The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.18 Danny Masterson Rape Charges, Scientology Warned "This is just the beginning" & DACA

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Hi. Watch my new podcast w/ Linz: https://youtu.be/ObAY-NiRM8k Download Drop: http://www.EarnWithDeFranco.com & link a debit or credit card when you sign up! For the next 72hrs, Drop is giving all of our subscribers 10,000 points ($10) when you sign up for the app via the App Store/Google Play with code ‘PHILDEFRANCO'.  --  00:00 - Danny Masterson Charged 05:34 - TIA 6:57 - SCOTUS Blocks DACA Repeal -- WATCH Full “A Convo With” Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/ACW  LISTEN On The Podcast Platform Of Your Choice: http://LinksHole.com WATCH the ACW Clips channel!: https://youtube.com/ACWClips ✩ FOLLOW ME ✩ ✭ TWITTER: http://Twitter.com/PhillyD ✭ INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco/ ✩ SUPPORT THE SHOW ✩ ✭ BUY our GEAR, Support the Show!: http://ShopDeFranco.com ✭ Lemme Touch Your Hair: http://BeautifulBastard.com ✭ Paid Subscription: http://DeFrancoElite.com  ✩ TODAY IN AWESOME ✩ ✭ I Tried Interviewing My Wife | A Conversation With: https://youtu.be/ObAY-NiRM8k ✭ Zack Snyder’s Justice League | Sneak Peek: https://youtu.be/lPjF9sJcj4A ✭ Why is there Land?: https://youtu.be/D1HyOdMt5tw ✭ Little Dragon: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert: https://youtu.be/koveFxBb3FU ✭ Fighter Pilot Breaks Down More Flying Scenes from Movies: https://youtu.be/nGHzEd8hKiE ✭ Secret Link: https://youtu.be/uV2afqzb4Yk ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩  Danny Masterson Charged: https://roguerocket.com/2020/06/18/danny-masterson-charged/ SCOTUS Upholds DACA: https://roguerocket.com/2020/06/18/supreme-court-daca/  ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ Atlanta Police Walk Out in Protest of Charge Against Officer https://roguerocket.com/2020/06/18/rayshard-brooks Taco Bell to Clarify Mask Policy After an Employee Was Fired for Wearing a BLM Mask: https://roguerocket.com/2020/06/18/taco-bell-blm-mask/ ——————————     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, Brian Espinoza Production Team: Zack Taylor, Luke Manning  ———————————— #DeFranco #DannyMasterson #DACA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastard, hope you had a fantastic Thursday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, and you know what, let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is actually a story that'll probably get this video suppressed, but honestly I just do not have the energy to jump through all the damn hoops that I normally have to jump through

just to try to do my job on a basic level on this damn website. So if YouTube makes it today so fewer people see this story or anything I talk about, so be it. I'm emotionally exhausted as is without even considering dealing with gatekeepers. So the first thing that or anything I talk about, so be it. I'm emotionally exhausted as is without even considering dealing with gatekeepers. So, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today are the allegations and charges against Danny Masterson,

who you probably best know as Hyde from That 70s Show or from his role on The Ranch from a few years back. Right, but one of the biggest things around Masterson, especially over these past several years, is that there have been allegations that he has sexually assaulted multiple women. And those allegations, as well as an investigation into them, resulted in him being fired

from the ranch back in 2017. But the reason we're talking about this today is because Masterson has now been charged with three counts of rape by force or fear. According to a statement from the LA County District Attorney's Office, he has been accused of raping a 23-year-old woman between January and December of 2001, a 28-year-old woman in April of 2003,

and another 23-year-old woman between October and December of 2003, and another 23 year old woman between October and December of 2003. With all of those crimes taking place at his home, according to Reynold Muller, the deputy district attorney of the sex crimes division who is prosecuting this case. Also as part of the LAPD's investigation, there were two other cases of sexual assault that they declined to press charges for.

This because there was either insufficient evidence there or because of the statute of limitations. As for the details of the specific incidents that he is being charged for, the details are not fully clear, but in previous cases he's been accused of drugging women, raping women while they're unconscious, as well as getting violent or physical and choking them.

But if he is found guilty of the three charges that he is facing, he could get a possible maximum sentence of 45 years to life in prison. And according to records from the L.A. Sheriff's Department, he was arrested and booked yesterday afternoon with his bail set at $3.3 million, with him then being released later that day after posting bail with his arraignment set for September.

Now as far as Masterson's side of this, he has maintained his innocence with his attorney releasing a statement saying, we're confident that he will be exonerated when all the evidence finally comes to light and witnesses have the opportunity to testify. Adding that Masterson and his wife are in complete shock considering that these nearly 20 year old allegations

are suddenly resulting in charges being filed, but they and their family are comforted knowing that ultimately the truth will come out." And noting, the people who know Mr. Masterson know his character and know the allegations to be false. Also, Masterson has defended himself against these accusations for a while now, and back in 2017 when they resulted in him losing his role on the ranch, he released a statement saying, From day one, I have denied the outrageous allegations against me. Law enforcement investigated these claims more than 15 years ago and determined them to be without merit. I have never been charged with a crime,

let alone convicted of one. In this country, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, in the current climate, it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused." And also noting that these were women who he had had relationships with.

Right, so there's all of that, but there's also another thing that we need to touch on. One of the angles and important notes with this story is that Masterson is a member of the Church of Scientology. And in 2017, Tony Ortega, who's a blogger and journalist who frequently writes about Scientology, reported that some of Masterson's victims, who were also Scientologists at that time,

said that the church had pressured them to keep quiet about their claims, and in some cases were actually punished themselves. That report coming from LAPD documents that Ortega obtained, and in one of those, a woman identified only as victim A says that she reported the case to the church, and saying, they threatened me that if I ever told anyone or reported him to the police,

that I would be declared a suppressive person and lose everything and everyone. Then they put me on a massive ethics program as punishment. My rapist was not punished at all. They didn't even call him to talk about it. I ended up breaking up with him two months later. With that woman also claiming that the LAPD was compromised by its relationship with the Church of Scientology.

With victim A also saying that there were known leaks, also that her case had to be moved to a secret vault. Right, and that report acknowledging that some LAPD officers were friendly with the Church of Scientology. Now with this, you have the Church of Scientology denying ever pressuring these women to keep quiet, but these claims were again brought up in August of 2019 when four women sued Masterson and the church,

alleging that they'd been stalked and intimidated for reporting him. This lawsuit was first reported by Variety with their article saying, "'The lawsuit states that the women were all followed, "'allegedly by agents of the Church of Scientology "'in retaliation for going to the police.'" Chrissy Bixler, one of the plaintiffs,

alleges that she was chased in her car in October 2017 by two people who were filming her. Shortly after, her dog died inexplicably, with a necropsy revealing that the dog suffered traumatic injuries to her trachea and esophagus. There were also other claims, including online harassment, being targeted for credit card fraud, having her home security systems hacked,

with another plaintiff saying that she had been followed and photographed even on vacation, that her 13-year-old son's bedroom window was smashed in the middle of the night, and that the food truck she runs had been vandalized. Right, and with all of this, of course, it's important to note that allegations that the Church of Scientology is corrupt, it's not new.

You know, you have people like actress Leah Remini, who used to be a Scientologist herself, sort of devoting her life and career to exposing the church. Right, she created the Emmy Award-winning series, Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath. She also responded to the news that Masterson had been charged, saying, "'Finally, victims are being heard

"'when it comes to Scientology. "'Praise the Lord. "'This is just the beginning, Scientology. "'Your days of getting away with it is coming to an end. And for the people asking what Scientology might have to do with all of this, she then directed them to a story that Ortega published this morning.

That piece is called, How Will Scientology React to Danny Masterson Being Charged with Rape? And that article states, And to be sure, Scientology is very much involved in this case, even if some of the mainstream media outlets reporting yesterday's news left that part out of their stories.

It again brings up claims that the church tried to cover things up. Ortega also speaking to Mike Rinder, who used to be a senior executive of the Church of Scientology International, but then left the church more than a decade ago. And as for how the church will respond to these charges, he said, they have to be careful.

If they throw him under the bus and alienate him, he could cause a lot of trouble for them. They might wanna keep him close so they can keep all their stories straight. There are many, many people who have their fingerprints all over this, as the first place the rapes were reported was to Scientology, and they did everything possible

to ensure it did not get reported to the authorities. But, with that said, that's ultimately where we are with this story right now. And then, let's talk about a just massive ruling coming out of the Supreme Court this morning, this one concerning immigration. And specifically, I'm talking about how in a five to four decision, the Supreme Court blocked

the Trump administration's attempt to end DACA, aka the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. And for some context here, for those not completely familiar, DACA is a program that aims to assist young immigrants who have been brought to the United States illegally before the age of 16. They're also called DREAMers, and under DACA, recipients are given protection from deportation

and work authorization as long as they meet certain qualification things, including pursuing education through high school and having a mostly clean criminal record. And this has been a thing since 2012 when DACA was created by President Obama through executive action. Since then, nearly 800,000 DREAMers

have participated in the program, but one of Trump's big campaign promises was to get rid of that program, which is why in September of 2017, he announced that he was going to wind down DACA, arguing that it was illegal and unconstitutional because it was outside of Obama's executive powers to create this program without Congress's approval.

And as far as their reasoning for this, the Trump administration pointed to a memo sent to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversaw DACA, written by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And in that memo, Sessions claimed that DACA was unconstitutional and should be shut down because it would face litigation.

But that itself received numerous lawsuits and the many lower courts that heard those lawsuits found that the argument that Obama lacked authority to enact DACA did not hold up and blocked Trump's decision. But you had Trump's lawyers arguing that okay, even if Obama did have the authority to implement DACA, Homeland Security had the power to get rid of it. And so the issues were eventually appealed to the supremiest court of them all, the Supreme Court. Don't know why I said it like that. Right, but like I said, as of today the Supreme Court upheld the decisions of the lower

courts and rejected Trump's attempt to end DACA. And notably here, we saw the court's four liberal justices being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, who actually wrote the majority opinion. And actually, very notably there, Roberts argued that the decision was not based on DACA itself, or even whether or not the DHS has the power to scrap it,

but rather that the Trump administration failed to give an adequate reason to justify ending the program. With Roberts writing that the Trump administration's decision to end DACA was arbitrary and capricious and in violation of federal law that governs administrative procedure and adding, the dispute before the court is not whether DHS

may rescind DACA, all parties agree that it may. The dispute is instead primarily about the procedure the agency followed in doing so. We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies. The wisdom of those decisions is none of our concern. We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement

that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. Here the agency failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what, if anything, to do about the hardship to DACA recipients. That dual failure raises doubts about whether the agency appreciated the scope of its discretion or exercised that discretion in a reasonable manner.

The appropriate recourse is therefore to remand to DHS so that it may consider the problem anew." Right, and that last line is incredibly important, arguably the most important part of this whole situation. The reason I say that is in terms of what comes next because this decision does not stop Trump from getting rid of DACA at some point. It is only saying that the argument they tried was bad.

And in fact, the Trump administration could try to rescind that program again if they gave a better explanation. But there are also a few issues here. First of all, Dreamers are actually highly popular with the public and not just with Democrats. In fact, a Politico morning consult survey from earlier this month found that a majority of those

who voted for Trump in 2016 supported protecting Dreamers from deportation. And in fact, more than 75% of registered voters said that DACA recipients should be allowed to stay in the United States. And as NPR explains, DACA recipients have gotten advanced degrees, "'they have started businesses, they have bought houses,

"'had children who are US citizens, and 90% have jobs.'" And also noting that 29,000 of them are healthcare professionals working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. And that's something that Roberts hit on in his decision, arguing that the Trump administration did not consider the full effects of getting rid of the program,

and citing estimates that scrapping DACA would lead to the loss of $215 billion in economic activity and $60 billion in federal tax revenue over the next 10 years. Also noting, altogether, DACA recipients have 200,000 US citizen children. The DACA program is also popular with Republicans in Congress.

I mean, twice, Senate Republican leadership worked closely with Democrats to work out a deal that would protect the Dreamers. But both times, we saw Trump saying that he would refuse to sign those deals, even threatening to veto one. This, even though he has said multiple times that if SCOTUS agreed with his decision

to get rid of DACA, he would work to pass a law. But another issue Trump could face if he tries to get rid of DACA again is that it could take months, meaning that any of his efforts would be put into limbo until after the election. But, at least for now, the nearly 650,000 people who are currently DACA recipients are still protected.

And that is very significant because throughout this process, Trump administration officials have repeatedly said that they planned on deporting dreamers if SCOTUS ruled in favor of Trump. Right, so if this ruling had gone the other way, those people who are essential workers, parents of citizens, major economic contributors,

many of whom who have lived in the United States most of their lives, could be sent back to countries they may not even remember or even know. But ultimately, that is where we are with this right now. I mean, as far as what happens next, as I'm recording, Trump's just going off on Twitter. With among other things, Trump's saying, "'These horrible and politically charged decisions

"'coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts "'into the face of people that are proud "'to call themselves Republicans or conservatives. "'We need more justices, or we will lose "'our Second Amendment and everything else.'" Which I will say, wow, what a jump. Then adding, "'Vote Trump 2020.'" With that then followed by a Twitter rant

about how he's releasing a new list of conservative Supreme Court justice nominees soon and saying, if the radical left Democrats assume power, your second amendment, right to life, secure borders, and religious liberty, among many other things, are over and gone. Right, so even if you considered it not a thing before, the future of SCOTUS is a campaign rallying point.

And I will say, it will be interesting to see if that is effective. If anything though, I think the future of SCOTUS should be a bigger Democrat rallying cry. The next few expected to be on their way out are liberal justices. And so that means Democrats, if you get complacent, you do not move when that election comes in November.

You're looking at decades of a Supreme Court with a hard conservative lean. Obviously 2016 was a massive, one of the most important elections in our history, but 2020, that is the vote, that is the election for the future and soul of our country. Right, and I say that because usually whatever you're voting for, it's gonna affect

the next two, four, six years. This is arguably the biggest. Yeah, that's where the story is today. I'd love to know your thoughts, and obviously this is gonna be a situation we keep our eyes on. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. Thanks for being a part of the shows today, this week.

Hopefully we made the news a little more understandable in a compact piece. Yeah, 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 next time. I hope you like this video. Subscribe if you like it.