The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 1.7 Trump Threatens Canada, Greenland, & Panama in 100-Minute Presser & Why Zuck Killed Meta Fact Checks

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Subscribe for New shows every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday @ 6pm ET/3pm ET & watch more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbYXxJgdzEs  Use code “PHIL” for $20 OFF your first SeatGeek order & returning buyers use code “PDS” for $10 off AND your chance at weekly $500 prizes! https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL  https://BeautifulBastard.com $20 Mystery Boxes and the Best Tees & Hoodies on the Internet according to my mom! WATCH YESTERDAY'S SHOW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbYXxJgdzEs  – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Trump “Threatens” Canada, Greenland, and Panama Canal in Press Conference  03:50 - Meta Replaces Fact-Checking With X-Style Community Notes Model 10:58 - High School Coach Sued for Making Players do Nearly 400 Push-ups  13:39 - Sponsored by SeatGeek 14:36 - First Human Death From Bird Flu Reported in Louisiana 19:31 - 2 Bodies Found in the Landing Gear Compartment of a JetBlue Plane 21:50 - Trump & Other Republicans Push New Laws Combatting Illegal Immigration 27:51 - Comment Commentary Trump Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/live/1foNDJQ0GG8?si=Cs-i75WdF5KS0XZ-  ——————————   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 #Greenland #DonaldTrump ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We need to talk about that Donald Trump press conference today. Something that you've probably seen at least a part of, because it's just taken over the internet like wildfire. They're focusing on a number of things, including an apparent name change. We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name. And it's appropriate. Sure, why not?

Especially because while that was like the most viral online, that was like the least jarring thing for a number of people. And arguably the thing that should be getting more attention is Trump saying that he will not rule out military force in the Panama Canal and Greenland. The idea that a Trump led United States would take over those places, those are not new to Trump.

And when asked about it today, we saw this. Let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal. So can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? No, I can't assure you. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this. We need them for economic security.

The Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China. China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China. And they've abused it. They've abused that gift. It should have never been made, by the way.

And then when Trump was asked about Greenland again later in the presser, he said. Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. You have approximately 45,000 people there. People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. With President-elect Trump then saying that he'd hit Denmark with high tariffs

if it interfered with efforts to get Greenland to join the US. Also, while we're on this topic, we should also talk about Canada, which Trump has his eyes on. Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada? No, economic force.

Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. But why are we supporting a country, 200 billion plus a year, Our military is at their disposal. All of these other things, they should be a state. But then also another big moment is when he discussed the hostages. If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas. And it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. You know, with all this, I'm gonna link to the press conference down below.

It was over an hour long. So really I'm just hitting on some of the highlights and the parts making the most headlines. Which I will say on that note, like regarding the reactions, they're all over the place. Right, many news outlets have been characterizing his statements as outright threats to countries like Denmark. But then some outlets just running articles

giving more context. The likes of Reuters publishing one titled titled, Can Trump Buy Greenland? And there, noting that the country's prime minister, who recently has stepped up a push for independence from Denmark, has repeatedly said that the island is not up for sale and that it is up to the people to decide their future. You also then had Democratic politicians

pushing back against Trump for focusing on some of these issues with the likes of Representative Hakeem Jeffries writing, "'House Democrats are focused on lowering the high cost of living in America, not invading Greenland. And then regarding his comments on Canada, you had Justin Trudeau saying, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell

that Canada would become part of the United States. And saying workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other's biggest trading and security partner. And so, yeah, I'd love to know your thoughts on all this. Let me know your thoughts in those comments down below as we head to inauguration day in just 13 days. While you're leaving that comment or not,

let me just say, sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. You daily dive into the news and how the news is covering stories and how people are reacting. This is now just the second official show of the year. I appreciate you being back with us. And I'll just remind you to be subscribed.

Turn all those notifications on because I got a brand new show for you every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific. But moving on to different news, is Mark Zuckerberg protecting free speech, or is he bending the knee? That is what a lot of people are asking and debating right now, since Zuck, the CEO of Meta, announced some absolutely massive changes to the way that the company will be handling content moderation on its platforms. And chief among them is Zuck announcing that the company is ending its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a community notes system similar to X. And the system is set to be rolled out in the US only at first over the next couple of months. After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was

a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S. And with that, it's true. Meta launched its initial fact-checking system way back in 2016, shortly after Donald Trump was elected. And it worked by running information on its platforms through third-party fact-checkers certified by the International Fact-Checking Network and the

European Fact-Checking Standards Network. And this program eventually involved more than 90 organizations that would fact-check posts in more than 60 languages. So in the U.S., for example, that included groups that you may have heard of, such as PolitiFact and FactCheck.org. And according to Meta's website, the first step in the process would be identifying potential misinformation, which would be done automatically by way of community input or through the efforts of fact-checkers. And the next step would be reviewing the content with fact-checkers labeling content false, altered, partly false, missing context, satire, or true.

From there, Meta said that it would work to ensure that people are clearly informed about misinformation, that fewer people see misinformation in the first place, and that repeat offenders are dealt with in some way. And those fact-checking measures applied to any posts on Facebook, and then they expanded to include Instagram in 2019

and Threads last year. Now, notably with all that, according to places like the New York Times, multiple studies have shown that interventions like Facebook's fact-checks were effective at reducing belief in falsehoods and reducing how often such content was shared. On the other hand,

some say the community notes approach is less effective, at least on X, where they require consensus from users with varying perspectives before a fact check is published. Right, and according to the Poynter Institute, for example, less than 10% of community notes drafted by X users actually end up getting published on the platform. And you know, with that,

we now have several digital rights groups already condemning Meta's decision. The executive director of Accountable Tech, for example, describing the decision as a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world. But then also someone from the advocacy group Free Press saying Zuckerberg is saying yes to more lies, yes to more harassment, yes to more hate.

And also a big thing is that Meta's own fact-checking partners are reportedly pushing back on Zuckerberg's characterization of their work as biased or censorship, saying that they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked. And also with all of this, of course, you have many saying fact-checking

has become more politicized, with Axios being one outlet to share research saying, this has contributed to a decline in the number of fact-checking sites globally. Like in North America, for instance, the number of active fact-checking sites reportedly decreased from 94 to 90 from 2020 to 2023. And also with this, this isn't the most shocking, right?

We've already seen Zuckerberg and Meta kind of backtracking on this issue before. Last August, for example, Zuckerberg claimed that the Biden White House pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic. Now, with this latest announcement, you know, Zuckerberg really seemed to be weighing in on this larger conversation rather than a specific case. There's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content.

Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly. So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that's millions of people. And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. And with that, you know, the end of this kind

of fact-checking, it's just one of the changes meant to deal with what's been referred to as the censorship problem. And so for instance, with that, Meta will reportedly stop limiting political content. With Zuckerberg also saying that Meta will be removing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are, in his words, out of touch with mainstream discourse. And then, in addition to all that, you have him revealing that Meta's trust in safety and content moderation teams would be moved from California to Texas.

With him saying there that that would, quote, "'Help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content.'" And then, in addition to all that, Meta will reportedly be refocusing its automated filters on scanning for what he called "'illegal and high-severity policy violations' such as terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud, and scams, relying on users to report low severity violations

before it takes action. And with all this, you had Zuck notably acknowledging the potential downside. The reality is that this is a trade-off. It means we're going to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down. You know, with all this, one of the things that's been very interesting to look at is the kind of variation in the media's coverage of this story, right? When you look out, you see CNN, for example, emphasizing in a headline the fact that Zuck has acknowledged

that more harmful content will appear on meta platforms now. But then on the other side of this, you have Fox News painting a more positive picture, highlighting the idea that this is about free expression. Then another Fox News article documenting how many conservatives are celebrating this as a huge win for free speech. Then another Fox News article documenting how many conservatives are celebrating this as a huge win for free speech. Also, another big thing is that many outlets,

including the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post, for example, they are emphasizing the timing of this decision, which comes less than two weeks before Trump's taking office. And you know, a big thing there is that even Zuck himself seemed to suggest that the outcome of the election played a role. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point

towards once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. And with all that, you had Zuckerberg saying that Meadow would work with the incoming Trump administration to promote free speech around the world. We're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more. The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government. And that's why it's been so difficult over the past four years when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship.

By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further." With Zuckerberg here citing Europe, for example, as one place with quote, "...an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there." You know, with that, looking at how people are talking about this, interestingly, you have the Wall Street Journal saying that Meta's decision to remove restrictions on certain types of speech,

it echoes the approach taken by Musk after he bought X. Which on that note, Musk actually re-shared a post celebrating Meta's decision to implement X on certain types of speech, it echoes the approach taken by Musk after he bought X. Which on that note, Musk actually re-shared a post celebrating Meta's decision to implement X-style community notes. Also regarding the timing of the Meta announcement, you had multiple outlets like NBC News in this case, describing the changes as part of a broader effort among CEOs and business leaders currying favor

with the incoming Trump administration. And to that point, you know, Meta along with several other tech companies, they've all donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural fund. Also with Zuckerberg, he dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago back in November. And then internally within the company,

they recently appointed Republican Joel Kaplan to lead its policy team as well as announcing that UFC's Dana White, a longtime supporter and friend of Donald Trump, would join its board. And so of course, with all this, depending on where you're going on the internet, very different reactions.

You go one place, you see a lot of people raising concerns about the possibility that Meta's doing this to appease Trump and saying that the changes here are going to make misinformation worse. But then you go to a different corner of the internet and you see people praising the decision and seeing it as a huge win for free speech. And so with all that, I got to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around this news with Zuckerberg and Meta's changes? But then let's go from something that's going to affect so many people to something more specific, right? Because I want wanna talk about John Harrell and a question, which is how many pushups do you think you could do in one sitting?

10, 50, 100. How about 398? A number not being demanded by a Navy SEALs Academy, but instead a Texas high school with specifically Rockwall Heath High School football head coach, John Harrell, reportedly designing an off-season training program for his students a couple of years ago.

And reportedly for every infraction that any individual player made, the entire team had to do 16 pushups. One pushup for every game the team would need to win, a championship. So according to the students, even the smallest thing like failing to clap on a whistle, 16 pushups. Having a foot over a starting line for exercises,

16 pushups. Simply performing the exercises poorly, 16 pushups. And then they said if they didn't do the pushups correctly, the coaches made them start over from zero. And so by the end of any season, they said that the total number routinely approached or even exceeded 100. When surprisingly, since you know,

they're teenage boys and not fucking teenage with Ninja Turtles, most students reportedly ended up doing modified pushups or planking by the end, according to an investigation by the school district. But then on January 9th, 2023, the students reportedly racked up dozens of infractions, translating into not 100, not 200, but 398 pushups. With the entire exercise then reportedly taking about 40 grueling minutes. But then after that day, head coach Harrell stopping his routine reportedly because some of his players described swelling muscles and dark colored urine,

which as it turned out, are symptoms of a potentially life-threatening condition known as rhabdomyolysis. It's caused by overexertion, leading your muscles to break down, releasing byproducts into the bloodstream that can damage your kidneys. And in fact, between 10 and 40% of cases

end in a kidney failure, according to a National Institutes of Health review. And at this high school, investigators identified 26 students who presented symptoms of rhabdomyolysis. And a physician who reviewed students' medical records reportedly found 12 who met the criteria for a diagnosis. And some unknown number of them reportedly had to be hospitalized.

With Coach Harrell then shortly afterward being put on administrative leave and resigning in March of 2023. With investigators who looked into this writing and finding that he didn't consult a certified strength and conditioning coach while developing his plan. And on top of that, it turns out

this did not come out of nowhere. Reportedly, the guy had been reminded not to assign any punitive and corporal activities to his players by his athletic director in a 2021 notice. But then all of that brings us to why we're talking about this news today. A parent of one of the students who supposedly suffered for rhabdomyolysis is suing Harrell

and 12 other former and current assistant coaches. But with that, I will say it is unclear how liable they are under Texas law, since they enjoy some protections working in their official capacity as school employees. But that will ultimately be sorted out in a legal court. And in the meantime, I got to pass it off to the court of public opinion.

What is your reaction here? And I'd especially love to hear from you if you have experience in school or organized sports in general. But then to take a quick break from the news, you know, it's a new year, which means more chances to enter and win the $500 weekly SeatGeek giveaway. Because yeah, it's 2025, but my team

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for SeatGeek vets out there, you can add code PDS, which gets you $10 off any purchase. And again, you'll be entered for your chance at the $500 SeatGeek credit, no purchase necessary. But then, switching back to the news, we gotta talk about how the first death from the bird flu in the United States was reported yesterday.

But before some of you freak out, let's talk it out. So we got the news from the Louisiana Department of Health that a patient who is over 65 years old and had underlying medical conditions died after contracting H5N1, the first such fatality recorded in the US. But the doctor is believing that they got the virus either from a backyard flock or from wild birds. And this person is reportedly the same person who was the first to report a severe case of bird flu in the country last month. Now for some expanded context here, this is not the first fatality if we look globally. In fact, there have been about 500 deaths reported in the past 20 years, most of them in Southeast Asia, which you know, doesn't sound like a lot, but you also have people saying, well, you have

to consider that there have been less than a thousand recorded cases in that time. So if that's true, that's about a 50% death rate. But so far the strains circulating in the United States, they've mostly resulted just in mild symptoms. And right now, there's no evidence that it can transmit from human to human. So if you're not hanging around animals, you're probably good for the time being. I mean, of the 66 cases reported last year,

almost all of them worked on farms with cows and poultry. And it's believed that even if it does start transmitting between humans, bird flu is relatively well-studied, so it would be easier to develop an effective vaccine for it. All of which is why you have the CDC insisting right now that the risk to the general public is still considered low. But with all that said, there are some reasons to be at least

a little bit concerned, right? Namely the fact that the viral samples from the Louisiana patient reportedly carried mutations that in theory might help it infect people more easily. With the CDC notably adding that the mutations were not present in virus samples taken from the backyard flock, right? Which suggests that they developed inside the human patient. And that samples taken from the backyard flock, right, which suggests that they developed

inside the human patient. And that person, they're not alone, right? One of the mutations was also reportedly found in a 13-year-old Canadian girl, with her case reportedly becoming severe, escalating from pink eye to a fever and coughing to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which then led the doctors to put her into intensive care

with her fighting for her life for weeks, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. This, even though she reportedly had no underlying medical conditions and was, of course, young. So cases like these, they raise the concern of a new strain mutating to become more deadly or more transmissible or both. Or as one doctor told NBC News. 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. Human-to-human transmission piece is what we're looking for to make it easier to give to others. We do not have any evidence of that case, although this case in Louisiana signals that the virus is mutating in a way where it could be possible. So nothing about a pandemic today, but that's what we're watching for.

And with the concern around this spreading, we should also talk about the other thing that's out there. Because if you go online, you might be seeing a lot of reports right now about a virus that you've never heard of before spiking in China. And that is called the human metapneumovirus, or HMPV for short.

And I'll say with that, that we do not have reliable data on the number of cases there right now, but the CDC is closely monitoring the situation. But there's also, as videos of crowded hospital rooms have been getting passed around on Weibo, sparking fears of a new outbreak, which you know, has some going,

Oh God, that sounds familiar. In central China, a man has died following an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia-like virus. But before you just start running around making yourself crazy, let me try to dispel some of those fears and say to you that HMPV is very, very different from COVID-19, right?

First of all, it's not novel. In fact, researchers say that it's been circulating in humans for at least 60 years, so you've probably had it. And that's because it's one of several respiratory infections that go around every winter. You get it, you might not even know what it is or care, and then it passes.

So you have experts saying that a spike in cases of HMPV and other acute respiratory infections, it is normal for this time of year. With a doctor at UC Davis explaining it's- Very similar to RSV. It just causes a little bit different symptoms and infects at different ages and a little different time of year.

And in fact, it's so similar that researchers are trying to develop a vaccine that protects against both viruses in a single shot. Now, of course, if you are an infant, elderly, or immunocompromised, or if you have preexisting conditions, you're at a greater risk of a severe case. But in higher income countries,

death is very rare with this. Now, after hearing all the facts with the two situations that we're talking about, you might be wondering, well, then why all the panic from news and social media? Well, the answer is it's kind of PTSD, where the coronavirus pandemic was like a big punch to the back of so many people's heads.

And ever since, you've got people looking back over their shoulder. Or as a senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security told the Washington Post, there's just this tendency post-COVID to treat every infectious disease, anything, as an emergency when it's not. You wouldn't probably be calling me in 2018 about this.

But of course, if you are still worried, you can protect yourself in basically the same ways that you could do for the cold, the flu, and the coronavirus. Wash your hands, ventilate your air, and stay away from nasty motherfuckers coughing on the subway. Which, uh, maybe not the best time for that congestion tax, New York. But then, as far as a the flu, and the coronavirus. Wash your hands, ventilate your air, and stay away from nasty motherfuckers coughing on the subway. Which, uh, maybe not the best time for that congestion tax, New York. But then, as far as a bird flu, you know, you can make sure you pasteurize your milk, cook your meat properly, and minimize your contact with birds, poultry, and cattle. Also, with this,

you know, I'm gonna get my seasonal flu shot. That can't hurt. Uh, you know, while it doesn't protect against bird flu and a bird flu vaccine isn't available to the general public, just staying generally healthy, it helps protect against infection. Plus, it's believed that if you're unlucky enough to get infected with bird flu and a seasonal flu at the same time, that could give the bird flu a greater opportunity to mutate, with it even potentially swapping genes with a seasonal flu and stealing its powers of transmission. But, you know, for now, that does not appear to be what has happened, and hopefully everything is going to be fine, and it actually is fine. And that clip is not the beginning of a documentary about how bird flu fucking killed everybody. But then moving on to just general what the fuck news, two bodies were reportedly found on a jet blue plane. So last night, employees at Fort Lauderdale

Airport in Florida, they were doing a routine post-flight check on a plane that had just come from New York. And instead of just finding too much trash on the ground because people are sloppy, sloppy monsters, they found the bodies of two people in the compartment for the landing gear. The local sheriff's office saying paramedics declared both people dead at the scene and both the homicide and crime scene units, they're currently investigating exactly what happened.

But the spokesperson for the sheriff's office saying that while both people appear to be men, their identities right now are unknown and autopsies are planned to find out how they died. And as far as JetBlue, they say the question of how exactly these people got onto the plane in the first place, it's currently under investigation as well as saying in a statement,

"'This is a heartbreaking situation "'and we are committed to working closely "'with authorities to support their efforts "'to understand how this occurred.'" Now, as far as anything else we know, we saw in their reporting, CNN citing flight aware data saying that this particular plane, an Airbus A320 jet, was in service all day. With the flying from Kingston, Jamaica at around one in the morning to New York and then citing flight aware data saying that this particular plane, an Airbus A320 jet, was in service all day.

With the flying from Kingston, Jamaica at around one in the morning to New York and then New York to Salt Lake City and then back to New York before ending the day in Fort Lauderdale. But then also what's crazy, and it makes me wonder how often this happens, this is the second time in a matter of weeks that a body is turned up on the wheel well of a plane.

Right on Christmas day of all days, a body was found in the wheel compartment of a United Airlines Boeing 787-10 after flying from Chicago to Hawaii. But this also is due to outlets like the New York Times reporting that people have been trying to use the wheel wells and landing gear compartments to travel for free for a long time now. Though this also is often those attempts have been proven deadly. Or they could be crushed by the landing gear when it's tucked back into the plane. They could fall out when the landing gear comes out. And that's without mentioning that those compartments, they're not meant for people. So they're not pressurized or heated, which is a huge problem

when you're at altitude and temperatures are well below freezing. In fact, you're at the time saying that most stowaways, they die of hypothermia. And although we don't know for sure yet whether the JetBlue guys were stowaways, the problem is becoming more and more pressing for airlines, even inside planes. Are you things like Thanksgiving week when a woman without a ticket boarded a Delta flight and made it from New York to Paris before she got arrested. Or then like a few weeks later when someone tried to hitch a ride on another Delta flight from Seattle to Honolulu. Though I will say in that case, they were found while the plane was taxiing for takeoff. And so with that, according to a former Department of Transportation Inspector General, this presents serious risks. With them saying this keeps

happening. People are getting onto the airport property and getting into an aircraft and it poses a huge security danger for the aircraft. These people were apparently just trying to get someplace, but it could have easily been someone attempting to attack aviation. But then moving on to other big news that we should talk about, President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are now pushing new legislation to combat illegal immigration and beef up border security. All of which comes as Mexico and the Biden administration have scaled up their own immigration enforcement so much that arrests at the southern border are lower than when Trump first left office. Some of the numbers that Reuters received showing

that 47,000 migrants were arrested at the Mexican border in December, which if you're unfamiliar might sound like a lot, but that is far less than the 250,000 just a year prior and 24,000 less than when Trump was leaving office. Right, and this is during Biden's first years in office, there was a massive spike, but since then, there's been a crackdown alongside deals with Mexico and other nations to help.

And part of that strategy was to prevent things like massive migrant caravans that make their way from Mexico to the U.S. border at their source, southern Mexico. And according to a former chief of Mexico's immigration agency, that means dispersion and exhaustion. You see, according to reports from outlets like the Associated Press, Mexican authorities will let the caravans form in the south. Then they'll let them walk up to a week, and when they're finally tired, officials will swoop in with offers to help. And this includes giving bus tickets to other areas of the country where their immigration status will then be reviewed.

Though with that, you had one Venezuelan migrant describing it to the Associated Press like this, saying, immigration officials told us they were going to give us a permit to transit the country freely for 10, 15 days, and it wasn't like that. I mean, they left us dumped here without any way to get out. They won't sell us bus tickets.

They won't sell us anything. With one such destination being the struggling tourist city of Acapulco, which had about a hundred migrants dropped off at the city recently. Something that angered the migrants who claimed that they specifically negotiated to be taken to cities with work opportunities, which Acapulco lacks. And across Mexico, you see similar stories

with small groups of migrants taken from caravans and dispersed, albeit far from the U.S. border, to help reduce their concentration. And with this tactic, we've seen mixed reactions. You know, President Claudia Scheinbaum has hailed the approach as a humanitarian win, as it allows migrants to leave the southern parts of the country with help from authorities. But this, as critics claim, that it makes migrants even more vulnerable to the cartels that already target them, especially because they're sometimes dropped off in dangerous cartel territories. But also with that being said, right, this really hasn't changed the Republican stance that more needs to be done at the border as well

as illegal migrants still in the US. Which then brings us to Congress, which started its new session yesterday, and they have hit the ground running with the House passing the Lake and Riley Act today. And that makes the bill, which is named after a nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented migrant,

the first to be passed by the new Congress. And it's mainly focused at giving states' attorneys general the power to sue the federal government if they can show that their states are being harmed because of a lack of immigration enforcement. And very notably here, the legislation passed with broad bipartisan support from 48 Democrats who joined all Republicans in supporting the bill.

And this is there's already been a version proposed in the Senate with the majority leader working to put that up for a vote this Friday. However, there it might be a bit more of a fight in the Senate as eight Democrats would need to sign on to pass the 60 vote hurdle. But we have seen at least one Democrat, Senator John Fetterman, signing on as co-sponsor to the bill. And it's also been reported that there are a few others who could potentially vote in favor as well. But with whatever happens there, it's believed that this is kind of just the first step or the first thing towards fighting illegal immigration that

Congress wants to make. Because there's also this massive discussion about a large omnibus bill that would tackle border security, energy, and taxes. While the specifics are still up in the air, the Republican party is split into two groups about the best way to pass it. They both want to use a reconciliation bill, which is a way for Congress to pass a bill

as part of a budget. Essentially, they're saying that money allocated for the budget should be spent in X, Y, Z ways. The benefit of doing that is it's pretty fast to pass a bill and only requires a simple majority. So in one camp, you have Republican leaders like Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who's pushing for two reconciliation bills

to be passed about the topic. However, you then have House Republicans seeming to favor a single reconciliation bill. And then with all this, you had Trump himself weighing in yesterday saying on talk radio, -"Well, I favor one bill. I also want to get everything passed. And, you know, there are some people that don't necessarily agree with it.

So I'm open to that also. My preference is one big, as I say, one big, beautiful bill. Now, to do that takes longer. You know, to submit it takes longer, actually. But so it's a longer process. I would say that I'd live with that. I believe we'd get, I don't know, to me it just is a cleaner, it's cleaner, it's nicer. We also saw Trump answering a question

that a lot of people have been wondering about, you know, what about the so-called dreamers? The people in the country protected by DACA, who often were brought to the US as children by their parents and they've lived their entire lives here. Well there, while Donald Trump tried to repeal DACA in 2017 but was stopped, it appears he might be more open to letting them stay, telling Hewitt. I don't think it has to be in that bill, but I'm okay with talking about the

Dreamers. It's been a long time. You know, everybody's been talking about the Dreamers. These are people that have been here since, in many cases, birth. They've been here for, you know, many years. They were very young and now they're middle-aged people. In some cases, they're old people. It's been talked about and I'm certainly open to talking about it. Which, I will say if you go online, has gotten some pushback from MAGA-aligned accounts on Twitter. With some responding by saying, Trump tells

Hugh Hewitt he's willing to make a deal on Dreamers. All that does is encourage more to come and wait till the next amnesty. Saying Trump is betraying the American worker and the community is overrun by illegal invaders. So I will say this as others are more open to the idea of letting dreamers stay, saying, I think Trump is right to grant amnesty to dreamers

on the condition that they immediately obtain citizenship. The reasoning is simple. They did not choose to come here illegally. They were brought here as children by adults. They grew up here, went to school here, work and pay taxes here. It's the only home they have ever known. Deporting them because an adult brought them here

is not fair or right. They deserve a chance to be citizens. If they commit crimes or choose not to become citizens, then deport them. If not, let them be citizens. You know, I will say that the split here, it's not that surprising, even amongst Republicans, because something like 81% of Americans support citizenship for DREAMers. And in fact, according to a Gallup poll from June of 2024, a majority of Americans across both parties agree that DREAMers should be allowed to stay.

But with all that said, for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens with this reconciliation bill. Currently, a lot of the focus is on, is it gonna be one bill or two bill, rather than all the specifics that would need to get into it. Cause you know, like with all things, the devil is in the details and depending on the size of this thing, which it is expected to be huge,

it's just what kind of huge, that's a lot of details. And even if they only need a simple majority to pass it, we're looking at kind of razor thin margins, especially in the house. But then from that, finally today, let's talk about yesterday and some comment commentary brought to you by beautifulbastard.com. Where right now, not only can you get

that $20 mystery box tee, where you can grab yourself what I think is the comfiest blanket in the world, the comfiest fuzzy socks in the world, and our seasonal candles and beanie. Plus a whole lot more, once again, over at beautifulbastard.com. But with that said, you know, jumping into those comments, there were plenty of comments about Elon Musk. Right yesterday, we dove into how he's been trying to sway things, not only in the United States, but Canada, Germany, and the UK. And with that, a number of y'all were saying things like,

Elon seems to be advocating for whomever would allow him to do whatever he wants. I can't see how he'd have the time to be well-educated enough on all the political issues of each of these countries' elections to actually provide a meaningful endorsement that citizens should care about. Some responding there that he's just trying to become a global oligarch.

Others saying, Elon is the champion of free speech, where free speech means speech he agrees and aligns with. Others saying, so Musk is exactly who the right always said Soros was. Let this be another lesson in that accusations are very often confessions. Well, you definitely had many people agreeing with that. There were also people that would pop up saying,

you know, this is just kind of a more transparent version of what's happening on the left and right with rich people in general. Also on the kind of more broad subject in general, you had people saying backsliding democracies and billionaire oligarch interests are two of the biggest problems we'll face this century with number one being climate change. With others replying there with things like

backsliding democracies could have been avoided if the governments actually paid attention to its citizens when they were sounding the alarm on their path five to ten years ago. As well as D. Larkin adding, plus the increase in misinformation, disinformation, and AI. People struggle to agree on the truth as it is, never mind in the future with more and more credible looking doctored images and videos. And and adding not to seem dramatic but it honestly gives me nightmares. We'll be living in a black mirror episode. Then in addition to all the Elon talk

or the things connected to that, you have people talking about the honey situation. And in fact, there were even some YouTube creators in the comments saying things like, I'm so mad at the honey situation. I've been promoting them unsponsored for years because I thought it was a great service. In the beauty space, we live off of affiliate codes

and I didn't realize that I was sabotaging myself by trying to help my audience save money in different ways. I joined the legal eagles class action and I hope they pay out the nose for what they did. Meanwhile, you had others just commenting that it's been wild to watch all this unfold in real time. And this is you had others saying, you know this is only part of the story.

They're saying that Megalag split his investigation into different parts. With all that said, for now, that is where we're gonna leave it. Remember, the Philip DeFranco Show isn't just a news show. It's a conversation. So if you have thoughts, opinions, reactions to anything and everything we talked about today,

let me know what you're thinking in those comments down below. One, I just find it interesting, and two, you might be a part of this segment tomorrow. But until then, for more news you need to know, click or tap right here. And of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in.

I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.