The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.25 Michael Jackson Reaction Backlash, Brexit Protests, & Donald Trump's Amazing Weekend

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today, it is just a day of polarizing subjects. The first of which, just a few months ago, is not a story I thought I'd be talking about in 2019, but we had news around Michael Jackson. And this of course comes in the wake of the two-part documentary series released by HBO called Leaving Neverland. A documentary whose synopsis reads, At the height of his stardom,the world's biggest pop star, Michael Jackson, "'began long-running relationships with two boys "'aged seven and 10 and their families.

Starting point is 00:00:29 "'They now allege that he sexually abused them.'" And the docuseries features Wade Robson and James Safechuck. And in the docuseries, reportedly, the two men shared an excruciating detail how they and their families were groomed by the famous pop star, the years of alleged sexual abuse, and the emotional and psychological toil the abuse took on their lives

Starting point is 00:00:46 even after they lost contact with Jackson. And the reaction to this docuseries was massive. Right, you had Variety calling it overwhelmingly powerful and convincing. On the other side, you had Entertainment Weekly calling it woefully one-sided. You have people saying that the two men are obviously telling the truth,

Starting point is 00:01:00 others saying they're lying, that they're just trying to get fame or money. The Jackson estate back in February launched a $100 million lawsuit against HBO. And I'm really condensing and simplifying this part of the story because at this point, a lot of people have, you know, either seen the documentary or they were already locked into their opinion. I personally have the belief that if you haven't watched a documentary and you think that it's all lies, you should probably see what you're calling a lie. On the other hand, if you're someone that watched it and you're like,

Starting point is 00:01:23 this is open and shut, it's obvious, I'd look at whatever the other people are pointing to. That is not the reason we are talking about this today. We are talking about this today because of Barbara Streisand. Barbara Streisand seems to have taken a look at the two standing arguments and then was like, I got a new one. Reportedly saying to the Times, not the New York Times,

Starting point is 00:01:39 but a British paper, when speaking of Michael Jackson, his sexual needs were his sexual needs coming from whatever childhood he has or whatever DNA He has you can say quote molested, but those children as you heard say grown-up Robson and Safechuck They were thrilled to be there. They both married and they both have children so it didn't kill them So and this is in the interview reportedly she believes the two men saying their abuse was quote too painful But also adding while she felt bad for the boys. She also felt bad for Jackson saying it's a combination of feelings. I feel bad for the children. I feel bad for him I blame I guess the parents would allow their children to sleep with him

Starting point is 00:02:12 Why would Michael need these little children dressed like him and in the shoes and the dancing in the hat? It was pretty much outrage from everyone you had a lot of the Jackson fans were defending him saying no He's not guilty How dare you throw him under the bus and you have the people that think that it's pretty clear that Michael Jackson was guilty here. And why are you making him out to be a victim? Why are you minimizing what happened to his victims because they what did not kill themselves? Now that said after this she has issued new statements Those statements reportedly include the most important role of being a parent is to protect their children But also adding it's clear that the parents of the two young men were also

Starting point is 00:02:42 Victimized and seduced by fame and fantasy adding she has nothing but sympathy for the two victims, and saying, to be crystal clear, there is no situation or circumstance where it is okay for the innocence of children to be taken advantage of by anyone. The stories these two young men shared were painful to hear, and I feel nothing but sympathy for them. And then issuing another statement on Saturday, adding that she was profoundly sorry, saying, I didn't mean to dismiss the trauma these boys experienced in any way. And then, this morning morning most likely to Barbra Streisand's relief She is no longer the focus of this story cuz Diana Ross or whoever runs Diana Ross's Twitter tweeted

Starting point is 00:03:11 This is what's on my heart this morning I believe and trust that Michael Jackson was and is a magnificent incredible force to me and to many others stop in the name of Love Wow, okay. Sorry. That was my first time reading a tweet I didn't know she called back to a song. And with that, the internet reactions have then come through again with people outraged, people praising, people pointing to Diana Ross's son, who has also defended Jackson,

Starting point is 00:03:32 saying, you know, he never did anything. Others saying just because he didn't do something to you doesn't mean that he's not guilty. But with all that said, I do wanna pass a question off to you regarding what are your thoughts and feelings on this topic. But also with that situation, I will say good luck because it appears that any post or video about this situation gets bombarded and, uh, yeah, moving on.

Starting point is 00:03:50 Then let's talk about easily one of the biggest pieces of news to come out over the weekend, and that is on Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned in his report to Attorney General William Barr. And the information in this report, of course, came from Mueller's two-year investigation into whether or not President Donald Trump's campaign ever conspired with Russia during the 2016 election. After he handed it in, we learned that Mueller was recommending no further indictments in the investigation, which has already led to several charges and five prison sentences. And what followed is that yesterday, A.G. Barr sent a four-page summary of the report to Congress. In this summary, Barr says that Mueller's report was broken down into two parts.

Starting point is 00:04:20 The first was about Russia's interference with the 2016 election, and while Mueller did find that there were two large Russian efforts to interfere with our election, one from the Internet Research Agency and one from the Russian government, both of which of course have garnered several arrests, Trump's team is essentially clear in this part and a quote from Mueller's report says, The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. And the second part was about obstruction of justice, but the findings in this part were a little less clear. Barr's letter states that the special counsel Robert Mueller did not draw any conclusions one way or another as to whether or not obstruction of justice was committed, with a quote from the report saying, While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Starting point is 00:04:58 And instead the report outlined arguments for each action investigated, leaving it up to Barr to determine whether or not crimes were committed in each instance. And seemingly after reviewing the report, Barr says there is not enough proof. And in his letter to Congress, he says, "'Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I "'have concluded that the evidence developed "'during the special counsel's investigation "'is not sufficient to establish

Starting point is 00:05:16 "'that the President committed an obstruction "'of justice offense.'" So what does all of this mean for Trump? Well, many are seeing this as a huge win for him. After the summary was released yesterday, he sent out a tweet saying, no collusion, no obstruction, complete and total exoneration. Keep America great. But on that note, many have responded to this by saying that the report itself specifically said that it did not fully exonerate him.

Starting point is 00:05:36 We also saw Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders going on the Today Show this morning where she maintained Trump's statement. Would you acknowledge it is incorrect for the president to call this a total exoneration? Not at all. It is. It is a complete and total exoneration. And here's why. Because the special counsel, they said they couldn't make a decision one way or the other. The way the process works is then they leave that up to the attorney general. The attorney general and the deputy attorney general went through and based their decision on Mueller's investigation. So as far as is this fully over, what is next? On the other side of this whole situation, you have Democrats arguing that Mueller's full report should be released. With the likes of Bernie Sanders tweeting, I don't want a summary of the Mueller report, I want the whole damn report.

Starting point is 00:06:17 You also had Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer releasing a joint statement calling for the report to be made public given biases the Attorney General may have Saying Attorney General Barr's letter raises as many questions as it answers The fact that special counsel Mueller's report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice Demonstrates how urgent it is at the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay given Mr. Barr's public record of bias against the special counsel's inquiry He is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report. What they're likely referencing here is a memo Barr wrote in June of 2018 before Trump appointed him to Attorney General where he said he did not

Starting point is 00:06:54 think the president obstructed justice. But also it should be noted that the Democrats haven't really been alone in wanting the report to be made public. Earlier this month the House voted 420 to 0 demanding the Department of Justice release Mueller's full investigation to lawmakers and as much as possible to the public. Now, a big note there is that vote was non-binding. It does not actually mandate anything, but it does potentially put pressure on Barr. As to whether he will actually release anything right now,

Starting point is 00:07:16 that remains unclear. In his letter to Congress, he said the report remains confidential, but added, "'I am mindful of the public interest in this matter. "'For that reason, my goal and intent is to release "'as much of the special counsel's report as I can, "'consistent with applicable law, regulations, But added, Now with those laws, regulations, policies, we'll limit right now, it's unclear. But material in the report is likely relevant to other investigations and could be a security risk. So even if the public were to get its hands on everything, a good chunk of it could be redacted.

Starting point is 00:07:43 There's also been this debate as to whether or not Trump would be able to use executive privilege to prevent the public from seeing certain parts of the report. Right, reportedly this could include internal communications, private conversations involving the president. But also regarding the report's release, you had people like Representative Jerry Nadler saying that he would be willing to take this matter to the Supreme Court. Well, we'll try to negotiate and we'll try everything else first, but if we have to, yes, we will certainly issue subpoenas to get that information. And you're going to be willing to take that all the way up to the Supreme Court if you have to?

Starting point is 00:08:11 Absolutely. Although I will say, regarding this note, one of the last updates to this story while I'm filming it was that President Trump was asked about the full release, which he reportedly said, it's up to the Attorney General, but it wouldn't bother me at all. Although I will say, without a full release, He's still giving Democrats who oppose him some ammunition. For example, you have people like Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams kind of comparing what happened with Barr summarizing the report to having your brother summarize your report card. Now understand with that said there is no way to look at the situation as anything other than a huge win for Trump right now. Did he overstate the summary of the findings regarding obstruction of justice? Sure, but there was nothing with this and obviously we are talking about the summary of the report that is definitively damning for Trump. And in addition to all of this, it appears that the president's kind of four-day weekend has gotten even better.

Starting point is 00:08:54 It's more of a personal matter. We're seeing news come out that Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels, kind of just huge enemy to the president. He has reportedly been indicted on extortion charges. According to Bloomberg News, he was charged by federal prosecutors in New York with attempting to extort millions of dollars out of Nike by threatening to release damaging information about the company, which did not meet his demands. And according to CNBC, he's been charged with wire and bank fraud.

Starting point is 00:09:18 So a great time for Trump. All of that said, of course, he's still not fully in the legal clearing. While the Mueller investigation was the most talked about into his campaign, there are still others that exist, including one in New York on campaign finance crimes related to the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels Additionally the Trump Foundation and Trump Organization as well as Trump's inauguration committee are also subjects of investigation But of course those are not nearly as big as the Mueller investigation and that's where we are today

Starting point is 00:09:40 But with all that said though, I would love to know your thoughts regarding this story Also, do you think that we will see a full release or is it gonna be heavily redacted? What do you think is gonna happen next? And then let's talk about huge Brexit news. If you didn't see, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand a second Brexit referendum.

Starting point is 00:09:56 The protest, called Put It to the People, was organized by the People's Vote Campaign, which is made up of more than 100 grassroots groups that support a second Brexit vote. Organizers for the protest estimated that a million people turned out, although I will note there's really no way to independently confirm that. But what we know for sure, what we could see, was the wide variety of people that came out to show their support for a second vote. You had British citizens from all over the country coming to London to join the protest,

Starting point is 00:10:17 you had members of parliament from all across the political spectrum. It was also an international affair with people from other EU countries flying in to join the protest, including from Italy and Ireland. And if you don't live there, you haven't been tracking the story, you might be wondering, well, why are these protests happening now? And the answer to that is the cliff's edge is incredibly close. The deadline for Brexit is coming fast, and UK lawmakers have still not come up with a plan that even a simple majority of their parliament can get behind. Now, the slightly good news for Britain is that the original deadline for them to leave the EU was March 29th. But last Thursday, EU leaders and Prime Minister Theresa May agreed is that the original deadline for them to leave the EU was March 29th, but last Thursday,

Starting point is 00:10:45 EU leaders and Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to extend the Brexit deadline. So as of now, the UK will be leaving on May 22nd if Parliament passes Theresa May's Brexit deal. Now that may seem and was described as a simple extension, but there are a lot of different ways that this could go down. The UK essentially has to decide

Starting point is 00:10:59 between passing Theresa May's Brexit deal or opening a whole other can of worms. If they pass Theresa May's deal, they leave the EU by May 22nd, but May's Brexit deal has been extremely whole other can of worms. If they pass Theresa May's deal, they leave the EU by May 22nd, but May's Brexit deal has been extremely unpopular with both liberals and conservatives. It's been voted down by parliament two separate times. The first time was back in January.

Starting point is 00:11:13 There, MPs voted against the deal by a 230 vote margin. And then the second time was earlier this month where the plan was defeated again, this time by a margin of 149 votes. And to really understand how devastating those votes are, if everyone in Theresa May's party voted with her, and I'm saying only the Conservative Party, not even other parties that they're working with,

Starting point is 00:11:31 they should at max lose by 12. And so that's why it seems that there is a good chance the UK will not pass a Brexit deal, and if they don't, MPs will have until April 12th to decide what the hell they're actually going to do. So, if they don't pass the Brexit plan, the UK has four different options. One, the UK could ask for a longer extension,

Starting point is 00:11:46 and while this would give more time to negotiate, including potentially negotiating a new deal, it creates this weird situation. And that's because if you extend negotiations even more, it would require the UK to hold elections for the EU's European Parliament in May, and electing new representatives for the UK for EU's Parliament really doesn't make sense

Starting point is 00:12:01 if the UK is planning to leave the EU. Then the second option, number two, is the no-deal Brexit. This basically means that Parliament would just accept the situation as is and move forward with Brexit. But earlier this month, Parliament debated and voted to reject a no-deal Brexit. So that seems unpopular as well, which brings us to number three. Article 50 could be revoked, which would cancel Brexit. And regarding this, there was an online petition supporting this option that went viral last week and got over five million signatures. But like everything else with this story, it's not that simple, and this time it's because

Starting point is 00:12:27 Theresa May has ruled out revoking Article 50. And so that brings us to option number four, the final option, which is to hold another referendum altogether, which is why we saw the protests on Saturday. But again, not simple, because Parliament rejected an amendment for a second referendum during a series of votes earlier this month.

Starting point is 00:12:41 And so basically, we have this situation where Parliament has strongly opposed every option, right? Which makes it extremely difficult to see a path forward. But also a thing to consider is the timing of all of this. Just because they voted one way in the past doesn't mean that they'll vote that way now. And so where we are now is Parliament has this week to decide if they're going to pass Theresa May's Brexit plan

Starting point is 00:12:57 and if the deal is voted down again. Parliament could hold a series of votes to see where MPs agree and disagree, which is a move that could possibly reveal if support for a second referendum has shifted at all, given the recent changes to the Brexit negotiations. Because yes, while Parliament did vote against this, time has passed and there's also support

Starting point is 00:13:13 for a second referendum. Back in February, we saw the Labour Party officially announce that they support a second referendum. And Labour Party leaders are also considering a plan by two of the party's members, where MPs would vote for May's deal on the condition that it is then put to a public vote. Which is a move that could work. Rather than a vote in general regarding Brexit, it would be more specifically Theresa May's deal on Brexit. So it's different enough so that this referendum isn't essentially a redo. Right, the first time around some people were like,

Starting point is 00:13:36 yes, I would like to vote for having sex and the second vote is oh, oh, oh, oh, but I didn't want to vote for getting pegged. Right, the devil's gonna be in the details for a lot of voters. And in addition to all of that, by having this referendum for the people, it would give a lot of these lawmakers kind of some room, some cleansing room from the just utter failure this has been. And if the people move it forward, it moves forward as is, and if they don't, then it's off.

Starting point is 00:13:57 And as far as what would happen with a second referendum, we have to look to polls. And right now, recent polls in the UK suggest that if there were another referendum, Britain could vote to remain in the EU. With a snap poll last week finding that nearly two-thirds of respondents support remaining in the EU over Brexiting with May's current deal. According to the poll even if the options were remaining or leaving without a deal remaining would still win. But still with all that said I'm saying if there was another vote because looking at the polling

Starting point is 00:14:20 almost half of the polls respondents said they would support another vote. Because you have people arguing their point that by having a second referendum, you're kind of making this less democratic. A public decision was made, where is the action? Although again, among other points and arguments, there are people saying that this is different enough. Right, that the devil is in the details. If someone invited you to go hunting, you might say yes, and then feel different when you realize that the animals also have and know how to use guns as well.

Starting point is 00:14:43 But on that note, and visual in your head, that's where this story ends and of course it passed the question off to you. What are your thoughts regarding what will happen, what should happen, and also if you live anywhere in the EU, I'd love to know your thoughts even more so than my fellow Americans. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And for those of you that are new here, if you like jumping into the news with us today, be sure to subscribe. I post a brand new show every single weekday and on Tuesdays and Thursdays right now, we post extra morning deep dives with even more coming.

Starting point is 00:15:09 I appreciate being a part of your day. But with that said, if you miss the last two videos from us, you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there. And of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow. Two times.

The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.25 Michael Jackson Reaction Backlash, Brexit Protests, & Donald Trump's Amazing Weekend

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