The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.19 Logan Paul "Exposed" and Cancelled, Lionel Messi World Cup Controversy, Elon Musk Stepping Down, &

Starting point is 00:00:00 We've got Logan Paul getting exposed after angering Jesus and the crypto gods, Elon Musk dispelling the myth that billionaires are smart, Messi 100%ing soccer but now finding himself in the midst of controversy. With all that and so much more on today's season finale of the Philip DeFranco Show. This is likely the last full Philip DeFranco Show before Monday, January 2nd, though you'll be getting daily shorts from me in the interim. But hey, buckle up, hit that like button for surviving another year together, and let's just jump into it. Would it really feel like the end or beginning of a year

Starting point is 00:00:28 if there wasn't a Logan Paul controversy? He's seemingly upping his game by being in two controversies at once, at least two that are getting attention. So for the first part, we're going to talk about his controversy in the world of crypto. Because over the weekend, CoffeeZilla, or I'll call him Steven, released the first in a three-part video series about Logan Paul and his blockchain game project called CryptoZoo. So the first part of this deep dive investigation that he says took over a year to complete, he goes into the details of how he says CryptoZoo and Logan Paul scammed people out of millions of dollars. I'm going to be covering his highlights.

Starting point is 00:00:53 If you want to see the full thing, of course, link down below as always. But here's the TLDR. Logan Paul announces the game on his podcast and Paul said back in August of last year, saying there was a massive team behind it with hand-drawn art and a million dollars out of pocket. So when people saw it, they jumped on it. Which I also think makes sense because as far as creators go, I feel like he was the creator that kind of mainstreamed NFTs to YouTube audiences. But with this, CoffeeZilla interviewed several of the investors of this game

Starting point is 00:01:14 and found that the amount of money they put into it was astounding. How much did you guys make from CryptoZoo? I lost around $50,000 in CryptoZoo. I lost $40,000. I lost around $15,000. I lost $25,000. $120,000. So what's this game anyway? You started by buying this crypto token called Zoo, which is their in-game currency. And you use Zoo coins to then buy egg NFTs, which you can then hatch to become animals. You then can breed those two animals to

Starting point is 00:01:46 become hybrid animals. You can then burn your animal NFTs to release the zoo they earned back to you. And from there, you can invest it into eggs or just cash out. And there's a general structure of how it's supposed to function. But when the game launched, the passive yield didn't even work. With CoffeeZilla doing an interview with one of the people who lost money and found something interesting. It wasn't even written into the contract where it showed that you could, that you were actually yielding to you, but there was nothing that was actually, you know, backing that up. There was no way to claim your yield. There never was. So you reportedly had people like Rob losing hundreds of thousands of dollars into this game. When the game did launch

Starting point is 00:02:20 and so many people realized the issues with it, they said Logan Paul went radio silent, completely abandoning the project for another. And in CoffeeZilla's video, he dives into the question of what happened to the million dollars that Logan claimed that he and his team spent out of pocket. Was it the artists or the handmade art that Logan was so proud of? It's quick to make a digital asset with, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:36 unique, randomly generated characteristics. We handmade art for the past six months, bro! Approval, very specific notes, 10 different artists making art for the past six months, bro. Approval, very specific notes, 10 different artists making art for our project. Well, Coffeezilla pointed out that when the art team of CryptoZoo started releasing teasers, they were actually just Adobe stock images of animals smushed together.

Starting point is 00:02:55 And in a rare moment where someone actually asked Logan about the game, he says that its issues were because the lead developer held the code hostage. So Coffeezilla talked to this lead developer who claimed that Logan and CryptoZoo never paid him and that's why he took the code. And another developer on the project saying the same thing, that they were not paid for their work on CryptoZoo. So then you have CoffeeZilla trying to follow up on these accusations

Starting point is 00:03:28 with Loken's manager, Jeff, who started with the standard no comment. And then when Steven pressed the issue, he started saying some kind of weird, vague things about legality. Some saying they were just thinly veiled threats to sue. Obviously, I don't want to just run a story. If you guys have a whole side to your story here.

Starting point is 00:03:43 Your job as a as a um as someone that is reporting news is to actually verify correct news right that's why i'm calling you so i'm just telling you legally you have to report correct news with verifiable information right that's why i'm calling you. If you do not verify truth, then you're just allegations, and those then will be handled the way that we want to handle it. Wait, so

Starting point is 00:04:14 you're saying, you're saying, you refuse to give me proof that the allegations aren't true, but if I report on the allegations, you guys might sue. No. No, I did not say that. I did not say that. All right.

Starting point is 00:04:27 I'm just, I'm trying to read between the lines. With CoffeeZilla then leaving us on a cliffhanger about someone else being involved in this whole mess, saying that an Eddie Ibanez spoke directly with the developers, not Logan. Now with this, I've seen some messages asking me to get Logan on to talk about this, but I've said the same thing to CoffeeZilla. The only way that I would do that, even if Logan was game, would be if I could have Steven on the call as well, because I know fuck all about NFTs. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to watch CoffeeZilla's next part. As far as what we do know about the game is that it doesn't look like it's even available.

Starting point is 00:04:53 It's website saying it's undergoing upgrades to the core infrastructure. Yeah. With this, of course, I'd love to know your thoughts in general, especially if you participated in the CryptoZoo launch as well. Though, like I said, not just one story today. There were two reasons Logan was in the news. With Logan having been under fire for the past few days for his comments that he made towards his friend George about his religion. George is his friend and co-host in a recent episode of Impulsive, Logan and George go into this heated debate about

Starting point is 00:05:13 religion and Christianity. I think it's a silly practice to engage in. And I think it's, I think it deserves satire. Like, come on. Yeah, but that's not. Subscribe to a doctrine that slams homosexuality come on bro that's ridiculous i mean again we've talked about this just am definitely questioning why we have to perpetuate a belief that is fucking i silly i i agree but you bashing me in front of a group of people for my beliefs is not right amid all the conversation you have george calling logan out genuinely like i know people that hate me that treat me better about my faith than you, and you're my best friend. So the video was posted, and oh shit, did people have things to say.

Starting point is 00:05:52 Saying things like, I hate how Logan Paul can mock Christianity and Jesus and not get cancelled, but if he were to do that to Allah or the Muslim religion or Judaism, then he would be cancelled immediately. Why are Christians stepped on in trash with no consequences? As well as Logan Paul is one of many who walk over Christianity. I lost all my respect for him and all I'm doing is praying for him. But also, important note, it wasn't just one-sided. There were many jumping to Logan's defense as well. People saying things like Christians finding out what atheists are in 2022 during this whole Logan Paul hating on Christianity situation is crazy. He isn't even hating on it. I may add that George is taking it way too seriously as well, saying keep your religion

Starting point is 00:06:21 to yourself and accept other people's opinion. As well as this is the hilarity of Christianity. They clutch their pearls when called out, only to then open their mouths and prove Logan Paul right. Logan Paul was spitting facts. Clutch your pearls if you want, it doesn't make him wrong about this. And so where I'll leave you with this situation is, what are your thoughts here? Which camp do you land in and why? And then, Avatar The Way of Water bombed. According to some people, personally I just think it underperformed. Right domestically it was expected to make between $150 to $175 million, instead hitting just a measly tiny $134 million. And that's on top of the $301 million it made overseas. Now, granted, it didn't have the biggest or second biggest opening of all time, which people were saying that it needed to do. But it did have the third

Starting point is 00:06:57 biggest opening post-pandemic, only being beaten out by the new Spider-Man and Doctor Strange movies. But also, two things to note here. One, the original Avatar made $116 million in Russia, but this one isn't actually playing in Russia. So obviously this time around, you're gonna see a difference in the numbers. But also two, experts say that initial box office doesn't mean that much with James Cameron, saying that his movies actually start slower

Starting point is 00:07:16 and then build over time. Though I will say, the attention and scrutiny, it does make sense, because even Cameron himself said this movie needs to be one of the top grossing movies in history to just break even. And then, Elon Musk had himself a weekend. With famed centrist and free speech absolutist hanging out with Jared Kushner at the World Cup. But the two getting spotted there after Elon Musk tweeted out his assassination coordinates.

Starting point is 00:07:36 If you don't get that reference, you will in a second. But it is easy to get lost in the news because there's so much chaos happening. So much so that yesterday Elon Musk even asked Twitter users, Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll. Which to me felt like a guy at a party saying, who here doesn't want me to dip my balls in the punch bowl? I'm pretty sure we're all a fan of it. But instead, Elon technically was 90% cheers and 10% boos except during quiet periods. Musk found himself on the wrong end of the poll with 57.5% of the 17.5 million votes telling him to get out

Starting point is 00:08:05 of there. You know, as these votes were rolling in against him, he started tweeting some kind of cryptic stuff, stuff like those who want power are the ones who least deserve it. Though there, you're the guy that paid $44 billion for Twitter and thought like I alone can fix this. But also Musk tweeting, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish as you might get it. Prompting some to be like, oh, he's literally gonna choose the worst person. With people like Hasan Piker joking, he's gonna put MBS in charge of Twitter. Or hey, maybe Jared Kushner. They both love playing with billions of dollars of Saudi money. We also saw a number of creators throwing their hat in the ring as a potential successor.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Also, throwing their hat in the ring is kind of the nicest way I could describe it. Some people were like, I will suck your dick, Elon. More than I already do. Like, not even just metaphorically. But also, on the note of successor, Musk said he has no one in mind yet. Writing, no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. Which I will say is one of the few things Musk has said of late that I actually agree with. Although, obviously, would be so much power in having the position,

Starting point is 00:08:54 it genuinely, at least for my mental health, would be the worst job ever. Like, I would not want to, and am not qualified to successfully and rightly run a company like Twitter. Most of the people I see saying they want the job would use it like a weapon. Or the people put in place, could they themselves be used as a weapon? But also with this, we've seen a lot of speculation about why he would even say this. With one former Twitter staffer telling BBC News, I imagine he's getting pressure from investors to step down and is using this poll to make it look like he's following the will of the people instead of the will of those paying his bills. Because you have reports noting he's recently been selling billions of dollars in Tesla stock, likely to pay for his Twitter purchase. This is reports are

Starting point is 00:09:27 coming out that he's asking investors to put more money into the company. With him selling so much Tesla stock, we've seen that tanking Tesla shares over the last month. Though, very notably, after the results saying, hey, get Elon out of Twitter, finish, Tesla stock went up 5% in pre-market trading. But also, remember, there was so much news and this was kind of just the latest. With one of the things leading up to this being Musk and Twitter going on a journalist suspension spree, and likely just a coincidence, a lot of those journalists that were suspended were specifically covering Elon Musk and the chaos happening at Twitter, with Musk claiming that these journalists were doxing him, right? And that's connected to this whole controversy around the Twitter account

Starting point is 00:09:58 ElonJet, which we've talked about in the past. It tracks Musk's private jet, which is publicly available information. But with Musk in control, he ended up banning that account. Musk saying that that was real-time location sharing, saying it's a safety risk, a form of doxing, essentially putting out assassination coordinates. So Musk used this excuse as a reason to ban the journalist because they had tweeted links to the jet tracker. Reportedly, the reporters were given no warning

Starting point is 00:10:19 or explanation as to why this happened to their accounts when it happened. Though they have been reinstated after Musk put out a poll saying, "'Should I reinstate the people that doxed me? Though to be clear, there is a massive discrepancy and argument regarding what actually constitutes doxing. But then, on Saturday, the journalist ban controversy

Starting point is 00:10:33 continued as Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz was suspended. With her writing in her sub stack, I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated. Never once in my 13-year career in social media have I received a single terms of service or community guidelines violation for my personal account

Starting point is 00:10:48 or any account that I've run." With Musk at one point claiming that this suspension was because of her prior doxing and that her account would soon come back. At the same time, you have Lorenz saying that when she tried to appeal her suspension, she got a response from Twitter saying she was permanently banned.

Starting point is 00:10:58 Though in what is becoming kind of a trend for Twitter, they flip flopped on the decision very fast and Lorenz is back on the platform. Also making it even more confusing is you had Taylor saying she only has three tweets live on her account because she auto-deletes them. Though notably one of those being where she and a Washington Post colleague who was also suspended were reaching out to Musk for a comment on a story. And then as far as the other two, they were her promoting her other social media profiles. But that had it not been for Musk mentioning supposed doxing could have been the reason that she was

Starting point is 00:11:21 suspended. Because yesterday during the World Cup where everyone was paying attention to that, the Twitter support account tried to quietly announce, We recognize that many of our users are active on other platforms. We will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter. Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social media platforms and content that contains links or usernames to the following platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon Truth, Social, and more. But then, when you actually went to Twitter's terms, it was more far-reaching than that.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Noting, if anybody tweeted like this, they could be removed. Not just accounts created solely for that purpose. Which is why this was so negatively received by pretty much everyone except the most die-hard Elon fan. We had big creators talking about this, people like Moist Critical saying, thought this was a parody account at first. I'm seeing even the hardcore Musk meat swallower is choking on this news. And Asmongold adding, As someone who's been mostly pro-Elon Twitter, this seems exclusionary and desperate,

Starting point is 00:12:08 directly antithetical to the interconnected nature and intrinsic beauty of the internet. With Musk then engaging with individual users saying, yeah, maybe it does make sense to pull back to just accounts that are solely for that purpose. So there we also saw Twitter support announcing a poll, asking should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms. Once again, the general public handed Elon Musk a what the fuck are you doing, with 86% of the vote coming in as no, with Musk then claiming that going forward, there'll always be a vote before major policy changes. But hey,

Starting point is 00:12:35 for now, that is where this Elon Musk Twitter dumpster fire news ends. And honestly, I really wouldn't be surprised if by the time I came back on January 2nd, the new Twitter CEO was a honey badger with a fucking flamethrower. But hey, with this story, I'd love to know your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions, and maybe even your predictions as to what is going to come next. You don't get to just say, bad, I want specifics. And then, if you missed the World Cup final this weekend, you missed the best one that ever happened, ever.

Starting point is 00:13:00 I didn't have a dog in the fight, and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. And even if you don't watch, you've likely already heard Argentina beat France for the 2022 World Cup Championship. It's absolutely huge for Argentina. It's the first time they've won since 1986. And it didn't seem like it was going to be that exciting. It was a 2-0 game going into the 80th minute. But then Francis Mbappe was like, oh wait, this is the final? Scores two goals in two minutes. It goes to extra time. It looks like Lionel Messi did it. Argentina's up 3-2. Only for France to get a penalty kick and then tie it up 3-3 with Mbappe getting a hat trick. It all goes to penalty kicks, Argentina wins, but I do want to note something. Yes, this solidifies Messi as the GOAT. Though for many they didn't

Starting point is 00:13:33 need more proof, but here it is. But two, it feels like not enough people are talking about Emiliano Martinez. He's Argentina's keeper, yes, he did his job during penalty kicks, but he also saved Argentina with a last second one-on-one save in the 122nd, 123rd minute. Though that also could be because Martinez was on the news for other reasons, in part because he mocked Mbappe in the locker room. As well as because of this moment in photo,

Starting point is 00:14:02 where he appears to thrust his hips with the trophy near his groin, with Martinez later explaining, I did it because the French booed me. Pride does not work with me. But then, back to the greatest soccer legend to ever live, Lionel Messi. I've only really watched this sport for the last four years, but I do love it. You know, you just really can't understate the win for him. It's the first time he's taken home the World Cup trophy.

Starting point is 00:14:22 On top of that, he secured the Golden Ball, an award for the event's most outstanding player. He's also the first player to ever score in every stage of the tournament with 172 total goals. And the scenes in Argentina when they won, it's like he's godlike. Though we did see parts of the internet blowing up after the game. This because of a moment following Messi walking up to the podium to accept the trophy. He shakes hands with FIFA's president and Qatar's Amir. At which point the Amir drapes a black and gold bish on Messi. It's a traditional Arab garb worn on special events and celebrations in the region. For some, just a friendly gesture towards the game's winner. But for Right, it's a traditional Arab garb worn on special events and celebrations in the region, for some just a friendly gesture towards the

Starting point is 00:14:45 game's winner, but for others it ruined the moment. With commenters saying it covered up Messi's jersey, effectively stealing the show for him, a Times reporter tweeting, Qatar wants this to be its moment as much as it's Messi's in Argentina's. With others even accusing Qatar of sports watching where they stamp their mark on the event to paper over their brutal human rights record, and on the other side you have people accusing those attacking the Bishd of being ignorant, arguing that it's just a symbol of appreciation and respect in Arab culture. But where I'll leave you is whether it be on the controversy that followed or the actual game itself, I'd love to know your thoughts. And then cybersecurity isn't a joke. And I'd like to remind you that it is important to be protected at all times, especially during the

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Starting point is 00:15:59 and go to nordvpn.com slash philtp to get a special deal. Go get it today. It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. And then, this just broke as I was recording, the January 6th committee just unanimously sent four criminal referrals for Donald Trump to the Justice Department. The four are obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to make a false statement, and inciting, assisting, or aiding or comforting

Starting point is 00:16:20 an insurrection. With Congressmember Jamie Raskin saying of that last referral, An insurrection is a rebellion against the authority of the United States. It is a grave federal offense anchored in the Constitution itself, which repeatedly opposes insurrections and domestic violence and indeed uses participation in insurrection by officeholders as automatic grounds for disqualification from ever holding public office again at the federal or state level. The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former President Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.

Starting point is 00:17:23 And before that, Congress member Liz Cheney very pointedly saying ahead of the referral, No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. He is unfit for any office. Now, this is a major move that tops off a series of historic and powerful public hearings. But very notably here, these referrals are entirely symbolic, at least for now. The DOJ is not required to take any action here, and it is that agency that has the power to decide if there is enough evidence to support prosecution.

Starting point is 00:17:55 And in this specific case, the DOJ has already launched its own investigation into Trump here, so it can choose to charge him and his cronies in relation to the insurrection even without this referral. But experts say that the panel's move draws more public attention to this matter and as a result could increase pressure for the DOJ to bring charges against Trump. But at least for now, we're gonna have to wait to see. And I have a rule that when it comes to Trump and like just the prospect of him being held accountable for something, I will not hold my breath. I'll believe it when I see it. And then we've got big trouble at our southern border right now. So El Paso, Texas and other border towns are already having to deal with an influx of migrants.

Starting point is 00:18:26 But now you also have a policy that was put into place by the Trump administration at the beginning of the pandemic set to expire on Wednesday. So let's talk specifics. In March of 2020, the U.S. government flipped a switch, giving itself the authority to immediately remove migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. This on the grounds that allowing them admission to the United States would contribute to the spread of COVID-19. And according to the Trump administration, this action was legal under Title 42 of the Public Health Code. With that, authorizing health authorities to restrict entry to the U.S. when there's an outbreak of a communicable illness

Starting point is 00:18:50 in another nation. And so over 2.4 million migrants have been deported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection since Title 42 was activated in response to the outbreak. Then in walks in President Biden, with him vowing to repeal Title 42. But it wasn't actually until May of this year that he made any effort to reduce Title 42 enforcement.

Starting point is 00:19:04 Although, key thing here, that effort was held up in court, with it being only last month that a federal judge decided that this will expire on December 21st. And there were some people saying Title 42 was ineffective in the first place, but Republicans in particular are speaking out against its expiration, sometimes citing their usual talking points, but also emphasizing a lack of resources right now. In fact, Texas Governor Greg Abbott saying, It's going to be total chaos. saying it'll lead to surges in migrants that border towns aren't equipped to handle. Communities like Del Rio and Eagle Pass and others, they were having thousands of people dumped off into their

Starting point is 00:19:33 communities. Thousands of migrants dumped off in their communities. They don't have the capability of dealing with that vast number of migrants. And asking the Supreme Court to terminate Biden's move here before its due date on Wednesday. And this is Morning Morning Brew notes as El Paso, whose migrant support system has already been under intense strain in the past week, declared a state of emergency on Saturday so that people waiting outside in near freezing temperatures can get additional resources. But no matter what, it seems like this is going to be a bad, bad situation. It's just dependent on how bad and why. And then this is one of the most important democracy related cases that the U.S. Supreme Court has ever heard ever. I'm not exaggerating. This could single-handedly undermine American democracy.

Starting point is 00:20:09 Before we get into the justified fear here, I am personally hopeful. That is not a thing that I usually say. But it's still incredibly important to talk about because we really don't know what this Supreme Court will do. They've made that very clear so far with some of their decisions, like Roe v. Wade, and the specifics in their opinions. So the case in question is Moore v. Harper and it centers around Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina. Right after the 2020 census, the state's Republican-controlled legislature adopted a new congressional map that gave them a supermajority and a massive advantage in winning House seats. But then the North Carolina Supreme Court rejected that map, arguing that it was an egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander that violated the state's constitution. So as a result, the legislature redrew their map,

Starting point is 00:20:44 but that was also rejected for being gerrymandered by a state court that appointed a special master to make a fair map. But the Republicans didn't like that, and after some more legal back and forth, they brought the case to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it. Now, all that kinda sounds pretty run-of-the-mill. But what makes this case so unique and terrifying is the specific argument that North Carolina Republicans are making. Their whole basis for their claim relies on an untested fringe idea called the Independent State Legislature Theory or ISL Theory. Which a key thing here, recently gained traction after being touted by Trump and his allies in their effort to overturn the election. Because ISL Theory argues that the US Constitution gives state legislatures essentially exclusive authority to set election rules and congressional maps and nothing can stop them.

Starting point is 00:21:20 So basically state legislatures could make whatever changes they want to their election system. And governors or even state courts would be prevented from intervening. With voters also not able to stop them because legislators can just straight up ignore election-related ballot initiatives, which totally undermines the will of the people. And under this thing that North Carolina Republicans are arguing, partisan lawmakers could literally violate their own state constitutions. That is literally what they are arguing in this case. Which if you're like, that sounds fucking insane, yes.

Starting point is 00:21:42 And it raises a ton of questions about the future of elections and American democracy itself. But also with this, I want to get a better idea behind what's happening here. Are the people and groups that are trying to raise the alarm bell here, what are they saying? So we reached out and talked to Mike Sozin, who's a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which is a progressive think tank. And in part, he talked about the weak constitutional basis for ISL theory. Republicans point to two clauses of the U.S. Constitution, which indeed do give, quote-unquote, legislatures the power to do things like set election rules for federal elections and to play a role in how presidential electors are selected. It's true that the word legislature appears in the Constitution in those clauses, but over the course of the 200 plus year history of our country,

Starting point is 00:22:26 the Supreme Court has never interpreted the word legislature that narrowly. It is, in fact, always interpreted that word in the common sense way, which is a broad interpretation. With my going on to say that the broad interpretation of these clauses is that basically checks and balances should exist, right? Governors should be involved in lawmaking. Courts should have the power of judicial review. And adding that as a result, when ISL theory has been raised in the past, the court has almost always struck it down completely. And noting one of the key things that this has been widely discredited by a ton of experts on both sides of the aisle. This including many prominent conservatives. And it's been condemned as going against democracy in American history. And to

Starting point is 00:23:02 really illustrate just how extreme it is to argue for such a strict interpretation of what the word legislature means in the US Constitution might give us a great analogy. There are also times in the Constitution where the word Congress appears. We're familiar with that. And this theory would be saying that the word Congress, wherever it appears,

Starting point is 00:23:21 means only Congress and not the president of the United States having any role in how laws are passed or the US Supreme Court being able to review those laws or the US constitution serving as guardrails. I think we would all say that it's absurd that Congress would be able to just do whatever it wants to when it passes a law. So obviously ISL theory, very scary concept, But we also haven't even gotten to the scariest part of this horror show yet. With Mike giving us some insight as to what would actually happen if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Republicans here. So from a

Starting point is 00:23:52 big picture perspective, this could throw our system of free and fair elections and our democracy into chaos because suddenly judges would not be allowed to review and throw out laws that were passed by a legislature that were anti-voter laws that are unfair laws. Constitutional provisions that guarantee free and fair elections, for example, could be rendered meaningless. Governors could lose their right to veto or sign laws as part of the normal lawmaking process. Secretaries of state and other local and state election officials who are often given discretion to help carry out election-related laws in a fair way could be stripped of that authority. With the matter that voting could be insanely chaotic because there could be one set of rules for state-level races and a totally different set of rules for federal races and elections

Starting point is 00:24:43 where you vote on both, which is most of them. Imagine two different sets of rules regarding things like voting hours or voting locations or whether drop boxes are allowed or whether people are properly registered. That could throw our elections into chaos. And from a bigger picture, it could make people even less trustworthy of our elections. And that could also just reduce people wanting to be involved in our elections and our democracy. But arguably the biggest concern is what partisan state legislatures will do with all their unchecked power. We've seen over 20 states in the past two years, states that are controlled by Republican legislatures. We've seen these states pass voter suppression and election sabotage laws, almost always based on the big lie. Imagine all of those state legislatures being able to do what

Starting point is 00:25:32 they did in the past couple of years, but on steroids, with no court to check them and no constitution to check them. They're going to be able to pass whatever laws they want related to federal elections. They could decide to make it harder for people to vote. They could decide to make it much easier to draw unfair boundaries for congressional maps. And it could just really heighten extremism in our nation at a time where we really all need to be lowering the political temperature. But with all this, Mike ended on a sort of, kind of, maybe optimistic note, with that optimism stemming from questions

Starting point is 00:26:07 the Supreme Court justices asked during oral arguments for this case a few weeks back. We had the court's three liberals making it very clear that they opposed ISL theory, while three of the conservative justices seemed very much in favor of the camp supporting ISL theory, those being Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. The other three conservatives seemed to be more on the fence.

Starting point is 00:26:23 And that's what gave me a little bit of optimism here, that hopefully the court will not adopt this theory in all of its glory, in its full fledged nature. Maybe there can be a way that it's adopted in a more narrow way that might circumscribe state courts and state constitutions in some way, but still protect state courts' ability to get involved in cases and to apply state constitutions. And beyond that, Mike also noted that there are some checks and balances in place to counter ISL theory if the court rules in favor. For example, if state courts get cut out of election rulemaking, federal courts will still have jurisdiction to determine which laws are constitutional. So cases could be moved there, but that would also result in a just huge amount of litigation

Starting point is 00:27:05 and things could get super backed up. Also, Congress can pass federal laws regarding federal elections, but, as Mike also noted, they're so gridlocked now, it seems impossible that they would actually pass sweeping elections legislation. Though, semi-related lawmakers right now are on the verge of passing changes to the Electoral Count Act, which outlines rules for how electors are chosen to prevent a president from trying to overturn a ballot election like Trump did.

Starting point is 00:27:23 But, understand, if the Supreme Court sided with the Republicans here, this is, it's not a slippery slope. The landslide off of the cliff will have officially begun. But I uncharacteristically have hope in the Supreme Court's decision here. Though we don't know what it's going to be because the Supreme Court isn't expected to hand down a decision on this until January. But ultimately, with this story, I'd love to know your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings, your everything, because that also is the end of today's show. As always, thank you for watching, liking, and subscribing to these daily dives in the news. If you're new here, definitely subscribe.

Starting point is 00:27:51 YouTube algorithm seems to punish this channel when we're not posting almost every single day. And while I'll be posting shorts in the meantime, the full Philip DeFranco show will not be back until January 2nd. So mark it off in your calendar. Does anyone actually use their calendar? But until then, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you soon.

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