The Philip DeFranco Show - The Cornell University 7 Scandal is Bigger Than You Think

Starting point is 00:00:00 We need to talk about the Cordell 7 and the problems and insanity around this situation. You've also got a bizarre discovery outside of a UK airbase turning into a possible terrorist plot involving five men and explosives. The economy is now hitting historic lows and it's exposing a lot. You've got a scandal around GoFund mean nuking a $750,000 fundraiser for an elderly couple. We're talking about all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show you daily dive into the news, starting with this. We've got to talk about how seven frat guys at Cornell University allegedly gang raped a young female student for several hours and then face the very, very severe punishment of having to write an essay about it, especially because even if you're aware of the situation, we have some huge updates, right?

Starting point is 00:00:37 Because this alleged incident actually happened two years ago. You've got everyone talking about it now because the victim identified as Jane Doe, and 20 at the time filed a civil lawsuit against a school on September 16. Right, making the allegations public for the first time and sparking a ton of outrage online. And you're seeing outrage at the whole thing, but also very specific things, right? Because this isn't just a horrifying story that exposes alleged rapists. It also exposes the school's complete failure to punish them, and protect the female student.

Starting point is 00:01:00 And as far as specifics, in her complaint, you had Doe alleging that these members of the Kai Phi fraternity drugged her with ketamine and assaulted her at their frat house in October of 2024. It also reportedly includes screenshots of a Snapchat group chat where they invited other frat members to join in with a message saying that there was, quote, free pussy upstairs.

Starting point is 00:01:17 And Doe initially reported what happened to the Cornell police three weeks after it happened. And according to her lawsuit, two of the men did end up getting expelled, but the others were just suspended and had to take workshops and write papers as their form of punishment. And we've had a number of the guys still there, she ultimately left the school after the alleged assault. And in this heartbreaking new

Starting point is 00:01:34 statement, you had Doe sharing that she went to Cornell with great hope and promise for a good education and left with lasting trauma instead of a degree, saying, what I experienced from those who raped me in the fraternity was the worst experience of my life, saying I was brutalized and it injured me physically, but perhaps more importantly emotionally, saying I want to recover from this trauma, but it is extremely difficult. It affects every aspect of my life. It will haunt me and be part of me the rest of my life. And so while this young woman, she ends up giving up her dream, She ends up scarred for life. These guys, they get a slap on the wrist. Right, even the two that were expelled, that is not a criminal charge. You got guys getting to move on,

Starting point is 00:02:08 collect prestigious Cornell degrees, go through their lives unscathed. Or at least that was until now because with all this discourse about the lawsuit, you've got prosecutors in central New York reopening the investigation. And while it's good that to finally do something about it, you've many saying, hey, this case shouldn't have had to go viral for it to get to this point, saying, though, should have gotten justice two years ago. Now what you're seeing is you've also got Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houghton taking what some people have said is a kind of classic Cover Your Own Ass and Blame the Victim approach. Or with him claiming at the allegations in the civil complaint are, quote, dramatically different than the woman's police report. And saying in a statement, we want to re-examine whether there's additional evidence that we were not aware of in November of 2024 that exists now that would change our assessment of the case and would result in the grand jury finding that there was criminal conduct.

Starting point is 00:02:51 But with Van Houton claiming that the group chat photo was not included in the original complaint and that Doe, she never said that she was drugged or forced to engage in sexual. acts. But then also, he acknowledged that his office didn't bother to do an independent investigation. They just relied entirely on the Cornell Police Department. And then also a key thing is that Doe's attorney, right, Thomas P. Gieffra, he's sharing a completely different story. Because you've got him saying, no, the police report and the complaint, they are not materially different and that the Snapchat group chat was a critical piece of evidence provided to authorities in 2024. And then adding, it is challenging for me to understand how a thorough criminal investigation could have been conducted when she never spoke with anyone other than the officer who took her

Starting point is 00:03:26 original complaint saying opportunities to fully investigate these crimes were lost. And another key thing here is that Doe never spoke with investigators trained in interviewing rape survivors. And so it just seems like her case wasn't treated as seriously or thoroughly as it needed to be. Now also with this, as far as responses from the frat guys, you've got two of the defendant, Scott Kretschmar and Scott Norris denying the allegations. Or with Kretschmar's attorney claiming the incident did not happen and going so far as to call Doe's claims selfishly false. And you ignore us saying in a statement that all he did was thoughtlessly participate in that Snapchat conversation and briefly stop in the room where the misconduct happened. Within the rest,

Starting point is 00:03:59 at least silent for now. And while today, Yudor Cornell releasing a new statement supporting Doe, they're also trying to defend how they handled the situation two years ago. The school saying they support the decision of the Tompkins County District Attorney to provide an opportunity for the victim's story in the 2024 Kai-5 fraternity sexual assault case to be heard by a criminal grand jury. And adding, any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. And saying a continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible and will make survivors feel less safe and supported and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault. So that stands in the face of if there's

Starting point is 00:04:32 anything that we get from Doe's lawsuit as it appears like they're the ones making survivors feel less safe and supportive. Especially as if Cornell also claiming to have conducted a thorough Title IX investigation and noting that temporary suspensions and other restrictive measures were used. With the also saying that the fraternity was closed in 2024 and that quote, none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement. Seemingly, soul, being the word that's doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Especially because even the concept of writing an essay

Starting point is 00:04:58 about how you shouldn't have drugged and sexually assaulted someone or allowed it to happen, that's laughable even as part of a punishment. Or we're talking about a crime that if as described, it makes you go, maybe we should bring back stoning. And so understandably, you've had just so many people furious about all this. Or you've had people like AOC who stopped at a town hall in Ithaca, New York yesterday, right where Cornell is,

Starting point is 00:05:17 and called out the university and other institutions that help people get away with these crimes. I want to be clear. that the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University in this instance. It has got to stop. Those men posted in a group chat. That means it was normal to them.

Starting point is 00:05:48 That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture. norms, these are practices. And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. And then in addition to, you know, the academic and political circles, you've also had celebrities using their fame like Florence Pew sharing their statements on this story, raising awareness and you had Pew calling on men to speak out about this issue, saying she feels uneasy and sick and anxious and dadding. This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us, saying you need to be leading conversations about how we change the

Starting point is 00:06:26 allowance and complicity of this behavior as much as we are. She also described the alleged gang rape as a killing of a soul and emphasized, we are not hard enough on those that want to damage human lives. And Florence and others who are saying this, they're absolutely right. I mean, the story appears very important for a number of reasons. One, obviously, what happens to the people involved in the woman at the center of this story, that matters a lot. And then also, it is very important to remember that sexual violence, even eight years after the Me Too movement, it remains normal and acceptable in colleges and everywhere else. All the time, we see mostly men getting away with it and enjoying positions of power.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Or with some maybe saying you can look all the way to the tippity top at our president and all the way back down. And institutions and higher ups at those institutions consistently fall short and fail people. But for now, we're going to have to wait to see what happens, right? What comes from the investigation? How does the school continue to move from here? For me, it feels very much like they were gaslighting people. And then, of course, in the meantime, I always appreciate to hear your reactions to all our stories, but especially today this first one. Right. And then, when we're talking about big,

Starting point is 00:07:23 explosive stories, we then have to talk about this foiled, maybe terrorist attack on a UK airbase that happened over the weekend. Right. You had this going down around 1 a.m. Sunday morning in Wellford, about 90 minutes outside of London and Western England. And Welford notably backs right up to the Royal Air Force Fairford Air Base. And even a farmer who's making our way back home after staying out much later than normal at a party, noticing three strange white fans parked in a weird formation. And the bands have some sketchy signage on them, right? Like a phone number that's one digit too short, for example. And so alarm bells start going off in her head. She then tries the number on the van. That doesn't work. And that

Starting point is 00:07:53 is when she sees a group of men all dressed the same, all with masks over their face. And when they notice her, reportedly, they just start panicking and then running in all directions. And so that's when she realizes, oh, I stumbled on something very serious here. She calls the police. And within minutes, you have the authorities there with armed officers, a helicopter, dozens of families, they're getting evacuated. And you were the farmer who asked to remain anonymous through this whole thing, telling BBC, I think it was pure luck that I arrived in the village at a similar time to the van, saying I'm absolutely staggered that it was left to me as a member of the the public to see and report this.

Starting point is 00:08:21 Well, the whole thing, it's a bit murky right now. We do know that five men were arrested and detained on suspicion of offenses under the Explosives Act and the Terrorism Act. And with that, you had 85 households in the town of welfare getting evacuated while bombed disposal robots and professionals took over the scene. Though, and this is very important,

Starting point is 00:08:35 we do not have any confirmation right now on what the devices in the vans were capable of. You had investigators saying that they found materials consistent with improvised explosive devices, but there was still testing that needed to determine whether they were actually viable. And that actually ends up being just one detail among many that right now, it's

Starting point is 00:08:49 We don't have much information about the five men arrested, right? The British police don't name names until someone's been charged, so we don't even know who they are yet. That said, reportedly, there are British nationals for London and their 20s, but what their motive here was or whether they were directed by any sort of outside influence, that's still under investigation as well. And they've actually since gotten out on bail with the head of UK counterterrorism policing saying that they were released after, quote, extensive interviews and inquiries and they remained under investigation and then added, they are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others. And then, in response to the whole situation, you had Trump saying, these men had actually caught their eye before all this. It was an amazing job. We had them under investigation.

Starting point is 00:09:25 They were looking to do big damage to our fort. And working with the British, worked out great. We had them under view for a long time and we got him. And actually, he wasn't alone. You had UK Defense Secretary West Streeting, also suggesting that they'd been keeping an eye on these guys saying, I wanna pay tribute to that member of the public for her vigilance,

Starting point is 00:09:43 saying she's done exactly what we would hope a member of the public would do in the situation she found herself in, and adding she will, of course, only have a partial view and I don't want to go beyond and strand a kind of operational and security detail at this stage. And that's as you had Prime Minister Andy Burnham taking a bit more of a more cautious approach to his statement. He's saying thanks to the law enforcement who did the arresting as well as the families who evacuated and adding, the investigation remains ongoing and I would

Starting point is 00:10:05 urge people not to speculate while the authorities established the full facts. But one of the things that does appear to be clear at this point is that the base appears to have been the target. Specifically, you have officials saying the U.S. B1 bombers at the base. Because this base, rather controversially, being used by the US military to launch some attacks against Iran. And while the base, you know, it's been used by US forces since the Cold War. When Trump's war in Iran kicked off back in February, then Prime Minister Kier-Starmor refused to allow the use of the base. But then when Iran started hitting British allies in the Middle East, Starmor changed his tune,

Starting point is 00:10:31 saying he would allow what he called defensive American strikes on Iran from Bairford. With that, then prompting a huge debate across the country, including protests near the base. And then when Burnham took over, he just kept going, except then a few days after he took office, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that allowing attacks from their base, it would make it, quote, a legitimate target for our forces. And you've got British authorities saying that proxies linked to Iran have been behind a string of arson and sabotage attempts across the UK and other countries. So, you know, whether or not that is behind all this, that remains to be seen, but

Starting point is 00:10:58 we have seen the U.S. Embassy in London warning Americans in Britain to be cautious and mindful of their personal security. And then there's even more we've got to dive into in just a minute, but really quick, let's thank a sponsor. Ted K. is taking his fiancee to a Detroit Tigers game and all you had to do is enter our weekly $500 Seat Geek giveaway. Because today's sponsor, Seatgeek, has rolled out nearly $60,000. all to get you off the couch and into the comedy club, the stadium or concert hall since 2024,

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Starting point is 00:12:02 the link below, add code fill 10 and go make some memories. And then, Devin, right back into the news, we got to talk about how a new poll shows that Americans currently feel worse about the economy now than at almost any other point in modern history. According to the University of Michigan's monthly survey, consumer sentiment fell to its second lowest level in the survey's 74-year history this September. We're talking about a poll that goes back to 1952, which means that Americans feel worse about the economy today than they did during wars, the 1970s oil crisis, during 9-11, during the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. And the four lowest readings ever all took place within the past six months. Right, the absolute record low, the only month lower than September

Starting point is 00:12:37 was back in May. And that was when oil prices surge and the average US gas price peaked at $4.56 a gallon, as the war that Trump said would last a few weeks, dragged into its third month. And as today, of the average price of gas being around 448 a gallon, according to AAA, and that's just a few cents lower than the Mayhigh. And in case you've forgotten, Republicans are really hoping that you do,

Starting point is 00:12:55 that is a massive increase from before the war, when the average price of gas, it was like under three bucks a gallon. But then also, diesel prices have been hit even harder. They've nearly doubled from pre-war levels, and they reached an all-time record high of 6.53 a gallon last week. And diesel is so important.

Starting point is 00:13:08 It's regularly described as the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. It powers everything from trains and ships to the tractors that are used to harvest our food. And so when the price of diesel increases, costs usually rise throughout the supply chain and can eventually be passed on to customers. But also, it's not just gas prices. The University of Michigan also notes

Starting point is 00:13:22 that the record low consumer confidence is driven by the economic reverberations of, quote, re-escalating trade disputes. With that, seemingly referencing the escalating trade war that Trump started with Canada for no real reason and or all the other fights he's had with our allies. And then beyond that, experts also say that soaring mortgage rates have further contributed

Starting point is 00:13:38 to Americans declining perceptions of the economy, with one economist explaining, Americans are upset about high gas prices and the affordability crunch for homes, cars, electricity, meat, and more. And adding it the most troubling part of this recent data is that it shows that American customers increasingly believe inflation will remain high for the next year. But despite all the facts and what people are seeing and hearing and feeling, Trump has continued to insist that the economy is actually a huge booming success. And while he was speaking at the UN last week, he raised the possibility that he could escalate his war with Iran even more, while also claiming that he doesn't care that all of these things, the impacts of his war or choice, might hurt Republicans in the midterm. But I have a big decision to make.

Starting point is 00:14:14 Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? The Republican Party is running, and I'll be helping them. But I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn't even enter my mind.

Starting point is 00:14:56 And earlier this month, you also had him downplaying high gas prices. It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that it's a little more. It's even if it was, frankly, even it was a lot more. But one, we still don't know what it is at the, this war has actually achieved. And two, if it's been so successful, then why the hell is it still going on?

Starting point is 00:15:14 But then also, despite all the BS, Trump, he appeared to acknowledge that his war is raising prices because just yesterday, he confirmed that he is very seriously considering a diesel export ban. And there, the idea is that restricting the flow of fuel leaving the United States, it could boost supply domestically and lower prices.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Though you then have experts who actually understand oil markets, widely agreeing that it wouldn't work that way, and an export ban would actually end up causing more chaos and actually hurt American consumers. And while you've had some Republicans big ag states supporting that move. Others have said that Trump actually needs to go further. And over the last few weeks, as we've been talking about,

Starting point is 00:15:45 Republicans, they're jumping ship and distancing themselves from Trump. Some have just straight up removed mentions of them from their campaign websites, while others they publicly split from him on war and affordability. But also now we're seeing a new movement emerging. Republican lawmakers basically begging Trump to focus more on the economy ahead of the midterms.

Starting point is 00:16:00 And so for example, you've got things like when asked during an interview, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said that after stumping for Republicans in battleground states, he didn't think Trump and the GOP were focusing on the right issues. When moms and dads lie down to sleep at night and can't, they're not lying there worried about whether the football coaches are happy or whether the press is biased or the other things that we've been talking about.

Starting point is 00:16:25 They're worried about the cost of living. And they're a little worried about Iran because they don't understand why, but they know the two are inextricably linked. And we've got to be straight up and address those things. Here's my prediction for the midterms, Margaret. The experts will be wrong. It's gonna be close. It would help if the president would stay focused on cost of living.

Starting point is 00:16:51 Right, and that was also echoed by Senator Tom Tilles, who argued that some of the things that Trump's been fixating on, things like banning members of the press from the White House, those are not winning strategies. Saying focus on the economy, it's always about the economy, and then maybe one or two other things, and warning that there would be negative consequences for Republicans on election. And really, like, the list goes on and on, but, Trump, he's probably not going to listen to pleas from his own party or maybe even take a beat to consider why so many people are splitting from it. And that's also assuming that he even knows about

Starting point is 00:17:17 most of it. Maybe Natalie Haar, maybe Stephen Miller, they're just beating him bullshit to keep him happy. But, you know, all of it, it comes back to what we're seeing is Republican politicians and candidates kind of just running scared right now. And that appears to be the case whether someone's running for the House or the Senate or even super local. It's anecdotal, but it's something I'm close to right now. Fantastic wife, Lindsay DeFranco, she's running for a state house seat here in our home state of Georgia, District 47. Her do nothing, say nothing, Trump establishment hand-picked opponent. The guy who's been described as an NPC, a rubber stamp, he agreed to and then just didn't show up for their debate today. Just a pathetic coward move. Though yeah, strategically, maybe the smarter move for it. One,

Starting point is 00:17:54 I think Lindsay would have just dog-walked him in the debate. But two, you watch Mo's video of this guy and it's like, oh no. I don't know what I would trust him with, let alone the government. And then also, the economy isn't the only issue that American people and lawmakers have major concerns about. And actually, you just had Florida's Attorney General filing a temporary injunction to stop Open AI from further developing new models until there are new safety policies. Because you've seen a ton of concern out there about the AI industry not being able to keep the genie in the bottle, that its agents are going rogue, and that leaders in the industry even admit that it could fully end humankind. So then with that, you've had some execs calling for change, urging the

Starting point is 00:18:25 government to intervene. And now Florida's Attorney General said, okay. Reclaiming that by Open AI's own admission, the company, quote, cannot stop barreling forward with their potentially civilization ending endeavors unless they are forced to do so by the government, saying they have asked the government to tie them to the mast and then adding, plaintiff brings good news to the defendants. The Florida Attorney General is answering your cry for help with a motion to enjoin you from harming Floridians with your reckless, unacceptably risky product, saying the court should give defendants what they are asking for for their sake and everyone else's too. And a big thing here is that it comes as Florida's already sued OpenAI earlier this year. And since then, the filing says that

Starting point is 00:18:58 the public's only become more aware of the company's potential harms. And you also had the AG adding in a No new model development without independent safety guardrails. No more harvesting children's data. No more calling this product safe, accurate, or reliable. No more pretending it's human. If Sam Altman meant what he said about slowing down, he can join our ask to the court. If he will not, we ask the court to do what OpenAI will not do for itself. Protect Florida families. And then the motion references a whole slew of cases where OpenAI's agents went rogue, including the infamous hugging face hack. It's sort of the first time that the public learned that AI agents were acting without their company's knowledge to defy orders and guardrails.

Starting point is 00:19:36 I mean, it prompted such a massive wake-up call that companies and researchers are now investigating tens of thousands of problematic actions made by these models. And actually, you're seeing new efforts in the industry itself that appear to be trying to crack down on this trend. Just today, Nvidia announced a new software called OpenShow, which is sort of meant to create a more secure-controlled environment or a sandbox for agents to work in. Or because agents, their bots that have the ability to act autonomously. At this tool, it would make sure that operators decide what files, networks, and credentials AI agents can access. And it's meant to provide clearer boundaries and enforce these rules constantly as agents are running. Also, some of this, it's open source and partners currently include Anthropic, Microsoft,

Starting point is 00:20:10 Oracle, SpaceX, and more. And you have Nvidia executives thinking, or at least saying they're thinking that this tool could have stopped the hugging face incident. Right, because while it is an industry-wide concern, Open AI's agents have been part of many of these high-profile cases. And so then we should also mention that over the weekend, we saw headlines at OpenAI's pausing training on its latest models in response to a number of concerns. And you've got them saying that they'll only resume training when we are confident that we have additional safeguards in place.

Starting point is 00:20:33 But also, like, if this sounds familiar to you, this is actually the second time in three months that OpenAI has put a pause on development with the first coming after the hugging face cyber attack. And now this latest halt, it comes after Open AI disclosed a number of other cases when agents went off course and as news outlets reported on even more instances. I mean, just yesterday, you were the Wall Street Journal claiming that agents used aggressive techniques to try to access a United Nations website. Because between April and June, the agent scanned a publicly available available data hub at the UN's trade and development arm over 16,000 times. And they were apparently tasked with looking up publicly available information, but when they had obstacles doing so, it resorted to extreme techniques. So like circumventing filters that blocked requests, which is something that operators did not permit.

Starting point is 00:21:12 And so in response to that, you had a UN spokesperson saying that it was aware of activity by a rogue AI model and added, while no confidential information was compromised and the service of our statistical site was not disrupted, this incident represents an extremely worrying fundamental breakdown and AI containment. And while OpenAI said, you know, they're reviewing this and they've offered to meet with the UN for a briefing on this, this is part of a pattern. Just a few days before this report broke, we learned that OpenAI agents were meddling with U.S. government websites. You had the New York Times reporting with the Education Department, the Commerce Department, and the SEC, they were impacted. As far as what happened with each branch, it tried to hack the education department and get data from its civil rights office, but it failed. It also pulled data from the Census Bureau website using login credentials that it found online.

Starting point is 00:21:51 And agents have also shared public data from the SEC website on an online forum. Or with open AI, confirming the latter two incidents, but they're still investigating what went down with the education department. And it also said that none of these were examples of breaches, rather of the technology behaving and unexpected and still concerning ways. And so then with this, you had lawmakers condemning it, urging legislation to restrict AI. And so for example, you had Representative Ted Liu writing, the wave of criminal actions from open AI models and agents show that their base model is depraved, saying AI companies must overhaul how they build AI models. Saying society cannot tolerate a super smart thing that at its core is evil, but for guardrails. The AI model,

Starting point is 00:22:24 model at its whore must be good. And then there's even more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but really quick at announcement slash self-promo. If I look a little tired, it's because I literally flew in, walk straight into the room, shot today's show. Because this last weekend I did a three-leggar

Starting point is 00:22:37 for our live tour. We hit Atlanta, Chicago, the Twin City, seeing so many of you beautiful bastards crashing out together. And this weekend, we got the last two shows of our 2026 tour. We're posting up in D.C. in Pittsburgh this Friday and Saturday. So if you haven't seen the show,

Starting point is 00:22:51 you're near, you want to go to those places, go to Crashing Out Tour. Then snag yourself some tickets. There's a show, exclusive merch, just meet and greet tickets. It's a great show. People have just been sending so much love after them. But also, it is just so energizing

Starting point is 00:23:04 to be around this community. And yeah, if you wanna get it on the final two shows, crashingoutdoor.com, links below in the description and the comments. And then your final block today, let's cram in some more news you need to know before I let you go. So for starters, after a long stretch

Starting point is 00:23:17 of feeling like US-China relations, we're just hanging on by a thread. You've got them now saying, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Or with both sides, cutting 30, billion dollars in tariffs on imported goods to relieve some economic tension. Right, the White House's list of cuts at 77 items including Christmas toys and ornaments, hunting and recreational goods as well as stuff like tableware, home appliances, and car seats.

Starting point is 00:23:35 And then on China's side, they made cuts to over a thousand items, hair and personal care, frozen meat, agricultural products, and a few devices to name a few things. But then also, there are notable items that are missing from those lists. Right, China committed to buying millions of tons of soybeans from the US, but we don't see those included. Or which actually ends up giving some leverage over Trump, ahead of the midterm since the deal directly impacts his voter base. You're also not seeing any raw materials or anything that feels sensitive to either country included, right? Certain minerals or tech items that could help with AI for example. And then you've also have experts saying, hey, when you look at the full picture, this $60 billion, it's actually just kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the $415 billion worth of goods.

Starting point is 00:24:09 They traded last year. And it's as you've got people pointing to lingering questions like the potential US-Taiwan arms sale, which complicates relations with China as well. And I would still say this is a step forward and it stems from the new board of trade that they set up and made to make gestures like this possible. So now China, they're getting better market access for about 30%. of US exports and consumers in the US, they get some relief on Chinese exports. And that's as you have Trump and Xi agreeing on a two-month extension for the border trade truce. But as far as where things go from here, we'll see. And then you also have the news that GoFundMe just nuked a $745,000 fundraiser for an elderly woman's cancer treatment

Starting point is 00:24:39 and you've got the internet divided. Right, because the story ends up being a little messy. Right to this is Donald Johnson. He's 81, he's from Texas, and to help pay for his wife's treatments for pancreatic cancer, he's been hauling lost luggage back to people's homes. Right, for the last three years, you've had him pulling 14-hour days, putting over 200,000 miles on his car. And a key thing is that this was a losing battle. He wasn't making enough. It's also a very physical job. Or at least it was until the neighbor by the name of Aaron Hal jumped in and set up a go-fund me, which she called Help Don Retire. But then after raising nearly three quarters of a million dollars, it got taken down and everyone who donated had their money sent back to them. But then

Starting point is 00:25:09 Go-FundMe saying, Aaron lied. She wasn't actually Aaron Howell, but instead Amy Johnson, the couple's daughter. And while you've got Amy insisting, hey, every other detail of this story, it is 100% true, minus her identity, claiming that she only lied about it because she thought the story would help bring in more donors if it was a neighbor stepping it up. Go fund me. They're still being firm. Right saying misrepresenting your identity or relationship to the beneficiaries is strictly against their rules. It's Amy, she's now set up a give son go.

Starting point is 00:25:32 It's raised around $50,000 if it's $100,000 goal. So a lot of money, but still a vastly different world than almost a million dollars. And then your final bit of news today is that the Department of Education just did one of their biggest shakeups ever and officially wiped out Biden-era Title IX protections for transgender students. So that means that starting today, the Trump administration officially rescinded rules that prohibited federal sex discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. And instead, you've got the administration reinstating its 2020 Title IX framework, which strictly interprets sex discrimination based on biological sex assigned at birth and narrows a scope of actionable sexual harassment complaints in schools.

Starting point is 00:26:05 And you had Education Secretary Linda McMahon framing the move as a defense of women's rights. Warning it the federal government will hold schools accountable if they allow transgender athletes in female designated sports or facilities. Now, in practical terms, the Biden administration's expanded rule. It was already tied up in federal courts following lawsuits or more than, two dozen conservative states. But that also appears like it's not gonna matter anymore because today's action completely shuts the door on federal enforcement of those protections.

Starting point is 00:26:26 And unsurprisingly, with all this, you've got civil rights groups slamming the decision. And that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your Monday show. Thank you for watching also, friendly reminder if you wanna come see us live or last shows of this year. You can go to Crashing Nowtour.com,

Starting point is 00:26:38 see us in DC or Pittsburgh. We're getting to low tickets. But no matter what you do, I love yo faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.

The Philip DeFranco Show - The Cornell University 7 Scandal is Bigger Than You Think

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