- 'Sup, you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to The Philip DeFranco Show.
I am coming to you live from your mother's basement
because I'm still testing positive for COVID,
though the good news is I'm asymptomatic.
But if anyone asked me to be responsible, (coughs)
I'm so sorry.
But with that said, welcome back.
Hit that like button because I'm a hero
for shooting through COVID.
And let's just jump into the first story, which is crazy.
(people screaming)
So that was an airport in Israel over the weekend.
And if you're wondering like, what are they running from?
Was it Hamas, Hezbollah, Isis?
No, dumb Americans.
Turns out you have this family from the States,
they're touring Israel,
they travel through the Golan Heights
one of their kids finds a souvenir,
and by souvenir, I mean an unexploded bombshell,
and they apparently decide,
yeah, this is a thing we can put in our luggage.
So they pack, they go to catch their flight,
they check in, and security's like,
is that a fucking bomb?
With them immediately calling for an evacuation,
people are running, screaming, ducking for cover.
One guy even got hospitalized because he injured himself
trying to go over a baggage carousel.
With, luckily, everything ultimately going back to normal.
They clear the bomb, there's no threat now.
The incident is reportedly being investigated.
The family reportedly was still able to board the plane,
thus continuing a very long tradition of America
being able to do very, very dumb things
and then continue as if nothing had happened.
As of right now, it is unclear if the family
was able to keep their souvenir,
which I imagine would pair well
with the five brain cells they collectively have.
But yeah, I guess the main point of this story
is don't be stupid, stupid.
Every time you think it just couldn't get dumber,
the world's like, (chuckles) bitch, you thought.
Also, I wanna make clear when I say dumb Americans,
I'm not saying all Americans are dumb.
I just think all Americans have at least one family
or person they know that would've done this.
It's kinda like what George Carlin used to say.
Like, think of how stupid the average person is,
and then just remember that half of everybody is dumber.
Then, in what was already expected to be a massive event
now made bigger thanks to drama,
let's talk about Ludwig's poker tournament.
Ludwig, if you don't know, massive online creator.
He holds a $1 million event that just wrapped up,
featuring tons of big creators like Mr. Beast,
xQc, Ninja, Alexandra Botez,
as well as pro poker players,
like Tom Dwan and Phil Hellmuth.
Well, Phil ended the night with some modest gains
and not the massive gains we saw
from Alexandra Botez and Mr. Beast
or the major losses others took on.
He ended up being at the center of controversy and backlash.
On one of the fronts here,
people just taking aim at his general demeanor,
with people like YouTuber CouRage slamming him saying,
Man, Phil, as a fan of poker, I was excited to watch you
help grow the game to a new audience.
Instead, I watched a grown man baby blame everyone
but himself for getting rolled by streamers
who were having fun.
Alex smoked you in poker and she'd smoke you in chess.
So you had some people shooting back saying,
that's just Phil's brand.
Though CouRage wasn't the only one annoyed by that,
as well as another incident that involved Phil's gameplay,
with one clip in particular gaining a ton of traction.
In it, you see a creator by the name of Slime
think that Phil had folded,
but in fact, he had just showed his cards.
- I just have no idea what to do here.
- [Man] Show the table.
- [Commentator] And Hellmuth's just folded the best hand.
- [Man] You gonna show?
- I mean, I have Ace-nine, yeah.
- [Man] Oh my God, what did I fold?
- Excellent.
- I didn't--
- Oh, wait, I thought you folded.
- [Man] No, no, no. - Did he not fold?
- No, I didn't fold, I'm thinking.
- [Phillip] They keep chatting,
Slime saying he thought Phil folded,
others in the back saying he decided to just show his cards.
It gets weird, messy, confusing.
You got Phil then saying that he wants to make a deal,
saying he should just put 5K in, calls it a good deal.
With the announcer then trying to explain what happened
before the cards were revealed.
- [Commentator] So Phil did not fold.
He did show his card,
which is totally fine in the cash game.
Slime thought he folded.
- [Man] Don't run it out, we'll get all pissed and-
- No, no, no, I wanna see.
- [Commentator] A little bit of business going there.
- [Man] Oh my god. - [Man] No way!
(Phil laughs) - How lucky am I?
- Nice fold.
- [Phillip] With the whole thing then blowing up,
going viral online.
Everyone chiming in, including some pro poker players
with Daniel Negreanu saying he wouldn't call what went down
a really good deal.
Others saying that it definitely looked like Phil folded,
even accusing him of cheating,
which cheating and poker has been a big topic
of conversation in general,
but especially over, I would say, the last week or so,
right, with people here arguing
that he pushed his hand over the line,
so that was interpreted as him folding.
With people saying that
Phil should have to give the pot back
and CouRage adding, this was embarrassing to watch.
Literally all signs that he folded the hand
then tries to play the high road like he helped out Slime.
Some arguing that this was a form of angle shooting
which is a tactic when one player intentionally banks on
another player's misinterpreting their moves.
But at the same time you had people defending Phil,
saying that if you watch the clip closely,
Phil isn't even the person
who initially decides to show cards,
arguing that he simply doesn't know what to do,
he moves his cards forward, hoping for someone to lurk.
And then someone says to show cards
and Phil motions that he's going to do so.
Others arguing that he's pushing the cards
towards Tom Dwan, not to fold.
And after the event was over,
you had Phil defending himself on Twitter,
writing controversy over nothing.
Tom Dwan asked to see my hand because opponent was all in.
Then Keating said, turn it face up, I did.
Opponent then flipped his hand face up.
He made a mistake and I got attacked for it.
Whatevs, the poker world knows I did nothing wrong.
And adding, I asked the other players how to handle it.
They said to collect 5,000 or 10,000 dollars
from my opponent who was drawing to a six, three wins.
Anyone impugning my integrity is way outta line.
And saying that he called it a good deal
because he went with the lower number
that people were throwing around.
And for his part, Slime seems pretty relaxed
about the whole ordeal, with Phil sharing a video
where they say.
- [Phil] And Slime, they're saying
that I did something wrong in that hand.
- I think it was a friendly game.
I think that I didn't hear what he said.
It looks like a fold but it's like, whatever.
- Phil Hellmuth is a national threat and a terrorist.
- And Slime himself tweeting,
one, nonverbal flip over the line looked like a fold to me.
But two, Keating told him to flip his hand
and it's a friendly game.
I don't care, smoke weed family.
That is the most I've ever talked about poker ever
because I am horrible at it.
But for those who do play, for those who watch,
for those who care, I would love to know your thoughts
about this controversy, whose camp are you in and why?
And then let's talk about Amber Heard and Johnny Depp,
which by the way, if you're wanting to watch
live streams of it, I mean,
I cannot recommend Emily D. Baker enough.
But all this has been very interesting
to see play out in the court of public opinion.
Right, because if you look online, you have everything
from people just sharing their firm opinions on the topic,
all the way to people posting fan cams using court footage.
Right now, if you log onto Twitter, generally speaking,
everyone's very pro Johnny Depp.
And this is beginning to show in other places as well,
with a number of people testifying
but a lot of the focus being on Johnny Depp
having testified already over three days.
With Amber Heard set to take the stand this week.
But seemingly even before she gets into that hot seat,
a lot of people have made up their minds on this case.
With, for example, a change.org petition
demanding that she be removed from Aquaman 2
now reaching over 3 million signatures as of this morning.
With the petition claiming,
as Amber Heard is a known and proven domestic abuser,
Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment should and must
remove Heard from their Aquaman 2 film project.
They must not ignore the suffering of Heard's victims
and must not glamorize a domestic abuser.
Men are victims of domestic abuse, just like women.
This must be recognized.
And this pressure has existed for a while,
which is why when unverified reports
that she's only in 10 minutes of the film came out recently,
that wasn't too surprising.
But again, we don't know how true that is.
And there are other similar petitions out there,
including one demanding she be removed
as a L'Oreal spokesperson
that's getting over 90,000 signatures.
And Heard is seemingly not happy.
I mean, we just saw the news
that Heard has now fired her PR team,
which is just wild timing.
I mean, this is happening mid trial,
she's testifying this week.
With Heard having reportedly already hired a new firm,
so it'll be interesting to see
if that makes any difference, right?
Does her testimony or her new PR team
change any of the current narrative?
But of course, all of that,
just the court of public opinion.
There is actually a jury and a real court right now.
Though I do think there is a reasonable argument to be made
that both courts matter,
the real court and the court of public opinion.
Right, there's a defamation case,
about tens of millions of dollars at play,
but also this is gonna impact people's careers
even more than it already has in the lead up to this trial.
With all that said, I do wanna pass a question off to you.
Based off of what you've seen so far,
what are your thoughts?
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And then, you know how last week, we were talking about
the sexual harassment scandal that was plaguing
the UK's conservative party,
with one lawmaker reportedly even watching porn
on the parliament floor?
Well, that story has gotten all sorts of interesting.
The person in question has been identified
as MP Neil Parrish.
He's been in office since 2010.
One of my favorite things is before he was identified,
he was even on TV talking about the person in question.
Also he has revealed that he didn't just do it once,
it was twice, and his excuse is amazing.
With him saying quote, the situation was that,
funnily enough, it was tractors I was looking at.
I did get into another website that had a very similar name
and I watched it for a bit, which I shouldn't have done.
I'm just left wondering like,
what site did this guy actually go to?
Also, what was the Google search?
Right, you Google tractors, you see a link
for Johnny Sins plows for eight hours.
You're like, oh, a good hard worker,
let me click this link
so I can share a story about a hard working farmer.
But even if you thought that excuse was plausible,
he makes it worse for himself by saying,
but my crime, biggest crime. is that on another occasion,
I went in a second time.
Confirming that it was intentional,
with no tractors able to bail him out this time.
But seemingly trying to prove that he is not a sex pest,
saying I was trying to be discreet about it.
I didn't want other people to see and saying,
I was wrong, I was stupid, I lost sense of mind.
To then being suspended by his party on Friday
and he is now resigned.
So yeah, that was a thing.
And then let's talk about this massive death penalty news
outta Tennessee.
So this story starts on April 21st
with Oscar Franklin Smith.
He was scheduled to be executed that day
for the 1989 killings
of his estranged wife and her teenage sons.
With his lawyers fighting to stop the execution
over and over again since the nineties,
pushing the case through local criminal courts,
appellate courts, the Tennessee Supreme Court,
and even the US Supreme Court.
With Governor Bill Lee denying clemency just two days
before his execution date.
This despite Smith's team saying there is new DNA evidence
from the murder weapon that shows that he's innocent.
So on his last day, he orders a double bacon cheeseburger,
a deep dish apple pie, vanilla ice cream.
Just an hour before his execution, Smith's belly full,
Governor Lee's like, wait, wait, wait, no,
granting a last minute temporary reprieve,
delaying Smith's execution until at least June 8th.
With one of his defenders saying Mr. Smith's body
visibly sort of slumped with relief.
He and his spiritual advisor gave thanks to God.
And as far as why Governor Lee did this,
it's not fully confirmed yet.
All I know is it has something to do with an oversight issue
in preparation for the lethal injection.
Which notably you have anti death penalty advocates
pointing out that the anesthesia and the three drug cocktail
used for execution sometimes fails to work,
leaving the person conscious for several minutes,
feeling agonizing, searing pain all through their veins.
Right, plus, another drug paralyzes you.
So some expert witnesses say,
you basically feel like you're drowning, suffocating,
and being burned alive,
all without being able to move or speak.
Which is why you had one of Smith's defenders saying,
the governor did the right thing by stopping
what was sure to be the torture of our client.
But this is bigger than Smith
because the governor is now pausing all executions
for the rest of the year,
saying that they need to do
a third party review of the process,
especially with Smith's case,
and saying, this will include circumstances
that led to testing the lethal injection chemicals
for only potency and sterility, but not endotoxins.
Clarity of the lethal injection process manual
that was last updated in 2018
and adherence to testing policies since the update.
And staffing considerations
for the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
But yeah, for now, at least temporarily,
this is a saving grace for Smith and four other inmates.
They'll have more time to live,
as well as more time to appeal their cases.
And at the end of the day, we're looking
at a range of ways this could end.
One, this just means that Smith
gets two double bacon cheeseburgers,
or this could have a massive impact
on the death penalty system, which would be big,
especially at a time where in recent years,
we've seen drug manufacturers say, hey,
we're not gonna give you drugs for capital punishment.
Which among other things, has caused shortage
for prison systems.
Though, understand, it's not like,
out of the goodness of their heart.
They just don't want the bad PR,
which is why many states like Tennessee
have passed exemptions for open records laws,
shrouding the identity of drug suppliers
that they work with.
It's also likely why we have states
like Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah, now South Carolina,
allowing the firing squad as a method of capital punishment.
Yeah, you know, we ask this question about once a year.
What are your thoughts regarding capital punishment?
For it, against it, somewhere in the middle?
Let me know what you're thinking and why.
Then, with it somehow being fucking May already,
midterm season's officially heating up,
with 13 states heading to the polls this month.
Tomorrow we've got races in Indiana and Ohio,
with a contest in Ohio being a key one to watch
because of a seat being vacated
by longtime Republican Senator Rob Portman.
With the fight to fill his seat being a very big one.
Candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars,
held numerous debates and forums,
and at one point, two of them even gotten into
a physical confrontation.
But the main reason to pay attention to this
is this will be a key test for Trump
and the influence he has over the party, right?
Because while Portman has been generally moderate
and at times readily critical of Trump
and many other members of his party,
the Republican primary campaign to replace him
has basically been a fight to see who is the Trumpiest.
With literally all but one of the seven candidates
embracing Trump's election fraud lies,
with Trump ultimately endorsing Hillbilly Elegy author,
JD Vance, which for some was a major surprise
because Vance had been very vocally anti-Trump in the past,
something that his competitors had spent months
running ads to point out.
But Trump seeming to say,
it's not about what he said, but who he is now.
And it appears that this massive flip flop
for Vance paid off,
with a Fox News poll last week showing
that support for Vance had surged double digits
since Trump's endorsement, making him the front runner.
But still, as places like FiveThirtyEight have noted,
other factions of the party
haven't given up the fight either,
which means the primary will be a direct test
of how much clout Trump has
when other Republican elites dare to defy him.
Meanwhile, you've got people concerned
over the ongoing legal battle over Ohio's congressional map
and the confusion that it's caused
for the state's election calendar.
For weeks, it's been widely believed
that the state's primaries would be pushed back
after the Ohio Supreme Court
ordered GOP lawmakers to redraw their map.
This because the Republicans map
was insanely gerrymandered,
with them likely giving themselves
12 out of the 15 congressional seats in the state,
even though they only won around 55% of the vote,
which is just insane math, right?
So 55% of the popular vote, but likely 80% of the seats.
And this, despite the fact that Ohio voters
had overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment in 2018
that effectively banned partisan gerrymandering.
But now the election is still moving forward
even though early voting was down
a whopping 40% from last election
and the legislative races will not be
on the ballot tomorrow.
Meaning that there's now gonna have to be a second primary
just for those elections.
Also looking beyond the races tomorrow.
There are gonna be key tests later this month.
On May 17th, you have two other races
for seats vacated by Republican senators
in North Carolina and Pennsylvania,
where you've got Trump throwing his weight behind Dr. Oz.
Yes, that Dr. Oz.
Meanwhile in Georgia, the key Trump test focuses on
two statewide races for the positions
currently held by Governor Brian Kemp
and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Those two, of course, infamously on Trump's bad side
after refusing to help him overturn the election.
Which by the way, literally just today,
a grand jury was seated in the federal case
against Trump's potential interference
in the state's election.
But back to the Georgia primary, it appears that
Trump's influence here may be lesser
with new polls showing Kemp leading David Perdue,
who openly said that the election
was stolen for Donald Trump, 56% to 31%.
which if that margin holds,
there wouldn't need to be a runoff election.
Meanwhile, that same poll found Raffensperger
leading Jody Hice 31% to 20%.
But notably, two other Republican candidates
only split 9% of the vote,
with 40% saying they were undecided.
Also, while we've been focusing on the Republicans
here with Georgia and these key battleground states,
you have Democrats kind of hoping they've made inroads,
particularly in Pennsylvania.
Something I guess they think is possible,
because they haven't paid attention
to polling for the last year.
I mean, hell, just last week,
an NPR PBS News Hour Marist poll found that
47% of voters said they were more likely to vote
for the Republican in their district,
while only 44% said that for Democrats.
Which sounds close except for the fact that
it's the first time in eight years that a Marist poll
found that the GOP had an advantage
for congressional ballot tests.
But yeah, long story short, the primary is gonna show
how Trumpian the Republican party is.
But ultimately, that is where that story
and today's show ends.
Whether it be the last story
or anything that stood out to you today,
I'd love to know your thoughts in those comments down below.
But whether you do or not, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.