The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.6 The Truth About Disney & Their Apology, Boris Johnson, Katie Porter Speaks Out, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. I got a great Monday show for you today. We even have a congresswoman, Katie Porter, joining us. But before we jump into any of that, we have to talk about this ridiculousness that blew up over the Yes, that's great. But over here, she's going to be even better. So a guy in the life drops to a knee, proposing to the love of his life. He consents, she consents, but he does not. Now, just over the weekend,

Starting point is 00:00:40 this video, which was taken at Disneyland Paris, has gotten tens of millions of views. And depending on where you saw it, you may think this is an open-shut case as far as what the public thinks. That's because you'd go to one place and people would be saying things like, oh man, I'd punch that employee in the face, screw that guy. And you'd go somewhere else and people would just be like, lol, Disney adults. And then you'd go somewhere else and people were like, no, it's the couple's fault, it's the guy's fault. He wasn't supposed to be there on that stage and the employee has to do their job.

Starting point is 00:01:03 And so this morning I polled you beautiful bastards asking, hey, are you angry at the employee? And 55% of you said yes, 45% said no. So very split. Now, as far as any details we've learned about this video, according to the person that posted the original video, POS destroyed my best friend's moment. He asked for permission beforehand, which for some cleared up the situation, framed it properly. But that alone, it's just kind of blindly believing a stranger. And if I did that all the time at this point in my life, I'd probably have chlamydia. But possibly a confirmation, but still maybe not so, Disney has now apologized for how they handled the situation, saying, we regret how this was handled.

Starting point is 00:01:34 We have apologized to the couple involved and offered to make it right. Which I imagine means either, you know, like free hotel, free tickets, or they get to swing with Mickey and Minnie. But whatever the make good was, I was still kind of split on this and wondering, you know, is this the way that Disney always handles it? Because that polling question, are you angry at the employee, has a blind spot of, I'm okay with the employee. They were just doing their job. I'm angry at Disney. And so with so many anonymous people online claiming to be former Disney employees and offering opinions, I decided to reach out to one that I actually knew. Here is what she had to say. Sabrina, we're going to just jump straight into it. Who is in the wrong?

Starting point is 00:02:05 The guy proposing? The employee? Disney? And or? Some is shared. It's just one. I don't know. I think everybody is in the wrong to a certain degree, but the one who is most in the wrong is the cast member who intervened. Why is that?

Starting point is 00:02:20 Because, so at Disney, they're actually kind of strict when it comes to proposals. Like as a former cast member, during our training, we were specifically taught like what to do when people propose. I mean, granted, I was in the character department. But usually, when people propose at Disneyland, we want it to be their own moment, let them be in the photos don't have a cast member in the photo, especially not a character. But it seemed like in that video uh they were on a stage that they were not supposed to be in granted the view is amazing but at that point once they were already on the stage just let them finish it it's it would have been so much better because now disney has all this bad pr when their cast member intervened not only did he get in the photo and the video, unfortunately, but he touched the ring.

Starting point is 00:03:07 And that is one of the biggest things that they teach you not to do. Do not touch guest stuff, especially when it's crazy expensive. If you work for Disney and you see something like that happening, like maybe very politely try to guide them to a more okay location. But once it's already happening, all you can do is like back away and just let it happen and then guide them away from the area that you don't want them to be in. But you are not paid enough to act like that for any company. And so with all of that now said,

Starting point is 00:03:38 I wanna pass a question off to you. What are your thoughts on this video and what happened? And then y'all, you know, I hate gaslighters, but if you know me, you know I also have exceptions to certain rules. And this is one of those exceptions because the gaslighting is fucking hilarious. Because what we saw this weekend was the internet

Starting point is 00:03:54 gaslighting a whole ass movie studio. So for those unfamiliar, there's this Jared Leto movie, Morbius, and it was a critical and blockbuster bust. It got a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, made just over $73 million domestically. But its biggest cultural impact has largely been the It's Morbentime meme. It's a fake quote from the movie. A lot of people using it like, haha, this movie was so bad I could see this being said. And the

Starting point is 00:04:15 meme just takes off, right? It's wildfire on social media. It's trending. You even see Jared Leto trying to get in on the fun himself, posting a video where just on Twitter it got over 14 million views, where he's, you know, kind of making fun of himself reading a script for Morbius 2, it's Morbentime. And it was a subject of so much attention, Sony was like, oh my god, all attention is good attention. Let's put Morbius back in theaters, the people want it. And as it turns out, they could not have misread the rumor. The movie reopened in over 1,000 theaters and brought in $85,000 on Friday. Meaning, on Friday, each theater brought in around 80-ish dollars. And over the whole weekend,

Starting point is 00:04:51 there was just a $270 per theater average. So I guess the main points of this story, one, it can sometimes be funny to gaslight, and two, it was never morbid time. And then, did you know that two out of three guys will experience some form of male pattern baldness by the time that they're 35? Well, that is where our fantastic sponsor, Keeps, can help. You don't have to just wait around for this to happen to you. Whether you're looking to prevent hair loss, stimulate hair growth,

Starting point is 00:05:12 or just take better care of the hair that you have, Keeps has you covered. Keeps helps you stop hair loss before it's too late with a scientific and affordable approach. Treatments that are up to 90% effective at reducing and stopping further hair loss. And in addition to clinically proven treatments, Keeps has an award-winning

Starting point is 00:05:24 all-natural thickening shampoo and conditioner system you can get all these products delivered directly to your door meaning no more going in person to the doctor's office or your prescription saving you both valuable time and money so if you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss go to keeps.com slash defranco or just click that link in the description to receive 50 off your first order then in america over the weekend the facts are both terrifying and mind numbing. Breaking overnight, this out of Philadelphia, where there has been another mass shooting. Three people are dead, at least 11 others hurt. And in Tennessee, more violence.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Three people were killed and 14 injured. This weekend, there have been at least eight mass shootings across America. More than a dozen mass shootings nationwide this weekend alone. There were literally too many mass shootings in America for me to go into detail on individually. With midday yesterday, Axios reporting at least 54 injured, 11 killed in seven separate mass shootings this weekend. So understandably, with all of these getting attention, especially after Uvalde, gun control and gun violence has been at the center of a lot of conversations. With many people, at least for now, keeping up sustained pressure. Right, we've seen the likes of David Hogg,

Starting point is 00:06:26 Parkland survivor and activist really fighting for change. And saying now multiple times from his experiences, this time feels different. David is in no way alone. Many others keeping up the pressure, talking about it. We saw the likes of Matthew McConaughey, for example. He's from Uvalde, spoke out after Uvalde, but also published an op-ed today in the Austin American Statesman.

Starting point is 00:06:43 And in that, he talked about the need for gun responsibility writing. There is a difference between control and responsibility. The first is a mandate that can infringe on our right. The second is a duty that will preserve it. There is no constitutional barrier to gun responsibility. Keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people is not only the responsible thing to do, it is the best way to protect the Second Amendment. We can do both.

Starting point is 00:07:02 And going on in that to outline a series of actions that he believes should be taken, including requiring background checks, limiting the purchase of assault rifles to those 21 and older, instituting red flag laws, and implementing a waiting period for AR-style guns. And notably here, some of those provisions are included in gun legislation currently being debated in Congress. And while the House is set to hear a sweeping set of proposals this week, the Senate, of course, is another matter, with leading negotiators there saying there is bipartisan support for some action, but it's not yet in hand and will likely be more pared down from what the House and President Biden have asked for. With Senator Chris Murphy adding on Sunday, there are more Republicans at the table talking about changing

Starting point is 00:07:33 our gun laws and investing in mental health than at any time since Sandy Hook. With Murphy saying the bipartisan group is considering red flag laws, changes to the background check system, investments in mental health, and funding for school security. And Republican Senator Pat Toomey saying of gun legislation, my hope is we'll get at least half of the Republican conference. But ultimately, what this will look like and what actually passes, we're going to have to wait to see. Because public opinion does seem to think something can be done.

Starting point is 00:07:54 With a new CBS News poll that was shown over the weekend saying that 72% of Americans think that we can do something to stop mass shootings. But still 28% say, unfortunately, we have to accept it as part of a free society. With Face the Nation noting that there is a partisan split here. Noting that 44% of Republicans in this poll said that mass shootings are just something we have to accept. But ultimately, where I'll leave this story for now is I do want to pass a question off to you. Do you feel like this time it is different? Do you feel like we are going to see Congress do something and it's going to have an impact? Yes, no, why, why not? Do you want them to do that? Yes,

Starting point is 00:08:29 no, why, why not? And then let's talk about a major update in the will they or won't they saga that's become more boring and confusing than a CW show on its fourth season, Twitter and Elon Musk. Because just today after the roller coaster that we've been on, Musk's lawyers sent a letter to Twitter accusing the platform of refusing to give the Tesla CEO information about spam bot accounts and threatening to pull his $44 billion bid to buy the company. Right, Musk for weeks now has been complaining about bots on Twitter, tweeting that the deal was on hold, later posting that they cannot move forward until Twitter proves its claim that the accounts make up less than 5% of its users. Some saying this was a negotiating move, Musk trying to get a better price, others saying no, he actually wants to get out of the deal. And this latest move marks Musk's first legal suggestion that he may

Starting point is 00:09:04 pull the acquisition and his most direct remarks about scrapping the deal. And in the letter filed with the SEC, his lawyers say that Musk has repeatedly asked for Twitter's data on bots, but the company has refused to turn it over, which Elon claims is a violation of the terms of the merger, adding, at this point, Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk's own analysis of the data will uncover. With the lawyers going on to say that this amounts to a clear material breach of Twitter's obligations, and as a result, Musk has the right to break off the agreement. And while many experts do say that

Starting point is 00:09:35 this move represents a clear indication from Musk that he's trying to back out of the deal, they also say doing so when he's already as deep as he is could result in a messy legal battle as well as hefty financial penalties. But as pretty much anyone that's followed Elon Musk's stories can tell you, when has he ever cared about fines? But for now, we're gonna have to wait and see how all this plays out. And then massive news over in the UK today with Prime Minister Boris Johnson facing a no-confidence vote. With Conservative Party official Graham Brady announcing this morning that he'd received

Starting point is 00:10:00 at least 54 letters from Tory lawmakers calling for the vote, which met the 15% threshold needed to trigger one. All this comes after a string of scandalous just cake after cake in his face, mainly centered around what's been dubbed party gate. Last November, it was revealed that Johnson and his top aides had thrown multiple parties back in 2020 at his official residence at Downing Street. Meanwhile, his own government was ordering people to stay indoors and socially distance. But Johnson denying breaking any laws, but the police conducted an investigation, which wrapped up last month, and they kind of disagreed, finding that 83 people violated lockdown rules across eight different dates, and with that, handing down a fine to Johnson himself

Starting point is 00:10:32 for his birthday party, making him the first sitting British Prime Minister found to have broken the law. Then, on May 25th, the senior civil servant published a report exposing how wild some of these events got, with people partying past 4 a.m. on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral, as well as excessive alcohol consumption, leading to one person getting sick and two others getting into a minor altercation, plus multiple instances of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff, with people saying it sounded more like a college campus than a government. With all that then leading to a moment this last Friday when Johnson was booed at the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure.

Starting point is 00:11:05 Stay three nights this summer at Best Western and get $50 off a future stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Starting point is 00:11:39 Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer groceries that over-deliver. Though, understand, Partygate wasn't the only thing troubling Johnson. He's also been criticized for responding to the COVID pandemic too slowly, and inflation in the UK is at record highs right now. But all of that brought us to the vote today, and Boris Johnson survived with a vote of 211 to 148. And with that, Johnson, I think, gets to have kind of this sigh of relief, but this is kind of not a great time to celebrate

Starting point is 00:12:12 because without doubt, this is going to damage his credibility and effectiveness as a political leader. Well, of course, I'd love to know everyone's thoughts. If you are a Brit watching this show, I especially would love to know your opinion. And then I want to take a second to thank a fantastic sponsor of today's show, Movement. Long-time viewers know I've been a fan of Movement for years now. They have tons of super stylish watches, sunglasses, bracelets, rings, and more. And Movement products have a clean, minimal design with a simple style, functionality, and affordability starting at around $95. Some of my other favorites, other than what I'm wearing today, have the Element collection.

Starting point is 00:12:41 That's a 43mm ash black. That's actually become one of my main go-tos, but I still love the ultra sleek legacy slim watch collection. These watches are 42 millimeter with a polished brush case finish and a choice of stainless steel or leather bands. And if you're looking for a dressier feel, they have a compact 40 millimeter size that goes great with both suits and tees. And seriously, with Father's Day around the corner, you can't go wrong with MVMT. So many solid options, not only for watches, but sunglasses and more. Right now, MVMT is offering you beautiful bastards up to 40% off site-wide, plus free worldwide shipping and free returns. And if you're seeing this after the promotion, do not stress because you can still get a discount by clicking that link down below. And then let's talk about inflation. Everybody hates inflation, except for the companies that

Starting point is 00:13:15 are pointing to inflation, but then raising their prices higher than the rate of inflation. But for months now, the sky-high cost of food, gas, housing, and more has dominated the news cycle and the lives of millions of Americans. In fact, the situation has gotten so bad that top officials in Washington did something they never do, admitted that they were wrong. That's how you know to use the technical term, shit is fucked. With Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying she made a mistake last year when she and other White House officials painted high inflation as a manageable side effect of the economy normalizing that wouldn't pose long-term problems. energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I at the time didn't fully understand. And Yellen's admission isn't out of the blue here. It came the

Starting point is 00:14:13 same day that President Biden launched a new effort to combat inflation amid increased political pressure and low approval ratings before the midterms. While Biden emphasized he is going to give the Fed the space they need to do their job, he also launched a PR blitz to show Americans he and top aides are seriously working to address the issue. This including by writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where he noted multiple measures he proposed in his domestic economic agenda, which has been stalled in the Senate, and writing, I've done what I can on my own to help working families during this challenging time and will keep acting to lower costs where I can, but now Congress needs to act too. And that's a key thing here that a number of Democrats have hit on.

Starting point is 00:14:43 They want to push through these changes, but they can't because Republicans keep blocking them. Either because they can't get past the 60 vote threshold to get past the filibuster. And at times they can't even get 50 because of senators like Joe Manchin. And so with all of this happening, I wanted to talk to and hear it directly from someone trying to combat one of the most painful areas of inflation right now, gas. So we invited Representative Katie Porter to be on the show. There have been a lot of questions as far as why we're having these really high gas prices. People are pointing to the war. People are pointing to the Biden administration.

Starting point is 00:15:10 People are pointing to big oil companies. And I know you've recently spoken about them. And I want you to try to expand on what big oil companies are doing right now that's playing into this price hike. Yeah, I mean, we are seeing prices at the pump that don't line up with the price of the commodity of the oil that big gas, big oil companies are purchasing. So there's no doubt oil is a commodity. We're going to see price fluctuation. And we're seeing that in part because of Putin. We're seeing that in part because of the pandemic. But we're also seeing big oil companies price gouge. And so that's the part of this that we can directly tackle through

Starting point is 00:15:45 legislation. There's no way we can just legislate or pass a bill and deal with the effects of the pandemic. We can't pass a bill and just make Putin withdraw from Ukraine. If we could, we would, believe you me. But the price gouging is something we can do something about, and we can do it by basically enforcing longstanding American norms around business practices. And essentially, the idea behind price gouging is if your inputs go up, if it costs you more to make the widget, then it's OK to charge more for the widget. But it's not OK to exploit something totally outside of your business costs simply to ratchet up profit. So the classic example of this is when there's a natural disaster, a hurricane, and we see companies

Starting point is 00:16:31 charging $10, $12 for a bottle of water because there's sort of a run on water. What we're seeing big oil companies do here is ratchet up prices much, much higher than the higher commodity price that a barrel of oil would demand. Do you know what all factors aside from price gouging, what gas should be right now? There is a market based element to this, but we also have incredible market concentration here where we have a handful of large companies that control the oil and gas, they control the refining. And so whenever we have that kind of market, that kind of market consolidation, that kind of potential market power, then we have to worry more about the markets not working. And we see this not just in big oil. We see this in a lot of food as well, which is one of the reasons we're seeing food

Starting point is 00:17:20 prices, particularly certain kinds of food prices go up. And we're seeing those same kinds of price gouging effects and concerns there. So the way I explain this to my constituents is if big oil was passing along their higher input costs, then you wouldn't see a huge jump in their profit. The price of oil that consumers pay may change, but the profit would stay steady. And instead, what we're seeing is companies like Shell announcing that they have made triple the profit they made just a year earlier. They announced a record-breaking $9.1 billion in quarterly profit. That's triple the 3.2. So when you're seeing triple the profits, you can't just argue, at least with a straight

Starting point is 00:18:02 face to a straight shooter like me, that you're just passing the higher the higher cost that's price gouging right and so the the consumer fuel price gouging prevention act that you you co-sponsored and got through the house it's it's been described as the first ever federal law against price gouging what what exactly would it do to to change the oil and oil oil industry and beyond yeah so the bill is pretty simple the first thing it requires is the president to declare an energy emergency. That's the triggering effect. So the idea is, this is not a law that's going to disrupt the market constantly at all times. This is going to go into effect when we've had something like an invasion of Ukraine. We've had something like a

Starting point is 00:18:40 big hurricane. We've had a big disruption to the market. The president makes that decision to declare an energy emergency. At that point, our Federal Trade Commission, who is really our consumer cop on the beat, has the ability to investigate whether or not the price of the pump is effectively mirroring what the cost of the market is or whether there's price gouging going on. So they are supposed to prioritize going after the biggest companies because they have the biggest harm that they deliver to consumers. And you mentioned this is the first federal price gouging law, which is true and really, really important. This law is needed. Our FTC does not currently have this power. But law enforcement against price gouging is a longstanding part of our capitalist economy, but it's traditionally been done at the state level by attorneys generals. And that's not

Starting point is 00:19:30 going to work when we're talking about a national commodity and a market in terms of the size and scope of the gas and oil industry. And for something like this, do you, well, actually, I'll frame it this way. Why will Republicans not vote for this? Because there were 203 no's, five no votes, four no's from Democrats. And then, of course, I'd ask over to the Senate where you know what's going to happen there. Yeah. I mean, that's a question to ask Republicans, because I obviously think this bill is a straightforward thing. But let me say this. I mean, there's a couple of obvious answers here. One is that oil and gas are huge spenders in the

Starting point is 00:20:04 political ecosystem through their PACs, their corporate PACs, their executives. I don't take any big oil money and I never have. I don't take any corporate money. I don't take any lobbyist money. So I believe that this is the right bill for our economy. It's the right bill to help small business owners. It's the right bill to help consumers get to their jobs. And so that's what guided my decision. And frankly, a lot of my colleagues across the aisle and a handful of Democrats can't say the same thing. And so I think anybody who's taking big oil money, that is an obvious first, you know, first explanation here affects their thinking in all likelihood. I think the second thing is that

Starting point is 00:20:40 we are seeing Republicans weaponize the hike in gas prices in order to try to win the election. And they are willing, through their votes, they are willing to let Americans continue to suffer at the pump in order to score political points. They are not bringing to the table solutions to bring down the price of gas, to bring down the price that consumers are paying. They are perfectly happy to have us have to deal with filling up a tank for $100 or more than $100 if it gets them a few more seats in November or they think it will.

Starting point is 00:21:12 And I really encourage voters to understand that. Inflation is a problem. Democrats and Republicans agree on that. The difference is Democrats are putting forward solutions like my bill, the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, to try to address it. Republicans are willing to let Americans suffer in order to make sure they get reelected in the fall. So when you're trying to get bipartisan support for this, is there no conversation coming back? Is it ridiculous asks or it's just a complete no?

Starting point is 00:21:41 I think one of the things that we've seen from Republicans is that they want to use this moment, the pandemic, Putin, the price gouging, the whole constellation of things here in order to advance the long standing agenda of big oil, which is more exploration, more speculative leasing, more market consolidation and control. And the truth is these situations with higher gas prices, with petro dictators, with global instability, with pollution from big oil, they have been longstanding problems. This is not the first time we've had to confront these things. And the solution is to use this moment to invest in continuing our transition to cleaner, more dependable energy that gets us out of this cycle of price gouging and of oil and gas energy instability and puts us on a better path forward. And what they're basically saying is, go back to the energy apology of 30 years ago, of 40 years

Starting point is 00:22:40 ago, of 50 years ago. Well, let's be clear. In the 1970s, we had an even worse energy crisis. We've had gas prices hike again and again and again. It's an unstable market. And part of that is inherent in the marketplace and in the foreign dependence on oil. No amount, by the way, of additional American oil is going to solve the pollution effects, is going to solve the exploration timeline. So the best you really hear from Republicans is drill, baby, drill, more drilling here in the United States. And that really overlooks two things. One, we are already at record and near record American production. We have not cut production. In fact, we have increased. President Biden opened up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And so we are already at near high American production. But it also ignores the

Starting point is 00:23:30 fact that that continued drilling, that's a solution that's not going to produce more oil for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Congress does too much policymaking already that's looking backwards, that's trying to solve yesterday's problem tomorrow. We need to be thinking about what is the energy policy that's going to prevent this from ever holding back our economy again. And that is investing in clean energy and holding big oil companies accountable to follow the law. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you. But ultimately, that is where I'm going to end today's show. As always, thank you for watching. Like I've been a part of that conversation down below. If you're looking for more news, I got you covered here and here, but

Starting point is 00:24:05 my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Your Ad Here

The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.6 The Truth About Disney & Their Apology, Boris Johnson, Katie Porter Speaks Out, & More

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