- What's up you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to the "Philip DeFranco Show."
More specifically a Monday show,
which is always interesting because I try to stay away
from the internet for three days
when I'm not doing this show,
and then I come back Monday and I'm like,
"Why is everything on fire again?
Oh, because it never stopped being on fire."
And so on that happy note, hit that Like button.
Otherwise, we'll punch you in the throat.
And let's just jump into it.
You know, the first that we're gonna talk about today
is this Joe Rogan controversy that has now morphed
into this other thing.
I mean it's still connected, but yeah.
Right, so oversimplified TLDR
to kind of get you to this point.
Neil Young asks for his music to be pulled
from the platform due to misinformation on it,
specifically citing Rogan.
Spotify ends up pulling that music.
Other artists starts speaking up or moving theirs,
that leads to Spotify saying it'll add content labels
to podcasts discussing COVID, along with a few other steps,
to address misinformation.
And Rogan, for his part, at this time said,
"Hey, I agree with the labeling.
Also, I'm gonna try to invite people
with more balanced and differing opinions on the show."
But since then, the controversy has now gone past
just the misinformation aspect.
And this, because musician India.Arie likewise said,
"Hey, I want my music taken down from Spotify."
But in an Instagram story announcing this,
sharing a clip of Joe Rogan appearing
to use the N-word over 20 times.
But the clip also including him talking
about seeing the film "Planet of the Apes"
in a predominantly Black neighborhood and of this,
he says says,
- [Rogan] Says, "Okay, take me to this one."
And the guy goes, "Okay."
I go, "Is that in a good neighborhood?"
He's like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
Guy barely speaks English. He takes us there.
We get out and we're giggling.
"We're gonna see "Planet of Apes.""
We walk into "Planet of the Apes."
(laughs)
We walked into Africa, dude.
We, we, we walked in the door
and there was no white people.
- With Arie saying, hey,
she respects the artist leaving Spotify over misinformation.
But these clips were the reason for her leaving.
And going into the weekend, podcast listeners started
to notice that Spotify had seemingly removed 70 episodes
of "The Joe Rogan Experience" and speculating
that those episodes contained the use of the slur
with some reports saying the number of podcasts taken down
has gone up even further.
And actually on Saturday, Rogan then posted another video
to Instagram, addressing all of this,
starting with a compilation video.
- It's a video that's made of clips taken out of context
of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast.
And it's all smushed together
and it looks (beep) horrible even to me.
Now I know that to most people,
there's no context where a white person is ever allowed
to say that word, nevermind publicly on a podcast.
And I agree with that now. I haven't said it in years.
- And saying that for a long time, if the word came up
as part of the conversation, he would say it.
Claiming that in many clips,
he was saying it in reference
to someone else who had used the word explaining-
- I thought as long as it was in context,
people would understand what I was doing
but it's my word to use. I'm well aware of that now.
But for years I used it in that manner.
I never used it to be racist because I'm not racist.
But whenever you're in a situation where you have to say,
"I'm not racist", you (beep) up.
And I clearly have (beep) up.
- Regarding things he said were taken context,
he talked about the "Planet of the Apes" story.
- I did not, nor would I ever say that Black people are apes
but it sure (beep) sounded like that.
And I immediately afterwards said,
"That's a racist thing to say.
"Planet of the Apes" wasn't even in Africa."
I was just saying there's a lot of Black people there.
But then I went on to talk
about what a positive experience it was
and how much fun it was to go to see this movie
in a Black neighborhood. It wasn't a racist story,
but it sounded terrible.
- And with that saying, that he can't go back
and change what he said
as much as he wishes he could, and added-
- But I do hold hope that this can be a teachable moment
for anybody that doesn't realize how offensive
that word can be coming out of a white person's mouth,
in context or outta context.
My sincere and humble apologies.
- And following the new controversy and Rogan's response,
obviously a lot of people have a lot of opinions.
Many of Rogan supporters are saying,
"Hey Joe, you're fine. We can see this is a witch hunt."
Some saying, "Hey way to own your words and grow."
Others saying, "Hey, don't even apologize."
But others, on the other side, saying,
"Hey, the whole context thing, that's bullshit."
Accusing Rogan of addressing a few of the instances
and not the 70 plus videos that have been removed.
With many sharing a specific clip where Rogan is egging
on his guest to say the N-word.
But main thing, you have people firing from all sides.
This seeming like the current culture war.
What I will say because we're in the responses
and reactions aspect of the story,
one of the most interesting things to me is
really the only person that seems to be 100% bulletproof
in this story is Joe Rogan.
Like everyone else of a certain size,
seemingly has something to lose
and people have been getting hit left and right.
For example, I think Spotify's kind of fucked
no matter what they do.
You already have a tough on of people saying,
"Hey, Spotify doesn't support free speech.
They're removing Joe's episodes,"
though I'll note something there in a second.
The main thing there, let's say,
they actually did de-platform Joe Rogan.
I mean, that reaction's only gonna be amplified
and Rogan, I imagine, would still get paid out
from his contract because he's of such a massive size.
I imagine he has no, like, morality clause in his contract.
Like I'm just a fraction of his size
and I get that removed from contracts
when people propose it.
And then he could just move to another platform,
whether it be a mainstream one or something like a Rumble
and probably still make crazy money.
In fact, just this morning, Rumble CEO published an offer
to Joe saying, "How about you bring all your shows
to Rumble, both old and new with no censorship
for 100 million bucks over four years?"
And then on the other end,
if they keep him on the platform, right,
because they had gave him $100 million,
people gonna say, "Hey, that's Spotify endorsing
that language. They're endorsing the misinformation.
They're endorsing insert blank."
And so for me, that's why it was so interesting
to see Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek,
try to navigate this situation.
Sending out a memo to employees addressing the controversy,
and yes, confirming that episodes
of "The Joe Rogan experience" have been taken down.
But saying that this was actually Rogan
and his team's decision after they had a conversation.
Saying among other things, "There are no words I can say
to adequately convey how deeply sorry I am
for the way "The Joe Rogan Experience" controversy continues
to impact each of you. Not only are some
of Joe Rogan's comments incredibly hurtful,
I wanna make clear that they do not represent the values
of this company."
And adding, "While I strongly condemn what Joe has said
and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes
from our platform, I realize some will want more."
But then making one point very clear.
"I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.
We should have clear lines around content
and take action when they are crossed,
but canceling voices is a slippery slope."
He then hits on a criticism, but then really doesn't land
on a response, saying, "Another criticism
that I continue to hear from many of you is
that it's not just about "The Joe Rogan Experience"
on Spotify, it comes down to our direct relationship
with him." And so with that saying,
"If we believe in having an open platform
as a core value of the company,
then we must also believe in elevating all types of creators
including those from underrepresented communities
and a diversity of backgrounds."
And with that saying,
"I am committing an incremental investment of $100 million
for the licensing, development, and marketing of music,
artists and songwriters, and audio content
from historically marginalized groups."
So while not saying, it's seemingly trying
to match the $100 million
that Joe Rogan reportedly is getting.
But also that is not where this story ends.
Because like I said, I think the only person
that is 100% bulletproof in this story is Joe Rogan.
For example, you had Dwayne Johnson, right?
The Rock plastered all over social media.
Drawing backlash previously
because he was supporting Joe Rogan.
A lot of people saying, "Wow, Rock, really?"
But then after the video circulated
with Joe Rogan saying the N-word,
he kinda walked that back, saying on Twitter,
"I was not aware of his N-word use prior to my comments,
but now I've become educated to his complete narrative.
Learning moment for me."
With him also issuing some individual apologies.
But then from that, people took up old videos
from his time in the WWE saying anti-trans things,
anti-Asian things.
People also taking swings at Howard Stern,
who was spoken out about Joe Rogan.
Sharing a bunch. There was really no shortage
of offensive Howard Stern content,
including when he did blackface.
Though, Stern has also hit back on this saying,
"I've evolved since then. I've grown as a person."
But then on the other side, you have people taking hits
like Whitney Cummings and Andrew Yang.
Whitney tweeting, "Comedians did not sign up
to be your hero. It's our job to be irreverent
and dangerous, to question authority
and take you through a spooky mental haunted house
so you can arrive at your own conclusions."
And so with that, you had tons of people pushing back,
saying things like the quote,
""It's a comedian's job to say whatever we want."
Crews sometimes seems to forget that it's the audience's job
to tell the comedian when what they have said sucks."
And as far as Andrew Yang, he tweeted, and then deleted,
I don't think Joe Rogan is a racist.
Man interacts with and works with Black people
literally all of the time."
And, "Do I know Black friends of Joe's
who would swear by him? Yes I do."
With people hitting Yang, they're saying,
"This is just a slightly different version
of the "I can't be racist. I have a Black friend" argument.
But Yang, after deleting those tweets, posting a thread
but it starts with the main point,
"I like to believe the best of people,
especially if I've met and spent time with that person.
Sometimes it makes me miss something.
I think we should have the capacity to forgive people,
whether a podcaster or a mayor, if they mess up
Maybe it's because I mess up too."
And oh my God, we've finally made it through the story.
So, one, I'd love to know your thoughts
on any and all aspects of this story.
I know that we talked about a lot that has happened.
But also, two, I will say it's gonna be very interesting
to see how long this situation continues.
And I mean, does it hit a resolution point?
So from that, I wanna take a second
to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Keeps.
Did you know that two out of three guys
will experience some form of male pattern baldness
by the time that they're 35?
And maybe you have that friend or a family member
that's dealing with hair loss right now
and you don't just have to wait,
to sit around for that to happen to you.
Because now is the time to do something about it.
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 already tried them before,
but probably never at this price.
And you can get these products delivered directly
to your door, meaning no more going in-person
to the doctor's office for your prescription,
saving you both valuable time and money.
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 then in mathematics, most of us know
that two negatives can equal a positive
but the question question is can the same be true
in the world of business?
And we may get an answer to that soon,
because this morning Spirit and Frontier airlines
announced that they will be merging.
Now it's still unknown which brand their planes
will fly under or who will even take over
in the $6.6 billion merge.
But together, these airlines will overtake JetBlue
and Alaska Air in the number of miles flown by passengers.
Though, notably, this doesn't even put them close
to the upper echelon of US air travel providers.
That's still being controlled by American, Delta,
United, and Southwest, which together account
for 80% of America's air traffic.
And as far as what sparked this merger,
I mean simply put, the companies were like,
"Okay, we suck, but maybe together, we could suck less"
With, this morning, Spirit reporting a loss
of $440.6 million in 2021,
which surprisingly was actually good news.
Because in 2020, they lost $719.6 million.
Frontier not faring much better losing $299 million
in both 2020 and 2021.
But these companies are not necessarily doomed.
Together, these two airlines revenue
in the fourth quarter of 2021 was down just 2%
from their final three months of 2019, pre-pandemic levels.
But will this be enough?
Because once again, they know they suck.
With both these airlines ranking
among the worst to fly with
and are known to nickel and dime customers for everything,
completely offsetting their low fares.
Which is why it wasn't a surprise that we saw tweets like,
"Breaking, Frontier and Spirit to merge.
Passengers will be responsible for executing the merger."
And, "Frontier and Spirit are merging,
giving fans twice the options to be stranded in an airport."
Plus, there are concerns that there's a chance
that this will be blocked by federal antitrust regulators,
with the Biden administration having just blocked a merger
between American and JetBlue.
Although once again, Spirit and Frontier are a fraction
of the size American is.
Then as far as updates regarding Russia and Ukraine,
you have the US military now estimating
that a Russian invasion of Ukraine
could cause 50,000 Ukrainian casualties,
5 million refugees, and the Kyiv would fall within two days.
And those estimates come in
as 83 Russian battalion tactical groups are
on the Ukrainian border with reportedly 14 more on the way.
Also, according the Latvian defense minister,
Russian troops on the border are allegedly suffering
from poor conditions and a large COVID outbreak.
Which for some experts is concerning because if true,
they say this could likely force Putin's hand
on deciding whether to back down or invade.
And actually on that note,
reportedly the US has intercepted communications
from Russian officials expressing worry
that an invasion would be far costlier
and far more difficult than Putin believes.
And all of this happening seemingly
as Russia is going to have this show of force, right?
Russia usually holds nuclear exercises in the fall
but they're now holding them this month,
likely to coincide with their potential invasion,
or at least the threat of invasion.
Yeah. You know, super chill.
Fun times that we're living in right now.
And then the mayor of Ottawa has declared a state
of emergency and this move coming Sunday
after more than a week of unprecedented protests
by truckers and other people
that have down Canada's capital city over COVID rules.
As you might recall, the law that sparked these protests
was won by both the US and Canada,
which mandated that foreign truckers entering either country
be vaccinated or get tested in quarantine if not.
It's been dubbed the "Freedom Convoy"
with hundreds of truckers blocking city streets
and blaring their horns and some members
of the general public also joining in.
Especially as things have now morphed
into these broader demonstrations
against Canada's COVID 19 policies in general.
And something of note with these demonstrations is
there's a lot of conflicting information
about how big this actually is,
because well at these protests,
you see thousands of people there.
You have Justin Trudeau saying this convoy just represents
a "small fringe minority."
With the prime minister noting things like
around 90% of the country's cross-border truckers
and 79% of the general population have received
at least two COVID shots.
Though, we've seen critics push back against that saying,
you know those numbers don't equal people
that support or don't support.
They're people who have been vaxxed
that do not support the mandates.
There's also been debate and disagreement
about how bad these protests actually have been.
And this, because if you look
at the demonstrations as a whole,
they have largely been peaceful.
But also you see things in reports coming up saying,
you know, police have noted
that they've "overwhelmed by the crowds,"
adding that the "disruptive protests pose a real threat."
Because in addition,
the Ottawa City Center effectively being blocked off
for an entire week and people having to kind of day
and night hear horns blaring because they live there.
We've also seen reports of dozens of arrests
related to the protest, mostly for things like mischief
or vandalism though. Also some for hate crimes.
We've also seen some people alleging
that they've been assaulted because of anti-mask sentiment.
Though, for now, those claims have not been backed up
by police.
Also, in addition to things we've talked about in the past
like reports of swastikas and Confederate flags,
reportedly there's also been an increase in calls
to the city's hate crime hotline,
with police saying they're looking
into over 200 incidents.
Also with all of this going on,
the protests have sparked accusations that foreign groups
and individuals, particularly those from the US,
have been fueling the protests.
With that, also bring us
to another controversy connected to this.
First, there you had the GoFundMe page
that the platform took down on Saturday
over concerns of "unlawful activities"
and saying in a statement,
"We now have evidence from law enforcement
that the previously peaceful demonstration has
become an occupation, with police reports of violence
and other unlawful activity."
With that decision receiving a ton of pushback from many,
including American politicians, like Ron DeSantis,
who tweeted out, "It is fraud for GoFundMe
to commandeer $9 million in donations sent
to support truckers and give it to causes
of their own choosing.
I will work with AG Ashley Moody
to investigate these deceptive practices,
these donors should be given a refund."
With Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also tweeting,
"Patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers' worthy cause
using GoFundMe. This BLM-backing company went woke,
froze the funds and failed to deliver Texans' money.
Today I assembled a team
to investigate their potential fraud and deception.
Texas donors will get justice."
Although to be clear, reportedly,
anyone who donated will be getting a refund regardless
of DeSantis or Paxton's threats.
GoFundMe saying, "No, we're not taking the money.
We're just giving it back to the people
that are trying to donate."
But either way, part of the frustration here is
that it just fueled concerns that forces outside of Canada
were affecting its domestic affairs.
Especially as a recent poll by Abacas Data said
they found that 68% of Canadians said,
they "have very little in common with how the protestors
in Ottawa see things."
But ultimately, all of that brought us
to the big news yesterday,
where you had the mayor issuing a state
of emergency in the city.
With mayor Jim Watson calling the demonstration
"the most serious emergency our city has ever faced,"
calling on other jurisdictions
and levels of government to help put an end
to the total disruption of life in the city.
And while he didn't specify what measures might be taken
under the state of emergency,
it could help police get supplies and equipment faster.
Also on the note of supplies,
you had police warning that anyone brings support,
such as gasoline, to the truckers
who have been blockading areas near Parliament,
could face arrests.
But ultimately, as far as what happens from here,
we're gonna have to wait to see.
Ottawa is still effectively shut down.
Some Canadian politicians have called the entire situation
a "national humiliation."
As far as the protestors,
there's no reason to think that they are going to leave.
Though, you do have Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino
saying the federal authorities are putting more boots
on the ground.
And so of course, until we see what happens next,
I'd love to know your thoughts on this whole situation.
But ultimately that is where
that story and today's show ends.
As always, thank you for watching.
Hit that Subscribe button.
Join in the family for these daily dives into the videos
and those bonus quickies I do.
Where I'll leave you is my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love your faces and I'll see you tomorrow.