The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.31 Why People Are Freaking Out On Mario Lopez, Carissa Pinkston, RIP Grant Thompson, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Wednesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. And a quick note before we start, I still get asked what is the best way to support this show, especially since we're a show that constantly gets demonetized. And what I always say is, you know, there's a lot of different ways. We bust our butts to make sure that we have sponsorships to make up for things. But really the best and easiest way to support the show is with a paid subscription at DeFrancoElite.com. Some set it and forget it, others take advantage of perks like some early videos, extra access,

Starting point is 00:00:25 and all of it of course helps support what we're doing here and over on Rogue Rocket. But with that said, let's just jump into it. The first things we're gonna talk about today, we actually have two bits of trans news that have a lot of people up in arms. And the first is a situation involving a model by the name of Carissa Pinkston.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Carissa has worked for major brands like Marc Jacobs and Rihanna's Savage by Fenty line. And she had recently popped up in the news for comments that she appeared to have made on Facebook. Those screenshots reading, "'Being transgender does not make you a woman. "'It makes you simply transgender.'" And then going on to say,

Starting point is 00:00:51 "'Being transgender does make you a woman "'in a transgender context according to gender and not sex. "'This is how they want to be perceived. "'In a biological context, there are females and males. "'This is the world in 2019.'" So she made those comments, there was a lot of backlash, and then she posted this to Instagram. I wasn't ready to come out about it yet,

Starting point is 00:01:08 but today I got fired and I've been receiving hate mail and death threats ever since, so I'm being forced to tell the truth. I'm transgender. I transitioned at a very young age and I've lived my life as a female ever since. It's been very hard to keep this secret, but what I said about trans women is a direct reflection

Starting point is 00:01:22 of my inner insecurities and I have since come to realize that I am a woman, we all are." Now that post has since been deleted, and there's a big reason why. Many people, including models in the industry, who claim to know her personally, called her out saying she is not actually transgender. This including Elise Wilson,

Starting point is 00:01:36 who commented on Carissa's post saying she does not know how she got sex reassignment surgery at a young age. Also saying she had seen baby photos of Carissa, she had seen her naked, and that even though they have many trans friends, this conversation had never been brought up. And going on to say that she would fully support Carissa if this were true, but ended the comment by saying,

Starting point is 00:01:52 "'But she's lying about being transgender.'" Erin Phillip, who is a transgender model, tweeted about Carissa's post saying, "'Imagine being a model who got exposed "'for being a raging transphobe, "'saying extremely transphobic shit in the past "'and then resorting to lying about being transgender online for clout in an attempt to save your career.

Starting point is 00:02:07 I know this person in real life and she is so cisgender. And then a few days later, Carissa posted another screenshot to Instagram addressing the lie, apologizing for the transphobic remark, adding, I panicked and thought if I came out as trans that I could somehow make things better for myself, but it appears I've only made things worse. Correct, it has.

Starting point is 00:02:24 Adding, I'm truly sorry, I'm only 20 and I'm human. Because, you know, they don't tell you till you're 21 to not fake being trans. Okay, I'll stop being too snarky. I make mistakes, but I refuse to let them define me. I hope you can all forgive me and move on from this because I'm so much more than this incident and I'm not a coward.

Starting point is 00:02:38 I'm taking some time to reflect on my actions and I hope you can all try to understand. That post has also now been deleted, but she did continue to post to her Instagram stories claiming she was not transphobic because she has trans friends. Also posting photos of her with Euphoria actress, Hunter Schafer, who was a trans woman.

Starting point is 00:02:52 In that post saying, "'Fuck these haters trying to make me look bad. I've been friends with Hunter way before all these comments and now she won't even talk to me. You don't know what it's like to lose all your friends behind a misunderstanding." And of course, following this, there was more and more anger and disgust

Starting point is 00:03:04 regarding her actions. But that is also not where this story ends because yesterday, Carissa decided, yes, it would be completely fine to talk to Buzzfeed News. Buzzfeed saying that she initially wanted to be paid for the interview, but still answered the questions after they declined to compensate her. And in that, she reportedly told the outlet, quote,

Starting point is 00:03:19 "'I definitely feel like a trans person in a way. "'In high school, I was really bullied. "'I remember being in school, being little, and taking tissues and trying to put them in my shirt. And that's where it is, as far as why she said she lied. Saying the only reason I had lied was because of the death threats and I was scared, so I thought they would accept me only if I said I was trans. And that is that story. And of course, I'd love to know your thoughts on that story, whether it be via the poll or just in the comments down below. But also the other bit of trans news we saw out there today

Starting point is 00:03:47 was around Mario Lopez. People seemingly trying to cancel AC Slater for an interview that he gave. Some of the initial posts about this reading, Mario Lopez says letting your children transition genders is dangerous and sort of alarming. Yep, Mario Lopez says letting children be trans may have dangerous repercussions.

Starting point is 00:04:01 And as far as the clip in question, it came from the Candace Owens show. And this is what we see said. I'm trying to understand this new Hollywood mentality where they just think that their children now have the mental authority and clarity. I am trying to understand it myself. Please don't lump me into that hole.

Starting point is 00:04:21 No, no, no. I see you're not doing that in your household. No, I mean, I'm kind of blown away too. Look, I'm never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids, obviously. And I think if you come from a place... Maybe you should though because you seem to be doing something right.

Starting point is 00:04:34 Well, thanks. And I would say if you come from a place of love, you really can't go wrong. But at the same time, my God, if you're three years old and you're saying you're feeling a certain way

Starting point is 00:04:42 or you think you're a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be, I just think it's dangerous as a parent to make that determination then, okay, well then you're gonna be a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be. And it's sort of alarming, and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on.

Starting point is 00:04:59 And PragerU promoted that clip with a caption, evidently it's now scandalous to say that a child probably shouldn't be making their own life altering decisions at three years old. But following the interview going out, reports about it, we saw people outraged at Lopez, then also people defending Lopez.

Starting point is 00:05:13 Although one of the standout responses that a lot of people have been pointing to is Karamo from the Fab Five on Queer Eye. He tweeted, I'm disappointed to read Mario Lopez's comments about parents who support their child's openness about their gender identity. As a social worker, I am trained to identify abuse or neglect of a child healthy and safe dialogue with kids is neither abusive neglectful or dangerous Then also adding I don't think Mario Lopez should be canceled

Starting point is 00:05:33 But I do believe he should be given the opportunity to learn why his comments are harmful to trans youth and their parents Mario I'm ready to talk when you are and ultimately what we ended up seeing in this situation is Lopez ended up walking his comments back Saying in a statement to ET Canada, "'The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, "'and I now have a deeper understanding "'of how hurtful they were. "'I have been and always will be an ardent supporter "'of the LGBTQ community,

Starting point is 00:05:54 "'and I'm going to use this opportunity "'to better educate myself. "'Moving forward, I will be more informed and thoughtful.'" But ultimately that is where we are with this story right now. It's been interesting to see all the different responses here. And of course with this story,

Starting point is 00:06:04 I of course pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around this? But from that, you know, today's show was, I was planning to have a, hey, yay, YouTubers going into the mainstream sort of news. You have David Dobrik reportedly co-hosting the Teen Choice Awards. You know, you have Lilly Singh's late night show

Starting point is 00:06:18 premiering soon, they announced the date last week. But unfortunately the main kind of YouTube focus news today is very sad. 38 year old Grant Thompson, the creator behind the popular YouTube channel, The King of Random, died in a paragliding accident on Monday. This news broke and actually the confirmation of it happened on The King of Random Instagram page

Starting point is 00:06:35 and YouTube channel. You know, my initial reaction I think was like a lot of others, I was hoping he had just been hacked. This was not real, but then we started seeing more reports and confirmation. And as far as any details we know about the situation, Thompson's brother reportedly told TMZ that authorities in Utah discovered his body on Tuesday.

Starting point is 00:06:50 This after he didn't return from a paragliding trip near Sand Hollow State Park. According to a statement from authorities, rescue teams were alerted of a missing paraglider on Monday night after a caller reported Thompson missing. That caller reportedly saying that he was overdue by one hour, saying that they were unable to reach him on his cell phone.

Starting point is 00:07:03 Eventually authorities were able to obtain the last known GPS coordinates from Thompson's phone, which was used by volunteers and rescue teams to locate his body. As of right now, officials are still working to determine what caused this accident, and this will include a review of all footage from the paragliding equipment.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And of course, following this news, there were a ton of reactions from fans, friends, and fellow creators. And here, what I would say regarding Grant, I did not know him extremely well, but I will say the few times we spoke in person, you could just immediately tell how unique, smart and passionate he was.

Starting point is 00:07:30 I don't just mean about creating content, I mean about life, about the people around him. And obviously with this just horrible news, my heart goes out to his friends, his family. I think the only appropriate way to end this horrible story is by repeating a note from the actual post where we learned this horrible news that post reading please do a random act of love or kindness today in honor of the king of random

Starting point is 00:07:49 grant's legacy will live on in the channel and the global community he created because i think that comes back to something we unfortunately have to talk about now and then that our lives and our impact in this world they they live past this body we live on to some degree and the people that we have had an impact on, whether however small or large. And so think, what's a random act of love or kindness you can show today? Then briefly, I had a lot of people asking me to cover last night's democratic debate.

Starting point is 00:08:14 And to that, what I will say is right now, there's just still so many people. There were 10 people last night. There are gonna be 10 people tonight. But something I will say is if I was to crudely oversimplify and squish everything together, a lot of what we're seeing at this point are the far more progressive candidates duking it out with the far more centrist candidates. And this was something we saw showcased multiple times throughout the night,

Starting point is 00:08:34 but probably most notably in this spat between Elizabeth Warren and John Delaney. You know, I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for. It was a moment that later, while on Fox News, Delaney complained was dishonest and lazy. Still, it was one of the standout moments of the night. It kind of summarized 80% of what happened. And tonight, there's going to be a round two with Biden, Harris, and others. Although I will say it'll be interesting to see if this time Biden is ready to be called not racist,

Starting point is 00:09:06 but maybe racist. He didn't really appear to be on his A game when Harris hit him with busing last time. But hey, like I said, we're just gonna have to wait and see. With that said, the last thing we're gonna talk about today is the crisis at the US-Mexico border and family separation. And that's because yesterday the ACLU filed court documents calling on a federal judge to block the Trump administration

Starting point is 00:09:23 from separating migrant families, which is a practice that goes against a federal court ruling made last year. And for some quick context here, back in June of 2018, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration had to stop its policy of separating migrant children from their families. And in fact, that same month, Donald Trump himself

Starting point is 00:09:37 issued an executive order to end family separations, except in cases where parents may pose a risk to their child. But still, according to the ACLU, the Trump administration is still separating families and more than 900 children, including babies, have been separated from their parents since the court ruling and executive order were both issued.

Starting point is 00:09:51 According to that ACLU court filing, the government is systematically separating large numbers of families based on minor criminal history, highly dubious allegations of unfitness and errors in identifying bona fide parent-child relationships. With the ACLU also saying that the original court ruling from June of 2018 specified that children could be separated from parents who had criminal histories,

Starting point is 00:10:09 but that did not include immigration offenses. And the document says, "'The court made clear, however, "'that it was not blessing separations "'based on any criminal history, regardless of gravity. "'Rather, the court's decision relied on traditional "'due process and child custody standards, "'which permit the drastic step of separating a child

Starting point is 00:10:23 "'and parent only where the criminal history is so significant that it bears on whether the parent is a danger to the child or is an unfit parent. With the ACLU going on to say that the government is separating young children based on such offenses as traffic violations, misdemeanor property damage, and disorderly conduct violations. Some of the separations are for offenses

Starting point is 00:10:40 that took place many years ago, and some are for mere allegations or arrests without conviction. They also say that the families have been separated based on the government's assertion that the parent does not appear to be doing a proper job parenting or that the parent has not sufficiently proven his or her relationship to the child.

Starting point is 00:10:54 The ACLU also noting that the children being separated from their families were increasingly younger than before. According to the filing, 481 children, more than half of those separated were under the age of 10, and around 20% of the separated children were under five years old, which is a huge increase from last year when only 4% of children separated were under the age of 10 and around 20% of the separated children were under five years old, which is a huge increase from last year when only 4% of children separated were under five.

Starting point is 00:11:09 The ACLU then goes on to provide lots of examples of children being separated from their parents for reasons they believe violate the court's previous ruling. Also of note here, the examples don't come just from research conducted by the ACLU, but rather they were given to the ACLU by the Trump administration as part of a court ruling. And according to the ACLU here,

Starting point is 00:11:24 of the 911 separations, 678 of them were because of alleged criminal history. Saying the data on family separations the administration gave them consisted of lists with the name of the parent who was separated from their child and quote, "'A cryptic, summarized reason for the separation, "'often just a few words or a line of text

Starting point is 00:11:40 "'that states the allegations against the parent.' "'And sometimes the entry will simply be "'due to parents' criminal history "'with no further explanation.'" Also saying in addition to minimal information, that states the allegations against the parent, and sometimes the entry will simply be due to parent's criminal history with no further explanation. Also saying in addition to minimal information, it doesn't include key data like how old the convictions are.

Starting point is 00:11:50 Noting that only 179 cases provided reliable date information, and adding that the most recent dated charge was on average 10 years old. And with the specific examples they gave, they had one where a child was separated from their parent because of a false police report hit and run conviction from 26 years ago.

Starting point is 00:12:04 Another parent was separated from their child based on a three day jail sentence for misdemeanor assault from 20 years ago. The ACLU also saying that despite the fact that the court had explicitly decided that parents couldn't be separated from their children because of immigration offenses, the quote, list of separations reports hundreds of cases that include such convictions as part of the reasons for separation, including cases where the unlawful entry or re-entry conviction was combined with other minor offenses such as DUIs or traffic offenses. The ACLU also provided examples of separation based off of parents being unfit. In one example, a dad was separated from his three young children because he had HIV.

Starting point is 00:12:35 And here the ACLU says despite requests, the government still never explained why being HIV positive made the dad a threat to his children. Another example was a five-year-old being separated from a mother because the mother broke a leg at the border and was briefly hospitalized for emergency surgery.

Starting point is 00:12:48 Also in another case, a father in a detention center was separated from a one-year-old daughter because he didn't want to wake up his daughter to change her wet diaper. And outside of this, you had other parents separated from their children because border patrol agents didn't believe that they were actually the parents. In one case provided, border patrol separated a father

Starting point is 00:13:01 from his three-year-old daughter because his name wasn't on her birth certificate, despite the fact that he had other proof that he was her father. And reportedly the agents who took away his daughter refused to give him a paternity test. Now lawyers did eventually intervene and they were able to confirm that he was in fact the father

Starting point is 00:13:13 but during the time that they were separated, his three-year-old daughter reportedly was sexually abused in government care. The ACLU also said that 44 parents were separated from their children because of alleged connections to gangs. But they also note that this included examples like a mother who was separated from her two children because she, quote, ate at a restaurant frequented

Starting point is 00:13:27 by gang members. Another mother was separated from her child because she was seen leaving a store, quote, while a group of gang members were being arrested nearby. Another mother reportedly had her child taken from her because the mother had been abused by a gang member. And of note here, the ACLU's filing comes just a few weeks after acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan

Starting point is 00:13:43 said in testimony before a House committee that family separations were, quote, "'rare' and made only in the interest of the child,' adding, "'This is carefully governed. "'It's overseen by a supervisor "'when those decisions are made.'" But the ACLU disagrees, and their filing asks that the court come up with more specifically

Starting point is 00:13:57 outlined standards for separating families, especially because they argue that the current ruling seems to have given too much power to Border Patrol agents to decide who should be separated. And to that point, League Alert, lead attorney in the family separation lawsuit, and deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants Rights Project, said in an interview,

Starting point is 00:14:11 they're taking what was supposed to be a narrow exception for cases where the parent was genuinely a danger to the child and using it as a loophole to continue family separation. What everyone understands intuitively and what the medical evidence shows, this will have a devastating effect on the children and possibly cause permanent damage to these children,

Starting point is 00:14:26 not to mention the toll on the parents. But ultimately, that is where we are with the story right now. It's gonna be interesting to see how this develops, the situation at the border develops, and of course, with this, I'd love to know your thoughts on it, both in the comments down below as well as via the poll.

Starting point is 00:14:39 And that's where we're going to end today's show. And hey, remember, if you like Dive Into The News with us, let us know, take a second to hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these d dive into the news with us, let us know, take a second to hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these dives into the news, be sure to hit subscribe, definitely click that bell to turn on notifications. Also, if you're not 100% filled in,

Starting point is 00:14:52 your brain is still hungry, you can watch our last deep dive, or maybe you missed yesterday's Philip DeFranco show, you can click or tap right there to watch that too. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in, I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.31 Why People Are Freaking Out On Mario Lopez, Carissa Pinkston, RIP Grant Thompson, & More

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