The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.18 The Truth About The Mr Beast Accusations & Backlash...

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  News You Might Have Missed: https://youtu.be/iT4DtgrTExE  TEXT ME! [phone] Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco – 00:00 - Man Awarded $450,000 After Firing Following Birthday Party he Asked Company not to Hold 02:27 - MrBeast Challenge Winner Shuts Down Claims YouTuber Endangered His Mental Health 04:42 - Clip of Christians Singing on Plane Goes Viral 07:07 - Sponsor 07:50 - Alex Jones' InfoWars files for Bankruptcy in U.S. Court 09:38 - Biden Administration Calls for More I.R.S. Funding on Tax Day – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Man Awarded $450,000 After Firing Following Birthday Party he Asked Company not to Hold: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-berling-gravity-diagnostics-unwanted-birthday-party-450000-dollar-award-panic-attacks-firing/ MrBeast Challenge Winner Shuts Down Claims YouTuber Endangered His Mental Health: ​​https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/mrbeast-challenge-winner-shuts-down-claims-youtuber-endangered-his-mental-health-1806004/ Clip of Christians Singing on Plane Goes Viral: https://www.newsweek.com/clip-christians-singing-plane-tops-32m-views-after-ilhan-omar-comment-viral-twitter-1698606  Alex Jones' InfoWars files for Bankruptcy in U.S. Court: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/alex-jones-infowars-files-bankruptcy-us-court-2022-04-18/ Biden Administration Calls for More I.R.S. Funding on Tax Day: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/business/tax-day-irs-funding.html  ——————————   Executive Producer: Amanda Morones Produced by: Cory Ray  Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg Art Department: Brian Borst, William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Ben Wheeler, Chris Tolve Production Team: Zack Taylor, Emma Leid ———————————— #DeFranco #MrBeast #TaxDay ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I don't know about you, but when it comes to birthdays, I hate two things immensely. Surprise parties and work parties. Possibly the best thing to come from the pandemic and the switch to work from home is just no more everyone awkwardly getting together. Hey, it's your birthday.

Let's sing at you and make you uncomfortable in the middle of the workday. I'm the boss. Literally don't know why I allowed it to continue being a thing. And funny enough, those two things that I hate with a passion are at the core of this story, along with Kevin Berling.

Back in 2019, Kevin had a birthday coming up in August, and his employer had a policy of celebrating his employees' birthdays. But Kevin has an anxiety disorder, so he politely asked the person in charge, please don't throw me a party. It's not gonna be a pleasant experience for me. It's gonna stress me out, I'm gonna spiral.

But on his birthday? Surprise, motherfucker. They throw him a party anyway, with it being claimed that the company just forgot about his request. So Kevin, shocker, starts having a panic attack. He runs out to his car, he does his breathing exercises and then returns to work once he's able to calm down.

And hey, that was unpleasant for Kevin, but it was over. Except it wasn't because the next day the company calls Kevin into the conference room to discuss the incident. And according to his complaint, they didn't apologize. They chastised him for quote, stealing his coworkers joy and being a little girl about it. Oh my God. Why are so many douche bros in managerial positions? And this ridiculous confrontation triggers another panic attack and as a little girl about it. Oh my God. Why are so many douche bros in managerial positions?

And this ridiculous confrontation triggers another panic attack. And as a coping mechanism, he starts hugging himself. He asks them, please stop Twitch. The two employees allegedly respond, hey, can you stop? He doesn't, and so the two ultimately leave, but that's the end of the story. Except it wasn't, I lied to you again.

He gets sent home the next day and the next day. And then a few days later, he gets a letter informing him, you have been fired because of everything that's happened. With all of that leading to Kevin recently suing the company for disability discrimination. But you have the founder and COO saying, hey, our employees deescalated, what could have become a violent situation?

Arguing that with the ever increasing incidents of workplace violence ruling in Kevin's favor, could set a dangerous precedent that unless physical violence occurs, workplace violence is acceptable. Even adding, my employees were the victims in this case, not the plaintiff. But of course you have Kevin and his lawyer arguing,

what violence? Kevin doesn't have a history of violence, you're just conflating anxiety with anger. And the jury in the lawsuit apparently agreed because they awarded Kevin $450,000 in compensation. Though of course you're talking about the legal system, it's not over, the company is going to challenge the verdict. So the two final things I need to say with this story,

one, happy birthday, Kevin, I'm saying it from very far away. And two, just a friendly reminder, someone else's birthday is not about you. And really, same shit goes for any event that's not about you. Weddings are a great example. If the bride and groom make a decision, I don't want kids there, fuck your feelings.

It's their event. On that happy note, I just want to say, welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. I miss you beautiful faces over the weekend. Hit that like button and let's just keep this thing going. And then you had MrBeast, I just want to say, welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show. I miss you beautiful faces over the weekend. Hit that like button and let's just keep this thing going. And then you had Mr. Beast, biggest creator in the world coming under fire, with people accusing him of endangering

and mentally abusing someone for a video. Right, when I heard that, I was like, oh shit, is Mr. Beast on some David Dobrik shit now? Did he launch Chandler to the moon, make him fight aliens against his will? No, though if he did put out that video, it'd easily get 200 million views. Rather, the video in question was $10,000

every day you survive prison. And in that video, you have this guy, Josh, and he's challenged to stay in a room alone for as long as he can, with every successful day resulting in $10,000, and he can get up to a million dollars. With a small twist in the video being he's not just in solitary confinement at the beginning.

In addition to having a private chef make him whatever he wants every day, he has a number of items that, each day, the crew can actually take away. With people pointing to specific moments where they're talking about Like are you okay mentally? Oh you broke your drum set. This makes me want to ask mentally. Are you okay? Yeah, I mean actually got a lot of rage out. So now I'm feeling really loose as well as at 18 days in he's talking about his health

It's honestly like the lack of fresh air. I feel sick. The doctor checked me out today My throat's like kind of messed up slightly Slightly considered the possibility of pushing the button. Ooh, I'm Josh. I'm making hundreds of thousands of dollars to lay in a room and do nothing. Okay, are you mocking me right now? But ultimately, spoiler alert, after three weeks, Josh leaves with $340,000 and a new fiance because he actually popped the question once he was done.

But despite the crazy amount of money, what seems to be a happy ending, you have this narrative popping up saying, Mr. Beast and his team were endangering Josh's mental health, with him noting, "'Generally, solitary confinement is a form of torture.'" However, I do have to say in this instance, I think it's a really stupid fucking argument.

One, Josh, unlike every other instance of solitary confinement, got to choose when he left. Two, Mr. Beast's team and a doctor were actively checking on him. And three, even Josh himself has shut down this narrative saying, "- And I can assure you that they had people watching over me 24 seven, making sure that I was never in any danger,

physically or mentally. They had everything taken care of. It was a great opportunity for me. Everyone needs to relax a little bit. Like, why are people mad for Josh when Josh isn't mad? Which makes sense because Josh is an adult who made a choice at the beginning and every consecutive day and or moment

to continue being there, resulting in him getting $340,000. Like some people are out there right now acting like Josh had to kill another man for his freedom. If you're still like, oh, but he's still exploiting this person. No, it is an exchange of time for money. Josh essentially just had a day rate of $10,000.

But also I'm me, you're you. Am I wrong here? Do you feel differently? Do you feel the same? Why, why not? Let me know. And then another day, another viral clip that somehow turns into this big culture war.

Let's talk about the plane. And specifically, I'm not talking about the plane that I was on going to New York that hit turbulence, resulting in my son- I'm so sorry to everyone on the plane- my son shouting, Oh my God, we're going to die! Rather, the flight where this happened. The sound of You're the name You're the name of the Lord You are worthy of all praise We got Christians playing the guitar and singing religious songs.

You see some passengers sitting silently, others joining in. With that video captioned, "'Worshiping Jesus 30,000 feet in the air' going viral over the weekend, getting over 30 million views just on that one single upload alone." And the video ended up popping up in headlines all over the place, but not just because it happened, but rather the reaction.

It's one of the main responses people are aiming at being from Representative Ilhan Omar, which is just one of three Muslims in Congress, and she provoked a storm of controversy by tweeting out, "'I think my family and I should have a prayer session "'next time I'm on a plane. "'How do you think it'll end?' The implication clearly being,

if Muslims try to do the same thing, people would think maybe they're terrorists, or at least be way less friendly about it. And while you have people supporting that kind of thinking, it also resulted in a torrent of backlash, with tweets like, "'I spent decades flying in the Middle East.' This sort of impromptu singing would turn into arrests

and imprisonment. I'll celebrate my freedoms here. You do you." As well as Ali Beth Stuckey writing, Ilhan Omar asked how people would react if her Muslim family sang their worship songs on a plane. I don't know, but it's gotta be better than the reaction to Christian worship

in her home country of Somalia, where Christians are slaughtered for praying in public. Though that drew some responses noting that she's a Somali refugee, but mainly asking, what's your point? She represents Americans in the United States House of Representatives. How does any of this have to do with Somalia?

Others also coming to Omar's defense saying she's not attacking Christians, she's just pointing out the hypocrisy. And then separate from the my religion, your religion fight that happened online, with others saying, you know, it's not even about religion. That people are just invading other people's space on a plane.

Are people just trying to exist, watch a movie, listen to some music, and all of a sudden they're a part of this prayer group? But with all that said, I wanna now pass the question up to you. What are your thoughts on this story? And I know there were a number of angles to it. You think the singing was appropriate?

Do you think Omar's tweet was appropriate? What would you have thought if you were on that plane? Personally, I don't think I would mind. I was raised Catholic, I went to Catholic school. All those years trained me to just turn that into white noise. For me as a kid, I was like, okay, 10 commandments make sense, everything else just excess.

Right, the rules, don't be a dick. I don't know, maybe I will. If you're a dick, fire. Ugh, fine. But yeah, thoughts? And then if you happen to be getting your business off the ground or creating a place to share your homemade goods, your new favorite hobby,

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make sure you enter an offer code Phil to get 10% off your first purchase. And then in major media news, InfoWars and two other companies associated with Alex Jones filed for bankruptcy in Texas yesterday. If you're someone that hates Alex Jones because of what he did to all those Sandy Hook families or the number of things you could list, don't celebrate too soon.

And I'll explain. So this move, it's not coming out of nowhere. It comes as Infowars is currently facing multiple defamation lawsuits from Sandy Hook families, including two in Texas and Connecticut that he's already been found liable over. And for those in the class that have forgotten, these cases stem from his false claims

at the 2012 school shooting, which left 20 children and six adults dead. Was in his words, a giant hoax, a false flag operation carried out by crisis actors to create opposition to the second amendment. And in their suits, the victim's family say that they have faced years of emotional distress, harassment, and even death threats from fans of Jones

who believed all of the falsehoods, all while InfoWars profited off of lies about their loved one's murders. Now for his part, Jones did eventually admit and sworn deposition that he believes the shooting did in fact take place. So he disputed the claim that he profited from spreading lies about the attack,

though notably he repeatedly failed to produce evidence on that front, which literally resulted in judges ruling against him by default in both the Texas and Connecticut cases. Jones has also failed to show up for key depositions and court dates resulting in some very expensive fines. Meanwhile, court documents filed just today state that Jones and his company spent $10 million

in legal costs in connection to the Sandy Hook lawsuits. And beyond that, the trial to determine how much he has to pay the families in the two defamation lawsuits haven't even happened yet, which is likely why we're seeing these bankruptcy filings, because in it, they say that there is a substantial likelihood that once damages are decided in the Texas case, the companies will have nothing to give Connecticut plaintiffs because of the limited cash on hand.

Though, whether there is limited cash or not, that is disputed, where the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Texas case accusing Jones earlier this month of intentionally hiding assets, and claiming that he conspired to divert his assets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children, and himself to try to prevent collection efforts.

And according to reports, and this is big, if the three companies are granted their request, civil litigation against them would be put on hold while they restructure their finances. Ultimately, as far as how this is gonna play out, we're gonna have to wait and see. And then let's talk about today being America's favorite day, tax day.

And if this is the first you've heard of today being tax day, you might already be fucked and not in the fun way. And while Americans all over the country are scrambling to finish their filings, the Biden administration is celebrating by once again calling on Congress to give the IRS more money.

Right, for months now, the agency has been sounding the alarm, warning that this tax season will be a notable mess and that Americans would see delayed refunds and poor service. This due to staff shortages, issues giving out pandemic aid, outdated systems, and a massive backlog of more than 20 million tax returns

from past years. Hey y'all, get this, just ugh. According to national taxpayer advocate, Aaron Collins, a driving force behind the massive backlog of more than 20 million tax returns are due to the fact that the IRS has failed to adopt simple scanning technology. According to Collins, last year alone,

the IRS received almost 17 million paper 1040 forms, over 4 million individual amended returns, and millions of paper business returns. And here's just the cherry on top. The agency's employees have to actually transcribe all of those paper returns manually. How? Scanning tech isn't new.

I can take a photo with my phone and it recognizes all the texts now. Like are they even using calculators or do they all have like an abacus? This is an IRS specific problem. Over the past two decades, many tax agencies at the state level have already adopted these systems.

But the IRS has largely been indecisive about introducing tech that could massively speed up their processes and free up employees for other essential work. But it appears that the issue also may be a funding issue. Right, according to a 2020 report from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the IRS's budget was cut by nearly 20%

from the 2010 fiscal year to the 29 fiscal year when adjusting for inflation. And despite requests from top administration officials for more money, we saw Trump repeatedly put forth budgets that cut funding to the IRS. And while since taking office, the Biden administration has floated proposals of allocating $80 billion to the IRS over a decade,

Republicans in Congress have repeatedly blocked attempts. So unless the midterms go completely different than how I'm expecting, like this isn't gonna get fixed for two to three years and still probably even longer. But also I feel like this wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have a stupid fucking tax system. Right before you take a step to file your taxes, the US government has a general idea of how much you owe.

But thanks to a bunch of well-paid but scumbag lobbyists, things are a shit show. So you or the people you pay money have to go, okay, well, how much do we, let's do math and then send it to the government and be like, is this right? When, and I'm super dumbing this down, in, well, how much do we, let's do math and then send it to the government and be like, is this right? When, and I'm super dumbing this down, in other countries, like the government goes,

hey, we think this is what you owe. And then you either pay it or you go, I don't think the numbers are right. And then you dispute it. But the scumbags at Intuit and H&R Block keep it complicated. Why wouldn't they in a stupid political system where you're like, oh, this is kind of fucked up. If I get these guys, I give them money,

I donate money, I lobby, while it's gonna inconvenience hundreds of millions of people, it puts money in my pocket that I can then give back to those politicians. But I guess the main point, everything is stupid, but you already know that. But ultimately, that is where that story

and today's show ends. My name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.