- Sup ya beautiful bastards,
hope you're having a fantastic Thursday.
Welcome back to the Phillip DeFranco Show.
And a quick note before we get started.
This is actually the second video
I uploaded today on this channel.
I know we're usually once a day,
but we had so many things to talk about
and so this morning I covered the heavily requested
call her daddy story.
If you're unfamiliar, it is a ride,
I highly recommend you watch it after today's show,
but this is The Phillip DeFranco Show,
so buckle up, hit that like button
and let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today
is Fyre Fest, well thank you to them
for sponsoring today's show, I'm kidding.
Yeah actually Fyre Festival is back in the news
years after, I forgot how long ago this was,
it happened in 2017.
An event that was such a disaster,
it resulted in multiple criminal charges,
spawned documentaries,
some of which that were actually made
by people that were involved in the process.
Also on this journey we learned what this man
would do for a bottle of water.
Which, no disrespect, that's just dedication.
But for those unfamiliar with what this thing was.
It was this promised glamorous weekend in the Bahamas.
It was supposed to be the cultural experience of the decade
and ticket packages ranged from 1200$ to over 100000$.
And yeah they were supposed to give their guests
access to luxurious accommodations, gourmet food,
musical performances from acts like Blink-182 and Migos.
But of course none of that actually happened
and we ended up just seeing stranded festival goers,
people in FEMA tents.
You get people wondering how the hell did this thing
that seemed so legitimate,
had so many big names seemingly involved,
how did this happen?
And part of the reason for that is,
you had massive influencers promoting this event.
Which actually brings us to one, Kendall Jenner,
and two, updates we're seeing now.
All right, Kendall was actually one of the biggest names
promoting this event on social media.
Because of that in August of 2019,
she was sued in New York's US Bankruptcy court
by Gregory Messer, who is a trustee
recovering money and assets for creditors
who did business with the festival.
And according to court documents,
Kendall Jenner was paid 275000 dollars
to post about the festival on her Instagram
in January of 2017.
That since deleted post was captioned
"So hyped to announce my G.O.O.D. Music Family as the
first headliners for @fyrefestival,
use my promo code for the next 24 hours
to get on the list for the artists
and talents afterparty on Fyre Cay".
And so you had the lawsuit accusing Kendall
of intentionally leading the public to believe
that Kanye West, who founded the G.O.O.D music label,
was set to perform at this event.
With the suit stating,
"This conduct demonstrates a clear lack
of good faith on Jenner's part".
It was also noted that Kendall did not
properly specify that her post was a paid promotion
which caused her to receive a warning
from the Federal Trade Commission.
And as far as the reason we're talking about it now,
it's being reported that Kendall has now settled.
And so as part of the agreement,
she will pay 90000$ for her role in promoting this event,
which of course is less than half
of what she earned from the post itself.
Now as we're recording this,
she hasn't made an official statement about the settlement,
but she did actually talk about her
involvement with the event in March of last year.
And in that interview with the New York Times she said,
"You get reached out to by people to,
whether it be to promote or help or whatever,
and you never know how these things
are going to turn out, sometimes it's a risk".
but then also saying
"I definitely do as much research as I can,
but sometimes there isn't much research you can do
because it's a starting brand and you kind of
have to have faith in it
and hope it will work out the way people say it will".
Now a big note here is that Jenner isn't the only one
who was hit with a lawsuit for connections to the festival.
Claims were also filed against other celebrities like
Emily Ratajkowski, Migos, Pusha T, Blink-182 and Lil Yachty.
And of course the person hit the hardest from this situation
is Finer Media founder Billy McFarland,
who of course is currently
serving out a six year prison sentence
after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
With him also being ordered to repay
the 26 million he defrauded from investors.
Yeah, that's the story.
And here's the question I would pass of to you,
is, what do you think about that 90000$ settlement?
Do you think it was uncalled for,
do you think she was misled as well?
Or maybe do you think it makes sense,
or do you maybe think it is not enough.
Why, why not, anything you thoughts on with this,
I'd love to know in those comments down below.
And then let's talk about Lori Loughlin back in the news.
Of course she was previously known
as being Aunt Becky on Full House.
Now, she is known as being Aunt Becky,
who was a part of the college admission scandal.
And the news around this today is that she and her husband,
Mossimo Giannulli are planning to enter a guilty plea.
So, as you might remember, back in March of last year,
these two were part of a huge group of wealthy parents
charged with falsifying documents
to get their kids into elite colleges.
And Loughlin and Giannulli specifically were accused
of paying 500000$ to get their two daughters
Isabella Rose and Olivia Jade
into the University of Southern California
as false rowing recruits.
Right, when the indictments came out,
they initially pleaded not guilty to the charges,
which was really something of a shock at that time
because many of the parents who were involved
were quicker to enter guilty pleas.
Right, with many thinking that entering a deal
and getting a shorter sentence in the end
would just be the easier option.
But these two maintained their innocence.
Saying that they believed
that they were making a legitimate donation.
And so unlike many of the parents
who did quickly enter plea deals,
Loughlin and Giannulli ended up
getting hit with more charges.
And as more started to unfold,
you also saw that much of the evidence
did not help their case.
Right, just last month, photos that were allegedly
part of this scam to get their daughters into USC
were released along with bunch of other evidence.
Right and those photos appearing to show Olivia
and Isabella on rowing machines pretending to be athletes.
And along with those photos,
there was also email correspondence
between Giannulli and Rick Singer,
who is the ring leader of the college admission scandal.
And those appear to show Singer requesting action shots
of the girls so that he could build
fake athletic profiles.
But still, with all of this, we had Loughlin and Giannulli
maintaining that they were innocent.
In fact, they even made a bid to drop the charges
against them, citing misconduct by federal agents involved,
claiming that they fabricated evidence.
But unfortunately for them, just two weeks ago,
that bid was rejected by a judge.
Meaning that Loughlin and Giannulli would
have to go to trial in October
when a bunch of other parents involved in the scandal
were taking the stand.
And there, if they were found guilty,
after going to trial,
they could face up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy.
Which is much worse than the sentencing
of their new guilty plea, which they're scheduled
to formally enter tomorrow.
This also notably making them the 23rd and 24th
parents to enter a guilty plea
for the college admission scandal.
And as far as the specifics of the plea agreements,
Loughlin will reportedly be pleading guilty
to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud,
mail fraud, with the other charges
against her being dismissed,
with her reportedly agreeing
to a sentence of two months in prison.
A fine of 150000$, two years supervised release
and 100 hours of community service.
Now Giannulli on the other hand,
will be pleading guilty on one count of conspiracy
to commit wire and mail fraud
and honest services wire and mail fraud.
Here they're dropping the other charges as well.
And he's agreed to five months in prison,
a 250000$ fine, 2 years supervised release
and 250 hours of community service.
Though, in both of their cases, a judge will ultimately
decide the extent of their punishment.
Looks like we're gonna have to wait
and see what happens there.
Now of course following this announcement,
this became a huge topic of conversation online.
Both Aunt Becky and Lori Loughlin
quickly became trending topics on twitter.
With a lot of people thinking
that these sentences are kind of just a slap on the wrist,
which, there was a very similar discussion that people had
back when Felicity Huffman was sentenced
to just 14 days for her participation.
But she reportedly had her child's SAT scores faked,
and while she only got those 14 days,
that came after prosecutors recommended
she get four months.
And Huffman also didn't have to serve the full 14 days,
she ended up being released after just 11.
And connected to what people said were light sentences,
you had a lot of people bringing up situations
like that of Tanya McDowell.
If you're unfamiliar, she's a woman in Connecticut
who lied about her address to get her son
into a better school district.
She was reportedly homeless,
living out of a van at the time,
she used her babysitter's address.
And Tanya ended up getting a 5 year sentence.
This after entering a plea deal
encompassing charges related to this,
as well as drug charges.
Right so there are people making the comparison
saying that this injustice,
that people that have more money
are treated different by our government.
Also with this Loughlin situation,
there are people wondering if they are even
going to serve their sentence
or if they're gonna serve their sentence maybe from home
because of the coronavirus situation right now
and the fact that this is a nonviolent crime.
But that's where we are with this story now.
We're gonna have to see what this judge does,
what the actual sentence will be.
And here I will pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on this?
Is this just a slap on the wrist,
cause it's kind of a Goldilocks question,
is it too little, too much, just right?
Let me know what you're thinking, and why.
But from that I wanna share some stuff I love today.
And today in awesome brought to you by Keeps.
If you didn't know, two out of three guys
will experience some form of male pattern baldness
by the time that they're 35.
Right, everybody's got that brother, uncle
or even that friend.
And if you don't wanna go down that road,
you don't have to just sit idly by.
Keeps helps you stop hair loss before it's too late
with their scientific and affordable approach
to treatments that are up to 90% effective
at reducing and stopping further hair loss.
And Keeps offers generic versions
of the only two FDA approved hair loss products
that are out there.
So, some of you may have actually
already tried them before,
but probably never at this price.
It's also, right, because you used to have to go
to the doctor's office for your prescription.
But with Keeps you can just get these products delivered
directly to your home.
And also for a limited time
you beautiful bastards can get your order for 50% off.
So if you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss,
go to Keeps.com/defranco,
or just click that link in the description down below
to receive 50% off your first order.
And the first bit of awesome
is this "Dad, how do I?" Situation.
It's this YouTube channel about a guy named Kenny.
Apparently his Dad walked out on him
when he was 12 years old.
He himself has two kids, though they're adults now.
And so he makes maintenance videos
for people with no dads.
And people in the past several days found this channel,
tweeted it out, put it in TikToks,
put it all over the place.
And out of nowhere, as I'm recording this,
this guy has well over a million subscribers.
And you just look at his videos,
especially the new ones,
including one where he says thank you.
And there's just so much positivity
and I wanted to highlight it
because it's nice to see a good thing now and then.
We get served bad constantly,
so it's nice to see a situation where
you have a guy that seems good,
trying to do a good thing
and he's getting something for it.
Then we have MachineGunKelly
releasing a music video for Bloody Valentine.
But the reason I'm talking about it,
is Megan Fox is in it.
They've been longtime fan on the show, we're fans.
And Minute Earth gave us
why you can't build a clone army yet.
And we had hulu giving us the Making of Solar Opposites,
which, actually regarding the show itself,
if you have nothing else better to watch,
actually pretty good.
It's definitely gonna be hit or miss with people.
Then we had Ricky Gervais teaching you British slang.
We had the teaser for Queer Eye season five,
we also got the trailer for the
new Charlize Theron movie, The Old Guard.
And we also had Marvel giving us
Spider-Man - Into the Spider-Verse writer talk Spider-Ham.
Which, side note, I will say,
Spider-Man - Into the Spider-Verse, best Spider-Man movie
and possibly best soundtrack of all time.
I stand by this.
If you wanna see the full versions
of everything I just shared,
the secret link of the day, really anything at all,
links as always are in the description down below.
And then let's talk about this situation
that's led to thousands of people saying boycott FedEx.
All right so there's video that's gone viral
that appears to show a confrontation
between two FedEx workers and a customers.
All right so reportedly these two workers
who are black men were out delivering packages
in a small town in Georgia.
And according to one of the workers, Antonio Braswell,
this confrontation happened as they were delivering
a package to a house.
With Braswell then saying a white man runs out of the house
cussing at them, threatening them,
Braswell then adding that this man kept escalating
the situation and then kept saying
he would whoop our black asses.
Wit him going on to say that the man then
told his wife to call the police.
That man then allegedly follows these two workers,
he pulls out his phone to record them.
However, Braswell says that he
and his coworker drive away at first,
but then the man cusses at them again.
And that's when he says his coworker stops the truck,
gets out of the truck,
with Braswell then recording the incident
from there from his own phone.
- You don't have to come out there
cussing me like that like I'm some child.
I aint no little boy, I'm no little boy,
I'll wait til the police come.
- [Braswell] You can record all you want bruh,
I gotchu, I gotchu bruh.
- That's where your power went right there,
that's your power, that's his power,
that's where your power went right there.
- Where you going?
- Man I aint finna waste my time with you,
you got my information, you got my information,
they'll find me, they'll find me.
You need to get your glasses back on.
- [White Man] I thought you were waiting for the cops?
- Yeah I thought you were gonna whoop my (bleep) too.
- And that's all we actually get to see from this incident
because that's also where the video ends.
But according to Braswell the police arrived soon after.
Both sides apparently gave their testimony,
according to Braswell, the man who allegedly confronted them
told police that the two employees
looked like they would've broken into the house
while his wife was at home.
You know and with accusations like that,
you had Braswell saying,
"Mind y'all we go through this all the time".
But adding, "he was the first to actually come at us crazy
and all we doing is our job. We work six days out the week
to deliver these packages during the coronavirus".
But ultimately that's the incident,
at least according to Braswell.
To be fair here, the other man in this video
has not yet been identified,
so we have not yet heard his side of the story.
But what we have seen is this video just blow up.
In the past couple of days it's been viewed
more than six million times on just twitter alone
and in the process of it blowing up,
yesterday we saw another development,
with Braswell tweeting,
"Update FedEx called and told me
to take down this video and fired both of us today.
I'm reposting this video because people like him
doesn't matter white or any race should never disrespect
essential worker putting their lives in jeopardy
essentially with this covid-19".
From there we've also seen a gofundme
page being created for these men
and just over the course of a day
it's already raised 63000$ with money
reportedly set to be split between the two men.
Also of course resulted in the #BoycottFedEx trending,
with tons of people calling for
these workers to be reinstated.
And as far as a response from FedEx,
we actually saw them release a statement
late last night saying
"We are aware of the incident in Georgia
that led to the release of two drivers
employed by a service provider.
We're offering employment while investigating
to ensure an appropriate outcome.
We take seriously allegations of discrimination,
retaliation, or improper employment actions".
Right, so FedEx essentially trying to clarify
this situation saying we did not fire them,
it was actually an independent contractor.
With them saying that they're gonna be looking into it
and offering them jobs at the company.
As we're recording this video it doesn't appear
that Braswell has responded to that offer from FedEx.
We've also seen a number of media outlets
reaching out for comment.
But so far Braswell hasn't responded to those either.
Ultimately with this story,
I do wanna pass a question off to you.
What are your thoughts based off of what we have?
Do you have an opinion based off of what we've seen here?
Or do you want to wait to see what else comes out?
The last thing we're gonna talk about today,
is it's Thursday, which means we get that depressing
and developing news around unemployment
and what we're gonna do about it.
All right so today the US government reported
that another 2.4 million people
filed for unemployment last week,
bringing the official total count to more than 38 million.
And while that still supports this downward trend
that we've seen over the last few weeks,
that's really only one part of a much bigger picture.
Right, almost 40 million people have filed for unemployment
over the last nine weeks
and that doesn't even count the estimated million more
that are currently applying
or waiting for their applications to be approved.
And while many places are reopening
and more people are going back to work,
those numbers might not be as optimistic as many have hoped.
In fact continuing claims,
which show how many people are still collecting
unemployment after their initial application
grows by 2.5 million to a record 25 million.
Which we've seen reports state,
is a sign unemployment is lingering even as states reopen.
Although and this is an important note here
and also in several other places
because there are delays.
That figure we were just talking about
is reported on a 2-week lag,
so it might not be representative of recent reopenings.
But that said, a lot of people are still hurting,
in fact according to a recent household survey
from the census bureau, 47% of adults say
that they or someone in their household
have lost employment income since March 13th.
And nearly 40% expected that they or someone
in their household would lose employment income
over the next four weeks.
Which brings up a very major concern here.
More and more economists are now warning
that many of the job losses meant to be temporary
could be permanent.
With one recent report published
by the University of Chicago's Becker Friedman Institute
estimating that 42% of recent layoffs will result
in permanent job loss.
But despite all of that, what we're seeing,
is that President Trump and top Republicans
have said that they want to end
enhanced federal unemployment benefits
that were laid out onto the stimulus bill.
All right so normally state governments
are the ones that give out unemployment benefits,
but under the Cares Act, congress authorized
and additional 600$ a week on top of that
for all unemployed Americans.
But those extra benefits are set to expire in July.
Now notably the $3 Trillion Stimulus Package
passed be the House on Friday
would extend those benefits until the end of the year
but Republicans and more importantly
because of the two Houses in Congress,
Senate Republicans, have broadly rejected
a number of the provisions in the bill.
And also according to reports,
Trump has privately expressed his opposition
to extending those benefits
during a private meeting on Tuesday.
Also just yesterday we saw Republican
and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
reportedly saying that the enhanced unemployment benefits
will not be in the next package.
With McConnell also reportedly saying the Republicans are
"going to have to clean up the Democrats' crazy policy
that is paying people more to remain unemployed
than they would earn if they went back to work".
Right so and that appears to be one of the big reasons
that Republicans want to end the benefits.
All right essentially it's the classic promotion
of laziness argument that people use against welfare
and universal basic income.
All right they believe that if unemployed people
are getting more money from unemployment
than they would from their normal job
or even if they're able to just get by existing
on those benefits, then they won't go back to work.
And you know here there has been some anecdotal evidence
of companies saying they're having a hard time
getting their workers to go back to their old jobs.
Although according to reports some workers say
that this is just because they're concerned
about unaddressed safety issues.
But also here's the thing with this situation.
Legally speaking people who are offered reemployment
and then turn it down are likely
to actually lose their unemployment benefits.
But then this also puts employers in a hard spot
because they have to make hard choices
about keeping their business afloat,
as well as rehiring people,
who genuinely in these really tough financial times
with the system that is in place now
might actually be better off on unemployment.
And it turns out that is true for a lot of people.
While some studies estimate that only about 40%
of workers made less at their jobs
than they would get from expanded benefits,
others have said that two thirds of unemployed workers
who are getting these benefits
are taking home more than they would
from their previous job.
But on the other side of this debate,
you have a lot of people saying,
well that's a good thing.
Not just for everyday people who are hurting
but for the economy as a whole.
Right, as the Washington Post reported,
unemployment benefits represent a critical component
of the country's recovery effort, as the weekly payments
to out-of-work Americans function as a form
of stimulus in their own right.
All right so normally joblessness benefits
are supposed to provide around 45% of a person's wages.
But in order to also boost the economy,
the extra 600$ in the Cares Act
is intended to be enough to give most people
100% of their lost wages.
And as Chad Stone, the top economist for
Center on Budget and Policy Priority said,
"Unemployment insurance in a normal recession
is a great stimulus because it has high bang for your buck.
People spend it, it's very valuable
to the people receiving it,
and it's beneficial to the economy".
All right so that's this economic domino effect idea
that we've talked about before.
When people aren't working or don't have enough money,
they don't spend it on bars,
restaurants, clothes, electronics, etc.
But when those places don't make money,
they have to lay off people,
which means more people don't have money.
All right so and the argument here is
that if we give people who lost their jobs more money,
then they'll spend it and put it back into the economy.
And with rising concerns about more and more
of these job losses being seen as permanent,
that could be incredibly important
for supporting the economy in the longterm.
And in general you see a number of economists
saying that's the big picture.
The longterm, not this short term.
All right that normal 45% of your wages
would be okay if you're out of a job for a little while.
But if the previously believed temporary job loss
is a permanent job loss,
you need to plan for the distance.
For example during the 2008 financial crisis
congress extended unemployment benefit
eligibility up to 99 weeks.
And while it was expensive and it was a controversial move,
some experts say that these payments were essential
for people who were unemployed for way longer
than their states would normally give them benefits.
Which currently is around 26 weeks
in most parts of the country.
But ultimately that's where we are with this right now.
We're gonna have to wait to see what Congress does,
how the situation in the country
just continues to develop.
I'll let this story out and pass two questions.
One, what are your thoughts in general
about extending this federal aid
to people that are unemployed
and two, what are you currently going through?
Have you lost your job,
are you in fear of losing your job,
are you worried about the rent next month?
Anything and everything, let me know
what you're thinking in those comments down below.
And that is where I'm going to end today's show.
And hey as always, thank you for watching,
hitting that like button,
being a part of the conversation in the comments down below.
Also if you're new here
and you like these dives into the news during the work week,
definitely hit that subscribe button
and tap that bell to turn on notifications
so you don't miss future
videos I post in the future,
but with that said of course as always,
my name is Phillip DeFranco,
you've just been philled in,
I love ya faces and I'll see you next time.
- I hope you like this video,
subscribe if you like it.