- Sup, you beautiful people.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
I need you to bah, bah, bah, karate chop, (chuckles)
karate chop that like button.
And let's just jump into it. (spring boings)
Was that good?
- Yeah!
- You know, the first thing that we're gonna
talk about today is this really interesting story
about a woman in the UK who actually
sued her mother's doctor for allowing her to be born.
And while your reaction to that might be, what,
was, is this like some random stupid throw away lawsuit?
No, that woman, Evie Toombes,
actually won her lawsuit yesterday,
making this a landmark wrongful conception case.
But before those of you who have uttered the words,
I didn't choose to be born,
go out there and now try and sue your own mom's doctors,
you should know that Evie's case is a bit unique.
According to reports, Evie,
who's now a 20 year old show jumper
was born with a form of spina bifida,
and sometimes spends 24 hours a day connected to tubes.
She also suffers from bowel and bladder issues,
and is expected to lose more of her
already limited mobility as she gets older,
which will then force her to depend more on a wheelchair.
And so Evie sued Dr. Phillip Mitchell
for his failure to properly advise her mother
while she was pregnant, right.
Claiming that if the doctor had told her mother
that she needed to take folic acid supplements
to minimize the risk of spina bifida affecting her baby,
she would have put off getting pregnant.
Thus, Evie would have never been born,
and a judge ultimately agreed with that argument,
and awarded Evie a massive payout
that will reportedly be in the millions.
But Evie's lawyers say the exact sum
hasn't been calculated yet,
but it should be big enough to cover the cost
of her lifelong care needs.
But also, like I said, this is a landmark case,
this goes beyond Evie.
This ruling is being considered groundbreaking,
because it means that a healthcare professional
can be held liable for improper preconception advice
if it results in the birth of a baby
with serious health conditions.
I mean, I have no idea the number of doctors,
and the number of people that could be affected
by this decision, but with that,
while we wait and see, you know,
will we see more litigation moving forward
from other people, what are your thoughts on this?
And then we should definitely talk about Alec Baldwin,
and the updates to the tragic shooting
on the set of, "Rust", right.
You probably remember cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
was killed and director Joel Souza was injured
when a gun that Baldwin was holding misfired
while he was rehearsing a scene
where he was pointing the weapon at the camera.
Lawsuits have been filed.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing.
People could potentially be charged over this incident,
and now Baldwin is speaking out with a sit-down interview
with George Stephanopoulos that will air
on, "ABC News Tonight."
Leading up to that,
ABC released a trailer where we see Baldwin
make this major claim about what happened
regarding the gun misfiring.
- It wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled.
- Well, the trigger wasn't pulled.
I didn't pull the trigger.
- So you never pulled the trigger?
- No, no, no.
I would never point a gun at anyone,
and pull the trigger at them, never.
- And there were other standout moments
in this trailer, right, Baldwin appears clearly emotional,
crying at times, saying that even though he
is not the victim, this is the worst thing
that has ever happened to him.
He talks about the issue of how a live round
ended up in the gun,
claiming he had no clue how it got there,
and that it should have never been on the property
in the first place.
But obviously, the clip where he said he never pulled
the trigger has gotten the most attention and responses.
And with that claim, you have a lawyer for Dave Halls,
the assistant director on, "Rust,"
who has been identified as one of the people
primarily involved with the handling of the weapon,
backing up Baldwin's claim to ABC News.
With the attorney saying,
"Dave has told me since the very first day I met him
that Alec did not pull that trigger.
His finger was never in the trigger guard.
Dave has told me since day one that it was an accident.
It was a pure accident, freak, awful accident
that unfortunately killed somebody."
But on the other hand, you have many, many people
skeptical of that claim.
With the Santa Fe Sheriff's Department telling Fox News
that it's waiting for more information from the FBI
that could reveal how the gun was fired.
If it was just maybe pulling back the hammer,
which hits the firing pin or pulling the trigger.
The Sheriff Adan Mendoza telling the outlet,
"Guns don't just go off.
So, whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm,
he did that and it was in his hands."
But for now, that's where we are.
We have to wait and watch.
Watch to see what else Baldwin says in this interview.
Does he say anything that gives more insight.
Does he say anything that maybe contradicts
what we understand about the situation.
As far as wait, I mean,
obviously we have to wait for the investigation.
What will that reveal?
Then, we should definitely talk about how a federal judge
in Texas has now blocked the State from enacting a law
that would have prevented social media platforms
from banning users based on their, quote, viewpoint.
And so, how we got to this point,
you have Governor Greg Abbott
signing this law back in September for platforms
with at least 50 million active monthly users,
and had it not been blocked,
it would've gone into effect today.
On notably we've talked about these types
of laws a few times on the show.
Largely the Republican led reactions to the social media
bans that we saw against then President Donald Trump
following the January 6th insurrection.
With that many Republicans have continually claimed
that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias,
despite having almost complete control of the monthly
engagement list on sites like Facebook.
Many also taking it a step further
and saying that they're stifling free speech.
However, in his decision yesterday,
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled
that the First Amendment gives platforms a right
to moderate on their sites.
Saying, "This court is convinced
that social media platforms,
or at least those covered by House Bill 20 curate
both users and content to convey a message about the type
of community the platform seeks to foster
and as such exercise editorial discretion
over their platform's content."
And on top of that, again, they found some of the aspects
of the Texas law prohibitively vague.
He also noted that the law itself,
not the social media platforms violated the First Amendment.
Explaining, "The platforms have policies
against content that express a viewpoint
and disallowing them from applying their policies
requires platforms do alter the expressive content
of their message."
Now, understand with all of that said,
this law is not fully scrapped.
Instead, it's just a preliminary injunction,
meaning, that at the very least,
it's just on hold until the case against it is over.
But also, if you remember,
this is very similar to a story that we talked
about back in June, where a federal judge in Florida blocked
another social media viewpoint law, just like this.
This is not a completely unique situation.
It's gonna be interesting to see what happens from here.
But from that, I wanna take a second
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And then we should definitely talk about updates
regarding the deadly crowd surge of Travis Scott's
Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas.
Among other things, according to reports,
families for six of the 10 concert goers who died
have now rejected Scott's offer to cover funeral costs.
The Rolling Stone reporting earlier this week
on a rejection letters sent to Scott's lawyers
on behalf of the family of nine-year-old Ezra Blount.
Ezra, of course, was the youngest of those who died.
And his family has filed one of the, now,
dozens of lawsuits that Scott
and the event organizers are now facing.
Notably, Scott's team specified that their offer
would, quote, "Have no effect on the lawsuit."
But still, he saw the family's lawyer respond by saying,
"Your client's offer is declined.
I have no doubt Mr. Scott feels remorse.
His journey ahead will be painful.
He must face and hopefully see that he bears some
of the responsibility for this tragedy."
And after that report, lawyers for five other victims
that they had made the same decision.
Also, going on to describe that the offer seemed
to be an attempt to lessen public pressure
rather than a genuine display of remorse.
Like the attorney for the family
of 14 year old John Hilgert, who said,
"It was not an offer the Hilgerts were
going to seriously consider.
Of all the things this case is about,
that's the least of any concern.
This family is set on making change and ensuring
this never happens at a concert again.
I find offering to pay for funerals, frankly,
demeaning and really inappropriate to the magnitude
of the tragedy that unfolded."
With one of the most blunt responses coming from a lawyer
who represents the family of 21 year old,
Axel Acosta who said, "It's bullshit.
If he gave a shit about these families,
you wouldn't have to put out a press release
for everyone to see saying he's willing
to pay for a funeral.
Let the families grieve and shut up, that's it.
He says, he feels sorry for them,
but he's quick to say it wasn't his fault.
He's no different than any defendant
pointing fingers to someone else."
Also we saw Travis Scott in Astroworld back in the
news because of a different kind of controversy.
Maybe you saw it yesterday.
I was kind of taken aback when I was scrolling and I saw it,
but there was this documentary special about the festival
called, "Astroworld's Concert From Hell"
that was released on Hulu.
Reportedly, as it turns out, it was made by ABC13,
the Houston affiliate for ABC News.
And now it's already been pulled off of Hulu.
But the spokesperson for the streaming service
telling Variety, "This was an investigative
local news special from ABC13/KTRK-TV
in Houston that originally aired on November 20th.
This was not a Hulu documentary and
has since been removed to avoid confusion."
Well, the documentary can still
be viewed on ABC13's website.
It is worth noting that it came off of Hulu
after the documentary received a ton of backlash,
with people Tweeting things like,
"How did they make an Astroworld Documentary so quickly?
Capitalism will make money off the dead.
That's so sick when the families are still newly grieving."
And, "Hulu making a documentary about Astroworld
is in poor taste all around.
Great documentaries are done when
all the facts are laid out.
Not enough time has passed to fully discuss this."
But also we did see some defending that this documentary
was made in the first place.
People saying things like they'd rather people be able
to watch a documentary about the facts now
then start quickly spreading conspiracy theories.
And as far as my opinion, right, we,
I think we can separate the confusion
if Hulu made this or not.
It was still on the service, blah, blah, blah.
For me, I think a big part of the difference
is that the framing of this, right.
This is about like making a really solid documentary,
getting all the facts out there,
trying to combat misinformation.
You probably don't label it something like,
"Concert From Hell."
That to me, feels kind of fucking insane,
at the very least, deeply insensitive.
Right, that feels like it's more about the spectacle
and the clicks than actually getting information out there.
And also that's a story, just some of my opinion,
and of course I'll past question off to you,
what are your thoughts here?
And then finally today, we should talk
about the tragic school shooting in Oxford, Michigan,
because we now have more information and more details.
So on Tuesday, a 15 year old student at Oxford High School
came out of a bathroom and fired
around 30 rounds, killing four students
and injuring seven others in the
deadliest school shooting this year.
He was later arrested and charged as an adult
on two dozen crimes, including first degree murder,
attempted murder, and one count of terrorism,
which is actually a very rare charge for a school shooting.
With the teen pleading, not guilty on all charges.
And yesterday we saw authorities providing more information,
saying that while a motive is unclear, there was a,
mountain of evidence showing the suspect's
desires and plans to kill students at his school.
This including two cell phone videos
that he made the night before the shooting,
where he talked about killing students
at the high school the next day.
As well as a journal found in the teen's backpack,
where he wrote about his desire to shoot up the school.
Law enforcement officials also said that a review
of the suspect's social media accounts showed
that he had access to a firearm,
including posts that showed him with the same type
of gun as the murder weapon, a SIG Sauer 9mm.
Well they didn't mention any specific posts there,
many have noted that a screenshot from his,
now deleted Instagram shows that he posted a picture
on Friday of a hand holding a gun with the caption,
"Just got my new beauty today, SIG Sauer 9mm.
Ask any questions I will answer."
And regarding the gun, officials have confirmed
that the suspect's father bought the gun used
in the shooting four days earlier, though,
they have not said how the teen got the gun
or whether or not it was secured in the family's home.
Though, very notably here,
the prosecutor overseeing the investigation
strongly suggested that you would charge
the suspect's parents saying the gun owners
have a responsibility to ensure that their
weapons are secured, especially
in households with young children.
And, like with the terrorism charge,
that prosecutor filed against the teen
that we talked about, bringing charges against the parents
will be very rare move.
With the Washington Post noted, "Adult gun owners
are almost never held accountable when children
use their weapons to harm themselves or others."
And adding, "That's despite the fact that if children,
as young as six, did not have access to guns,
well more than half of the country's
school shootings since 1999 would never have happened."
Also, regarding the suspect's parents, reportedly,
they have declined to speak with investigators.
Though, you had law enforcement officials
revealing just this morning that they were actually
at the school for a meeting with school administrators
regarding their son's behavior
just hours before the mass shooting.
With Oakland County Sheriff, Michael Bouchard,
saying that two teachers separately reported
concerning behavior from this student in the days
before the attack which prompted two meetings.
According to the Sheriff,
the first report came a day before the shooting,
when a teacher in the class, where he was a student,
saw and heard something that she felt was disturbing.
And adding, they had a counseling session about it
with school officials and a phone call
was left with the parents.
But I'm also going on to describe the second incident
that occurred on Tuesday, shortly before the attacks.
Saying a different teacher in a different classroom
saw some behavior that they felt was concerning.
And they brought the child down to an office,
had a meeting with school officials, called in the parents.
And ultimately it was determined
that he could go back into class.
Though, notably, the Sheriff declined
to provide more details about the behavior
that the suspect displayed.
And all of that is pretty much most everything
that we know right now, though, understand,
this is still a developing situation,
more will likely come out.
And so, as far as what happens next,
we're gonna have to see how the trial and the sentencing
of the teen plays out.
If additional charges are added,
as the prosecutor said that she expects,
and if charges are filed against his parents.
But also, with all of this,
to close this story on a different note,
I do wanna talk about someone who acted heroically
under unimaginable circumstances.
And in this instance, that person is Tate Myre,
a 16 year old football player
who was fatally shot by the gunman.
With Tate now being hailed as a hero by other students
who say that he sacrificed his own life
to save his fellow students by rushing the shooter
in an attempt to disarm him.
With many sharing videos of Tate speaking,
saying this is what a hero looks like.
People also signing a petition to have the high school's
football stadium named after him.
That petition reading, "Tate is not just a hero
to his fellow students at Oxford High School, but a legend,
his act of bravery should be remembered forever
and pass down through generations."
And that is a final note that I can agree on with
what feels like a never ending stream
of these horrible, horrible tragedies.
Trying to make sure that we remember those who were lost
and trying to make sure we remember those
who tried to stop the person that ends up
being the person that gets their face
and their name plastered everywhere,
because it's all heartbreaking.
But I think we need to remember,
there are still those that are trying to stand in the way
of the never ending horror.
But ultimately on that note,
that's gonna bring us to the end of that story,
and the end of today's show.
Now of course, as always, thank you for watching.
Ending on this note, I just wanna do that, that reminder.
We don't know how long we have.
We don't know what is around the corner.
So those that are around you right now, it's the season.
Take that extra second, take that extra minute
to call that friend, that family member, that whoever,
let 'em know you're thinking about them.
You love them.
Maybe if they're with ya, give 'em a hug.
But of course, with that said, to end, as we always do,
my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo face, and I'll see you next time.