- 'Sup, you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
I hope you're having a fantastic Monday.
And actually two big announcements before we jump into it.
The first being with this video going live,
I just launched the biggest surprise drop
we've ever done over at BeautifulBastard.com.
It's an awesome mix of new and old.
You know, on this show you always say,
"Don't be stupid, stupid,"
and that's because when you play stupid games,
you win stupid prizes.
And tonight you can wrap that mindset on our,
oh my god, so comfortable shirts, hoodies, and crew necks.
We also brought back and expanded the Keep Going line.
Always keeping that little spark of motivation with me.
It's even on that custom-embroidered
Champion tie dye hoodie y'all love.
We also brought back
and tweaked the sports gear now available in,
oh my God, so many colors, which I love
because if you mix a color with white or black it,
it's essentially a sports team color-adjacent.
We also got the brand new Feeling Corny,
I'm Ready To Pop dad joke tee and hoodie.
And we expanded some of the classic lines
like Emotionally Exhausted,
now include crewnecks and cropped hoodies,
all of which and more available
right now over at BeautifulBastard.com.
And remember, as always, first come, first serve.
And the second announcement is last week,
if you didn't see, we went to seven days a week.
So if you just tried to escape the news this weekend,
but you're interested now,
I got a fantastic Friday, Saturday, Sunday video for you.
Links in the description as always.
But this is the Monday Philip DeFranco show.
So let's just jump into it,
starting with Andrew Tate has lung cancer.
That's a claim that Tate's manager was throwing out
after it appears that someone leaked his medical records
with it appearing to show
that he had a lesion on one of his lungs.
But Tate, who's imprisoned in Romania
or whoever the hell is running his Twitter account,
says that none of that is true,
claiming that lesion is just a scar from an old battle
and that he'll live for 5,000 years
with Tate's manager also now walking back
his original claim saying
that Romanian doctors diagnosed the tumor
in Tate's lung as benign.
And while this is generally open and shut, right,
we got the cancer denial,
it seems like the end of the story,
go from the time where it was said
that Andrew Tate has cancer
to, no, he doesn't have cancer,
the internet was a wild place.
Are you a Tate supporter saying, hey,
see, this is what the Romanian government's trying to do.
They're just keeping him in prison while he has cancer.
They're trying to keep him from getting treatment.
They're trying to run out the clock.
They're hoping he dies.
Other supporters saying this proves
how amazing Tate is with tweets like,
"Those of us close to Andrew knew he had lung cancer
"for a while.
"Consider this; he took over the internet
"while fighting cancer.
"This should inspire you to reach your potential
"no matter what is in your way."
And then on the other side,
well, it was kind of just a a lot of dancing
with tweets like, quote,
"'I wouldn't wish cancer on my worst enemy.'
"I would.
"You're not a real hater like I am.
"Fuck Andrew Tate.
"He's a human trafficker.
"He deserves what's coming,"
as well as, "Just read the news about Andrew Tate,
"and you guys are sick.
"How dare you make fun of someone
"fighting extreme health issues.
"My prayers go out to the tumor in his lung.
"I hope it recovers from Andrew in due time."
And then of course, with the surplus of tweets like that,
it sparked the whole debate of like, is that okay?
See, you know, just a regular internet thing.
And then Livvy Dunne is a cheater,
or rather she wants you to cheat,
or more specifically, she got paid
to promote a company that allows students
to cheat in school.
And so Olivia has found herself
in hot, possibly soon to be boiling water.
Right, she's an incredibly famous gymnast
over at Louisiana State University.
She's reportedly the highest paid NCAA female athlete.
She has millions and millions of followers,
specifically 7.2 million on TikTok.
And in one of her recent TikTok, she promoted a partnership
with Caktus AI, and specifically promoting it
as a tool that you can use to help write essays.
And by help, I mean writing the first line slash prompt,
and then it writes it for you
where they're also adding the caption,
"@caktus.ai will provide real resources
"for you to cite at the end of your essays and paragraphs."
And while LSU's code of conduct
does not specifically mention the use of AI,
as you probably know, plagiarism,
generally super frowned upon.
Other than no elbows over the table,
kind of the number one no-no in college.
And more specifically, copying from someone else
or misrepresenting how your work was prepared
are both also major violations of the schools' rules,
which appears to be why after Livvy posted that TikTok,
LSU put out a statement saying
"At LSU, our professors and students are empowered
"to use technology for learning
"and pursuing the highest standards of academic integrity.
"However, using AI to produce work
"that a student then represents as one's own
"could result in a charge of academic misconduct
"as outlined in the Code of Student Conduct."
But ultimately, here's what I'll say with the situation.
It kind of comes down to two things.
The first being kind of on a personal level,
I'm fine with shortcuts in school.
I used Spark Notes back in the day.
I put study guides that we weren't allowed
to have on tests on TI83, stuff like that.
And when I look back, I try to romanticize it
and think, you know, I was working on ingenuity,
but I wanna throw that out there,
so I'm not like taking some holier than thou stance,
but it is a completely different thing
to advertise and profit off of a service
that people are going to use to cheat.
And as far as Livvy, she's young,
and hopefully this is like a learning experience,
and she doesn't see herself as like the victim of this.
But secondly, I also don't want this to turn
into the demonization of AI because there are beneficial
and honest ways that AI can be used
in an academic setting where things
like creating research prompts or study guides.
The way that I like to use it both in my personal
and professional life
is I'll kind of just type things out,
free flow, and I'll throw it all into ChatGPT
to organize everything.
But also back to the cheating stuff,
like I'm just far too paranoid.
I'd be so stressed out
that while it's not there right now
that eventually there will be another AI
in the future that'll be able to tell
if you used AI like to a 99.9% chance of certainty,
that'd be a fucking horrible way to go out.
And then chocolate wars are upon us, people,
and at the center of it, apparently you have MrBeast
with this story starting innocently enough
with MrBeast, of course, biggest YouTuber
in the world, tweeting out, "I need your help!
"Next time you see Feastables in Walmart
"and soon to be new retailers,
"f you could clean up the presentation
"and make it look better, that'd make me very happy.
"I'm building a team to do this routinely,
"just need help in the short-term."
With Feastables being one of MrBeast's many brands,
and this one being a line of chocolate bars.
And what we initially saw were many fans heeding the call,
cleaning up the displays
and responding to MrBeast's tweet with pictures
and videos proudly showing off their work.
Others, though, seeing this plea and actually going
to the store and then messing up the Feastables displays,
but then it got to the part
where there is now a controversy.
It led to MrBeast tweeting a now-deleted tweet,
"And while you're at it,
"if you want to maybe move some Hershey's bars
"and make sure Feastables has plenty of space,
"I wouldn't complain."
We thought we saw people taking issue for two reasons.
The first is that you have one of the most public figures
in the world asking his fans to mess with his competitors.
And secondly, you had people questioning
the timing of this because right now,
Hershey's is actually receiving some backlash
because they included a trans woman
in their advertising.
Though, and this could be my bias speaking,
I highly doubt that's why MrBeast tweeted that.
Like he's out there trying
to be as brand-friendly as possible.
I don't think he would want touch that controversy
with a 10 foot pole.
Many fans have pointed out that MrBeast
has actually been clowning on Hershey's as a competitor
for a while now, which is also I think
why a lot of people were just kind of angry
about the general call to action.
Right, some saying that Jimmy invented
a new brand of capitalism,
which tweets like, "It's fascinating to watch the stage
"of capitalism where people are honored to do free labor
"for rich people that don't care about them them
"because they feel some kind of connection
"and loyalty like a dog wanting a treat,
"only the treat is an imagined feeling of connection,"
which I will say personally,
I think that is the most negative way you can look at it.
Like for me, I think the only bad part
is the now deleted tweet,
even if it was a joke saying mess with the competitors
because there're gonna be a lot of people
that take that at face value, right,
and that's kind of the promotion of destruction,
but the other stuff of, hey, could you clean it up,
MrBeast says that he is currently building
a team to do this, and in general,
at times it is fun to feel
like you're a part of something
even if you're just a fan, you know?
Yeah, I'm an online creator, have been for like 15 years,
but I've also been a fan of certain communities
and a part of certain communities
where I've just done stuff
to feel like I was a part of it.
Like Jimmy's not forcing people to do anything.
He's not shaming people for not doing it.
But hey, this is the Philip DeFranco Show.
That's a story, some of my opinion,
and I'll pass the question off to you.
Whether you agree or you disagree with me,
let me know what your thoughts are
in those comments down below.
And I'll extend this, of course,
to the rest of the show, right,
'cause this isn't supposed to be just a news show.
It's also a conversation.
And then Alex Murdaugh is a cold-blooded killer.
That's what the jury unanimously decided
with their guilty verdict in his double murder trial.
And actually today we're now seeing jurors speaking out
and giving insight into their verdict.
But also first, to give context to those
who weren't like following every step of this,
you have a guy, Murdaugh,
who's the head of a century old legal dynasty
in South Carolina who's been accused
and now convicted of murdering his wife, Maggie,
and his son, Paul, with the prosecution saying
that his motive was to gain public sympathy
and distract people away from his financial crimes.
Since we last talked about this,
Alex himself actually took the stand and testified,
appearing to break down in tears
as he described finding his dead family.
- Saw what's y'all have seen pictures of.
Can I have some water?
- But despite this emotional testimony,
one damning piece of evidence hung over his head,
and that was the Snapchat video.
There is a video taken by Paul and it puts Alex
at the crime scene just minutes before the murders,
contradicting his original story that he never went there,
instead saying that he slept and then drove straight
to his mother with the man admitting
to lying the first time he was on the stand,
but trying to explain it was his drug addiction
that caused him to have episodes
of paranoia and distrust the police.
And so with that saying when sheriff deputies
did gunshot residue tests on his hands and questioned him
about the relationship to his family, he got paranoid.
- I wasn't thinking clearly.
I don't think I was capable of reasoning,
and I lied about being down there,
and I'm so sorry that I did.
I'm sorry to my son, Buster.
I'm sorry to Grandma and Papa T.
Sorry to both of our families.
Most of all, I'm sorry to Mags
and Paul Paul.
I would never intentionally do anything
to hurt either one of them.
- But the jury absolutely didn't buy it.
And in fact, you had two jurors going
on "Today Show" saying the video,
the witness testimonies,
and Alex's own testimony were the biggest factors
in their decision,
and adding that his tears weren't real.
- No, I didn't think he was crying.
He turned it on and off.
Yeah, it wasn't genuine.
- I just think that, you know, we already know
that he's a lawyer.
He's able to be emotional with cases.
He's able to be emotional with himself.
He knows, like what she said, when to turn it on and off.
So I think that we were kind of able
to read right through that.
- But also keep in mind, those are just jurors.
They don't really know how to get inside the mind
of a murderer, which I guess is why we're lucky
to hear from an actual expert on the matter, OJ Simpson.
- I am not qualified to really say
if the guy did it it or he didn't do it,
but from what I've seen,
do I think it's more likely that he did it?
Yes, but more likely equals reasonable doubt.
- But for now, that's where we are
because, you know, this situation's not technically over.
Alex has now been sentenced to life without parole,
but his defense is appealing the conviction,
arguing there that the judge was just too permissive
in allowing evidence of his past financial crimes
to enter the case, but here's the thing,
even if that succeeded,
Alex's still facing almost 100 charges
on those very crimes, not to mention several charges
related to him paying someone to kill him,
so his son would get a life insurance payout.
So not technically over, but yeah, it's over.
He's going to die in a box.
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And then if you're being accused of wanting a genocide,
there is at least a decent chance
that what you're talking about
is at the very least completely fucked up.
And I say that because while we saw many speakers
at the Conservative Political Action Conference,
or CPAC, over the weekend, one in particular made headlines
with that being The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles,
and I'll just let you listen
to what's causing so much uproar.
- There can be no middle way
in dealing with transgenderism.
It is all or nothing.
If it is false, then for the good of society
and especially for the good of the poor people
who have fallen prey to this confusion,
transgenderism must be eradicated
from public life entirely, (audience applauds)
the whole preposterous ideology at every level.
- You get a lot of people seeing that and going,
damn, that sounds downright genocidal
with trans activist, Erin Reed, writing,
"They are dehumanizing us, a necessary step
"to bringing about that elimination."
Now with this, Knowles argues
that he can't possibly be genocidal
because in his view, transgender people don't even exist,
or the argument is that it's just a delusion,
so there are no transgender people
to commit genocide against.
This despite every credible medical organization
agreeing that transgender people are real
and gender affirming care is effective,
but the thing is, conservatives are gonna keep pounding
on this drum because it's a winning issue for them, right?
I mean that, yes, with talking points, but also legislation.
You may not know this,
but this year we've seen the biggest onslaught
against LGBTQ people yet
with over 350 anti-trans bills being introduced
in at least 36 states as of last month.
That's double what we saw last year,
and we're only a couple of months in.
And then violent protests are continuing
in the battle over Atlanta's so-called Cop City, right.
So we last talked about this on the show back in January,
but for some quick key background here,
there have been ongoing demonstrations
against the construction of a $90 million
85 acre police training facility,
AKA Cop City with many of the activists fighting
against this project being environmentalists
who want the woods where the campus is being built,
which is one of the most significant green spaces
in the region to be preserved
with also others protesting against the site
over concerns that it will encourage militarizing policing
and police forces.
According to reports,
groups who oppose the complex began organizing
after it was authorized
by the Atlanta City Council back in 2021,
but the protests and tensions between demonstrators
and police have really escalated in recent months,
especially after a 26 year old activist
was killed by the authorities.
Now, there, police say
that the activists actually opened fire first
and injured a state trooper, but some protestors
have called for an independent investigation.
But all of that brings us
to yesterday where we saw the latest standoff,
which is the second day of a planned week long protest
against the complex, but in a press release,
the Atlanta Police Department claimed
that things escalated when, quote,
"A group of violent agitators used the cover
"of a peaceful protest to conduct a coordinated attack
"on construction equipment and police officers."
According to the police, the agitators,
"Changed into black clothing
"and entered the construction area
"and began to throw large rocks, bricks,
"Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers"
and adding that, "The agitators destroyed multiple pieces
"of construction equipment by fire and vandalism."
Right now, it's unclear if anyone was injured.
Though the department implied that no officers were hurt,
saying in a statement that, "The illegal actions
"of the agitators could have resulted in bodily harm."
And all in all, 35 agitators have been detained so far.
And a very key thing here is that the police also said
that 23 people were arrested and all were charged
with domestic terrorism
with Georgia's Republican governor Brian Kemp
issuing a statement this morning
condemning the violent activists who, quote,
"Chose destruction and vandalism over a legitimate protest,
"yet again demonstrating the radical intent
"behind their actions,"
also adding, "As we continue to respect peaceful protest,
"we will also continue to ensure safety in our communities.
"We will not rest
"until those who use violence and intimidation
"for an extremist end are brought to full justice."
So at the very least, I will say
I don't think this is going to stop the protest, right.
And I say that because according to reports,
a total of 19 protestors were charged
with domestic terrorism back in December and January,
and clearly that didn't stop the violence we saw yesterday.
Also, at the same time with all this,
you have the leader of one of the groups protesting
at the site, condemning the arrests as indiscriminate
and claiming the language being used
by police calling those arrested
outside agitators is meant to separate protestors
and meant to criminalize
and detach a movement from its homegrown origins
with them even explicitly telling CNN
that the activists won't be discouraged
by this latest incident and adding,
"There will continue to be protests
"meant to express the outrage of the community.
"These are big-tent protests.
"We don't expect incidents
"beyond standard civil disobedience."
And then things in Israel
are absolutely crazy right now, right,
because there's the whole, you know, normal state
of affairs we've seen there over the past few years,
but right now it's extra crazy
because of an impending judicial overhaul.
And we've touched on part of this recently.
That's where you got Netanyahu
and his pals pushing through a bill
that would among other things fundamentally change
how the court system and the Supreme Court work
in Israel with the key thing being
it puts the ultimate power to appoint judges
into the hands of the legislature instead of the courts
and gives them the power to overrule the Supreme Court.
And ever since it was proposed,
there have been absolutely massive protests,
and this weekend was no different
with at least tens of thousands of Israelis taking
to the streets across the country
for the ninth straight week.
With these proposals unpopular
across all segments of society,
ranging from students
to all 10 living former Air Force Chiefs,
and they actually just published an open letter
to Netanyahu saying that the law
and the protests that it sparked
are impacting the readiness of Air Force officers.
That's also not theoretical
or kind of like forward thinking.
Dozens of pilots from the military reserves
already announced that they're joining the protest
rather than going to training.
And even before that,
reservists from an elite intelligence unit announced
that they were also not going
to do parts of their reserve duty in protest to the law.
And the reason I mentioned them specifically
while you also have tens of thousands of people
in the streets, because this is a nearly unprecedented move
in a country that largely takes its military
and reservist service seriously,
and even prompting Netanyahu to tweet out this photo
from when he was constricted with the caption,
"When we're called for reserve duty,
"we always turn up.
"We are one nation."
That's unlikely to sway the reservists
and the public at large
as the stakes are just seen as way too high here.
It's what we're seeing is that now
there might be a sliver of hope
with President Isaac Herzog,
remember he's kind of just the figurehead saying
that Netanyahu's right wing ruling coalition
and opposition parties are nearing an agreement
that would tone down the reforms and adding,
"There are behind the scenes agreements on most things.
"They make sense and they are reasonable,"
but as far as what those changes are,
right now we have no idea
because they're playing it very close to the chest.
And keep in mind, this is at the same time
as opposition leaders are putting out
a less idealistic statement, venting their frustrations
that while negotiations are happening,
the conservatives are still pushing forward their version
of the law and adding, "In order to have honest
"and effective dialogue that will lead
"to preserving democracy and national unity,
"Netanyahu must announce a complete, comprehensive,
"and actual halt to the legislative process.
"All attempts at shortcuts
"are a violation of real communication,"
but hopefully we do see some sort of actual pullback
because when you have the president saying things
like, "The reform, as it currently stands,
"endangers the democratic foundations
"of the state of Israel, and we are in a historic crisis
"that threatens to destroy us from within,"
not to mention the possible constitutional crisis
if the law is passed and Supreme Court strikes it down.
Sure as hell doesn't sound like a good or safe place to be,
but hopefully that's a bridge that doesn't have
to be crossed, and that's where today's show ends.
Thank you for being a part of another daily dive
into the news.
Friendly reminder, get in while you can
over at BeautifulBastard.com.
A lot of new awesome for you to get your hands on.
Also, for more news you need to know,
I got you covered right here
and in the links in the description.
But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in.
I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.