The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 2.22 Google Is Scared Of White People...

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Head to https://tryfum.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO to save an additional 10% off your order today. Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here https://nordvpn.com/phillyd It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!   Buy the new https://BeautifulBastard.com Drop! 6 new items just went live and even more to grab  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Australian Teen Says Life Was Ruined After Facing Consequences For Prank 02:38 - Google Suspends Gemini AI Over “Woke” & Inaccurate Historical Images 05:06 - Taylor Swift Fans Upset About Poor Merch Quality, Delays 07:06 - Landlords Try to Enforce Rules Against Having Sex 09:39 - Sponsored by Fum 10:43 - Hospital Sues Quadrapalegic Teen on Ventilator for Trespassing  13:24 - Two Alabama IVF Providers Freeze Services 16:14 - AZ Prosecutor Refuses to Extradite Suspect to NY 19:10 - Sponsored by Nord VPN20:08 - SCOTUS Could Limit Federal Power & Upend Essential Protections for Americans ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  Associate Producer for SCOTUS: Lili Stenn ———————————— #DeFranco #TaylorSwift #AI ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. You're watching the Philip DeFranco Show, and we got a lot of news to talk about today. We're talking about the rise of no-sex apartment leases, got an old-fashioned douchebag of the day, Arizona and New York are fighting, and Google's got a problem with white people. And then there's even more we gotta talk about.

So buckle up, hit that like button to let YouTube know you love these daily dives into the news, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, I don't know how many times in my life I'm gonna have to say this, don't be stupid, stupid. Because that's just one of the lessons this one Australian teen is learning right now after claiming that his life is being ruined

because of a prank that he did on a group of women. Because in this viral video, you have this unnamed 16-year-old kid seeing pouring an absolute ton of milk from a bridge onto a group of women who were just enjoying a day on the river in a little boat. And in a video they posted about the incident, they wrote, you book a go boat for your friend's birthday

and some kid on the bridge above us pours a whole bottle of milk on us.'" And so with this, you had people understandably upset, calling for the kid to face consequences. And with that, they then started sending the video to his prestigious private school that costs upwards of $28,000 a year, with a 16-year-old then responding in a now-deleted post,

begging people to stop and nuking his Instagram page. However, the school did ultimately crack down on him, following a small investigation, and they suspended him. Or possibly expelled. And I say possibly because it's hard to tell and there's conflicting reports on that right now. But either way, at least to some degree, he was punished by the school. You also had the police getting involved as well, although not to the degree that some wanted. They just gave him a warning for unlawful assault.

I don't know if this kid has actually learned the lesson, right? The lesson, because it feels like the lesson he has learned is, I am a victim. Woe is me. Saying this has gone too far, reportedly writing in a now deleted post, why'd you do this to me? You ruined my life over a ruined day. You upped the ante. I'm just a kid and you ruined my life too far. But this is not many people have sympathy for. Saying things like, why'd you do this to me? Nobody did it to him. He did it to himself. He needs to learn to take responsibility for his actions, not blame his victims for doing this to him. It also, I will say, I should have mentioned this. It doesn't

help his case that he didn't just pour the milk on these women. He was also being a menace with it to people on the bridge and spraying them. But ultimately, what I'll say with this is I try to give a little bit of grace. This is a 16-year-old. I hope, I hope, I hope that somehow they can end up seeing themselves not as a victim here. Hopefully, that's not also being perpetuated by their parents. Because the only person he should be saying, why'd you do this to me, is to himself in the mirror. Because again, the lesson is don't be stupid, stupid.

Actions have consequences and you are lucky. Your consequence has to do with your school and not criminal charges. You got a warning for unlawful assault. Do you even understand? That sentence sounds crazy. People get warnings for like a speeding ticket or your light being busted and you didn't fix it. You got a warning for assault. That sounds more privileged than the school you go to, you ungrateful little shit. Learn for this or one day life is going to teach you a lesson that your parents failed to. And then

Google's gone woke. Or at the very least here, Google has made AI woke. Those are statements that many on the internet are shouting right now since Google kind of just humiliated themselves. So let me explain. Earlier this month, Google released its AI image generation tool through Gemini, formerly known as BART, objectively a much better name. And it was widely seen as the company's answer to the challenge posed by ChatGPT. And for some specific and understandable reasons, it appeared to have trained Gemini to show a diversity of genders and ethnicities in its images. But then the problem with that is that users quickly discovered that the AI did this even when it was historically inaccurate. And the results were like nothing short of absurd.

Like depicting the American founding fathers as a mix of women, people of color, and people wearing turbans. We're giving you a super buff Native American man and Indian woman couple in 1820s Germany. And I guess just for fun, some racially diverse Nazis. And then as more people tested its limits, they found Gemini got really awkward with white people. When Fox News asked Gemini to show a picture of a white person, it said it could not fulfill the request because it quote, reinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race. Then when prompted to show images of a black person,

Gemini offered to show images that quote, celebrate the diversity and achievement of black people. Although when it was asked why it wouldn't show images celebrating the diversity and achievement of white people, it gave kind of a more nuanced explanation than before, saying, historically, media representation has overwhelmingly favored white individuals and their achievements. This has contributed to a skewed perception where their accomplishments are seen as the norm, while those of other groups are often marginalized or overlooked. Focusing solely on white individuals in this context risks perpetuating that imbalance. I will say, while this explanation was more nuanced, it's also stupid as a specific response to why won't you show me white people? Like we've talked

about situations in the past about, you know, whitewashing of history. Like a lot of people don't know that there are a lot of black and Indian cowboys. Throughout the years, that's been showcased as a very, very white thing. But if you specifically ask, show me white cowboys, this would not be an explanation of why you wouldn't show a white cowboy or why you would only show black or Indian cowboys, let alone incredibly historically inaccurate images. And so ultimately Google committed the number one sin and that is they made Fox News write about something. And as expected, you had conservatives jumping on this story like flies on shit, holding it up as proof of alleged liberal or even anti-white bias among big tech

companies. But to be clear here, this also got a lot of shit from liberals and mainstream outlets as well. So with all of this building up everywhere from everyone, it wasn't a surprise today to see Google announcing that it was pausing image generation of people on Gemini, saying it would re-release an improved version soon and explaining, Gemini's AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that's generally a good thing because people around the world use it, but it's missing the mark here. But for now, we're just going to have to wait to see how quickly they can get this egg off their face and what this looks like moving forward. And then in big celebrity business news, right now, there are a number of Swifties calling for a Taylor Swift boycott, which is kind of wild

because the fandom around Taylor Swift is like, it's so big that Taylor Swift could fart into a cup. And like, as long as she recorded it, it would be number one on Spotify and Apple Music. But the problem right now is that Taylor Swift fans, regarding her merch right now, they're saying, you know, you think it's the shit? It's not even the fart. So stupid. Why am I saying this? Because while just from the era's door,

it is estimated that Taylor Swift fans have spent in the hundreds of millions of dollars for merch. A number of posts started to pop up and blow up saying, you know, where is my stuff? And also those getting it complaining about the quality. And regarding the shipping delays, you had Business Insider reporting that a spokesperson for UMG and Bravado, they apologized to customers for the shipping delays around the holidays saying, we've extended full refunds. We've sent outstanding items. We're available free of charge and issued store credits for any items that were no longer available. So

this is, you also had people posting, okay, I waited months for this. And then they didn't like the quality or they don't think that what was advertised is what they actually got. And people writing things like, this is what I would expect if I ordered a $15 dupe off of Temu. And again, with this, I'm even calling for boycotts. But for now, it remains to be seen if there's going to be any sort of traction on that. Because Swifties, they're pretty loyal. And a lot are very merch obsessed and they don't want dupes. They want the authentic products. I mean, some even increase in value over time. But then there's also a question of what percentage of Swifties are actually impacted by this? Because there is the question of how widespread are these problems and also how much of this is seasonal? Because I will say, if there

is a time of year, especially in regards to shipping, that everything can kind of fall apart, it's definitely that holiday season fourth quarter. But, you know, it's also really going to be the longtime Swifties and also the longtime customers of really any company in general that know best regarding the quality of items. Like, for example, I couldn't tell you up from down for a brand like Lululemon, but I know if I'm going to talk about things in an anecdotal sense, I've heard a number of people over the last three years talk about their quality dipping. Like I can Google Lululemon quality. I can find articles back in 2013 where it talked about their quality dipping. They had issues. They had to recall 17% of their leggings. And obviously they have continued to be a massive

brand, but I guess that's just a long-winded way of saying, you know, we don't really know what's gonna happen here. And then, am I correct in assuming that we've all had to deal with like a crazy landlord or two? Or at least just like a ridiculous one. Whether it just be like who they are as a human being or the weird rules that they have in place. So today is the first day I ever heard about a landlord

that had a no sex policy. That is what is increasingly happening to renters in the UK. And it appears that they don't actually have much they can do about it, right? Often these things are explicitly written into leases as no sex policy. That is what is increasingly happening to renters in the UK. And it appears that they don't actually have much they can do about it, right? Often these things are explicitly written into leases as no sex clauses. With, for example, one tenant telling Vice, I thought, how are they even going to police that? But the landlord does inspections himself and he actually mentions it when he visits. We're all girls. And he starts lecturing us about youths of today being hypersexual and telling us to save ourselves for marriage. And while other people they interviewed reported that they were actually caught having sex and their landlords would slip them notes to stop. And in one case, quote, I confronted them in our shared kitchen

and they kind of went apeshit telling me it's wrong to have sex because it's their house, which I think says everything. Landlords don't look at tenants or lodgers like they actually deserve to be there. And then the craziest thing is, again, this is all pretty much allowed. Tenancy laws largely just say that as long as it's in the lease and the tenant agrees to it, it's all good. With the exception of course, like that things aren't explicitly illegal. Like it can't be like, you have to sell meth to live here.

The main thing here is that banning sex is not technically illegal. Then also there are leases out there, they don't explicitly ban sex, but they often find a way around it. Such as banning overnight guests. It also then gets even worse if your landlord is a roommate because then they're afforded even more privileges to control and ban things.

Making things even harder in the UK is that even if protections were put in place to allow you to have a private life in your rented home, landlords could still just evict you for it. And that's because they have something called no-fault evictions, which allows them to kick you out for no reason in particular. Because in that case, they'd still be good as long as they don't say it specifically because you were having sex. Now that said, they've had multiple British governments that have promised to ban no-fault evictions, but they have then always consistently put it on the back burner. Also, for the majority of my audience, most of you are Americans. And you're hearing this and you're thinking,

thank God I don't live in the UK. Well, I also have some bad news for you. This also actually happens here as well because of that whole no overnight guests workaround. Although notably, there are also cases of it going the other direction as well. Like back in 2022, there was a federal court that was hearing a case about a Las Vegas landlord who actually put a clause into his leases that would force tenants to have sex with him. Now, obviously, that is illegal. But it's worth mentioning because it's actually rare for a landlord to actually be punished for illegal clauses rather than just having them removed from the lease.

But I am going to leave you with two different questions here. One, of course, I'd love to know your thoughts on this specific story. But also two, please, if you would, share with the class your worst rental experiences. It could be a roommate situation, a landlord situation, and anything. I just have a feeling I'm gonna have a few hours on Sunday free. And after the countless hours of entertainment

or sadness at times, if we're being honest, that I've given you, it's the least you could do. Entertain me on a lazy Sunday. And then, when it comes to trying to break a bad habit because it's in your best interest, I love the saying, it's not about giving up. It's about switching up. Because let's face it, it is hard to give up things that we enjoy, even when they aren't

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slash defranco. And then just use code defranco to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today. And then this hospital that we got to talk about, they're trying to kick out this girl who's paralyzed. And now she's also fighting back. Because this story is about a young woman by the name of Alexis Ratcliffe. This actually begins back in 2008 when she was just 18 months old. Because one day her mom was driving while high with her father holding her in the front seat of the car. And as often happens when you drive under the influence, the car crashed with Ratcliffe's neck then getting crushed in the wreck. But she survived, albeit with permanent injuries,

becoming quadriplegic and relying on a wheelchair and a ventilator. And for a long time, she lived at home, with Medicaid providing aides and nurses to help take care of her. But when she was 13, after her grandpa who adopted her gave up his house to move to an assisted living facility, she went to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, paying for long-term care through Medicaid. And except for one six-month stint with a foster family,

that's where she's been ever since, with her even recently celebrating her 18th birthday there. And all the doctors, nurses, and staff who had been her friends over the years, they threw a party for her. But the very next day, she was moved to the adult wing, and hospital officials began pressuring her to leave, with them claiming that her health has been stable and she doesn't require the level of care that she's getting in the hospital.

And its vice chief academic officer telling NPR, they always have people waiting for beds, and especially ICU beds. And adding that some people get turned away or they wait prolonged periods, quote, when you have people who stay in the hospital for a very long period of time like this. So they found her a nursing home a few hours away in Virginia, and allegedly they threatened that if she didn't agree, she'd instead have to go to a nursing home even further away, maybe in Ohio. But to that, she refused, not because she didn't want to leave, she did, but rather because she wanted to go to a home or apartment nearby where she could still be close

to her friends, family, and school. At the college she's been taking online classes at, gave her a full academic scholarship, and she hopes to attend in person one day. Also, very notably, moving out of state would strip her of North Carolina Medicaid, and it would make it much harder to return home if she wants to.

With her telling NPR, yes, I am a quad, but I'm still a normal human being just like everyone else, and I should be able to live life to the fullest of my abilities. And adding, you can't put a social butterfly in a bubble and think that it's going to be okay. Then after Ratcliffe refused to leave, the hospital sued her for trespass. So now she's fighting the suit with her own team of lawyers who alleged the hospital retaliated against her.

Claiming the hospital removed the respiration equipment that she needs to go outside and ended a contract with a nurse who occasionally took her out. So with that, she says she hasn't left the building since her birthday. And her defense is that the state of North Carolina has a duty to find a house or apartment for her with a nurse who occasionally took her out. So with that, she says she hasn't left the building since her birthday. And her defense is that the state of North Carolina has a duty to find a house or apartment for her with aides and nurses, which is arguably true. Right, 25 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states have an obligation to help people with disabilities live whenever possible in their own homes and not in institutions like hospitals and nursing homes. Yet a decade after that ruling, you had an NPR investigation finding that every state and the federal government had failed to live up to that requirement. And now a quarter century since the ruling, Ratcliffe's case and

others show that progress is still lagging. With NPR finding that while nursing homes contain fewer young people today, there are still about 6,500 of them under the age of 30 living in such facilities. With part of that due to noncompliance and part of it just because there's a severe shortage of nurses and at-home aides. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens to Alexis as well as the greater situation in general. And then, IVF procedures in Alabama are now already shutting down. And this, of course, just days after that state Supreme Court ruling we talked about. Because earlier this week, Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen IVF embryos are now legally considered children, giving them the same protections as, I guess we'll call them, post-birth children under

state law. And that, as expected, has sent the state's health system into absolute chaos. With there being this massive scramble to try and decipher what this meant for IVF procedures, since the ruling was very vague on that front, with many experts speculating that fertility clinics will have to stop operations or shut down altogether, else they'd be at risk of being liable for homicide charges or child abuse charges just for doing their normal day-to-day operations, or doing things like disposing of embryos that are damaged, not viable, or unneeded by the couple who made it for any number of reasons. And already, we're seeing multiple clinics in Alabama pausing procedures,

effectively cutting off IVF access for many people in the state who wanna start a family. In fact, yesterday, the single biggest hospital in the state announced that it was pausing IVF treatments, with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System saying in a statement, we are saddened that this will impact our patients' attempt to have a baby through IVF,

but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments. Though adding that the health system's division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility, they'll keep doing egg retrievals from people seeking IVF treatment, but they will not continue on the next steps necessary for getting pregnant, which is combining the egg and the sperm in lab and letting the embryos develop. There was spokesperson also adding that they are putting a pause on implanting embryos. And all of this is still developing in real time, right?

Just today, we're now seeing a second IVF provider, Alabama Fertility Services, announcing that it too is pausing fertility operations. Saying that the state Supreme Court decision, it's forced them to make the impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists. And adding we're contacting patients that will be affected today to find solutions for them. And we are working as hard as we can to alert our legislators as to the far-reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama. AFS will not

close. We will continue to fight for our patients and the families of Alabama. And in comments to the Associated Press, we saw a reproductive endocrinologist at Alabama Fertility emphasizing the emotional elements at play here, saying, the moments that our patients are wanting to have by growing their families, Christmas mornings with grandparents, kindergarten, going into the first day of school with little backpacks, all that stuff is what this is about. Those are the real moments that this ruling could deprive patients of. Regarding the reach out to legislators, I don't know how helpful that will be, because it feels like the impact that we are seeing, that is the intent, control of people and their bodies, being able to force women to carry out unwanted pregnancies under Alabama's near total abortion ban. And now with this recent change, people who

want to bring life into this world, they now can't because of an Alabama Supreme Court that made a legal ruling filled with so, so much religious talk. So understand like what we're seeing, it's not like weird side effects. This is the long play. Conservatives played the long game to ultimately get rid of Roe v. Wade, and everything that we have seen since are the incremental steps. And it's not going to end here. There is a goal and a drive that, among other things, for there to be nationwide implementation of a number of things that we're seeing and nationwide bans. And then, in really interesting U.S. news, Arizona is currently refusing to extradite a murder suspect to New York, whereas the man in question here is suspected of murdering a 38-year-old woman at a New York hotel. Then he fled the state and was arrested in Arizona several days later. He has

now also been accused of two stabbings and is being held without bail. Now with this, experts say that normally a homicide case like this would be a routine extradition, but Rachel Mitchell, the Maricopa County attorney, has refused to do so. Announcing at a news conference yesterday that her team would not cooperate in efforts to send the suspect to New York because she thinks the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is too soft on crime, suggesting without any evidence that he might just release the murderer from custody, saying, quote, we will not be agreeing to extradition. I've instructed my extradition attorneys not to agree to that. We're going to keep him here. And adding, having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan DA there,

Alvin Bragg, I think it's safer to keep him here and keep him in custody so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state, county, or anywhere in the United States. Now, notably, here, her criticisms are nothing new. Bragg and other Democratic DAs have frequently been slammed by more conservative-leaning groups for being too easy on crime. And Bragg's been under fire since he took office in 2022 after campaigning on criminal justice reform, that including backing away from prosecuting some misdemeanors and him telling his prosecutors that they should only try to get prison time for serious offenses like murder and sexual assault. And what's more, police unions and Republicans have also condemned him for allowing too many people to be released on bail. Just last

month, for example, he was accused of releasing potentially violent criminals after two NYPD officers were attacked by a group that included several migrants living in shelters. And while some of those suspects were charged with felonies and eligible for bail, Bragg's office let them go. But at the same time, specifically here, there is zero indication that Bragg would just be letting a suspected murderer go. So that's why with this, you also have many accusing Mitchell of just playing politics and politicizing the prosecution of a murderer. The spokesperson for Bragg heading back in a statement saying, it is deeply disturbing that DA Mitchell is playing political games in a murder investigation. Then going on to make an

argument that we've seen used a lot to push back against claims that liberal DAs are too easy on crime, saying just look at crime statistics. And noting that quote, New York's murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Arizona, because of the hard work of the NYPD and all of our law enforcement partners. It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for a New Yorker's death.

And we've also seen others echo that claim that this is all just political theater. Pointing out that Mitchell is currently running for reelection against a Republican opponent and that targeting Bragg is very appealing to the Republican base. Especially because Bragg is currently prosecuting Trump over the alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, making him a major target of Republican anger.

And in addition to this being an election year, the timing of Mitchell's announcement is key, because the Stormy Daniels case is about to go to trial next month. Also, notably with the situation while you have Mitchell saying these things at the press conference, at the same time we've seen her staff now trying to walk back her claim, with one spokesperson telling the New York Times that the actual reason the suspect isn't being extradited is because Arizona law literally requires cases with charges this serious to be resolved in the state first before extradition. Then another spokesperson for Mitchell also told the Times that Bragg hasn't even formally requested an extradition yet. And so at the very least,

it seems like she is taking something that is basically just something that is procedural and part of the literal law of her state and then just blowing it out of proportion for political gain. So yeah, something you would expect as we continue the slow, slow slide into the even bigger dumpster fire. And then, are you spring travel planning? Well, something to keep in mind when you start to book your travel is that when you're looking for the best rates on flights, hotel rooms, rental cars, all that, companies can actually increase prices for returning website visitors, hoping that you'll purchase out of fear as you see the prices going up. Also, hotels or airlines that can offer cheaper tickets to people in their home country. And alternatively, prices spike when interest suddenly increases.

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to get a huge discount on a two-year plan plus an additional four months free. That's nordvpn.com slash phillyd, the best deal on the internet, and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. And then the Supreme Court appears to be ready to totally upend essential federal protections for labor, healthcare, the environment, civil rights, and pretty much every area of American life. And this massive, massive case, ironically enough, starts with a small fish, a herring used for bait and as canned sardines. Right, and the case comes from a pair of challenges brought by Atlantic herring fishermen against a Trump administration regulation imposed in 2020. With that, directing commercial fishing

vessels to pay observers they were required to carry on board for certain trips to collect data to prevent overfishing. And to impose that rule, the National Marine Fisheries Service drew from a 1976 fishery conservation law. But then, a coalition of fishermen sued, arguing that the law does not explicitly authorize fishermen to pay for the $700 a day observers. Now, a notable thing here is that the monitoring program actually only lasted a year, or because of a lack of funding.

And these fishermen were actually reimbursed for all their costs. But two suits, dubbed Relentless Inc. v. U.S. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, those still pressed on. And in May of last year, the Supreme Court agreed to take up these two cases,

but not because it has anything to do with fish. In fact, it never was. This is actually about a decades-long conservative crusade with the goal of weakening federal regulations to increase profits while transferring power from federal agencies to conservative judges. I'll explain. Are the fishermen behind these cases? They aren't just asking for a narrow ruling on this regulation that basically doesn't even impact them anymore. No, they're asking the Supreme Court to overturn a 40-year-old precedent regarding the authority federal agencies are given to impose regulations.

And in fact, the Supreme Court itself explicitly said it wouldn't be considering any of this fish garbage when it agreed to take the case back in May. Instead, it'll just focus on whether to scale back or entirely reverse the legal framework the federal judges have used for four decades to decide nearly 20,000 challenges. Because the precedent in question here was set in 1984,

with the case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. And this case is insanely important, with it even being described as one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions in the court's entire history. But I would also describe it as one of the most technical, legalese-filled cases in the court's whole ass history.

So I'm gonna try and keep this short and consumable. Now, first up, to understand Chevron, we need to quickly talk about the role federal agencies play in lawmaking. When Congress created federal agencies, it gave them the power to implement and enforce the federal laws that Congress itself writes and passes, which looks like this. Congress will pass a sweeping law achieving some major policy goal,

like, for example, providing affordable health care through Obamacare. But Obamacare is a massive and incredibly complex program. So instead of having politicians with no actual health care expertise sorting out every single technical detail, Congress delegates that power to experts at relevant agencies. So it's actually the agencies that come up with the specifics for implementing Obamacare and then enforcing those policies, which they do by making regulations. And because the world changes and evolves with time,

agencies are given the ability to update and impose new regulations as needed to effectively enforce laws, as long as the new regulations comply with the original legislation that Congress wrote. So as a result, Congress will write these bills in a way that gives agencies the necessary space to do that. But that can also create statutes that are vague. So it's not at all uncommon to see an agency interpret an unclear law in a certain way and then have that interpretation challenged in federal court, which then brings us back full circle to Chevron. That Chevron suit was actually the result of a challenge to how the EPA had interpreted part of the Clean Air Act

that defined certain kinds of pollutants. But when the Supreme Court took that case up, they also considered a much bigger question. When Congress writes a provision that is vague or unclear, should courts accept the interpretation experts and agencies came up with or impose their own interpretation? And in a unanimous decision, the court ruled in favor of the EPA,

setting the landmark precedent that interpretation of vague statutes should be left to the experts. And the court going on to outline two overarching reasons for this. With the thinking being that they'll always have better knowledge of these technical and complex issues over judges. And second, it's way more democratic. Right, while agencies aren't directly accountable to voters, agency leaders are appointed by presidents who are. Meanwhile, federal judges

are unelected political appointees who usually serve for life. So if they make a bad decision on these cases, voters can't do shit. Now, very notably here, when this decision was first made, it had broad support from conservative judges. In fact, one of the earliest and strongest proponents of all this was Justice Antonin Scalia. I mean, one of the most conservative justices ever. Beyond that, Justice Clarence Thomas also supported the president in 2005, though he changed his mind 15 years later. And he also wasn't alone. In recent years, opinions on this have shifted as the fight for deregulation and limiting administrative power have become central tenets of the conservative legal movement. And those two things go hand in hand, with those who deregulation, frequently arguing that federal bureaucracies are

too bloated and have too much power. The critics counter that conservatives care more about money than the regulations that are put into place to try to make things better. Of course, with this being so much about money, businesses, corporate special interests, and Republican mega donors have thrown billions of dollars at fighting regulations and limiting the scope of authority given to federal agencies. And the folks behind this effort include some of the biggest names in the game, like the Koch brothers, who just themselves have spent millions and millions of dollars creating a whole network of non-profits to achieve conservative legal goals, including taking down Chevron. And so now that Trump's given the Supreme Court a conservative supermajority stacked with sympathetic appointees,

they finally have the perfect opportunity. And that's exactly what's going on with Loper Bright and Relentless, where the fishermen in both of these cases are being represented by conservative groups that have received millions of dollars from the Koch network. And beyond that, the growing anti-regulation push has coincided with the conservative effort to concentrate power away from the federal government and towards the now conservative Supreme Court. And that's something that we've even seen the conservatives on the Supreme Court doing themselves. Right around the time Biden took office, those justices began to embrace a vague theory called the major questions doctrine. And basically, that doctrine says that Congress needs to explicitly authorize agencies to make certain

regulations that would have a major economic or political impact. Otherwise, the Supreme Court has the power to strike down the rule. Or in other words, the conservatives have basically given themselves the power to veto any policy they disagree with as long as they deem the impact major enough. And they have actually done exactly that with a handful of Biden administration policies, including the eviction moratorium, the vaccine mandate, and of course, student loan forgiveness. But overturning Chevron would go way further towards that goal. It would represent an unprecedented power grab that not only gives undue authority to Supreme Court justices, but all 850 federal judges as well.

And I cannot understate how possibly catastrophic all this could be. At the very top level, unelected judges with no policy expertise would be given the final say on incredibly important and complex policy issues. Meanwhile, career experts who have made these decisions for the last 40 years could just be ignored altogether. And as a result, the judges could just strike down a regulation in favor of their own partisan policy agenda and there'd be no accountability.

I'm not talking about just future regulations. If the Supreme Court undoes Chevron, it is unclear what would actually happen to the hundreds of existing statutes and thousands of existing regulations that were affirmed by the doctrine. So all of those could be in jeopardy and absolute chaos could ensue. If any regulation can be challenged, it likely would. And we'd see a flood of litigation that would completely overwhelm the federal court system, including the Supreme Court. But also understand, it's not just the court systems that

would be thrown into disarray. This would also have massive and potentially devastating consequences for the American people. Government regulations are meant to help society, to help us. Well, undoubtedly, there are examples of just ridiculous red tape where there does not need to be. There is also a lot of good. When those are just up in the air because of litigation or they're overturned altogether, we risk losing tons of essential protections. And this is the government will be much more limited in its ability to set new ones because courts could just strike those down too. I mean, there's no shortage of facets of American life this could touch. For example, millions of Americans could be prevented from accessing affordable health care

because the Department of Health and Human Services regulates the administration of Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, which altogether provide insurance for 155 million people. Some of the key rules for that program, they were set under the Chevron precedent. And if those are litigated, the whole health care industry would get disrupted. Similarly, dozens of environmental regulations on air, water, and chemical pollution would be threatened. And the EPA's ability to impose new rules would be undercut at a time when we need to ramp up efforts to fight climate change. And this is the EPA also protects Americans' health by regulating a ton of industries like agriculture, transportation, construction, oil, and more. But if those rules were struck down and the EPA weakened, I mean,

citizens would be at the mercy of big corporations. Hell, labor regulations covering basic protections for unionization and collective bargaining would also be in danger. As with labor standards that impact 150 million workers and ensure that employers are complying with rules on things like minimum wage, overtime, and employing minors. Key civil rights statutes would also be jeopardized, including regulations that prohibit housing discrimination based on race, sex, disability, and other identity-based factors. Also, safe housing rights for survivors of domestic violence. Like, the main thing is, obviously, there is no shortage of what this could touch. And understand, this is not like a soft hypothetical. In mid-January, the justices heard oral arguments on Loper,

Bright, and Relentless. And as you might expect, we saw the court's three liberal justices indicating support for keeping Chevron. But you had at least four of the conservative justices making it pretty damn clear that they're open to overturning or at least limiting the landmark decision, with only the two potential holdouts being Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And only one of those two going with the rest of the conservatives would be necessary to overturn decades of precedent, something that directly and seriously impacts millions of Americans in day-to-day life. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens because a decision isn't expected until June. So without a doubt, we'll be talking about itday life. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens because a decision isn't expected until June.

So without a doubt, we'll be talking about it again then. But in the meantime, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. But that is where I'm gonna end today's show for you. As always, thank you for being a part of these daily dives into the news. And remember, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces.

And I'll see you right back here on Monday. You on my mind a lot. Don't need no time, watch. I don't know how I got you in my pocket spot. Yeah, that's bad, miss you every day. on Monday.