The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 2.11 People Are Freaking Out About Margot Robbie, #BloombergIsRacist Audio, Roger Stone, & More!

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

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Sup, you beautiful bastards. Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. The first thing we're gonna talk about today, we're gonna start today off light before we get to the heavier stories.

By now, you've probably seen people all over the internet sharing pictures and videos showing their brooms standing up all on their own. Right, and that appears to be because of one viral tweet shared on Monday suggesting that NASA said it was the only day that a broom could do this because of the gravitational pull.

And so, as people do, for better or worse, when they see a claim like this on the internet, thousands of people tried it. Taking to social media, posting themselves trying the trick, making broom challenge and other terms trend. Right, you had everyone trying this, the Paul Abduels, Futures, DJ Khaleds of the world, even social media stars like Colleen Ballinger,

Austin McBroom, Laura DIY. The trend also eventually morphed into more than just brooms with people posting videos of everything from room bust chicken wings standing upright. Now that said, not everyone was on board with the trend. You had people like Chrissy Teigen pointing out how dumb it was. Though she did later backtrack

when she saw how much joy it brought people. But here's the thing, as NASA's actual official Twitter account had to point out today, this is not a one day only situation. It has nothing to do with the Earth's gravitational pull on a particular day, planetary alignments, or a full moon, despite what other internet users might tell you.

As astronaut Alvin Drew and scientist Sarah Noble explain here. Did you do the broomstick challenge yesterday? Well, turns out you could do it again today. It's just physics. Right, it's just about balancing. The center of gravity is low in a broom and it rests directly over the bristles.

And so if you can get the bristles positioned right, kind of like a tripod, your broom will stand upright any time of the year. Also, asterisk there, it depends on the kind of broom you have. And also, if this whole the bristles positioned right, kind of like a tripod, your broom will stand upright any time of the year. Also, asterisk there, it depends on the kind of broom you have. And also, if this whole trend seems familiar to you, it's because it's not exactly new. Like other things like this,

this gimmick has popped up before. It's just that usually it's around the spring equinox, which doesn't occur until March 19th this year. It was also interesting to me to see the response from actual professionals. For example, you have people like Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist from the University of Oxford. She said that the spread of this false theory

was actually surprising, saying, quote, "'When I saw this today on social media "'and couldn't believe what I was seeing "'in terms of the misinformation that was spreading.'" It highlights the importance of social media verification and using trusted sources from the scientific community. So essentially, someone that was concerned that fake news or just something that should be easily verifiable

was able to spread like wildfire. But also, you have people like LA-based meteorologist Corey Smith, who found the trend humorous, telling the BBC, while it is discouraging to see people believe a false premise for something like this, it still makes for a fun and easy social media challenge and a nice little experiment to talk about physics

in the center of gravity. Right, so essentially while it was factually untrue, it was kind of a harmless thing that started a conversation. And I, given what I do, I kind of land somewhere in between. I am nervous that something that has repeatedly misled people was successful yet again.

Though I do also believe that a number of people that were doing it were just kind of going like, hey, free views, free likes. But then also I consider that, you know, what we're talking about, right? A broom standing up. It's pretty harmless. So one, it can be used as a way to, yes,

get people talking about science, but also two, in a way that didn't further destroy society and public discourse, show us that we do need to be more careful about the things that we just blindly believe online. And understanding that no one's perfect. It is a constant exercise where you aim for perfection, but you know, no one really has a perfect record.

And anyone that says that they do is probably trying to sell you something. And then let's talk about this interesting situation, kind of controversy about Birds of Prey, which is DC's latest film that centers around Harley Quinn. Now it came out over the weekend under the name Birds of Prey and the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn, which is a mouthful, but it's now kind of getting

a name tweak to Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey, and there's a lot of speculation as to why. And it appears it's because the film underperformed its expectations at the box office this weekend, making only 33 million domestically, despite projections of closer to 45 million. So you had many people seeing this as a knee-jerk reaction from DC and Warner Brothers to get more people

into the theater, making it clear that it's about Harley Quinn, who's played by Margot Robbie. In fact, regarding this, speaking to The Ver DC and Warner Brothers to get more people into the theater, making it clear that it's about Harley Quinn, who's played by Margot Robbie. In fact, regarding this, speaking to The Verge, Warner Brothers rep said that the name change is to enhance, quote, "'Search Expansion for Ticket Sites." Right, essentially to make it easier for people

to find the movie when looking for tickets on AMC, Regal, and other places. It's basically the new SEO-friendly titles that make it easier to find. And according to the most recent updates on this, this is for display slash search purposes, only for vendors and theaters, not an official title chain. Now all that said, regarding the note

of this being a failure, there is a lot of debate. Are you people comparing it to other DC superhero movies? And yes, there it did incredibly underperform. And some of their other big movies, you had Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, ended up breaking in over $100 million over their opening weekend. Notably, Birds of Prey is an R-rated movie,

but DC somewhat recently released the highest grossing R-rated film of all time, Joker. Also notably doing this on a budget that is much smaller than Birds of Prey. Though, regarding how much money it brought in, you know, we talked about in the United States, it pulled in 33 million. Worldwide, it ended up bringing in just under $80 million,

just short of its $84.5 million budget. Though, of course, we're talking about just opening weekend numbers, and the budget is probably higher when you consider the amount of promotion. So it'll likely make money and even though February in general, the movies make less, you end up having to compare it to other comic book movies. And all of that brings us to the question of, well, why did it underperform? And there you have a lot of people having a lot of arguments.

People kind of blaming the R rating. While not the complete reason, it can be a limiting factor. You have some arguing that it's because it's a comic book movie with a female lead. But with Birds of Prey, I saw some people either that watched the movie or just saw the trailer feeling like it was kind of just a girl power-esque movie that was gonna kinda push an agenda down people's throats. There you have people arguing back with the Captain Marvel movie, though I will say things in the MCU are different.

There I think you have people built in, they want every piece of the MCU so they feel like, you know, the next movie where all of a sudden she's in there, you have backstory, but then closer connected to this, you have people pointing to Wonder Woman, just doing numbers. Some have even blamed it on what they call the kind of toning down of sexiness in the movie.

And here's the thing, any of those things might be in a potential buyer's head. For me to guess that, it'd be hard, right? I think a lot of that ends up being projected. I personally, I watched the movie, I enjoyed it. In general, it's been receiving relatively good reviews. And since really here, I can only talk about my personal experience. The only thing that led me to almost not see this movie, DC's superhero track record over, let's call it the last five years,

has been very hit or miss. And so actually, if there's anything that I could do with this story, if you're someone that normally watches superhero movies, whether it be a Marvel or a DC movie, if you normally watch superhero movies, why did you choose to not see this movie? Right, and by posing that question, maybe we can all gain a little more insight. Then, in a kind of quick but also developing situation, we should talk about Roger Stone and Donald Trump. Now Stone, if you don't remember,

was found guilty back in November of last year for witness tampering and obstruction of Congress. There were seven counts in total, and he was one of the people in Trump's orbit that had been indicted. Now the news that was connected to this story was that prosecutors were recommending a sentence of seven to nine years.

And then publicly, the next thing that we see is Donald Trump tweet Tuesday morning. "'This is a horrible and very unfair situation. "'The real crimes were on the other side "'as nothing happens to them. "'Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice.'" And then the next thing we see are reports that the Justice Department is changing the recommendation.

Right, they're just overruling the prosecutors. Now, according to reports, a senior DOJ official told the Post that the seven to nine year recommendation is not what had been briefed to the department, and that the department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone's offenses. And also noting the official also said

the decision to change the recommendation came before Trump's tweet. Now, as I'm recording this video, we're still waiting for the formal announcement, but it's gonna be very interesting to see what the new recommendation is. And also, what other fallout we're gonna see because one, the lead prosecutor in Roger Stone's trial,

Aaron Zelensky has resigned. And actually as of finishing up today's show, a second prosecutor, Jonathan Kravis has also resigned. It's just a highly unusual, sketchy, messy situation right now. And then let's talk about the coronavirus because there are a bunch of updates that we've seen here. As of this morning,

we're seeing just over 43,000 cases worldwide with the death toll now surpassing 1,000. Although notably here outside of China, there have only been about 400 cases and one death as of right now, but still of note in China, yesterday we saw the deadliest day on record with reports of an additional 108 people dying and almost 2,500 new cases being identified.

Now still with a big question of should I worry, according to the director general of the World Health Organization, there is still a good chance of stopping the coronavirus. We saw him say today, "'If we invest now in rational "'and evidence-based interventions, "'we have a realistic chance of stopping the outbreak.'"

But also adding, "'I have a great concern that if this virus makes it "'to a weaker health system, it will create havoc.'" Also this morning, the WHO's executive director said a clinical trial is already on the way in China. We also saw on Thursday, China began enrolling patients in a clinical trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir. Yesterday, we also saw a team from the World on the way in China. We also saw on Thursday China began enrolling patients in a clinical trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir. Yesterday we also saw a team

from the World Health Organization landing in China. They're expected to lay the groundwork for a larger international team. Also, while we're talking about China, I wanna hit on something that's actually pretty rare, open criticism of the government by its citizens, and this largely over the death of Dr. Li Wenliang. And that is because Dr. Li originally warned

his medical school alumni group about the coronavirus on December 30th, telling them that several people had been quarantined at Wuhan Central Hospital after coming down with a respiratory illness that seemed like SARS. Notably here, he did that on the app WeChat. That same day, the Wuhan Health Commission published a notice that several people had contracted pneumonia,

possibly at a seafood market. However, at that point, someone had screenshotted Lee's message and it had already gone viral, which is why on January 3rd, Wuhan police forced Lee to sign a letter admitting that he had made, quote, false statements online on January 3rd, Wuhan police forced Li to sign a letter admitting that he had made quote, false statements online. But of course, a couple of weeks later, more cases of that virus started popping up.

It became a serious and very real issue. And in that time, Li resumed his work at the hospital. Soon after, he ended up contracting the virus from an infected patient. And on January 12th, he checked himself into the hospital. Also during this time, continuing to speak out against misinformation on his Weibo account, saying on January 31st from his hospital bed,

"'I was wondering why the government's official notices "'were still saying there was no human-to-human transmission "'and there were no healthcare workers infected.'" And ultimately what we ended up seeing was Li himself dying on February 7th, reportedly from the virus. So because of all that, many are blaming those Wuhan authorities

for causing the virus to get out of hand. We've also seen others going a step further, actually criticizing the whole of the Chinese government. In fact, on Saturday, just a day after Li's death, 10 Wuhan professors signed a letter to the government asking it to enforce its own freedom of speech articles laid out in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China,

apologize to and compensate several other whistleblowers, and recognize Dr. Li as a national martyr. And actually regarding that, just after Li's death, we saw people flooding social media sites with negative messages about the government. So much so that reportedly it overloaded China's censors, which is incredibly rare. I mean, this is China, this is kind of their MO.

They don't just kind of dabble in authoritarian measures. And while all this has been happening, we've been seeing that the anger at the government has continued to grow. And this also because Chinese journalist and human rights activist Chen Qiushu has been missing since Thursday. Reportedly, Chen went to visit a hospital

to talk with doctors and patients, and both his friends and family have been unable to reach him since then. And this blowing up after Chen's mother posted a video on Twitter asking people to help find her son. And there you have a lot of people seriously concerned that the Chinese government is attempting to stop another whistleblower,

alleging that the government is trying to silence the true conditions on the ground in Wuhan. And of note here, comments about Chen have reportedly been wiped from Weibo. Chen also not a government favorite, having had run-ins with them before. According to the latest information that we're seeing, it appears that there was another message from Chen's mother.

This one saying that Chen had been forcibly detained and quarantined, but also reportedly when the mother asked where and when Chen was taken, the police would not tell her. But ultimately, that's kind of where we are with those situations right now. There are also other stories out there connected to this. Right, some cruise ships being quarantined, some people being evacuated,

fears that this could go through pipes. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens next. And then let's talk about former New York City mayor and 2020 contender, Michael Bloomberg, who, fun fact, could spend $100 million every day from today to election day trying to get elected, and he'd still have $30 billion.

But he is in the news today, actually for two reasons not connected to his money. Well, one's kind of connected to his money. One, according to a national poll last night, Bloomberg is actually polling at 15%. Sanders was at 20, Biden was at 17, and Warren and Buttigieg were at 11 and eight. So that money is moving people.

And then the second reason that Bloomberg was in the news is you may have seen it trending on Twitter, hashtag Bloomberg is racist. This is because this morning we saw a podcaster and journalist Benjamin Dixon tweet an audio recording of Bloomberg from 2015. And there we hear him defending New York's controversial stop and frisk policy

while also making some comments that did not go over so well. And for some context here, stop and frisk's a policy that gives police the authority to temporarily detain, question, and search people they suspect of committing a crime. The policy was put into place in New York in the 90s and it was massively controversial.

Critics have long said Stop and Frisk is racist because it disproportionately targets black and Latino people, the majority of whom end up being innocent. But Bloomberg and others who supported the policy argued that it was necessary to keep people safe and that it saved lives by keeping weapons off the street. And while the policy was actually implemented by Rudy Giuliani, it was aggressively ramped up

under Bloomberg in the 11 years that he was mayor from 2002 to 2013. According to the New York ACLU, under Bloomberg's expansion of the policy, stops went from 97,296 in 2002 to a whopping 685,724 in 2011, with that year being the highest number of stops ever recorded in the city. And of those over 685,000 stops,

88% were found to be innocent. And when you look at the racial makeup of the people who were stopped, 53% were black, 34% were Latino, and 9% were white. Now, of course, ultimately Bloomberg ended up leaving. The numbers of stop and frisk ended up plummeting to below what they were before he took office. But even then, when he was out of office,

he still continued to defend and champion the policy for a while. And this appears to include a speech that he gave at the International Think Tank, the Aspen Institute in 2015, which is where the audio Dixon shared is from. And there we hear Bloomberg say this. 95% of your murders and murderers and murder victims

is one and only. You can just take the description, zero access, pass it up to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25. That's true in New York, that's true in new york it's true virtually every city this is one of the unexpected consequences is people say oh my god you are arresting kids for marijuana they're all minorities yes that's true why because we throw all the cops in the minority candidates yes that's true why we do it because that's where all the crime is.

And the way she got the guns out of her kids' hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them. Now, obviously, a lot of people had a problem with that audio, in fact, including Bloomberg himself, which it appears why, according to a report from the Aspen Times, following that speech, Bloomberg actually blocked footage of that speech from being released.

There's also one notable thing here that a lot of articles and tweets of the audio clip are glossing over, just straight up misreporting. We're seeing a lot of people referring to this audio as newly released audio, but that's not actually true. Back in 2015, the reporter who wrote this story about Bloomberg blocking the footage actually uploaded it to his personal YouTube page.

With that reporter tweeting this morning, I guess this is gaining traction again. Here's the Aspen Times story from 2015. Right, so it's really interesting to see this audio that's existed on the internet for five years all of a sudden kind of popping up. It's understandable why. He's spending so much money, all of a sudden,

he seems to be polling pretty decently in New Hampshire. The target is there, though I will say it appears that he knew that this shot was coming. And I say that because back in November of last year, right before he announced that he was running for president, we actually saw Bloomberg backtrack and apologize for the policy, saying, quote, "'I was wrong and I am sorry.'"

Later adding, "'I didn't understand back then the full impact "'that stops were having on the black and Latino community.' "'Back then and still now you had a lot of people saying "'it's too little, too late.'" And essentially a number of people responding, you don't get to just say, sorry, ramped up and supercharged a program that was racist by design that treated people

that were a different color view as possible predators. And I'm essentially paraphrasing and saying in the nicest of words, arguments being made with the hashtag Bloomberg is racist. Also with that hashtag, we saw a lot of people sharing this clip where he's talking about stop and frisk in a different way. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. So I'm also pointing to an op-ed Bloomberg wrote in the Washington Post back in 2013, where he defended stop and frisk. They are responding

to the accusation that the policy targets African-Americans and Latinos by arguing that they are more likely to commit violent crimes. And that's just some of what's being shared. Now Bloomberg for his part responded in a statement saying, "'I inherited the police practice of Stop and Frisk "'and as part of our effort to stop gun violence, "'it was overused. "'By the time I left office, I cut it back by 95%,

"'but I should have done it faster and sooner. "'I regret that and I have apologized.'" And ultimately that's where we are right now. It'll be interesting to see what happens from here. Are there more audio recordings? Is there more fallout? Also, what happens tonight at the hopefully much smoother New Hampshire primary?

Will there be any surprises overall? What about in kind of the pack right now? Sanders is expected to win. Yeah, for now, we will wait, then we'll see, and then we'll react. That said, I'd love to know your thoughts regarding Bloomberg, his past actions, his comments now. Also in general, what do you think we're gonna see

in this primary? Also, do you think we're gonna have anyone drop out very soon? Any and all thoughts, I'd love to see in those comments down below. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. Thanks again for watching my little daily news show, whether it be a small part of your much bigger news diet

or your daily dose of poison. Also on that note, if you missed yesterday's show, maybe it didn't pop up for you, you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch that. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow. I hope you liked this video.

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