The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.17 CNN Fake News Scandal is Wiiild, Madison School Attack Updates, Veo 2 vs Sora Drama, & Today’s News

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

9 News Stories you should know about today... Kickstart your passion project with a free trial today: https://www.Squarespace.com/Phil  & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here https://nordvpn.com/phil It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!    – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - CNN Accidentally Helped an Assad Intel Officer Cover Up His Identity 03:02 - Teen Girl Identified as Shooter in Madison, Wisconsin 07:56 - Google’s Releases Sora Competitor to Immense Hype 11:24 - Sponsored by Squarespace 12:36 - TikTok Asks SCOTUS to Block Law That Could Ban the App 16:01 - Justice Dept. Says Mount Vernon Police Strip Searched Everyone They Arrested 18:32 - Trump Floats Privatizing the USPS 22:45 - Sponsored by NordVPN 23:49 - Canada Finance Minister Resigns, German Government Collapses 27:38 - Top Universities Sued Over Illegal Price-Fixing Monopoly ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino ———————————— For more Philip DeFranco: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-philip-defranco-show/id1278424954 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ESemquRbz6f8XLVywdZ2V Twitter:   https://x.com/PhillyD Instagram:   https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco Newsletter: https://www.dailydip.co TikTok:   https://www.tiktok.com/@philipdefranco?lang=en ———————————— #DeFranco #MKBHD #Hasanabi ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. You daily dive into the news. It is Tuesday, December 17th. There is a lot to talk about. So you just buckle up, you hit that like button and let's just jump into it. This is a news show.

CNN just got caught spreading what is quite literally fake news. I'll explain, right? So this actually begins with a story you may remember from last week with CNN reporter Clarissa Ward searching for the missing American journalist, Austin Tice in Syria.

But instead of finding him, she found a padlocked jail cell in Damascus with a rebel guard then busting it open, revealing a man who identified himself as Adel Rabal, a civilian abducted by the regime from his home. I'm a civilian, he says. I'm a civilian. He tells the fighter he's from the city of Homs

and has been in the cell for three months. Okay, it's water. It's water. Okay. Thank God you are safe. Don't be afraid, the fighter says. You are free. After three months in a windowless cell, he can finally see the sky. Thing is, right, with all of that, no. It turns out that guy's not just some civilian. Instead, he was a former Air Force intelligence officer

for Assad's regime. His real name's apparently Salama Mohammed Salama, and you can see him wearing military apparel in this photo. The self-described Syrian fact-checking website verifies Sai first discovering the man's true identity on Sunday and calling out CNN. With him citing local residents who claim that Salama managed several security checkpoints

and was involved in theft, extortion, and coercing residents into becoming informants. With him also reportedly participating in military operations in 2014, killing civilians, and was responsible for detaining and torturing numerous young men without cause or on fabricated charges. And with this, it's not clear exactly why this man

was in jail when he was found, but you had locals telling the website that he was there for less than a month because of a dispute over profit sharing from extorted funds with a higher ranking officer. Also, some are saying it's not that surprising this guy wasn't who he said he was. Even before the truth came out,

people online pointed out things in the CNN video they said didn't feel like it made sense, like how he didn't appear to flinch or blink upon supposedly seeing sunlight for the first time in three months. Or how he seemed clean, well-groomed, and physically healthy. And so now what we've seen is CNN correcting their reporting.

Corroborating the main point, though not all of the details in the VerifySci report by interviewing local residents. As well as by using facial recognition software to match the man's military photo to the jail footage with over 99% certainty. But with this, if you read CNN's update, they make it sound like they just simply did

their due diligence pursuing more information about the man after the original report on their own, rather than, you know, posting the story and then checking on things after getting called out for it. But while you obviously had a bunch of people dunking on CNN for this, others came to the reporter Clarissa Ward's defense. With one of those even coming from places like Fox News,

with the network's chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yinkinks, writing, the attacks against Clarissa Ward are unfounded and ridiculous. She is an honest and professional journalist. With a number of people saying it's a standout response, not only because he's a part of Fox News, but because he himself went searching

for Austin Tice in Syrian prisons as well. You know, with all of that said, as we're seeing all these reactions play out, I gotta pass the question off to you. What's your reaction? But then, unfortunately, we need to talk about how a teen shooter killed two people at the Pre-K through 12 Abundant Life Christian School

in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday. With reports initially claiming that around 11 a.m., a second grader at Abundant Life called 911 to report a shooting with officers then dispatched. But you had police clarifying today that that wasn't entirely correct. It was actually a second grade teacher. But anyway, within minutes, the first officers rolled up

and by 11.05, they reported that the shooter was down and a gun had been recovered. With it then later reported that the evidence suggests that the shooter took their own life. Then by 1130, you had officers and bomb sniffing dogs clearing the building and the injured had been taken off to the hospital, which on that note, six were injured,

two of which were students that as of this morning are in critical condition. And outside of the shooter, two people have died with one being a teacher and the other a student. And all of this is we still do not know the identities of the victims while the police inform their families. But with that said, we've slowly been getting a clearer picture of what happened thanks to updates

from the local police chief, Sean Barnes. Right yesterday, we learned that the shooter was a 15 year old girl and a student at Abundant Life and that the shooting was confined to a study hall with a mix of students from different grades. Also reportedly the gun used was a nine millimeter handgun and the ATF is currently trying to figure out exactly where it came from.

And this is the Madison police who are investigating the shooter's parents who are reportedly cooperating. But the police specifically looking at whether the parents owned the gun that was used in the shooting and Barnes saying, "'We also want to look at "'if the parents may have been negligent.'

And that's a question that we'll have to answer with our district attorney's office." But saying at this time, that does not appear to be the case. Now, as far as the motive, that still is officially unclear though the shooting was reportedly planned in advance. For example, CNN saying that a source told them that the shooter had been struggling, which she expressed in writings

that the police are currently reviewing, which was also confirmed by Barnes this morning, who said, we've been made aware of a manifesto, if you want to call it that, or some type of letter that's been posted by someone who alleged to be her friend. We haven't been able to locate that person yet, but that's something we're going to work on today.

Now with this, the community there has obviously been hit very hard, right? They've planned a candlelight vigil for tonight. A memorial has started to take shape outside the school. We've also seen news outlets interviewing members of the community with one mother saying. It's sad, you know, to be home and then somebody call you and say your kids school in lockdown and shooting,

and you didn't know where they are. And thank God they were safe. But the trauma, it's a lot. Because I'm sure they lost friends and teacher, which is not okay. And I don't think they will be okay for a long time. And I'm not. Also with all this, we've seen kind of the general aftermath that we normally see with a situation like this. Many politicians pointing to Madison today and their calls for gun control. For example, Wisconsin representative Mark Pocan saying,

"'I've sat through so many moments of silence "'on the floors of Congress "'that are followed by zero moments of action.'" But then also adding that he even had a media appearance get canceled because the number of deaths was corrected and dropped to two. With him saying, "'If that is a societal response, we are screwed.

"'We have to do more as a society. "'We have to be more outraged that you drop your kid off to a school and you're not sure they're going to be safe. That's completely unacceptable and we all need to speak out much louder. And there has been a lot of conversation surrounding both the media coverage of the school shootings

and the overall response to them. Like with CNN specifically, they got some heat for interviewing students who were in the building at the time of the shooting. With a number of people responding by saying things like, just seeing an eight-year-old girl getting interviewed about the school shooting in Madison, clearly traumatized after seeing her teacher shot.

Why are you shoving a mic and camera into these babies' faces? And as a journalist, y'all need to draw the line and stop interviewing children. They don't need to relive the trauma. L for every journalist involved. With also big online commentators in the space like Ahsan Piker chiming in, reacting to the CNN clip.

One week before Christmas, a young student has been killed. A teacher has been killed. How will Madison, Wisconsin even begin to deal with this horrific day? And Area Leader will join us next. Dude, this is wild stuff. I swear. It's always like, it's just so commonplace. It's just so commonplace at this point where it's like,

we have streamlined the coverage. We have streamlined the coverage we've streamlined the coverage immediately with them then later adding now we have like additional industries tasked with designed with the purpose of extracting some kind of profit out of tragedies like this and yet we always seemingly find a reasonable market solution and that doesn't mean that we're actually eliminating the problem it's never about eliminating the problem. It's never about eliminating the problem. It's about trying to triage and I guess like stop the bleeding by, you know, making more money. Yeah. One man's tragedy is another man's opportunity.

Right. He's not alone there. Many have taken issue with people seemingly trying to profit, whether monetarily or with attention from this shooting specifically. I mean, just one example being that someone online actually shared what they said was the Madison Shooters Manifesto with a watermark on each page. Though I will say it's important to note here that the police have still said they're not ready to confirm whether this actually is what people are saying it is.

But regardless, right, that watermark landed the original poster in a world of backlash with people saying things like, "'An influencer watermarking a school shooter's manifesto with their social media handle feels like an episode the writers of Black Mirror rejected because they thought it was too obvious. But while we watch the public discourse play out

and we wait for more information and confirmations to come in, where I'll end this is by saying that obviously our hearts and our thoughts go out to those in Madison. But then in huge tech and AI news, we gotta talk about VO2. Because just a week after OpenAI's release of its AI video generation model, Sora,

as well as it being in the middle of the company's 12 days of OpenAI, Google announces VO2, which is their AI video generation model. With many also saying there that the timing of VO2's release is an obvious effort by Google to upstage and maintain dominance over its competitor. And a big thing there is that many are saying that they're succeeding and claiming that Google software, it absolutely blows Sora out of the water. With that, including the likes of, you know, Everyday Jane and John Doe, as well as alleged speeding enthusiasts and tech reviewers like Marques Brownlee. Notably here, we've seen sharing some VO2 generated clips and saying, if these handpicked examples are real,

they look better than anything I've gotten out of Sora. And as far as why, you know, one of the biggest criticisms against Sora so far, and it's something that MKBHD actually highlighted in his review, is that Sora seems to have issues trying to capture movement in a way that looks natural to the eye. Google, however, is claiming that VO2,

they just do it better with a press release, for example, saying, "'VO2 brings an improved understanding "'of real-world physics and the nuances "'of human movement and expression, "'which helps improve its detail and realism overall.'" And adding, while video models often hallucinate unwanted details, extra fingers or unexpected objects, for example,

VO2 produces these less frequently, making outputs more realistic. And then with that, you pair it with things like this VO2 clip of someone shuffling cards, which you can judge for yourself and had people saying the AI tells are getting harder to spot, but they're still there. And another adding, this is actually pretty impressive. It didn't lose consistency or anything. It looked like a real person shuffling cards. But then also, besides that, it's argued that there's some other potential advantages to VO2.

One, it's supposedly supposed to have a better understanding of cinematic language. Like so for instance, you can reference a specific genre of film, cinematic effect, or lens when prompting the model. With someone demonstrating this, sharing the prompt that they use to generate this clip of a car drifting through city streets. And then finally, in theory,

VO2 can produce clips longer than two minutes with resolutions reaching up to 4K, which is four times the resolution and over six times the duration of Sora. Though I also say that as in reality right now, VO2 is currently exclusive to Google's experimental video tool, VideoFX, where videos are limited to 720p and eight seconds long.

So technically speaking, Sora sort of has the upper hand with 20 second videos at 1080p right now. And then of course, the thing to remember and what people have been pointing out is that with Sora, that's been out for a week, but right now we're still seeing mostly Google's best examples. So we've been there, you have some saying today's video

is more impressive than the past perfect examples from Sora. But of course, as we always say with these stories, it's important to remember, this is the worst the technology will ever be again. And it does feel like everything is improving by leaps and bounds faster and faster. And so there's really only two different outcomes here.

One, eventually this will hit a ceiling, a wall, it can't get any better, or it will genuinely be indecipherable from real life. And at that point, it just becomes a question of who has access to it, how much does it cost, and how much can people use it? Or the more classic barriers to entry rather than what is the technology capable of?

And then from there, there are more of the concerns that we've kind of started to see more and more in the recent years. One, whose content is being used to train these models and who are the models replacing? And then two, what nefarious fucked up shit might they end up being used for? Or whether it be deep fakes, misinformation,

harassment and chaos. Because obviously when I see these advancements, there's one part of my brain that's like, oh, that's gonna be, I could make like a bunch of really cool like short films and fucking cool projects. But then of there's one part of my brain that's like, oh, that's gonna be, I could make like a bunch of really cool, like short films and fucking cool projects. But then of course the other side of my brain, the bringer of sadness that has seen the evolution of the internet over the past two decades,

it's reminded that the worst is gonna come out of people. Every advancement is a weapon in the wrong hands, especially when the guardrails aren't there or fully thought out and everyone's just trying to do shit as fast as possible. But then taking a quick break from the news, you know, how many of you kicked off 2024 promising to finally turn a passion project into profit?

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when you're ready to launch. That's squarespace.com slash phil. But then we should talk about TikTok because we have almost exactly one month until it could be banned in the United States. And with that, yesterday we saw the company ask for the Supreme Court to stop this. Because at the center of this,

you have the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would ban the platform unless it's sold to an American company. Something that was passed by Congress and signed by Biden and is slated to go into effect on January 19th, which is the day before Donald Trump moves back into the White House.

And what we've seen since it was signed by Biden is that TikTok has thrown a lot of different challenges at the wall, and yesterday it barked up SCOTUS's stream, with their filing saying the act will shutter one of America's most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration. This, in turn, will silence a speech of applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern, with it then further claiming that small businesses and other people who make a living on the app will suffer monetary harm. And so they're asking the court to block the law

by January 6th and further arguing that Donald Trump and his incoming administration, that they have expressed some support for the app. You know, on that note, Trump did previously say that he would save the app. And he also met with the CEO of TikTok yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, with then Trump speaking to reporters yesterday where he then partially credited

TikTok for his victory in November. We'll take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok had an impact and so we're take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok had an impact and so we're taking a look at it. Though then notably Trump declined to further say what he was looking at or planning to do on that front. Right, but then all of this is also coming as creators and users of the app are kind of hitting

an oh shit realization that a ban might actually come to fruition in just a few weeks. Right, and there, while the ban wouldn't remove the app for those who've already downloaded it or geo-block, it would force companies to take it off app stores and prevent it from being updated. With the belief being that without updates, it would eventually become too buggy to work.

And so while the looming thread of a TikTok ban has existed on and off for a few years, users now are really starting to take it seriously. Which is why, you know, if you scroll through the app, you're seeing tons of people commenting on their favorite creators' videos, wondering how they can still find them if it gets banned in January.

But then tons of creators trying to get people to find them on YouTube and Instagram, trying to sort of preemptively move their following there. But then also you have others fearing that it's just not going to be the same, that without the TikTok algorithm, that everything that they've built could just be turned to dust, which is a very valid concern. There are going to be some winners and losers regarding trying to migrate your audience to different platforms. That is the ultimate test of if you have people that kind of follow your content or they're legit fans. And these big moments, they have a tendency to make and break careers. With one of the most famous examples,

I think, being Vine. Some of the biggest YouTubers and content creators in the world actually got started on Vine and were able to shift their audience off platform before it died. Though that really only worked for the biggest names on the platform. But then, you know, going back to TikTok, there's a question of, you know, where are any potential battles standing right now? And there, you know, we've seen a U.S. Court of Appeals already rejecting one of TikTok's challenges. But then there's also, as the New York Times is saying, that there is a chance that SCOTUS will see it differently, though we don't really know for sure, explain it.

The court has shown keen interest in recent terms in the application of free speech principles to giant technology platforms, though it has stopped short of issuing definitive rulings. And so for now, over the next month, we will likely see creators scrambling as the app hangs in this weird limbo. But with that, I'll say this, two creators out there.

One, to the TikTok creators out there, you should definitely be trying to move people off platform to any and all platforms. Then also too, for every creator, you should always be doing this. Or you never wanna have all your eggs in one basket. Algorithms change, people get de-platformed, shit happens. Be an infectious disease, be everywhere.

You know, it's part of the reason you can find this show and or clips of it on pretty much every social media platform except Blue Sky and X, but that's because I'm lazy. But then it's also why we have things like, you know, the text line 813-213-4423 for people in the United States and Canada, as well as why we have the Daily Dip newsletter to go straight into people's mailboxes. It's just another version of hope for the best, plan for the worst. And then, so you may not know this, but having your asshole visually inspected is not, or rather should not be a part of every single arrest a cop makes.

Yet apparently if you had it just north of New York City to the suburbs of Mount Vernon, that was a guarantee for years. We now know that thanks to the Department of Justice wrapping up its investigation into the Mount Vernon police and releasing their findings. And the top line here is that the department performed strip searches and or cavity searches

on every single person it arrested until at least October of 2022, a practice that the Department of Justice called a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment on an enormous scale. With the DOJ also saying that the officers performed strip searches on people they didn't even arrest, as well as when they even had no reason to believe

that the person had drugs or other contraband. And in fact, several people said that officers had searched them repeatedly even when they even had no reason to believe that the person had drugs or other contraband. And in fact, several people said that officers had searched them repeatedly, even when they had been in custody and under police observation at all times between the searches. With the report also detailing one case that it said was emblematic of the department's shortcomings.

Right in there, he had two women, ages 65 and 75, arrested during a traffic stop on suspicion of buying drugs. When the cops searched the car, they didn't find anything, and so they took the women to the station for a fully nude strip search, where, according to the report, the pair were told to bend over and call. But once again, no drugs were found.

And a later internal probe found that the cops had actually lied about the women buying drugs. So then as far as their punishment, they got a few less vacation days. So shit like that just reportedly kept happening until at least 2023. Although the department curtailed the practice

while the DOJ investigated, the investigators still concluded, we are not confident that these practices have ended.'" But also, that was just the strip-searching stuff. There were also more garden-variety civil rights violations covered. Hitting on things like arresting people without probable cause

and necessarily escalating minor encounters and overusing tasers and close-fisted strikes. But apparently, that last one happening to people who had already been taken to the ground were controlled by many officers or were already restrained. Now with all this, going to the other side, in response to this, we've seen the city so far seeming relatively receptive to working

with the DOJ on reforms. For example, Mount Vernon's mayor saying in a statement, "'We have never run from this issue. "'We wholeheartedly support our good officers "'and at the same time will not tolerate "'and will punish unconstitutional policing.'" And to their credit, the police have taken some steps since the probe first opened.

Like for example, working to equip all officers with body cameras and less lethal weapons, as well as revising their policy on strip searches and offering training on the practice. But again, some say that it's also doubtful whether a few immediate policy changes can fix the deeper rot at the department. Or because this report notes that it suffers

from financial mismanagement, which makes all the other issues worse. So for example, if you can't pay good salaries, you can't attract and retain quality officers. And this on top of it making it much harder to train staff and pay bills. And this also is as important to remember, this is just one of about a dozen investigations

into police agencies across the country happening right now. And then we need to talk about Donald Trump wanting to privatize the US Postal Service. Because since Donald Trump won the election, there's been speculation about whether he might try to take the USPS private. And yesterday he publicly confirmed

that this is on the table. Well, there is. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life, but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries

that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. It won't take long to tell you Neutrals ingredients. Vodka. Soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Talk about the Postal Service being taken private. You do know that.

Not the worst idea I've ever heard. It really isn't. You know, it's a lot different today with between Amazon and UPS and FedEx and all the things that you didn't have. But there is talk about that. It's an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time, we're looking at it. Now with this, I will say this should not be surprising, right, Trump's disdain for the USPS, it's not a secret. He has repeatedly slammed the agency and called it a joke that loses massive amounts of money. He also previously tried to get the mail carrier

to hand over key functions to the treasury, threatened to withhold COVID aid, and installed a controversial postmaster general who made massive cuts, criticized by both the Republicans and Democrats for hurting service. And hell, this also wouldn't even be the first time that he's tried to take it private, with his White House actually proposing a plan

to do just that back in 2018. Though I will say, as far as any specifics of how Trump would overhaul the USPS now, that remains unclear. But you do have the Washington Post saying that sources did tell them that Trump said that the government shouldn't subsidize the agency anymore, citing financial losses.

With that, in reference to the fact that the service lost $9.5 billion in the last fiscal year. But also, ending subsidization of the USPS, it's not the same thing as privatizing the carrier outright. Because while the service does receive federal dollars, it's mostly self-funded, relying primarily on its own commercial activities, like selling postage, products, or services.

Which also helps explain why it lost so much money last year. That is a massive operation to sustain. But with that, it's argued that gutting the more limited federal money it does receive, it would just further undermine the agency's ability to do its job. And this is you see experts out there saying that privatizing agency would not fill those gaps

and instead just create a whole host of other problems. And that is greatly because unlike private competitors, such as Amazon or FedEx, the overarching goal of the USPS, it's not profit, it's access. Where the agency is governed first and foremost under what's known as the universal service obligation, which requires it to provide equal service everywhere in the country,

regardless of how remote the location may be or concerns about profitability. And you have experts saying that privatizing the postal service would inevitably put an emphasis on profit that could result in cutting access to rural areas that aren't as profitable. And that's just one potential downfall. They also say that taking the USPS private

could result in longer delivery times, fewer days of delivery and increased prices for consumers. And a really big thing there is this wouldn't just affect people who use USPS. Because here's a fun, interesting fact for you. The postal service's single biggest customer, it's actually Amazon. Because they use the USPS for last mile deliveries

made between Amazon fulfillment centers and consumers' homes or businesses. And it's not like, because they use the USPS for last mile deliveries made between Amazon fulfillment centers and consumers' homes or businesses. And it's not like everyone who lives in a rural area could just switch to Amazon or FedEx if USPS goes private and is forced to prioritize profit over access. Or because those companies, they already don't serve a ton of super rural areas because, say it with me, they are not profitable and profit is king.

Which is why we're seeing experts saying, taking the USPS private, it would completely upend the trillion dollar e-commerce industry and disproportionately impact small businesses and rural consumers who rely on the service. And then in addition to totally fucking up consumer shipping and business supply chains across the country, experts are saying that privatizing

the nation's mail carrier could cost hundreds of thousands of federal jobs. But you know, we'll have to wait to see if this happens or if it's doomed on arrival. And that, you know, because in part any attempt to privatize the USPS or even just ending its universal service obligation would likely require an act of Congress.

But then also I'm just fascinated to see how all this would play out. Right, and that is in part because the people who would be most affected by this, who understand everyone would be impacted, would be those who live in rural districts who vote for Republicans at a higher margin. But of course that requires us getting

to the finding out part after fucking around. And currently it is unclear if Trump could get enough support to actually do this, especially because his previous attempt in 2018 broadly failed to gain traction. You know, new times, new Congress, new vibes, especially because there are still other ways that he could gut the agency without taking a private

or eating the consent of Congress. Right, he could cut off the agency's access to loans from the treasury department, which is something that the administration attempted doing during the first term. Beyond that, people who will work on the Department of Government Efficiency panel led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy,

they've also reportedly been having conversations about major changes to the postal service. But it's also saying Musk voicing support for privatization on X. But again, this is any proposed cuts the Doge Commission recommends would likely have to be approved by Congress. But you know, we'll see what happens.

January 20th is just around the corner. Then, taking a quick breather from the news, you know, I've got a great gift idea for anyone in your life who hasn't quite understood yet how important cybersecurity really is. Because the fantastic sponsor of the PDS, NordVPN, is the gift of peace of mind, both for you and the recipient. You know, I use NordVPN to keep my digital life secure, but let's be real. It's also amazing for streaming content from all over the world. And on top of that, it's cool knowing that NordVPN helps make sure that information stays open and accessible everywhere.

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the martial law attempt in South Korea, mass protests in Georgia, the collapse of the French government, and now we're turning our attention to the crises of competence in Canada and Germany. We're talking about two countries that many largely see as kind of these pillars of stability in the West. And so let's start by talking about Canada, because there the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on the brink.

And notably, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is partly to blame or think, depending on your point of view. Because this largely has to do with the abrupt resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. And she's long been one of Trudeau's closest allies. And in fact, she's the person many expected would succeed him as leader of the liberal party. But now just hours before being scheduled to deliver a fiscal and economic update to parliament, she stepped down with a public resignation letter

blasting Trudeau's approach to handling another Trump presidency. With her saying in that letter that she came to this decision after Trudeau said that he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister and instead offered her another position in his cabinet. And so with all of that, she said that the two of them found themselves at odds

about the best path forward for Canada. Also a key thing is that she specifically cited disagreement about how to respond to economic threats from Trump, writing, our country faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration of the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25% tariffs. We need to take that threat extremely seriously.

And you know, speak of the devil, Trump himself responded to Freeland's resignation, writing on social media, "'Her behavior was totally toxic "'and not at all conducive to making deals, "'which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. "'She will not be missed.'" With Trump then also insulting Trudeau

as the governor of Canada, which is a quip that he's been making the last week when joking about Canada becoming the 51st state. And you know, with all this, the hits have just kept coming for Trudeau. I mean, just today, right, a day after Freeland's resignation, his party lost a special election in the Western province of British Columbia, which was a wild loss because that was a seat that they had won with 39% of the vote in 2021. And their party is now only getting 16% compared to the Conservative Party's 66%, which is also

why you might not be surprised to learn that the pressure for Trudeau to resign is now at an all time high. And this is a guy who's been in power for nine years now and his approval rating has plummeted from 63% when he was first elected to 28% in June of this year. Not to mention at least seven members of his own party have publicly called for him to step down now with more reportedly having done so in private. Whether he resigns or not, his days probably are numbered

because Canada's next federal election must be legally held by next October. But it's also possible to happen earlier than that if Trudeau calls for one or if lawmakers trigger a no confidence vote. But really, whenever it happens, unless something drastically changes in the world or specifically in Canada,

it's believed by many that it won't be enough time for Trudeau to recover. But then on that note, it's time to talk about Germany because there, Trudeau may be getting something like a sneak peek of his own future. There's now seeing Chancellor Olaf Scholz losing a vote of confidence in parliament, which means that Germany will hold new federal elections

in early 2025, likely in late February. So we're talking about seven months earlier than originally planned. And with that, a key thing here is that Scholz himself called for the vote, right? And that's because his governing coalition collapsed last month when the Free Democrats Party withdrew, leaving Scholz's Social Democratic Party

in a minority government with the Green Party. And after that, the political pressure on him to call for the vote became overwhelming. And if he had waited longer, it's expected that his party would have actually done worse in the upcoming election. But in the meantime, while obviously of people concerned in Germany

about the instability and uncertainty, the impact of all this, it's much bigger. Especially when you consider that this is not like an isolated thing. It's happening just weeks after the French government fell apart, with a new prime minister there being named only days ago, and the situation's still fragile.

And this is Germany and France, the most influential countries in the EU, and these domestic political crises, they're just exacerbating a crisis of leadership at the European level. I mean, this is happening at a time where, one, there's all sorts of economic challenges that the continent's facing,

and two, the war in Ukraine's really reached a pivotal moment, especially with Trump's such take office in the United States. And now Germany, which is Europe's largest economy, it's gonna be in the hands of a caretaker government that can't really make major policy decisions. You know, for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what all happens, what this means

over the next couple of months, and then also beyond that, what the long-term consequences and opportunities may be. And then, we should talk about some of America's top schools running in a legal monopoly that costs 200,000 students over $685 million extra to get their education. Rather, at least that is what lawyers claimed yesterday as part of an ongoing case that stretches back to 2022.

And at the center of the suitor accusations at schools like Georgetown, Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and others, price fixed admission costs by placing too much emphasis on a student's ability to pay, leading to artificially higher prices for those who are relying on financial aid. The really wild thing is that some of the price fixing

is at least superficially legal. So the schools had formed a group called the 568 Presidents Group, named after a 1994 exemption to antitrust laws that let schools collaborate on financial aid as long as they used need-blind admissions, which is really just a different way to say that schools were required to consider applicants

regardless of their income or financial status. But the schools allegedly did the opposite in many cases and sometimes gave preferential treatment to those from rich families. For example, the suit alleging that Georgetown University's then president would allegedly make a list of about 80 applicants with the words, please admit, written at the top every year. And this list did information about their parents' income and past donations. However, it would often lack their transcript for anything else you'd normally associate with applying to a college. With a suit saying similar things also happened

at MIT and Notre Dame, with it pointing to a pattern of considering income when admitting students in direct violation of the law. In the schools considering income, that is a major deal for this lawsuit because if they did, then they automatically don't qualify for the antitrust exemption on financial aid pricing

and would be super screwed. So again, it said that the ability to pay more for a school upfront was a major factor in who was admitted to a school, raised the prices and caused those on financial aid to pay more out of pocket themselves. So in the end, this allegedly made the schools cost that $685 million extra for low and middle income students

who claim that they should have been given more aid. And with this, it's not shocking that a big motivation for considering how much a student's family had was the hope that that would lead to more endowments. Reportedly, there's evidence that it may have worked as the endowments these schools got from 2003 to 2022, they skyrocketed to over $220 billion. And seemingly, this case has some legs

as the plaintiffs have had some success so far with this suit. Initially, 16 schools were part of the lawsuit before a 17th was added, but 10 of the schools have since settled to the tune of $284 million so far. Though, as we often see with settlements, there is language of admitting to no wrongdoing.

As far as the money, that'll be added to a pool that will eventually be paid out to the 200,000 students affected across every school, not just those from the 10 that have settled. Brain all of this as Cornell, Caltech, Georgetown, John Hopkins, MIT, Notre Dame, and Penn are still fighting the suit. I will say fighting could be really risky

since this is an antitrust case and thus any damages are tripled, putting the possible judgment at over $2 billion. Now for their part, the school still denied that they actually did anything wrong during that time period. They instead claim that they largely had generous financial aid policies

that have only expanded over the years. In some cases, those aid packages can be substantial, such as Caltech, which covers tuition, fees, housing, and food for students for families that make less than $100,000, and tuition for families with less than $200,000. With that, I think it's important to know that there has been pushback.

Because yes, you have people saying, these schools do often have amazing financial aid packages, but that's now. And arguing that during the time period that this lawsuit covers, that was not the case. And often, they could have offered 10 to 20% more, but didn't with a co-lead attorney saying yesterday, "'Our motion today spells out very substantial evidence

"'supporting our claim that the defendants colluded "'with each other for 20 years on financial aid, "'and the illegal collusion resulted in the defendants "'providing far less aid to students "'than would have been provided in a free market.'" But for now, that is where we are, and we'll have to wait to see how all of this plays out. With that, my friends, is the end of your Tuesday evening,

Wednesday morning dive into the news. As always, thank you for watching. And remember, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.