The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 9.16 Youtuber Mysteriously Disappears, Dobrik, Nikita Dragun "Outing" Backlash, Nicki Minaj, & More

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Save time on your work and emails with Grammarly! Sign up for a free account and get 20% off Grammarly Premium: https://grammarly.com/defranco Watch More News: https://youtu.be/stAhOsCP3To TEXT ME! [phone] Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco -- 00:00 - Fiancé Named a POI in Gabby Petito Case 02:40 - Woman Receives Settlement from Philly 05:10 - David Dobrik Returns to Podcast 07:13 - Nikita Dragun Faces Backlash 08:08 - TikTok Blocking “Devious Lick” Trend 09:31 - Health Officials Condemn Nicki Minaj 13:19 - The Booster Debate -- ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Fiancé Named a Person of Interest in Disappearance of Gabby Petito: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fianc-identified-person-interest-disappearance-new-york-woman-police-say-n1279259 Philadelphia Will Pay $2M to Black Woman Beaten by Officers Whose Child Was Used in a Pro-Police Social Media Post: https://roguerocket.com/2021/09/16/rickia-young/ David Dobrik Returns to Podcast: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/david-dobrik-faces-backlash-over-views-podcast-return-after-5-month-break-1654422/ Nikita Dragun Faces Backlash for Putting DMs in Music Video: https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/nikita-dragun-seemingly-outs-tyga-leaks-their-dms-news.139286.html TikTok Works To Block “Devious Lick” Trend That Has Kids Stealing School Equipment: https://roguerocket.com/2021/09/16/devious-licks/ Health Officials Condemn Nicki Minaj’s Tweets: https://roguerocket.com/2021/09/16/health-officials-condemn-nicki-minaj/ Confusing Narrative Forms Around Need for Boosters: https://roguerocket.com/2021/09/16/bidens-plan-boosters/ —————————— Executive Producer - Amanda Morones Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright Art Director: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Cory Ray, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Neena Pesqueda Production Team: Zack Taylor ———————————— #DeFranco #NickiMinaj #DavidDobrik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you absolutely beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show I'm calling this the first official episode of season 15 of the PDS merely because I'm just I'm too lazy to move this stuff Also side note happy. I'll think this is the case Not a green screen. Hey, let's start things off on a super positive note Let's see if this episode can get a hundred thousand likes hit that like button If you're new here, subscribe, join the family and let's just jump into it. The first bit of news, the first story we need to talk about

is about Gabrielle Petito, which is a 22 year old woman who left for a cross country trip on July 2nd with her fiance, but never returned. Her fiance, 23 year old Brian Laundrie reportedly coming back alone to his home in Florida on September 1st, driving the white van that they used on trips that were shared with their hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers.

They'd also recently started a new YouTube channel documenting their van life journey. What we ended up seeing here is that 10 days after Brian returned, Gabby's family reported her missing, saying that they hadn't had contact with her since the last week of August. And since then, we've seen Brian decline to talk to police or cooperate with investigators at the advice of his lawyer.

Because he seems to be the last person who has seen Gabby, he's now been declared a person of interest in her disappearance, but also notably, he has not been charged with anything yet. While right now we don't have a ton of details regarding the case yet, there has been some indication that the two were having issues with each other during the trip.

This in part because according to a police report, authorities in Utah responded to a domestic violence call involving the couple on August 12th. Also with that, over an hour's worth of body cam footage has been released showing the encounter. The footage showing the couple getting pulled over after speeding and hitting a curb. You have Gabby telling officers that she'd been fighting

with Brian all morning, saying that when she tried to get his attention about the police siren, she hit him and caused him to swerve. Brian, who reportedly had an injury on the side of his head, also told police that they were arguing that he wanted to create space between them, so he locked the van and wanted them to go for walks in opposite directions. Claiming that Gabby then tried to get the keys and hit him,

so he pushed her back. Gabby also tells police that he grabbed her face, but did not hit her, though she admits to hitting him. And throughout the footage, she is clearly very emotional. One officer even noting in his report that she could not stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands.

But also the couple ultimately stressed that they did not want to escalate this issue any further since they were in love and engaged. Ryan describing the incident as a mental health break, not a domestic assault. So no charges were filed though, an officer ended up convincing them to have Brian stay at a hotel for the night while Gabby stayed

in the van to reset. And from there, we know that Gabby was last seen checking out of a hotel with Brian in Utah on August 24th. Her last call to her mom came the following day. And while there were texts from her phone sent a few days later, it is unclear if they were actually sent by Gabby. And as of right now, that is pretty much all we know. Investigators have already seized the van and relatives are still working to search for Gabby. And as of right now, that is pretty much all we know. Investigators have already seized the van

and relatives are still working to search for Gabby. And for now we're seeing anyone with information on this case being asked to connect with investigators. But yeah, that is where we are right now. And of course I think most people have three massive questions. What happened to Gabrielle? Where is she?

And why is the fiance not talking? What does he know and what happened? Then from that very concerning story, let's talk about a story that is very likely gonna piss you off. And so where this story starts is with this very viral photo and this happened. Then from that very concerning story, let's talk about a story that is very likely gonna piss you off. And so where this story starts is with this very viral photo and this post. It was posted on Facebook in late October of last year

by the National Fraternal Order of Police, the country's largest police labor union, with their caption reading, "'This child was lost during the violent riots "'in Philadelphia, wandering around barefoot "'in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness,' and saying, the only thing "'this Philadelphia police officer cared about

in that moment was protecting this child. We are not your enemy. We are the thin blue line. We are the only thing standing between order and anarchy. That post impacting so many people, it was heartwarming. Maybe you got fuzzy feelings, but that is where the fuzzy feelings end. Because as it turns out, this child wasn't actually

out there roaming the streets instead. Then 28 year old nursing aide, Rekia Young, said that the police ripped her two year old from her vehicle and then posed with him sometime later for that post. Right, and as far as the circumstances and how the police got this child, according to one of Young's attorneys,

Young was heading to West Philly to pick up her 16 year old nephew because he lived near the epicenter of the protests that were happening that night. While doing that, reportedly she came across a group of protesters blocking the street in a standoff with police. From there, police ordered her to turn back with her attorney saying that she complied,

but that she paused at one point as to not hit protesters running by her car. With that, Young's attorneys claimed the police then swarmed her vehicle, broke her windows with batons before pulling her and her nephew out of the vehicle. And according to multiple outlets, they then began beating her.

She later suffered swelling of her face and body as well as a swollen trachea. Also, notably police never ended up citing either of the two. But despite that, four hours, Young was separated from her child, who also ended up losing his hearing aids. On top of that, she was without her car for days.

With Young's attorneys going back to that post, saying that they're attempting to erase what happened, police brutality, and turn it into police saviorism, calling it another deep wound that they cut. And we ended up seeing the National Fraternal Order of Police ultimately deleting that post with her child after they learned what the real story was. As one Philly city council member noted,

"'Who knows how many people there are "'who've seen that original image, "'but never actually understood that parent was not involved "'in some type of looting situation "'as it was displayed unfortunately on social media.'" And actually with all of this, the reason we're talking about this nearly a year later is that we're getting the news that Philly plans

to pay Young a $2 million settlement. With that, both an officer and a sergeant have both been fired in connection to their treatment of Young that night. Another 14 are awaiting disciplinary hearings that stem from an internal investigation into the incident. And you also have Young's attorneys calling for the DA to file criminal charges against those officers saying,

"'If any citizen did something like this, "'there would be no question they will be charged "'with aggravated assault as a felony.'" But ultimately regarding those potential charges as well as the 14 disciplinary hearings, we're gonna have to keep our eyes on this. You know with this story, I'd love to know your thoughts on the situation in general. Do you remember that photo in this whole situation?

Then in internet backlash news, we had David Dobrik and Nikita Dragun for two wildly different reasons. The first with David is essentially a continuation of the backlash we saw when he came back with his vlog. Great most all of his audience incredibly happy, over the moon, people that don't support him very angry. But this time it's specifically being about David coming back with his podcast views. The last episode being about five months ago, of course he had all those controversies and scandals. If YouTube is your platform of choice,

you may not even be aware that it came back and that's because it's not on YouTube, just the audio version has gone up. With some confused why he went about it this way, but if I was to guess, if there was any thought put into this, this is part of any sort of strategy, I imagine this has to do with Dobrik not posting anywhere

where numbers may not be on his side. Right, well, the quality of his apologies were vastly different, the first going on his podcast channel, the second going on his main channel. If Dobrik posts in a place where he doesn't have a massive, massive audience, it makes it very easy to get brigaded and downvoted. In a world where public perception and public opinion

is a massive, massive thing, people very much follow trends. That could be part of the reason, especially because if you see comments off of his channel, a lot of people are really not happy to see this. But that has only gotten some attention, right? It's a continued recovery from previous scandals and controversies, and Nikita has very much gotten a spotlight on her. That's because Dragon, who's one of the biggest trans creators out there, recently put out a video where it appears that she exposed numerous people, showing alleged screenshots of DMs that she had with men, some who are celebrities, with one of the biggest names that people have focused on being Tyga. The number of people arguing like this isn't your everyday exposed story, right? This is outing somebody publicly. Something that's a very sensitive issue with a lot of people,

but especially with the LGBTQ plus community. With a number of people seemingly trying to understand where she's coming from but still disappointed. Writing, okay, I understand the optics of being mad that someone will never claim you in public but what Nikita did to Tyga is not cool. And going on to say trans attracted does not equal gay. He likes women that's why he texted you in the first place. But it's also been used by a number of people defending Nikita saying that this is not an outing because trans women are women. So with this situation where you have a line drawn, people seeing it completely different, you have people firing back and forth. And so with that, I do wanna pass the question off to you.

Do you see this as an outing? Yes, no, why, why not? I'd love to hear from you. But from that, I wanna take a quick second to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Grammarly. You know, Grammarly is a digital assistant helping people write more clearly and effectively with its all-in-one writing tool

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and get 20% off Grammarly premium today to help you save time and work more efficiently. Then we should definitely talk about the devious licks TikTok trend, which when that first hit my ear, I was like, this could be fun to do with the wife. But as I disappointedly then learned devious lack, devious lacks.

But as I then disappointedly learned, devious licks is in reference to impressive thefts that people then show off in TikToks. Often doing this at their own schools. Some standout examples include kids stealing school projectors, street signs, microscopes, pretty much anything you can imagine. But a lot of students seemingly targeting

their school bathrooms, which is why we've seen people stealing paper towel dispensers, even entire toilets and sinks. Sometimes leaving bathrooms totally unusable and obviously school officials are not happy. Right, they're destroying schools, they're low on equipment that's expensive to repair, replace. With this we've seen many issue letters and statements

warning kids to stop this behavior. Some threatening suspensions and have said that families will be responsible for the cost of damage caused by their children. Meanwhile, you have others even promising to get law enforcement involved, which, I mean, this is a crime. One that has raised so many concerns

that TikTok even issued a statement yesterday saying, "'We are removing this content, "'redirecting hashtags and search results "'to our community guidelines "'and discourage such behavior.'" And really the only thing that I can say with this story is, don't be stupid, stupid. Right, there's committing crimes,

and understand I'm not saying go out there and commit crimes, but there's committing crimes, and then there's committing crimes and filming it, and then posting it to the internet. Right, something I've said for now 15 years, Philip DeFranco's number one rule of committing crimes. Don't make it that easy for them to find out that it's you. What are you doing?

Don't be stupid, stupid. Then in how is this news still going strong news? Let's talk about Nicki Minaj and her cousin's friend's alleged swollen testicles. Like I thought this was a quick ha ha story where I got to Photoshop some pictures of me and Nicki in the lab. But now several days later, we are still talking about this,

which just as a quick side note, this might possibly be Nicki Minaj is putting on a masterclass in PR and media manipulation. Because you might not remember this because this story has been blown up so much regarding the vaccine stuff. As of last Thursday, all the news that was coming out about Nicki Minaj was about her husband

recently pleading guilty to not registering as a sex offender in California and facing up to 10 years in prison. He pled guilty last Thursday, turns out the same day that Nicki Minaj announced that she wasn't going to the VMA saying, "'I'll explain later.'" With people then seriously,

but then also not so seriously memeing that the reason she couldn't go is that the venue was near a Chuck E. Cheese. But now because of Nicki Minaj's social media blitz about vaccines, that story, it's not even on the back burner. It's like fallen behind the couch. With people still talking about her Monday tweet

where she said, my cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine because his friend got it and became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married. Now the girl called off the wedding. Right to which most people responded, sounds like some guy got an STI, tried to blame the vaccine so his girl wouldn't leave him.

And since then we've seen Fauci go on TV, say that there's no evidence, the CDC coming out, reiterating there's no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems in women or men. Since reporting this, it's also become an international story, with Trinidad and Tobago's health minister speaking Wednesday on TV. It's truck month at GMC. Tackle the open road with added confidence in a 2025 sierra 1500 pro graphite at zero percent financing for up to 72 months with an available 5.3 liter v8 engine 20 inch high gloss black painted aluminum wheels off-road suspension with available two inch factory installed lift kit plus a towing capacity of up to 13 200 pounds you'll be ready for anything this truck month truck month is on

now ask your gmC dealer for details. It won't take long to tell you neutrals ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. And unfortunately we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim. As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad or I dare say Dr. Heinz anywhere else. None

that we know of anywhere else in the world. And all this has also led to Nicki Minaj, her barbs and the White House feuding. With Nicki tweeting yesterday, "'The White House has invited me "'and I think it's a step in the right direction. "'Yes, I'm going. "'I'll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde "'so they know I mean business. "'I'll ask questions on behalf of the people

"'who have been made fun of for simply being human.'" But then you had a White House official countering that tweet saying they simply offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of the doctors to answer questions about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. Right, so not like this big event, an actual White House visit, and so then Nicki slammed the White House

in a video on Instagram. Do y'all think that I would go on the internet and lie about being invited to the White House? Like, what? You know what the request was? We'd like to offer Nikki an invitation to come to the White House to speak with two people, the two names, what is that man's name?

Dr. Fauci and with the Surgeon General. With her saying she responded by saying she'd rather not travel, that they offered to do some kind of live on social media. And from there, the video kind of just goes off the rails. She starts essentially conspiring that there's been a targeted media attack on her to make her look dumb so people will stop asking questions about the vaccine.

Right, and with that, while we saw a number of anti-vaccine advocates as well as her supporters supporting her here, we also saw a number of people pushing back saying, no, there's not this grand conspiracy. You're a person with an immense spotlight on them at all times, right? So there's already always attention there.

And you use that spotlight, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to share a story that oozes of absolutely made up nonsense, scaring people away from vaccines for a thing that is still killing an alarming number of unvaccinated people every single day. On average, 1900 Americans are dying every day from this. Something that international health experts

actually had to spend time on because this misinformation was promoted to millions upon millions of people promoting vaccine hesitancy. Or there's asking questions, which you may or may not have done with other tweets. And then there's the stuff that you did in the tweets that have gotten the most attention.

Asking questions in good faith is a good and necessary thing. For example, in other news, there's a lot of confusion and a lot of questions regarding booster shots. The debate over whether or not we actually need booster shots has been one that's been raging for a while now. And that debate very much heated up here in the States

when President Biden announced last month that pending regulatory approval, the government would start offering booster shots on September 20th to adults eight months after they received their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna. And that announcement was backed by the director of the CDC, the acting commissioner of the FDA, and White House chief medical advisor,

Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others. But at the same time, many scientists and other health experts, both inside and outside of the FDA and White House chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others. But at the same time, many scientists and other health experts, both inside and outside of the government, have continually criticized this plan, claiming that the data supporting boosters was not compelling. And arguing that while the FDA approved third doses

for immunocompromised Americans, the push to give these to the general public was premature. The plan also drawing a ton of international backlash because so many people around the world haven't even gotten their first dose yet. The World Health Organization also calling on wealthy countries to hold off on giving boosters until at least the end of the year.

Those arguments also appear to be bolstered when federal health regulators said earlier this month that they needed more time to review Moderna's application for booster shots. With that, then forcing the Biden administration to delay offering third shots to those who got Moderna and plan to just give third shots to those who got Pfizer. Also, for those that got the Johnson and Johnson shot,

things are still up in the air, even though they arguably need boosters more than the recipients of Pfizer and Moderna. Now in the week that an FDA expert advisory committee is set to vote on whether or not to recommend approval, even more contradictory information has been coming out. Right on Monday, an international group of 18 scientists, including some at the FDA and the World Health Organization

published a review in the Lancet, arguing that there is no credible data to show that the vaccine's ability to prevent severe disease declines substantially over time. Thus arguing that boosters are not yet needed for the general non-immunocompromised public. And saying here that any advantage that boosters may provide does not outweigh the benefit of giving the extra doses to all of those unvaccinated around the world.

But then on the other side of this, a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who received a third shot of Pfizer in Israel were much less likely to develop severe COVID than those who just had the first two jabs. In the same day, both Pfizer and Moderna published data backing that up as well.

Pfizer publishing an analysis saying the data on boosters in the Delta variant for both Israel and the US suggested that vaccine protection against COVID-19 infection wanes approximately six to eight months following the second dose. With Moderna also releasing not yet peer reviewed data that also suggests that their shot provides less immunity and protection against severe disease as time went on.

And further complicating matters was the fact that the FDA also released its report on Pfizer's analysis on the need for a booster yesterday. And while normally this would shine a light on what the agency stance on this issue is, the regulator didn't take a clear stance, saying that while some observational studies have suggested declining efficacy of the Pfizer shot,

others have not, and adding, "'Overall data indicates that currently US licensed "'or authorized COVID-19 vaccines still afford protection "'against severe COVID-19 disease and death.'" So right now, it is extremely unclear what this FDA panel is going to decide or what a similar CDC expert panel will decide next week. Now, notably, officials at the two agencies

are not required to follow the recommendations of their panels, but they usually do, so these decisions will be massively important to watch for. But the main takeaway for me here is that there's nothing wrong with asking questions. That's inherently what science does. Rather, the main problem in situations like this is the mass spreading of misinformation.

But you know, ultimately with this story, and honestly, anything else that stood out to you today, I'd love to know your thoughts in those comments down below. Join the conversation. Yeah, that's where I'll leave you, and I'll reiterate what I said yesterday. Whether you've been with me for a day or 15 years,

thanks for being a part of this weird wild ride. I love your faces. You've just been filled in and I'll see you next time.