with China arresting protestors,

arresting journalists, raiding newsrooms, instituting propaganda into schools. And unfortunately, we just add this to the ever-growing number of examples that we have that the Chinese Communist Party is the monster so many people say that it is. And, you know, I think oddly enough, this story serves as an unintended warning.

Do not take democracy for granted. Do not get complacent and always remember it is worth fighting for. And with that note, that is where I'm gonna end today's show. As always, thanks for being a part of my daily dives into the news. If you're new here, definitely hit that subscribe button. And no matter what, if you want,

maybe text me at 813-213-4423. 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.