The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.20 Get These People Off TV If They're Going To Be This Dumb! Plus AOC Arrested, Student Loans, & More

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Go to http://butcherbox.com/defranco get 2 FREE Grass-Fed & Pasture-Raised Beef Ribeyes in every ButcherBox for a year! Shoutout to Keeps! Go to https://www.keeps.com/defranco to get 50% off your firs...t order of hair loss treatment. News You Might Have Missed: https://youtu.be/WYHN8hEWziM TEXT ME! +1 (813) 213-4423 Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ UK Anchor Prompts “Don’t Look Up” Comparisons For Wanting to be “Happy” About Heat: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bev-turner-heat-wave_n_62d799fbe4b0a6852c312720 Twitter’s Lawsuit Against Elon Musk to Head to Trial in the Fall: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/19/1112267017/elon-musk-twitter-trial-october Netflix Loses Roughly One Million Subscribers: https://roguerocket.com/2022/07/20/netflix-subscriber-loss-q2/ Dog Saved After Being Thrown Into Harlem River: https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/dog-saved-thrown-off-bridge-river-87115673 Group of Democratic Lawmakers Arrested Outside of Supreme Court: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/reps-ocasio-cortez-omar-democrats-arrested-abortion-rights-protest-rcna38956 House Votes to Codify Gay Marriage: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/19/house-codifies-same-sex-marriage/10099640002/ How To Contact Your Senator: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm U.S. Education Under Secretary Kvaal Outlines Efforts to Expand Student Loan Relief: https://roguerocket.com/2022/07/20/under-secretary-kvaal-expand-student-loan-relief/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, so you know how yesterday I was saying that climate change is making the world feel more and more like an action movie that we're all unwilling participants in? Well, today I saw something else and I was like, oh, this isn't an action movie. This is a dark comedy. Right, but maybe I'm wrong. Let's play a game of compare and contrast. First up, we have a clip from the Leonardo DiCaprio-Jennifer Lawrence movie, Don't Look Up. Sorry, are we not being clear? We're trying to tell you that the entire planet is about to be destroyed. Okay. Well, it's, you know, just something we do around here.
Starting point is 00:00:33 You know, we just keep the bad news light. And next up, we have a 100% real thing from the real world that happened. I think there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of excess deaths early next year charts that i can see in front of me are frightening so we all like nice weather but this will not be nice weather this will be potentially lethal weather for a couple of days it'll be brief but it'll be brutal so you know we can we oh so this is John, I want us to be happy about the weather and everything. I don't know whether something's happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom. Every time I've turned on, anyone's talking
Starting point is 00:01:16 about the weather. They're saying that there's going to be tons of fatalities. But haven't we always had hot weather, John? I mean, mean wasn't the 76 the summer of 76 that was as hot as this wasn't it uh no you know we are seeing more and more records more and more frequently and more and more severely i don't think we should be too lighted light-hearted about the fact that many are gonna die early next week because of the heat why so negative john it's just some sunshine ah we, we're doomed! I try to make the news light and consumable too, but that doesn't mean you put your head in the sand
Starting point is 00:01:48 and you just don't talk about the bad stuff. Like if I'm on some train tracks and a train's coming at me, please don't keep it light. Tell me to move. Be like, fucking idiot, there's a train. It's coming straight towards you. You know, understand this isn't summer fun warmth.
Starting point is 00:01:59 This is bad. For the first time on record, Great Britain reached temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, which is 104 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to fires breaking out. There are also fires breaking out all over Europe in places like Spain, France, and Greece. And in Portugal alone, they've already reported over a thousand deaths related to extreme weather. This is serious stuff with serious consequences. So that anchor Bev Turner can fuck herself with that let's just all chill out attitude. But hey, at least we're trapped on this runaway roller coaster together. At least we
Starting point is 00:02:24 have good company. But hey, buckle up, definitely hit that like button to celebrate somehow a XXL Philip DeFranco show from the road. Let's just jump into it. Then in the continuing and one of the messiest sagas of the year, we should talk about Elon Musk Twitter updates. Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 million, but then repeatedly expressed having cold feet, accusing Twitter of not being transparent about spam and bot accounts on the platform. Though Twitter has insisted it has handed all the necessary information over, which is why after Musk filed a dropout at the deal, Twitter followed up by hitting Musk with a lawsuit to force the purchase through.
Starting point is 00:02:59 With a suit claiming, Musk apparently believes that he, unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law, is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away. And just yesterday, we got the news that the lawsuit is actually going to go to trial in October, with this being seen as a win for Twitter, which requested a September trial and a loss for Musk, who wanted to push it to sometime next year. But in a ruling, Chancellor Kathleen McCormick, the chief judge at Delaware's Court of Chancery, said, The reality is that delay threatens irreparable harm to the sellers and Twitter. The longer the delay, the greater the risk.
Starting point is 00:03:27 And reportedly, the trial will go on for five days. You've got a Twitter spokesperson saying the company is pleased with the court's decision, which is unsurprising as the company definitely feared the long timeline that Musk asked for, thinking it would give him far too much time to badger his way out of the deal. Though on that side, you have Musk's team arguing that the extra time was necessary in order to analyze all the data involved. But even with a decision coming down in Twitter's favor, you have a lawyer representing Musk saying,
Starting point is 00:03:47 we'll be ready. So yeah, honestly, just grab some popcorn and let's see how this plays out. Because honestly, at this point, there are several ways this could go down, and it's going to be extremely interesting to watch. Then, we need to talk about the significance of Netflix losing nearly 1 million subscribers this quarter, and why they're actually happy about it. Right, notably, this comes after they lost 200,000 subscribers in the previous quarter, sending its stock on a downward spiral,
Starting point is 00:04:07 with this time around them losing 970,000 paying subscribers, which would make you go, holy shit, that's even worse. But from Netflix perspective, this is a huge W, because they were expecting to lose around two million subscribers. So for them, it's like they thought their wife fucked 10 guys, but it turns out it was only five. And while Netflix obviously not happy about that,
Starting point is 00:04:22 it seems that they're excited to go to counseling, that they're optimistic and hopeful, there are better days ahead. We could salvage this thing. With him saying in a letter to shareholders, we believe that we are going to add 1 million subscribers for its next quarter, which I don't know how that works out as far as the metaphor I was trying to use. Does that mean you get to have sex with five people or she unfucks five people? I'm going to abandon this metaphor, but the letter said, last quarter we discussed our slowing revenue growth, which we believe is the result of connected tv adoption account sharing competition and macro factors such as sluggish economic growth and the impacts of the war in
Starting point is 00:04:51 ukraine we've now had more time to understand these issues as well as how best to address them with the company outlining a few measures of success in its letter with the main takeaways for a lot of people being the upcoming plans regarding ads and password sharing saying that going forward the company will focus on better monetizing usage through both continued optimization of our pricing and tiering structures as well as the addition of a new lower priced ad supported tier regarding the ad tier the company noted that this cheaper version will complement already existing ad free plans that will remain ad free and notably there microsoft was previously announced as its tech and sales partner and this tier will likely be
Starting point is 00:05:18 available in early 2023 with netflix explaining that it will start in a handful of markets with high advertising spending then roll out as it learns more about how to improve the offering, and saying the advertising business in a few years will likely look quite different than what it looks like on day one. Though, I do want to note, a lot of the details regarding this plan are unknown right now. But, we do know that the ad sale reportedly will not immediately have access to all Netflix content, but it's unclear what those users will be missing. Which then brings us to paid sharing, the much more controversial of the new features. Right, so what we're looking at is Netflix wants to restrict users' ability to share
Starting point is 00:05:47 their passwords with people outside of their house, which means that if you use your parents or your siblings' Netflix, but you don't live with them, that could come in an additional fee. And according to several reports, in certain test countries, some users are being asked to pay a $2.99 fee to add a home to the account. And in its letter, Netflix explained that it's in the early stages of working to monetize the 100 million plus households that enjoy Netflix without directly paying for it. In adding, we have launched two different approaches in Latin America to learn more.
Starting point is 00:06:09 With this, of course, being one of the biggest about faces for Netflix, who has even previously memed on their social accounts about sharing passwords. But ultimately, that's where we are with this story right now, and it's gonna be a very interesting one to watch. Does Netflix, as they predict, bounce back, they gain subscribers instead of losing,
Starting point is 00:06:23 two quarters in a row? And also, what is the implementation and the reception of the ad tier as well as the attempted crackdown on password sharing look like? But while we wait, I do want to pass the question off to you. What do you think? One, what are your thoughts as a Netflix customer? And two, what are your thoughts as far as how other people are going to receive it? And then, you know how some people say you need the bad days to appreciate the good days? Sometimes you don't know that there are badass motherfuckers out there without some douchebags. And I say that because yesterday one unidentified asshole decided to throw a dog off a bridge into the Harlem River. Because I guess the world wasn't horrible enough
Starting point is 00:06:52 and they were like, let's make it that much more horrible. But luckily there was a good Samaritan that happened to be there who rushed to save the flailing animal. With a man crawling toward it, wrapping his legs around the beams. And then a marine unit from the fire department soon arriving and finding the person struggling to keep it afloat. Video then showing first responders taking over the dog perch just above the water. And finally, they get a rope around the animal. And as you can see, it's pulled into the boat. With them immediately bringing it to shore and getting it the care it needs. So hopefully one day it can be rehabilitated and find the douchebag who did this and bite their throat out. Who throws a dog into the river?
Starting point is 00:07:23 Like who read a story about people abandoning their dogs on the side of the highway and they're like, not fucked up enough. But a big shout out to the first responders and the BAMF who saved this dog, heroes in what feels like a time of monsters. But from that, I want to thank a sponsor of today's show, ButcherBox, for offering you beautiful bastards free ribeyes for a year. ButcherBox is a premium meat delivery service for those that enjoy high quality meats at the utmost convenience. 100% grass fed, beef, free range, organic, chicken, wild cost, seafood, and pork raised crate free at an affordable price. I've personally enjoyed cooking more as I've gotten back on my health goals. And our go-to with ButcherBox is the custom box. We can choose exactly what we get, right? Burgers,
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Starting point is 00:08:29 butcherbox.com slash defranco. We should also talk about how in a pretty unprecedented incident in modern times, 17 members of Congress were arrested yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court during a crackdown of an abortion rights protest, with this including Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Catherine Clark, Carolyn Maloney, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with a spokesperson for Pressley saying that her arrest was an act of non-violent civil disobedience. But 18 other people rounded up as well in addition to the lawmakers. And as far as this group, they had been blocking the street near the Supreme Court with Capitol Police issuing three warnings before coming in and arresting them for crowding and obstructing the area. You know, we saw a lot of praise for these 17 representatives,
Starting point is 00:09:02 with people saying things like, thank you to the brave women in Congress for standing up and representing women across America whose rights are being robbed by the Supreme Court. However, on the other side of this, you had right-wing people having this narrative that the entire thing was staged or in a best-case scenario performative. And as far as why a number of them thought that or were saying they thought that, it appeared to be for one or some of a number of reasons, saying they thought it was weird that the lawmakers would dress like lawmakers even if it was hot out, as well as some arguing that some of them, such as AOC, made the optics of the arrest worse by walking with her hands behind her back like she was handcuffed or zip-tied. And that seemed to be because many people believed that she actually was zip-tied and thought it was outrageous.
Starting point is 00:09:34 However, footage clearly shows that she was never placed in any kind of restraint. Although, AOC just clarified on Twitter saying she did this for safety, tweeting, No faking here. Putting your hands behind your back is a best practice while detained, handcuffed, or not to avoid escalating charges like resisting arrest. You know, this idea that this was all staged led to takes like, what was up with the staged arrest at the Capitol yesterday? LOL, AOC gets quote arrested and she can smile and wave at fans. American citizens protest and they get beaten, maced, and murdered on the Capitol steps. I guess that's what you call
Starting point is 00:10:00 white privilege. You know, because there's nothing more fun than bad faith comparisons to the insurrection. But let me be clear on something. Handcuffs or not, multiple members of Congress at the Capitol were arrested. And it's not hard to believe that 17 people in the House sincerely went out to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade, especially when some of them have done so repeatedly. Once again, to compare how they were treated to the people that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, that is either bad faith or just batshit insane. Like, how do you compare peacefully protesting and being an annoyance by blocking the street being comparable to attacking the US Capitol
Starting point is 00:10:28 with some having the intent to kill congressmen? We've got people living in a completely different, bizarro reality in this country. Also, regarding members of Congress, we should talk about how in other news we are looking at a very rare instance of Congress maybe doing a thing. And today, that thing is that the House passed
Starting point is 00:10:42 the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify gay marriage. With many seeing this as very, very important, because after the overturning of Roe, the Supreme Court has made it clear that it doesn't want the country to rely on court precedent to dictate laws, and would prefer if Congress just codifies things. Now, with how things usually work out, you might think this is DOA, but the bill has actually received a shocking amount of Republican support in the House. Though, you should understand when I say shocking, I just mean kinda some. With the bill passing 267 to 157, with 47 Republicans joining the Dems. But now the big obvious issue is the Senate, right? Is this going to actually get through? Because right now it's unclear if 10
Starting point is 00:11:13 Republicans are willing to defect and help the Dems get the 60 votes they need to pass the law. We've already seen some opposition from senators such as Marco Rubio, who call the bill a stupid waste of time. But notably, the Senate's version of the bill was co-sponsored by Susan Collins and Rob Portman, so that's two Republicans on board. With Portman reportedly having long been a supporter of gay marriage since his son came out a decade ago and added today that, quote, I think it's the right policy and I think it's the right message to send. We've also seen other Republicans dip their toe in the gay waters like Tom Tillis, who indicated that he, quote, probably will support the bill. And this is an issue that Republican lawmakers may actually listen to their constituents on because support for gay marriage across
Starting point is 00:11:46 America is 71% and a majority of Republicans also support the move not to mention that Independents who are a critical voter base for many Republican senators in purple states overwhelmingly support gay marriage So we'll say it might not seem like your voice is heard normally But if you have a Republican senator you should write to them things like this matter and it could be easier for them to break With the party on votes like this if they can point out that their constituents overwhelmingly support it, and or they fear that they could lose their fucking job. And so I'm going to leave a link down below for how you can contact your senator. But from that, I want to take a second to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Keeps.
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Starting point is 00:12:54 order. And then let's talk about everyone's favorite soul crushing topic, student loans. Right? This is a conversation that's dominated the national discourse, especially for much of Biden's presidency. But with a majority of Congress needed to actually do anything on this not doing it, the administration is now trying to take it into their own hands. This including a set of proposed regulations recently released by the Department of Education that would expand and improve existing student loan forgiveness programs. With those programs including debt relief for borrowers defrauded by their colleges, students who face to school closure, and those who are permanently disabled. The regulations would also expand the public service loan forgiveness program, which allows borrowers who work for at least 10 years in
Starting point is 00:13:27 non-profit or government jobs and meet other requirements to have their debt forgiven in full. These proposed changes come after years of complaints that these programs have confusing rules, are extremely hard to navigate, and are very poorly administered. That was just exacerbated by Trump-era policies that created even more obstacles. So as a result, the programs have failed to administer millions of dollars to eligible applicants who should have had their debts paid. And these newly proposed rules would work to address many of the problems with these programs
Starting point is 00:13:50 and what has been described as some of the most significant efforts to revamp these systems in years. So to try to get an idea of what the hell is going on with these proposals and other debt relief efforts, we reached out to Under Secretary of Education, James Qual, who has helped head this process, and we just jumped right into it.
Starting point is 00:14:02 So James, many of the people who are eligible for existing debt relief programs have had trouble accessing them. So I guess the question is, what do these proposed regulations actually do to help get assistance to the folks that are deserving it? The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you. Your regular side listens to classical music. Your adventurous side rocks out with the dynamic sound Yamaha.
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Starting point is 00:15:05 $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Well, we try and clarify who is eligible, and we also try and take away some of the obstacles that have existed in the past for using information we already have. So, for example, if you're permanently disabled, and we know that because you're getting benefits from Social Security, we can now use that information to discharge your student loan. We have about 350,000 borrowers in that situation. Can you give some other examples of like the people that could be helped by these changes? Yeah. So we're working very hard to help with public service loan forgiveness. And so a lot of people have gone into jobs working for government or working for a
Starting point is 00:15:51 nonprofit because they were promised help with their student loans. When we got to the department, only 7000 people had ever received public service loan forgiveness. So we're working really hard to make it easier to navigate the bureaucracy. And we're starting with, for example, doing data matches with federal employees so that if you work for the federal government, you have student loans, we're automatically crediting your service. You don't have to navigate our bureaucracy and fill out all the paperwork. In addition to the navigation, do the proposals expand any eligibility to the programs? Yeah. So one of the problems, particularly with public service loan forgiveness, is you had to have a specific type of loan and then you had to have a specific type of repayment plan. And it was very confusing. People got bad advice. Most people were not eligible. They had
Starting point is 00:16:32 to take additional steps to convert their loans or change repayment plans. And so we've been able to wipe away some of that paperwork. And if you had filled out the right form at the right time, you're now eligible. Now, there are some people that do need to take action to take advantage of these benefits. And so we're encouraging everyone to be in touch with us by October 31 to make sure that we can credit your account if you are eligible for help. And I mean, through the removal and trying to streamline things, does it also change the does the speed the speed things up? Well, it speeds up the process of getting the relief. It doesn't speed up the process of becoming eligible.
Starting point is 00:17:06 But again, the problem we had was the vast majority of people who were eligible just weren't able to navigate our systems. And so, you know, it was heartbreaking. You got here and you saw these people who were eligible for relief. They were permanently disabled. In some cases, they have been cheated by their for-profit college. They made career choices counting on this help, and they just weren't able to navigate our bureaucracy. And so we so far have been able to cancel the loans of
Starting point is 00:17:29 1.3 million borrowers just by getting them the benefits that they were already entitled to. I know that this is supposed to be just one part. The education department has said this is just one element of a broader effort to support a better student aid system. So I guess, can you tell us anything as far as anything else, any other ongoing work or any other plans that we might see in the near future? Yeah, well, of course, President Biden has extended the pause on student loan payments. That saved a typical borrower $4,400 so far, and also given us a little bit of time to try and address some of these longstanding problems that we've inherited. Another thing that is coming out soon is a new
Starting point is 00:18:06 repayment plan. And we're working on reducing monthly payments, especially people with low incomes. And we think this new plan will make student loans much, much more affordable. We'll be announcing the details of that in the coming weeks. And I mean, kind of on that note, right, is the department and the Biden administration looking to expand student loan forgiveness beyond the existing programs or anything that we've talked about so far? Well, we are looking at an across the board forgiveness. And we've talked about $10,000 for our borrowers as something that could be done by Congress. And we're examining whether we might have the authority to do that, even without an act of Congress.
Starting point is 00:18:40 So I guess because we are, we're about two years in, right? And so I guess the question is, I'm trying to think of how to say it in a way that's not doesn't come off wrong, but it's been two years. So, I mean, hasn't there been enough time to look into that? Well, we've been working hard on it. There's a lot of twists and turns. And I know that from the outside, this these seem like easy questions, but it's not a question of yes, you have the authority or no, you don't have the authority. There's a lot of hoops we have to go through. And, you know, before we hopped into this interview, I was I was looking through a few articles. And is there anything that you can talk about as far as your work on doing Trump era regulations that were harmful when it came to loans and forgiveness? Yeah. So one real challenge that we've had is for profit colleges. And you would like to think that all colleges and universities are dedicated to an idealistic
Starting point is 00:19:30 mission of serving their students well. But unfortunately, what we've seen is a lot of for-profit colleges using deceptive recruiting and false promises and leaving hundreds of thousands of students with loans they can't afford to repay. And the efforts to clean up this mess were dismantled by the Trump administration. They repealed these rules. They sat on claims for borrowers for years and years. And so that's something we've been working really, really hard to clean up. We've canceled the loans entirely for 800,000 borrowers. And these are people who were cheated by schools like Corinthian Colleges and other sort of well-known colleges engaged in widespread fraud and other illegal activity. And we're putting in place new rules to try and make sure this never happens again, because these are people who, you know, they're doing what society tells them to do. They're going to college. They're trying to build
Starting point is 00:20:18 a better life for themselves and their families. And unfortunately, they chose poorly. People who were supposed to protect them, let them down. And they were left with a lot of debt and nothing to show for it. And I know, obviously, like when you talk about that, it involves like the worst actors. But regarding debt relief in general, or just the college system in general, does it does it feel like where you are that you can implement something that can help people moving forward? Because a lot of right. We're talking about people that are already in debt. But the real problem is going to be how expensive college is. It's gone up at a rate that's impossible to keep up with.
Starting point is 00:20:56 And so does it I don't know if there's fully a question. Does it just feel like we're adding a bandaid to the situation? And, you know, the bleeding is just not going to stop. Well, we have to do both because of the 40 million people with debt, a lot of them have loans they can't afford. Like we're adding a Band-Aid to the situation and the bleeding is just not going to stop. Well, we have to do both because of the 40 million people with debt, a lot of them have loans they can't afford. But these policies we're talking about are permanent policies. So we want to make sure that when people are protected by for-profit colleges, when they get relief because they're in public service, that's not a one-time thing. Those are permanent improvements to those programs. And then going forward, we do need to invest in financial aid.
Starting point is 00:21:27 We need to make college more affordable up front. We need to help more students graduate. Our national graduation rate is about 60%. So there are a lot of things we can do going forward because, you know, really colleges and universities are one of the most important institutions our country has for upward mobility and for equitable opportunity. So we want to be able to say to people, if you go to college, that's a route to a better life. It's not going to be drained away by student debt. Okay. And is there any final thing, I guess, regarding the proposals or what we're seeing right now that you'd like to
Starting point is 00:22:00 share with myself or my audience? Because this is, like you said, it's a very involved and complicated situation. I might be blind to some of the really important things here. So I always like to try and give people a minute to explain. Yeah. Well, look, I think President Biden is really trying to rethink fundamentally, how do we pay for college? And the reality is student debt is unaffordable for a lot of people. Young people start their lives thinking that they can't afford to pursue the career that they want or they can't afford to buy a home. We see large racial disparities.
Starting point is 00:22:33 So we need to think about how we're going to pay for the college opportunities we want to give people. And for President Biden, that means doubling Pell Grant scholarships. It means free community college. We do need the help of Congress to get those things done. But in the meantime, we're thinking very aggressively within the Department of Education what we can do with our authority. And that means when people are eligible to have their loans canceled, we want to make sure that they can get it and they don't get stuck in our bureaucracy. It means we can cut the cost of monthly payments.
Starting point is 00:23:00 And we think that is going to deliver really substantial benefits to millions of Americans. James, thank you for the time. Phil, I really appreciated it. Thanks for having me on. But ultimately, that is where that story and today's show ends. And of course, whether it be this final story, an interview, or any of the things I talked about today, I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below. And thanks again for being a part of that conversation, subscribing for these daily dives into the news, which, by the way, if you want more news, I got you covered here and here.
Starting point is 00:23:22 But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.

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