The Philip DeFranco Show - The Shane Gillis Situation Has Divided The Internet & Trump Crowd Attacks Woman Over Epstein Shirt

Starting point is 00:00:00 And then there's more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, August is a great time for a reset before fall gets chaotic and my closet, it could use some adult supervision. And that's where today's sponsor, Quince comes in. Quince makes fewer better pieces from premium materials, the things you'll reach for constantly. And I really like their staples like organic cotton teas and Mongolian cashmere sweaters at work all day and into the evening. Or basically, clothes that make you look put together without looking like you spend an hour planning it. Their denim and Taylor Chino start at 60 bucks with a fit, structure, and quality that you'd expect from a luxury designer brand. And then you've got things like the cotton silk short sleeve crewneck sweater.

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Starting point is 00:00:57 So hey, upgrade your everyday by scanning that QR code or going to quince.com slash defranco for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. And they're now available in Canada and the UK as well. So that's QU-I-N-C-E dot com slash defranco. Quince.com slash DeFranco. A woman just got beat up at a Jake Paul-Fueled Trump rally for demanding to see the Epstein file. The Shane Gillis' SNL controversy has divided the internet. The 911 calls for Christopher Pike, they just got released and they prove that no one knew anything about what was going on. Kimberly Gilfoyle is resigning. The new Hyde House press secretary doesn't appear to have a working brain and someone was thrown off a roller coaster at six flags, but it's even worse than it sounds. 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.

Starting point is 00:01:39 So you just had a protester getting beat up at a Trump rally and Trump's response was to call them fat. Right at the Donald Trump Jake Paul midterm rally. And yes, the world is this weird and stupid. Where have you been? But specifically, this all happened as Trump was campaigning for Republicans in Ohio and someone in the crowd, they were wore a shirt saying, release the Epstein files. Right, and as she stood up during Trump's speech, the people around her began to grab her, shove her, pull her hair, and even punch her while the rest of the arena cheered on.

Starting point is 00:02:11 And then, as security intervened, you had them not escorting the people who hit the protester, but they dragged the protester out. And all this chaos, it was apparently big enough and loud enough that Trump started paying attention and began to mock her and refer to her as a man as she was being carried away. He's a paid protest, so they're all paid.

Starting point is 00:02:43 They get paid by the lefties. in order to destroy our country. They're scum. But he's going back home to mom. He's going back home to mom. Look at him. Look at it. Terrible.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Don't we love law enforcement? Oh, he's got to go on a diet. He's a fat guy. Wow. Got to go on a diet fast. We all do. Now with that, right, it feels like it goes without saying,

Starting point is 00:03:22 but have to mention it, there's absolutely no evidence that this protester was paid to be there, which is even something Fox News admitted in its article on the incident. And they actually even reported that while the protester was made to leave, the man who struck her got to stay

Starting point is 00:03:33 and even high-five the other attendees that were around him. Right, as far as the protesters side of the story, she only gave a brief statement to TMZ as she was being walked out. Why did you decide to protest today? It's on Trump. And while that, it was definitely the most chaotic moment from the rally.

Starting point is 00:03:47 It wasn't the only time that a protester interrupted Trump while he was speaking in Ohio. And so you had Jake Paul, of all people, who in addition to being there, was also on Air Force One with him, calling this out. I get confused by the left, the protesters. Do they not have jobs?

Starting point is 00:04:01 That's all they do. Just carry signs around while we're doing the work. Oh, Jake, you conniving opportunistic con artist cuck. It is such a shame that you getting your jaw broken to the cheers of millions because you're such an asshole didn't stop you from using that bootlicking mouth of yours. One, you're criticizing a protester for being there in a room full of people who are there, who had or made the time. And two, how are you going to call out people who do not work or do?

Starting point is 00:04:26 Do not contribute when you fucking fled to Puerto Rico so you don't have to pay taxes on the money that, by the way, you also make by convincing your audience to lose money with your gambling company. You just continue to be an ever-growing net negative on society the longer that you continue to exist. And I just have to tell you that since you are surrounded by people that make money or gain position or gain fame from you who are never going to say these things to you. You're a fantastic marketer, a great social manipulator, but you just are a bad human being. And no number of side projects you do to try to shield yourself or PR is ever going to actually fix what's inside your heart or what's supposed to be there. But with a story, right, it was the fight in Trump's remarks that definitely drew the most backlash. People noting that this appear to be a group of mostly men attacking a woman protester with a crowd applauding the violence and adding. The president of the United States and MAGA are okay with physically assaulting women.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Others also thought it was incredibly telling that the crowd was angered by a shirt calling for the Epstein files to be released. Saying things like demanding accountability for pedophiles gets you assaulted at a Trump event. and saying, you know, it seems like the same people who are once begging for Trump to release the Epstein files, they're now beating people up for fighting for that cause. Though then also at that, I'll say, you know, this does come as lawmakers are still fighting for transparency on that front. Epstein might not be dominating the headlines like he once was, but representatives like Thomas Massey and Roe Kana, they are constantly trying to keep this issue in the spotlight. And the discharge petition for the second part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act has 216 of the 218 signatures that it needs.

Starting point is 00:05:47 And so both Massey and Kana, they're really trying to up the pressure on their colleagues to join on and force a vote on this bill. Right, just this week, you had Kana campaigning with. the Democratic Senate candidate in Iowa, and there he called on Republican Representative Ashley Hinson, who's also trying to grab that Senate seat to take the petition to the finish line. I'm calling on Ashley Hinson to text or call Thomas Massey to get on our discharge petition, just like Brian Fitzpatrick has, Nancy Mace has, and other Republicans have. This is about whether you stand with the pedophiles, with rich and powerful donors, or whether you're going to stand with young girls, so that we can give survivors the right to get the documents,

Starting point is 00:06:22 and we can give state attorney generals the right to prosecute these individuals. Right, because like we talked about last week, Democrats are in part trying to make Epstein a part of the midterms. In addition to affordability with gas, electricity, health insurance, in addition to Trump's war of choice, in addition to a million other things. And so it ends up not being surprising to see kind of focusing on someone who is seeking higher office in an effort to not just get the signature, but highlight how Republicans are dropping this Epstein effort. And as it stands now, only four have signed the discharge petition and the rest of the names, they're all Democrats. And so Massey, he's trying to get voters.

Starting point is 00:06:52 to encourage the representatives to sign. And last week, he wrote, we have 216 signatures, but we need 218. Two Democrats who are out sick have pledged to sign, but any two Republicans could sign the petition now. Will your representative sign? And so something probably less for you, but people around you to wonder about when they're casting their vote.

Starting point is 00:07:08 But ultimately, we'll have to wait and see, and we'll know soon if any of this moves the need. Because as much as people care about the situation and they should care about it, and it also raises just so many red flags around Trump and a lot of elected Republicans just that are in there not doing their job. A lot of polling shows that this election is about affordability, it's about privacy, it's about Trump's war of choice with Iran that's fuck so many things in the country.

Starting point is 00:07:27 And I guess less so we can throw onto the list, do you really want to vote the same way as Jake Paul? Those two, they do seem kind of like birds of a feather, right? People with God complexes that are more focused on trying to extract as much wealth from the people in the country while larping as someone that very much cares about it. But hey, that's also just my opinion. But then jumping from that to other news, let's talk about this whole Shane Gillis controversy and backlash. Right, because while people had takes on this and that from the whole show, you had a lot of people honing in specifically on the monologue, specifically on the part where he said, I haven't been to the gym in so long, I didn't know women just dressed like whores now. I'm sorry, there's no other way to describe it. Have you seen it? I've seen it, the shorts. Have you seen the shorts? With them then going on to describe women's workout shorts and how they fit. And so then from that, you had people like Schitt's Creek star Dan Levy, quick to react and call Gillis out the next day. Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them horrors, misogynists.

Starting point is 00:08:23 As you had levies post going viral, others seeing that, other is also just seeing the clip, and other people sounding all. With that, including yesterday, former SNL cast member, Ego Wodom, referencing the monologue by posting a gym selfie and joking, whore, reporting for duty. Also, later in the day, you had current SNL star Michael Che,

Starting point is 00:08:38 alluding to the monologue in a text-only grid post. Writing, gotta do more press this week to promote the special, under what every fucking question's gonna be about. Thanks a lot, Shane. And that says you had people like country singer, Marin Morris, also reacting, posting a TikTok of herself,

Starting point is 00:08:49 giving Gillis, the middle finger and adding the caption, me being a whore at the gym. With all that kind of being just a small example about a lot of people that were out there expressing their disapproval from both men and women. Then also part of the reaction ended up being people talking about people who like the monologue.

Starting point is 00:09:01 And so for example, you have Travis Kelsey today facing backlash because he apparently liked the monologue clip on Instagram. And so with people saying that as a formal stamp of approval, they started sounding off saying, like Travis Kelsey liking that horribly misogynistic S&L vid, maybe that's just the kind of humor they have in Cleveland.

Starting point is 00:09:15 But then also someone quoting the Taylor Swift song, Cleveland saying, my baby likes what he likes. And it's disgusting. misogynistic SNL skits and rape fantasies. And so then also with all these conversations and debates that have been playing out around this monologue, you had a lot of people trying to analyze what the reaction, say, about the zeitgeist and the state of woke culture.

Starting point is 00:09:31 Or was I'm arguing that there's an added sensitivity right now with the monologue coming amid the Cornell gang rape allegations? Also, others arguing that these kinds of jokes create an environment where women are harassed, assaulted, or just treat it like shit. And then also with this, you had people pointing out that Gillis's ex-girlfriend Grace Brassel, she recently posted an Instagram video with several clips of herself crying, and she wrote in the caption,

Starting point is 00:09:48 Last year I was in a relationship that fully stripped me of who I am, notting that she's been terrified to talk about what she went through. Also with this, there have now been opinion pieces being made about Gillis' joke. You have this article and the Hollywood reporter arguing that it was simply the wrong place, wrong time, and not built for the SNL audience in 2026, given the show's liberal cast, sketches, and audience. You also had things like an essay in vogue with the headline, I'm so over comics, who simply don't like women. And with the writer arguing, there's never a great time for lazy misogynist humor. And saying this isn't about being triggered or offended.

Starting point is 00:10:14 It's about a lot of male comedians continuing to rely on this category of jokes that just are not not creative or funny. Then also, of course, in addition to that, on the other side of this, you had a lot of people kind of loving what they were seeing. Arguing that part of the appeal of a Shane Gillis hosting something like S&L and doing that monologue is that he's not doing it for the audience. Or rather, he's not doing it for their audience, he's doing it for his audience. And that's as you have outlets like the New York Post publishing a story yesterday about how the left is, quote, desperate to bring back cancel culture. And there you have the piece saying that comedy is meant to poke fun at our society. And yes,

Starting point is 00:10:41 scantily-clad gym influencers trying to bait idiots at the gym is part of that. And there you had some people echoing that sentiment, also saying, right, all of this is not that deep. People like YouTuber Caleb Hammer, for example, saying it was the most tame stand-up set I've ever seen. Why do we let these people control our culture? And you also had folks like Tim Miller from Bullwork tweeting. So you were offended because the SNL host monologue was a little crass. And you are annoyed someone might impugn your chud king. I have a great idea. Maybe you guys should get together for a podcast I can listen to while I cut myself and contemplate the sweet release of death. And as far as Shane Gillis himself, you know, a big part of the conversation is like, uh, none of this is going to be a big deal for Gillis anyway. With a lot of people noting that any sort of controversy like this actually usually benefits the comedies. But if he wasn't getting it already, it's kind of a ticket to get a Netflix special these days. And especially as you've had Shane Gillis paving his road to get to this point by, I mean, being fired by S&L in 2019, he's very likely, very insulated from any sort of negative impacts here. But with this whole situation, I would love to know your thoughts, opinions, and reactions in those comments down below. Right.

Starting point is 00:11:36 And then there's even more we got to talk about in just a minute, but really quick, a break with a sponsor. You know, I think the hardest part about being responsible with money is that nobody teaches you at the boring stuff that actually matters. Right. Not the huge financial decisions, the small systems that, make saving and managing your money easier every month. Because most of us, I think we know what we should do with our money, but are you building habits that make those things happen? That's a question I had to ask myself. And it's also why I like today's sponsor, Chime. They help make everyday money habits easier. And a simple change is automating your savings.

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Starting point is 00:13:04 which also, you know it's bad when even the Trump administration's like, okay, this is too much, this is too corrupt. And the situation was a wild one, right? I did that deep dive for you last week. But here, the TLDR, right, it's at the Wall Street Journal. They published this totally insane report detailing Gilfell. Foyle's just bizarreo quid pro quo relationship with Trump's donor and loyalist Eric Dieter's, where he essentially would pay her for access to the Trump administration. One of the biggest allegations was that she asked Deeters for $100,000 to pay her personal credit card bill days before her confirmation here. And with that, while you had Dieter's bring receipts providing the Wall Street Journal with numerous text exchanges,

Starting point is 00:13:35 Gilfoyle's attorney said that she disputed the authenticity of the message, though they also didn't provide any specifics. They claiming that she was paid to speak at a series of events before her nomination, and that Dieter's owed her a balance, a claim that he strongly denied with an announcement saying yesterday that he's now even planning to sue her for defamation. And so that whole article, the whole situation, it caused an uproar. Many calling for Gilfoyle to be removed from office, even possibly prosecuted for corruption. And then over the weekend, you had the Wall Street Journal publishing another article detailing leaked audio of Gilfoyle in January, where she bragged about her

Starting point is 00:14:03 close ties to two Greek tycoons and said that they were paying her to go on luxury trips around the world. And also specifically with this, Gilfoy was trying to convince an American businessman to help her get into an upcoming dinner for Eric Trump that she was blocked from attending with her telling the businessman, you know, I can deliver the world to you, which you deserve. And adding it another point, I'm going to make you a lot of fucking money. And then on top of that, in the same recording, Gilfoyle also acknowledged it she had flown on a private jet of a chief executive of a Greek construction company. And that is incredibly notable, a key thing, because according to yet another Wall Street

Starting point is 00:14:31 Journal report, Gilfoyle had allegedly pushed the governments of Bulgaria and Albania to do business with the CEO and buy billions of dollars of American natural gas from his company. But he also wasn't even the only businessman funding her travels. On the recording, she also said that she was planning to fly to Paris on the jet of a Greek shipping tycoon, with sources telling the Wall Street Journal that he also paid for her stay at a luxury hotel. Now, with all this, a spokesman for the US embassy

Starting point is 00:14:52 in Athens denied the various allegations, calling the claims unsubstantiated and arguing that Gilfoyle's career is guided by deep and abiding values. But also, when asked yesterday if he was considering firing Gilfoyle, Trump responded. Well, we're looking at it, yeah, we're not happening.

Starting point is 00:15:05 And then this morning, this was already going to be another thing we talked about today, the new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah, she made this major announcement in her just disastrous first press conference. And we gotta talk about that more in a second, but here's what you said. We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well.

Starting point is 00:15:25 And then about an hour later, you had Gilfoyle announcing that she was resigning in this lengthy Twitter post, thanking Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for giving her the opportunity to serve as ambassador degrees and touting what she claims were her achievements in the role. And then also, you had her going on to address the recent allegations against her, saying, these allegations are false and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity, saying, I have dedicated to, my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional. And then adding, I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service. And then, this is honestly one of my favorite parts, when reporters asked Trump about gilfoyle this morning, he gave her kind of the, I don't know, did she get coffee for us, treatment. She was almost a gay shit. What did you think of about? No, she wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess dated my son a long time ago, but she wasn't, no. She, she went to agree. She was doing

Starting point is 00:16:17 a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading. Just a reminder, this is a woman who was engaged to your son for four years. They split up less than two years ago. But as far as what happens next, especially with Gilfoyle, we're gonna have to wait to see and also see if Democrats continue their push for accountability now that Gilfoyle stepped down. And also, we'll see if the State Department's Office of Inspector General continues its investigation into her conduct. But also, Gilfoyle might not be the only person with her head on the chopping block. And that's because you are already seeing

Starting point is 00:16:43 tons of people speculating that Zachariah, right? Trump's new press secretary, she might get the act soon because her first and only press conference so far was just so fucking bad. She bombed so hard this morning. She was incredibly nervous, out of breath, shaky. She spoke in this very canned and awkward manner, like clearly reading from a script while also regularly stumbling over her words, pausing regularly, and just generally not being good at the talking thing, which is the whole job for the press secretary. The idea of not spending evenings with my kids is, kids are, is completely unacceptable. So my press, excuse me my husband that's a good one my husband is out here is out here for the

Starting point is 00:17:25 week he had a historic one-day war and now we are have a booming economy and a great relationship with Venezuela this is a president and administration that is looking out for you the American people and I'm thrilled to officially be part of this incredible journey together And with that, I will take your questions. In this whole press conference, it barely went over 14 minutes, which is way shorter than Caroline Levitt's briefings, which lasted on average around 45 minutes.

Starting point is 00:17:57 And in this, she literally took questions from only three reporters, all of whom were from conservative outlets. She even appeared to be reading their names off of a predetermined list. Here in our new media seat, we have Nick Gelbertson from Breitbart. Hi, Katie. Um, hello, we will take Peter Ducey. Hi. Lina Sharasi.

Starting point is 00:18:15 Hi, Katie. Okay. Yes. Alina, Shirazi. But even then, like, in what seemed to be this pre-orchestrated BS thing, she wasn't even able to answer all their questions. I want to ask you a policy question. Has the US stopped sharing Intel with Ukraine?

Starting point is 00:18:31 I'll have to get back to you on that. So basically, you had her for nearly 15 minutes just touting Trump's policy, saying that in her new role, her goal was to amplify all of his wins. And that is, you know, she talked about how she plans to balance her family of four kids with her new demanding job before the scuttling off the podium. claiming that she was cutting the briefing short because Trump was departing for Alaska and would take questions on the White House South Lawn. But that also didn't go very well for her because Trump himself mostly talked to the reporters there with Zachariah just kind of lingering awkwardly in the background. Though he also did praise her for his press conference.

Starting point is 00:19:00 How'd she do? Who? The new press secretary. I bet she was very good. But then also the situation got weird because when Zachariah was asked a question, we saw this happen. He said she's an attorney. Where did she pass the bar exam? Which state?

Starting point is 00:19:13 Which day? Gallup. In China. In that line of questioning it came after journalist and lawyer Jud Legume. He reported he was unable to find any evidence that Zachariah had ever passed to bar exam or had been admitted to the bar in any state after graduating from Pepperdine University's law school in 2011. And that's despite the fact that she's repeatedly and publicly claimed that she is an attorney for years now. Right, calling herself a lawyer on LinkedIn and having Fox News and other cable news channels using that as her title when she made appearances as a conservative commentator.

Starting point is 00:19:39 And her answer there doesn't really clear anything up. Right. Well, she reportedly lived with her husband in China from 2011 to 2013. there's no indication that she took or passed any U.S. bar exam while she was there. And so that it just added to all the people that were panning and mocking Zachariah online. And it would many speculating that she's just not going to last long. And that reportedly includes multiple advisors and officials who told reporters they don't think that she did a good job with one, even describing the first presser as brutal.

Starting point is 00:20:01 But we'll see, because if there's anything we've learned from Trump 2.0, right, this administration is that they very much prefer loyalty over the actual ability to do the job. And you really, you only ever get kicked out when you've just, you've fucked up on a spectacular scale. But then also, we're nowhere near done talking about fuck-ups because we then have to talk about these 911 calls regarding Krista Pipe. Right, in Pike, she's at convicted murderer whose execution was botched by the state of Tennessee a couple of weeks ago, leaving her still very much alive, but injured. Well, now you've got audio recordings appearing to show that prison officials not only botched her execution, they botched saving her life afterwards as well. And so to start from the beginning,

Starting point is 00:20:35 the first 911 call came from inside the prison at 8.40 p.m. about an hour after the lethal injections began. And you had the caller like, oh, hey, we got a lady here. The execution didn't work. She is still breathe and we needed an ambulance. But the thing with that call is it didn't come from the central control at the Tennessee Department of Correction like it usually would. And that caller, they didn't know the security code used to verify that they're actually calling from the prison.

Starting point is 00:20:54 So the dispatcher starts calling around like, is this real or not? So we have a medical call for service at the River Bend prison saying that they carried out the execution, the subject didn't pass away and they need an ambulance because she's not breathing normally. We are trying to find out if that is an actual thing that is happening and we need to send an ambulance

Starting point is 00:21:11 and or if you need police assistance or if this is someone that is just basically prank calling or like swatting us. Meanwhile, you had an official from the fire department being informed about the situation and you can hear in his voice just how perplexed he is by it. We got a call at the Republican prison, but they said they don't have a code.

Starting point is 00:21:27 How do they not have a code? Right, they should know the code. There's nobody there that knows the process. That's the one place to be deaf and you had code. So you got the 911 dispatchers reaching out to the prison themselves to verify the report, but then it sounds like even central control had no idea what they were talking about.

Starting point is 00:21:41 We got a call about, failed execution at you guys' facility and we just call in to verify. Um, who called you? I'm being told that nobody from our facility called you, so there's not really anything to speak of at the moment. Okay, so we don't need responders if all we're trying to figure out, so no response. Oh, yeah, we didn't call anybody. I would have been the one to call you guys.

Starting point is 00:22:09 And so then, someone gets on the radio and tells first responders. We have been informed that it is a false call. There is no medical assistance needed at River Bend Prison. But then, from that, just a few minutes later, a first responder replies, Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it's not, that it's real and demanding us to go in. They say there's some sort of state official, but I need somebody from that prison to get out to the gate. Because the paramedics, they apparently can't just barge in there. They need to be escorted in by police, and specifically state police.

Starting point is 00:22:40 So then you get the dispatcher going back on the phone. like where the hell are the cops? We're now getting the fired assistant who's out on scene saying we need to send police hot because there's someone at the front gate that's telling them that this is real and they need to enter, but they can't enter without police because we never got codes. But then finally it appears that someone at the prison rubbed two brain cells together and they got the code to dispatch. Central control just called us and advised that it is actually real, so we're gonna have

Starting point is 00:23:02 FD Enter. Right, but the key thing is by the time those paramedics finally got inside of the prison, a half an hour had passed since the initial 911 call. 30 minutes where you would pike unconscious, breathing, and in need of immediate life-saving care. And so with this whole communication breakdown out in the open, now you've got many demanding answers about what went wrong. But especially because back when the failed execution first happened, the prison claimed that it had followed, quote, every step of the state's lawful established execution protocol and could not have done anything beyond what was carried out.

Starting point is 00:23:26 And so one of the big questions for a lot of people is, well, okay, was that just a lie or is it the protocol itself that's to blame? Right. And that's in part because the New York Times reports that last year, Tennessee's manual laying out the procedure for lethal injection, that got cut in half from 104 pages to 44 and appear to lack directions for handling botched With some directions made vague or vanishing altogether, including the requirement that execution teams practice inserting an IV line Which is key because some speculate that Pike's IV line caused the poison to pool into her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream Whatever the case there she eventually woke up at the hospital with her lawyers saying that she had pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm saying that She hadn't eaten. She couldn't swallow. She couldn't move her arms and her hands had swollen to resemble

Starting point is 00:24:04 Inflated surgical gloves. I think she is angry and confused about everything right now and there are so many questions that need to be answered. But one of those questions has to be how much suffering is enough. Krista has endured child sexual abuse, physical abuse, rapes, and more than 20 years of solitary confinement, and then September 30th happens. We have to ask how much suffering is enough. With all that as of last weekend, Pike, she got discharged from the hospital and she's back in prison where she spent the last 30 years of her life. While you had her lawyer saying that, you know, she continues to receive medical care at the prison. They are tracking her recovery.

Starting point is 00:24:41 As far as what happens next, that remains to be seen. But then also today, we've got to talk about another woman who survived being poisoned, except it wasn't the state that was trying to execute her. He's nobody. He's a coward. I don't think he deserves a second chance. A second chance for a lot.

Starting point is 00:24:57 So that's Berkeley engineer Ron Yuan, talking about the man who poisoned her and, by extension, her family. A man who's gotten away with it nearly Scott Free. To actually get the full story here, we gotta go back to 2017, where you had Yuan being hired by Berkeley engineering and research as a metallurgist.

Starting point is 00:25:11 When she first met her coworker David Shoe, another metallurgist, things were a little tense. With Shue telling Yuan that she wasn't allowed to use the facility's material characterization lab. And she figured that he was worried that she'd misuse or break the equipment and tried reassuring him, hey, I know my way around a lab and even repaired similar equipment before taking the job. But the thing is, he wouldn't budge and so Yuan wasn't allowed in the lab. And well, definitely not a great way to start the job. Yuan decided, hey, she would just go about her business and Shue would go about his and everything would be fine. Except then a few weeks later, she started getting sick.

Starting point is 00:25:38 At first, it was hair loss and dry heaving with a neighbor actually having to rush her to the ER with Yuan saying that it felt like she was dying. And she actually had to be taken to the ER two more times before the end of the year, and by late 2018, she was a frequent flyer there. Yuan was vomiting all the time. I'd have missed a bunch of work, saw several specialists, went through countless tests, and even flew to China for treatment. You had her saying that she was worried that she had stomach cancer,

Starting point is 00:25:58 but nothing was popping up on any of her tests. Her parents even came to the United States from China to stay with her, worried that she had something terminal. And then actually, it was her mom that helped point Yuan in the direction of foul play. Right, one day in January of 2019, Yuan was at work, and she took a sick. she took a sip from her water bottle and was just hit by that, at that point, all too familiar feeling that she was going to die. But then that night, at home, her mom took a sip from that same water bottle and noticed this strange sour taste. When she washed out that bottle, it didn't make it go away with Yuan saying that she started to wonder if someone was tampering with it.

Starting point is 00:26:26 And so then, you had her buying a spy camera from Amazon, and within weeks, she got footage of shoe dumping something from a small white container into her water bottle. When she then turned over that video to the police and they tested her bottle, they found out that it was spiked with cadmium, right? a toxic heavy metal. Yuan, it turns out, had been drinking water with three and a half million times the federal limit for cadmium in it. And it wasn't just her, Yuan and her family used water from that bottle to cook at home as well. And so she, as well as both her parents, tested positive for cadmium poisoning. With that, then leading to March of 2019, with David Shue being charged with premeditated

Starting point is 00:26:56 attempted murder and two felony counts of poisoning. Except, as the months went by, the court granted Shue more and more leniency. At first, he was released on house arrest and GPS monitoring, and then he was granted six hours out of the house to take his daughter to ballet and gymnastic classes. Right. And then another six hours on Sundays and then another day to spend with his kids and then his house arrest just got lifted entirely and then he was allowed to travel in the U.S. With that, then bringing us to September of 2023 when despite his charges carrying up to a life sentence, he ended up taking this plea deal that ended up with him serving just two years of probation. Two years of probation for

Starting point is 00:27:26 poisoning a woman. Getting a woman so sick that she thought she was dying for nearly two years and he got probation. And also when Yuan asked for half a million dollars in restitution, she was instead awarded just over $7,000. But the reason that we're talking about all this now is because Shue's probation, that's up, and a judge just granted his request to have the felony conviction expunged from his record. Right, because under state law, every person on probation is entitled to expungement if they complete every condition of their probation with only a few exceptions. And poisoning, as we've now learned, is not one of those exceptions. Now, that said, dismissing the conviction, it doesn't make it go away entirely. Right, shoes record will still show an arrest and

Starting point is 00:28:01 conviction to law enforcement, and if he's charged again, it could be used against him. But it's also not going to stop him from working in the field and as Yuan says, working with other people who could be next. And so that's why you have Yuan speaking about her experience. To come out to my comfort zone to be interviewed by you, to tell the public what kind of effect we have to the family and how broken this system is. Right. And to this day, Yuan says that she has no idea why she targeted her, but there's also no doubt that he's impacted her life And in fact, she recently published a research paper talking about the long-term effects that she and her family have suffered from cadmium poisoning. And you had her dedicating it to her father who passed away

Starting point is 00:28:42 last year from heart failure, writing. Before poisoning, my father had only well-controlled hypertension, walked six miles daily and could carry a 50-pound bag of rice to the second floor. But then adding by late last year, he was bedbound and couldn't even eat. And he would you on saying she hopes that her report will lead to doctors understanding the signs of cadmium poisoning before it's just too late. And while also with this, she said there's technically the option to take and to civil court, her attorneys, they actually ended up talking her out of it. It's saying that it would be this long, expensive battle that may not amount to anything. And so with this story, one, I think it's important to highlight who David's shoe is.

Starting point is 00:29:12 There shouldn't be something that just gets swept under the rug. Two, it obviously makes me furious at the system and also the people involved that allowed this judgment, this plea judgment to go through. This is fucking insane. And three, I think the insanity of this whole situation, it lends itself to the argument that attempted murder should be prosecuted almost at the same level as murder. You're punishing people less for what? Failing at the thing they wanted to do?

Starting point is 00:29:36 That ends up feeling a little bit like, hey, you'll get them next time, buddy. Don't worry, you'll get back out there. This whole case, this whole situation is pure insanity. Right, and then from that, there's even more we gotta dive into in just a minute after a quick break with a sponsor. You know, there are days where I sit down to ride, I've got the research open, the coffee's there. I know exactly what I need to get done.

Starting point is 00:29:53 And somehow my brain is just still refusing to cooperate. And that is why and when I used to a sponsor, brain.fm. It helps me get into a more focused headspace when I need to be to actually lock in. Brain.fm creates functional music specifically designed to help your brain get into the state that you need, whether that's focusing, relaxing, sleeping, or getting creative. And instead of just putting on a playlist and hoping that it helps, their music is engineered by neuroscientists using patented neural phase locking technology. And you can actually adjust the neural

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Starting point is 00:30:43 Just scan that QR code or head to brain.fm slash defranco to get 30 days free. That's brain.fm slash defranco. And then diving right back into the news, the first of our last stories today, it's crazy because you have witnesses saying that they were looking a man in the eye as he came out of his seat, turned sideways in the air, and fell to his death in the middle of a roller coaster ride. The guy has Six Flags just launched a man out of his seat. So that ride at Six Flags over Georgia,

Starting point is 00:31:11 it takes you 200 feet in the air, reaching speeds is 70 miles per hour. And at first, some people saying that when they saw this man getting flown from his seat, they thought that maybe it was part of the Halloween experience at Six Flags puts on this time of year. Then you're these people quickly realizing, that's not what was happening.

Starting point is 00:31:24 When I knew was when he initially like hit back down, And we felt his thud. People reached out trying to grab him. We couldn't. Like, we couldn't. There was no, there was too much force to grab him. Reports are saying that he hit several other riders and then the coaster itself multiple times before he eventually landed on the roof of a haunted house attraction.

Starting point is 00:31:43 And at least part of it was apparently caught on Goliath's souvenir photos. So then with all this, the ride was stopped. The other riders were taken off and they took the stairway down. But then officials also evacuating the rest of the park as well. And so right now, you've got this investigation going on to figure out what exactly went wrong. Because you had some riders reporting that the work. did check their safety harnesses. But that's as you also had others saying,

Starting point is 00:32:01 they had some concerns there. I looked over her and I told her, I said, something's going on. I said, they keep it, keeps clicking. Yeah, it kept clicking like it was unlocking and relocking. So now with this, they've actually also closed nine other similar roller coasters in their park system. And I'll also say one of the big things,

Starting point is 00:32:15 that this is coming right after they just retired their X2 roller coaster in California, after a lawyer said that it gave over 100 people brain injuries. And they're actually dealing with the lawsuits behind that as we speak. And then also, today you've got the news that the Trump administration cut down more than 400 trees D.C. over the weekend after a judge explicitly told him not to, and the judge is livid. Saying in what universe did anyone in your office think that was acceptable? Because you've

Starting point is 00:32:36 had Trump wanting to renovate a public golf course in DC to one that he claims would be worthy of hosting professional golf tournaments. But preservationists, they sued to block the project, especially because it would involve cutting down a ton of old trees. And that led to Judge Anoreas warning the government to not cut down anything without notifying the court first. But then they just cut down over 400th this weekend with plans to remove another two hundred-third. And so you had crews rolling in, doing the work all before the court could intervene. You have the situation where the court really can't fix anything because you can't uncut down trees. But in the emergency hearing, a government lawyer arguing, they did our best in providing notice.

Starting point is 00:33:04 And that is when you had Reyes blowing up. They're saying they did, quote, they're worse. And that says it's not clear how they tried to tell the court because she made it clear they never called or emailed about it. And then to make matters worse, apparently they knew about it for a while. Where you would park service officials admitting on the stand that the plans were approved on October 5th, then they got the go ahead over the weekend. And then just to, I guess, add insult to injury, the trees were reportedly perfectly healthy.

Starting point is 00:33:23 And so in addition to Reyes making it clear that the administration has lost all credibility in court, she ordered a halt to any further removals. But you have many wondering, is that actually going to matter when Trump and his goons have shown, you know, they don't care what the courts are going to do. Seemingly, when they're told not to do something, they just do it anyway. And in many cases like this, it's stuff that's irreversible and then they just push the argument, what's done is done and we can't go back to the status quo. And then finally today, you've got Silicon Valley becoming a cult with some AI researchers

Starting point is 00:33:47 allegedly taking up smoking because they are so confident that the tech is going to cure cancer. And I'm not joking with you. This is not an onion headline. This claim is coming from Palantir's CTO Shiam Sankar. He went on CBS's Face the Nation and dropped this claim. And apparently this was meant to be some sort of flex and just how confident they are in AI's future. Or we drop in some philosophy about people having a quote,

Starting point is 00:34:06 God-shaped hole in their heart and adding, It's important to understand that many of these folks in Silicon Valley who are building this technology have filled that hole with the machine god of AGI. And clearly, he doesn't know anything about the machine god because artificial intelligence is strictly heresy. But to be fair to Sankar, he wasn't praising the decision researchers and instead called it a textbook example of buying into hype too much.

Starting point is 00:34:26 And it feels like it doesn't even need to be said, but I'll say it just in case medical experts are calling this a very, very dumb idea. Right, it's a fast track to some nasty cancers that have actually been on the decline for years now. So it's definitely setting a bad message since they have no way of actually knowing that it's curable. Though easily the biggest critique of all this is that their researchers, they just got their reasoning wrong. Right, you don't start smoking because AI is going to cure cancer. You start because you're not going to have to face the long-term consequences when your AI robots kill us all. But then my friends, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your

Starting point is 00:34:53 Tuesday show. Thank you for watching, like, and subscribe. And if you haven't already seen this video, definitely check it out. You can click or tap or I got a link in the description for you. And of course, no matter what you do, I'll see you right back here tomorrow for another daily dive into the news. I love yo faces and I'll see you then.

The Philip DeFranco Show - The Shane Gillis Situation Has Divided The Internet & Trump Crowd Attacks Woman Over Epstein Shirt

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