- Y'all, for the first time in history,
over the weekend, we shot a billionaire to space
(automated cheering)
and then he successfully landed.
(trumpet music)
(automated booing)
Wow, wow, a very weird energy in the room this morning.
Welcome back to the Philip de Franco Show,
it is Monday, July 12th, 2021.
Hit that like button,
otherwise it will punch you in the throat,
and let's just jump into it.
First up today, joking aside, yesterday morning,
Sir Richard Branson became the first billionaire
to travel to the edge of space
or about 53 miles above earth.
And that is, of course, very notably before Jeff Bezos
and his company blue origin got their chance.
Though, notably, unlike Branson and his company,
Virgin Galactic, Bezos will fly
just over the internationally recognized edge of space,
which is known as the Karman line,
about 62 miles above earth,
which is also why I think this weekend
we saw Blue Origin throwing jabs at Branson's flight,
tweeting, "From the beginning, our spacecraft
was designed to fly above the Karman line
so none of our astronauts have an asterisk
next to their name", with them also including
a photo comparing different features of each flight
and basically trying to paint Virgin Galactic
as a souped up airplane and not its own shuttle
and actual spaceship.
And also regarding this debate which, I mean,
depending on who you are, it's petty or it's not,
both the US military and NASA recognize
the start of outer space at 50 miles above
the Earth's surface, so, anyone passing
above that line is officially an astronaut
according to US standards.
Also, notably, this wasn't the only big news
and debate happening about what was happening in our skies.
One of those situations going viral
about the treatment of a woman
who ended up actually being duct taped
to her seat on a flight, with this reportedly happening
on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Charlotte,
with the woman saying to the man next to her
that she didn't want the plane to fly up any more,
the woman reportedly getting more and more agitated,
the man and several flight attendants,
unsuccessfully, trying to calm her down.
From there, the woman gets up and then bolts
to the door of the plane trying to open it.
So, according to a witness, she was tackled
by flight attendants, restrained with duct tape
and what appear to be zip ties.
From there, there was this massive debate,
and I'd love to know your thoughts on it,
regarding the woman being detained,
how she was detained, you had some saying,
"no, the flight attendants and everyone involved,
they did what they had to do,
you have to think about the safety of everyone
on that flight at that moment, right?
Security is a real thing."
On the other side, you have some saying, you know,
"this doesn't sit right,
that this woman was treated as subhuman,"
With there being a lot of talk about,
okay, what if she was mentally ill?
How do you treat people like that?
And so I'd really love to know your thoughts on that.
And maybe while you're leaving that comment,
another debate, and for this story,
I'd like to introduce you to fitness influencer
and bodybuilder, Deniz Saypinar,
with Deniz and actually American airlines, again,
popping into the news because she reportedly
wasn't allowed to board a flight from Texas to Miami
because of how she was dressed.
With her reportedly saying in an Instagram story,
"they literally didn't take me to the plane
because they say you're naked
and you offend other families."
American airlines for their part
when they were contacted while they didn't mention
her by name a spokesperson, did reportedly say
"the customer did not comply with the airline's
conditions of carriage, which states that customers must
dress appropriately," affirming that offensive clothing
isn't permitted on board.
Still, you had Deniz saying on her Instagram story.
"I never dress in a way that will offend anyone
I'm mature and civilized enough to know
what I can and cannot wear.
I don't deserve to be treated like the worst person
in the world for wearing denim shorts."
So at this point, what I'm gonna do
is I'm going to show you what she was wearing.
And I'll pass that question off to you
as far as if you think that American Airlines
was in the wrong here.
So this is what Deniz said that she was wearing.
So tell me, what do you think?
Was American airlines in the wrong here
or not? Why or why not?
And don't talk amongst yourselves,
fight amongst yourselves, entertain me.
So I stay scrolling in those comments.
Then let's talk about the big outrage
and controversy around UFC 264 though,
not the controversy and debate
around Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor.
Right there Conor McGregor losing
because his mouth wrote checks
that his tibia couldn't cash.
But also, I'd break my tibia and let people make memes
about me for $20 million. No problem.
But the outrage and controversy
that we're gonna be talking about today
is with someone that you would never really associate
with that brand, Addison Rae.
As you might've seen in headlines,
and maybe you just saw on Twitter itself.
People on Twitter lost their damn minds on Addison Rae.
With Addison, who is primarily known for smiling
and dancing to songs on Tik Tok,
sharing photos of herself from the UFC,
holding a microphone with a caption,
"I studied broadcast journalism in college
for three whole months to prepare for this moment."
And holy shit, some of the reactions
you would have imagined Addison grabbed their mother
by the ears and spit in their mouth.
There were people that were absolutely furious,
both regular people and blue check mark journalist
reporter types. The general gist of the reaction being,
"oh my God, this girl that's famous for nothing.
She's taken the job from someone
that probably went to college for it.
That actually respects the job."
That backlash growing to the point that the next day
Addison responded to the criticism writing,
"nevermind, y'all got me fired,"
which then resulted in a lot of backlash
against the people that attacked Addison
and saying, "oh my God, you got her fired."
But, in actuality it appears that both sides got played
because the whole thing appears to be a joke
or an intentional PR stunt.
With a representative for ESPN telling reporters,
"Addison did some interviews with us for UFC 264,
however she is not a full-time employee with UFC."
A source familiar with the matter also saying
that she specifically did an interview with Poirier
for a post on ESPN's Tik Tok account,
because they're from the same city in Louisiana.
And adding, "there were never any plans for her
to have any further official responsibility."
And so really all that happened here
is that Addison, ESPN and UFC, he got free promo.
So with that, I guess maybe the main takeaway
from this story is everyone needs to chill out.
It just wasn't that serious, y'all.
Then in more sports news
that turned into non-sports news.
We should definitely talk about England
as you might've seen, or at least heard about last night,
England lost to Italy last night in a three, two shootout.
And while there were a lot of big reactions,
the three black players on the England team
who missed penalty kicks were subjected to absolutely racist
attacks on social media after the game.
And in fact, it got so bad
the English Football Association and the British government
have condemned these attacks.
With Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, saying this morning,
"To those who have been directing racist abuse
at some of the players. I say, shame on you.
And I hope you will crawl back under the rock
from which you emerge."
Though with this is as Axios notes,
the labor party leader, Keir Starmer,
called the abuse "absolutely appalling,"
but also said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson
had failed the test of leadership
by declining to condemn fans who booed players
for taking a knee before games
and adding "the prime minister failed to call that out
and the actions and inactions of leaders have consequences,
So I'm afraid the prime minister's words today ring hollow"
From that, I want to take a quick second
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Then in a story that's blowing up today,
we have Tomi Lahren and some interesting infighting
that we're seeing with the GOP,
which I mean is standout, Republicans are very much often
in line with one another. Whereas Democrats,
you see infighting happen there more often,
where you have AOC to Joe Manchin, it's a big tent party.
So, I mean, Tomi Lahren is no stranger
to this sort of infighting. In the past she's taken heat
from other conservatives due to her views
on abortion rights. But this time around
Tomi Lahren didn't get heat because she was talking about
a woman having a right to her body.
Instead it was about trans rights.
With Lahren trending on Twitter
because she actually defended Caitlyn Jenner
because Caitlyn Jenner, who of course is trying
to become the governor of California
was verbally attacked by people
yelling transphobic remarks. Also deadnaming her
at the annual CPAC gathering this weekend.
- [Cameraman] Hey Bruce. Bruce.
What do you think about the stuff that they're teaching
in schools regarding The LGBTQ?
Look at that sick freak.
- Lahren saying that this treatment from conservatives
made her blood boil and adding.
"There's no room for your hate
in the America First movement."
And doubling down on that just a few hours later,
calling the attacks, despicable and writing,
"I'll go to bat for her every single time.
And if you want to take my conservative card for it,
take it and shove it." And surprisingly,
those comments got a ton of hate
from people on both sides of the political spectrum.
The number of fellow conservatives denouncing her
saying that she doesn't represent
the America First platform, but then at the same time
you had people on the other side
saying that she is just a hypocrite.
With people, resurfacing numerous transphobic posts
that she's made in the past few years,
accusing her of her daily fear-mongering
making her one of those conservatives
who spreads transphobic content,
creating an anti-trans environment in the GOP.
And ultimately that is the story right now,
though, if I can add one small thing,
I kind of always find it funny when Tommy Lahren trends,
because she never trends for a normal reason.
So it's always one of two things.
She either said something like extremely ignorant
and disgusting and hateful and fear-mongering
so you hate the other side
because they're just trying to destroy your life
Or two, Tomi Lahren is being accused
by other conservatives of not being a real conservative
because she like was nice or thought that like people
should have rights over their own body.
And as far as my thoughts on Caitlyn Jenner,
she is as bad a political candidate as she is a driver.
Garbage candidate who should still have her identity
respected. But that part is just my opinion.
Do your own research and come to your own conclusions there.
Then in the topic that unfortunately
is not going away anytime soon,
let's talk about voting restrictions
most notably and recently on this topic,
you had Republicans in the Texas state legislature
voting yesterday to advance what will be one of the nation's
most restrictive voting laws in a state
that already has some of America's strictest election rules.
Among other measures, the bill would prohibit
24 hour and drive-through voting,
vastly expand the power of partisan poll watchers,
and implement a variety of new restrictions
on mail-in voting, including imposing new voter ID
requirements and banning election officials
from proactively giving out applications to vote by mail.
You know, if all of this sounds familiar
it's because Republicans failed to pass a nearly identical
proposal back in May after Democrats staged
a last minute walkout, Thus, preventing the GOP
from having enough people present to hold a vote in
temporarily killing the bill.
And after that, governor Greg Abbott actually vetoed
funding for the legislature and staff
as a punishment for the Democrats' decision.
And last week he called members back
for a special session so they could pass
the voting restrictions that he wants.
But also it's not just voting restrictions
Abbott and his Republican allies are also using this time
to push a number of hot button conservative policies
that weren't approved during the normal session.
This including measures that ban
the teaching of critical race theory in public schools,
limit abortions, put in place new border security policies,
restrict transgender athletes from competing in school,
sports and combat what conservatives believe
is censorship on social media platforms.
Though, very notably here just as we were about to put up
today's show, it was reported
that at least 51 of the 67 Democrats in the state house,
again walked out of the chambers.
But this time they're leaving the state entirely
and heading to DC. While, the house is set to reconvene
tomorrow morning. Without those Democrats,
there won't be enough members present to conduct business.
And so right now, I mean, this is a developing situation.
We're gonna have to see what happens, but I mean,
this is going to be a very dramatic showdown.
And then let's talk about this huge news
out of Cuba though. A quick side thing, as you may,
or more likely may not have seen this morning,
because I don't think there are notifications
with YouTube shorts, which I'm completely fine with.
Actually I uploaded a YouTube short
on this topic this morning and the goal this week
is actually do upload a YouTube short right in the morning.
And then still in the afternoon,
you get the Philip DeFranco show,
the majority of the time the YouTube short's
not going to be something that I also talk about
in the Philip DeFranco Show,
but this was something that I thought people could benefit
by just getting a general knowledge
and now a slightly deeper look at it. Right?
So with that said, Cuba saw a very rare event on Sunday
when thousands of protesters took to the streets
and cities across the country chanting,
- (chanting in Spanish)
- The protest's which are the first large ones
in about 30 years have been fueled
by a variety of factors,
including political and personal freedoms
and anger over the Island's worst economic crisis
since the fall of the Soviet Union.
And on top of that, the island's once revered
healthcare system has largely collapsed
amid the COVID 19 pandemic.
And something we noticed with the protest
is that they gained steam as videos posted
to social media, started making their rounds,
but that also resulted in a few hours later,
the government managing to largely shut off the internet
with the Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel,
then appearing on national television
to let the nation know that the army was authorized
to stop the protest, warning
that the order to fight has been given.
Also very notably asking that other Cubans
confront the protestors calling for what he called
all the revolutionaries in the country,
all the communists to take to the streets
and go to places where these provocations
are going to take place. And so with all of this, so far,
one person has died because of the protests in Cuba
and many others injured, including journalists from outlets,
such as the Associated Press and notably the protests in
Cuba have caused political ripples
even here in the U.S. in fact,
one of the first official responses
came from state department official, Julie Chung,
who tweeted "Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba.
As the Cuban people exercise their right
to peaceful assembly, to express concern
about rising COVID cases, deaths, and medicine shortages.
We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people,
mobilizing donations to help neighbors in need."
With outlets and even Twitter echoing the sentiments
of the protests are caused by COVID-19.
But also that characterization of the protest
has been a massive problem for many others.
Ron Coleman, a prominent conservative lawyer,
mocking that characterization by tweeting,
"I'll never forget those protests against the German measles
posting a video of protesters taking down the Berlin wall,"
others such as Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio
pointing out that well, yes,
COVID has undoubtedly played a part
in highlighting issues of the Cuban regime.
It and associated shortages are hardly the only reason
people are on the streets.
With Rubio also going on to criticize
the Biden administration in a video on Twitter last night.
- Why can't the white hous just say it clearly.
This is not about COVID. This is not about anything else.
This is about freedom. Say it.
- However, Biden has actually since come out
to more clearly state, his administration's stance,
writing in a statement this morning,
"We stand with the Cuban people
and their Clarion call for freedom and relief
from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades
of repression and economic suffering,
to which they have been subjected
by Cuba's authoritarian regime.
And also with this Cuban Americans have come out
in droves to support the protests.
Since Sunday thousands have been on the streets of Miami
to show solidarity with the protesters in Cuba.
And in fact, one of the most drastic calls for action
came from Miami's mayor who called for a U.S.-led
international intervention in Cuba.
Although at the same time, the Cuban government
does have international defenders with
some calling the protests a U.S.-led efforts.
Others saying that the situation in Cuba
is only the way that it is
because of a decades long U.S. embargo effort.
And for many exiled Cuban communities
concerns about the conditions on the island
have been increasing for a few months now,
especially after the government refused international aid
to fight the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuban officials going as far to mock that aid
and the country, refusing to be part
of the Covax vaccine sharing program
instead opting to make its own vaccines.
Yeah, for now we have to wait
and see what's gonna happen on the ground in Cuba,
I mean, as of Monday morning,
it's unclear how many people are still protesting there,
especially because the government's response
was swift and by all accounts brutal
and the internet is still largely shut down
across the island. And ultimately with this story,
I really would love to know your thoughts.
Well, what camp, as far as like what we talked about,
people's opinions that are being shared,
where you land and why I'd love to know.
But, ultimately with this story,
or honestly, anything else that stood out to you today,
I'd love to know your thoughts
in those comments down below, because yes,
this is a news show,
but it's also supposed to be a conversation.
And of course, as always, thank you for watching,
liking, subscribing all the good stuff.
My name's Philip DeFranco you've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.