The Philip DeFranco Show - The Musk xAI Deepfakes Problem is Worse Than You Think

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

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Or the Anthony Fauci situation just spiraled out of control today and it's just gonna get worse. And I got a special surprise for you after the first story today. 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. You're seeing problems with sexual deepfakes just getting worse and worse and then you're also saying a lot of people putting the blame on Elon Musk's And that's because not only, you know, as XAI getting sued over Grock's sexual content, but his company is also filing lawsuits against efforts to regulate this kind of material. And so actually a great place to start here is with this wild case out of the UK, where you have a lawmaker saying that Grock was used to create sexual videos of her, including ones depicting her being violently assaulted.

Where you've got Labor MP Jess Isato suing XAI after she was one of just many women, targeted by a wave of sexual deepfakes earlier this year. And she says that users specifically targeted her this way after she criticized Elon Musk and Grock, and the examples are incredibly disturbing. And one prompt, the next user asked Grog to depict her with a group of Pakistani men around her as one put a chloroform cloth over her mouth and she passed out onto a couch. And actually not only did Grogh deliver on that, but it also added details. Things like her wearing a skirt that the men were pulling, so it was clear that she was being undressed against her will as the men were preparing to sexually assault her. And now in this new court filing laying out her case, her lawyers say that Grock was specifically instructed to operate with, quote,

no restrictions on adult sexual content or offensive content and no restrictions on fictional adult sexual content with dark or violent themes. And on top of that, the tool was apparently instructed to assume good intent from the people submitting prompts. And so you had Asada writing, what happened to me and others was not an accident. It was a choice made by XAI. I am holding XAI accountable for the harm they designed into their product. And even the legal director of the firm representing her, adding, GROC did not malfunction. Grog behaved according to the choices its designers made. Those choices should carry legal consequences.

And so now, you have you're seeking an order requiring XAI to implement effective and permanent technical measures to make sure that GROC cannot make this kind of sexually manipulative material. And while the company, they've reported, not filed a legal defense there yet, they are taking action over in Minnesota. And that's because just this week you had XAI filing a lawsuit over the state's new law banning notification apps. And specifically, you have this law that's set to go into effect over the weekend, forbidding the use, advertisement, and dissemination of nudification technology. Right, and companies could face a half million dollar penalty each time that law is breached.

But in their complaint, you had XAI arguing that the law is clumsy and imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech. So they added that the company does not contest Minnesota's interest in prohibiting the dissemination of artificially generated new images of real people without their consent. Then also claiming the statute Minnesota enacted extends far beyond that goal, exposing a wide array of protected speech to civil liability. Saying the language of the law specifically punishes AI companies that allow users to depict and alter intimate parts, but claiming its definition of intimate part is not very clear or specific. Then you also have them claiming that this could prevent people from using the technology to engage in political commentary and satire, including examples where politicians have technically been undressed to some extent, and saying these would be targeted by the law,

even though they are not a form of revenge porn. The one surprisingly, leaders of Minnesota are still standing by the law with, for example, Governor Tim Walls responding by writing, see you in court, creep, and then slightly longer, you had the state's attorney general, Keith Ellison, adding, using AI to generate nude images of people against their will, is appalling. There are plenty of worthy debates to have about AI. This is not one of them. While you have XAI, insisting that it already strictly prohibits users

from making non-consensual explicit deepfakes, and they've gone after those who evade these rules, it's really not that hard to find examples of it still happening. Like, you don't need to give them the extra traffic, but if you go on X and you You type in literally any female celebrity's name, which, again, I'm not recommending you do. You will very likely find AI image after AI image of them in lingerie or some sort of revealing thing. Though also, you do Sidney-Sweeney, you'll also specifically see her in very revealing Nazi attire at times. Right, we didn't even have to dig to find a lot of this stuff. A lot of these were like the first or second post that turned up when you search people's names,

and these were made in recent days or weeks. And the thing is, like, while a lot of the GROC AI controversies are new to this year, this is a very, very old and unresolved issue. I mean, back in June of 2023, less than eight years. year after Elon Musk took over Twitter? NBC did that massive report on how deepfake porn on internet creators thrived on the platform, largely thanks to gaps in content moderation. And then in 2024, there was that whole scandal of Taylor Swift deepfakes flooding the platform. And well, yeah, it caused a lot of outrage, people paying attention to the problem. Did it solve it? No. In fact,

by 2025, when Grok was even more popular, it's spicy mode, which is a thing, allowed you to make images of Taylor like it was never even a problem. And so then, earlier this year, when it felt like every other post on Twitter, it was someone asking Grock to put a girl in a bikini, you then had creators speaking out, right? And also wondering how after years have enduring this, nothing's been done. You even had big online creators like Pockemain who's dealt with the issue herself saying.

And it's clear to me that this has only gotten worse, especially because there's a certain platform that is not only allowing these images to be freely distributed, but literally has a built-in tool that allows people to create it. And I am just shocked at the lack of progress that we have made.

Legislation feels like a freaking snail in comparison to the torpedo that is technology and AI. It's in this world where we've been dealing with it more and more and the technology is getting better and better and it still feels like there's no way to protect ourselves. And then also is unsurprising to see that there are other lawsuits out there targeting XAI.

And that even includes one from one of the mothers of Elon Musk's children. Or you at Ashley St. Clair filing a lawsuit and just like a lawmaker in the UK, she claims that GROC is unreasonably dangerous as design. And in fact, even teenagers are suing the site for being victimized by illegal child sexual abuse images. But hey, while we wait to see how all this plays out,

I would love to know your thoughts, reactions and where do you think that everything's going to go from here. I mean that both with Elon Musk and the specific lawsuits that we're seeing here as well as just general deep fakes and regulation around them. Right. And then actually next up from that, I have something very special, just so super important for you. And it's going to be coming from half of y'all's favorite DeFranco, which of course is Lindsay DeFranco. It's probably more like 70%, but let's all lie together and say it's 50% just for my ego please. Right. Lindsay, she's been busting her butt running for this very pivotal state house seat here in Georgia and promoting others to help flip Georgia blue. But today she's coming on for a few reasons, starting with explaining from being on the ground herself, in these rooms herself,

would Trump Republicans just sneakily pull to try to hijack the elections because they just know how deeply unpopular they are right now. But apparently affordability's a hoax. Don't believe you're lying eyes when you're at the gas pump or in the grocery store. Fund our schools, make sure you have health care access. Why do that when we could, you know, snuggle up to flock? Erode personal privacies. Maybe let's build a data center in your backyard.

But also, before I hand her over, I do have to do something rare, and that is I want to ask you to join our fight. Right, obviously. throwing our money into this race ourselves. But her opponent is backed by some crazy ass packs, gambling money and billionaires like Rick Scott. So we are fighting against crazy amounts of money for a state house race. In Lindsay's campaign, it is funded by again, ourselves, an amazing, beautiful bastards like you, because Linz refuses to take dirty money. And you can join the LFG Army, which LFG stands for Lindsay for Georgia and definitely not anything else if anyone asks at Lindsay4GA.com. There's a QR code. I got a link in the description in the top

comment to make it very easy. The average campaign donation has been 40 bucks, but any amount more less, whatever, it gets us a step further. But again, there's some craziness we need to talk about here. So without further ado, my better half. Oh, hey, everybody. It's me again. Remember me? I'm Lindsay. I'm Phil's Better Half and I am running for State House in Georgia in District 47. District 47 covers places like Roswell, Alpharetta, Milton, Mountain Park, and Free Home. Just little parts of them. But don't worry, I have a map. This is the map. Are you in District 47? And I know what you're thinking. Is it a lobster? Yes. They gerrymandered this district so hard that they gave me my own campaign mascot. This is Larry. Got a little picture of him so he will be forever with me and always

in our hearts. And I'm bringing Larry up because I want to tell you how Georgia Republicans just hijacked our elections and stripped power away from the Secretary of State because they know they're about to get pummeled in the midterms. So to back up a little bit, Georgia's legislature meets only 40 days a year. That's 40 days to make all the laws for 11 million citizens. And that time usually goes from January to April. So if there is a special session called outside of that time, it's usually because there's some sort of emergency. And in June, this emergency was our elections. Here's how you vote in Georgia right now.

You walk into the polling place, use a touchscreen to select who you want to vote for, and then a ballot prints out. On that ballot is a QR code, and it also has the list of names of the people that you voted for. Now, when you feed your ballot into the scanner, it doesn't scan the names. It actually scans the QR code,

which, because you can't detect what a QR code says with the human eye, I understand why some people would be uncomfortable with that. In my perfect world, the scanner would actually read the names and we would just get rid of the QR code, which is exactly what Republicans wanted to do. The QR code part, not the other part. So back in 2024, Republicans under the guise of election integrity said that as of July 1st, 2026, any ballots that were counted with a QR code would basically be illegitimate. So basically QR codes could not be used past July 1, 2026.

However, they did not take care of this problem. So they had two years to build the replacement, fund a replacement, do whatever they needed to do to make our elections legal. And they didn't do it. They didn't pick one. They didn't build one. Two entire legislative sessions came and went. They set their own deadline and walked past it, months out from one of the most, if not the most consequential midterm elections of our lifetime. With no legal way to count your vote.

So Brian Kemp had to call everyone back for a special session this summer. It's five days, $65,000 a day. That's not very fiscally conservative, if you ask me, all to clean up a mess that they made themselves. But that wasn't even the whole reason that he called the special session. There wasn't even going to be a session as far as we knew until the Supreme Court made the ruling in the Calais case, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. He and Georgia Republicans saw an opening to redraw our district maps. Fortunately, enough of us showed up on that day that we scared the Republicans into withdrawing that effort. But that doesn't mean that that fight is over. See, I believe they withdrew this effort now because

they knew that if they redrew the maps over the summer, that it would galvanize and energize more Democrats to vote in the midterms. But they put it to the side. They said, we're not going to do it right now. I wholeheartedly believe that they will call a special session back in November after the midterm so that they can draw the maps then with no threat of being voted out. All right, so back to QR codes and the issue of voting. The Republican solution was Senate Bill 3 EX. So it was supposed to tackle the issue of the QR codes, but they actually pushed that problem to 2028. So we can still use QR codes this year. So were they really a problem in the first place? Or was this just about control? I think it's about control. And I'm about to tell you why. In addition to

moving the QR code deadline to 2028, it also created a new committee. Yeah, this nine member committee is now going to be in charge of choosing the new machines, the new way you vote, the way votes are tabulated, et cetera. Now, this new system has to be a system that uses hand-marked paper ballots. This is something that election deniers in Georgia have been fighting for for years. Years. Now, if you know anything about Georgia politics, you know that that privilege usually lies with the Secretary of State. So the third thing that this bill does is it strips the Secretary of State of that ability. Yep, the Secretary of State no longer has the authority to select, certify or purchase the systems that you will use for voting. And all of that power is handed to this

nine member committee. The Secretary of State is Georgia's chief election official. This is a person that you elect specifically to run your elections. And the legislature just took that single biggest decision away from someone that you vote for and gave it to a board that is appointed. Now I went to these meetings. I was in these meetings because I like being in the room where the decisions are made and the discussions happen because there's so much context that you can miss when you're there. In these hearings, one of the Democrats brought up an issue that is very glaring to me, and it's that the bill had no guarantee that this would be a bipartisan committee. In fact, the Democrats there proposed an amendment that would guarantee at least few of the seats would go

to Democrats, and the Republicans voted that down. They said, nah, just trust us. So there are three ways that these nine seats will get filled. First, current Republican governor, Brian Kemp, gets to pick three of them. Three will get picked by the Republican House Speaker. And then three will be picked through Senate committee assignments, which the Republicans currently control. So that was the plan from June until today, and today they just announced who's going to be on this committee. There's going to be eight Republicans and one Democrat. So I guess we got our minority representation, but does it mean anything?

The grand scheme of things, probably not. And co-chairing on the House side as Representative Tim Fleming. If his name sounds familiar, it is because he is running to be Secretary of State in Georgia. He is the Republican nominee for Secretary of State. So he's running to be the official that this bill just took powers away from while personally designing the system that that person will have to run. If he wins in November, he gets to certify a system that he built. But if he loses, it's not a big deal because he's still in control of our elections.

Slemming has said that the goal is to make it so that Democrats can't steal our elections. He's also a Trump loyalist. Now, this is a state where in 2020, the election was certified three different times. Once, the count was by hand. and the Republican-led state certified it. And every single court case failed. There was no fraud. And to be real, the grudge here was never fraud.

It was all about taking control of these elections. If anything, they had a grudge with current secretary of state Brad Raffensberger who refused to find 11,000 votes for Donald Trump in 2020. Here's why I'm telling you all of this. This isn't really about QR codes. This is more of an x-ray of how Republicans have been running Georgia for the past two decades. They pass a law. They don't fund. They pass a law. They don't fund. They They pass a deadline that they set and they bill you for the cleanup.

And they use that cleanup to take power away from someone you elected and hand it to themselves. And their whole strategy depends on the ends and outs of everything being so boring that you don't notice. And you'll find that same sort of playbook everywhere else. They take money out of our communities and they don't send it back. They don't reinvest our own communities. They chronically underfund our public schools while your property tax bill rises because they refuse to pay their fair share. We're one of only a few states that has refused to expand Medicaid despite the fact that the federal government keeps offering to give our money back to us and cover 90% of it.

Data centers and subdivisions are approved faster than the roads and the water that support them. Women in this state are still dying because of the six-week abortion ban. And even the summer and special session, they tried to pass a property tax cut that was really just shifting the burden onto sales tax. They wanted to cut the property taxes and raise the sales tax by 1%. For the Republicans here, the problem is the product. They've been saying they're going to cut property taxes and solve all these issues for years. But if they do that, they'd have nothing else to run on. So I'm running in District 47. It's the first time that this seat has been open in 24 years. We've had the same representative for 24 years. And I'd say it's time to change that. Now, the person

I'm running against is 24 or 25, depending on which voter registration or voter software you're looking at. 24 or 25 doesn't matter to me. It's all the same. And he works for the mayor of Milton at his private wealth financial firm. He is the handpicked successor for the the seat thrust forward by establishment Republicans. Many of the people who have endorsed him and are behind him are election deniers and controversial figures in their own right. He's here because the establishment picked him. I'm here because I got sick of waiting for someone to solve these problems, sick of waiting for somebody to stand up for our people and say it like it is. His website is full of Fox News talking points and dog whistles. He doesn't say anything about health care other than

that he agrees with the abortion ban. Nothing about funding in public schools or housing or affordability. Which brings me to the part where I ask you for something. Last time you guys helped me so much when there was a fundraising deadline and there is another one. But this time, it's even more serious. Elections are incredibly expensive and from day one, I made a promise to myself and to others that I would never take corporate money, pack money, special interest money, gambling money, none of that. I have a 100% grassroots funded campaign. But that also means that spending for my opponent where he is taking all of that money that I just mentioned, they are way out spending me. of these corporate packs and special interests in the gambling lobbies are outspending us.

It seems like they have unlimited money. Now, I will still refuse to take that money and I will always rely on grassroots support. But I need your help. The fundraising deadline is on Friday. And it's very important this time because we are getting closer and closer to the midterm election. You're going to scream when you hear my goal, but I think we can do it. Last time, I asked you guys to help, we raised $50,000 in two days. This week, I have set the goal for myself From Monday to Friday, I want to raise $100,000. And I know you think I'm crazy, but it is doable. Listen to the math.

We just need 2,128 people to donate $47 because of district 47, and we will have hit our goal. Or 1,000 people to give $100. Or 500 people to give $200. Or 100 sugar mommies and daddies to give $1,000. Or, I mean, the max amount you can do is $3,300. And if you do that, I will come give you a big kiss on the mouth. Just kidding, I won't do that. But I will be eternally grateful.

At the end of the day, I would rather owe thousands of ordinary people a thank you than have to answer to one special interest. I pride myself on being transparent and accountable. And the last thing I want is for anybody to wonder why I am voting the way I am voting. Or who is behind my decision. This is a huge year in Georgia. We are expecting a huge blue wave. And I know that is overplayed. But I really think that we can do this.

And we need to be able to stop Republican redistricting efforts, efforts to further take our tax money, give it to corporations and data centers. We need to be able to reinvest in our communities. communities and help the people that need it most. Democrats just need 10 seats to flip the house. In 2018, we picked up 11 seats. That was the last midterms under this president. So it's not unheard of and it is definitely achievable. Your state legislatures act as a firewall between you and the federal government. And right now, there is no wall. They're like, come on in. We need to empower ourselves and our legislature to fight back against government overreach. So if you'd like to contribute, I'd love if you would go to Lindsay for GA.com slash

Donate and donate what you can. I really think that we can achieve this. And when we do, I promise to use it wisely and make it go as far as it can getting out the word. Also, I am going live tonight with Phil and maybe a couple of other nights to fundraise even more and to chat. So make sure you subscribe to YouTube.com slash at Lindsay for GA. So thank you for listening. This is a once in a lifetime election. I really appreciate your support.

And you can have Phil back now. She's just the best. Obviously, I'm biased. But hey, if y'all would like to chip in with me, again, like she said, go to LindsayforGA. and we would love to absolutely have you for tonight's live stream. There's also going to be more. So to make sure you see that because most of those are going to be on her channel, subscribe to it. I've got a link in the description for you. It's also in the pinned comment. And on YouTube, I even uploaded today's show as a collab so you can just boom, boom, easy to click way to subscribe to her channel.

And then there's more we got to dive into in just a minute. But first, let me thank a sponsor and start with Safia R. You're going to see a New York Mets game and all you had to do was enter our weekly $500 seat geek giveaway. Because for the rest of y'all, if you don't know, today's sponsor, Seatkeek, they've doled out nearly $60,000. you guys to get you off the couch and into the comedy club, the stadium, or a concert hall since 2024. Right? And it's been awesome to see it. If you haven't entered yet, now's the time. Summer's here, the events are stacking up, baseball, soccer, tours for Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, your favorite comedians. If you can, get out there. And for this giveaway, it's free to enter and takes two seconds. Rikaseki, they're the number one rated ticketing app with over 28 million downloads

and tickets to over 70,000 events, sports, music, comedy, theater, you name it. I mean, go now, look for tickets to literally anything and just download the app or hit the link in the description and use code fill 10 for 10% off your purchase on seek geek and that's new customers and all. And next and this part is key, add that code to your seek geek account. That gets you the 10% off and enters you in for your chance to win the weekly $500 giveaway no purchase required. And seek geek vets, you've used it before. We'd never leave you out. Add code fill 10 to your account and you're entered too. But yeah, scan that QR code or click the link below, add code fill 10 and go make some memories. But then diving right back into the news,

you've got AI powered robot teachers being sent into classrooms by a company that also makes sex dolls. So unsurprisingly, it's turned into this whole thing in upstate New York where they're really trying to deploy a robot teacher Or at least I should say they were until the backlash from real teachers and parents made them hit the pause button And specifically I'm talking about the Salamanca City Central School District and their $60,000 purchase from robotics And the idea is that you have this humanoid robot her name Sally or its name is Sally and it has silicone skin and long hair and it be deployed in classrooms as soon as this fall to provide learning support for both teachers and students Well at this point it's not meant to replace a real person who's in charge it is a stationary figure that's students can interact with and teachers can utilize if they ever lose their place or they need a prompt for what comes next in the curriculum. And Stationery is one of the keywords here.

Reportedly, Sally is just meant to sit in one place, but we'll also have a variety of facial expressions and upper body movements to mimic human speech. Hopefully, Sally doesn't move her hands like I do because that might make her a killbot. But then also, on top of the robot's physical presence, this whole deployment will include an AI teacher's assistant program so that students can interact with a robot via an avatar on their computers as well. Right in there, you had Andrew Kiegel, the CEO of Robotics, saying, this deployment in a working school, district represents a landmark movement for both AI and humanoid robotics. Salamanca marks the beginning of a new era where humanoid robots and intelligent AI assistants become standard tools in STEM education. And the district superintendent really painting this is a win for

education and its use of AI saying many schools are taking the easy solution of simply banning it. But I have found that students will find a way around most rules that schools put in place. I also believe it is critical for schools to teach proper use of technology, not simply excluding. But the positive outlook on all this, it kind of ends there because as far as the teachers and the parents, you're really seeing waves of backlash coming from a few different directions. It definitely starts with the classic AI problem for a lot of people. How is the student's personal information going to be stored and used beyond the classroom? Because you see a big feature, a Sally, is that it's going to be able to recognize the student

number and remember their previous conversations and their learning data. So you've got people asking, well, what's going to be done with that information? And well, there, you have the superintendent promising that both Sally and the avatar will operate on a closed system that doesn't connect to the internet. Saying robotics, they wouldn't have access to personally identifiable student information. But then, that brings us to the other big problem for a lot of people, and that is the manufacturer itself. For because two years ago, Reobotics acquired Simulocker, which is a Las Vegas-based company that manufactures sex dolls. And that is a connection that is unsettled a lot of people, including the New York State United Teachers Labor Union. And you're their president, Melinda Person, which just for this story, feels like a really, really funny name.

Saying that a robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has, quote, no business in our classrooms and adding, our students don't need robots, they need real relationships with caring adults. Educators notice when students are struggling, celebrate when they succeed, and help them discover who they can become. No robot can do that, no matter how life-like its skin or are specific its regional accent. And with all this, you had Reobotics later clarifying that there is a difference between their company and the one that makes the sex stalls. Right saying that a sister company named Intima LLC holds the ownership stake in the AI-powered

sex style manufacturer. And you've got them promising that there's no crossover in the products provided by Reobotics LLC, which is focused on healthcare, education, and other non-adult commercial applications and Intima LLC. And they even issued a statement responding to the backlash reading. The two subsidiaries maintained their own management, personnel, payroll, facilities, manufacturing operations, product development, and market strategies. And then both the company and the district superintendent made it very clear that Sally is programmed to steer clear of inappropriate topics like sex, violence, and gambling.

Still, any sort of even remote connection between something so blatantly sexual in a classroom, that is enough for a lot of the parents to feel uneasy. And then on top of that, you have the school itself, right? Salamanca is located on the Seneca Nation Reservation in upstate New York, and it serves a large Native American population. In fact, it's the only incorporated city in the United States located entirely within a Native American Reservation. And so you have a lot of the teachers taking issue with this program being launched there, of all places. That includes Sierra Mae Abrams, who's a substitute teacher at the school who told the Guardian. Out of all the schools in New York State, let alone in the US, they chose to experiment on Native American children yet again. And adding, our culture is struggling to stay alive due to the impact of the Native American boarding schools and what they did to our elders. We live on the only reservation located in a city, so it's just absolutely insane that we're the ones, quote, testing it out.

And then you're also seeing backlash from other individuals like State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, who raised a lot of serious concerns. And just to name a few, you've got student data privacy, the role of the robot in teaching, and what safeguards are going to be implemented. And now, whether it be, because of one of those issues or all of them, you have the school just announcing that they're going to hit the pause button. With the promising to work with the New York State Education Department on student data privacy agreements as well as, quote,

incorporating input from our community. And you would real robotics saying if they respect the decision and encourage due diligence and added, we want the program to be demonstrably, say, fully district approved and strongly supported by teachers and saying we stand firmly behind the program as a supportive tool designed to assist teachers and students to not replace them. Though I can't imagine that this is over,

especially because the district did already spend $60,000, on this robot. And then next up, from that, no transition for this one. You've now got Anthony Fauci pleading the fifth to avoid potential prosecution, and the Republicans, they want to prosecute him for pleading the fifth. And you've got all of this coming just a few days after Rand Paul, right, the chairman of the Senate committee that Fauci was compelled to present himself before today, releasing more than 1,100 pages of Fauci's private diary entries from during the pandemic without saying how he got it. And you had Rand Paul referencing those pages when he kicked off today's hearing by blaming Fauci for the millions of worldwide deaths from COVID-19.

Publicly, Anthony Fauci promoted the theory that the virus arose naturally, while privately, he was well aware of a mountain of evidence suggesting the virus originated in the lab. The American people deserve answers. The American people deserve to know why dangerous research was funded by NIAID in a totalitarian country. The decision to fund dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China will likely go down in history as perhaps one of the worst public health decisions. Frankly, the American people deserve an apology. And so Paul's main claims, though, there are many, many more, are that COVID-19 most likely came from a Chinese laboratory, either accidentally or on purpose, that Fauci covered it up, and that this may have happened because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, under Fauci's leadership, funded so-called gain of function research in Wuhan.

Right. And that is a type of research that is genuinely controversial because of the potential for dangerous pathogens to spill out of labs and cause a pandemic, but also to be very clear here. It cannot be definitively said that Fauci funded that type of research in China. And it also cannot be said that this resulted in the COVID-19 virus or even that the virus came from a lab at all. Now, as far as funding, the NIAD under Fauci did fund a US-based nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance that research back coronaviruses, including through a years-long project in China in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And so some of the federal money did really end up in China, but there is a debate over whether the research done technically qualified as gain of function research.

Though also, either way, there's still not solid evidence that the virus came from a lab. Now, it is true that the CIA and the FBI and the Department of Energy and a a Republican-led select subcommittee, they've come out in favor of this theory. But also a very key thing is that after years of study, the consensus among most scientists, the people who actually study viruses for a living, is that the virus is most likely natural in origin. And very notably, with all that, Rand Paul, he even continued to point to evidence that's been debunked. And so, for example, you've had him repeatedly suggesting that the virus has a feature not found in nature. And it is true that early on scientists thought that this feature suggested that the virus had been made in a lab.

But now that they've studied it more closely, they found that this feature is actually common in other coronaviruses in that the COVID-19 virus actually has many qualities suggesting that it has not been engineered. But that said, whatever scientists think today, you had Paul saying that Fauci's early diary entries proved that he covered up evidence supporting this lab leak theory back then, but that is also not the case. Paul's claims they seem to be largely based on Fauci's writings from the early days of the pandemic when, one, he wrote that a wet market in Wuhan was not the source, it was the amplifier, and two, he talked about a conference call that he convened with a dozen experts to consider the lab leak theory and said that most of them wouldn't definitively rule out the possibility of deliberate insertion.

But with number one, Fauci said literally in the next sentence that it meant the virus jumped from animals to humans. And with number two, you have many saying that scientists refusing to rule out the possibility is not the same as saying they believed that theory or had solid evidence to support it. And ultimately Fauci, you had him consistently in public and in these diary injuries, saying that natural spillover is the most likely scenario, but that there is no definitive proof for any theory of the pandemic's origin. And in fact, with all that, ahead of today's hearing, you had more than 155 scientists, physicians, and public health advocates signing a letter, calling for an end to what they describe as the vilification and harassment of many American scientists by the Trump administration

and its allies. You also had this letter dismissing the allegations against Fauci as baseless and saying no credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges. Also adding that these allegations have led to a five-year period of harassment and threats of violence directed at Dr. Fauci and his family. And when he had Fauci making his opening statement, he clearly appeared fed up. Or you had him starting by saying that his decades of appearing before a lawmaker showed his respect for the value of congressional oversight, but then he continued. However, given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing

and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars. And Fauci, he has a point. Paul has referred him to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution despite the fact that he was among those who received a preemptive pardon from Biden at the end of his term. But that pardoned, it only protects him from federal prosecution for actions he took through the date that it was issued. And so it's clear that Paul saw this hearing as his chance to finally get him. Right, definitely public perception-wise, but also potentially

illegally. And you had him writing in a post a few days ago that the pardon won't protect him if he told any lies today. And so Fauci, he seemingly decided to not even take a chance to say something that could be argued to be dishonest in some way. Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.

But then, of course, you get a lot of people online taking this decision as evidence of Fauci's guilt. Or with people like Ben Shapiro, for example, writing, if he were truly the science, as he proclaimed, he wouldn't be pleading the fifth. And doubting, this is about Fauci trying to avoid a perjury charge based on the testimony he would otherwise give today. But then on the other side, you had people saying,

hey, there are serious doubts that any charges would actually be pursued for a good reason and in good faith. And there, we have all seen Trump using the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies. But then also with this, you have some saying, Fauci, he actually isn't allowed to plead the fifth at all. And so for example, you had Paul threatening that there would be consequences for not answering questions.

It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions. to your refusal to testify today. And then also in Fauci's lawyer, trying to speak up for his client, Paul threw him out. You are not recognized, sir. Security, please, we're moving from the room. You also had Josh Hawley seemingly clip farming,

asking Fauci what day of the week it was, and then Fauci pleading the Fifth. Let's just get one thing straight. You don't have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned. Though I will say, Holly isn't necessarily wrong. Or the Fifth Amendment, it says that someone can't be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

In Fauci, he can't be federally prosecuted for anything that happened before Biden's pardon, which is when all the questions are focused on. So since he was under subpoena, he may have been obligated to answer, but as far as Fauci's lawyers, they would likely argue that he still has a right not to incriminate himself for potential state charges, which aren't protected by a pardon, or any new charges that the DOJ might have drum up based on his testimony. Now, to mention, Republicans have talked about finding a way to undo Biden's pardon, so they could argue that there's some uncertainty there. But whatever the case, right, you had Paul saying at the end of the hearing that the committee would vote next week,

whether to hold Fauci in contempt for his refusal to testify. And again, suggesting that Fauci bears personal responsibility for the pandemic. Did his actions lead to the largest man-made plague in human history? Are the millions dead the result of his experiments or experiments that he approved? And while you also had other Republicans, you know, taking their time to go after him, as far as the Democrats, what you saw them do was attack the whole process, slamming Paul and other Republicans for spending their time targeting Fauci when the current administration has cut scientific research funding and fired thousands of people at public health agencies.

Right, something that has been getting more and more eyes, know that the country's been dealing with rising measlesole cases and the cyclospora outbreak. With many wondering, does this witch hunt help prepare the country for the next pandemic, which according to experts, is a matter of when, not if. And then there's more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, we've gotten pretty good at protecting our phones with face ID, two-factor authentication, and password managers. Somehow, the account that controls almost everything else is still the one we think about the least, or email. And that's why I'm glad today's sponsor is Proton Mail.

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Now streaming on Disney Plus, the Hulu original series Furious follows FBI Agent Alice Black, played by Emmy Rossum, on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. New episodes week over week, watch the Hulu original series Furious, now streaming only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Diving right back into the news. You now have scientists ringing that alarm bell about one very unexpected but potentially devastating consequence of Trump's war in Iran. You now have them saying that conditions are primed for a large-scale bio-invasion super spreader event.

And if that sounds daunting and scary, that's because it is, though, it might not be in the way that you're thinking and we should break it down. Because as we all know, though, sometimes we forget because there's a million things happening, the straight-over moose has been choked off for quite a while now. And as a result, you have a boat load doesn't fit. We're talking about ships. You've got a hell of a lot of ships stuck outside of it, patiently waiting for it to open back up. I mean, we're talking an estimated 1,500 ships in the Persian-Arabian Gulf and hundreds more in the Gulf of Oman, which actually, according to this new study, is not only

an unparalleled number of ships stranded in modern history, they've also been stuck for an unparalleled length of time. Right, ships, they normally stay anchored and harbor for around one to three days, but these big boys, they've been sitting there for months. And just like how if a human sits in their basement for too long, they emerge, covered in mountain dew stains, Cheeto dust, and greasy hair. And while when these boats and these ships, they sit in the gulf for too long, all this nasty shit just builds up on their holes. Algae and microbes, parasites, and pathogens, barnacles, and other invertebrates. And so now the fear is that when the straight does finally reopen, one of these days, or months, or years? These gunk-encrusted vessels, they're gonna sail right through carrying all sorts of invasive species to every corner of the globe. And that is no bueno, that is not good. They could ruin entire ecosystems, destroy local wildlife, spread disease.

Not to mention just the cost on us humans, billions of dollars in damage, whether by invading fisheries or clogging the cooling systems of power plants. And also a fun fact, if you look into it, climate change combined with the gulf regions extreme heat and salty water, it might make its local organisms extra resilient. Or in other words, like, they might be leveling up right now. They would have to have to have have an easier time penetrating foreign ecosystems and other parts of the earth. And all of that is why you have the studies lead author telling the Guardian, if you had to design the worst case scenario, I don't know if you could have done it differently. It is a perfect storm. So seemingly you have this ticking time bomb, but then also, of course,

that this doesn't happen until the straight opens back up. And if you happen to turn on your TV this morning or you saw a clip online, you might realize that doesn't feel like it's going to be happening anytime soon. President Trump tells Fox News about Iran, we are going to beat the effing S out of them. He went on to say, we'll be hitting them hard, they're going to get a beating. Right, so a downgrade from his,

a whole civilization will die tonight threats, but still threats. So of course this whole Trump-A-Rond thing, it's been a roller coaster, this game of, he loves me, he loves me not, kind of ever since this whole thing started. And the most recent, we'll call it storyline, as you know, they first agreed to a two-week ceasefire

in April. But then the fighting started back up just days later over the street of her moves. With that, then continuing until June, when both sides agreed to stop fighting for 60 days. And then that, it didn't make it to the end of the month before fighting broke out again. But then days later, they went, oh, okay, let's chill out,

and they're straight for the real this time. But then, several days after that, they started fighting again with that lasting for two weeks. And then this time, without even a formal agreement, the fighting paused for several days, though both sides kept threatening each other. Which then brought us to this morning and the reason that Trump promised to beat the fucking shit out of them because the conflict blew up yet again. Or with Iran confirming it, it launched a barrage of missiles at a US base and Central Command headquarters in Jordan. Though notably, you had the US saying that all of those had been intercepted and destroyed

and that there were currently no reports of casualties. But still, you had Trump pissed or acting piss, calling it a surprise attack and saying at the US had only been given a few minutes notice to shoot down the missiles. But also while it's true that this attack, unlike most of Iran's previous ones, didn't come as retaliation for U.S. airstrikes on its territory, it also wasn't totally unprovoked. Right, for one, Trump's blockaded the country's ports, so that's arguably an ongoing act of war in itself. And for another thing, you had Trump going on Fox and Friends last night, saying shit like this. If they don't make a deal, the bridges are going to be gone. Literally in less than a, I would say in two hours, most of the bridges, the major bridges will all be gone.

And the power plants in one day, it really decimates a country. Those are the two big things. And then there's always the desalinization plants. And who am I hurting there? I'm hurting the people. So I'm not looking to do that. So now we're kind of waiting to see if he follows through on those threats, which just so we're clear,

seem to be blatant threats to commit war crimes. Or you can't bomb stability and infrastructure to pressure the regime to come to the table, at least legally, like it is physically possible. But whatever he does, a lot of hawks, they're pushing Trump to do something, right? Because they're tired of this diplomatic merry-go round. For example, Ben Shapiro,

replying sarcastically to the news of the so-called surprise attack with, I've been reliably informed that these are reasonable people with whom we can cut a wonderful deal though. With that then seeming to provoke a cat fight with a conservative journalist Sean Davis, who said, passive aggressively mocking the idea of negotiating with bad people is a rather clunky neocon attempt to demanding war until every possible enemy is dead. It's as childish as it is stupid and a historical.

To which Ben shot back, your contention that the two alternatives are one, negotiating with bad people or two, demanding war until every possible enemy is dead, is silly and reductive. With then Davis firing back, these are wonderful people with whom we can cut a deal is itself reductive and silly, with a side of a feminine passive, aggressiveness designed to manipulate people into believing total war is the only option. But then Ben, laying out what he and others like him, want Trump to do, which is to bomb Iran even more, keep sanctioning them, destroy their oil facilities, ramp up our own oil production as well as

Venezuela's, and leave the straight for someone else to clean up. But then also, whether you agree with any of that, if you think it's a good idea or not, it is ironically what the Iranian hardliners also seem to want. Because you had two senior U.S. officials telling the Wall Street Journal that they believe that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, they're actively trying to undermine negotiations in this morning's missile attack and they have been part of that effort. Or because Iranian leadership, they know the American public has very little appetite for this war. And so they believe times on their side, especially with the elections coming up this November. And at the same time, American munition stockpiles are said to be dwindling.

And that says you have Reuters now reporting that Iran's expecting the first of several shipments of shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile launches from China soon. But also, according to Trump, you know, their military was completely obliterated five months ago. And so I'm sure, you know, the 50,000 American troops in the region, they're not going to have anything to worry about. But that, my friend, you beautiful bastard, is the end of today's show. You've also got two great options from here. One, you should definitely subscribe to Lindsay's channel. I'll link to it in the description, the comments, all the good places.

It might even be on screen. And two, of course, it's Wednesday, so I got a brand new episode of our crashing out podcast, which was a special one again. And personally, I recommend you take advantage of both of those things. But that said, no matter what you do, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.