The Philip DeFranco Show - Trump Accidentally Exposed Himself in Pathetic Natalie Harp Meltdown

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

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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. 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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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-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash DeFranco. Quince.com slash DeFranco. I've got a genuinely crazy show for you today. You've got why this disastrous Star Citizen live stream melt down is people shouting billion dollars scam. This Trump-N-N-A-Rapes situation is actually way more pathetic and weirder than you think and why I'm begging people not to take the bait.

We go inside Luigi Mangione's potential escape route from his murder trial, and this fake polling problem that got exposed is so insane, especially with the midterms just months away. We're talking about all of that and even more. On today's brand new Philip DeFranco's show, you daily dive into the news, but first, a quick personal plug. My 12 city live show run starts just this weekend.

We've got Seattle, Portland, Boston, and Philadelphia starting things out, followed by San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., in Pittsburgh. And you grab your tickets right now at crashing out toward dot. I got a link in the description and link in the comments. And get them all you can because you don't want to be like the people in Seattle who can't come because that show sold out. Come crash out with me. But with that said, there's a lot we got to talk about today, starting with this.

We've got to talk about the spectacular public implosion of what's become one of the most controversial projects in video game history, Star Citizen. Right, you don't need to know anything about video games or even care about video games in general for this to stand out and matter. Right, you've got some calling it a scam, others hanging on for the big payoff. But after what just happened, I don't think that anyone's feeling really good about the game's future. Because if you're unfamiliar, Star Citizen is this very ambitious MMO, massive multiplayer online first-person shooter, space adventure game for PC being developed by Cloud Imperium Games or CIG.

And the key thing with what I just said is being developed, right? Because it is still not done, despite first getting announced in 2012. Right, so back when Obama was president, but he was running for re-election. Never mind, GTA 6, GTA 5 hadn't been released yet. And while way back then, CIG said that it would have released the game just a couple of years later in 2014. But, as you may have realized, I am now making this video in August of 2026, and there is still no Star Citizen. But in the meantime, CIG has taken in a lot of money. In fact, over a billion dollars, and according to them, it's completely crowdfunded by the players themselves. And for some

context, there are maybe only two or three games that have cost a billion dollars or more. GTA6, very likely on that short list. Another is actually oddly Monopoly Go, which spent most of that budget on marketing. And then the other is Star Citizen. And one of the ways that CIG has raised so much money for their game was to release an early access version in 2017 and then sell players in-game content for exorbitant prices. So for example, they recently started letting players pay $5,000 for a ship that's not even playable yet, kind of like a pre-order for when it's ready. Or if you want a pack containing all the ships in the game as well as a few other items, that'll cost you $48,000. Or actually, I guess it's $49,000 because to be even eligible to purchase that, you have to be a member of the

chairman's club, which costs another thousand bucks, which is then part of the reason why you have so many people calling this game a scam. But the developers, they do make it clear that when you buy these things, you're also contributing to the development of the game itself. So it's kind of a half sale, half donation. And if what you're getting for your investment is a polished playable game at the end, then cool, right? Promise is made, promises cap, mission accomplished. But ever since Star Citizen went public, fans have complained that it's just riddled with bugs, sometimes to the point of being unplayable. And yeah, CIG, they've improved it over the years, so lots of people, they look past the flaws

enough to keep playing, but it is still clearly not a finished game. So apparently, with all this, someone at the company had this bright idea of, hey, let's do a live stream. We'll have the devs themselves play the game, not only on a private server, but on an internal build of a game that is different than the one that customers currently play. And this was meant to show how the game works under perfect ideal conditions. Right, so people could see what it'll be like once they fix the issues with the public servers, otherwise known as the PTAU. We recognize the current state of the PTO.

We see the reports, we play it ourselves, we hear you, what not. Playing today on the PTO doesn't really do what we wanted to do today. So we will be playing on an internal build. This is the game as it's designed to work. But then what followed, it could be described as a sadomasochistic humiliation kink ritual. You saw players lagging, NPCs. He's glitching, basic mechanics just not working. And boom, you see things popping up.

One Reddit thread lists dozens of bugs and issues that they observed during the stream. And I mean, it is hard to convey how uncomfortable it is to watch these devs live in front of an audience struggling to use their own weapons or simply access their inventory. Oftentimes they just ignored it and pretended like everything was fine,

but then sometimes they acknowledged when a thing wasn't working. Uh, guys, I can't re-for-get and die. Help. At one point, a dev even pleaded, just close your eyes while their hand glitched through a lever. And then as if all that was not bad enough. They didn't even seem to be having fun with their own game. They were bickering the

whole time like Rando was in a call of duty lobby. It feels like everybody at the company hates each other. That's what it seems like. Like you're just working with your worst enemies. Like it's a lot of team killing, a lot of like passive aggressive snide remarks. And then also in particular, you had many noticing that the devs seem to be gang up on their newest member, Ali. He's a content manager who just joined the team a couple of months ago. And so he had things like at one point, he tried to engage the Twitch chat, but he got shut down by another dev who mocked fans complaining about the buginess. time that you get through this and what's your experience we were talking before

how long it's gonna take us with our impeccable skills you've all seen Ollie you've just fully opened up to them being like oh can't time it because it don't work well you can't we know it we're working on it but they're gonna say it you know they are at another point Ali seems genuinely distressed and another dev joke said he's so useless he should just get the rest of them a can Oli why you're not doing anything could you get us a can't I I'm down I said this you know this you being down you being up, there's no difference.

And even someone read it reacting to moments like this saying, if that reflects the company culture at CIG, then it's hardly surprising that the company keeps running into such serious problems. But then one of the biggest gut punches came at the end when after well over an hour and a half of playing, they couldn't even finish the mission. Elliot's down.

We've wiped. It's a party wipe. I think so. Right, attempt to. Don't like you up in the, uh, in the bed. So with that last jab at Ollie, there's some awkward silence and then Ollie's like, maybe we should respawn and try again.

The host Jared, who's hovering right behind him, immediately jumps in like, no, no, we're out of time. Which also I'll say it's kind of crazy to see Jared go from being proudly taking responsibility for the event like this. Welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live. I'm your regular host, Jared Huckabee. To seemingly just awkwardly throwing Ali under the bus

for the whole thing. We're at time. Uh, it's your show. Wrap it up. Uh, Jared. You say your way or you say what? No, okay, leak. Now with all this, CIG, they actually didn't try to bury that stream under 10 feet of concrete like many companies probably would.

And instead, they actually posted it to YouTube and if you look at the comments, they clearly shouldn't have. You've got comments like no one was having fun here, felt like a hostage video. Another adding, go easy on the dev team, it was probably the first time they actually played the game. And then other saying the devs did this to themselves. Nobody forced them to do this. It was not required or promised ahead of time. They willingly put this shit show on display knowing how bad their fucking game is. And yeah, seemingly the biggest takeaway for a lot of people is that when CIG insisted that all

the glitches and bugs were just due to server performance, they were just lying. Where you had one user saying this live stream showed the community that the core of the game is completely fuck. And if you're one of the many people who invested thousands of dollars into this game, that realization, as one player put it, is such a kick in the balls. But for some, this actually wasn't all that surprising. Because when a game is stuck in development for this long, you might assume from the outside that things are gradually progressing, however slowly. But in reality, you have a situation where the game's just accumulating more and more technical debt, which I'll let Kira explain. The things that were being done at the beginning have to work,

with the things you're doing at the end and you're basically building on top of something layer by layer and as people leave and new people come in and things get changed, you are essentially, like you're not working on something that just gets added and it just works. You're having to rework things and deal with problems that have been around forever or the new stuff that you're doing breaks something from before or is completely incompatible. And you have I'm saying that at this point, the most experience, devs in the industry know not to go near CIG because it's a small world and word gets around. And so the people that are left to clean up the mess are often junior devs like Ali.

And unfortunately, they received the brunt of the backlash from understandably frustrated fans. But for now, we'll see what happens. See if CIG gets their act together, if somehow they pull off a comeback after 14 years of delays. Or does it crash and burn? Or do they just slap a band-aid on it and announce, hey, it's done without actually fixing the core things. So personally, I think they just need another billion dollars to get across the line. So open those wallets, gamers. And then actually, on the note is something that's felt virtually unending like Star Citizen's development cycle.

We've got to talk about one of the most notorious, mysterious cases in music history, Tupac Shakur's murder, right? Because that's coming back into the limelight this week. Because it took 30 years, but the trial finally kicked off in a Las Vegas courtroom yesterday. Because Vegas is where Shakur was shot after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match in 1996, with him dying six days after the shooting at just 25 years old. And all these years later, you still have people looking for answers. Now, with that, I'll say, you know, this is an investigation that hit dead end after dead end because police have been dealing with a lack of cooperation.

The case going cold for decades until former Southside Crips gang leader D. D. Davis basically implicated himself. Right, while Davis is the first person to be charged for Shakur's death. An important distinction here is that Davis is being charged for masterminding the killing, not firing the gun that killed Chacore. In the opening statements yesterday, you had prosecutors arguing that Davis had Chacore killed as an act of revenge. Because you see earlier that day in 1996, Chacore's entourage had attacked Davis' nephew, Orlando Baby Lane Anderson, outside of the boxing match at the MGM Grant. With that attack, taking place a few hours before Chacore was shot, and so revenge would make sense.

is a motive there. You also have the prosecution noting that while not a lot of people have been willing to speak about this murder, Davis is the one person who has had a hard time being silent. What they appear to be referencing to is the wild fact that in 2019, Davis co-authored its hell-all memoir titled Compton Street Legend, where he seemingly wrote about the night of the shooting in detail. And he also reportedly confessed during a secret 2008 interview. And you had chief deputy district attorney Benu Palal pointing all that and more out during the opening statements. You will learn that Dwayne Davis got the gun. You will learn that he got into a white Cadillac,

you will learn when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Dwayne Davis made sure that the shooters were armed and ready to execute their revenge. And what he puts in the book

is that Dwayne Davis confess to the murder of Dupon Chabor. The book tells the story about his admission, about himself. And you've got him facing life in prison if he's convicted

did a murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote further or assist to criminal gang. Though, he's denied the allegations and he's pleading not guilty. But that also is you have people going, well, if you don't want to be charged with murder, maybe don't write a memoir suggesting you might have murdered someone. But with all this, you have Davis's lawyers calling the whole narrative fiction. But they're arguing that parts of the book were actually fictionalized in order to sell more copies. Also as far as like, what did Davis actually say in the book in interviews? Well, he's claimed that he was in the car that fired into Shakura's car that night.

And he's also said that he gave his nephew Anderson the gun that was used in the murder, and it was Anderson who shot the rapper. One, a generally bad look, and two, as a former gang leader, Davis does not appear to be great at the whole silence is survival thing. So basically you've got prosecutors using that story and alleging that Davis got a gun and coordinated two vehicles to go to a Las Vegas club, one of them,

a white Cadillac with three other men, including his nephew. And he would Palal telling the jury that the men, they were headed back to the Vegas strip to track down Shakur's group, but then when they saw Shakur and Death Road Records co-founder Shug Knight in a caravan of cars, Davis's group decided to turn around and confront them.

With Palal saying that Davis was in the passenger seat, he then passed the gun to his nephew, who then fired into Tupac's car. But then also, let's take a step back for a second and look at the bigger picture for a minute. The murder didn't happen in a vacuum. If you're into rap or music culture at all, you probably know that the 1990s were kind of the golden age of hip hop. Right, you'd everyone from Nas, Warren G, Salton Pepper, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog, Missy Elliott, and Shakur at the top of their game and just dominating the charts. But also at the same time, you have these really intense East Coast,

West Coast label rivalries that were happening. Dis tracks, attacks, stuff like that. There was a major feud between Shakor's record label, Death Thore on the West Coast and Bad Boy Records on the East Coast. And there's a whole complicated backstory here, and I'm not going to get into every detail. here. Shakur and East Coast rapper the notorious B-I-G were friends until Shakur was shot and robbed at a Manhattan recording studio in 1994 about two years before his death. You then had Tupac and Biggie was the one who was behind the attack or somehow involved. And then you're the death row bad boy, West Coast, East Coast rivalry really exploding from there. So yes, Tupac's murder was a gang violence-related event. But people also say that the tension from the rivalry

helped create a sort of environment for this violence. And actually with that, I should know that the reason why apparently Shakur and his entourage went after Davis's nephew was because Chakor found out that night that Anderson was involved in a robbery attempt targeting his record label. And then of course, with all this, just six months after Tupac was murdered, Biggie was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, and his murder is still unsolved. So you've got a lot of people saying that the gang violence and the label rivalries were connected and that the rivalries ultimately led to both of their murders. But with all that said, coming back to the case over the next few weeks, you know,

we should expect to hear more from witnesses, maybe some celebrity witnesses, as well as experts and investigators that are going to try to get to the bottom of all this. Do you ever have one of those days where you realize you've been eaten all day? But your meals, if we'll call it that, were basically the string cheese, chips, and whatever you could grab with one hand. Because yeah, that's when I know I need to stop calling snacks, meals, and why today's sponsor Factor is such a great option for busy days. Factor delivers fully prepared meals to your door, so instead of piecing together these random so-called meals, you have something that's actually satisfying and ready to go. They're designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs, which means convenience doesn't mean sacrifice and quality. I had the ginger terriaki salmon yesterday, only two minutes to heat up, basically no cleanup, and I had a delicious meal instead of grab in another handful of snacks.

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And Trump, he just had a total public meltdown. Right. And if you don't know or you didn't know until this week because you have people in your life who love you and invite you to things, Natalie Harp is a 35-year-old former O-A-N host who is hired as an executive assistant to Trump at the beginning of a second term. And she's become one of his closest and most loyal staffers. Right, she's almost always seen by his side. She's up with him right and send social media posts, fetching important information.

And in fact, she's so close to Trump that she was reportedly one of the very few people with him when that whole Air Force ones which ruined Turkey happened. Right, where he had Trump secretly changing planes amid a potential threat from Iran, effectively leaving top staff and reporters' decoys. And actually, Natalie's also credited Trump for saving her life by enacting a law in 2018

that gave her access to treatments for her bone cancer. But also, their close connection, it's raised some eyebrows. For example, back in June, you had Harps estranged old a brother telling the Daily Mail that a relationship was very unhealthy. And in their new book, New York Times writers, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan reported that Harp left adoring and intimate letters to Trump during his campaign in 2023.

With one even reading, you are all that matters to me. And well then, fast forward to a campaign rally in Georgia on Sunday, and there you had Senator John Asaph mentioning their relationship while slamming the president to very loud cheers. And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his,

meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. Apparently that hit a nerve for Team Trump. Where you had White House Communications Director Stephen Chung going all in on an absolutely bat ship post. Running John Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics. Instead of denigrating hard-working people serving their country, John should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he's a miserable person who hates this country. It's because he's a radical extremist Democrat. Steve, my man, you can't look how you look and call someone a miserable

cuck. My man, the call is coming from inside the house. Also, you had White House spokesperson Davis Engel throwing this insult, tweeting John Ossuff is a cringeworthy feminine theater kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says. And again, I hate to do this. How is it this person that is saying this? So much of this feels like self-reporting projection. And also, by the way, apparently, no, Nobody gives a shit what this loser says, which is why the whole White House is responding. It's why, and maybe we'll get into it, a bunch of conservative influencers seemingly posted things that are or very close to copy-pasted influence campaign operations about this. And actually, you even had Trump himself taking swings while clashing with CNN reporter Kristen Holmes in the Oval Office yesterday.

Yesterday, John Osseth said you'd rather travel with your aid, Natalie Harp, and build the ballroom than do your job as president. What is your response? John Ossef. You mean, Pee Wee Harman? Pee-wee-Herman look alike. No, I would much rather do other things. It's a, we're building a great facility here. We're fixing a White House that hasn't been taken care of. With Trump then going on to ramble about his ballroom for a while,

but then a few minutes later, you had Trump's berating homes after she pressed him on his decision to reduce military activities with South Korea, asking the president of Kim Jong-un had requested that action after he once again bragged about how well he gets along with the North Korean dictator. Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect. And we,

He met on numerous occasions, actually, two primary occasions, spoken and spent time. I understand him, he understands me. He didn't like anybody, but I get along with him very well. No, what I'm doing is making things safer. Did he ask you, did he ask you, Mr. President, he's still back on those? Quiet, quiet. You're very disrespectful.

I've heard this young man, okay? Don't you find her disrespectful? He understands. Quiet, who are you with? I'm with CNN. Fake news. I just wanted to follow up on the South Korea question. You're a loud boisterous person, your fake news.

Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. You had to scale back on those military exercises. So one, just another classic embarrassing Trump meltdown. And also, can I also point out, in a normal fucking world, it would be such huge news that the president of the United States of America said he, in an infamous dictator, understood each other.

But he's literally said it so many times. it hardly ever gets reported anymore. And so understandably, the thing that ended up getting the most coverage was his toddler-style meltdown. And then what's even crazier but not surprising is that the White House doubled down. With their rapid response account on Twitter,

sharing the clip of Holmes's questioning Trump about awesome, calling her a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession. And then going on to add in a later post, someday your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.

It's quite troubling. But then unsurprisingly, that prompted a major backlash from the left, with her colleagues at CNN, quickly jumping in to her to fight saying that she's both a great reporter and a mother with one senior White House reporter writing. You know what's disgusting and inhumane? Bringing her perfect children into this. But that also echoed by others, including many other journalists, right, many others saying it was just a bad look for Trump to scream at a female reporter like that.

But also, this is the quiet piggy president, so not surprising. You also had CNN issuing a statement defending Holmes, calling her one of the most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House, slamming the attacks from Team Trump and adding, public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press. Now, of course, with this, Trump has his base. You had plenty of people coming to Trump's defense. But also, a lot of the focus from the right seem to be centered around Assov and his comments.

Probably because they, one, want to kind of deflect from everything else that Asoff said in that statement. And two, to try to draw attention away from the fact that the president had this humiliating breakdown and screamed at a female reporter for asking basic questions. And so you had conservatives accusing Ossoff of smearing harp, claiming that his remarks were sexist with Megan Kemp. Kelly tweeting, Assoff was clearly implying that Trump is having an affair with his staffer. He was so determined to disparage Trump, he didn't give one thought or worse he did to how this would affect Natalie. Forever, don't let the Democrats tell you they are for women.

It's a lie. But hey, Megan, uh, Aosov didn't say anything about Trump and Harp doing anything. It's you guys who were making this jump about Trump doing whatever with Hark. That sounded like Aosf just talking about Trump caring about the sycophans around him rather than all the other people on the decoy plane. All the troops, he's stressing out and putting in harm's way. You're rising gas prices. your rising electricity prices, your healthcare costs, all his failed promises.

And all of this is you would then other calling Republicans hypocrites here. Noting it's Trump who regularly disparages women, makes overtly sexist remarks. I mean, that doesn't even get to the E. Gene Carroll of it all. It also doesn't get into the Epstein files of it all. And funny enough, part of the road that got paved to a second Trump presidency, starting with the first one, was Trump berating Megan Kelly herself talking about her bleeding from wherever. And then as far as Asov, when you had MSNBC's Jen Saki press in him on why he named-checked

harp, he responded. I've heard this particular aid referred to as his security blanket. And I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House. They're not telling him what he needs to hear. They're telling him what he wants to hear. And the nation is at war. And we cannot afford that. Because the thing that kind of got alluded to, but we didn't go into the details,

Harp is also considered his printer person. Like she literally prints out positive things from the internet for him to see without apparently being part of her responsibilities. Which then also begs the question, is it true that Trump actually doesn't know what the public thinks of him because he's just being showed a certain version of the world that the people around him want to see. But then beyond all that, we saw a bunch of people wondering why the White House and Trump went totally ballistic about one kind of pretty mild line from Ossov with one person writing. Almost no one in America knew who Natalie Harp was. Then John Assev dropped her name and

triggered an explosion of interest and it looks as if the White House is alarmed about it. Many are thinking, there's a lot of smoke here, so maybe there's fire. The Tommy Vitoa Ponce of America, for example, saying that Osov clearly touched a nerve and saying, it seems like something that media should explore. Hey, for now, let me know your thoughts, opinions, and reactions in those comments down below. And I think as far as me, I think it's clear where I stand here. And actually, I will add one thing. If you are a Democrat or even just anyone that is not pro-Trump and Trump and Trump Republican, do not give these hypocritical cry bullies a fucking inch. They want you bickering and paying attention to a billion other things other than how their God King is fucking shit up for you. They want to

put you on the back foot, change the conversation. Well, John should have, John didn't say much. John brought up a former OAN news reporter who sounds like fucking Kim Jong-un's newsperson, who is on the short list of people that Trump took on the secret plane while all the other people were on the decoy plane, while he is waging a war of choice that is making your life harder and not fulfilling a lot of the promises that he made, except maybe the ones that he made while the mic wasn't in front of his mouth to enrich himself and his cronies. And to any journalist that turns us into a false equivalency, look at John, oh bad John situation, you are a fucking hack. But then also, that's not the only bizarre political controversy we have to talk about today, because there's a very wild story about how fake polls can influence elections.

And it actually starts with mayoral race in Los Angeles between incumbent mayor Karen Bass and her left-wing challenger, Nithia Rahman. Because earlier this month, you had a poll from a group called Median Strategy showing Bass far ahead, nearly 12 points. And even more specifically, it showed that Bass was picking up way more people who voted for Spencer Pratt in the primaries, which would be a big win for her. And she ended up saying that there was some news coverage on this poll with the California Post, which is a West Coast spinoff of the New York Post, running the headline. Spencer Pratt's voters could be deciding factor in LA mayor's showdown, according to the latest poll. And you and Karen Bass herself, touting the numbers, with her campaign, throwing them onto a graphic and adding, doing the work, showing up and gaining momentum, let's do this, LA. And so if you were rooting for part of Bass's campaign, looking like really good news,

except it wasn't real. A reporter for the LA Times said he repeatedly reached out to Median Strategies, right, the group behind the poll, and quote, they told me they were discontinuing their polling operation, then they admitted their poll was fake, with a group also giving a statement to the Times saying, Median's strategy was created as a short-term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification. And saying we are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews. With their website now displaying a similar memo and noting that all their previous releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited as genuine polling data.

All of which is extra fantastic because according to reports, when Median began posting on social media on August 9th, it claimed that it wanted to fix the credibility problems in polling and rebuild trust. And so now there's just been so many reactions to this. Karen Bass, she took down her post about the poll and a spokesperson for her campaign said, this poll was reported on by a news outlet and saying any bad faith attempts to influence election should be investigated and prosecuted

to the fullest extent of the law. You also have the California post updating their article to be about Bass's condemnation of the stunt, and Nithia Rahman's team also responded to the news to call out Bass for sharing unverified information, with a spokesperson saying the mayor's campaign promoted a fake poll without properly vetting the source, saying it is the latest example of an administration

that too often struggles to get the basics right, saying Angelinos deserve a mayor who gets the facts right, communicates clearly, and does the work before announcing the results. But also, like, here's the truth. This whole situation speaks to more than the LA mayoral race. Right, because as you were the times noting, one of the other polls that Median released was on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race

and it showed the Democratic Socialist candidate Francesca Hong ahead by 20 points. But as you saw last week, she ended up losing that race. And while there were also other polls, it showed her well in the lead as well, right? It wasn't just the fake median one, you now have more people arguing that fake polling is a very real threat to our election.

With, for example, one California-based polling firm saying, This isn't just a harmless social experiment, saying it's arguably election interferes and hurts the credibility of new pollsters who are doing genuinely good work. And adding, however, if you take their social experiment at face value, they certainly proved a point. In a post-538 world, there's essentially no vetting of new pollsters. And so now you have a lot of people looking at this going, oh, this does show how, you know, a fake poll can go so far that news outlets and campaigns, they're not always going to look into who's conducting them or what their methodology was before running those numbers. And so you had one Democratic strategist adding fake, fake-cooked poll releases, or quickly becoming the hottest form of election interference. saying this does not vote well for 2028.

Another political blogger adding, it seems like making up polls could be an underrated business strategy. For example, my fake survey says the 2028 presidential vote in Pennsylvania will be tied with a four-point margin of error. How much are you gonna have to spend to beat that? And then you had another pollster adding that while we don't know the motive here, this seems like a trend that could be used to manipulate prediction markets. And actually, interestingly enough, before this whole thing played out, just last week, you had the Brennan Center for Justice putting out a piece exploring efforts to undermine poll credibility, explaining polls can shape voters' perception of candidates,

electoral participation and confidence in election results. This makes polling a prime target for those looking to influence the electorate and shape public opinion. And because there's been both an increase in fake or misleading polling as well as attacks on legitimate polling, it's just harder for the average voter to know what to believe. And so one, of course, I just, I would love to know your thoughts on any of this, but also two, at the very least, part of this story should tell you that you should vote no matter what the polls say. They could be wrong, they could be right, they could be trending one way or another, but the only thing that actually matters is the vote that happens.

Or I guess another way to put it, and this is kind of more all-encompassing, You will always have more people talking and yapping than actually doing. At a mess, you're going to see My Chemical Romance 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, has doled out nearly $60,000, do you beautiful bastards to get you off the couch and into the comedy club, the stadium, the concert hall, since 2024, and it's been kind of awesome to witness. So much so, if you haven't already, do it.

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and next, and this part is key. Add that code to your Seekkeek account. That gets you the 10% off and enters you in for your chance to win the weekly $500 giveaway, no purchase required. And again, seekeek vets, we would never leave you out, add code fill 10 to your account and you're entered. Say, scan that QR code or click the link below, add code fill 10, and go make some memory. And then diving right back into the news for your final block today. Let's cram in some more news you need a know starting with this. We're watching measles make a comeback right now.

And current health officials are not doing us favors. Right, back in 2000, public health officials declared measles eliminated in the U.S. Meaning no endemic ongoing transmissions. But fast forward to today, and we're seeing highs that we haven't seen in over three decades. Just last year, you had more cases than any year since 91. And now in just the first seven months of this year, we've already shattered that, including a few deaths. And as far as why it's coming back, we need herd immunity. We need a herd immunity.

95% of people to be vaccinated, but people like RFK Jr., they're making sure that's not going to happen. Because on the one hand, he claims to support some vaccines, but then he does everything in his power to spread doubt about them. And while he is hardly the only one, he is easily the most prominent and powerful antivax are currently. And with this, you're seeing kindergarten MMR vaccination rates steadily dropping nationwide amid skepticism, pandemic error disruptions, and an ever-increasing amount of exemptions being granted. And it's so bad, you've seen them fall below that 95% threshold in a majority of states. It's what makes sense that Meisel would make a strong comeback, because give it any space and it just spreads like crazy.

It is outrageously contagious with one infectious person often passing it to at least 18 others. And even when you don't think you've been in contact with someone who has it, there's a chance you actually have been because if they leave a room, the virus sits in the air for up to two hours. And the infections are also often unevenly distributed. Certain communities often have higher or lower vaccination rates as like-minded people live together, especially among the unvaccinated. And when that happens, the virus gets a ton of space to just go crazy.

And you've got a situation where it's probably just the tip of the iceberg. When you've got vaccination rates going down, measles is usually the first one to get noticed because it's so contagious. But it's also often a sign that other diseases covered by childhood vaccines such as rubella and polio, they could make their own comebacks. But maybe silver lining, maybe RFK Jr. and Trump, they can use that art of the deal to get some good prices on some new iron lungs. Then in other news, Trump just randomly declared the Strait of Hormuz is U.S. territory, except that's not how U.S. or international law works. With the announcement taking place in one of the most presidential places, true with social, Were you with Trump, posing a lightly edited map labeling the straight as new U.S. territory. With the circle also having bits of the neighboring countries on there, though I'll say it's unclear.

If he's claiming those two, normally I'd say that's a joke, but it's Trump, so who knows what's going on with those brain mashed potatoes. But this also is not super surprising since Trump actually floated the idea last Friday at a campaign event, and now it comes right as a 60-day deadline for a new regional deal expired without an agreement. And actually on that note, you had Trump adding today that there are no talks, won't be talks, and a blockade of Iran is ongoing. Trump's argument is that there doesn't need to be any kind of legal claim. Instead, it's de facto U.S. territory because the U.S. Navy guarantees freedom of navigation in the area. But under international law and customs that have been around for well over a century, that's not how any of this works. The Strait of Hormuz is surrounded by Iran and Oman, meaning that its waters belong to their sovereign maritime zones.

Patrolling international waters protect trade routes, it gives a nation power, but it doesn't give them a deed. And so unsurprisingly, and so unsurprisingly, saying that officials in Theran responding immediately, calling Trump delusional and adding, the Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian is Iranian and will remain Iranian. Anyway, some officials being pretty aggressive saying that the US just needs to accept defeat, and until then, it will enforce force a blockade. But either way, you have legal experts and diplomats worldwide, kind of just scratching their heads calling this a massive geopolitical provocation disguise as a social media post. Though you then have the Trump supporters claiming that everyone's taking this too seriously,

and the president's just trying to force another deal or just shit posting. And then finally, today, we should talk about Luigi Mangione, right? Because he might actually have a chance to get out of his murder trial. Because after he pled guilty in his federal stocking case, admitting to tracking down and shooting United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, his legal team immediately called double jeopardy. Right. And while big, that also wasn't the most surprising thing because they've had that in their back pocket the whole time, saying that he's become a pawn in parallel prosecutions and that prosecutors were trying to punish him twice for the same thing. And while when they argued it before, the judge said that it was too early since the federal case hadn't ended yet,

but now that he's pled guilty to stalking, the court's apparently taken them up on it and decided to put the murder trial that was set for next month on hold, so the prosecutors have time to respond. Right, and if they can't make a strong enough case against it, the state trial, it could be over before it even starts. But with that, you had the Manhattan District Attorney's Office already saying that they're committed to seeking justice for Mr. Thompson and his family. So for now, they have until October 9th to make their move. And then the next time you'll see, is at a hearing set for December 10, which is also a week before we'll find out

his official sentencing for the stalking charges where he's facing life. But that, my friend, you beautiful bastard, is the end of your Tuesday show. I hope you enjoyed, I'm trying to keep him big, even though I'm also doing a prep week for the beginning of the crashing out tour, which again, first shows start this weekend,

Seattle, Portland, then Boston, Philadelphia, then eight more dates. And you can, and you should, go grab your tickets at crashingout tour.com. Link in the description, link in the top comment. But that said, thank you for watching. I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.