The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.8 Corruption, Scandal, Libel & Now Expulsion?! Trudeau's Canadian Implosion, BlackPink, & Much More

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. The first thing we're gonna talk about today is some quickie industry slash social media news. First up, we saw kpop continuing its domination of online records. We saw the four girl group Blackpink break multiple records with the release of their music video, Kill This Love. They released the video this Friday via YouTube Premiere, which if you're not familiar, is a YouTube feature that allows essentially a live stream to occur when someone posts a video. So a ton of people get to experience it first together, and then it reverts to a regular video on demand.

Starting point is 00:00:29 And according to YouTube, in the first 24 hours, it received 56.7 million views, which took the crown from Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next, which had 55.4 million views in the first 24 hours. And reportedly, Kill This Love became the fastest video to get 100 million views, reportedly only taking two days, 14 hours, beating out size gentlemen.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Then if you ever wondered, do people still use Netflix's DVD service? The answer according to new reports is yes, although it is small, coming in at only 1.34% of Netflix's revenue. But given how large Netflix is, that's still $212 million from 2.7 million subscribers. Although I will say when looking at the numbers

Starting point is 00:01:03 and the reporting, it does seem like they are kind of winding this business down. And one of the most pivotal of those numbers being the number of disc distribution centers. At one time they had 50, in 2015 they had 33, and according to Netflix, they now have around 17. And the last bit of industry news is not a positive. Explicit nude photos of actress Amanda Seyfried

Starting point is 00:01:20 resurfaced on social media over the weekend. I say resurfaced because Seyfried was one of the several stars with personal photos stolen and released without their consent back in 2017. That leak, as you might remember, was dubbed the Fappening 2.0. The leaked photos reportedly showed Seyfried in a sex act with her then boyfriend,

Starting point is 00:01:33 which of course, as we talked about in previous coverage, Seyfried and others took legal action to fight against the invasion of privacy, but of course those photos have been lingering for years. And for whatever reason, this past weekend, they popped back up, you had Twitter users kind of making jokes about it But at the same time you also saw outraged fans reminding users that this is a huge invasion of privacy

Starting point is 00:01:49 And so then the articles popped up around it, thus further propelling the story And as far as my personal reaction to the story, I mean it's a little bit layered One, I think it's odd that these photos resurface since the Internet's the Internet The photos were out there, they will always exist Right, it's just a matter of how will people find them, where are people keeping it, the legal situation. I will personally advise for you to not seek these out. I will personally advise for you to not host or share them. It is a massive invasion of privacy.

Starting point is 00:02:12 On the other hand, I'm almost, I'm preemptively adding an asterisk to this. I'm almost pleasantly surprised with the positive reactions to people seeing the photos, people seemingly praising her rather than slut-shaming her. Except, here's why I added the asterisk, because of course she did not release this photo. You can say iconic or goals,

Starting point is 00:02:29 but she's still the victim in this situation. But then to add to that note, I was happy to see the number of people defending her and telling people to remove this shit. There will still always be people that shame the victims in these situations, people saying, "'Well, if you didn't want everyone to see it, "'you shouldn't have done something privately.'"

Starting point is 00:02:43 Which I personally believe is a little bit similar to blaming the victim because maybe they left their door unlocked or there wasn't a lot Of security they decided to buy things that thieves would obviously want but at least from what I see with this situation It seems like there has been a shift since 2014, but that said that's a story my personal takeaway I passed the question off to you. What are your thoughts? Then of course we should talk about how on Sunday President Trump announced that Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is leaving her position following a private meeting between the two of them.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Nielsen tweeted out yesterday saying, "'It's been an honor of a lifetime to serve "'with the brave men and women of DHS Gov. "'I cannot be prouder of and more humbled "'by their service, dedication, and commitment "'to keep our country safe from all threats and hazards.'" And regarding this private meeting, reportedly some sources close to Nielsen

Starting point is 00:03:24 say that she requested the meeting to plan a way forward and came in prepared with a plan to improve her relationship with the president. And this is because, reportedly in recent weeks, they had clashed over what to do with the southern border as Trump threatened to close it completely, which Nielsen reportedly found ineffective. And according to reports,

Starting point is 00:03:37 Trump has long viewed her as weak on immigration. And at the same time, you had other sources saying that she was struggling with the lack of cooperation from other departments to help with the immigration situation at the border. In addition to the previously mentioned issues, Nielsen was also close to former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and reportedly that caused some

Starting point is 00:03:51 distrust. Now officially, it's unclear if her departure is voluntary or if she was pressured to resign, but according to an unnamed senior White House official, this is part of an overall of DHS. Last week, Trump actually withdrew his nominee for ICE Director, Ron Vitello, saying that he wanted to go in a tougher direction.

Starting point is 00:04:05 And in fact, there are now reports coming out that the Secret Service director, Randolph-Tex Allis, has been asked to step down. And according to some sources, these will not be the last ones to step down for this restructuring. Now as far as what happens next, after Nielsen exits, Kevin McAleenan, the current US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will be acting secretary. But, as of right now, it is unclear if he is expected to hold this position in the long term or just until a replacement can be nominated. Also the situation has created questions about whether the Undersecretary for Management Claire Grady, who is next in line to be Acting Secretary, will have to be removed in order for Michalina to take over. Because right now reportedly Grady has said that she has no intention of resigning. So that's where we are right now as far as updates around personnel, the administration, and as far as the southern border, we saw Donald Trump again tweet last night a threat to close the southern border.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Tweeting, But as far as what will actually happen, we gotta wait to see. You know, we had Trump about over a week ago saying essentially Mexico needs to stop illegal immigration, we're shutting the border. Then when he talked about it last Thursday, he talked about a one year warning and auto tariffs, and now we're seemingly here again, so we're gonna have to watch. And then let's talk about updates around the situation in Canada. And we talked about this last month,

Starting point is 00:05:13 I'll link to the previous coverage below, but here's a quick TLDR. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been involved in a corruption scandal that claims that his office attempted to settle a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin, which is a huge engineering and construction firm based in Canada. And the criminal case against SNC-Lavalin, which is a huge engineering and construction firm based in Canada.

Starting point is 00:05:25 The criminal case against SNC claims the company paid millions in bribes to officials in Libya in order to secure lucrative contracts between 2001 and 2011. Notably, this includes millions of dollars to the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. So when Trudeau and the Liberal Party took office in 2015, his Justice Minister and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould was given oversight of the case against SNC. But in January, Trudeau reassigned Wilson-Raybould to the Veteran Affairs Department, which was seen by many as a major demotion. Then on February 7th, the Globe and Mail published an investigative report claiming that Trudeau and his aides had tried to direct Wilson-Raybould's handling of the SNC case. And what we ended up seeing was that she resigned less than a week after the story was published, and shortly after that, she testified before a parliamentary committee and claimed that Trudeau and his aides had pressured her to settle the case by using political interference and veiled threats. Notably, she said that what they did was not illegal, but that it crossed informal lines intended to keep politics and criminal prosecution separate.

Starting point is 00:06:13 Following Wilson-Raybould's testimony, Treasury Board President Jane Philpot resigned from her post, saying in a resignation letter that she had lost all confidence in the government. Also something that is important to note here is that while these women both stepped down from their cabinet positions, they are still members of the Canadian parliament. And this is because cabinet members are usually chosen from parliament and those members continue to serve while they are on the cabinet. Now with all of that said, in response to all of this, we've seen members of the opposition party

Starting point is 00:06:34 calling for Trudeau to step down, but Trudeau for his part has continually denied any wrongdoing and has said that he has taken these concerns very seriously. It's been very interesting to see what has been happening, how is he doing damage control, because he is facing federal elections in October. So that's kind of the oversimplified summary, but the reason we're talking about this are the major updates

Starting point is 00:06:49 we saw last week. On Tuesday, Trudeau expelled Wilson-Raybould and Philpott from the Liberal Party and banned them from running for the party in the federal election in October, saying in a press conference, The trust that previously existed between these two individuals and our team has been broken. It's become clear that Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Dr. Philpott can no longer remain part of our Liberal team. And Trudeau's decision comes as parliamentarians have been recently pushing him to remove both women from the caucus on the grounds that they were undermining party unity. And so this decision wasn't completely out of the blue. For example, about two weeks ago, Wilson-Raybould publicly released a secret recording of a phone call she had in December with Canada's Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, who was Canada's top civil servant. In that phone call, she told Wernick

Starting point is 00:07:30 that Trudeau was on dangerous ground. And this came after Wernick announced that he was going to step down from his position before the election. Also regarding Jane Philpott, in addition to continually supporting Wilson-Raybould, she ended up angering members of the Liberal Party after she gave an interview with MacLean's on March 21st,

Starting point is 00:07:43 where she said, there's much more to the story that should be told I believe the former Attorney General has further points to make I believe that I have further issues of concern that I'm not free To share so what does all of this mean? Well both women can still run for re-election But they would have to do that under a different party which as of now neither has said that they are going to take That route although as far as responses are concerned Wilson-Raybould did respond to Trudeau's move to expel her in a series of tweets on Tuesday writing

Starting point is 00:08:04 I have no regrets I spoke the truth as I will continue to do and in a letter to the Liberal, Wilson-Raybould did respond to Trudeau's move to expel her in a series of tweets on Tuesday, writing, I have no regrets. I spoke the truth as I will continue to do. And in a letter to the Liberal Party, Wilson-Raybould wrote, I am angry, hurt, and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to. In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the Prime Minister and the government from a horrible mess. I am not the one who tried to interfere in sensitive proceedings. Philpott also responded to her expulsion in a Facebook post writing, "'It appears that the caucus is intent on staying the current course,

Starting point is 00:08:28 regardless of its short-term and long-term consequences to the party and to the country, and it has been decided there is no place for me in the caucus.'" And while Trudeau's move to expel both of these women may have come from internal pressures inside the party, right, this election's getting closer and closer, this kind of action is largely unprecedented

Starting point is 00:08:42 in Canadian politics. According to Chris Cochran, a professor of politics at the University of Toronto, there's been resignations on disagreements to government policy, there's been resignations relating to scandal, there's never been two resignations in recent memory of people resigning on principle together. The professor also said that Wilson-Raybould and Philpott's objections especially come as a shock because they represent a change of course for Trudeau, who has continually said that liberals needed strong legislators with different points of view,

Starting point is 00:09:04 and who also campaigned on transparency and government accountability. We've also seen Trudeau being criticized has continually said that liberals needed strong legislators with different points of view, and who also campaigned on transparency and government accountability. We've also seen Trudeau being criticized because he's been championed in the past as a self-described feminist, a supporter of indigenous rights, but now his opponents have used this incident to portray him as a leader who directed aides

Starting point is 00:09:16 to bully Wilson-Raybould, an indigenous woman, in order to protect a corporation from a criminal conviction in a corruption case. But this Canadian chaos and drama doesn't end there. On Sunday, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer released a letter he received from Trudeau's lawyer on March 31st, threatening to sue him for libel. In the letter, Trudeau's attorney writes

Starting point is 00:09:32 that a statement made by Scheer on March 29th that he posted on Facebook and Twitter regarding Wilson-Raybould and the SNC case was quote, "'Beyond the pale of fair debate and libelous.'" With a lawyer also saying that the statement contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau. And the letter concludes that it should be taken as a notice for any subsequent action. We saw Scheer respond to the letter in a tweet writing,

Starting point is 00:09:49 I stand by every single criticism I have made of Justin Trudeau's behavior in this scandal. If Trudeau intends to sue me, if he believes he has a case against me, he should get on with it. And that tweet also included a letter from Scheer's own lawyer, which called the libel claim completely without merit, and claimed Scheer was performing his constitutional duty to hold the Prime Minister and his government to account. Scheer also later tweeted, Why do I welcome Justin Trudeau's lawsuit? One, because he will finally be forced to testify under oath. Two, he will not be able to shut down the proceedings like he has in Parliament.

Starting point is 00:10:14 Canadians will finally get the answers they deserve. Now as to whether or not Trudeau will actually move ahead with the lawsuit, it's yet to be seen. We've got corruption allegations and resignations and expulsions and libel lawsuits all leading up to an October Election it is going to be a fascinating one to watch but of course with all that said that's a story and I pass the Question off to you. What are your thoughts around all of this? That's where we're going to end today's show Remember if you like this video you want to support this show hit that like button Also, if you're new here you want more of these daily dives into the news hit subscribe

Starting point is 00:10:42 Also in the know to not missing out if you missed the last Philip DeFranco show the last morning deep dive you want more of these daily dives into the news, hit subscribe. Also in the know to not missing out, if you missed the last Philip DeFranco show, the last morning deep dive you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch that. 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.

The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.8 Corruption, Scandal, Libel & Now Expulsion?! Trudeau's Canadian Implosion, BlackPink, & Much More

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.