The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.1 People Are Furious At Lily-Rose Depp, The Weeknd, & Sam Levinson, Zendaya, RIP Student Debt Relief

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Go to https://shopbeam.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO to get 35% off your first order when you subscribe and 20% off all following orders!  + receive a FREE frother with your first order! Snag Some of Our NEW Beautiful Bastard Gear! https://BeautifulBastard.com Catch Up on the Most Recent Show Here: https://youtu.be/8StSw0UJKDg Check Out Sunday’s Show: https://youtu.be/uFFFmszmrZQ – 00:00 - Crew Members Slam Sam Levinson’s Allegedly Disturbing Vision for “The Idol” on HBO 03:38 - VW Refused to Hand Over GPS Data to Track Stolen Car with Baby Inside 05:35 - Greta Thunberg Detained at Norway Wind Farm Protest 06:53 - Sponsored by Beam 07:51 - Is the Supreme Court About to Kill Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan? 12:29 - Eli Lilly Caps Insulin Prices 14:34 - FBI Director Says Covid Pandemic Likely Caused by Chinese Lab Leak – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Crew Members Slam Sam Levinson’s Allegedly Disturbing Vision for “The Idol” on HBO: https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1630983740431237120?s=20 VW Refused to Hand Over GPS Data to Track Stolen Car with Baby Inside: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/volkswagen-stolen-car-illinois-gps-b2291433.html Greta Thunberg Detained at Norway Wind Farm Protest: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/01/greta-thunberg-wind-turbines-reindeer/ Takeaways From SCOTUS Arguments in Student Debt Case: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/28/supreme-court-appears-skeptical-of-bidens-student-debt-relief-plan-00084793 Eli Lilly Caps Insulin Prices: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-price FBI Director Says Covid Pandemic Likely Caused by Chinese Lab Leak: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-director-says-covid-pandemic-likely-caused-by-chinese-lab-leak-13a5e69b —————————— Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Brian Espinoza, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle ———————————— #DeFranco #Zendaya #LilyRoseDepp ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards! Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Friendly reminder, you're getting a brand new video every single day this week, so make sure you come back. But I got a great show for you today, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Sam Levinson, the creator of Euphoria, is working on a new show for HBO that is apparently so risque that it makes Euphoria look like Barney and Friends. So the new show is called The Idol, and it's already being described as torture porn. As far as details, the show, right, it's created by Sam Levinson, as well as The Weeknd and RZA, Fahim. It stars Lily-Rose Depp as a pop star who begins a turbulent relationship with a self-help guru and cult leader played by The Weeknd.

Also, other big names are attached to it, including Troye Sivan and Blackpink's Jennie Kim. And, you know, The Idol, it's a highly anticipated show for HBO, but a Rolling Stone report speaking to 13 cast and crew members claims that the production was a mega shit show. With Amy Simons, the original director for the series, apparently leaving the show after around 80% of it had already finished filming. Reports at that time saying the idol would be moving in a different creative direction. With sources saying not only was there a massive creative turn, but also she was set up to fail, given half-written scripts, inexperienced staff, and an impossible schedule.

And so once there's a filming break, Amy leaves with Levinson then taking over, and apparently scrapping the $54-75 million show that was nearly finished to rewrite and reshoot the whole thing. With Rolling Stone saying he apparently took the show from a story about a starlet fighting to have autonomy in a predatory industry and do, quote, a degrading love story with a hollow message that some involved even found offensive. With one crew member saying it went from satire to the thing, it was satirizing. And another adding it was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show. And then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better.

But it's also worth noting that in a 2022 deadline report, it was revealed that The Weeknd was also behind some changes as he was unhappy with the show's direction. Apparently concerned that the show leaned too far into a female perspective by focusing on Depp's character rather than his. With a source telling Rolling Stone that Levinson was on board with The Weeknd's plan to make the show more about him. But you had crew members saying that Levinson's rewrites turned into a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it rolling stone also going on to share the premises of two scenes that were apparently never shot including one where the weekend beats depp's face and she asked to be beaten more giving the weekends an erection there's also another where depp's character was going to carry an egg in her vagina and if she dropped it the weekend's character would refuse to rape her even though

depp's character begged to be raped but even with those two apparently not shot say that by and large, Levinson dramatically ramped up the explicit content. And that, it does appear to be in line with a lot of criticism that he's received over nudity and euphoria. We've seen in the past, actresses like Sydney Sweeney previously saying she asked to dial back her character's nude scenes, but also adding that Levinson always respected her choices. Other actors also having similar experiences as well. But there, you have many saying even though Levinson has respected those requests, it's still noteworthy that multiple actors had to ask for nudity to be toned down, especially since some critics have condemned it for having too much, calling it unrelentingly explicit and provocation for the sake of it. Right with that show not just kind of pushing

the envelope with sex, but also making tons of headlines around Zendaya's plotline, her character being a teen that's struggling with drug addiction. With that aspect and her story being praised, both for its honesty, but also being condemned by others for its potential to market dangerous behavior to teens. Though there, Zendaya defended the show against criticisms that it glamorizes drugs, I would also agree. There's nothing about the drug use on that show that makes me go, yeah, that seems like a good idea. But going back to this controversy around the show, Idol, it is notable to say that Lily Rose Depp has also defended Levinson in today's Rolling Stone piece. But despite that, today Levinson was still the number two trending topic on Twitter with people saying things like, Sam Levinson is just a porn

addict with too much money. You're not a twisted genius for writing torture porn with Riverdale plots. And others saying he's not only a bad writer, he's abusive, expensive, and irresponsible. Now with all that said, as far as my opinion, I don't have one on this story yet. And that's because in general, I don't like to try to form opinions based on things I haven't seen, which is I think a really unfortunate thing we often see when it comes to entertainment, right? Movies, TV shows, stuff like that. Sometimes the criticism or the outrage, it's right on the money. Other times, it's so fucking random and misplaced.

So for me, personally, I'm going to wait to see. But if you have thoughts on this, I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below. And then, people are absolutely furious with Volkswagen right now, because reportedly, they wouldn't help police locate a missing boy. Right, so it all started last week, where you had this mom just north of Chicago unloading her kids from the car. Takes one kid into the house, the other ones left in the car for a few seconds. But in those few seconds, a BMW pulls into the driveway and when the mom approaches her car, a man steps out, hits her to the ground before getting into her 2021 Volkswagen

and driving off with her kids still in the car. And to make matters even worse, she was six months pregnant and she got run over causing serious injuries to her extremities. But that brings us to where Volkswagen allegedly fucked up. The police contact the company to use its car net GPS navigation system to try and track where the missing car and kid went. However, turns out that is a premium feature and costs about $150 and the owner hadn't opted in, leaving the sheriff's office to claim that VW would not track the vehicle with the abducted child until they received payment to reactivate the tracking device in the stolen Volkswagen. And so understandably, people were pissed at the company

with commenters saying they were appalled by Volkswagen's actions. Although some on Twitter were also concerned about privacy with one user saying, "'Of course they should have cooperated, "'but this is also a slippery slope for cops "'to access cars electronically.'" The major issue with that argument though

is the fact that the mother actually wanted her car and child found. Right, it's not like the police were trying to abuse their power here. And as far as what Volkswagen has had to say about the incident, they said they have a procedure in place with a third-party provider for car net support services involving emergency requests from law enforcement. And adding they have executed this process successfully in previous incidents, but saying unfortunately in this instance there was a serious

breach of process. And so with that they say they're addressing the issue, though it's also unclear what a serious breach of process actually means. But the good news in this situation is that the abducted two-year-old is now safe and sound because about 10 miles from the home the BMW and VW pulled into a parking lot and abandoned the kid with business owners and noticing and calling the police and the VW was also found shortly afterwards but also with this police are still looking out for the BMW so if you live in the North Chicago area keep an eye out for this janky ass white BMW with a up rear bumper because remember in addition to the outrage of VW, a child being abducted, a car being stolen, a fucking pregnant woman got run over.

I'm glad the kid's safe and sound, but the people responsible for this are fucking scumbags. And then, so this may sound weird to you, but Greta Thunberg's actually protesting against green energy right now. With a world-famous climate activist joining hundreds of others outside government buildings in Oslo, Norway, to protest against wind turbines. Or because there are two wind farms in central Norway whose 151 turbines stretch nearly 300 feet high, putting them among the largest onshore wind farms in all of Europe. But the farms and the infrastructure required to support them encroach on and disturb land belonging to the Sami people, the only officially recognized indigenous group in the European Union. With the Sami arguing that construction endangers

their centuries-old lifestyle of reindeer grazing and herding as well as stealing their land. And this dispute actually goes back with Norway's Supreme Court ruling in late 2021 that the wind farm permits were actually invalid because they violated protected cultural rights. But despite that, the government just never acknowledged the ruling and nothing's changed. So you have Greta demanding the turbines be torn down, telling Reuters, indigenous rights, human rights must go hand in hand with climate protection and climate action. That can't happen at the expense of some people. And this morning you had Greta and I and others being carried away from the finance ministry by police. But with whatever happens here, it also raises broader concerns about what climate activists have called the just transition.

Or basically the idea that we can move away from fossil fuels in one of two ways. One, by running over indigenous, non-white, and poor people the world over. Or two, by safeguarding the rights of those most vulnerable to rapid, large-scale changes in the world economy. And I mean, if a country like Norway, which generated 90% of its electricity through hydropower and wind in 2020, is struggling with just transition, I mean, who is gonna succeed? At least with the just part. And then, many of you know that I'm on a mission to improve my overall health, and few things matter more than your sleep health. And that's where today's sponsor comes in.

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cancel anytime, so there's no risk. So get some sleep, you beautiful bastards. And then the Supreme Court's gonna kill Biden's plan to erase more than $400 billion in student debt for over 40 million Americans. Or at least that's what the high court's conservative majority seemed to indicate yesterday during oral arguments. Or because there's two cases seeking to repeal Biden's plan to forgive $10,000 in debt for those earning less than $125,000 a year and for $20,000 Pell Grant recipients. And as far as the specifics, the first case was brought by a group of six Republican-led states that argued that Biden does not have the authority to implement this plan without congressional approval.

And that is something that six conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared to support, with them specifically zeroing in on what's known as the Major Questions Doctrine, which states that the executive branch needs congressional authorization to make sweeping policy changes. And Chief Justice John Roberts saying, I think most casual observers would say if you're going to give up that much amount of money, if you're going to affect the obligations of that many Americans on a subject that's of great controversy, they would think that's something for Congress to act on. This Major Questions major questions doctrine is something that the court's conservatives have invoked a number of times recently. This including limiting the EPA's ability to fight climate change as well

as to strike down a number of COVID-related policies like the federal eviction moratorium and workplace vaccine mandates. But Solicitor General Elizabeth Preligar, who is representing the Biden administration, hit back by arguing that Congress had already given the executive branch this kind of authority when it passed the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act. Right under that federal law, usually called the HEROES Act, Congress gave the Education Secretary the power to waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision in order to protect borrowers impacted by a war or other military operation or national emergency. And that claim seemed to get support from the court's three liberal justices,

with Justice Kagan arguing that Congress was explicit in its intentions for the HEROES Act. Congress could not have made this much more clear. We deal with congressional statutes every day that are really confusing. This one is not. So that was the first case, and as far as the second case, that one is very different, right? That one was actually brought by two borrowers, one who didn't qualify for the debt relief because her loans weren't held by the government, and another who was only eligible for $10,000 worth of loan forgiveness instead of $20,000 because he didn't have a Pell Grant. With those two arguing that they were left out because the administration just didn't seek public input for the program, and because they were denied a chance to urge officials to expand the

debt relief, no one should be able to have it. And if their argument there sounds like bullshit to you, you're not alone, with both conservative and liberal justices expressing skepticism about the argument. But the conservative justices did use this as an opportunity to argue that the loan forgiveness program was unfair because it doesn't benefit everyone. And to make that point, Chief Justice Roberts presented a hypothetical situation where one person took out a loan to go to college

and another took out a loan to start a long care business. And with that asking, is it fair for the second person to essentially subsidize the loan for the first person through taxes? With that, you would Justice Kagan arguing that doesn't matter. Congress passed a statute that dealt with loan repayment for colleges, and matter. Congress passed a statute that dealt with loan repayment

for colleges, and it didn't pass a statute that dealt with loan repayment for lawn businesses. And that also echoed by Justice Sotomayor, who argued that there is an inherent unfairness in society because we're not a society of unlimited resources. And adding, everybody suffered in the pandemic, but different people got different benefits because they qualified under different programs. And those arguments were also put forward by the Solicitor General, who further asserted that the fairness argument goes both ways, saying that it's unfair that more than 40 million people are being denied forgiveness

because of objections from states that are not injured by the program, and two people who would rather end the program altogether than benefit from it. And to that point, one of the other major topics that the justices really focused on was whether the plaintiffs in both of these cases actually had the legal grounds to bring them. In order to sue, they need to demonstrate that they have suffered direct and concrete harm. In the first case, the state centered much of their claims of injury on the assertion that the forgiveness program could cut revenues from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, a non-profit entity that the state created to service loans. And the plaintiffs arguing that the losses suffered by it would impact the state

of Missouri, which is one of the challengers. But there, both liberal and conservative justices hit back by noting, hey, the loan servicer didn't bring or even sign on to this lawsuit, and so it should be that entity that's suing if it was really hurt. With some of the liberal justices also asserting that Mojillo was independent enough from the state that any injuries it experiences are not those of Missouri. And then with the second case, both liberal and conservative justices kind of raised their eyebrows as to whether the two borrowers had the ability to sue, with Justice Neil Gorsuch expressing concerns about courts interfering with

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barring it for anybody, anywhere. But it's also unclear if these questions of legal standing are going to be enough to persuade the conservative justices to toss these cases. Though experts say that would be the most probable way for the Biden administration to kind of win these, but saying that does seem unlikely, which is why for now it does seem like the court is going to strike down the loan forgiveness program. And that is going to be absolutely devastating for so many people, right? Because while the White House has estimated that 40 million Americans would benefit from this effort, that includes around 26 million people who have actually applied for student loan debt

relief, 16 million of which have already had their applications approved and would have all that taken away from them. So incredibly high stakes, but we don't know which way it's going to go for a few more months. And then it's not the sexiest story, but it's awesome news. Insulin just got a whole lot cheaper. Just today, drug maker Eli Lilly announcing that it's slashing prices for its most commonly prescribed insulin, which specifically the company is saying that starting in the fourth quarter of this year, the company will cut the prices for Humalog, its top insulin product, as well as Humalin, by 70%. And the price of the generic version of Humalog is going to drop from $82 a vial to just $25 a vial on May 1st, which is absolutely huge because that is the lowest price for that product since before 1999. And

effective immediately, Eli Lilly is expanding an existing program that caps out-of-pocket costs at $35 a month for patients with commercial insurance buying from participating retail pharmacies. And this is a big deal because it's a pretty damn big reversal for a company that's been described as a primary contributor to soaring prices for an injection that millions of Americans rely on to keep their blood sugar levels in check. Because for the last 30 years, Eli Lilly has raised the price of Humalog, which again, is its most widely used product by over 1,000%. And as a result, the high costs set by Eli Lilly and other drug companies have made it so that uninsured Americans or those with high deductible insurance plans are

forced to pay prices exceeding $1,000 a month, with that in turn forcing many patients to ration the essential medicines or just stop taking them entirely. In fact, one recent study found that more than 1 million American adults ration insulin due to exorbitant prices. But at the same time, experts have said that Eli Lilly's effort here is more limited than it may appear on paper. This is because they say while these updates will be helpful for the uninsured or underinsured, insurers already pay under sticker price for insulin because of discounts and rebates. What's more, the price cuts only apply to Eli Lilly's older insulin products, when in fact, a big percentage of diabetes patients require products that are made by the two other major insulin manufacturers. Which is why we're seeing, yes,

many top leaders and organizations applauding this move, but also calling on the other insulin makers to follow suit. That remains to be seen if they will, because very notably here, Eli Lilly didn't just go, "'Hey, we love everybody.'" Right, their decision came amid tons of mounting pressure from politicians.

As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, lawmakers cut monthly out-of-pocket insulin prices to $35 for Medicare. Notably there, the cap wasn't extended to the private market over objections from Republicans. We've also seen Biden repeatedly taking aim at insulin producers, slamming them in his State of the Union address

and calling on Congress to take it even further. So big move, a big win, and a big story, but we're not across the finish line yet. And then, lab leak or wet market? That is the question at the center of the debate around COVID's origins. Or because back in 2020, the first major theory floated to explain where SARS-CoV-2 came from

was a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, with experts pointing out that most disease outbreaks, including the last coronavirus outbreak in China in 2002, have originated from natural animal to human transmission. And last year, there were a series of peer-reviewed scientific papers that concluded that the natural origin was most likely, citing as evidence the capability of animals at the market to carry the virus, genomic analysis of early infections,

and geographic clustering of early cases around the market. But it didn't take long for people to find out that there was also a research facility extensively studying coronaviruses not far from the market, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Some began to point there, though the publicly available evidence for that was largely speculative or circumstantial. The theory is getting thrown around, ranging from it being accidentally leaked by researchers handling bats in the lab, to it stemming from gain-of-function research gone wrong to it being released deliberately by the government. Though that last explanation is a far more fringe and conspiratorial one. But, notably, one of the biggest holes in the natural origin theory that people point to is that investigators did not find any specific animals that could have been the source of the transmission.

Now, of course, if you ask Chinese officials, they strongly dismiss a lab leak, sometimes even offering other ideas, like the virus entering China on a shipment of frozen fish or coming from American biological research. But so far, the lab leak and a natural origin remain the two dominant theories. Yesterday, we actually saw FBI Director Christopher Wray going on Fox News to take a stand in the debate. As you note, Brett, the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. With them going on to say that the agency is still doing work to find answers and that the Chinese government has tried to thwart efforts to investigate COVID's origins. But a key thing, this is the first standout public confirmation of the Bureau's private assessment of the virus's origins.

So worth noting, they say they only have moderate confidence in their findings, so they're not 100% certain. But they're also not the only government entity to agree with that. Where just a few days ago, the Department of Energy, which was initially neutral, has shifted in favor of the lab leak, though saying they did so with low confidence. Also in 2022, a report by Republican staff on a Senate committee probing the virus did not rule out a natural origin, but concluded that, quote, research-related origin was most likely. But now House Republicans doing their own probe into the issue, so we're going to see what comes from that. But with that, there's still no consensus within the White House on the issue.

Right in 2021, Biden had his intelligence agencies look into COVID's origins, and while in their updated report, the FBI and DOE favor the lab leak, four other agencies in the National Intelligence Council favor a natural origin with low confidence, and you have the CIA also remaining undecided. Then, outside of the U.S., there was a joint investigation by China and the World Health Organization in 2021 that called the lab leak theory extremely unlikely. But since then, many have cast doubt on its credibility, and whose director general has called for a new inquiry, saying all hypotheses remain open and require further study. So the question remains, where exactly did COVID-19 come from? And can it 100% be confirmed? Because right now, the official answer is the same as it was in 2020. We just don't know. Those

scientists seemingly tend to lean toward a natural origin. But with that, on this specific topic, and really anything, I think it's important for us on this to try to pull away from the partisan politic allure. What I mean by that is I know people that have believed the lab leak theory from the beginning, and I know people that are still getting this information now, and they're just immediately dismissing it. But I think it's incredibly important to note that whatever our opinion was or is right now, we need to leave ourselves open for new information. And I know that's easier said than done. It's very easy to see new information that makes your opinion that you had feel wrong, feel like an attack. But if the actual pursuit is truth and not just, I want to prove I'm the smartest boy or girl in the world, then we have to keep an open mind. Not so open that your brain slips out, but open enough to take in new

information and recalibrate. But for now, we wait to see what else comes from this. And that's where today's show ends. Thank you for watching, liking, and being subscribed to my daily dives into the news. I hope it makes the insanity a little more consumable for you. I remember you're getting seven videos this week, so come back tomorrow, same place, same time. My name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in.

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