The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.15 New Leaks Expose Shocking Betrayal! KSI, Hasan Piker, VICE, Mormon Church, TSA, Daniel Penny, & More

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil  & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  Watch the latest Freestyle the News: https://youtu.be/1AjaltY_rbU Catch Up on the last PDS:  https://youtu.be/WzfxubCGSWE – 00:00 - Death of Jordan Neely Causes Swell of Conflicting Responses 03:12 - Mormon Whistleblower Expands on Church’s Widespread “Clandestine” Money 05:13 - KSI’s Joe Fournier Knockout Faces Backlash For Accidental Elbow Hit 07:14 - Sponsored by Sqaurespace 07:59 - VICE Media Files for Bankruptcy 09:27 - How AI is Affecting the Loneliness Crisis 10:38 - TSA Tests Facial Recognition in Airports 11:49 - Wagner Chief Offered Locations of Russian Troops to Ukraine, Leak Says 12:28 - Turkey Election to Head to Runoff – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Death of Jordan Neely Causes Swell of Conflicting Responses: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/nyregion/daniel-penny-jordan-neely-conservative.html Mormon Whistleblower Expands on Church’s Widespread “Clandestine” Money: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mormon-whistleblower-ensign-peak-church-investment-fund-allegations-60-minutes-transcript-2023-05-14/ KSI’s Joe Fournier Knockout Faces Backlash For Accidental Elbow Hit: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/boxing/ksi-joe-fournier-knockout-reaction-elbow-b2339235.html VICE Media Files for Bankruptcy: https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-to-sell-itself-as-it-files-for-bankruptcy-af3ca051?mod=hp_lead_pos7 How AI is Affecting the Loneliness Crisis: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/15/ai-loneliness-crisis-mental-health-pets TSA Tests Facial Recognition in Airports: https://apnews.com/article/facial-recognition-airport-screening-tsa-d8b6397c02afe16602c8d34409d1451f Wagner Chief Offered Locations of Russian Troops to Ukraine, Leak Says:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/ Turkey Election to Head to Runoff: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-65475445 ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #KSI #HasanAbi ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. It is Monday, May 15th. I'm still emotionally recovering from last night's episode of Succession, but I'm gonna take a break from processing those feelings and give you the best damn daily news show out there. So buckle up, you beautiful bastards.

Hit that like button and let's just jump into it. Starting with, people in New York and now the country are massively divided on the situation that some describe as a subway ride turned deadly and others describe as just straight up murder. All right, so let's walk through it. The story began earlier this month in Manhattan. And if you've ever lived in New York, you know the subways are notorious for these kind of uncomfortable, sometimes aggressive confrontations between the housed and the unhoused. This appears to have started as another example with Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man with a history of

mental illness stepping on board the F train. He was reportedly known locally as a Michael Jackson impersonator, though family said he had been struggling with mental health ever since his mother was strangled to death by her boyfriend in 2007. And you had witnesses saying that on this day, he was being disruptive, throwing garbage and possibly threatening passengers. With one witness claiming that he shouted, I want food. I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm ready to go back to jail. I'll hurt anyone on this train. Though according to witnesses, he did not actually attack anyone. But as he's ranting and all this is happening, you have Daniel Penny, a 24 year old white man

and former Marine. With him reportedly coming up behind Neely, putting him in a chokehold on the ground, and reportedly yelling for someone to call 911. Meanwhile, you had two other men standing over them and helping subdue Neely. All this reportedly lasting around 15 minutes, even though the train stopped once at a station and the doors opened. And while all this is happening on video, you can hear one bystander appearing to express concern after Neely passed out, telling Penny to let him go, saying Neely had defecated on himself, which could be a sign that he's dying, and warning Penny that he could face a murder charge. Also, another

bystander remarking after Neely finally stands up, that was one hell of a chokehold man, with EMTs then arriving and performing CPR on Neely, but he was now limp, and they couldn't revive him. And so ultimately, he's pronounced dead at the hospital, with the official cause of death being compression of the neck. Now, as far as Penny, he was initially questioned by police, but initially, they just let him go without any charges. But with this, you have video of the encounter going viral, many people being shocked, saddened, outraged, AOC tweeting. Jordan Neely was murdered, but because Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected with passive headlines and no charges. But with this, you also

saw a ton of people coming to Penny's defense, saying that he's a hero and the people like AOC are just villainizing him. And their general argument being that he was just trying to defend himself and the other passengers from Neely and he didn't intend to kill him. With some later pointing out Neely's criminal record, which included 42 arrests for things like, yes, evading fares and theft, but also assault. But at the same time, you have those on the other side countering that his past crimes are not relevant here, or saying Penny couldn't have known any of that at the time. And arguing further that Neely posed no real threat and that Penny overreacted to something New Yorkers see on the subway every day.

And also saying that as a Marine, he arguably should have known that the so-called blood choke, that that takes as little as eight seconds to cut off blood and oxygen to the brain, at least when done properly. And so this debate's been raging online nonstop this entire month, people even protesting for Neely. But then, on Friday, it moved from just the court of public opinion to actual court. Because on Friday, 11 days after the killing,

Penny surrendered to police for a second-degree manslaughter charge, which carries up to a 15 year sentence. Leading to cheers for Neely's advocates, but also a rush of people to support Penny. With an online defense fund to cover his legal costs, raising more than $2 million as of recording this video. Though notably, according to the website, any extra money will be donated to a mental health advocacy group in New York City. Now, as far as what Penny has said, he's actually not spoken publicly yet, though we know he has pled not guilty. And so for now, we're going to have to wait to see how all this plays out. But I've got to ask you, what are your thoughts here? What camp are you landing in and why? And then, you know, the only thing this Mormon's blowing before

marriage is a whistle. Because David Nielsen, who managed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints investment arm for nine years, went on 60 Minutes yesterday. I thought I was going to work for a charity and the funds were never used for that. It was really a clandestine hedge fund. Once the money went in, it didn't go out. But after the church pays all its expenses, whatever's left over gets invested in a kind of rainy day fund.

But for decades, Nielsen says that the church has been hoarding obscene amounts of wealth that could have been used for things like actual humanitarian work, outreach, education. And during his time there, he says that the church's portfolio grew to over $100 billion in value, the largest fortune held by any religious fund in the United States.

But to give context, that is twice the size of both the Harvard Endowment and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And not only that, he also shed light on how that money was spent. Saying in 2013, one of his bosses showed him this document where you can see $1.4 billion going to a mall being built on church-owned land, with another $600 million bailing out a for-profit church-owned insurance company called Beneficial Life. But still, Nielsen stuck with the church for several more years

until he finally had enough in 2018, which is when a website called Mormon Leaks exposed church members' ties to shell companies that existed only on paper and held billions of dollars in stocks and bonds. And it turned out that those assets were actually managed by the church's investment arm, which is something only the senior leadership knew about.

Because Nielsen says the point was to hide money not only from the church's members, but also the government. The chief investment officer said that if we were to change and start reporting these securities in our own name, it would bring undue attention to the firm and that that attention would be potentially damaging. And after the meeting, I went and confronted him. What do you mean, potentially damaging? And he said, Dave, we're going to lose our tax exempt status. So in February, the SEC alleged the church failed to disclose accurate financial records to authorities, finding that they hid $32 billion in securities over nearly 20 years and created 13

shell companies, with the agency then slapping it and its investment arm with a $5 million fine. Which again, when a punishment is a fine, that is not a fine, that is a fee. That's just the cost of doing business, a little ding on the balance sheet, a law that only exists to keep down the normies. And then, in entertainment news, KSI cheated. Or at least that's what Joe Fournier and others are saying after KSI knocked him out during their exhibition fight over the weekend. Because Joe and KSI were the main event of Misfits Boxing 007.

KSI winning with a knockout in the second round, though, that knockout has become very, very controversial. That's because there are accusations that KSI hit Joe with an illegal elbow. And after the match, you had Fournier speaking on it. They cheated, clear in black and white. You've all seen the replays. It's gone viral. It's all over the world. He hit me with a clean elbow and the ref was right there, watched it. Obviously, the guy owns a promoter. When you find a promoter on his own show, I've never been cheated like that in my life without referencing the fact that ksi is a co-founder of misfit which threw the event joe of course wasn't the only one who called foul here he had the likes of jake paul chiming in saying i respect boxing too much to respect what that was and adding

if that was indeed a real boxing match it will be ruled a no contest or disqualification online he had a lot of people agreeing saying whether it was an accident or not that should have gotten ksi disqualified and as far as what ksi had say, right after the fight, he told reporters after the match, Honestly, it was so false, I didn't even think that I hit him without boxing. And then later celebrating the victory on Twitter, saying, Outboxed and outclassed in every department.

Also teasing a fight with Tommy Fury and giving shoutouts to his team, fans, and misfits. And that seemed to roll out the red carpet for the backlash. And in addition to that, you had Fournier continuing to call him out, sharing headlines critical of KSI on Instagram, and adding, Cheaters will never prosper. Such a bad example for the youth in the sport of boxing. I have faith that the organizers And in addition to that, you had Fournier continuing to call him out, sharing headlines critical of KSI on Instagram, and adding, And adding,

I will be appealing this first thing Monday morning. And today, TMZ broke the news that he has, in fact, officially appealed, meaning that reps for both he and KSI can go before the board to make their case about whether or not the knockout should hold up. With all this leading to KSI addressing the situation on Twitter, writing that his victory was inevitable but is unfortunately tarnished. And adding, after landing my overhand, he was pretty much out on his feet and I went for a short right hook as Joe clinched me and fell into me. I landed that hook and my glove made contact but appears to have been followed by unintentional contact with my forearm. I'm gutted that it's not as clean a win as I wanted and it feels like it diminishes my hard work with my trainers. Sorry to all the fans disappointed with it.

No one is more so than me. With all that, what are your thoughts on the situation, the win, the appeal? What do you think should happen? I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below. And then, for any of you focused on getting your business off the ground, creating a place to share your homemade goods,

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See why it's going to be right for you. And start your free trial today over at squarespace.com. And when you realize you love it, make sure you enter an offer code fill to get 10% off your first purchase. And then, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. With Vice Media today filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it's looking like the company itself is going to be sold off in the coming months. As a group of Vice's creditors, including Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund, Management, and Monroe Capital have agreed to purchase the company for $225 million.

But notably, the New York Times says that would be covered by its existing loans to the company, with the deal being contingent on Vice not finding a higher bidder. Which, I mean, on that front, they've been pretty desperate for a buyer willing to pay around a billion dollars, and so far, no one's stepped forward. And y'all, I really can't undersell this. This is a devastating fall from grace for Vice. At their peak six years ago, they were valued at $5.7 billion. Going from a niche magazine in the 90s to a digital media Goliath.

But over the years, they began to falter, and they accumulated some huge debt. With court documents reportedly showing that they have an outstanding debt of more than $830 million. And their chief restructuring officer saying in the court filings, Vice relied on external funding, raising both debt and equity capital to fuel its rapid growth and to fund expenses in certain parts of its businesses. Although these fundraising efforts helped to finance Vice's growth, they ultimately led to the company being burdened by a highly leveraged and unusually complex capital structure. And so now, Vice has received a loan from Fortress to maintain business as usual until it's sold out of bankruptcy. Which according to a statement from Vice's CEO, the sale process will

probably take somewhere between two and three months. So we're going to have to wait to see what happens here. But it feels like the bigger question at this time is like, who's next? Because this isn't a one-off. Vice isn't alone here. We've seen a lot of big names either dying or bleeding. Whether it be things like Vox Media raising money at half of its 2015 valuation to BuzzFeed recently shutting down their Pulitzer Prize winning news organization. It's honestly one of the biggest shakeups we've seen in the space in a long time. And then if you feel lonely,

know that you're not alone in that. With now three and four Americans saying they experienced loneliness, which I don't mean to make those numbers sadder, but according to the U.S. Surgeon General, studies say that social isolation for a person has a similar effect to that of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

And all that tying into the AI revolution that we're seeing take place right now. And that's specifically taking the form here of chatbots, whether it be in the form of something like Replica, which sells itself as an AI friend that helps people feel better through conversations, all the way to mental health chatbots like Wysa, who say Wysa's clinically validated AI gives immediate support as first step of care and human coaching for those who need more. And we've seen stories pop up like that around Coco, who reportedly recently used ChatGPT as a mental health counselor for about 4,000 people who weren't aware the answers were generated by AI, sparking criticism from ethicists. So you have

people saying the FDA needs to step up because they really haven't done anything. And a fact around that, according to Axios, a September FDA report found the agency's current framework for regulating medical devices is not equipped to handle the speed of change sometimes necessary to provide reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of rapidly evolving devices. And so while that whole landscape develops, I'll say in the meantime, talk to somebody. Apparently everyone's lonely. You know, shoot someone a text.

And I say start there because apparently if you go up to a stranger at the wrong time, you just get shot these days. And then the TSA is now using facial recognition on you. With the TSA and 16 airports across the country implementing a facial recognition pilot program. So where you insert your ID card into a machine, you look into a camera, you get approved,

and you walk through. Thus bypassing the TSA who stares at your ID and then your face while you stand there awkwardly trying to remember, oh shit, did I steal someone else's identity? Though notably, there's still an agent who signs off on the screening and there's an option to opt out

of you having your photo taken. Now notably, this hasn't taken over every line at these 16 airports as of now. With it, the pilot program has received its fair share of criticism, including from five senators demanding that the TSA stop the program because, quote, "'Increasing biometric surveillance of Americans

"'by the government represents a risk "'to civil liberties and privacy rights.'" Others have also brought up concerns about the option to opt out, saying, "'Hey, isn't that gonna raise further suspicion "'on passengers who decide not to have their photo taken?' Others expressing concern in the biases within the algorithm, right?

"'Some facial recognition software has proven to have trouble identifying minorities. One of the biggest issues people have is whether the data is going to be stored. Currently, the TSA says that it won't be outside of limited circumstances for the assessment of the program, which is then deleted after 24 months.

And we've also seen the TSA saying in response to other criticism that the program is meant to increase speed and accuracy for identification. As for the concerns about the identification of minorities, the agency says that their algorithm is of a higher quality, saying it's more accurate and that they use top-of-the-line cameras. What are your thoughts here? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Why? Why not? Let me know. And then I'd like to introduce you to my brand new game show, Is It Treason or a Psyop? T or P for short. Because I got people asking that question after it was revealed that Wagner's

chief allegedly offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, with him in return allegedly wanting Ukraine to leave the area of Bakhmut. Which actually, speaking of that, there are reports that Ukraine has pushed Russia back from the flanks. But all this gets even juicier with reports that he's met with Ukrainian intelligence in Africa and even urged them to attack towards Crimea while Russian morale is low. Which if true, I mean, this just adds to the growing picture of the mercenary leaders growing frustration with Russia's military leadership. Or, also, who knows, maybe this is all just a way to try to get him killed. Which, just a little advice, maybe stay away from open windows and or tea at least just for a while Both of those seem like very dangerous things when the Russians are involved and then we saw major

Political shakeups in Thailand and possibly Turkey over the weekend right in Thailand We saw the opposition parties completely dominate their military-backed opponents in the elections with them promising to form a coalition government though It's unclear if they'll have enough votes despite dominating in the polls That's because the military actually planned for this as far back as 2014 when it introduced new rules that required a massive lead in the legislature to vote in a non-military prime minister. So that made major headlines. We're gonna have to see how it played out.

But honestly, the biggest news came out of Turkey, where the election revolved around Erdogan and opposition candidate, Kemal Kilic Tarulu. Leading into Sunday's vote, Kemal was ahead in the polls and got an unexpected boost when another opposition candidate backed out. But also there were accusations that Russia was attempting to meddle in the campaign to help Erdogan, presumably because candidate backed out. But also there were accusations that Russia was attempting

to meddle in the campaign to help Erdogan, presumably because Kamala's promised to strengthen ties to the West. But it also wasn't just Russia that was accused of meddling. On Friday night, Twitter announced that quote, "'In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access

to some content in Turkey today.'" And while some supported Twitter's decision, it also drew a massive wave of backlash. With takes popping up like, "'The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and Elon Musk complied. Should generate some interesting Twitter files reporting. You had Musk defending the decision, responding, did your brain fall out of your head, Iglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want? And again, while you had some

supporting Musk and Twitter here, this pissed a lot of people off. With some, like political commentator Hasan Piker, who's also Turkish, replying, "'Free speech' means trying to help Erdogan win an election by suppressing his opposition." And Dennis Cantor, a long-time critic of Erdogan, having similar thoughts. "- You know, I don't want to hear about Elon Musk talking about free speech ever again.

He is literally bowing down to a dictatorship. You know, Turkish government called Elon to pretty much tell him that if you don't account, if you don't ban a couple of accounts, that we are going to shut down the whole app in Turkey. And he picked business and money over his morals and principles. So I don't want to hear about him talking

about free speech ever again. But with all that, did Erdogan win? Well, not quite. In Turkey, a candidate needs to get over 50% of the votes to win. And either Erdogan or Kılıçdaroğlu clinched it. Although we saw Erdogan get very, very not quite. In Turkey, a candidate needs to get over 50% of the votes to win. And either Erdogan or Kilic Derulu clinched it. Although we saw Erdogan get very, very close and he tried to challenge ballots. But now these two headed into a runoff election, there's a potential key maker in Sinan Ogan.

He's a nationalist and secularist politician who got about 5% of the vote. And he said he'd support Kilic Derulu as long as he doesn't concede anything to pro-Kurdish parties. Which may or may not happen, but we won't know what's actually going to happen until May 28th. And that is where today's show is going to end. And as always, thank you for being a part of my daily dives into the news. If you're new here, make sure you subscribe, because while I have more for you to watch here, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.