The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.23 What Belle Delphine's BAN & Charli D'Amelio's "Cancelling" Exposes & Michigan Certified

Starting point is 00:00:00 So I have a fantastic Monday show for you today, like always, except last Thursday, but a quick announcement first. My last drop for the year, and maybe even more importantly, my last drop before Christmas is now live. I crammed this one with things that you guys have been demanding

Starting point is 00:00:14 and I sprinkled in some new stuff. Starting with our fantastic premium and incredibly comfy embroidered tie-dye hoodies, right? Emotionally exhausted. We also did this with our fantastic shirts and you'll also notice that the tie-dye is different on each one because I actually hand dyed here in Los Angeles.

Starting point is 00:00:27 You'll also ask for emotionally exhausted on a mask. Boom, you got that. I also haven't released signed posters publicly in years, but in this drop, I've got two limited edition signed posters. I actually got these made based off of how I feel emotionally exhausted. Sometimes I feel like I got one balloon left

Starting point is 00:00:42 that's just ready to pop. And sometimes at the same time, sometimes just other times, I just feel like I got one balloon left that's just ready to pop. And sometimes at the same time, sometimes just other times, I just feel like there's too many feelings. And all of those are pushing each other to their limits. And then finally, for our awesome sprinkle of new, we have the Our Work Here Is Not Done shirt and multicolor hoodie.

Starting point is 00:00:56 And you know, we were really excited to release this one because I think it's an important thing to keep in mind. You know, I think some people, whether it be with the election or just 2020 ending and it becoming 2021, they think, oh, well, everything's gonna be good. And while I would love to be an optimist, I know it's not a switch, right?

Starting point is 00:01:09 The work has to continue. That's the only way we get whatever it is we want over that finish line. But yeah, all of that, and in fact, some more available right now at shopdefranco.com. You have seven days to grab what you want for some things, maybe less because we actually have limits on certain quantities.

Starting point is 00:01:22 But yeah, with that said, welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, otherwise it will absolutely punch you in the throat, and let's just jump into it. And the first thing that we're gonna talk about today is actually kind of a collection of stories and it involves YouTube, what I think are bad decisions,

Starting point is 00:01:36 some scary things we're seeing with internet culture. But ultimately, where I'll start this piece is with YouTube last week making a big announcement. So if you're unfamiliar, to become a part of YouTube's partner program, you need to have accrued 4,000 total hours of watch time over the last 12 months and have more than 1,000 subscribers.

Starting point is 00:01:51 One of the perks you get from being a partner is YouTube will put ads on your video and all of a sudden you get money. You know, part of the perceived reason for this is you have to make sure, okay, that person's making content consistently, it is okay to put ads on, okay, they're kind of trusted.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Though, as we've seen in the past, there have been controversies connected to people in the partner program, the content and the ads that were next to it. Which is in part why I thought it was so weird that YouTube made this announcement, that moving forward, if you are uploading videos to YouTube, even if you are not a part of the partner program,

Starting point is 00:02:17 you may see ads on your content. And by the way, YouTube is going to give you 0.0% of the revenue earned. And I'll repeat to you what I said to them when they told me that they were going to do this. Do you feel like YouTube hasn't gotten enough hate lately? Yes, YouTube is a private company. Yes, to the entirety of the world,

Starting point is 00:02:33 they allow free uploads of your content and viewership of your content to the internet. But there is just something about it that rubs me completely the wrong way. Especially because I also ask them, well, what about a small creator that all of a sudden, let's say they pick up traction. They qualify for the partner program,

Starting point is 00:02:49 they're not a part of it, yet maybe they have a viral video, right? Five million views out of nowhere. We've seen it happen before. That creator would still not get any of the money that YouTube earned by putting ads on that content. And it just genuinely feels to me like the screwing over of smaller creators,

Starting point is 00:03:02 and I hate that. Also, I will say, and notably, this is more of a feeling, I'm concerned that because they're gonna be putting ads on far more videos, that they're gonna be far more conservative and crack down on stuff way harder than they have in the past. I don't mean on things that we've talked about in the past, like blatant misinformation, lies allowed to spread.

Starting point is 00:03:19 I'm talking more of people sharing their opinions or talking about sensitive topics. Or actually, and this kind of ties into the second thing today, maybe things that are more kind of on the line. For example, in hate, maybe this is actually completely unrelated to any changes happening at YouTube. But over the weekend, we saw a massive creator banned from the platform, Belle Delphine.

Starting point is 00:03:36 So Belle, if you didn't know, had around 1.8 million subscribers here on YouTube and got millions, if not tens of millions of views. But one of her recent hits from June, showing her kind of scantily clad, doing a parody of Tekashi69's Guba. And on Sunday, if not tens of millions of views. But one of her recent hits from June showing her kind of scantily clad doing a parody of Tekashi69's Guba. And on Sunday, she seemingly out of nowhere had her entire channel removed.

Starting point is 00:03:51 With her tweeting the same day, "'Hey team YouTube, why was my YouTube account terminated "'with no warning slash no strikes for quote sexual content "'when you allow and promote songs like WAP?' We also saw Belle and a number of other people even sharing clips of her parody video and other content, right, putting those next to clips from Gooba, as well as other music videos from artists like Cardi B

Starting point is 00:04:08 and Nicki Minaj, things that I'm not gonna even try and show in a YouTube video. But I mean, main point being, it was still incredibly similar content. It appeared to just highlight a double standard. If you're mainstream, you got that money backing you. You are safe. If you are independent, good luck.

Starting point is 00:04:22 And personally, I will say no matter the reason here, it does feel like a legitimate double standard. Because let's say this all happened without a human being involved, right? It was all algorithmic. Okay, well that's still attacked an independent creator, but not a mainstream artist. Now, that said, this might not be the end of the road

Starting point is 00:04:36 for Belle Delphine. And I mean that one, because YouTube responded on Twitter saying, "'Thanks for reaching out. "'Mind sharing your channel URL so that we can take a look.'" But also two, connected to Belle Delphine over the last kind of two years, revealing that she is a fantastic marketer.

Starting point is 00:04:47 She can now use this newfound attention and controversy to promote her OnlyFans, which when paired with a different announcement she made on the 22nd, I imagine is going to make her a lot of money. But again, this is a situation that is bigger than Belle Delphine, especially because she was actually a large creator

Starting point is 00:05:01 and she still got hit. And once again, I really do hope that this is completely disconnected and is not indicative of a bigger crackdown by YouTube in the coming days. But then finally, in this internet section, I have to talk about this thing that has happened over the past few days

Starting point is 00:05:15 and I just found it so incredibly stupid. So, you know, every now and then, it feels like a portion of the internet gets together and is like, we are canceling the hell out of this person. And the reasons for this vary. Sometimes it's criminal, sometimes it's more moral. Oh my God, I can't believe they said that about that marginalized group of people.

Starting point is 00:05:31 But one of the most recent and notable examples of this started last Monday, picked up Thursday, went into the weekend, and it involved people trying to cancel a 16 year old girl because they believed that she was being kind of rude while living a very privileged life, and she wasn't thankful for her followers, which I mean, who you life and she wasn't thankful for her followers. Which, I mean, who you follow and unfollow, I don't care.

Starting point is 00:05:48 But when it turns into harassment and even death threats, it's, what is wrong with people? So if you're unfamiliar and understand, I'm gonna try and simplify this because it is not deserving of like the seven, eight minutes to kind of encapsulate the whole thing. Charli and Dixie D'Amelio over the last year have become some of the biggest,

Starting point is 00:06:03 most popular entertainers in the world. In fact, Charlie over the last month has been getting close to becoming the first person to ever get 100 million followers on TikTok. And so in a recent video she was in that involved her family eating with James Charles, one, people got upset because Dixie D'Amelio did not like a snail in her food.

Starting point is 00:06:18 Gagging, making a big scene, people going, oh my God, I can't believe she's doing this. She's got a personal chef and she's being so extra. People like, oh my God, she's so unthankful, the poor chef, poor chef who by the way that the chef said I have nothing but love for the girls This was even kind of part of the plan. We knew that she was gonna have a big reaction Then more specifically regarding Charli D'Amelio She's having this conversation about a new goal essentially saying it would have been kind of cool to go from 1 million in one year to

Starting point is 00:06:39 100 million to which James Charles makes this joke. Was the 95 not enough for you? Well I was just like saying like even numbers. A lot of people saw that and they were like, ooh the shade James, love it. Yeah, wow Charlie's disgusting. She's so unthankful. You know following this we just see chaos ensue. She ends up losing over a million followers. She's in a livestream crying not because she's just losing followers because she's getting bombarded with harassment, people telling her to self-harm. All because a number of people saw that clip and they were like, wow, she's ungrateful. To which I would say I watched that clip,

Starting point is 00:07:09 I didn't get that vibe. The James comment didn't feel like shade. If anything, it felt like a throwaway joke or if you wanna even look at it deeper. Isn't it actually a good thing that someone like James who became incredibly famous when he was young, kind of trying to keep an ego in check. Everyone, every day is blessings upon blessings,

Starting point is 00:07:26 it's very easy to just kind of forget how blessed you are. But to me, it sounded like someone, and notably a 16 year old, ah, going like, ah, that milestone would have been cool to hit. Like it just, there's something nice about it. Like a circle fully, sorry, I'm just frustrated. It's just so, it's so stupid. To me, the situation didn't speak about Charli D'Amelio.

Starting point is 00:07:43 It spoke to the venom people have just cocked and ready. Right, and a number of people seemingly not even trying to hold someone accountable, but rather just wanting to destroy something. And the excitement you can witness when this is happening is genuinely horrifying. I feel like that's something that's easily seen when you see what Charli went through

Starting point is 00:08:02 for what her transgression was. But all of that said, even with the insanity that happened over several days, it still wasn't enough to stop Charli D'Amelio. Because not only over the weekend did she stop losing followers, she actually started growing again, then hitting 100 million on Sunday.

Starting point is 00:08:18 Making her one, the first creator on the platform to hit that milestone, and two, it's just crazy to think about because she didn't even join TikTok until June last year. I don't think we've ever witnessed growth at that level. And also I think it hits on a special thing for TikTok. For me, TikTok is more of a casual hobby, but if you are looking to grow

Starting point is 00:08:36 and you don't have much of an audience and you're not on TikTok, I don't know what you're doing. YouTube, I still think is the most important out of all the places. But I mean, if you're looking to just cultivate something out of almost nothing, yeah, right now, and it has been for a little while, TikTok is the most important out of all the places. But I mean, if you're looking to just cultivate something out of almost nothing, yeah, right now, and it has been for a little while, TikTok is the answer. But that brings this section to an end.

Starting point is 00:08:51 I know we've covered a lot, but I would really love to know your thoughts on any of the stuff that stood out the most to you. And then let's talk about the presidential election. Now, 20 days since election day, about two weeks since most decision desks called it and projected Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

Starting point is 00:09:06 Because we're seeing a lot of big updates as well. There's a ton of lies and gaslighting. So many, it's impossible to touch everyone, but we should at least touch one. Also, something that I would note is just, we talked a lot about transfer of power in the election and it's worth remembering that this president was never given an orderly transition

Starting point is 00:09:25 of power. His presidency was never accepted. I had a chance to talk to President-elect Trump last night, about 3.30 in the morning I think it was, to congratulate him on winning the election and I had a chance to invite him to come to the White House tomorrow to talk about making sure that there is a successful transition between our presidencies. And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful. We want to make sure that they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition.

Starting point is 00:10:05 And most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Ms. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds. Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. And we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent. Thank you. And I get for a lot of people that facts just do not matter anymore, but it's just,

Starting point is 00:10:49 it's insane because a lot of the lies, there's actual video evidence to the contrary. Also of note, like literally Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump and conceded to him just a couple of hours after midnight on election night, which is also when Obama gave that first statement saying that Trump had won and that he would work hard for a seamless

Starting point is 00:11:05 and peaceful transition. And then literally two days after the election, he met with Donald Trump to start the process, something that Donald Trump acknowledged and thanked Obama for. Remember, it was like that weird moment where we were like, maybe things aren't about to get crazy. Meanwhile, here in 2020, on November 23rd,

Starting point is 00:11:21 Trump has still not accepted the outcome of the election and conceded. In fact, he and his people are blocking the transition of power in the middle of a pandemic, even as countless experts warn that if Donald Trump does not start sharing COVID data with Biden and his transition team, it could cost countless lives. But still, he's pushing ahead with his many attempts

Starting point is 00:11:37 to block the transition and undermine the will of the people. And now with Donald Trump just seeing loss after loss with these, what many have called frivolous lawsuits, he and his allies are becoming even more desperate. And I mean, some of the stuff we're seeing. Just this last Friday, Georgia became the first contested state to certify their election results for Biden. This, after a hand recount of the five million ballots cast in the presidential race, confirmed that he had in fact defeated Trump by just over 12,000 votes. Now, notably here, that recount was actually a state-mandated audit of how Georgia's new voting

Starting point is 00:12:04 machines and system overall were. With the goal there being to make sure that ballots had been 12,000 votes. Now, notably here, that recount was actually a state mandated audit of how Georgia's new voting machines and system overall work. With the goal there being to make sure that ballots had been properly scanned by going through and recounting by hand. I point that out because the situation in Georgia is not over because the recount was state mandated and not formally requested by the Trump campaign.

Starting point is 00:12:18 Which is why on Saturday we saw the Trump team asking for a third count of the 5 million ballots. Which I will say Trump is within his rights here because Biden's margin of victory there is within half a%. But Trump's also asking for things to be done that are not within his rights or even legal. Like demanding that the recount includes signature matching of absentee ballots,

Starting point is 00:12:33 which as we've talked about before is both impossible and illegal. Because after the signatures on the mail-in envelopes are verified, they are separated from the ballots to protect the privacy of the voters. But the campaign also demanding in the statement calling for the recount that officials quote, "'Stop counting illegal ballots.'"

Starting point is 00:12:48 This despite the fact that of course, once again, there has been literally zero evidence of illegal ballots being counted in the state. But that said, the third count of these ballots is going to happen though unlikely to change anything. Also, a thing I wanna note is that unlike the recount of two major counties in Wisconsin where the Trump campaign has been required

Starting point is 00:13:03 to pay $3 million upfront to cover the cost, the one in Georgia instead will be paid for by individual taxpayer funded counties. Also on the note of the Wisconsin recount, which started on Friday in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which is home to Madison and Milwaukee respectively, Trump and his people are trying to pull off, let's call them shenanigans.

Starting point is 00:13:19 That sounds more fun and less scary. Well, Trump's people are baselessly claiming that there was some kind of election interference in Georgia. Election officials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest county, are accusing observers watching the recount for Trump of trying to obstruct the process. With officials telling the Associated Press

Starting point is 00:13:34 that Trump observers have broken multiple rules, including in some instances, constantly interrupting vote counters with questions and comments, and objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count. And that, in addition to having two Trump representatives at some tables where ballots are being counted instead of the one that they are allowed. The county commissioner also saying that some of the Trump observers try to get around that rule by lying and claiming to be independents. And beyond that, some of the

Starting point is 00:13:55 observers have even been removed because of their behavior. According to the AP, at least one Trump representative was escorted out of the building by sheriff's deputies over the week after she pushed an election official with another Trump observer being removed the day before for not wearing a mask properly. And I mean, that's just some of the smaller stuff. Just yesterday it was reported that Trump's campaign is also trying to invalidate tens of thousands of ballots in the two strongly democratic counties.

Starting point is 00:14:15 Arguing that not only should the ballots be recounted, but that all absentee ballots that have been cast in person before election day, rather than being mailed in, should be invalidated. Right, in other words, that every single person who decided to bring their absentee ballot in personally, rather than try and send it through the USPS, that they should not have their votes counted.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And as far as the reasoning behind this, the Trump campaign's lawyers are simply saying this act is illegal. Though, a really important thing, if that is true, it means that the same lawyer making that argument on behalf of the Trump campaign voted illegally, because he literally admitted he and his wife cast their absentee ballots in person. But so far, and this is one of the biggest things here,

Starting point is 00:14:49 these efforts to toss legally cast ballots have been rejected by the Democratic majority boards of canvassers in both of these two counties. And to that point, it's highly unlikely that any of the undemocratic tactics that Trump and his allies are pulling will change anything at this point. I mean, just look at the string of lawsuits

Starting point is 00:15:03 that Trump has been losing or that his campaign has been dropping because they have no legal standing. Right, we talked about this last week, but also since then, even more cases have been struck down with one of the most significant being the federal case in Pennsylvania that Rudy Giuliani was arguing for Trump and that we talked about last week.

Starting point is 00:15:17 Right, and that lawsuit centered around the claim that the Pennsylvania secretary of state only allowed voters in democratic counties to fix or cure issues with their absentee ballots after submitting them, but voters in predominantly red to fix or cure issues with their absentee ballots after submitting them, but voters in predominantly red counties were not given that opportunity. With the Trump campaign claiming that was unconstitutional and was attempting to block the entire state from certifying the election results. But what we ended up seeing on Saturday was Judge Matthew Brin, who was overseeing the case,

Starting point is 00:15:37 dismissing it in a just devastatingly scathing opinion, writing, one might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed "'with compelling legal arguments "'and factual proof of rampant corruption.'" But instead saying that the Trump campaign only provided strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations

Starting point is 00:15:56 unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. Now, the Trump campaign has appealed this ruling, but it is still significant because this lawsuit was Trump's only attempt to challenge the statewide results in Pennsylvania. And very notably, after this lawsuit was thrown out, we saw the state's Republican Senator Pat Toomey

Starting point is 00:16:10 calling on Trump to accept that he lost the election and move forward with the transition process. Writing in a statement with today's decision by Judge Matthew Brin, a long time conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist. To dismiss the Trump campaign's lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the results of the presidential race

Starting point is 00:16:29 in Pennsylvania. With Toomey also going on to note that this comes after a series of procedural losses for President Trump's campaign. And Toomey isn't the only Trump ally that we've seen hitting on this. Over the weekend, we also saw former New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, right?

Starting point is 00:16:40 A heavily staunch and longtime ally of the president, making some pretty surprising remarks during an interview on ABC, calling the conduct of Trump's legal team a national embarrassment and adding, listen, I've been a supporter of the president's. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn't happen. But if you're unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn't exist. The country is what has to matter the most. As much as I'm a strong Republican and I love my party,

Starting point is 00:17:12 it's the country that has to come first. And while it brings me no joy to agree with Chris Christie, he hits the nail on the head here. If you're making these claims and not presenting evidence, it means that there's no evidence. And so with this throw everything at the wall and see what sticks legal strategy clearly failing, we're starting to see Trump shift to plan B.

Starting point is 00:17:29 Trying to get Republican controlled legislatures in states that gave the popular vote to Biden to basically overrule the will of the people by choosing a pro-Trump slate of electors to send to the electoral college. And for some context here, the way that electors are chosen varies state to state. But generally each party chooses a slate of electors

Starting point is 00:17:44 equal to the number of the state's electoral votes at their party's conventions, or by a vote of a party's central committee. Then, whichever candidate wins the majority of votes, right, the popular vote in the state, their party gets to designate electors who will go to the electoral college in December and vote for the person who won their state. But a state's legislature could hypothetically claim that the state's popular vote failed to make a choice, and then attempt to invoke their constitutional right to step in and choose a slate of electors

Starting point is 00:18:06 that they believe accurately represents their state. All right, so the idea here would be to send pro-Trump electors to the electoral college to cast the state's official vote for the candidate the voters of the state explicitly did not choose. And this is something that we've seen floated by several conservative commentators, pro-Trump legislators, and now even Donald Trump himself.

Starting point is 00:18:22 But to be clear here, what Donald Trump and his goon squad are proposing here would be a full blown attempt to steal the election and defy the will of the voters by ignoring election results. Also any state legislature that would even consider doing this would face massive legal and practical hurdles. Right, I don't wanna get too deep

Starting point is 00:18:37 into the nitty gritty of all of this because the legal situation here is incredibly complex state to state and some experts say that it would be downright illegal. But still we should know just this past Thursday Trump reportedly called state legislators in Michigan to the white house to pressure them to either send a slate of electors to the electoral college

Starting point is 00:18:52 or to not certify the election results at all. Also should be noted those legislators appeared to deny that they would go against the will of the people because of baseless claims of fraud with them saying in a statement, we have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan. And as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors,

Starting point is 00:19:10 just as we have said throughout this election.'" And in fact, just this afternoon, we saw them officially certifying the election for Biden. But despite that, we still saw Trump's daughter-in-law and campaign advisor, Laura Trump, going on Fox News yesterday, where in addition to spouting conspiracy theories and false claims about Donald Trump,

Starting point is 00:19:25 she also said that the campaign will keep pressuring legislatures in states that voted for Biden to send electors who will vote for Trump. And that is where we are, at least as of recording this video, this is still a developing situation. It's been developing for two weeks now, but where I want to end this is a note that even if Donald

Starting point is 00:19:39 Trump were to get one legislature to do this, which for democracy and the future of this country, that is a horrifying prospect, it would still likely not sway the election. Donald Trump would have to get one legislature to do this, which for democracy and the future of this country that is a horrifying prospect, it would still likely not sway the election. Donald Trump would have to get multiple Republican held legislatures on board to do this in multiple key states in order to change the outcome of the election.

Starting point is 00:19:53 This because he only has 232 electoral votes to Biden's 306. Also all of the states in question except Georgia have democratic governors or secretaries of state that would not go along with their plot to steal the election. And in fact, even Georgia's Republican secretary of state has pushed back against attempts from the right to undermine the election results and said outright,

Starting point is 00:20:10 there was no fraud. Yeah, that is where I didn't even get to the Sidney Powell stuff. I mean, I know that it's part of the merch drop, but once again, one, I'm emotionally exhausted here. And two, it is important to remember that even though I believe that democracy will succeed here, the work here is not done. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. For the three of you still here at the

Starting point is 00:20:30 end of today's show, especially because it's a big one, thank you for being a part of my daily dives in the news. Also, if you happen to be new here, definitely hit that subscribe button and tap that bell to turn on notifications to all. Also, remember if you want to get in on the drop, you only have a limited time, so go to shopdefranco.com. 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.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.23 What Belle Delphine's BAN & Charli D'Amelio's "Cancelling" Exposes & Michigan Certified

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