The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 1.21 What Really Happened w/ the Nathan Phillips "MAGA Kids" Controversy & The Mexican Pipeline?

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is this situation that blew up over the weekend over a story that was initially described as a standoff between Native American men and teenagers in MAGA hats. It's an incident that happened on Friday in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. near the tail end of the Indigenous Peoples' Mark. The Indigenous protester in the clip ended up being identified as Nathan Phillips. According to reports, he's a member of Nebraska's Omaha tribe and a veteran and the students in the video were identified as Covington Catholic high school students from Kentucky

Portally they were in town participating in the annual March for Life rally and the video and images from this blew up quickly prompting many To call for the school to take action along with the videos that went viral one of the images that went viral was this picture with text reading the close of the indigenous people's March and rally the few of us left lingering to chat and Meet were confronted and surrounded by 50 to 70 young people wearing Trump's hats t-shirts and other apparel The group consisted of mostly white men who sought to intimidate mock and scare us with a mob mentality in order to silence a demonstration That was mostly concluded the group outnumbered us and enclosed our small group chanting build the wall and other Trump isms The group was clearly looking for any opportunity to get violent and they consistently infringed upon our space, inching closer and closer,

bumping into us and daring us to get physical. They surrounded us, screaming, cajoling, and mocking the elder singer with intentionally disrespectful dancing and attempting to chant slash sing louder than him. He did not break focus or move an inch for the entirety of the encounter. And perhaps the saddest part of all is that his song

was medicine to calm the anger and toxicity of these men. And along with this picture, we see other videos blowing up, characterizing the situation as all of these kids surrounding the elder, mocking him. With this initial story, publicly we see a lot happen. We see the school and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington issue a joint statement saying, Nathan Phillips specifically and Native Americans in general, we extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the church's teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action up to and including expulsion.

We also saw a lot of people take to social media to condemn what they thought looked like blatant hate. And we saw people from all sides speaking out about what was featured in these videos. And with this, you had a lot of people specifically looking to the right to see what the response would be and you had people like Meghan McCain tweeting, "'I am gutted over this video of veteran Nathan Phillips being harassed by high school boys

My family and father have deep love and respect to all Native Americans People like Charlie Kirk writing high school students make really foolish choices at times every person reading this tweet did things you regret in your life The media's public character assassination of these high school kids who obviously made a mistake is sickening and typical of the left You even had places like the National Review that put up an article reading, the Covington students might as well have just spit on the cross with quotes like, they mock a serious frail looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. Bullying is a worn-out word and doesn't convey the full extent of the evil on display here. Even had March for Life itself distancing itself from the boys saying, the pro-life movement at its core is a movement of love and the

Reprehensible behavior shown in the video in no way represents the 46 years and millions of people who have peacefully and respectfully gathered in Washington DC to stand up for the unborn and also because I think it's important to hold ourselves accountable I mean, this is something that I personally commented on over the weekend as well I like many others commented on the information that was being thrown out there by all sides and I joined Meghan Meghan McCain in what she added in a follow-up tweet after she deleted the previous one, saying, I, like many others, may have reacted too quickly. And, you know, I do apologize for that because, yes, while in the past I have said over and over, I am not perfect, I'm not infallible, I'll always try to do my best, and I will mess up, I really do apologize for reacting to this situation that, I mean, yes, based off of everything that was out there

and how you had people from all different sides denouncing it, I thought, okay, well, this is the situation. I wish that instead I'd waited till Monday to have my team just scour through everything. But it's also part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this story today on this channel with a much larger audience. The reason myself and others, including the individuals and groups I just previously mentioned, are now speaking out about this now is because it turns out, you know, those clips that we initially got,

well, people have described it as either being kind of on the softest touch incomplete, all the way to just completely misrepresenting the kids in this video. So what is the other information? Well, it turns out there was a whole different third group involved. And this is something Nathan Phillips touched on in several follow-up interviews where he explained of back and forth between the black Israelites and the students. First, they came there. There was about six of them. They went away. They came back with about 20. They went away. They came back with about 60. They surrounded these black kids, these fat guys, and taunting them and throwing, you know, back and forth, racial taunts back and forth. And then they went away, that 60 went, they came back 100, maybe 200 of them. And then they were just a big mob, just ugly, ugly mob.

When I seen what was happening right at the end and where it was getting to all, there was just like needed that one little spark and that mob would have descended on those four guys and ripped them apart that's what it looked like that's what it felt like so when i started singing our songs our prayers to god that drum is a instrument that we use to communicate to god And so when I started that drumbeat, it was in my mind that, you know, I'm praying God, we're at the end of our indigenous people's march.

We wanna end this in a good way. But look at my America here. Look at my white and black brothers over here that they're tearing at each other. Keep in mind, we're not at the end of the story yet, but that already paints a different picture. Much of the initial narrative was around Nathan Phillips and his small group being surrounded by these boys.

But then we got this new information that Phillips himself inserted himself into the situation and then grew. Something that has also been since verified by a different camera angle. But with that said, over the weekend we saw people from different groups trying to point blame in different directions. According to Heavy, the mother of one of the teens

at the rally sent them an email disputing the story that many outlets were covering, writing, "'Shame on you, were you there? "'Did disputing the story that many outlets were covering writing shame on you Were you there? You hear the names that people were calling these boys It was shameful you witness the black Muslims yelling profanities and videotaping trying to get something to further your narrative of hatred Did you know that this quote man came up to this one boy and drummed in his face shame on you only reporting what you Want more fake news?

But then meanwhile you reportedly had one of the Hebrew Israelites go on Facebook Live and deny the group had been the instigators. Your children was over there mocking us while we was teaching, standing to the sides with their little MAGA hats, running their mouth with their little MAGA hats on. to start chanting and mocking this elders and doing so-called indigenous dances, mocking the rally, the so-called march. Your children was there to mock the march. And then by Sunday we started seeing a video blow up that was nearly a two hour video of the entire incident. And it gave everyone a much better look at the buildup to this intense standoff. In the video it appears to show dozens of Covington students standing on the steps of the entire incident. And it gave everyone a much better look at the build-up to this intense standoff. In the video, it appears to show

dozens of Covington students standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But it also shows that the black Hebrew Israelites who said that they were there preaching their beliefs were shouting insults and other combative comments at both the Native Americans and the students. A bunch of demons!

Always talking out their ass! Uncle Tom Huck! See how you got these pompous bastards come down here in the middle of a native rally with they dirty ass hat on? With they dusty ass hat on? Crickets! Crickets! That's right! We then see the students gather together and begin chanting and jumping around.

We then see one of the kids rush off, take his shirt off. And this continues, we then see Phillips of the kids rush off, take his shirt off, and this continues. We then see Phillips enter with a group of people behind him. It appears that he faces the school group, he pauses at the base of the stairs before starting up towards the crowd of teenagers. Also on Sunday around the same time this new info was being shared, the teenager who went viral in the video came forward with a lengthy statement. He identified himself as Nick Sandman, a junior at Covington, and said he arrived at the Lincoln Memorial where students were told to wait for their buses saying when We arrived we noticed for african-american protesters. I am not sure what they were protesting and I did not interact with them

I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group They called us racist bigots white crackers homophobic slur and incest kids They also taunted an african-american student from my school by telling him that we would quote harvest his organs then adding because we were being loudly Attacked and taunted in public a student in our Group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things or being shouted at our group Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chance We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group and adding our chance were loud because we wanted To drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protesters

He also denied hearing any of his fellow students make hateful comments, specifically denying the build the wall chant claims. He also described his encounter with Philip saying, Nick said that he was afraid since from his perspective, this was now the second group of adult protesters trying to provoke the teens. Saying that he thought by standing there emotionless he was actually helping to defuse the situation. And adding that his involvement ended when a teacher said the buses had arrived so he simply walked away. And Sandman also hit on important notes in regards to Nathan Phillips saying, I harbor no ill will for this person. I respect this person's right to protest and engage in free speech activities

and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week. I believe he should rethink his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make. Adding, I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely,

it is a US Marine veteran. And he explained that he just wanted to clear up the misinformation about him and his school since he has been receiving hate and death threats over this viral clip. And so as far as the final things that I'll say around this story. One, if you're one of the people actually issuing threats of harm

or you're fine with that being thrown at the people involved in the situation, that is ridiculous and disgusting. I stand by the initial reason I was reacting to the situation of saying we need to point out and acknowledge that hate's not going anywhere. Except with the now expanded footage, it appears that the only bigotry that was very very obvious came from the black Hebrew Israelites antagonizing offending throwing out homophobic slurs and in my opinion also being racist Make America great again crackers also regarding the several claims that people were chanting or saying build the wall

I've had the team scrubbing through footage. I have not found any evidence that the students said this instead We've only been able to find what appears to be one of the people preaching set talking about the wall Though we do have audio someone from Nathan Phillips group saying go back to Europe And then there's a separate clip of an. Land gets stolen, that's how it works. But for me personally, with the situation being Nathan Phillips approaching this group, seeing all of those kids jumping around, dancing, it's now way harder for me to see those same clips

and see it as them mocking him or antagonizing him or trying to drown him out. If anything, it appears that you just have a lot of these kids in this group that are just completely confused as to what the heck is happening. I mean, you can see that from some of the facial expressions. At one point, you even hear someone say something. So you've always been picky about your produce.

But now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's Canadian. So be it. At Sobeys, we always pick guaranteed fresh Canadian produce first. Restrictions apply. See in-store or online for details. It's going off! Feed fresh Canadian produce first. Restrictions apply. See in-store or online for details. So if it's true that you just had all of these kids here kind of waiting for a bus and they're initially dealing with this other group, a group that seemed to be screaming offensive things.

So then the group of kids is already doing their own chant, apparently to drown out the offensive things. Then you have Nathan Phillips inserting himself into the situation, banging on a drum. Then you have kids that seemingly are trying to go along with it or are just confused. Because this group of kids has already just been dealing with this hostile group, when all of a sudden Nathan Phillips is very close to someone with a drum,

you know, there's confusion. Is this hostile? But even with all of that said, I mean, I'm still seeing different accounts pop up, different claims, but ultimately, that is where we are right now, and if I, I guess if I can be, you know, just kind of real and on more of a personal note, I just, I feel stupid for having jumped on this story

so quickly on the weekend, which goes against like what I normally do. I feel like a lot of people from a lot of different sides and organizations feel stupid for jumping and reacting as quickly as they did. I know right now that there are a lot of people just kind of doubling down on their initial reaction. But ultimately, that is where we are with the story right now And it was just important to me to cover this like any other story that we would normally cover and the last thing I want To talk about today is Mexico and the reason for that is two weeks ago We covered the growing gas crisis in Mexico Which has now found itself in the news again after a massive incident the specific incident

We're talking about happened in Tlauelipan Hidalgo But to kind of give you a brief recap leading up to now, in an attempt to fight the growing theft of gasoline in Mexico, you had the president of Mexico, AMLO, announcing some changes to the gas distribution system. The thefts were reportedly costing Mexico over three billion dollars a year, and the crimes included everything from organized cartels attacking and tapping into pipelines, white-collar crimes at refineries themselves, all the way to petty thefts from single individuals taking gasoline from pipelines. And the proposed solutions were to close nearly all of the pipelines, station troops at the refineries, and attempt to distribute gasoline with trucks and railcars.

And as we discussed last time, this led to a massive shortage of gasoline for the public in Mexico, especially in six of the most populous regions in central Mexico. And so in an attempt to fix this gas shortage while still defending against theft, AMLO announced that in addition to troops guarding the refineries, even more would be sent out to patrol and protect nearly 1,600 kilometers of pipeline. He's also attempting to fix other inadequacies within the distribution system, like the shortage of trucks.

Announcing today that he's going to try and tackle the problem with 571 trucks that would be purchased from the United States. And according to Jesus Ramirez Cuevas, the social media coordinator for the president, President Lopez Obrador has instructed that 571 tankers be bought from the United States to guarantee the fuel supply.

It's a matter of national security. Mexican state can't be subjugated to any power economic or political nor tolerate the pressures of organized crime. However, while reopening some of the pipelines has mitigated fuel shortages it's also being blamed for some other unintended consequences. North of Mexico City you have the state of Hidalgo which runs the Tula-Tixpan pipeline. A pipeline that has been closed since late December because of constant attacks from organized groups. Specifically, according to the CEO of Pemex, the pipeline was actually closed after being attacked 10 times in December. But, after a handful of troops were deployed

to help guard the pipeline, and repairs were made to the damage from the attacks, it was reopened last Wednesday. And shortly afterwards, it was attacked four more times. Then, on Friday, a leak was discovered on the pipe. As of right now, it's unknown what actually caused the leak. Some saying that the attacks on Wednesday led to it, while others say that the repair work was inadequate

and that the pressure from restarting the pipeline actually burst through the shoddy repairs. And while originally it was reported to be a small leak, over the day it seemed to have grown. Reportedly it was leaking for upwards of four hours, and during that time around 800 people showed up for the free gasoline. And we know this because there is actually video online

of people just walking right up to the leaking pipeline with barrels and buckets getting what they can And then this is where details of what happened next get very muddled, but based on official accounts from the administration Here's what happened. Pemex claims that at 4 50 p.m. They informed authorities of the leak after their systems detected a drop in pressure according to the president and his administration 25 soldiers were sent to the pipeline to tell people to get away from it, but they were largely ignored and then tragedy struck at around 6 30 p.m When for an unknown reason the leak exploded. A night vision video from military personnel

shows the massive explosion, but also on that note, I'm not going to include that video in this video just because of the gruesome nature of it. You can see what appears to be kind of flame skittering across the field, but it's actually people on fire running from the blast. Initially it was reported that just over 20 were killed and dozens were injured, but now according

to the health secretary, over 89 were killed and dozens were injured, but now according to the Health Secretary over 89 have died and 51 remain hospitalized, with some so badly injured and teetering on the edge of death that they've been transported to specialist facilities in Texas. And so this disaster has left many Mexicans with many questions. Questions like why was the fuel allowed to flow after a leak was detected? Pemex claims the fuel was shut off, but there was still 10,000 gallons of pressurized gasoline in the pipe between the Tula refinery and the village, which allowed the fuel to flow despite being shut off. But you have people saying this doesn't make sense and the crew should have been sent sooner to repair the leak. At the same time, you have people questioning why there is sympathy, some claiming that the dead don't deserve sympathy because they were professional fuel thieves.

And many of those same people have been circulating a video of people confronting and attacking the soldiers who arrived to disperse the crowd but at the same time you have people arguing that This view fails to account for the vast majority of the 800 people who showed up for fuel who were just everyday people looking for Fuel in the middle of a massive shortage with one farmer being quoted by L Universal as saying a lot of innocent people came here Perhaps their car didn't have enough gasoline for tomorrow and they said I'm just going to go for a few liters as far as I'm low Is concerned on Sunday? He said the disaster had not weakened his resolve to fight fuel theft, saying, I won't take a single step backwards. I can only offer people apologies if this action causes sacrifices, harm, or inconveniences.

And while AMLO has been widely popular in Mexico, he's still not free of critics. And really what we're seeing here is with this latest disaster, it's given them another angle to attack the president. Many of these critics have pointed out that the president's fuel policy was done too quickly without proper preparation. Additionally, it has also had major economic impacts and is now considered a massive disaster too by many. Also, polls have shown that the fuel policy is widely divisive with about half of Mexicans saying economic impacts and fuel shortages are worth it in the long run. And so with this story, I did want to pass the question off to you. You see one person or a specific group as being responsible or there is shared responsibility here.

What are your thoughts around people saying they have no sympathy for those injured or who died in this? They were stealing so in the wrong so what happened happened or no you're gonna probably see a mixture of desperate people taking desperate measures. Any and all thoughts I'd love to see from you here. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember if you want more of these daily dives into the news whether it be these daily weekday Philip DeFranco shows or on Tuesday and Thursday mornings those extra morning deep dives just hit that subscribe button if you really want to make sure you don't miss, click that bell to turn on notifications. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you tomorrow.