The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.12 Colleen Ballinger's Lawyers Respond To New Accusations, Andrew Tate vs Tucker Carlson, & Todays News

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Get 20% off all Mary Ruth Products with code MROPHILD. Code works on both their Amazon storefront or Mary Ruth Website:  https://www.amazon.com/s?me=A3V1QNHQ2M2TBN&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER  Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/2zGkoiyM1cg Check out our daily newsletter! http://dailydip.co/pds  Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillydefranco/?hl=en  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - Colleen Ballinger Denies Uploading Songs to iTunes 01:42 - Tucker Carlson Faces Backlash for Andrew Tate Interview 04:18 - Conspiracy Theorists Falsely Accuse Student of Being a Fed  06:09 - Today in Awesome: Dave the Diver 06:55 - Sponsored by Mary Ruth 07:46 - Heat Wave Hits South West U.S. 09:12 - 18 Senators Ask Judicial Policymakers to End “Judge Shopping” 11:03 - Lawyers With Business Before SCOTUS Reportedly Venmoed Clarence Thomas’ Top Aide  ——————————   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 #ColleenBallinger #AndrewTate ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about Colleen Ballinger's lawyers speaking out, responding to accusations around toxic gossip trains, saying they're false. Why Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate has even angered some Tucker fans. New concerning news around sugar baby Clarence Thomas. How false Nazi accusations resulted in a guy getting doxxed and forced to flee his home. We're talking about all that and so much more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting with some massive updates to the whole Colleen Ballinger toxic gossip train situation and accusations. Yesterday,

we talked about the reporting and the accusations coming from creators saying they were hit for copyright for including that response song in their videos, with one of the biggest coming from the H3 podcast, as well as there being reports about the song being uploaded to iTunes, some suggesting that she did this in some massive intentional effort so she could have this copyright protection. But then after yesterday's show went up, we saw Colleen's legal reps telling Popgrave that she didn't upload the song to iTunes and Apple Music, and the outlet adding that the song, which was reportedly attached to her official profile, has now been removed. And actually, after that, we got a statement from her team further explaining, for sale or for any other purpose. Ms. Ballinger has not monetized the video slash song in any way. We don't know how it got published on those platforms.

It was done without Ms. Ballinger's knowledge or authorization, and we have taken measures to have the content removed. Likewise, Ms. Ballinger has not issued any copyright infringement claims to channels that featured the video slash song. And so with that, it's unclear how it got there, who was able to upload it, since yes, independent people can put music on iTunes. But also with that, you have reports saying you have to have a partnership

with an Apple-preferred distributor to do so. Also with that, you have reports saying you have to have a partnership with an Apple preferred distributor to do so. Also with this, you have some speculating about users trying to pose as Colleen on music platforms like Spotify, but also nothing about how it got on those platforms right now has been confirmed. And as of last night, you had Ethan Klein saying that his podcast was still being claimed.

So we'll have to wait to see if that situation gets resolved, what's actually happening. But that's ultimately where we are, and now you know. And then Andrew Tate and Tucker Carlson just did a two and a half hour interview, and that has sparked a lot of different reactions. Right, Tate, of course, has been charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group

in Romania. Of course, with that, he has denied those allegations repeatedly. And in this video, Tucker essentially starts off by claiming that masculinity is now a crime, bemoaning the state of men in America, with him then just basically saying people need to hear Tate out.

We think Tate's views about men very much deserve a hearing. So we flew to Romania to talk to him. We're posting the entire interview here on Twitter because we've been assured it will not be taken down for ideological reasons, as so much of his content has been. The video is long, but if you can, take the time to watch it. Make up your own mind about Andrew Tate.

And from there, you have people saying, it's kind of clear that Tucker's just on Tate's side. He laughs with Tate, he agrees with Tate's points, he plays right into a lot of the rhetoric he's using. With Tate again in this interview, denying the allegations, blaming the woke agenda and media for how he ended up here. When you finally end up the enemy of the Matrix, and they use the legal system as a weapon to punish you for having an opinion, you realize how subjective the law is. If I had to estimate, I think that the overall intention was just to throw me in a cell,

use the media machine to drum up something real. With Tate also trying to minimize the charges against him, claiming that he's basically just being accused of forcing women to make TikTok videos. So notably there, prosecutors, among other things, alleged that he forced women to make explicit content for OnlyFans. The interview also veering into politics and global issues.

I think we should all give Putin credit for curing COVID. Right? Because when his invasion happened, COVID went away. So- I hadn't thought about that. Think about it, it's almost to the day. And keep in mind, we're just talking about broad strokes here. This is a two and a half hour video,

which is also why one of the biggest takeaways we've seen from this interview were the responses. People pointing to Twitter's public metrics saying, "'Look how many people watched this' or rather quote unquote, watched this." With as of this morning, people saying the number 46 million pointing to Twitter's public metrics saying, "'Look how many people watched this,' or rather, quote unquote, watched this." With as of this morning, people saying the number 46 million. It was incredibly important to note, it's unclear how many people actually watched all of it

or even a chunk of it or just briefly passed by it. Also around this video, you get a lot of Tucker and Tate's fans very happy, people applauding it, the likes of Elon Musk sharing it and calling it interesting. But also we've seen a ton of backlash and criticism, with people saying things like, "'And I'm losing respect for Tucker.

Not a good look for a supposed Christian and conservative when Tate is the antithesis of that. As well as as the father of a little girl, I can't rock with this. Anyone who takes someone's daughters and convinces them to perform sexual acts on camera for strangers is not someone we should be elevating as some kind of hero.

The likes of Joe Walsh saying, two and a half hours defending and singing the praises of an accused rapist and human trafficker, so brave. Mehdi Hassan tweeting, fresh from interviewing accused rapist and trafficker Andrew Tate, Tucker Carlson will host the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Can't make this stuff up. But with all that said, I got to pass a question off to you. What are your thoughts here? Whether it be around the metrics or the promotion and platforming of it, or even just the reactions that we've seen. I'd love to hear

from you. And then we got to talk about this guy, Ben Brody, because his life got completely flipped upside down because of the insanity of the internet. So Ben is a 22-year-old recent graduate from California. He just got his degree in political science. He has his whole life ahead of him. However, recently everything got crazy for Ben because on June 24th, nearly a thousand miles away, two far-right groups got into a fight at the Oregon City Pride Festival. And at the festival, two neo-Nazis of the Rose City Nationalists had their masks pulled off and their faces were caught on video. With internet detectives then taking that, running with it, and someone eventually finding a photo of Ben and claiming he was one of the people on the video. So you saw his name making the rounds on the internet,

finding its way into MAGA groups and Proud Boys supporters. With them then finding a blurb written about Ben on his Jewish fraternity's Instagram page, where it said that he wanted to work for the government someday. And so for them, it was confirmation of one of their favorite theories, that federal agents were posing as neo-Nazis to make them look racist. And so with that, you had Ben's name continuing to gain traction, his face being shared everywhere, side by side with that of a neo-Nazi from Oregon City. Even Elon Musk tweeting about it, boosting the accusation to his tens of millions of followers. With Ben telling Vice in an interview published yesterday, obviously Elon Musk has a huge following and it amplifies stuff, so it

definitely made the situation much worse. Also talking about how the day after the fight in Oregon City, Ben was at a baseball game in California when his Instagram comments were just blowing up, people calling him a fed. By the time that he and his mom left the game, their address had been leaked online and it wasn't safe for them to stay at home. With Ben saying, in the car, I was freaking out and very nervous, very anxious, like, oh my god, I can't believe this happened. You know, my life is over. Everything that I tried to work for and all this is just completely gone. And I genuinely felt very anxious, very nervous, and adding, I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. I couldn't sleep.

But eventually, after pressure from his family and friends, Ben decided to respond to the situation. He tried to clear his name by posting timestamp receipts of him in stores at the time of the confrontation in Oregon City. And it was also later confirmed to Vice by multiple sources that Ben is not the man in the video and has no ties to the Rose City Nationalists. Though that still was not enough for some people online, with many still calling it suspicious. And in the weeks following the incident, online conversations have now moved away from Ben, but many of those posts still remain viewable, which is why I felt really important to talk about these updates. And then in today in awesome, God, I haven't done that in forever. Only some of you are going to care about this. I promise I am not getting paid to say this. Even if you are the most casual of gamers,

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going to the link in my description and using MRO Phil D at their Amazon storefront. And then the heat right now is getting crazy. And I know a lot of you watching right now are like, no shit, Phil. But with that, we need to talk about the scale of this thing because things have gotten so concerning that yesterday, the National Weather Service issued heat alerts for more than 108 million people. And notably, the Southwest of the United States is going to be most affected. With Axios reporting that a heat dome will become centered over the Southwest, but maintain an influence from the Southeast to the South Central States and into the Great Basin in California.

The National Weather Service saying, unfortunately, the long-term outlook for the region shows a continued heat wave through this weekend and into next week. And obviously a big part of this news is we're talking about extreme numbers, but we're also talking about extreme lengths. With Axios reporting that in Phoenix, Arizona,

they could see temperatures at 120 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend. As well as reporting, Phoenix is on track to either tie or break its record of 18 straight days with highs of 110 degrees or above. So please, please, please be careful out there. Because we're talking about temperatures where it's not like, oh, that's really uncomfortable. Like people die. And while obviously we're talking about the United States here, like this is an issue in many other places. Like there was a study that was published on Monday. They found that European heat waves killed 61,000 people last year.

Though, of course, that's not a one-to-one comparison. Not all countries are equipped the same way. I definitely, in my time in Europe in the past, gave me an appreciation for air conditioning. Because as an American, that is not as widespread as I thought it was. And the unfortunate reality right now is that studies show that these heat waves, they're going to be an increasingly more common thing. Though more specifically right now, reportedly, a gathering El Nino event in the tropical Pacific Ocean is beginning to add even more heat to the global climate. So again, people, please be careful out there. This is not a joke. And then we need to talk about judge shopping, right? And that's because Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 17 other Democrats wrote a letter urging the

policymaking body for the judicial system, the Judicial Conference, to end a system for assigning cases that basically allows plaintiffs to select their own judges, aka judge shopping. With a group specifically pushing the conference to change single judge divisions, which notably allows for all federal cases filed in certain geographic regions to be assigned to just one judge. And even more specifically, a judge that is sympathetic to the case, effectively allowing plaintiffs to pick the judge they want by filing their lawsuit in a specific division. And the senator's explaining in their letter that this creates an unbalanced system because plenty of other districts assign cases to judges randomly. Writing, based on geography, some plaintiffs are able to guarantee that their claims will be heard before a specific judge,

whereas others are left to chance. This inconsistency undermines Americans' faith in our judicial system. With a letter going on to flag single-judge districts in Texas, pointing to the Northern District of Texas as an especially egregious example, noting that even though there are more than a dozen judges in the district, civil cases are filed in many divisions that are always assigned to a single judge or to one of just a few. And that's very significant because it goes beyond just cases that impact Texas, right? This has major implications on federal policies that affect all Americans. And in an interview with the New York Times, Schumer specifically identified a very high profile and closely watched fight over abortion pills that is making its way through the

courts right now, where not only could that case seriously limit access to abortion pills, but also totally upend the way the FDA regulates all drugs. And while the matter is currently playing out in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, it originated in, you guessed it, Texas. With the anti-abortion group that brought the case literally incorporating itself in Amarillo, Texas just weeks after Roe was overturned

and moving quickly to bring the suit there. And this because the only federal judge who hears new civil cases in Amarillo is a Trump-appointed judge who is infamous for being sympathetic to conservative causes and has been openly critical of abortion. So it's a very clear stack-the-deck issue, one that's not talked about nearly enough.

And as far as if the judicial conference is gonna be willing to change its rules because some senators asked nicely, I mean, we're gonna have to wait to see. Though notably here, the senators did indicate in their letter that Congress is considering taking further actions to crack down on judge shopping if the initiative is not taken

by the judicial system itself. Also and other, the American legal system is totally fucked news. We have everyone's favorite judicial baddie Clarence Thomas making the rounds yet again. Though this news is a little bit different than Thomas's usual beep of pimping himself out to GOP sugar daddy mega donors. Because today, The Guardian reported that one of Thomas's top aides received Venmo payments from several lawyers who have had business before the Supreme Court. And that notably including one who just successfully argued in favor of ending affirmative action. According to the outlet, the Venmo payments appear to have been made

in connection to Thomas' 2019 Christmas party. With them saying they were able to track that down because the aide's Venmo account was literally public until The Guardian requested comment for the article. With the reporters saying that those now private transactions showed that the aide received seven payments in November and December of 2019 from lawyers who had previously served as Thomas' legal clerks. And while the amounts being paid were not disclosed there,

the purpose of each payment relates to the Christmas party and either explicitly mentions Thomas by name or appears to use his initials. Now, notably, according to the report, all of the lawyers and aides in question have declined to comment or not responded to requests to do so. You have experts saying these payments raise some red flags. This including from Richard Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer in George W. Bush's administration,

with Painter saying that it was not appropriate for private practice lawyers to essentially send money to the Supreme Court, and adding, there is no excuse for it. Thomas could invite them to his Christmas party, and he could attend Christmas parties as long as they are not discussing any cases. But adding, his Christmas party should not be paid for by lawyers.

A federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason, I don't see how that works. And so we're seeing increased concerns here, because if this is just one thing, it's one thing, but this is just the latest story around sugar baby Thomas, it's raised eyebrows. And that is where today's daily dive into the news ends. But for more news, you need to know I got you covered right here on the links down below. And if you've already watched everything, don't worry because my name is Philip DeFranco.

You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.