The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 9.23 6 Year Old Arrested, Youtube's Big Reversal, Messy Trump Biden Ukraine Scandal Explained

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards. Hope you have a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Remember, especially on the long show, hit that like button. Otherwise I'm gonna throat punch you. But with that said, let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is this story coming out of Orlando.

Starting point is 00:00:14 Also a quick question before moving forward. When I mentioned like another country or a specific city and you live there, do you kind of get tense for a second? Like you're like, ah, what happened here? Yeah, the story is coming out of Orlando. There has been a lot of outrage around this. And the story involves an eight-year-old and a six-year-old that were arrested by a school officer

Starting point is 00:00:30 for unrelated incidents last Thursday. And since then, the story has gained national attention. For the eight-year-old's case, the child was reportedly arrested on misdemeanor charges and brought to a juvenile center, then later released to their parents. But the story that's been making most of the headlines is that of the six-year-old.

Starting point is 00:00:44 And that is largely because the child's grandmother has spoken out about the situation and the details around it. Now, while authorities have not released the names of the children that were arrested, a report from WKMG in Orlando has identified the six-year-old as Kaya Roll. And according to this report, Kaya was acting out in class,

Starting point is 00:00:57 which was likely a result of her sleep apnea. But it caused her to not get enough sleep the night before, thus making her tired all day. And because she was acting out at school, she was sent to the office, where, reportedly, someone tried to grab her wrists to calm her down, and once that happened, Kaya kicked the person back. Then, reportedly, the school's resource officer,

Starting point is 00:01:13 Officer Dennis Turner, arrested this six-year-old and charged her for battery, with the child's grandmother, Marilyn Kirkland, saying that she was then handcuffed and taken to the back of a police car, fingerprinted, and had a mugshot taken. Later, she was taken to a juvenile center, but she was not processed.

Starting point is 00:01:26 Also, according to Kirkland, when Turner learned of Kaya's condition, he was not sympathetic. She has a medical condition that we're working on getting resolved. So he says, what medical condition? So I said, you know, she has a sleep disorder, sleep apnea. He says, well, I have sleep apnea

Starting point is 00:01:42 and I don't behave like that. As far as what's happening next to and for Officer Turner, reportedly he is being investigated. He is currently suspended while that investigation is ongoing. And the reason for this is because it appears that in both cases, he broke department policy by arresting the two children.

Starting point is 00:01:56 It turns out in order to arrest children under the age of 12, an officer needs the permission of their superior, which Turner did not get. We've also seen a number of people concerned that Turner was in his position. And the reason for that is some background into Turner as he's actually a retired Orlando police officer. He served 23 years before retiring in 2018.

Starting point is 00:02:11 He's part of the officer reserve program, which consists of retired officers, which is not the concerning part. Rather, people have found that according to the Orlando Sentinel in 2015, he was given a written reprimand for using excessive force. This after continuing to tase a suspect who was on the floor and not resisting.

Starting point is 00:02:24 Right, and regarding the reaction in general, as you might imagine, there were a ton of people shocked, many calling for Turner to be fired from his position, others speaking out about how just absurd they found the whole situation to be, with New Jersey Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman saying, "'A six-year-old? Black girls are far more likely

Starting point is 00:02:38 to be referred to law enforcement and arrested than their white peers. We need to stop criminalizing children. No child should be charged with battery for throwing a tantrum. And Florida State Representative Carlos G. Smith saying, "'Arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshot "'for a six-year-old who had a tantrum?'

Starting point is 00:02:52 "'I'm completely speechless at the complete "'and total lack of judgment shown "'by this Orlando police officer. "'How is it acceptable to traumatize any child in this way?' And as far as my reaction to this story, I'm just, I'm left in disbelief. You know, we haven't seen a full statement from the officer involved in this.

Starting point is 00:03:06 There is currently an investigation. You know, yes, most of the information that we're hearing, it's from the grandmother of this child. But truly, I'm trying to imagine a world and a situation where this small girl, where you watch her during the interview, and understandably, it's kind of just a small snapshot into this world, but she doesn't seem like

Starting point is 00:03:21 she'd be on the Dr. Phil show anytime soon. Seems like kind of small and shy. I'm trying to imagine her doing something to the degree and severity that results in her being charged with battery. She's six and like other children her age, she's gonna have a low emotional IQ. Small children can and will have tantrums. Now understand that is not to say we just excuse

Starting point is 00:03:38 those tantrums, we don't address it. I'm pretty sure the answer isn't arrest a six year old. And I think that's a longer conversation regarding, you know, the caregivers, the people at the schools, hopefully professionals that are there to help the children. But what I'm pretty sure about is that the proper response is not arrest a six year old child. Also two last second updates to this story.

Starting point is 00:03:56 One, according to WKMG, police initially said one child was eight years old, but later said they were both six years old. And two, state attorney Aramis Ayala said today that her office would not prosecute the misdemeanor battery charges against either child and saying, quote, I refuse to knowingly play any role

Starting point is 00:04:10 in the school to prison pipeline at any age. These very young children ought to be protected, nurtured and disciplined in a manner that does not rely on the criminal justice system to do it. You know, that's where we are with the story right now. And of course, like with everything, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. And then let's talk about an update

Starting point is 00:04:23 to a story we covered late last week. There was a lot of outrage around it. Specifically, what I'm talking about here is YouTube changing their verification policy. And if you didn't see, kind of oversimplified recap here, YouTube announced that they were changing, one, the visual of what a verified channel on YouTube looked like, which no one really cared.

Starting point is 00:04:37 But then also, two, they announced that they were changing the policy of how you got a verified channel on YouTube. And along with this announcement, a ton of creators, some small, but some also genuinely large, received emails saying that they would no longer be verified. Right, and so like we talked about,

Starting point is 00:04:49 you had a number of creators that were getting booted out, very angry. I mean, one that we mentioned last week was a creator by the name of MacDoesIt. There we saw him calling out YouTube for, yes, using his image to promote black creators, yes, using his image to show LGBTQ creators. But all of a sudden it appears

Starting point is 00:05:02 that he's getting hit by YouTube, he's getting dropped by YouTube. All right, so not the best visual to YouTube because it appears to lend itself to the allegations that YouTube's and corporations like to use minorities as kind of props. But then when it's not that season of celebration, you kind of get cast to the side.

Starting point is 00:05:15 You also had creators like myself that weren't being booted out, weren't being unverified, but asking why. This makes no sense. You know, YouTube's saying that they're doing this to prevent confusion, but it seems to just be creating more confusion. You also have people like James Charles tweeting,

Starting point is 00:05:27 "'I'm really sorry to the creators "'who are being unverified on YouTube today. "'This decision is really pointless "'and it's yet another change not a single person asked for.'" Massive Gamer on the platform, Jacksepticeye tweeting, "'Everyone getting unverified on YouTube today. "'It's a slap in the face, "'but try not to let it get to you and demotivate you.

Starting point is 00:05:39 "'Keep creating and making cool shit.'" And that's on top of the move seeming to be either one, disrespect or two, disregard for these creators that have created a genuine audience on the platform. Right, like when you're a company and one of the criticisms from the people that use your platform is, we don't feel like they care about us.

Starting point is 00:05:55 It is then best not to make sweeping changes that seemingly verify that. Right, so there's a big reaction, then there's some confusion because people are going to channels and they're saying, oh, this isn't verified, but then it turned out it's kind of like this mobile bug slash feature." The main point, the day after this announcement was made,

Starting point is 00:06:10 we saw something from YouTube that we don't often see. They reversed course, with YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki tweeting, "'To our creators and users, I'm sorry for the frustration and hurt that we have caused with our new approach to verification. While trying to make improvements, we missed the mark.' Then following with,

Starting point is 00:06:23 "'We heard loud and clear how much the badge means to you. Channels that currently have verification will now keep it without appeal, and adding, we'll continue reviewing those channels to ensure we're protecting creators from impersonation. And there was also an official statement from the YouTube creators blog, echoing and expanding on Wojcicki's tweets.

Starting point is 00:06:36 Writing, the idea behind this update was to protect creators from impersonation and address user confusion. Every year we receive tens of thousands of complaints from creators about impersonation. Also nearly a third of YouTube users told us that they misunderstood the badges meaning, associating it with endorsement of content

Starting point is 00:06:50 and not an indicator of identity. While rolling out improvements to this program, we completely missed the mark. We're sorry for the frustration that this caused and we have a few updates to share. Following this course reversal, in general it was received very well, with some top creators like PewDiePie and Jacksepticeye

Starting point is 00:07:03 applauding this move. But yeah, ultimately that's where we are with this. And I figured if I'm going to complain about what I see as their missteps, I should also commend them for I think writing those wrongs. Yeah, of course, with all of that said, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. And then let's talk about a type of story

Starting point is 00:07:15 we don't often get to cover on this show. And that is a happy story. I might pronounce, oh, a happy story. It feels like we don't get a lot of those. And this story starts on September 14th, when ESPN broadcast College Game Day from Ames, Iowa. And at that game, a guy by the name of Carson King appeared in the crowd behind the host,

Starting point is 00:07:31 holding a sign that Red Bush Light Supply needs replenished, along with his Venmo username. Reportedly after this, his phone was just blowing up with notification, with King saying that within 30 minutes, he raised $400, saying, I thought it would just be a joke, I didn't think anyone would actually see it. Right in this moment, it started blowing up more and more.

Starting point is 00:07:46 And after talking it over with his family, King realized that he had a special chance here. And so soon after he tweeted that he would be donating quote, all but enough for a case of Bush Light to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital. With King telling the Washington Post, there's a better purpose for it. The kids deserve everything they can get.

Starting point is 00:07:59 If I can give it to them, I'm going to give it to them. So all of a sudden this jokey thing starts spreading more. All of a sudden you see Bush Beer and Venmo promising to match his contribution. Bush even gifting King, who they have since nicknamed Iowa Legend, a year's supply of Bush Light that features his name and face on the can.

Starting point is 00:08:14 And reports came in that by Sunday morning, the contributions, including Bush Beer and Venmo's matches, had reached over $1 million. Also, for those that maybe wanna join in on this good, King says that he plans to keep his Venmo account open for donations until the end of the month. Yeah, kind of given the state of the world and the state of the news,

Starting point is 00:08:29 I wanted to share just a kind of a happy story. You know, it's really easy to just look at the dark, devastating news or, you know, try to look at the silver lining or the helpers in horrible situations. But I also think that it is important from time to time to remember just good people doing good things. And that is why today, Carson King,

Starting point is 00:08:44 you are our Banff of the day. And the last thing we're gonna talk about today is this Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Ukraine situation. Okay, so there are a lot of moving parts to the story, but we're gonna try and take a look at the timeline of events and break it down piece by piece. So this all starts August 12th, when a whistleblower in the intelligence community

Starting point is 00:09:00 files a complaint. At the time, it was unclear where the whistleblower worked, but the Washington Post has since reported that the person once worked on the staff of the White House National Security Council. But still, as of right now, it is unclear who that person specifically is. What we do know though, is that the complaint was filed

Starting point is 00:09:13 with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the ICIG. And the ICIG is basically what it sounds like, a watchdog who investigates allegations and complaints of misconduct in the intelligence community. And right now, that ICIG is Michael Atkinson, who was a former Justice Department official who was confirmed to the Post in 2018

Starting point is 00:09:26 after being nominated by Trump. So this whistleblower files a complaint with the ICIG under a law called the Intelligence Community Whistleblowers Protection Act. And that law says that once a misconduct complaint is filed, the ICIG has 14 days to decide if the complaint is both credible and an urgent concern, which notably Atkinson determined that it was both.

Starting point is 00:09:42 After that, the law says that the complaint must be sent to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, which he did. So that complaint was then received by the current Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who notably has only held the position since August 8th. Maguire then had seven days to send the full complaint

Starting point is 00:09:55 to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, meaning he had until September 2nd to do so, but he did not send that report. And so on September 9th, a week after Maguire was supposed to send Congress the complaint, Atkinson sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee to tell them that this complaint existed. So the next day, Representative Adam Schiff,

Starting point is 00:10:10 the chairman of this committee, he sends a letter to McGuire demanding that he send the complaint and accusing him of breaking the law by not doing so. And notably here, Schiff also indicated in the letter that the committee thought that the White House could be interfering in preventing the complaint from being sent to Congress.

Starting point is 00:10:23 So then we see the legal counsel for the office of the Director of National Intelligence respond to Schiff in a letter a few days later on September 13th, where they argued that they didn't have to turn over the complaint to Congress because they had decided it was actually not an urgent concern. And also because it involves someone outside of the intelligence community.

Starting point is 00:10:37 Schiff then responded in yet another letter that same day, saying that the Director of National Intelligence did not have the legal authority to overrule an ICIG decision or withhold it from the Congressional Intelligence Committee. Also noting that this was the first time a Director of Intelligence overruled the ICIG to withhold a whistleblower complaint.

Starting point is 00:10:52 And also of massive significance in that letter was this small piece. The committee can only conclude based on this remarkable confluence of factors that the serious misconduct at issue involves the President of the United States and or other senior White House or administration officials.

Starting point is 00:11:06 And continuing, this raises grave concerns that your office together with the Department of Justice and possibly the White House are engaged in an unlawful effort to protect the president and conceal from the committee information related to his possible serious or flagrant misconduct, abuse of power or violation of law. So then this last Wednesday,

Starting point is 00:11:22 we see the Washington Post report that the complaint in question involved Trump's communications with a foreign leader. This reportedly according to two foreign intelligence officials who were familiar with the situation. The Post adding that those officials told them that, quote, Trump's interaction with the foreign leader included a quote promise that was regarded as so troubling

Starting point is 00:11:36 that it prompted an official in the US intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community. Then on Thursday, it was reported that people familiar with the complaints said it had to do, at least in part, with Ukraine. And then on Friday, sources close to the matter said

Starting point is 00:11:48 that during a call with the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in July, Trump had told the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who had served on a board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was US vice president. There were some quick context here. Reportedly, Hunter Biden joined that board back in 2014.

Starting point is 00:12:04 Also two years later, Ukraine's prosecutor general was removed from his position after receiving pressure from then VP Biden and others. And that reportedly prompted the prosecutor general to claim that he was ousted because he was investigating the gas company's payments to Hunter Biden. But also Ukrainian officials reported earlier this year

Starting point is 00:12:18 that they found no evidence of wrongdoing. Right, but one of the main things here was that this revelation that the whistleblower complaint involved Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden led many to speculate that Trump was using the $250 million of military and intelligence aid that the US had promised to give to Ukraine

Starting point is 00:12:31 as leverage to get Ukraine to do political favors, noting that the US had withheld the aid until September 12th, which was notably when the congressional battle over this whistleblower complaint began to heat up. But speculation is the key word there, as this has not been confirmed. Also on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported, "'President Trump' in a July phone call

Starting point is 00:12:46 repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden's son, according to people familiar with the matter, urging Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper Mr. Trump's potential 2020 opponent. Now, Giuliani, who had previously denied asking Ukraine to investigate Biden

Starting point is 00:13:00 before admitting to the fact that he had done so, defended his efforts in a tweet, writing, "'A president telling a preselect of a well-known corrupt country, he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job. Maybe if Obama did that, the Biden family wouldn't have built millions from Ukraine

Starting point is 00:13:14 and billions from China, being covered up by a corrupt media. As far as President Trump, he has been very vocal throughout this whole process, often taking to Twitter to deny the allegations and call them fake news. On Thursday, we saw a Trump tweet, another fake news story out there? "'It never ends.

Starting point is 00:13:27 "'Virtually anytime I speak on the phone "'to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be "'many people listening from various U.S. agencies, "'not to mention those from the other country itself. "'No problem. "'Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough "'to believe that I would say something inappropriate "'with a foreign leader while on such a potentially

Starting point is 00:13:40 "'heavily populated call? "'I would only do what is right anyway "'and only do good for the USA.'" Then on Friday, we saw Donald Trump say, it is a partisan whistleblower. It shouldn't even have information. I've had conversations with many leaders. They're always appropriate.

Starting point is 00:13:52 Also saying that he didn't know what conversation the whistleblower was referring to specifically. But I had a great conversation with numerous people. I don't even know exactly who you're talking about. But then a little later, he did seem to indicate that there was one specific conversation, though he wouldn't answer questions about whether or not he talked about Biden in that conversation. I don't know the identity of the whistleblower. I just hear it's a partisan person,

Starting point is 00:14:12 meaning it comes out from another party. But I don't have any idea. But I can say that it was a totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation. In the same briefing, we also saw Trump have this interaction with a reporter. Have you read the report? No, I haven't. It's, I just tell you, it is, everybody's read it. They laugh at it. Over the weekend, Trump continued to tweet

Starting point is 00:14:35 about the situation, notably referring to it as a witch hunt and continuing to attack the media. Then on Saturday, Ukraine's foreign minister was reportedly quoted telling a Ukrainian news outlet, quote, I know what the conversation was about and I think there was no pressure Conversation was long friendly and a touch on many questions sometimes requiring serious answers Which then prompted some tweets from Trump on Sunday and also on Sunday. We saw Trump say this to reporters. We had a great conversation The

Starting point is 00:15:00 Conversation I had was largely congratulatory Was largely corruption all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine. Trump again talking about the situation later that same day. Also again this morning, we saw President Trump tweeting,

Starting point is 00:15:24 this time sharing a quote from Representative Devin Nunez, saying the very thing that they are accusing President Trump of doing, which Trump asserts, which I didn't do, was actually done by Joe Biden, continues to be a double standard. We've also seen this to some degree reigniting calls for impeachment. Now keep in mind, among Republicans,

Starting point is 00:15:37 many are largely opposed to the idea. With Representative Mike Bost saying only 37% of Americans support impeachment, saying Democrats continue to waste taxpayer time, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise saying there is no reason to impeach. Senator Lindsey Graham dismissing this, saying interesting concept, impeach first, find facts later.

Starting point is 00:15:51 But also at the same time, you had people like Mitt Romney who said, if the president asked or pressured Ukraine's president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme, critical for the facts to come out. But then on the other side,

Starting point is 00:16:03 you had Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez writing, at this point, the bigger national scandal isn't the president's law-breaking behavior, it is the Democratic Party's refusal to impeach him for it. You also had Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who was generally held back from calling for impeachment, saying yesterday that he might now see it as an option.

Starting point is 00:16:18 When Jake Tapper asked him if he thought impeachment could be a solution, he said, but if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit that is providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is co-equal to the evil that that conduct represents. Notably, we also saw Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, condemning Trump's actions, hinting at investigations, but not mentioning impeachment.

Starting point is 00:16:49 And this follows the comments that she made last week with NPR, which she again did not call to impeach, but instead said that the laws must be changed to allow for a sitting president to be indicted. As far as what Joe Biden has to say, for his part, he called for the transcript of the call to be released, something that Trump himself told reporters

Starting point is 00:17:03 that he would love to release, but there are others in the administration that are a little shy about it. To which I will say that seems a little bit questionable. I think supporters and critics of the president know that one of his main defining traits is that he does what he wants. I just kind of hearing President Trump saying,

Starting point is 00:17:15 I want to release this document that shows that I'm telling the truth, all other people are liars. But some on my team, they're a little sheepish about it. That personally leaves me very skeptical of the situation because I know it would give Donald Trump such pleasure to be able to dunk on the media and Democrats. But here's the thing, as of right now, I'm personally open to the possibility

Starting point is 00:17:31 that maybe something illegal did not happen. And this is also in part to, as we were finishing up today's show, according to places like Fox News and the Associated Press, according to a person familiar with the matter, the person who filed the complaint did not have firsthand knowledge of the call. Right, so that creates the question of,

Starting point is 00:17:45 well, is everything in the accusation accurate? And actually along those lines, while we were recording this video. This afternoon, in addition to Trump again, pointing blame to Biden, saying Joe Biden and his son are corrupt, he also directly denied that he put pressure on Ukraine, saying, I did not make a statement that you have to do this

Starting point is 00:18:00 or I'm not going to give you aid. I wouldn't do that. There was no pressure put on them whatsoever. I put no pressure on them whatsoever. I could have, I think it probably possibly would have been okay if I did. And so with all of that said, once again, where I personally land is give us more information.

Starting point is 00:18:13 You know, release a transcript. You know, that's a story as it is now. Keep in mind, of course, it is still developing. And of course, like with everything we talk about on this show, I would love to know your thoughts here. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And hey, if you liked this video, tap that like button. Also, if you're new here, tap that subscribe button,

Starting point is 00:18:26 maybe even ring that bell. You set that bell to all, it makes it easier so you don't miss these daily dives into the news. Which actually on that note, maybe you missed the last Philip DeFranco show, or you wanna watch today's brand new behind the scenes bonus video, you can click or tap right there to watch either of those.

Starting point is 00:18:38 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 9.23 6 Year Old Arrested, Youtube's Big Reversal, Messy Trump Biden Ukraine Scandal Explained

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