The Philip DeFranco Show - Why Ben Shapiro’s Media Empire Is Imploding

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Starting point is 00:00:47 into one of the largest conservative media empires in America. But now this past week, between mass layoffs, a public fight with Candace Owens and a YouTube audience that has gone down anywhere from 70 to 85% in 18 months, you've got a question being asked on both sides of the Maga Civil War, Is this empire actually collapsing in real time? Depending on who you ask, the answer is either yes, we're watching Enron or no, calm down, they're fine. It was an absolute bloodbath.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Do not allow them to spin it. Okay, I'm talking entire departments, big people at the firm, lawyers at the firm, the chief operating officer, the executive vice president, virtually the entire marketing department, the production team has now been reduced to a mere skeleton crew. No one was safe. Not even Ben's team was safe. Because make no mistake, this is like the equivalent of Enron, right? It's a virtual overnight collapse.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Okay, so on May 1st, we had the Daily Wire confirming mass layoffs. With the company telling the rap that the cuts were largely concentrated at its national headquarters, and they said that the restructuring is tied to investment in new production formats and geographic. They didn't in that initial announcement give a headcount. And so then you have Candace Owens walking in, who you might remember was fired from the Daily Wire in 2024 over her comments about Israel in a series of statements widely criticized as anti-Semitic. And you had Owens posting on Twitter claiming that 50% of the company's staff had been let go. Though she then bumped that number to 60%, and she went on her show and called it an absolute bloodbath, like the equivalent of Enron saying it's a virtual overnight collapse.

Starting point is 00:02:08 But then, you had the Daily Wire firing back with Editor-in-Chief Brent Share posting on Twitter, quote, Yes, the company had layoffs today. It's always really tough. No, it was nowhere near 50% of the company. That's insane and also insane to post without verifying. And while a spokesperson for the outlet said that the layoffs amounted to 13% of the staff this year, that figure didn't include layoffs from the prior year. And so the company appears to still have more than 200 employees, and you had Puck News, putting the number closer to 20% or around 42 employees. There was also an independent industry tracker called layoffhedge.com pegged it at around 100 rolls.

Starting point is 00:02:36 And so the situation is, you know, no one outside of the company really knows the number. Owens probably inflating it, the daily wire, I could see them underplaying it. And the truth is maybe probably somewhere in between. But whatever those numbers are, where the story gets harder for the daily wire to spin is with the audience data. Because that's third party, that's not internal. And according to data from Bit IQ, Ben Shapiro's YouTube views, they're down roughly 70% since December. of 2024. Though you also had Ivy Times citing different analytics tools, putting the drop at closer to 85% from his late 2023 peak. But either way, you have people saying, you know, those are not

Starting point is 00:03:05 normal declines for a flagship channel saying, you know, those are collapse-shaped declines. Also, data from Social Blade shows that the DailyWire's YouTube subscriber base has plateaued or shrunk and 15 of the last 16 months since the start of 2025. By March of this year, the company's website traffic was about half of what it had been a year earlier. On the Spotify chart, Shapiro's show is currently ranked 48th, Owens is 16th, Tucker Carlson is 8th, Theo Vans, Roans, of course, number one. And for comparison sake, by 2020, the Daily Wire had been Facebook's top English language publisher for three straight months. But 2023, it was being valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But now five years later, you've got the company fighting publicly about

Starting point is 00:03:38 whether it's still actually healthy or not. And as far as why is this happening? You had the Daily Wire's official explanation from Shapiro being essentially two things at once. First, they acknowledge it revenues down from 2024, though Shapiro says that cash flow still dwarfs what their critics have. And second, Shapiro argues that the audience losses of the result of staying principled while other right-wing outlets in his telling, Chase Clive by quote, embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill, extolling the wonders of Russian supermarkets and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk. And so that is a very specific, very pointed list.

Starting point is 00:04:07 And if you've been following any right-wing media for the past year, I know that we've been trying to talk about it more and more because what's happening there is very important to talk about. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and a handful of figures, they've been peeling more and more of that Daily Wire audience off. And then also, people like Macon Kelly saying, well, it's not really about algorithms at all. We're saying that it's actually about Shapiro's unwavering position on Israel and the Iran war at a moment when a substantial chunk of the younger conservative base has been moving in the opposite direction.

Starting point is 00:04:30 So folks like Tucker Carlson, they've managed to benefit from that shift. He's gotten very, very popular lately I read with Muslim viewers because he's been standing up for Islam. I know for a fact he has a lot of young men flocking to him. And so while he may have lost some contingent of the Fox News audience, that's very, very pro-Israel and, you know, pro-Trump and you can't say anything about Trump, for every one of those who leaves, there is another newer, younger audience member who does want to hear these traditional lines challenged. With then, Shapiro responding to her clip on Twitter

Starting point is 00:05:07 saying, go get them clicks with Kelly then shooting back, don't you have a company to save? And whether you think Kelly's right about the cause that the underlying observation here, it's not really debatable. The conservative media center of gravity, it's been shifting. Carlson's audience is growing, Owen's audiences growing.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Nick Fuentes, who is thought as kind of a fringe, No one even cares about figure just two, three years ago has a huge audience now. And The Daily Wire, which is just a few years ago, the dominant brand in this space is not anymore. But then also, this is my favorite part of the situation. There is a very specific business decision that's been getting a ton of blame for the company's financial pressure. And it is, and I'm not joking here, a fantasy series called the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin. To give you a little quick background here, the Penn Dragon cycle, it was the personal passion project of Jeremy Boring, DailyWire, co-founder, former co-CEO, the guy who left the company in early 2025.

Starting point is 00:05:53 And it is a seven-episode Arthurian legend adaptation filmed across Italy, Hungary, and Romania. According to the Hollywood Reporter and Mediaite, the budget was seven figures per episode and eight figures overall. So, believed to be somewhere between $10 and $30 million total, depending on which reporting that you believe. Right, page six cited $3 million per episode, putting the total above $20 million, making it the most expensive production in Daily Wire history. Right, and with this, according to Candace Owens, so take that with the appropriate amount of salt. Shapiro and his other co-founder, Caleb Robinson, had grown disillusioned with Boring's leadership specifically because of of Penn Dragon. Pen Dragon, Jeremy's high school dream drove the company into the ground financially. With a project, I want to be clear that not even Disney Studios would have invested tens of millions

Starting point is 00:06:33 of dollars in. That's a tremendous financial risk. Now that said, Boring has publicly defended the show. He called the criticism of his management lies and said that revenue grew every year that he was at the company. I've read almost every day for a year and change that I left the daily wire after bankrupting the company. That's not true. Every single year that I led the daily wire, we grew revenue every year, year over year, for 10 straight years. My last full quarter as CEO was at that time the biggest quarter in the history of the company. My last full year at CEO was at that time the biggest year in the history of the company, just like the year before it had been and the year before that and the year before that.

Starting point is 00:07:12 Well, then Owens' response to essentially being sure revenue grew, that just means that you sold more stuff. The question is what you spent to do. When he says revenue grew every year while I was there, all that means is we sold more stuff. Reverneu means how much money the company is taking in, but how much it spends matters much more. What is the profit? Whatever the actual financial impact of Pen Dragon was, that's the public-facing story now. This fantasy show became fairly or not, the symbol of a company that stripped it from

Starting point is 00:07:39 podcasts and political commentary into expensive prestige production that it may not have had the audience to support. And hey, I know for a lot of people it is fun to watch them, just like eating their own tail, beating each other up. But it's also, it's very important and enlightening, right? because it is part of a bigger pattern that we've seen playing out across the right-wing media for kind of the better part of two years now. The traditional center of conservative media, Fox News, the Daily Wire, the older talk radio

Starting point is 00:08:01 brands built audiences on a particular consensus. Things that were pro-business, pro-Israel, hawkish-on, foreign policy, broadly, pro-establishment Republican. But that consensus is now actively under attack from within the right itself. We see that with Carlson, Owens, Fuentes, and just a countless list of others. And the audience, especially that younger audience, is by every available data point going towards that second group. And that's also interesting and lightning, because the daily

Starting point is 00:08:21 wire situation, I mean, they were essentially viewed as an upstart 10 years ago. They were the scrappy ones that were able to thrive because the legacy ignored them. But now they're seen as the legacy right. They are the internet's Fox News. So also without that Fox News money and they're watching a generation of independence and podcasters peel off their audience. People that used to be aligned with them or even worked at that company. But as far as if the company is going to die, at least according to Shapiro, no. And time will tell whether that is true or it's just kind of PR posturing. But also, while it is incredibly important, and I'll be honest, a little bit of fun to talk

Starting point is 00:08:51 about the MAGA Civil War. There is a version of this story that's been talked about less, and that is the one that is happening on the other side of the aisle. Because it appears that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro just got caught by Axios quietly working against a congressional candidate endorsed by AOC. So you see, Pennsylvania's third congressional district by Cook Political Reports count is the most Democratic district in the entire country. It's a D plus 40. And the current congressman, Dwight Evans, he's retiring, which means at the May 19th Democratic primary, it's effectively the November election now. Whoever wins, unless the sky falls, that's gonna be the person that goes to Congress. You've got state senator, Sharif Street,

Starting point is 00:09:21 the establishment favorite former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, son of former Philly Mayor John Street, backed by the city's Democratic Committee and the Building Trade Union. Then you've got Dr. Ayla Stanford, a pediatric surgeon and political newcomer. And she built her public profile during COVID, running mobile testing clinics in black communities, and she's actually endorsed by the retiring representative. And then you've got state representative Chris Rab, the Progressive, five-term state legislator from Northwest Philadelphia, endorsed by the Philadelphia Enquirer editorial board and a long list of national progressives. And that list, it's where things get politically interesting. Perhaps national endorsements include AOC, Chris Van Hollen, Jamie Raskin, Ilhan

Starting point is 00:09:54 Omar, Ro Kana, Pramela Jayapal, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Right, and the Justice Democrats, the DSA, the Working Families Party, and the Sunrise Movement, they're all behind him. AOC's even fundraised for him and is reportedly heading to Philly this month, the campaign for him in person. So you've got essentially the establishment, the centrist outsider, and the progressive. That's the field. And then boom, over the weekend, Axios turns us into a national story. Right, because according to Axios, which talked with resources familiar with the situation, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is, quote, quietly trying to derail Rab's campaign.

Starting point is 00:10:21 And the key word is privately, talking to allies, telling them that he disapproves a Rabin. According to the reporting, asking Philadelphia's politically powerful building trades union to back off of attacking Ayla Stanford, with a belief being that if the unions go too hard at Stanford, they could inadvertently help Rab win. Now, Shapiro's spokesman pushed back hard on this Axios piece,

Starting point is 00:10:38 saying this is yet another DC story more focused on clicks than the reality on the ground in Pennsylvania, saying the governor has not endorsed or opposed anyone in this primary, and saying he looks forward to working directly with whoever wins to win in November. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Shapiro has not publicly endorsed anyone in PA3. But that's also kind of the point of this reporting. The argument isn't that Shapiro is openly opposing Rab.

Starting point is 00:10:58 The argument is that he is working against him without leaving fingerprints on it. Also with this, I do want to note that it does not appear like Shapiro is actually anti-progressive across the board. But he's backing Bob Brooks, who's a Bernie Sanders endorsed candidate in Pennsylvania 7th Congressional District. He also has alliances with work and families, party members in Philadelphia. And so then the natural question becomes, well, why this guy is. specifically, why Rab? And well, with that, you have both the Axios reporting and the Philadelphia coverage, pointing to kind of a couple of things. The first being policy, Rab's been a sharp public critic of Shapiro's record from the left three years. On immigration, Rab's called for

Starting point is 00:11:27 Pennsylvania to stop state collaboration with ICE. And while Shapiro, he's been publicly critical of ICE operations in the state, he's written letters to DHS, objecting to ICE facilities. He's said that his administration will aggressively pursue every option to block proposed federal facilities. Rab's argument is essentially that the rhetoric, it doesn't match the on-the-ground cooperation. Since multiple PA agencies are still signed on to immigration enforcement work. Then also the second and possibly bigger flashpoint is Israel. Shapiro is Jewish. He's publicly said that he supports the country of Israel, but he's been openly critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership. Right. And with that, Shapiro said on a recent podcast appearance, I have profound differences

Starting point is 00:12:00 from the, with the policies of Netanyahu. I think he and Trump have politicized and poisoned the relationship between the United States and Israel. And I think at the end of the day, that makes America less safe. But Rab's positions to the left of that, right? He's been one of the loudest voices in Pennsylvania politics calling Israel's conduct in Gaza a genocide, and he's made criticism of pro-Israel lobbying organizations a centerpiece of his campaign.

Starting point is 00:12:28 And actually, that part of his record got very scrutinized last week. And it's because of this December social media incident that I wanna try to be careful about. In December of 2025, two gunmen, a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, motivated by what Australian authorities described as Islamic State ideology, opened fire at a Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Right, 15 people were killed.

Starting point is 00:12:46 In the immediate aftermath, an Instagram post went up on Rab's campaign account that in part said, quote, we all know the gunmen were likely Zionists themselves. Right, in that post, it resurfaced last week. You had Rab's campaign saying that a former staffer made the repost without authorization. You had Rab himself saying, quote, he is never and would never say anything like this of quorum. The campaign condemned anti-Semitism in the strongest terms. You had Stanford's campaign calling the post disqualifying, and Rab has so far not publicly named the staffer. And so all of that is why some Democrats reportedly included in that as Shapiro are uncomfortable with

Starting point is 00:13:15 Rav potentially becoming a national party voice. But then also, another reason this is getting a lot of attention is because you have people saying, well, this democratic situation in the Philly primary, it's not about the Philly primary. Rather, it's about what the Philly primary signals about 2028. And there you have both Shapiro and AOC, widely seen as potential 2028 presidential candidates. And those two, I mean, they represent two very different theories on how Democrats win. You have the moderate governor lane, which says that you win nationally by holding the center and flipping persuadable Republicans.

Starting point is 00:13:40 And the populist progressive lane, which says that you win by energizing the base and running on big economic justice ideas. You have many saying this PA3 race essentially as a proxy fight between the two theories. If Rab wins, AOC gets to point to a national progressive victory in deep blue Philadelphia. And if Stanford or street win, Shapiro gets to point at the limits of the progressive lane, even in friendly territory. And you know, a Pennsylvania Democratic strategist telling Axios, Chris is an actual problem for Shapiro for what he wants to be when he grows up. But with all that said, I think then we also have to kind of do a reality check on this situation. There are a few things that people have to keep in mind as the national framing on this race just gets louder and louder. One, there's not a lot of trust in the polling right now,

Starting point is 00:14:14 reportedly there's been no public independent polling of this race so far. So claims about who's ahead or who's behind, by what margin? That should be kind of taken very lightly, like with a grain of salt. Two, Rab's not actually the obvious frontrunner. Stanford has more cash on hand, the Rab or Street. Street is the city's Democratic Committee, the mayor, the building trades unions, and the AFGE behind him. Also, the Inquirer endorsed Rab, outside SuperPax has spent roughly a million dollars on TV ads,

Starting point is 00:14:36 boosted him, but also, this race could end up going to any of the three. Then also, three, I think the Democratic, Civil, war framing right now. It is real, but I think it is also overstated and overheated. We're seeing Axios using that phrase, strategists are using that phrase, it makes for a clean narrative. Oh, I love the headline. But also, if you take a look at the actual policy gap between, like, let's say, Stanford and Rab, it is narrower than the framing suggests. They're both Democrats, they both want to flip Republican seats, and the fight, it's about tone, it's about foreign policy, and which donors and labor groups have a louder voice in primaries. And honestly,

Starting point is 00:15:06 as Democrats head into a midterm cycle where the maps just got worse for them, and in 2028, Who knows what the maps are gonna look like there. It is gonna be important to learn lessons, but also specifically local lessons about what can win. Right, because both lanes that we've talked about have produced wins in different places at different times. But for now, we'll have to wait and see, though, we will have an answer here relatively soon.

Starting point is 00:15:24 And then there's more we've gotta dive into in just a minute, but let me first thank a sponsor and say, you know, listen, many times like the hardest part of launching something new, it's getting out of your own way. We've all had that one passion project or business idea that keeps coming back to us for a while now. Maybe even, you know, we've told a few people about it. But the website still not built, but today, that changed.

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Starting point is 00:16:26 is over gasses at 450 a gallon. US missile stockpiles are reportedly half depleted, and instead of addressing any of it, his defense secretary spent the weekend trying to open a federal investigation into a sitting U.S. Senator. And he did so for repeating something the defense secretary himself said

Starting point is 00:16:39 in a public hearing seven days earlier. But as far as where things stand right now, Iran has officially responded to the latest US peace proposal and Trump has officially rejected it. In his own words, he said on Trude Social, totally unacceptable. And in a follow-up at the Oval Office, he called a ceasefire unbelievably weak and on life support.

Starting point is 00:16:55 And this came after a week where on May 3rd, Trump announced Project Freedom, right with the U.S. military would score commercialships through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has been effectively blockading. Project Freedom got two commercial vessels through. It also triggered Iranian retaliation against U.S. and allied forces in the region

Starting point is 00:17:08 and roughly 36 hours after launch, Trump paused it. Though we paused it, citing great progress towards the deal. Though then also you had reporting from NBC and other outlets saying that the pause was at least partially because Saudi Arabia denied the US military use of its bases and airspace for the operation. And also the great progress that Trump cited was a one page 14 point memorandum of understanding sent to Iran outlining a 30-day window to gradually reopen the street of Hormuz while negotiators worked on a longer-term deal.

Starting point is 00:17:31 And the structure, according to Axios, would have eventually included Iran making nuclear concessions in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets. But then, Iran sent its counter-exeus, sent its counter-proposal this weekend, and to put it bluntly, it is not what the U.S. wanted to hear. Iran's response reportedly kept the 14-point MOU structure, but layered in some hard asks. One, explicit guarantees that the U.S. won't attack again. Two, lift sanctions and release frozen Iranian assets immediately upon signing the MOU, not at the end of a longer-term negotiation. Three, and the war on all fronts, including the ongoing Israeli operations in Lebanon.

Starting point is 00:18:00 Four, U.S. recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the street of Ramos. And then five, on the nuclear program, which apparently is the entire reason this war started, even though we were given multiple reasons. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said this morning that the regime is focused on what is urgent first and that it will discuss what decision is to be made later regarding Iran's nuclear program and materials whenever the time is right. Which really just seems like a lot of words to, yeah, maybe we'll get to it. The spokesperson also called the Iranian proposal reasonable, generous, and responsible, and said that Iran wasn't demanding concessions, just legitimate rights. And as far as how people read that response, well, you had one former senior Israeli military

Starting point is 00:18:33 intelligence officer posting on social media. One thing is clear, the Iranian regime's reply reflects the mindset of a leadership that believes it survived the war and won, not that it lost. As a result, its demands remain high, and its willingness to compromise is extremely limited. And while it's an Israeli analyst, and so you have to factor in that lens, that point of view, the underlying read there that Iran is not negotiating like a country that thinks that it's lost, that's also what U.S. officials have been telling outlets like NBC News privately. And then as far as Trump's response, it came in two forms. First up on truth socially, he laid into Iran for what he said was playing games with the U.S. for 47 years.

Starting point is 00:19:03 He also took a separate shot of Barack Obama for the original nuclear deal, calling Obama the greatest sucker of them all. And then he confirmed he'd read Iran's counterproposal and rejected it. And then second, he told Fox News that he's now thinking about restarting Project Freedom, but with what he described as an expanded scope beyond just escorting ships, though he didn't clarify what that meant. Also, we got this from the Oval Office today when he was asked about if he had an actual plan. A lot of people said, well, does you have a plan? Yeah, of course they do have the best plan ever. Iran has been defeated militarily, totally.

Starting point is 00:19:33 They have a little left. They probably built up during this period of time. We'll knock that out in about a day. But I have a plan. You know, it's a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right. And while all of whatever that was is playing out, here's what it costs. Oil jumped 3% this morning with Brent crude hitting nearly $105 a barrel. U.S. gas prices, which end up actually lagging oil by a few days, it's averaging about 450 a gallon, about 50% higher than before the war started. You've got energy secretary, Chris Wright, telling CBS that the administration is open to pausing the federal gas tax, which would shave about 18.4 cents per gallon.

Starting point is 00:20:07 Also, you had right offering this on whether the street of Hormuz returns to normal. I mean, I don't know about interim deals or whatever, but we know where the endpoint is going to be. The endpoint is going to be free flow of traffic through the international waters that are the Straits of Hormuz and an end to the Iranian nuclear program.

Starting point is 00:20:24 That's where we're going to end. The pathway from here to there, we're gonna find out. And so we'll call it the vibe being communicated by both Trump and his energy secretary is, we know how this ends. We just don't know how we, how we're getting there, which just to point out is a goal, not a plan. And then also as you have the Trump administration kind of rolling around in the shit that

Starting point is 00:20:41 they shat on the shag carpet, you have Senator Mark Kelly, right, a retired Navy captain, former astronaut, a member of both the armed services and intelligence committees going on CBS's face the nation this weekend and saying that the Pentagon had briefed senators on how depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles have become because of this war. I think it's fair to say it's shocking the how deep we have gone into these magazines because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline. And because of that, we've expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe. And that assessments publicly backed up. CNN, citing internal

Starting point is 00:21:18 defense department stockpile assessments, reported that as of April 21st, the U.S. military had expended at least 45% of its precision strike missile stockpile, at least half of its inventory of that, interceptors, and nearly 50% of its Patriot Air Defense stockpile. And the Center for Strategic and International Studies independently reported similar numbers. So Kelly's concern, it's not random, it's shared by multiple independent analysts, looks consistent with publicly available reporting, and his core argument is that the US is running through the missiles that it would need for a hypothetical conflict with China. Which then brings us to Secretary to defense Pete Hegesa.

Starting point is 00:21:47 Right, because he responded to Kelly's CBS appearance by not addressing the substance, but by accusing Kelly of leaking a classified briefing and announcing that the Pentagon would investigate. With Hegsat saying, Captain Mark Kelly, strikes again. Now he's blabbing on TV falsely and dumbly about a classified Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath again? Department of War, legal counsel will review. To which, Kelly's response was kind of perfect. He just posted a video clip of himself and Hegeseth at a Senate hearing one week earlier where Hegset himself said publicly that it would take years to replenish the depleted stockpiles. With him then writing, we had this conversation in a public hearing

Starting point is 00:22:18 a week ago and you said it would take years to replenish some of these stockpiles. That's not classified. It is a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven't explained to the American people what the goal is. And you know, it is important that this is not the first time Hegset's pulled any of this. This would be the second Pentagon investigation that Hegset has opened against Kelly. For the first being over Kelly's participation in a video with five other Democratic veterans turned lawmakers urging service members to refuse illegal orders. And that actually got struck down by a federal judge earlier this year as unconstitutionally retaliatory. But again, as all of this is playing out, there is a very real economic cost that's

Starting point is 00:22:49 just hitting millions of Americans right now. This is already a drag on the American people, the American economy and the only question is how bad is it going to get as we get closer and closer to summer. And then there's more we're going to dive into in just a minute, but first, a quick announcement. Really, it's more of a friendly reminder. If you need an escape, that also is not just sticking your head in the sand, you got to come out and see us live. Our sold-out show in New York, it was a blast, and we have 12 more dates coming up. Seattle and Portland, their first up in August, followed by Boston, Philly, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, D. D.C. and Pittsburgh. It's a little of what you know, it's a little of what you don't know, and honestly, it's a blast.

Starting point is 00:23:26 It's also meat and greets, exclusive merch, you know, the regular good stuff. A lot of it is about getting together, crashing out together, having a good time, and not feeling crazy. You know, Alex and I, we'd love to have you, and you can go get tickets right now at crashingoutor.com. But then, the final thing we need to talk about today is why Florida's Attorney General said last month that if chat GPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder. And yesterday, the widow of a man killed in the 2025 Florida State University shooting, filed a federal lawsuit that essentially asked a court to take that argument seriously. Because on Sunday, attorneys for Vandana Joshi found a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida.

Starting point is 00:23:56 Her husband, Tiro Chaba, was 45 years old. He was a regional vice president for the company that ran food service at Florida State University. He had a wife, he had kids. And on April 17, 2025, he was killed in a shooting on the FSU campus. And this lawsuit, it names two defendants. The first is the man who's accused of carrying out the shooting. A then 20-year-old FSU student, now 21, charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder. He's pleaded not guilty, his trials scheduled for October, and then the second defendant is OpenAI, right? The company that makes ChatGPT. And the legal argument is that the AI chatbot spent months in conversations with the shooter. Conversations that, taken together should have triggered some kind of safety response.

Starting point is 00:24:30 But that system appears to have failed to do so, and so her attorney put the case this way. Saying, quote, he literally utilized Open AI and ChatGPT as his co-conspirator. That's the allegation. Right. And according to the complaint, which is built on ChatGPT chat logs released by Florida law enforcement, this shooter went roughly 18 months talking to the chat bot. And the attorneys say that the chat history covers about 16. thousand different exchanges and it was just everything right homework help workout advice

Starting point is 00:24:52 relationship questions loneliness bullying depression and by the plaintiff's account the AI was friendly engaged sympathetic it became in effect a daily presence in his life but also threaded through those routine exchanges the lawsuit alleges they there was a separate set of conversations conversations about Hitler about Nazism about prior mass shootings including Columbine and Virginia Tech right about what kinds of attacks attract national media attention and the complaint actually quotes a response in which the chatbot allegedly told the shooter that attacks involving children are more likely to generate national coverage. And it's that specific of change that's kind of drawn the most attention since the suit was filed.

Starting point is 00:25:23 Though the lawsuit also alleges that the shooter uploaded images of firearms that he had gotten and that Chat ChpT provided operational advice on how to use them. Things including, according to the lawsuit, specific instructions about the weapon used in the attack. And so the core legal claim is, and this is where a lot of people had to be paying attention, is that the alleged shooter had extensive conversations with Chat ChpT, which cumulatively would have led any thinking human to conclude that he was contemplating an imminent plan to harm others. But saying, however, chat GPT either defectively failed to connect the dots or else it was never properly designed to recognize them. And so the suit, it alleges negligence, gross negligence, strict products liability, defective design, failure to warn, negligent entrustment, and wrongful death.

Starting point is 00:25:58 As far as open AI, they've denied the lawsuits court claim. Their spokesperson telling ABC News and NBC News, quote, last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but chat GPT is not responsible for this terrible crime. And their argument is kind of in three parts. One, the information that ChatGPT provided was, in their words, factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet. Two, the product did not, in their characterization, encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity. And three, when they became aware of the shooting, they identified an account believed to be associated with the suspect and proactively shared that information with law enforcement. And then with that you also have open AI saying that they're continuing to strengthen safeguards to detect harmful intent. So that's their defense and whether that holds up.

Starting point is 00:26:36 It's going to depend on the question that the lawsuit explicitly tease up. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, right, which is the law that shields internet platforms are being held responsible for user-generated content. It's essentially what you've seen protect Facebook from being sued every time someone posts something harmful. But also, this lawsuit anticipated that move and argues that Section 230 does not apply here because ChatGPT is not a passive platform. It's saying it's not hosting other people's words.

Starting point is 00:26:59 OpenAI created the model, trained the model, and operates it as an active conversational product that generates its own responses. And so that distinction, right, between a platform that hosts user content and a product that generates content is one that courts really haven't settled when it comes to a generative AI. And so what you're going to see is that this lawsuit and then others like it, they're going to push that question out into the open. Right, because there are also other lawsuits like this. In Canada, families of seven victims from a February school shooting in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia, they filed a similar lawsuit against Open AI.

Starting point is 00:27:24 Right, and that was an attack that killed six students between 12 and 13 years old and a teacher. And actually with that, you had the Wall Street Journal reporting that Open AI's own automated moderation tools had flagged the alleged shooters chats for content violations months before the attack, right, for graphic descriptions of violence. And so the case there argues that OpenAI knew and just didn't act. Right, more of these stories are popping up. You had CBS News also reporting this week that the suspect in last month's killings of two University of South Florida graduate students allegedly used ChatGBT to figure out how to dispose of a body in the lead up to the disappearances. So what we're talking about today is not a one-off.

Starting point is 00:27:53 And this case here, it's going to have an impact. Right, because you've got a growing category of cases that are going to ask courts a question that the legal system's never asked before. What is the legal responsibility of an AI company when a user appears to be planning violence using a chatbot and the chatbot does not escalate it? And then also there's going to be a question. question of do we actually see criminal charges versus just a civil lawsuit. And also honestly, whether it's this story or anything I covered today, I'd really love to know your thoughts. Because

Starting point is 00:28:14 yes, this is a new show, but I also like it to be a conversation because without the conversation, it's just all bad stuff all the time and, uh, we already have enough of that. But then my friends, you beautiful bastards is the end of your Monday, Philip DeFranco show. But of course, do not fret. I'll be back to hang and entertain or ruin your day tomorrow with another brand new Philip DeFranco show. Thank you for watching. I love yo faces and I'll see you that. Thank you.

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