The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.02 Sabrina Carpenter Chappell Roan Accusations, Project 2025, Karen Read Murder Mistrial, & Todays News

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Start your free trial today: https://www.Squarespace.com/Phil & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  GET UP TO 40% OFF @ https://beautifulbastard.com til Friday!! ==== ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩- – 00:00 - Judge Declares Mistrial in Karen Read Case Amid Jury Deadlock 3:41 - Fans Accuse Sabrina Carpenter & Chappell Roan of Buying Plays on Spotify 7:04 - No One Wants to Go to Paris During the Olympics 9:34 - Sponsored by Squarespace 10:30 - Red Roof Inn Facing Mounting Lawsuits 14:08 - Breakthrough Alzheimer’s Scientist Accused of Falsifying Records 16:13 - Hungarian PM Orban Visits Ukraine 18:46 - Sponsored by Beautiful Bastard 19:34 - Inside the Project 2025 Plan Previous coverage on Karen Read: https://youtu.be/elXOhqSIUbI?si=DT8ELBEXjLKD-Uw_&t=601  Project 2025: https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on Project 2025: Brian Espinoza ———————————— #DeFranco #SabrinaCarpenter #ChappellRoan ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news and today I've got a wild one for you. So how about you just hit that like button. I'll hit you with that monkey and let's jump into it. This is a news show. The Karen Reid murder trial just got a huge update.

Right, this murder trial that's consumed Boston, swept the nation with swirling conspiracies. And we covered this a few months ago when things kicked off. I'm also gonna link to that previous coverage, especially because the details are all over the fucking place and there are two very different stories being told here. But the quick version is that Reed was accused

of murdering her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, by intentionally backing her SUV into him and then driving away, leaving him to die on a cold January night. But Reed denies those allegations and there's almost nothing that her defense and the prosecution can agree on.

All we know for sure is that Reed and O'Keefe had been out drinking that night in January of 2022, and they ran into an officer that O'Keefe worked with by the name of Brian Albert, who invited them back to his house. So Reed drove the two over in her SUV, O'Keefe got out of the car, Reed drove away, and early the next morning, she came back looking for him

and found him unresponsive outside of Albert's home. But after that, everything just falls apart. The prosecutor said the couple had been fighting and Reed hit O'Keefe and drove away before he ever made it inside. And to back that up, they've pointed a damage on the rear end of her car, pieces of taillight found on the scene,

an angry voicemail she left before O'Keefe's death. Also, you had multiple emergency responders who were called to the scene testifying. They heard Reed say, I hit him. But Reed, she tells a totally different story. I heard the lawyer saying this is all a police coverup and that she's being framed as part of a sweeping conspiracy to protect the true murderer.

And specifically, they alleged that O'Keefe did make it inside of Albert's house, but while there, there was a fight that ensued, but then somebody fatally beating him before dumping him in the snow. And as for their case, the defense points a testimony from experts who say that O'Keefe's injuries, they just aren't consistent with being hit by a car.

Instead, pointing to wounds on his arm, they say indicate that he was attacked by Albert's German Shepherd. Though notably there, prosecutors have said that there wasn't any dog DNA found on his body and O'Keefe's autopsy didn't show signs of a fight. Though you also had Reed's lawyer disputing other evidence brought by the prosecution,

including the claims that she said she hit O'Keefe, arguing that in her panic and shock, she asked the question, did I hit him? Beyond that, the defense also has what they claim to be evidence of this alleged law enforcement conspiracy, pointing to a tangled web of relationships and conflicts of interest among the witnesses at the party and law enforcement officials

who investigated the case. And since we last talked about this story, we also saw one of the lead investigators in the case give some pretty damaging testimony that bolstered the defense's claim that hostile law enforcement had a conflict of interest, with Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, who remained on the case despite having connections

to witnesses, being questioned about sexist and vulgar texts that he sent to friends about Reed. But those, including some where he joked about searching for nude photos on her phone, criticized her appearance, and said that he hoped that she would kill herself. And again, those are just some of the details. But all of this is made for a super contentious case marked by wild conspiracies, a large and sometimes rowdy free Karen Reed movement, a global audience of true crime fans, and just a whole lot of general chaos. And so all of that has brought us to why we're talking about this story today, because unsurprisingly, all the chaos and the conflicting narratives on both sides,

it has resulted in a deadlocked jury. With the judge overseeing the case now officially declaring a mistrial after the 12-person jury failed to reach a consensus after 26 hours of deliberations. And there, in a note to the judge, the jurors made it clear that they had fundamentally different views in the case

and there wasn't just one person holding out. Writing, our perspectives on the evidence are starkly divided. The deep division is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, but rather a sincere adherence to our individual principles and moral convictions. And so now, as far as what happens next, despite the mistrial, this case is not over. Because there was no verdict, Reed can legally be tried again, and prosecutors have already said they plan to retry the case. So there you had Reed's legal team vowing to fight the prosecution's case, and Reed's defense attorney, Alan Jackson, telling reporters outside the courthouse,

Folks, this is what it looks like when you bring false charges against an innocent person. And adding, they failed miserably, and they'll continue to fail no matter how long it takes, no matter how long they keep trying, we will not stop fighting. And then, so Sabrina Carpenter and Chapel Roan have found themselves surrounded by accusations and controversy. And this notably as many have crowned Sabrina Carpenter the queen of summer pop with songs like Espresso and Please Please Please.

And at this point, she's basically just been competing with herself. I mean, over the weekend, she replaced herself with the top spot of Spotify's global chart. News that she reacted to by saying, ah, this bitch. This also is people are questioning

if she's being force fed to audiences, specifically via Spotify's autoplay feature. Or that's when you finish an album or a song and Spotify just picks something to queue up next. But a lot of people saying that no matter what they're listening to, whether it be country, pop, rap, whatever, Spotify picks either espresso or please, please, please.

Which has been leading people to question if this is some pay for place game to create hits artificially. And it's not just bots and paid check marks saying this. But even the likes of Vox just doing a big piece on this yesterday, noting that the conspiracies are valid just because the music industry has seen tons of different kinds of payola scandals. And if this were happening, it would be very hard to actually prove. But also, very notably, people familiar with Spotify's

algorithm, they just say this doesn't appear to be the case. For example, Glenn McDonald, a former data alchemist at Spotify, telling the outlet, none of it is as centralized as you're imagining. It's not like there's a master sticker on the song that causes everybody to promote it. A lot of things on Spotify are trying to keep you in your comfort zone and play you the right things. On Spotify, they just assume that you like what other people like. Essentially, if you have two separate users

that have some overlapping tastes, they recommend those users' music choices to one another. They also say there's this kind of Goldilocks method of picking artists that aren't too obscure or too popular, but that are just right. And there, studies have actually shown that young people identify with music that is an intermediate popularity level,

with McDonald even adding, especially if the artist is slightly less popular and a bit more attuned to what you usually like, then that makes them a better match than someone who's very popular and crosses genre or audience boundaries. So basically the idea is that they're more likely to recommend Sabrina Carpenter to a Swifty

than it is to recommend Taylor to a Sabrina fan, or because in the scenario, Taylor's just too popular. Which is the idea that brings Chapel Roan into the mix here. With Vox noting this could also explain why so many people have found Chapel Roan's Good Luck Babe also being constantly fed to them from Spotify's autoplay. You know, cause it is a very popular song from an artist that was relatively small just a few months ago.

Also both Sabrina and Chapel were just openers on major tours, so it's easy to connect them to fans of bigger artists. But again, also with this Vox noted that it's of course, hard to prove any kind of scheme is happening because these platforms, they just lack transparency. Because Spotify isn't radio, there is some allowance for pay for play.

It actually offers a feature allowing artists to forfeit some of their streaming profits to boost their likelihood of getting played. Though there, per Vox, as far as we can tell, it's usually not Sabrina Carpenter's doing this. And so of course, due to the lack of transparency, not only does it make it so that we can't prove anything, it's the largest thing

that makes all these theories possible. With McDonald even going as far as to say, to me, this is not a Spotify specific problem, not a music specific problem. It's everything about how technology mediates human interaction if it goes through these black boxes of machine learning or AI.

You're just left asking, here's the answer, how do I trust it? Though also with this, there was another big argument. For example, NME doing a piece on this back in June, explaining that even if artists like Sabrina and Chappell were being force fed to us by some massive scheme, that alone wouldn't be enough for their full successes. Noting artists also need people to then choose to engage

with their music for the momentum to keep going. But there still needs to be something for the audiences to latch onto for there to be staying power. And personally, I can't speak on everything, but I've only heard the song three times and H-O-T-T-O-G-O is fucking stuck in my head forever. And blasting espresso with a top down on my Jeep, it's a vibe.

Though that is anecdotal and it doesn't speak to the validity of any of the accusations. And since I don't imagine many of these platforms are gonna just randomly open the doors and be like, hey, full transparency. For now, I'll pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? And then the Olympics,

there's supposed to be this massive tourism booster, but we're getting some very conflicting reports out of France right now. With Air France actually saying they are gonna be taking a $193 million hit during the Olympics. With them even putting out a statement claiming that perhaps more people are turned off

by the idea of heading to Paris during the Olympics than excited by it. Right, explaining that traffic to and from Paris is lagging behind other major cities in Europe, and also adding, international markets show a significant avoidance of Paris during the Olympics than excited by it. Right, explaining that traffic to and from Paris is lagging behind other major cities in Europe and also adding, international markets show a significant avoidance of Paris. Travel between the city and other destinations is also below the usual June, August average

as residents in France seem to be postponing their holidays until after the Olympic games or considering alternative travel plans. And while the airline does expect things to balance out once the Olympics are over, it is still expecting to take a loss of 180 million euros between June and August. And the thing is, according to Forbes, Air France's claims, they line up with public tourism data,

with the show in a projected 15% drop in foreign arrivals in July of 2024 compared to July of 2023. This also means that hotels are taking a hit, with Forbes reporting that occupancy levels peak earlier in the games at 78%, with the lowest towards the end being around 60%. And that's even though in July of last year, the average occupancy was over 80%.

You've also got other reports showing Airbnb is also struggling to fill apartments. And as far as why, there are a few potential reasons. I mean, hell, you had the New York Times previously noting that Parisians have been begging people not to come to the Olympics. And that just because a lot of people dread having the whole planet coming to their city all at once.

But also you see things like Metro prices going up significantly for that time. Some major landmarks are gonna be harder to visit, especially as there's gonna be a stadium in front of the Eiffel Tower and the park right by it will have an arena, making it that much harder to get your Emily in Paris on. Or you see things like the Eiffel Tower's website

also explaining that while it's open during most of the Olympic game days, there's just gonna be a lot more rules in place regarding booking and visiting. Besides also adding that ahead of the games, pedestrian access along the Seine will be heavily restricted and some metro stations won't be served. And so for a lot of people,

it just sounds like there's a lot of hassle that might kill the romance of a city like Paris. So all of this isn't to say like the city is just gonna be empty, right? People are still going. Forbes reporting that up to 3.1 million ticket holding visitors are expected to go to the city and two thirds are French.

Tourists from both France and abroad expected to spend nearly $3 billion. That's without mentioning all the money set to come in from media rights and sponsorships and private investments. But still, it is very interesting to see this reaction from the public. So maybe the silver lining is if you've ever wanted to go, maybe you wait to the last second and see if you can get cheap fares. So again, if you're wanting to experience Paris, it doesn't sound like the best time.

And there is probably a better time to go and get a Parisian waiter to scowl at you for not speaking perfect French. And I say Parisian and not French for a reason. Beautiful city though, and not everyone's like that. And then, you know, for those of you looking to kickstart a business, showcase homemade crafts, start a personal blogger, maybe even sell merch,

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They're one of the largest budget hotel chains in the States. And it now appears that they have a horrifying secret. An estimated 80% of all sex trafficking actually takes place at hotels in some chains more than others. And while Red Roof Inns do not directly engage in sex trafficking, they do knowingly profit off

of the crime on a grand scale. That, at least according to now 42 federal lawsuits currently underway against the chain and its franchises as well, is hundreds more that are soon to be filed. With an investigation by the Independent finding these across 39 states and at least 115 Red Roof Inn hotels.

But there's also seeing an attorney who represents nearly a thousand victims telling the outlet that he estimates the true number of victims to be in the many thousands. Adding that sex trafficking has reached an epidemic level across the hotel chain. In fact, these lawsuits claim that the trafficking was so obvious that hotel staff couldn't possibly have missed it.

With an expert witness even testify, if girls and women are being trafficked at a hotel, you will see the malnourished body, the way that they are dressed, the demeanor in which they walk, the lack of eye contact, the inability to have their own voice and speak without permission. To be frank, you'd be quite ignorant if you didn't see it.

And with that, you see things like a victim by the name of Tiffany testifying in one trial. We had to take customers morning, lunch, dinner, midnight, after club hours. It was just around the clock. We had to make a quota of a minimum $1,000 a day if we wanted to eat. And saying if she refused to see a customer

or disobeyed him, she was then choked or beaten. Which as other victims explained, wasn't exactly hush hush. Right, you had examples like a woman named Melissa describing how housekeeping staff came each morning to remove garbage cans filled with condoms and bloody towels. Also another victim saying employees witnessed

her trafficker being frequently violent with her and loud sounds of abuse could often be heard from the room. With yet another alleging staff actually witnessed her physically and verbally being abused by her captors in public areas of the hotel. And then just confirming how widespread this was, a woman by the name of Alexa said that her pimp

chose the Red Roof Inn because of its quote, "'lax attitude' towards what was going on." Hell, I mean, one lawsuit in Atlanta claimed that anyone who set foot on two Red Roof Inn properties witnessed an open-air prostitution market. But then even if employees didn't notice it, the customers certainly did. With the independent analyzing customer reviews and finding mentions of prostitution at 176 properties. And this is employees did notice, even though they weren't trained to identify the signs. With, for example, a former night manager

telling the outlet that he witnessed sex work, if not sex trafficking, at three locations where he worked, saying, quote, it's heads in beds. They every door sold. "'They don't care how you do it. "'Your manager has that pressure "'of having to do that consistently. "'So if you can get prostitutes and drug dealers "'to come in there and keep them in order, "'you're selling out.'" Numerous former employees testifying

that they passed their concerns on to their managers, including Jay Moyer, former regional vice president of operations. Yet he also joked in one email about a vending machine being introduced to one of the properties, writing that, quote, "'My pimps and hoes love them some snacks "'to go with their smokes.'"

And another former employee testifying that Moyer told him to book suspected sex workers in the back of the hotel, where they'd be less visible to other guests. And y'all, the knowledge that all of this was going down apparently went to the fucking top. Because in 2015, a former board member of an international anti-trafficking organization

reportedly called Red Roof Inn's president, Andy Alexander, and told him, hey, there's a known sex trafficker trafficking women at one of your hotels. So with all this, you have Red Roof Inn's president, Andy Alexander, and told him, hey, there's a known sex trafficker trafficking women at one of your hotels. So with all this, you have Red Roof Inn denying any wrongdoing, arguing that it's taken steps to prevent criminal activity and they couldn't reasonably be expected to spot a crime

that is by its nature hidden from view. And so for now, I'll let you be the judge of the situation, though I do wanna note that while Red Roof Inn is dealing with an exceptionally large number of allegations, they are certainly not alone. Dozens of other lawsuits have been filed over the past decade against most major franchises, including Wyndham and Choice.

The attorney for a thousand clients telling The Independent, the industry has stuck their head in the sand for a very, very long time. They knew that this was gonna come. At conferences way before any cases were filed, they were alluding to the fact that they might one day actually have to take responsibility for what's going on in these hotels.

And going on to say one of the big hotel chains will end up going bankrupt as a result of this litigation. And they deserve way worse. And then we got a miracle breakthrough from Alzheimer's, but the problem is it might all be a lie. Because that's the concern right now after the DOJ indicted Haoyan Wang for faking research information

in order to get access to $16 million in federal grant money. See, Wang, he'd been hired to look at the data the pharmaceutical company, Kaseva, had collected. And he allegedly falsified research to help their drug, Simufilam, get into clinical trials. Which, as a quick aside, works by repairing proteins in the brain and might help slow down Alzheimer's progression. Which is something that could help upwards of 6 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer's, not to mention all the family that helped them out. Because I think something that a lot of people miss when they first hear about these stories involving Alzheimer's and dementia, is that they're brutal on both the victim and their families

as they see their loved ones slowly fade. And all this, it didn't come as a complete shock to the people within the medical research community because the City University of New York, which is where Wang worked, they'd recently conducted an investigation into his research, which led to multiple papers being pulled over falsified research.

And even before that, some researchers were expressing doubt about this drug's efficacy, or even if its mechanism to slow down Alzheimer's actually works at all. But either way, the damage had been done, and Kasava's drug is now in phase three clinical trials, which actually involves humans. And in this case, there are 735 participants,

but Wang's actions, they've also cast a huge shadow over the drug, and so you have the company trying to save it. With them now doing things, like pointing out that Wang hasn't been involved in the phase three trials at all, so any data from that should be fine. Additionally, Kosova said that researchers outside

of the City University of New York have also found evidence that supported the claims that the drug might help with Alzheimer's. It's pretty much, they're saying, hey, we're not just relying on Wang's work by any means. That has not stopped Kosova's stock from taking a beating, dropping nearly 40% over the last few days, which is the exact opposite of how their stock

normally performs because after past clinical trials, their stock would skyrocket. Now for his part, Wang has defended himself and pointed out that CUNY's investigation into him found no conclusive findings of data manipulation. And saying that's consistent with what he's been saying for two years. And he's not wrong there. The university had suspended their investigation out of concerns about the integrity of it. Right, but clearly that hasn't convinced the DOJ, who are going after him because he allegedly lied about his research in order to get that $16 million in federal grant money, which is why he's looking at a major count of fraud against the United States, two counts of wire fraud,

and one count of false statements. And the DOJ adding that he could face decades behind bars if convicted. But then switching gears, we gotta talk about international news involving Ukraine. Because at this very pivotal moment, Ukraine just got a surprise visit from their biggest frenemy, Hungary's Viktor Orban.

But on the one hand, Hungary is part of the EU and NATO, both of which have heavily supported Ukraine with weapons and other supplies amid the Russian invasion. But on the other hand, Orban is a massive Putin ally, and he's constantly tried to stop not only Hungary from providing aid, but the entire bloc in general. But Orban reportedly felt this visit was necessary after Hungary took over the EU's rotating presidency.

And in a statement said, "'The aim of the Hungarian presidency is to contribute "'to solving the challenges ahead of the European Union.'" That's why my first trip was to Kyiv. And we've seen Zelensky welcome Orban, hoping that the visit could better relations between the two countries. But Orban, he just pushed the Putin talking point of asking for a ceasefire to promote peace talks. And the important thing there is that Ukraine has long laid out what it needs for peace. Russia needs to leave and stop interfering with Ukraine's domestic and international politics.

Although, notably, Ukraine has considered going back to the drawing board to try and have a more detailed's domestic and international politics. Although, notably Ukraine has considered going back to the drawing board to try and have a more detailed plan over the next few weeks. But regardless, at this stage, a ceasefire has been widely seen in this case as just helping Russia catch its feet and plan stronger offensive. And like I mentioned, this is happening at a pivotal moment for both sides.

Where Ukraine recently got to go ahead to use Western weapons to hit targets within Russia itself, and has been doing it to great effect. Which I mean, it's just been a game changer for Ukraine because Russia has long been able to organize in relative safety before launching offensives. Like with the recently stalled one at Kharkiv. It's not just ground-based systems that are proving effective either. Ukrainian aircraft actually managed to strike a massive ammunition depot in Crimea during Orban's visit. Those successes might just multiply soon as Western F-16s are expected to hit the theater soon. Though it's not all W's for Ukraine. Its request

for Western allies to enforce a no-fly zone across the Western part of the country has been denied constantly. And there are definitely gonna be people that feel a bit uneasy when they learn that it's toying with the idea of autonomous weapons platforms. Which I mean, it's just a technical way to hide

that AI is gonna be killing people. With people, you know, looking at the work done by this drone company where its drones can autonomously track and follow targets and if needed, slam into them with explosives. That's not completely different from how the war is being fought now with drones still slamming into targets with explosives. It's just that there's a human controlling it far away. But to be fair there, Ukraine's hardly the only military who's explored this technology and its uses. It's just that they may actually be the first who can actually use it.

But as far as like an actual ceasefire or peace talks here, I just I don't see that happening. I mean not unless Russia actually leaves Ukraine. Though also the big potential game changer there is the US election, right? If there is a Trump presidency, all bets are off. Which I mean, barring anything catastrophic happening to Russia, I imagine they at least hold the line for now until then. Because even with the European Union

trying to plan for the future of what this whole situation looks like, if support from America kind of just dries up, it would 100% have a massive impact. But for now, we'll have to continue to see how this plays out. And then, I wanna take a quick second to offer y'all up to 40% off over at beautifulbastard.com.

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over the last three months have loved the new stuff. And then, this next deep dive, we have your favorite special guest to the show, the Philip DeFranco clone that is still in the old office. Did you know that there is an actual conservative master plan to take over the government and fundamentally change America forever after November's election? No, this isn't a conspiracy theory, but an actual plan being put in place by the Heritage Foundation called Project 2025. And the first thing you should know is this isn't a normal thing for the Heritage Foundation

to do. It normally just publishes a wish list of policies called the Mandate for Leadership, which then hands to the would-be presidents every election. But this time, the mandate is 30 chapters, 920 pages, and just one of the four main pillars that the project is built on. And that's according to project director and former Trump administration official Paul Danz. And the others, those include building a massive database of conservatives who could fill government positions, a way to educate these would-be appointees in conservative ideology via the Presidential Administration Academy,

and a so-called 180-day playbook for how to implement all these people and their policies upon a Trump election win. And that gives you the first big hint of what Project 2025 is focusing on, the president. Because the entire thing really pushes the unitary executive theory, which is the idea that instead of three separate but equal branches of government, the executive branch is above the other two. Pretty much, it would heavily expand the power of the president by making them unaccountable for their actions while in office, and heavily expand what they can do as well. And their argument for this is that Article 2 of the Constitution solely vests executive powers to the president. Things like Congress making independent

agencies or having oversight over federal appointments, that wouldn't be allowed. And to help implement this, Project 2025 wants to largely purge most federal agencies of their employees. With Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts writing in the mandates forward, the long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values with freedom and liberty under siege as never before.

And the project's advocates in general feel that the federal government is infested with Marxists who are not only out to get the American people, but who don't want to listen to Trump if he gets into office again. So because of that, they want to take the unprecedented step of pretty much firing anyone who isn't loyal to Trump, which to be clear is drastic. Like yes, every time a president comes into office, certain positions are expected to change, such as who is in charge of the EPA or the DOJ, but it's usually just the leadership positions

that rotate. The rest of the federal agencies, they're filled with professional bureaucrats who are the ones that actually keep the government running. And firing these people would actually be easier than you think too, as Trump already had a plan for the last time he was in office. With that reportedly called Schedule F, making it so that any federal employee who had some kind of say over policy would be answerable to the president directly and on the chopping block. Pretty much Trump was trying to use it to see who was loyal and remove those who weren't. It ended up never really being tested because Trump implemented it at the end of his presidency, only for Biden to then immediately get rid of it. But Project 2025,

they want to bring it back. And so with a second Trump presidency, once the agencies were purged, they would want Trump to fill the positions using their database of ideologically pure conservative candidates. And they are dead serious about this whole thing because they have a whole questionnaire online that you can fill out if you think it'd be a good fit, with them expecting to have 20,000 reliable and vetted candidates ready to go by the time Trump's in office, assuming, of course, he wins. Now, hearing all this, you might think,

okay, this sounds like it could be a complete train wreck, where you're gonna fire lifelong government professionals and replace them with newbies? But that is where the project's Presidential Administration Academy comes into play, because it's not supposed to only prepare these candidates for work in the federal government, but also further indoctrinate them

into the Heritage Foundation's own brand of conservatism, with all this information being ready to go on the day of Trump's inauguration. The big concern, though, for many, is what they plan to do once in power. It's pretty much every conservative policy that you can think of. When it comes to healthcare,

their biggest stance is that abortion should be banned. They also want to reinstate provisions of the 1870 Comstock Act, which banned mailing things like birth controls. Project 2025 also has some ideas about LGBTQ plus people in the community, notably saying it is a driving factor in porn and should be banned because of it. Claiming that porn is an omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children. Not to mention the crazy fact that they want to imprison anyone who

distributes or produces porn. They also want to ban all discussion of sex and gender flat out and remove protections for those groups from federal rules and laws. That's in addition to some policies that more immediately hurt those groups, such as the idea that the government should maintain a biblically based social science reinforced definition of marriage and family. Religion is actually also something you'll see pop up a lot if you read the mandate for leadership. However, they claim that there should still be a separation between church and state, though just in one direction. They're fine with Christianity running the government, but they don't want the government interfering with their religion. What's been described as their most concerning plan of action by far is what they plan on doing once they have people in government. We talked about how they want to purge the government of all the

career, what they call Marxists who run the various federal agencies. But that's just the tip of the iceberg of centralizing presidential authority. They actually want to just abolish a ton of federal agencies flat out, claiming that they're a waste of money or not explicitly allowed by statutes. Think pretty much exactly what Argentina's president did once he went into office. What's been seen as some of the biggest red flags are plans to defund the FBI, since they think they're just used as political tools against conservatives and act as a check on presidential power. With that, of course, spawning serious fears of putting so much power into an unchecked president would allow them to go after political opponents and critics in the media.

Though to be clear there, Project 2025 itself does not advocate specifically for this, but it does create the tools that would make it possible, which I know is really important. And it leads us to the next thing that we need to talk about, which is Trump and his team. Because there's an argument to be made that Project 2025 is just a conservative fan fiction. Because, you know, Trump and his team, they haven't explicitly endorsed it or said that it'll be policy. Right? And their official stance is that the only things they explicitly mention is their policy. But ever since debuting a few years ago, more and more conservative names and groups have signed up to endorse Project 2025. And a lot of these people, they just so happen to be former Trump administration officials, many of whom are

believed to have a solid chance of getting positions again. We've already talked about Project Director Paul Danz, but there's also Russell T. Vaught. He ran the Office of Management and Budget for Trump and now runs the Center for Renewing America. There's also John McEntee, who's a former White House personal chief that spearheaded Trump's first crack at implementing Schedule F and its presidential loyalty tests. And again, that's just naming a few out of the many former Trumpists at Project 2025. And beyond former Trump administration officials, there are like 100 conservative groups signed on to Project 2025, making it so that pretty much any qualified conservative for public office is tied to it. And then you also need to consider that a lot of what Trump's campaign has said

lines up with Project 2025, such as using Schedule F and promising to dismantle what they called the deep state because, quote, either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state. And of course, Trump would love a more centralized, powerful executive branch to have the power to go after the media. And there's not some like random fear mongering either. It is widely expected that if elected, Trump would tap Kash Patel for a national security role. Patel has experience serving as Trump's counterterrorism advisor and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense. And Patel vowed in an interview with Steve Bannon,

We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're gonna come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out. Notably, Trump himself made similar threats to go after political opponents, saying a year ago. I will appoint a real special prosecutor

to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family. He also wrote on Truth Social months back, I say up front, openly and proudly that when I win the presidency of the United States, they and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC or any of the other corrupt and dishonest media companies be entitled to use the very valuable airwaves of the USA free? With him then going on to threaten Comcast over its alleged what he called treason because of its ties to MSNBC.

You know, I think all of this, it's worthy of your own investigation if you're interested. I'll link down below. But at the very least, this is something you should be aware of as, of course, we head into this election and it is, it's a possible future. As it stands, the next president of the United States, it's a coin flip, honestly, right now. I think if the election happened today, there is a lean towards Trump. Though again, polling is polling and actual votes are the actual votes and we have to wait to see.

But of course, as we wait for that slow march of time to get to its destination, I gotta ask you, what are your thoughts here? But that, my beautiful bastards, is where today's Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning dive into the news is gonna end. But the good news is you don't have to miss me for too long because my dumb face will be right back here tomorrow.