The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.13 WOW! Liza Koshy Leads The Way, CNN Sues Trump, & Jeff Bezos Makes Them Work For It

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today, we're gonna start off light. We had Forbes releasing their annual 30 under 30, lists that are meant to feature and honor trailblazers from a number of industries, also as a way to incorporate those people into a singular article that will get shared and get a ton of clicks. Well, we saw a number of faces that we already know from the mainstream, people like Blake Griffin, people like actor, Timothée Chalamet. We've also seen digital stars who have also stayed in the digital realm who have broken into the mainstream. People like Tyler Ninja Blevins making the list.

People like the fantastic Liza Koshy who's been every damn where. But with this list, another thing that stood out to me because it wasn't all just kind of me continuing my cheerleading of digital breaking into the mainstream. It was their consolidation and breakdown of the people that they included, which I believe there was around 600,

because they have all these different categories. It said they work an average of 67 hours per week. 31% decided what they wanted to do for a career during university. 22 decided as a child. 10 are still deciding, which I will say I appreciate. The companies they most admire on average in order, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Tesla, Patagonia, Stripe,

top mentors, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Richard Branson. And they said the most important trait for entrepreneurs, 41% said grit, 19% said passion, 16% said vision. And what I'll say is there's a lot on this list that I get. There is some on this list that I love, but there are also little bits that I'm concerned about. And I think in large part, the concern comes from,

it's not even any more kind of this romantic idea of hustle. I like this idea that if you wanna win, you gotta like nearly kill yourself with work. And I will admit for a very long time, I was a backer of this idea. I was part of the cult of exhaustion. I see 41% of the group mentioning grit, right? Strength of character.

And while I think some people are just saying, you know, you have to believe in yourself, you have to be able to deal with the hard times, which I think is true. I also feel that some, and I could be wrong wrong here some I think are then tying that to the 67 hours a week average which keep in mind if we're talking about averages There are people that work even more than that what I would personally say around that because I'm not I'm not gonna try and dissuade You from the hustle just understand what is and is not sustainable

Bustin ass believe in yourself going towards your dreams that is incredibly important But if you're doing it to the detriment of your personal relationships, your sleep, that is not okay. It's one of the reasons why you're seeing more and more successful people not just talk about, you know, believing in what you're doing, but also not doing anything. Jeff Bezos, who actually we're gonna talk about again in a minute, he's both on this list as an ideal mentor and as one of the massively successful CEOs that has said, you know what's the most important thing? Sleep. And I would go a step further in saying just taking time to just not do anything. Bezos has expanded on this note saying, mostly as any of us go through our lives,

we don't need to maximize the number of decisions we make per day. Making a small number of key decisions well is more important than making a large number of decisions. If you shortchange your sleep, you might get a couple of extra productive hours, but that productivity might be an illusion. When you're talking about decisions and interactions, quality is usually more important than quantity. And backing up Bezos here, we even have pieces like this one from Harvard Business Review saying there's a proven link between effective leadership and getting enough sleep. And an argument that we also see here is that a lack of sleep leads to more burnout. Which, whether we're talking about

business leaders or YouTubers like Lilly Singh just recently put out a video where she said, you know, I'm stopping for now. I need to think about my mental health. I love looking through the comments and seeing the amount of support there. And so if you're watching right now and you're someone that already has an established job or you're one of the younger people that I know that we have a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience or whoever, or maybe you're a fellow creator. Once again, understand I'm not saying do not bust your ass, but do understand that life is a marathon, whatever you're doing, that is a marathon. You need to come up with something that is sustainable. If you don't, all you're doing in your unsustainable pursuit of success is guaranteeing your failure. And big note, this advice is still for people that are like, well if you do something you love, it's not work.

Yes, it is. Give it a few months, a few years, a decade or two. But also the final thing that I want to hit on this note, along with congratulations to everyone that made this list, is that my portion of this story is my personal viewpoint of the world, what I've personally witnessed and what I've personally experienced. And if that's helpful to just one, two, or three of you talking about this, it's a win in my eyes.

And then let's talk about the massive news around Amazon. You might remember that back in 2017, Amazon announced that it would be establishing a second headquarters. And at that time, Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, even said that we expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters. Amazon promising to hire as many as 50,000 new workers

with an average annual salary of $100,000. The company also estimating that the project would require over $5 billion of capital investment over the initial 15 to 17 years of the project. And as part of this announcement, you might remember, the company also released a request for a proposal asking cities Around the country to submit bids right so essentially saying you want some HQ2 deep inside you?

Tell us why you're worth it That is the that is the most inappropriate way to explain that but I'm sticking with it. A main point a ton of cities submitted Reportedly there were 238 proposals then back in January Amazon released a list of 20 finalists And also a big thing to note is that with these proposals, the proposals weren't like, we are a great place. No, you had things like Raleigh, North Carolina offering to give Amazon up to $50 million for HQ2's infrastructure. Right, news popped up that the California governor's office

reportedly told Amazon that they would give the company $300 million in tax breaks if they picked LA. And if you're like, wow, $300 million, that's crazy. No, that's nothing. According to reports, Philadelphia reportedly considered a tax exemption worth $2 billion over 10 years. You had Columbus assembling a package of refunds and tax abatements worth 2.3 billion over 15 years.

New Jersey offered 7 billion in tax breaks over 10 years if they pick newer. And finally, you had Montgomery County, Maryland with $6.5 billion in tax incentives and an additional $2 billion in infrastructure and transportation improvements. And then finally today after after a 14-month process, Amazon officially announced the winners of the HQ2 sweepstakes. The winners were Long Island City in Queens, New York, and the Crystal City neighborhood

in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., which reportedly Amazon is calling National Landing. According to Amazon, the company will be receiving $1.525 billion in performance-based incentives from New York State, this reportedly including $48,000 per job it creates over the next 10 years. Also reportedly, they'll be receiving a break from property taxes in exchange for donating space on its campus for a tech startup incubator. And then in Arlington, the company will reportedly be receiving $573 million in state and local incentives, including $22,000 per job it creates over the next 12 years. And following this news, you have a good number of people that are excited and happy and then also a lot of people that are being critical. You have New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying quote,

When I took office I said we would build a new New York State, one that is fiscally responsible and fosters a business climate that is attractive to growing companies and the industries of tomorrow. We've delivered on those promises and more. And you had Virginia Governor Ralph Northam saying, This is a big win for Virginia. I'm proud Amazon recognizes the tremendous assets the Commonwealth has to offer and plans to deepen its roots here. But on the other side, the critical side, there were people bringing up a bunch of different points. You had some people pointing out that the company chose locations that are already extremely wealthy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average wage in Arlington is $100,100 a year. Also, the average wage in Manhattan is $160,500.

Although, to be fair here, if you look at only Queens, the average wage is only $55,700. And so with these specific critics, they said that Amazon should have chosen a Midwest city rather than enriching the already rich East Coast. Another major criticism is that this process has exposed a broken system of wealthy corporations receiving welfare they don't need.

Arguing that giving out these huge tax breaks constrain public budgets for things like roads and schools, force cities to eventually raise taxes on the individuals. We also saw New York Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will be representing the Bronx and Queens, tweeting out, "'Amazon is a billion dollar company. "'The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions

"'of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway "'is crumbling and our communities need more investment, "'not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.'" And in a joint statement, New York City Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer and New York State Senator Michael Gianaris, they said, "'Offering massive corporate welfare "'from scarce public resources to one of the wealthiest

"'corporations in the world at a time of great need "'in our state is just wrong. "'The burden should not be on the 99% to prove we are worthy "'of the 1% presence in our communities, "'but rather on Amazon to prove it would be "'a responsible corporate neighbor.'" We've also seen people argue that what we've seen over the last 14 months from Amazon and what we see with other companies

that it's all just kind of a ploy. These companies already have in their mind the dream cities that they want to go to but they're like, oh we could go anywhere to see what they can get out of the location they actually already wanted to go to and it's been pointed out that sometimes the companies just don't hold up their end of the bargain. People pointing to situations like when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker offered Chinese manufacturing company Foxconn more than three billion dollars to create 13,000 jobs. But now reportedly the company is only planning on creating a quarter of those jobs yet the subsidies have grown to over four billion dollars. However on the other side of this argument you have Amazon claiming that if you look to Seattle you see the company added 38 billion dollars to the city's economy between 2010 and 2016. Also noting the housing market boomed as a result as well. But even that brings up the debate of,

okay, well it's good for some, people that already own homes, what about people just trying to get by living paycheck to paycheck that don't own their house? Are they essentially just going to be kicked out into this world that has been injected into their community that they no longer fit in? But even there you get into a debate of,

well, should you stop progress because it's inconvenient for a group that's already there? And so with this story, while I do of course wanna pass the question off to everyone, what do you think about this move, the announcement, good thing, bad thing? I also want to specifically ask people that live in cities where you've had a giant organization come in.

This is their new HQ, their new big place. Was it a good experience, was it a bad experience? Was the area enriched or did it just push out and essentially swap out who was living there? And then let's talk about CNN suing Donald Trump and several others. Reportedly, CNN filed a lawsuit in a DC District Court this morning. And according to CNN, the lawsuit is a response to the White House's suspension of Jim Acosta's press pass, known as a Secret Service hard pass.

And as you might remember, we talked about this last week. Jim Acosta is CNN's chief White House correspondent. And his hard pass was revoked last week after he had a clash with the president during a press conference. Although the White House said it suspended his pass because he behaved inappropriately by quote placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. We of course talked about that video last week and actually more importantly the different versions of that video. The raw video at most seems to show incidental contact that happened when the intern tried to take the microphone away. But then of course we also saw press secretary Sarah Sanders among others sharing a distorted video clip of the press conference.

And I do want to hit on this note regarding distorted others sharing a distorted video clip of the press conference. And I do want to hit on this note regarding distorted because there's been so much word play around this. There is no question that the video that Sarah Sanders tweeted out was distorted. But a lot of people hear distorted and are for some reason taking that as it was purposefully doctored.

We've seen many experts look at the clip, they cannot speak to the intent or if it was purposefully done. But it does look like a gif was made from the raw video and then a video was made of that gif and through the loss of quality, you lost frames and so all of the action seemed faster. And some have argued that this was kind of a natural

accident where others have argued that there was malicious intent. But I just really wanted to hit on that note because well one, truth should actually matter even though everyone can just say anything and because it hits what they want to believe that that is just taken as truth. And two, the physical claims around this story will be very important for something that we talked about in a minute with that said back to the specifics around the lawsuit

CNN says that on Friday They sent a letter to the White House formally requesting the immediate reinstatement of Acosta's pass and warning of a possible lawsuit And so what we're seeing today is the following through of that threat and as I mentioned, it's not just Trump You have six defendants along with President Trump You have chief of staff John Kelly, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Bill Shine, Secret Service Director Randolph Owls, and the Secret Service officer

who took Acosta's hard pass away last Wednesday, although we don't have his name right now. And according to CNN's lawsuit, by removing Acosta's credentials, the defendants are violating his rights and CNN's rights, specifically their First Amendment rights to the freedom of the press and their Fifth Amendment rights to due process.

And with this, the network is asking the court for an immediate restraining order requiring the pass to be returned to Jim. The lawsuit also saying Acosta and CNN have been favorite targets of the administration. According to Acosta's declaration in support of the motion, he believes the White House actually revoked his hard pass because it, quote, "...is like my and CNN's coverage of the president's administration, including but not limited to the questions I asked at the November 7th press conference." Adding, "...I believe this was done to send a message to other White House correspondents that asking tough questions and filing reports critical of the administration will be punished." And adding that the president appeared to confirm this motive when he warned on November 9th,

2018 that he might revoke the press credentials of other reporters too. And with this, CNN said that they will ring this lawsuit to ensure that the press remains free to question the government and report the business of the nation to the American people. And adding in a separate statement that if left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials. We also saw the president of the White House Correspondents Association, Olivier Knox, saying in a statement, The WHCA strongly supports CNN's goal of seeing their correspondent regain a U.S. Secret Service security credential that the White House should have not taken away in the first place. The President of the United States should not be in the business of arbitrarily picking the men

and women who cover him. And then on the other side of this, we saw Press Secretary Sarah Sanders releasing a statement saying in part, this is just one more grandstanding from CNN and we will vigorously defend against this lawsuit. CNN, who has nearly 50 additional hard pass holders and Mr. Acosta is no more or less special

than any other media outlet or reporter with respect to the First Amendment. After Mr. Acosta asked the President two questions, each of which the President answered, he physically refused to surrender a White House microphone to an intern so that other reporters might ask their questions. This was not the first time this reporter has inappropriately refused to yield to other reporters. The White House cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way, which is neither appropriate nor professional. The First Amendment is not served when a single reporter of more than 150 present attempts to monopolize the floor.

If there is no check on this type of behavior, it impedes the ability of the president, the White House staff, and members of the media to conduct business." And what I would say is, as you may have noticed, there is a change of language. Sarah Sanders is not repeating what she said before, saying he placed his hands on a young woman

just trying to do her job, now describing it as physically refused. Then regarding Sanders' point that Acosta asked two questions, the president answered both of those questions and Acosta wouldn't give away the microphone. Yes and no, we do see Acosta asking questions, the president responding. Then Acosta brings up that caravan of migrants, which of course Donald Trump put that ad out that even Fox News had to remove from their air. And then we see that back and forth devolve. Donald Trump takes a shot at Acosta and then goes next.

There are hundreds of miles away though. There are hundreds and hundreds of miles away. That's not an invasion. Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better. If I may ask one other question. And I point that out because you've seen people pointing to that as evidence that Donald Trump was just angry and trying to avoid questions.

And I think one of the things that annoys me about this situation, and I don't want to create this false equivalency, is that I feel like with a situation like this, for a lot of people, if you flipped the situations, a lot of people would flip their arguments. Like with this situation where you have an Acosta and some people going like,

oh, Acosta's an asshole, he's a grandstanding bastard that wants the news to be about him. He's rude, get him the hell out of there. But if you had, let's say a President Hillary Clinton and someone from Fox News that was asking questions and then asking follow-ups because the responses didn't really seem to answer fully the question or represent reality.

That person would be cheered on, speaking truth to power, holding the powerful accountable. Right, doing what you would want a journalist to do, not just to go, yes, the president says that it's raining, but then to ask follow-up questions like, why is it so warm and yellow and so, my God, that's why it's salty. And keep in mind, and I think this is an important note

to talk about, we are talking about the general conduct of a reporter now where some People are saying that Acosta he's he's unprofessional. He's incredibly rude He is and he doesn't belong there others seeing those same actions and saying that he's being a diligent reporter. He's speaking truth to power He's questioning right the only reason we're talking about all of this. It's an important thing to remember It's because the White House has pivoted from their initial claim that we will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. But with all that said, with the situation at hand, there is the question of, okay, what does history say? Is there precedent here?

Well, according to David McCraw, the top newsroom lawyer at the New York Times, the instances of news organizations suing a president are extremely rare, but they have happened. Past examples include the New York Times v. The United States, that famous Supreme Court case involving the Pentagon Papers back in 71. Also you had CNN's 1981 case against the White House and the broadcast networks when CNN sued to be included in the White House press pool. But most notably, you have Floyd Abrams, a well-known First Amendment lawyer,

saying that the most relevant precedent comes from a 1977 ruling in favor of Robert Sherrill. Sherrill was a provocative investigative journalist who the Secret Service banned from the White House during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. And here what we saw was the agencies said Sherrill who had been in a fistfight with one of Johnson's campaign aides was a physical threat to the president. And you had Floyd Abrams saying that because of that case the law specifies that before press passes denied quote, you have to have notice, you have to have a chance to respond, and you have to have a written opinion by the White House as to what it's doing and why so the courts can examine it. And Abrams pointing out,

we've had none of those things here. Instead, Acosta found out about his suspension when he walked up to the Northwest gate of the White House for a Wednesday night live show. And when he showed up, he was abruptly told to turn in his hard pass, and we actually have video of Acosta turning it in. Why do you mind?

I mean, it's- I was just told to do it. Okay, well, I have every right to record this. This is Jim Acosta. I am in front of the white house uh secret service officer is asking for my hard pass uh obviously no hard feelings to the officer uh but i am now giving my hard pass to the secret service um so do you want to take it off the lanyard there sure and in general what we're seeing here and then then the Sheryl precedent that has been mentioned,

is essentially pointing that there was not due process here. But with all that said, right now, that's where we are. It will be fascinating from a legal standpoint what we see happen next, because, and this is something that I think is important for both sides to remember, President Trump is in the White House now, but of course, as time goes on, we get new presidents,

and people with different mindsets, and people from different parties. And so what I ask is that no matter where you kind of line up politically right now Imagine if the tables return that's all I ask because I know that there are a lot of people that are gonna be locked Down in their opinion around this and also I think part of that is is kind of ingrained into a good number of people Just not liking a cost as a person and that's all I'm really asking from you with the story along with the question of what do You think will happen? What do you want to see happen? And that's where I'm going to end today's this story, along with the question of what do you think will happen? What do you want to see happen?

And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like the video, you support the channel, let us know. Hit that like button. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. That way you make sure you don't miss these daily dives into the news, which actually, if you did miss yesterday's show, you wanna catch up,

you can click or tap right there to watch that. Or if you wanna watch yesterday's bonus video built around Veterans Day, you can click or tap right there. But that's it, 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.