The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 2.5 Thanks Joe Rogan, Sorry Taylor Swift, California is Getting Worse, Manipulated Videos, & Todays News

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil  & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  The New https://BeautifulBastard.com Drop is almost sold out so get your sizes ASAP! –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Historic, Life-Threatening Storm Hits California 02:35 - Taylor Swift’s Historic Grammys Win Highlights Major Diversity Issues 04:42 - Joe Rogan Is No Longer Exclusive to Spotify  05:57 - Meta Oversight Board Allows Edited Biden Video to Stay Up 07:56 - Sponsored by Squarespace 08:46 - CT Makes Unprecedented Move to Clear $650 Million in Medical Debt 11:19 - Republicans Vow to Block Border/Ukraine Aid Bill Just Hours After It’s Announced 15:16 - Your Thoughts on Thursday’s Stories  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #TaylorSwift #JoeRogan ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. It's Monday. You're watching the Philip DeFranco Show, and we got a lot of news to talk about today. We've got this historic storm ravaging California, the messy drama at the Grammys, why I'm thanking Joe Rogan, the ridiculousness we're seeing with the border right now, also the future of this show as you know it, and then there's even more. But first, I'm very excited to announce the first graphic tee, hoodie, and crew mini drop of the year over at beautifulbastard.com. It just went live, and there's three key lines. Yeah, no, I'm fine gear. This is how I feel anytime anyone asks me how I'm doing. Embrace change line because I have to have some positivity out there. And I can't take it anymore gear, which by the way, may qualify as a cry for help. All of which you can snag right now

over at beautifulbastard.com. First come, first serve. Enjoy. Thank you. And or you're welcome. But hey, we got a lot of news to talk about today, so let's just jump into it. Starting with, right now, California is getting railed harder than your mom on a tipsy Tuesday girls' night out. Hell, almost as hard as your girlfriend who went to a Miami club and her phone happened to die. I mean, it's easy to joke about Californians not being able to handle weather, but the state's getting hit with an absolutely historic, life-threatening storm right now. Huge and heavily populated parts of the state have been flooded, especially in Southern California. Getting so bad, Governor Gavin Newsom

declared a state of emergency for eight counties in the region. And that's in addition to evacuation orders in numerous places and rescue efforts being underway. Santa Barbara especially has been hit with insane flooding. Video showing streets absolutely blanketed, people in cars trudging through feet of water. They shut down the airport, the schools, some colleges.

LA's also seen record-breaking rainfall. Experts saying that eight to 14 inches of rain could fall in parts of Southern California just today alone. Which again, key context here. LA's yearly average rainfall is 14 inches. So it would normally be the total of 365 days coming down in one. So in addition to heavy flooding, we're seeing reports of big mud and rock slides. We had flash flood warnings this morning for more than a million people in the LA area. The National Weather Service specifically warning about an extremely dangerous situation and life-threatening landslides in the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains. And all of this were as of recording nearly half a million customers

across the state of Los Palos. And that being kind of more focused on the northern and central parts of the state, right? Because they were battered with rain, but also hurricane force winds that knocked over trees over the weekend. While the storm has largely passed them, forecasters are warning that the greater LA region, it still hasn't hit the most dangerous parts of the storm yet. So as a result, you have top officials saying, hey, please stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. But, and this is a big one, despite all those alarm bells ringing, we saw the LA Unified School District announcing that almost all of its 700 schools attended by 400,000 students will remain open. The superintendent explaining that many kids in

the district rely on school for weekday meals, which is a big factor in his decision to keep the schools open. And noting that students who can't get to school were also given access to remote learning resources. But hey, we're gonna have to see how the next 24 hours play out, and so in the meantime, please be safe out there. And then, let's talk about this Grammys drama that's still boiling over. And all of it's been largely split up into three different camps. The Yay Taylor Swift, the Fuck Taylor Swift, and the Yeah Jay-Z Talk Your Shit groups. Because Taylor won big. She got two trophies for her Midnight's album. With those, when she won her first award, she announced she had a new album coming out. And then, when she

won the biggest Category of the Night album of the year, it made her the first person to win that award four times. And while the Swifties were a-buzzin', others were throwin' their tomatoes. Some not happy about the album announcement, with hell, even outlets like the New York Times writing, she took the event, which bills itself somewhat grandiosely as music's biggest night, and hijacked it for promotional purpose. The kind of mischief only a superstar on the surest of footing could get away with. Meanwhile, you had others saying they were upset that Taylor really didn't acknowledge Celine Dion when she presented her with the Album of the Year award. And that, because Celine's presence there was actually a big deal. It was a big surprise appearance after her stiff person syndrome

diagnosis. So there you had fans saying, you know, Taylor Swift got lost in the moment. They were seemingly friendly together backstage. Then all of that was paired with the other big criticism of people thinking that Taylor didn't deserve the award, and saying it's part of the Grammy's repeated pattern of snubbing black female artists. With people noting, you know, with any award show, there can be snubs,

but when it comes to the Grammys and Album of the Year, no black woman has won in 25 years. With Beyonce's losses being what people point to most. And this year specifically, Taylor beat out SZA's S.O.S. album, which people thought was very deserving. And all of this, or at least the general mindset of all of this, was touched on by Jay-Z last night, where he was accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. And in that, he decided to bring up the reasons that people have boycotted the show in the past, explaining, I'm just saying we want y'all to

get it right, at least get it close to right. Also bringing up the fact that his wife Beyonce, despite a record-breaking number of accolades, has never won albumbum of the Year. And adding, obviously, it's subjective because it's music and it's opinion-based. But you know some things you know. And then saying he doesn't want to embarrass Beyonce, but she has more Grammys than anyone. And she never won Album of the Year. And saying, even by your own metrics, that doesn't work. Think about that. Most Grammys, never won Album of the Year. That doesn't work. You know, while Jay-Z didn't call anyone out specifically, it was more the recording academy at large. You had a number of people saying that Taylor's win just further proved his point. Even the Los Angeles Times saying

Jay-Z spoke the truth at the Grammys. The rest of the show made it sorely obvious. But ultimately, with all that said, I'd love to know your thoughts here. On either of the two situations near the end, they're both kind of connected. But yeah, whether it be this story or honestly anything that stands out to you today,

I always love to hear from you in those comments down below. And then I gotta thank Joe Rogan and Spotify right now. Because last Thursday, we did this whole like 10 plus minute deep dive into the world of podcasting, what the future is, talking about the firings, how Caller Daddy is no longer exclusive, wondering what's going to happen with Rogan. And they saved me from having to reshoot that story that I actually had ready for three weeks by waiting till the day after to announce that Joe Rogan got a brand new deal with Spotify, with it reportedly being worth up to a quarter of a billion dollars over several years.

And the specifics here were interesting, because that includes an upfront minimum as well as an ad revenue sharing agreement. And very notably, Spotify will distribute it to other platforms, with video even going to YouTube. And so the, or one of the biggest podcasts in the world, once again has the chance to grow its reach substantially. And again, it's the specifics that are very interesting, because while it's generally known Joe Rogan has a massive podcast. With his announcement,

Spotify also put out very interesting numbers that haven't been widely reported on. With Spotify saying that since Rogan became exclusive, podcast consumption on their platform increased 232%. And as far as people going on his podcast, his guests on average get a 50% listenership bump on their own shows. Regarding the non-exclusive nature of his show now, that has to be coming from them thinking that him being exclusive right there, there are kind of limits to how much that benefits them versus how much more they're going to be able to make on the ad revenue side. But like always with these massive deals and changes to the landscape, it's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out. And then there's this very weird but important

question that's being debated right now. How fake is too fake? And that question is connected to this controversy regarding Meta and an altered video of Joe Biden. Because last spring, there was a video of Biden placing a sticker onto the chest of his adult granddaughter. But then some guy took the video, he looped it, and he tweaked it so that it looked like he was touching her inappropriately. And then the caption with that video reportedly called him a pedophile. And because it's the internet and people want to believe what they want to believe, that fake video quickly spread across Meta's platform. With it eventually being reported to Meta as hate speech, but the reviewer left the video up, with then the company's oversight board taking up the case for review after an appeal. And today, they gave their ruling that the video is not fake enough to be taken

down. Though the specifics here are very important, because specifically, the board agreed with the initial review, which said that the video does not break Meta's current manipulated media rules, which importantly, as written, only apply to videos that have been altered with AI to make someone appear to have said something they never actually said. And This video does not do that specifically. It shows Biden doing something he didn't do, and the editor of the video didn't use AI to make that impression. So while the board said, yes, this video can stay up, they also heavily recommended that Meta change their policies and do so fast. Because of course, this matters in general, but especially because we have a number of elections happening worldwide this year. And saying they find the policy in its current form

to be incoherent, lacking in persuasive justification, and inappropriately focused on how content has been created rather than on which specific harms it aims to prevent, for example, to electoral processes. And the board's co-chair, Michael McConnell, saying in a statement, As it stands, the policy makes little sense. And adding, The volume of misleading content is rising, and the quality of tools to create it is rapidly increasing. Platforms must keep pace with these changes, especially in light of global elections during which certain actors seek to mislead the public. While the board is recommending that Meta expand their policy in the ways that we've talked about, they also recommended that provided it doesn't violate other rules about harmful content,

that Meta should leave manipulated content up and just slap a warning on it. With McConnell saying, in most cases, Meta could prevent harms caused by people being misled by altered content through less restrictive means than removals. And saying this would allow for greater protection of free expression. With all of this, big key thing, just because the oversight board said that these changes should be made, it doesn't mean that it's actually going to happen. Ometa has said they will publicly respond to the board within 60 days. They're not obligated to make any of these changes. And then we're going to get right back to more news that you need to know.

But first, I got to thank a sponsor of today's show. For any of you focused on getting your business off the ground, creating a place to share your homemade goods, or even a personal blog, I got a great solution for you. And it comes from, and I want to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Squarespace. You all know I've been partnering with Squarespace for years now, and I have to say it is just so easy. There's nothing to install, patch, or update ever.

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stories today, I want to share some good news because y'all I'm aware sometimes the news is just a fucking hellscape. So when we get wins, even if like in an ideal situation, you wouldn't need that win. We should talk about, and today we're talking about wiping away all your medical debt. Cause that's what we just saw Connecticut governor, Ned Lamont, try to do in his state over the weekend, announcing that his government will contract with a nonprofit that buys medical debt from hospitals and forgives it for a hundredth of what it's worth. So what that means is he's using six and a half million dollars in COVID relief funds from Biden's America Rescue Plan to wipe away $650 million in medical debt for some 250,000 Connecticut residents. And if you

live there and you're finding out about this because of my show, you're asking, okay, how do I sign up? This is amazing. Is there paperwork? Do I have to jump through hoops? No and no. You just receive a letter in the mail as soon as the summer telling you how much has been paid off. And all you got to do to qualify is have medical debt totaling at least 5% of your annual income or have a household income up to or below 400% of the federal poverty line. With the goal of all this to be to remove that weight off of people's shoulders, hopefully free people up to buy a home, start a business or get an education. But the governor telling Good Morning America, this is not something they did because they were spending too much money. This is something because they got hit with a medical emergency.

They should not have to, you know, suffer twice. First with the illness, then with the debt. And while Connecticut is the first state to do something at this scale, it's certainly not the first government. I mean, just last month, you had New York City saying that for just $18 million, they're going to be eliminating more than $2 billion in medical debt for up to half a million residents over the next three years.

And in Chicago, Cook County erased nearly $300 million in debt for over 150,000 residents last year. There's several other local governments following suit, as well as around 30 more municipalities and states currently in talks with the nonprofit, which by the way, is called RIP Medical Debt. It was actually founded back in 2014 by a couple of guys with a background in debt collection

who were inspired by Occupy Wall Street. So far, they say they've erased more than $10 billion in debt for over 7 million people, which is amazing. But also when you look at the grand scope, kind of only a dent. With a KFF analysis of census data from 2020, finding that US adults carry at least $195 billion in medical debt. And a more recent survey estimated that four in 10 Americans have at least some medical debt, which also isn't surprising because medical debt is the largest sort of debt in collections, totaling more some medical debt, which also isn't surprising because medical debt is the largest sort of debt in collections, totaling more than credit cards, utilities, and auto loans combined.

And hey, I know this is a positive story, but I do need to end it on a very real note. And that is, you know, if we look at this trend of debt relief programs, like if we wonder what does it really tell us, it's that not a single penny of this debt is inevitable, both in terms of having a more grand vision of universal healthcare,

but also even in the broken system we have right now, that financial burden that's hanging over your head, it could just be wiped away with the click of a pen. And every day that it's not, the ruling class is actively making the choice not to spare a few dimes for you. But this is still positive news today, so let's enjoy it for what it is. And then if I was a U.S. congressman, I'd be losing my fucking mind right now. Like, more than I already am. And specifically, today, it would be over this $118 billion border security and Ukraine-Israel aid bill. Right, because it was officially rolled out last night. And as we've talked about before, this whole thing has become this incredibly stupid and circular exercise in futility.

Right, first, you've got Republicans continually complaining about the situation at the border and saying the Democrats and the Biden administration just are not doing enough. With some of them taking the time to go LARP over at the border. And a very key thing is that they said they would not pass any essential aid for Ukraine unless it was tied to a bill that secured the border. So Democrats were like, bet, sounds good. A bipartisan group of senators get together to come up with a bill that will appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but that is compromise. But then, literally before the bill is even announced,

a handful of far-right Republicans start saying, hey, I'm not going to vote for it. And that's even before they knew what the it was. And then all of that escalated after Trump came out against the bill. Again, before knowing what was actually in it and encouraging more Republicans to do the same, which of course they are, he is the presumed nominee. And the reasoning here is he literally doesn't want it perceived that Biden got a win on the border so he can keep campaigning on it. So in no way was it surprising that just hours after the bipartisan deal was announced, House Republicans said it was dead on arrival.

The men going onto Fox News to complain, they were left out of the negotiations, even though they refused to be part of the negotiation, instead insisting on their own version of a border bill. I could tell you from the get-go, if President Biden and the Senate were serious about these negotiations, they would have included House Republicans. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says that he hasn't even seen any of this bill,

that he hasn't been brought in on the negotiations. That doesn't seem like a way to get a bill passed into law. Well, that's the Senate for you. They also claim that the border is their top priority. They blame Democrats for failing to create solutions. Again, that's even though Democrats you. They also claim that the border is their top priority. They blame Democrats for failing to create solutions. But again, that's even though Democrats have helped negotiate a bipartisan Senate bill that has support from key Republicans. And the border bill that House Republicans keep pushing for

has literally zero bipartisan support in the House. Is there any prospect for getting something meaningful and constructive between now and the election? Or are we just going to have to wait and see who wins the next presidential race? That would be up for Democrats. I mean, Republicans want to secure the border. This is the top priority. I've said in conference that I would not only vote for, I would promote a bill that funds Ukraine, healthy Ukrainian people, but also secures the border. But I'm not going to vote for a bill that is going to hamstring a future president. That's kind of the main argument that we've seen from Republicans against the bill,

that it really doesn't go far enough for them, and they just want everyone to adopt the partisan House immigration bill. Others also saying the legislation will just incentivize more immigration, painting it as an open border and amnesty bill. Although very notably, we saw experts and Republicans actually involved in writing this bill pushing back against that, saying that it actually includes a lot of major GOP asks and concessions from Democrats. And so with this, we've seen a lot of people condemning Republicans for undermining the bill, criticizing the hypocrisy, claiming they

don't want actual solutions, saying rather than actually caring about America, it's more about making Biden look bad. And importantly, though probably not big enough, it's not coming from just Democrats. We've also seen some conservative voices speaking out, including Representative Dan Crenshaw. The height of stupidity is having a strong opinion on something you know nothing about. I'm extremely disappointed in the very strange maneuvering by many on the right to torpedo a potential border reform bill. If we have a bill that, on net, significantly decreases illegal immigration, and we sabotage that, that is inconsistent with what we told our voters we would do.

People will make up whatever reasons they want to. There's a number of them, I'm sure. But it would be a pretty unacceptable dereliction of your duty. Which I will say, it's been absolutely wild, and I could not have predicted that Dan Crenshaw, of all people, would be the guy that, like, speaks truth to power in his own party at times. Like, that is the state of things. But ultimately, that is where we are.

I personally do not have high hopes for this bill. And that is because you have politicians who are unwilling to compromise in the way they initially wanted to compromise, because they would rather not provide solutions, campaign, and angle for the 2024 election than provide the change that they promised to the people that voted them in. And then let's talk about yesterday, today. We dive into those comments on the last show and see what y'all are saying, if you're debating. You know, looking into those comments, there are some big things, like the summoner saying there's something so ironic about a senator telling someone else they have blood on their hands, and people being blown away by the

senator, are you Chinese, back and forth. But what was selfishly most interesting to me was how y'all view the show, whether you think about it like it's a podcast. Because while there are a number of comments that just absolutely love the deep dive into the podcast industry, they'll also left comments like, I find it interesting that he doesn't necessarily see this show as a podcast. I listened to it on YouTube while going to work. The content is so descriptive with clips having audio. I thought this was a podcast with video, not a video that could be a podcast. And that seemed to be the majority opinion there. You know, often describing like what a podcast is, is something that you're listening to or kind of paying attention to while you're doing other

stuff. You drive and you cook and maybe you're pooping. With that, beautiful bastards like Nicole saying, y'all remember the days of YouTube where shows had to be under 10 minutes? It's just funny to me how if a Philip DeFranco show was under 20 minutes that I feel short. I love these long episodes. And I will say I was happy to see those comments. Because while I don't often talk about like the nuts and bolts of like the show's creation. Oh, it's nighttime? I was magically transported back home. Back in December, I was really wondering, like, what do I want the future of the show to be? I kind of saw two options. One, we go more single topic videos. You might get two to three videos a day. Some of those videos might be two minutes, five minutes, eight minutes. Or we really lean into the idea that this is a daily news

podcast. And last Thursday, I think kind of touched on what I want for the future of the show. I think without filler, especially if we expand the team a little bit, we can do 25 to 45 minutes. Oh my God, that number scares me. But we could reasonably and repeatedly do shows like that, which then opens up more ad inventory, makes everything that much more viable, all while still including time codes on the show so people can jump to stories they might be more interested in, all while at the same time still uploading individual stories to PDS news clips. But again, like this isn't happening tomorrow. This is more explaining the path I would like the show to take

with me making small incremental changes that get us there over time. I mean, like Nicole even said, remember, this show actually used to be a 2-3 minute news show. We didn't get to 15-30 overnight. I'm a toe-dipper, not a cliff-jumper. But that is where I'm going to end today's show. Thanks for watching, commenting on, and sharing the show. But hey, I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.