- Sup, you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to "The Philip DeFranco Show".
Buckle up, make sure you hit that like button.
And let's just jump into the news.
Starting with Ethan Klein got nuked off the internet.
Again, but this time on Twitter,
and it's because of Elon Musk.
So just a little over a week ago after Elon Musk
took over the platform,
he declared that "Comedy is now legal on Twitter."
But he is seemingly unveiled
that he is not an absolutist about that, right?
That there sometimes have to be limitations
to that rule, specifically impersonations.
And a key thing with this story is people
impersonating Elon Musk, right?
Since his takeover, it's been a big trend
for verified people to change their name and photo
to Elon Musk's and tweet something absurd
or out of character.
But here's the thing, and you may not expect it,
it makes complete sense why these people were suspended.
Impersonation has always been against Twitter's rules,
so it wasn't surprising to see this happen to the accounts.
And I have to imagine a number of the people
that were banned, including Ethan,
were expecting this.
I mean, even Ethan's own fans were like,
"He's going for the ban."
But for anyone that did this,
and didn't expect to get banned, I got a a beautiful book
for you to buy the week of Thanksgiving.
Or you'd have to include that it is a parody account
in the bio and in the name of the account itself.
And while people like Ethan put parody account as a banner,
you put parody in the bio.
The name was just Elon Musk.
And actually, on that note, on Sunday,
Musk also took it a step further by tweeting,
"Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging
in impersonation without clearly specifying parody
will be permanently suspended.
Previously, we issued a warning before suspension,
but now that we are rolling out widespread verification,
there will be no warning.
This will be clearly identified as a condition
for signing up to Twitter Blue.
And adding any name change at all will cause temporary loss
of verified check mark."
And so Ethan changed his name to Elon Musk
and joked about the increased use of the N-word
on the platform, as well as a tweet
about Musk missing Jeffrey Epstein.
He got permanently suspended, as well as Kathy Griffin.
And now, a growing number of people.
Because like I said, it wasn't just one or two people
that were doing this.
Though you did have Ethan Klein
defending his tweets on TikTok,
or saying it was a clear parody,
something Elon said would be an exception.
Also, around this time, you had Elon making jokes
about the suspension, saying of Kathy Griffin
she was actually suspended for impersonating a comedian,
but if she really wants her account back,
she can have it for $8.
Well, yes, you had people understanding
or even defending the bans,
you had a lot of people using this as a way
to attack Elon.
Tweeting things at him like,
"Free speech includes racism, but not making fun of you."
But here's the thing, like I said, I am not a Musk fan,
but I understand these suspensions.
That said, that is not where the Elon Musk
bullshittery ends today.
There's been a lot of focus on getting the check mark
for $8 a month.
With that, you've got the New York Times reporting
the Twitter's delaying the rollout
of that until after the midterms.
There were concerns about this feature
just causing chaos on election day.
With people saying, "Whoa, so for $8,
you'd be able to just impersonate a lawmaker,
or an official, and tweet out election misinformation."
So for now, you got a manager telling the outlet
that they're rolling it out on November 9th.
The "Times" saying they also reached out
to Twitter's comms team, but didn't get a response.
Most likely because most of them were fired last week.
Twitter laid off about half of its staff,
but also, you had Bloomberg reporting yesterday
that Twitter's already trying to get some
of those people back.
With the team's most impacted by the layoffs
including product trust and safety, policy, communications,
ethical AI, accessibility, and more.
And according to "Bloomberg", some of those people
were actually fired by accident,
and others were let go before management
realized their work would actually be necessary
for working towards Musk's goals.
But also going back to the $8 verification,
I will say I do have even more concerns now
as Elon Musk has continued to talk about it.
And I know I'm not alone with that, right?
I've seen seen other big creators like MoistCr1TiKaL
making a video called "Twitter is Dying".
While he doesn't lay out his intentions
to leave the platform,
he does argue that Elon's plans will ruin it.
Because the way that Elon Musk has begun talking about this,
it sounds like Twitter is going to be almost unusable
or for you to just almost seemingly not exist
unless you pay the $8 per month.
- And we're gonna prioritize Twitter's search, replies,
mentions by verified users first.
If you're payment verified with a blue check mark,
then you'll be prioritized and hateful conduct pays.
But if somebody risks losing even eight bucks,
the net effect will be over time,
that the verified users will pretty much always be
at the top of of comments and search.
And you won't really see,
you'll have to scroll far to see the unverified users,
which will be the bots and trolls and whatnot.
- The way that he describes it, it's hard not to see
that as like shadow banning anyone
not willing to give him $8.
And while that will have zero impact on me,
I've already been paying for Twitter Blue since it launched.
The way Elon describes it is that he is putting a paywall
on the service that democratized speech.
And hey, like I've said from the beginning,
it is now his thing to build or burn to the ground.
But also, this morning, I think Elon was like,
"People aren't talking about me for enough reasons."
With a making headlines as of this morning
for endorsing the GOP going into the midterm.
Tweeting, "To independent-minded voters,
shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties.
Therefore, I recommend voting for a Republican Congress
given that the Presidency is Democratic."
Which I mean, I saw a lot of people going like, "Wow!"
"Holy fuck!"
"I can't believe he said this."
To which, and I mean this in the nicest way,
have you just not been paying attention?
How is this surprising?
He's publicly and privately complained
that as a billionaire, he's being overtaxed.
And when I say privately, I mean he spoke
at a Kevin McCarthy GOP retreat
with a no-press fireside chat just a few months ago.
He recently tweeted and promoted out right wing
misinformation about the Pelosis.
And that's an addition to primarily retweeting
a lot of right wing mouthpiece.
And hey, as an individual,
I think he's free to do this, obviously.
Where my annoyance comes from is his kind of framing
this as him being an independent.
Everything in at least the last two years has pointed
to that not being the case.
And in recent months, back in April
before he made himself the king of Twitter,
he tweeted for Twitter to deserve public trust,
it must be politically neutral.
To which, I know a lot of Elon defenders will say,
"Hey, he used to donate to Dems."
Yeah, so did Trump.
I don't think you would call him an independent.
I always try to be very fair in my reporting.
I'm not always gonna hit that mark.
Everyone makes mistakes now and then,
but most people who have watched me for a long time know
I have made no secret that I'm left of center.
Like, I'm not co-signing defund the police,
but I do think we need to tax the fuck outta billionaires.
I agree with Obama that to some on the left
have gotten overly preachy and over-reactionary.
But I think that pales in comparison to the threat democracy
is facing from a number of far right Republicans,
as well as human rights.
Whereas in the past, I was the enlightened centrist,
where I was like everything is equally bad.
But yeah, that's where I'm at with all this.
And I know we talked about it a lot,
but I would love to know your thoughts
on any and all aspects of this just clusterfuck
in those comments down below.
And friendly reminder, whatever comments you leave
may end up in the Sunday Community show.
Which if you didn't see,
I premiered yesterday on the channel.
It's been very, very loved.
I'm so happy to see that.
I really look forward to continually doing that
in the future so that we can actually
have a more in-depth conversation and interaction.
And then it's official, the pandemic economy is done,
which would've been great news for me to know
before the value of my Peloton stock dropped 91%.
Also no, I will never get over it.
Bicycle plus iPad, obviously,
that should be a trillion dollar company.
No, but we're not talking about Peloton today,
even though that lives rent-free in my head.
Instead, I'm talking about the implosion of Carvana
because while I lost some money, holy shit,
the father-son duo behind this company
has lost tens of billions of dollars.
So Carvana sells used cars.
And when new cars were impossible to buy
during the pandemic, used car prices soared.
And if you got in on Carvana's rise,
ooh, it was exciting,
with its stock even selling for over $370 a share
at one point.
But today, it is now valued at $7.
In fact, the stock is so volatile right now,
the New York Stock Exchange halted trading
on its shares this morning.
While this is horrible for Carvana and its investors,
this is a clear sign that the economy
is returning to normal in many ways.
You have car brands finally able to get the electronics
they need to build new cars,
helping drive up their availability,
although pricing remains volatile.
I mean, shit got crazy during the pandemic.
I know people that were spending like 35,000
to over $100,000 over sticker price to buy new vehicles.
Talking absolute, hate-your-money insanity.
But also a key thing,
this isn't the only industry that's returning to normal.
Essentially, anything that relied on electronics
has seen their prices plummet as the chip industry
has started to stabilize.
But before you celebrate too hard,
you should know that industry experts say
we're not completely outta the woods yet.
And then in positive news, yes,
it turns out good news still happens now and then,
two Korean miners were just saved after being trapped
nearly 600 feet underground for nine days.
The two were reportedly working in a zinc mine
in the country's Southeast region
when part of the mine collapsed,
with rescue workers only discovering them
after drilling a hole into an area
and inserting a small camera.
Finding the two men huddling together for warmth.
And it turns out they managed to survive for so long
by building a small tent and making a small fire,
with the area, luckily, not filling with smoke
because they actually managed to be trapped in an area
that was quite spacious.
And as far as how they survived so long,
they drank water that dripped from the roof.
And for food, they actually used instant coffee mix.
Now, the two men were taken to the hospital
after experiencing hypothermia and muscle pains,
but reportedly, this was only as a precaution,
and they're expected to make a full recovery.
With South Korea's president celebrating this news,
writing on Facebook,
"Thank you, and thank you again for coming back safely
from the crossroads of life and death."
Later adding that their rescue gives new hope
to the Republic of South Korea,
which has been stricken by grief,
which is a clear reference
to the recent Halloween tragedy we discussed there.
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And then, the Republicans are very likely on the verge
of taking back Congress.
And for some reason, Donald Trump figured
that was the perfect time to take a shot
at one of the Republican party's biggest stars right now.
- We're winning big, big, big in the Republican party
for the nomination like nobody's ever seen before.
Let's see, there it is.
Trump at 71. Ron De-sanctimonious at 10%.
- Ron De-sanctimonious.
I just don't think that's gonna catch on.
Or when you want something to stick, what is it?
Keep it simple, stupid.
That's the perfect advice.
Little Marco.
Lyin Ted.
And here's the thing, you got people buzzing
about this moment because they're saying,
"Hey, it signals a deepening rift
within the Republican Party."
Yeah, you got a ton of Republicans sticking to Trump
like flies on shit,
but many see DeSantis is a Trumpian alternative
without all the baggage.
But the key thing with this is I think
it all just highlights how insecure Trump is.
I mean, just last year, Trump suggested DeSantis
could be his new running mate,
but Trump now seemingly sees Florida man
as a potential threat.
With Trump reportedly telling advisors DeSantis
is ungrateful and doesn't appreciate him.
This as the "Washington Post" reported in September
that the two hadn't spoken to each other in months.
But then after the De-sanctimonious stuff on Sunday,
Trump took the stage in Miami
and seemed to endorse DeSantis for governor.
- And you're going to reelect Ron DeSantis as your governor
of your state.
(audience cheers)
- But also in that moment,
he was supporting him for the governorship,
not the presidency.
And notably, this all comes just days after Trump
heavily hinted at a 2024 presidential bid,
with him claiming he won the election twice already.
- And now, in order to make our country successful
and safe and glorious,
I will very, very, very probably do it again, okay?
- And as far as when he's making that announcement,
reportedly, he's considering announcing on November 14th.
And another notable thing is this is all happening
while DeSantis has long refused to say
whether he would actually run for the presidency.
And even regarding that, Trump currently leads
in by a large margin in those polls,
but not everywhere.
DeSantis has showed a lead in certain states
like Florida and New Hampshire,
with a recent survey finding that more Republicans
believe he should have a great or good deal of influence
in the GOP's future.
Plus another poll found that a record number
of Republicans, 62% support the party more than Trump.
But also I wouldn't overthink those polls.
I think the the party has shown they're very much willing
to get in line.
I can't think of a better example of that
than when Trump called Ted Cruz's wife
essentially Fugo McGillicuddy,
and was like, "Yeah, I don't know,
maybe Ted Cruz did help kill JFK."
And then Ted Cruz was calling people like, "Hey,
will you vote for Donald Trump?
Can Daddy Trump count on your donation?"
And as far as predictions, unless something crazy
or drastic happens, I personally don't see a world
where Donald Trump doesn't run again
and Ron DeSantis just waits for his time
because I just can't imagine a world
where he decides to go against Trump in the primaries,
and his political career doesn't end up extremely bruised
or with him having a ton of blood on his hands
and alienating a huge portion of his base,
unless he goes into the primaries with kids' gloves on
with the the hope of being Donald Trump's VP.
Oh no, we're getting ahead of ourselves
because the midterms aren't even until tomorrow.
Though, like I've said, in most places,
that's just the last day you can vote.
I personally voted early over the weekend so my son
could at least see what it looks like.
That's a joke.
I hope it's a joke.
But I really do wanna stress,
even if you're like disillusioned,
and just exhausted by national politics,
you should vote tomorrow.
While voting for senators and house members
incredibly important, there's a lot of propositions,
a lot of other that you should be voting for.
For example, in California,
there's props on explicitly protecting the right
to an abortion.
Should the state ban the sale of flavored tobacco product?
Should online sports betting be made legal?
Should wealthy Californians paying additional 1.75%
in state taxes?
With the bulk of that money meant to subsidize the purchase
of electric vehicles instead of charging stations
and other infrastructure.
But all of that's just stuff in my state.
There's 49 other states
with their own unique things going on.
But with all that said, as far as like the main noise
around the midterms right now, yeah,
you should continue to expect Trump and his allies promoting
baseless claims about fraud or elections being rigged
just as they did in 2020.
Though the key thing there is, despite the repeated lies,
they were never able to prove that there were any instances
of widespread voter fraud.
With many election deniers pointing to the fact
that it took several days for major news outlets
to officially call the election.
Though very notable there,
there are very legitimate reasons why it could take a minute
before we see any final results.
I say this, not just looking back, but moving forward.
Each state has different rules
for carrying out the election process,
like when polls close and when ballots can even start
to be counted.
There are also varying rules for when mail-in ballots
can be received and counted that can extend
when they'll be tallied.
Which is why early results can sometimes
give a false impression,
especially in places that have seen a major rise
in the number of people voting by mail.
Remember back in 2020,
we talked a lot about the Red Mirage, right?
You had ballots cast on election day being reported first,
and they favored Republicans.
But then you had mail-in ballots
which were being used more by the Democrats.
They were counted later, making it seem like the Republicans
had a much wider lead, which is exactly what Trump
and others used to push their false fraud claims.
And that's an incredibly important thing to remember,
especially in several key battleground states.
For example, some key things to know
in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Election officials are not allowed to start counting mail-in
and absentee ballots until election day.
Some have also speculated we could see something similar
in Georgia because of suburbs which have shifted blue
in recent years report their results later
than rural counties.
And understand, I say this for both parties, right?
Because at the same time, there are also some states
where we could see the opposite.
A blue mirage, where it appears that Democrats
are doing better than they actually are.
For example, in Arizona, election officials
can process mail-in ballots as soon as they receive them.
And we saw a similar trend play out in 2020.
But another key thing beyond all that,
there are a number of other factors
that could delay when we get final results.
For example, in Georgia,
candidates need to get at least 50% of the vote to win.
And if none do, then the top two were sent
to a runoff election on December 6th.
And that could be incredibly consequential there
because there's a libertarian on the ballot
who could siphon enough votes from Herschel Walker
and Senator Raphael Warnock to keep them below
the 50% threshold.
And that's a huge one
because that could decide who controls the Senate.
And if everything went down a certain way,
we might not know the outcome
until a month after the election.
And then you have experts saying that legal battles
over mail-in ballots could also further delay results,
or even go all the way to the Supreme Court.
According to the New York Times, even before election day,
over 100 lawsuits have already been filed.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the State Supreme Court ruled
in favor of a lawsuit from the RNC
and other Republican groups requesting that mail-in ballots
that did not have dates on outer envelopes be invalidated.
And already, multiple rights groups
are suing to get that reversed.
And if they're successful, the outcome of some key races
in the state could be totally changed
because thousands of ballots have already been put aside
as a result of the State Supreme Court decision.
Also, a key thing is if you're in Pennsylvania,
you actually may have time to fix this.
With Pennsylvania's acting Secretary of State
saying, "You should contact your county elections offices
and if the county won't let you fix the problem,
you should go to your local polling place on Tuesday
and request a provisional ballot."
Some election officials like that have Allegheny County
opposes the names and birth years of voters online.
So if you're in the state or you know someone in the state,
definitely double check.
Because according to reports,
we're talking about thousands of votes
which could be enough to change this election.
But for everyone else, for now,
we'll have to wait and see what happens.
But that is where that story and today's show ends.
As always, thank you for watching.
Like, and remember, your comments down below
could be a part of our brand new Sunday show,
which if you haven't seen yet, we premiered yesterday.
I'll also link to it down below,
or you can click or tap right there to watch it.
As always, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in.
I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.