The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.22 "How's My Form" Meme GONE WRONG, Rich Colleges SLAMMED for Taking Aid Money, & More...

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

Shoutout to Keeps! Go to https://www.keeps.com/defranco to get 50% off your first order of hair loss treatment.   --- 00:08 - TikTok Racists 04:28 - TIA 06:27 - More PPP Funding 9:51 - Trump Swings At Harvard 15:05 - Georgia Now Open --- Check out the latest videos on my NEW A Conversation With Clips channel!: https://youtu.be/OJc8WGrMYSk I’ve been doing live streams HERE: https://www.youtube.com/user/PhilipDeFranco WATCH Full “A Convo With” Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/aconvowith LISTEN On The Podcast Platform Of Your Choice: http://LinksHole.com BUY our GEAR, Support the Show!: http://ShopDeFranco.com   ✩ FOLLOW ME ✩ ✭ TWITTER: http://Twitter.com/PhillyD ✭ INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco/   ✩ SUPPORT THE SHOW ✩ ✭ Buy Merch: http://ShopDeFranco.com ✭ Lemme Touch Your Hair: http://BeautifulBastard.com ✭ Paid Subscription: http://DeFrancoElite.com    ✩ TODAY IN AWESOME ✩ ✭ Patriots trade TE Rob Gronkowski to Buccaneers: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001110390/article/patriots-trade-te-rob-gronkowski-to-buccaneers ✭FINNEAS Explains How He Builds Songs For Billie Eilish: https://youtu.be/FsSkRjgjFvU ✭WHITE LINES | Official Trailer: https://youtu.be/Uj7uyeaJjFQ ✭The Streets of Seoul, South Korea Under Quarantine: https://youtu.be/I4eD1ksp_XU ✭ Secret Link: https://youtu.be/0XkEzNNq6P0   ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩   TikTok Users Slammed for “How’s My Form” Posts https://roguerocket.com/2020/04/22/tiktok-hows-my-form-posts/ Big Businesses Grabbed PPP Funding https://roguerocket.com/2020/04/22/big-businesses-ppp-funds/ Havard Flip Flops on Stimulus Funding: https://roguerocket.com/2020/04/22/harvard-relief-funds-backlash/ GA Business Owners & Mayors Criticize Gov’s Plan to Reopen Stores  https://roguerocket.com/2020/04/22/georgia-business-reopen/ —————————— Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg Produced by: Amanda Morones Art Director: Brian Borst   Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Cory Ray, Neena Pesqueda,   Production Team: Zack Taylor, Luke Manning   ———————————— #DeFranco #DavidDobrik #Harvard ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Wednesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is this racism controversy that has just blown up on TikTok. Right, and so what we're seeing here in general

are tons of teenagers coming under fire for videos that a lot of people have deemed racist as part of the new How's My Form trend. Right, and essentially the way this trend works is you have the person in the video seemingly offering advice or information to attract a specific kind of audience and then cuts to a clip of now that I have

Insert blanks attention with it then cutting to a heavily edited often oversaturated clip of them imitating that person or group and asking How's my form? And so with this trend there have been some tame examples of blew up like that of David Dobrik It starts off with him Duetting a tick-tock that says how to get out of the friend zone with your assistant and it cuts to the user saying now that David Dobrik's here can I get a Tesla right harmless funny makes fun of the fact zone with your assistant. Then it cuts to the user saying, now that David Dobrik's here, can I get a Tesla? Right, harmless, funny, makes fun of the fact that a lot of people think that he has a crush

on his assistant and his longtime friend. And it references the fact that Dobrik gives a lot of cars away in his videos. But the problem with this situation is what we've seen is that many teenagers have used racist stereotypes while making their videos. I mean, some of the videos that have blown up also received a ton of backlash,

like connecting Chinese people with eating bats, references to black people eating watermelon and getting arrested, references to Mexicans mowing lawns, jumping over fences, referencing Arabs sneaking bombs through security. And the thing is, in addition to the general backlash a number of these creators have faced, it seems like some online have made it their mission

for these teenagers to face consequences. Some even going as far as doxing them, sharing information like their full names, schools, social profiles, even home addresses. Also an interesting aspect to this story is because a number of the people who were a part of this trend are younger. The people using this app are younger.

We saw an example where one teen who mocked black people in reference to three fifths compromise. She faced so much backlash, this seemingly leaking into her personal life that her father eventually forced her to post a video apology. I didn't mean for it to come off as racist, even though considering the context of it,

I didn't mean it like that. I was just doing a TikTok trend and my actions weren't, aren't okay. And in fact, because of the backlash and the real life consequences have become such a big part of people posting things to TikTok, especially when it's deemed racist. You've actually seen people use the trend

to target those people who end up getting backlash and real life consequences. And that last TikTok is actually in reference to a different racist video. And that video reportedly featured Stephanie Freeman and Jeffrey Hume who are high schoolers in Georgia. The premise of their video was that they were going to make n-words. Jeffrey also says the n-word in the video before mocking black people and saying they don't have dads, say the watermelon fried chicken thing, then going on to say the black people don't make good choices. Then going on to say that black people rob people and specifically, specifically whites, yeah, they do that.

And then finally mocking black people for going to jail. Now in addition to there being overwhelming anger because of this video, they were reportedly expelled from their high school over this behavior. Hume, who's reportedly an independent wrestler, being dropped by wrestling organizations associated with him. Also we've seen Freeman specifically facing

even more criticism after people spread posts from an Instagram account allegedly run by her. In those posts she appears to apologize saying things like she believes blacks are humans too, begging people to stop trying to ruin her life. But I do want to note there while that part has been heavily reported, it is unclear whether or not these posts are really coming from Freeman. There's also been a part of this story being spread around where internet people are apparently trying to get Freeman's college acceptance revoked. But there I haven't been able to independently verify anything and in fact, according to Heavy, the college people suspected she was planning on attending

has said there is no record of her admission. And so, there's all of that happening right now and as far as my opinion here. One, I'm not co-signing any of the doxing death threats and any general craziness. Right, that's not okay and generally horrifying. Two, freedom of speech is a thing, but that does not mean freedom from consequences.

No one, generally, other than people that fit that same description, wanna be associated with racist assholes. And understand, I am saying that there is a thing, but that does not mean freedom from consequences. No one generally other than people that fit that same description wanna be associated with racist assholes. And understand, I am saying that there is a difference between jokes that go too far, people who don't really understand how heavy what they're saying hits, and then there's the overwhelming disgusting racism

that we witnessed in that last video. And finally, three, don't be stupid. Stupid? When you post something on the internet, it does not exist in some different alternate world. It is just an extension of your real world. So what you do in one can have consequences in both. And understand, I say this hoping that the people

that are in these stories, right, that there's a growth there. Hopefully people are learning and it doesn't just drive them further into ugliness. And also understand, I say this not from a place where I'm holier than thou shouting from the top of a mountain down. I say this as someone who has constantly said,

I hate the person I was years ago. Like who I am today would wanna beat the shit out of old me. And I'm thankful to the internet and also people close to me that have helped me grow, learn, evolve. I've also made peace with the fact that not everyone evolves and you can't make people grow. Because that's a personal journey.

Only that person controls if their door is open or not. But yeah, with all of that said, those are the stories, my personal takeaway, and of course, I pass the question off to you, what are your thoughts on this whole situation? And then let's talk about why there's been such a focus on businesses in the news right now, and this is kind of on three fronts.

First up, we have an update and expansion on something we covered earlier this week, that of course, around the Paycheck Protection Program. And you know there, we talked about how tons of local businesses didn't receive any of this funding meant to keep companies afloat before that fund went dry. But at the same time, and part of the reason the funding went away so fast is you had these massive companies like Shake Shack receiving 10 million in funding. Though, as we talked about earlier, they announced that they would be returning that 10 million dollars. And

the thing is, now we have a much better and bigger picture about what other big and public companies have been receiving PPP funding. But unlike Shake Shack, it appears that so far they are keeping it. You had companies like DMC Global, a metalworking business with a market cap of $405 million, receiving 6.7 million from the PPP loan. You also have the likes of Wave Life Sciences and Mankind, both of which have market caps over $270 million, accepting 7.2 and $4.9 million.

J. Alexander Holdings taking in 15 million with a market cap of 74. Other companies taking home 10 million or more included Fiesta Restaurants, Potbelly, Quantum Core, Halador Energy. And also, one of the things we've been seeing is companies like Ruth's Chris figuring out a way to strategize how to get even more money.

These loans have generally been capped at $10 million for organization, but Ruth's Hospitality Group, which owns Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, was able to qualify for $20 million by seeking two separate loans for its two subsidiaries. And while they've gotten the most attention here, they're also not the only one.

You had Brazilian steakhouse chain, Fogo de Chão, doing the same, right? And so with this, as expected, a lot of consumers are not pleased with these big companies. We've even seen a petition growing, demanding that Ruth's Chris return their $20 million, saying, many small businesses are now being told there is no money left for them

and they cannot pay their employees and may have to close forever. And adding, this is a travesty and a disgusting display of corporate greed during a time of disaster. As of recording this video, it has over 220,000 signatures and of course it's still growing. It's also not just consumers who are frustrated. You had people like Representative Nydia Velazquez,

who's the House Small Business Committee Chairwoman, and she tweeted, we need transparency and safeguards to be certain that funds from PPP reach true small businesses. Big companies shouldn't use up resources intended for struggling neighborhood small businesses, which are suffering so severely. But all of that said, there is some good news here.

You know, like we talked about on Monday, there were new plans for more PPP funding that was in the works. And we've now seen the Senate pass a $484 billion interim coronavirus funding bill. And this time around, it does appear that there are a few things being done to help smaller businesses.

Now, reportedly the way that it's breaking down is you have around 310 billion set to replenish the PPP, and 60 billion of that is set to go to small lenders and community banks, another 75 billion going to hospitals, 25 billion going to testing expansions, and then 60 billion is going to emergency disaster loan grants, which will help communities in underserved areas.

Now, as far as what happens from here, the House is expected to take a vote on this on Thursday, so we're gonna have to wait to see how that goes. For the sake of conversation, let's say that it passes there on Thursday. It's quickly on Trump's desk, it's signed, it's all good. One of the big questions here is, will this round of money run out as quickly

as it did the first time around? And here, I'll say, you know, you can never perfectly predict the future, but we've seen experts saying that small businesses should not be shocked if the funding only lasts a couple of days. You know, the first time around, 1.6 million applicants were approved.

Right, the scale of what we're talking about is staggering. I mean, you had the treasury department even saying, the SBA has processed more than 14 years worth of loans in less than 14 days. Right, even hearing those staggering numbers, 1.6 million, 14 years worth in 14 days. The thing here is we don't actually know how many businesses applied or even tried to apply.

But the thing is that 1.6 million small businesses, that's just a fraction of the roughly 30 million small businesses in this country that employ close to half the country's workforce. Right, so it is incredibly likely that all these loans get gobbled up even without the big players trying to exploit the system. Now with all of that said, the second bit of business news

is also about the PPP loans, though this is between Harvard and Donald Trump. You know, on the note that we just talked about, you have people requesting that companies give the money back, saying it's not meant for you. And yesterday during the press briefing, we saw a reporter ask Steve Mnuchin if he was going to request that other companies give the money back. And there he saw Trump jump in. I'm going to request.

You're going to ask them to return that money? Yep. Harvard's going to pay back the money. And they shouldn't be taking it. So Harvard's going to. You have a number of, I'm not going to mention any other names, but when I saw Harvard, they have a, one of the largest endowments anywhere in the country, maybe in the world, I guess,

and they're gonna pay back that money. And for some context here, if you're unfamiliar, Trump is referencing the fact that Harvard was recently given $8.6 million as part of the stimulus package. Now the thing is, following President Trump saying this during the press conference, we saw Harvard take to Twitter to push back against the claim,

saying Harvard did not apply for, nor has it received any funds through the US Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program for Small Businesses. Reports saying otherwise are inaccurate. President Trump is right that it would not have been appropriate for our institution to receive funds

that were designated for struggling small businesses. And then further explaining, like most colleges and universities, Harvard has been allocated funds as part of the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. And also saying that it will be directing 100% of those funds to the students.

And adding that that will be on top of additional financial assistance it's already given to students for things like travel, living expenses, and the transition to online classes. And so for those unfamiliar with what they're talking about here, the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund is a fund in the stimulus bill

that allocated $14 billion to help higher education. And under that fund, the education department said that thousands of colleges and universities will get that money, saying here that it will go to both public and private schools, ranging from the Ivy Leagues to beauty schools. Right, and per the directions of the education department, about half of the money these schools get

is supposed to go to the students, with the other half going to making up lost revenue and other costs related to the pandemic. And while Harvard is definitely the richest university in the United States with an endowment of around $40 billion, the money that they got from the fund appears to be in line with other comparable schools. This, including those that have sizable endowments, places like Yale. They have a $30 billion endowment and they got $6.8 million. Stanford, which also has an endowment of just under $30 billion, received $7.3 million. Other Ivy Leagues like Columbia and Cornell got even more from

the fund, about $12.8 million each. But the way that this program was set up, the money isn't given out based on how much the money these schools already have. The way that it's set up is it's actually allocated based on a formula that takes into account the overall student enrollment and income level of that student body. And that was specifically measured by how many students

at each school are receiving federal financial aid through federal Pell Grant. Right, and so looking at Harvard specifically, according to Harvard, 16% of their 6,600 undergraduates are Pell Grant recipients. So in the 2018-2019 academic year, the school gave $200 million in scholarships to undergrads alone.

And that's why we also saw plenty of schools with less money getting bigger chunks of the stimulus as well. Right, for example, the biggest sum went to Arizona State University, which got $63.5 million. And that's because they have 83,000 students and about half of them are considered low income. Right, but with all that said,

one of the main focuses with this story is that Harvard was the one that got a ton of backlash from others, not just Trump. This included the likes of Republican senators like Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, even Education Secretary Betsy DeVos seemed to echo this sentiment, with a spokesperson for the department saying,

"'Sending millions to schools with significant endowments "'is a poor use of taxpayer money.'" With the spokesperson also saying that DeVos had sent a letter to the college and university presidents asking them to send the money back if they don't need it. But also, with this situation, we've seen DeVos taking some heat herself, the college and university presidents, asking them to send the money back if they don't need it. But also, with this situation, we've seen DeVos taking some heat herself. And that is in part because she's in charge

of distributing an additional $6 billion from the stimulus bill that's separate from the relief fund. And this money is specifically earmarked to directly help college students pay for food, childcare, and housing. Now, on April 9th, we saw DeVos say that the $6 billion would be immediately distributed to the students.

But according to a report that came out on Monday, right, just under two weeks later, only $6 million of that 6 billion had been given out. Which, I mean, that's not 1%. It doesn't even feel right to say less than 1%. It is.1%, right? And so that prompted a lot of backlash from leaders in higher education,

many of whom said that they have been struggling with bureaucracy and lack of guidance. There were also reportedly glitches in the process early on. And according to reports, the website where schools submit documents would go down for hours at a time. And you also had some schools who hadn't used this portal before having trouble registering. But what we saw there is in a statement last week,

the Department of Education spokesperson blamed the school saying, it's tragic that at a time when students are struggling to make ends meet, too many highly capable and intelligent leaders of higher ed institutions are dragging their feet and claiming it's because there's some lack of clarity in the law. Also just yesterday, we saw DeVos issue a new guidance

mandating that the money can only be given to students who qualify for federal financial aid. Meaning only US citizens and some legal permanent residents are eligible and the hundreds of thousands of undocumented students, people like DACA recipients, they will not have access to the money, they will be excluded because they are not eligible for federal financial aid.

And ultimately that's where we are with this aspect of the story right now. We're gonna be keeping our eyes on this to see if anything changes, what happens with that $6 billion. And actually as I was where we are with this aspect of the story right now. We're gonna be keeping our eyes on this to see if anything changes, what happens with that $6 billion. And actually, as I was recording, we got the update that Harvard has now said that it is not going to accept that money,

saying in a tweet that they're concerned that the intense focus by politicians and others on Harvard in connection with the program may undermine participation in a relief effort. And adding, for this reason, Harvard has decided not to seek or accept the funds allocated to it by statute. And notably here, that decision came just hours after Princeton also announced it will not be accepting the funding,

and Stanford said on Twitter that they had withdrawn their application for the money on Monday. So the situation is changing very rapidly, a lot of it obviously affected by public and political pressure. So it's gonna be really interesting to see if more schools will be pressured to do the same. You know, there, of course, I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments down below, but this also brings us to the final bit of business news, and that is business in Georgia. And understandably, a big chunk of this story revolves around Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who at the beginning of this month famously said,

Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt bad. Well, we didn't know that until the last 24 hours. And as Dr. Toomey told me, she goes, this is a game changer. And there, of course, as we've discussed in the past, that is just absolutely not true. Experts had literally said that for months.

So it was either a bold faced lie or he is the dumbest man in Georgia. Though to be fair to Brian Kemp, it could be both. But that announcement, that statement from Kemp, that's not what we're talking about today. What we're talking about is that on Monday, Governor Brian Kemp announced that the state would be reopening on Friday.

Notably here, that would include reopening gyms, bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, barbers, hair and nail salons, as well as massage therapy businesses. With a second wave of reopenings coming a few days later on the following Monday, that including dine-in restaurants and movie theaters. While those businesses will need to follow social distancing and sanitation guidelines,

this is still the broadest rollback of stay-at-home orders that we've seen in the state so far. Because that order was so broad, you had a lot of small business owners saying they were caught off guard, they weren't expecting to reopen in the state so soon, some saying that it was so fast they'd need more than just a few days to ramp back up. And you also had others critical of the move in general, some saying that they'd refused to reopen before health experts said that it was safe to do so. For example, we saw people like Diane Fall, owner of Maxim Barbers in suburban Atlanta, saying it's putting economics before lives. Kemp's putting it out there like he's doing us a favor, but I'd rather be alive than run my business right now. You also have people saying, how could they keep social distancing rules in place when you have places like a barber shop or a nail salon or the number of places where people have to be close

or use the same products over and over. We also saw examples like that of Alan Marsh. He's a pet shop owner and he said that even though revenue is down a third, he's lost employees. He would continue to fill online and phone orders only. But also, Marsh specifically took it even a step further saying that if he found out that one of his employees had been out to a restaurant or a shop,

he would actually take them off the schedule. Right, but that said, as far as reactions, not all negative. You had other business owners welcoming the move, some saying they were cautiously optimistic about reopening. Owners like that noting, we're going to test this out and see. All it takes is one or two facilities that don't handle it well

and we'll all be shut back down again. And with all that said, notably here, it's not just the business owners who were caught off guard by this decision. Reportedly And with all that said, notably here, it's not just the business owners who were caught off guard by this decision. Reportedly, the mayors of Savannah, Augusta, and Atlanta all said that they hadn't heard Kemp's plan until he publicly announced it. And like many businesses, those mayors criticized Kemp's decision.

Did Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms say? I'm perplexed that we have opened up in this way. And again, I can't stress enough. I work very well with our governor and I look forward to having a better understanding of what his reasoning is. But as I look at the data and as I talk with our public health officials, I don't see what that it's based on anything that's logical. You also had Savannah Mayor Van Johnson calling the move reckless, premature and dangerous. But ultimately right now, those mayors actually have

less power than the businesses themselves do with this decision. And that's because Kemp's order will be implemented statewide, meaning that local governments can't overturn or restrict it. But that still hasn't stopped these mayors from continuing to urge people to stay home. With Albany's mayor also saying that he plans to ask Kemp

to make an exception for his city. This because Albany has become one of the worst coronavirus hotspots in the country. Now with all of this happening, so many reactions, we saw Kemp defending his decision with a spokesperson saying, we can't have shelter in place forever and we can't have how businesses operated last fall

or even a month ago. We have to find a way to a happy medium. But also here, it is important to point out that even though Georgia is opening the fastest, it's definitely not the only state that we've started to see reopen. Also, Tennessee announcing that its statewide stay at home order will be lifted at the end of the month

and that most businesses will reopen by May 1st. Ohio for their part, planning to roll out a gradual reopening on May 1st. In South Carolina, as of yesterday, we're already seeing places like beaches and department stores reopen at reduced capacity. Like we've seen in Georgia, there has been criticism for opening non-essential businesses so early.

However, unlike in Georgia, those municipalities can still restrict some reopening, such as beaches. But ultimately, that's where we are with this story right now. And I will say, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens from here, right? How states handle reopenings. And I mean, especially in places like Georgia,

South Carolina and Tennessee, because they haven't even met White House guidelines that recommend that states begin a phased reopening only after 14 days of a sustained decrease in coronavirus cases. So with all that said, of course for everyone, I'd love to know your thoughts in general, but also more specifically,

if you're living in one of the states that we're talking about right now on the show, I'd love to know your thoughts, your concerns, your fears, your maybe happiness of what's happened, or the decisions being made to reopen the way that they're being reopened. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. And hey, if you like this video,

you like the way that I break down the news with you each day, hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, definitely subscribe and tap that bell to turn on notifications so you don't miss this daily show. Also, if you're looking for more to watch, we release new ACW clips today, or maybe you just missed the last Philip DeFranco show,

you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch those right now. But with that said, 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. I hope you liked the video. Subscribe if you like it.