(people cheering)
- [Woman In Background] Oh my God.
(Philip laughs)
- I don't care that he's the President of the United States,
that he's 79 billion years old,
that fall was funny.
It looked like it deserved cartoon sound effects.
(crowd screaming)
He's fine. I don't know if you saw,
he sprung up faster than inflation.
But, I will say there were people that were actually there,
that witnessed the fall in person saying it was way worse.
And actually he was really lucky not to be hurt worse.
The show will get better from here.
Really lucky, setting the bar low today.
(upbeat music)
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Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
I got a fantastic Monday show for you today,
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But, buckle up, hit that like button
and help spread some common sense news coverage
and let's just jump into it.
Now, first up today in stupid and or batshit crazy news,
we should talk about Senate candidate, Eric Greitens.
He's a Missouri Republican, like I said,
running for the Senate and he's in scandals right now,
involving a spousal and child abuse accusations
from his ex-wife
as well as having accusations against him
that he sexually assaulted and blackmailed
his former hairdresser while governor,
and that being only one of the reasons
he ended up resigning back in 2018.
And so today, he seemingly, as a way to try
and shed this image of a guy that maybe is violent,
he ran a new campaign ad.
- I'm Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL,
and today we're going RINO hunting.
(Eric cocks gun)
The RINO feeds on corruption
and is marked by the stripes of cowardice.
(SEAL slams door) (flash grenade explodes)
(intense music)
- My guy, how is this a real campaign ad
and not a fake ad that they put in The Purge franchise?
Wait, is it over?
- Join the MAGA crew, get a RINO hunting permit.
There's no bagging limit, no tagging limit,
and it doesn't expire until we save our country.
- And in addition to all the reactions you would expect of,
"what the fuck is this crazy person doing,"
you had Twitter publicly limiting Greitens' post,
saying it violated the Twitter rules about abusive behavior.
Facebook also removing the video
saying that it was removed for violating our policies
prohibiting violence and incitement.
VoteVets also chiming in saying,
"Eric Greitens, a member of the Navy Reserves,
has violated DOD policy by identifying himself as a SEAL
and using military uniforms without a disclaimer,"
and calling on others to report him.
Like, he is such a ridiculous person,
even Republican Senator Hawley has said
that he should leave the race.
Back in March saying, "If you hit a woman or a child,
you belong in handcuffs, not the United States Senate.
It's time for Eric Greitens to leave this race."
But fun fact, right now in the polling,
he is in the lead in Missouri.
And then let's talk about this Catholic Middle School
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
that can no longer be considered Catholic
because it displayed a Pride flag
and a Black Lives Matter flag.
Right, so the school in question is The Nativity School,
which is for boys in grades five to eight,
and back in January of 2021,
students reportedly wanted to fly two flags
to make the community what they referred to
as more just and inclusive.
But then in March of this year,
Bishop Robert J. McManus and the Diocese of Worcester
told the school to take the flags down,
later warning the Nativity School that if it did not do so,
it could no longer identify as a Catholic school.
And according to a recent decree from McManus,
"Despite my insistence that the school administration
remove these flags because of the confusion
and the properly theological scandal
that they do and can promote,
they refuse to do so.
This leaves me no other option,
but to take canonical action."
With his decree going on to claim that both flags
are symbols that embody agendas
that contradict Catholic teaching,
arguing that the Pride flag
represents support of gay marriage
and actively living an LGBTQ+ lifestyle.
And then saying,
"while the church stands unequivocally behind the phrase,
'black lives matter'
and strongly affirms that all lives matter,"
it believes that the movement has co-opted the phrase
and promotes ideas that clash with Catholic social teaching.
And so as a result, he says
the school can no longer call itself Catholic,
meaning they can no longer be permitted
to celebrate Mass, Sacraments, and other events on campus,
nor can it sponsor these events
in any other church within the diocese.
It also can't take any fundraising involving the diocese
and will be removed from its directory.
The name of the Bishop Emeritus on its board of trustees
must be removed as well.
And so in response to this,
the president of the Nativity School gave a statement,
defending the flag, saying,
"The flags simply state that all are welcome at Nativity
and this value of inclusion is rooted in Catholic teaching.
Though any symbol or flag can be co-opted
by political groups or organizations,
flying our flags is not an endorsement
of any organization or ideology,
they fly in support of marginalized people."
With a parent echoing this message to the Boston Globe,
saying that, "the flags are just to make
our kids feel comfortable, like they are at home."
With the outlet noting that the school
serves mostly black and brown kids
from disadvantaged backgrounds
and provides them with a quality, free education.
And so as far as what happens next,
you have the school appealing the decree,
and according to The Globe,
this matter could actually end up in Rome.
So for now, we'll have to wait and see.
But of course, with this story,
I pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts here?
And then we should talk about how tensions are rising
between the Justice Department
and the January 6th Committee.
The DOJ is asking the panel to provide transcripts
of the more than 1000 interviews the panel conducted,
arguing that a lack of information sharing
is hurting the agency's own sprawling criminal probe
into the insurrection.
And in a letter,
the Department said that the transcripts were relevant
both to its overall criminal investigations
and ongoing prosecutions,
arguing it is critical that the committee
give prosecutors copies of the transcripts
of all its witness interviews.
With the agency going on to argue that it cannot be sure
that all relevant evidence is considered
in its criminal investigations without the transcripts,
and adding, "The Select Committee's failure
to grant the Department access to these transcripts
complicates the Department's ability to investigate
and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct
in relation to the January 6th attack on the Capitol."
And to that point,
while the letter pertains to the investigation broadly,
it was also included in a filing by federal prosecutors,
consenting to push a trial for leaders
of the Proud Boys militia group until December.
And both the defense and prosecution agree
that the transcripts are necessary to have before the trial
so they can adequately prepare their cases.
With the defense lawyers also expressing concern
that the documents might be made public
in the middle of the trial
which was previously set for August
because House investigators said that the transcripts
will be released in early September.
But understand this latest request comes
as tensions between the committee and the DOJ
have been growing for months now.
I mean, this isn't even the first time
that the Department has asked for these transcripts.
Just last month, Representative Bennie Thompson,
the Chair of the Select Committee
said that the DOJ had requested the documents
for its investigation,
but you heard Thompson saying
the committee would not heed the Department's request,
saying at the time,
"My understanding is that they want to have access
to our work product, and we told them,
'no, we're not giving that to anybody.'"
With Thompson also echoing his initial remarks
in response to the DOJ's new request saying,
"We're in the midst of conducting our hearing.
We have a report to do.
So we're not going to stop what we're doing
to share information that we've gotten so far
with the Department of Justice.
We will eventually cooperate with them."
But also beyond that,
the panel has also clashed with the DOJ
over differences in the two investigations.
With committee members having publicly criticized the agency
for being too slow or not aggressive enough
in pursuing possible criminal cases against Donald Trump
and other high-profile members of his inner circle.
We saw those tensions come into focus earlier this month,
after the DOJ decided it would not prosecute Trump's
Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows,
and another close aide, Dan Scavino,
for contempt of Congress
after they defied the committee's subpoenas to testify.
And this sticky relationship between the two bodies
has also underscored divisions within the panel itself
where the members have made it clear
that there is disagreement among them
over whether or not to make criminal referrals to the DOJ.
With some arguing that the Department
will step in if it sees fit,
while others have expressed skepticism
that that would be the case.
Right, because a key thing here is
the committee itself does not have the power
to bring criminal charges.
And so, if they don't refer them to the DOJ,
and the DOJ doesn't come up with them on its own,
it's possible that nothing could happen
to hold Trump and others accountable.
But for now we'll have to wait and see.
And there is a possibility that we might actually
have someone from the panel on the show this week,
so I'll let you know more about that
as I learn about it myself.
Then, for your not everything is horrible,
palate cleansing, today an awesome story,
we have MrBeast.
But he's arguably one of the biggest
and most successful online creators ever.
And he has somehow found the time
between making his own Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory,
and his own Squid Games and making company after company,
and telling Ninja he is trash,
raised millions of dollars of supplies
for Ukrainian refugees.
Right, by reaching out to refugee centers in Eastern Europe,
MrBeast was able to learn
what the people there really needed.
He ended up making this long list,
with MrBeast explaining.
- [MrBeast] Medical supplies, food, basic necessities,
cleaning supplies, even simple stuff like hygiene
that we take for granted.
And we managed to coordinate over $3 million worth of goods
to give to Ukrainian refugees.
- With him showing people in his local community
helping to not just gather donations,
but also pack them up and get them ready to send over,
with many, including Ukrainian people,
wanting to do what they could from the US.
Also getting a number of companies involved,
including Disco Beds, giving pallets of beds,
Med Source Labs, donating $100,000
in desperately needed medical supplies.
And I'll say a really key thing here
is it doesn't just end there.
But as MrBeast even notes in the video,
at the start of the war,
people were sending so many things to Europe
that ports started getting jammed.
So you start seeing these delays
that were stopping these urgently needed supplies
actually getting into the hands that needed them.
So for this, he established his own logistical chain
to get this batch of supplies over.
With him also saying this is only the beginning
and that he plans to send millions more
in aid to the refugees.
And I gotta say, seeing MrBeast,
seeing Jimmy at the top of the mountain,
still doing these things, it's awesome.
But from that, I wanna take a second
to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show,
Manscaped.com, the global leader
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You know, when it comes to men's grooming and hygiene,
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And then in huge news.
- We have big developments in the extradition case
of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.
- The British government has approved.
- [Female Anchor] The extradition of WikiLeaks founder.
- Julian Assange.
- To the US.
- That's right after 12 years of detention,
Julian Assange is staring down life in prison,
or at least his options to escape have drastically narrowed.
With the UK's home secretary,
Priti Patel approving his extradition
to the US Friday morning,
rubber stamping an official order
made by a London court back in April,
marking the most important update in this case
since he was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy
back in 2019.
Also, to give a definitely-oversimplified recap
of a super-complicated story,
for those of you who haven't been following this,
Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006
as an outlet that published classified documents,
leaked by whistle blowers.
In 2010, Chelsea Manning came to him
with the largest leak of files in US military history
known as the "Iraq war logs",
exposing that the US lied about not counting civilian deaths
and ignored reports of torture, rape and murder,
as well as war crimes, like the famous video,
showing the pilots of an Apache helicopter
laughing after gunning down several civilians
assumed to be insurgents, two of them Reuters journalists.
Then in 2012, after the UK Supreme Court ruled
that Assange should be extradited to Sweden
for a rape allegation,
he claimed political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy,
with him saying there that if he is sent to Sweden,
then he'll be sent to the United States
where the government will persecute him for his work.
And so he stayed there, trapped inside the embassy
for the next seven years.
And while the rape charges were eventually dropped,
he remained there out of fear of US authorities,
and he was right to be afraid because in 2018,
it was revealed that the DOJ
had secretly filed criminal charges against him.
Then we saw the following year,
Ecuador kicking him out of the embassy.
I mean, you can literally see him getting dragged out.
With him at that time being thrown into Belmarsh prison,
where he is still locked up today.
So after two years of house arrests for the rape charges,
seven years of political asylum,
and three years of maximum security imprisonment,
his mental and physical health
has dramatically deteriorated.
As Nils Melzer,
the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture explains.
- And I went to visit him with two medical doctors
to have an objective basis, psychiatrist,
a forensic expert visited him for four hours.
We had separate medical examinations
and bilateral discussions with me
and we all the three of us came to a conclusion
that he showed clear patterns of psychological torture.
And then, obviously Julian Assange's state of health
deteriorated to the point where
I was genuinely afraid he might die in prison.
And let me put it, make it very straight,
psychological torture is not torture light.
- Now with this latest update about Priti Patel's decision,
the prospects look very grim for Assange.
Right, because in Britain,
the Home Secretary is the final authority on extradition,
though, Assange does still have
a couple of legal paths to pursue.
First, he can appeal the case to the British Supreme Court.
But, many see that as likely to fail
since the same court rejected his appeal last March.
Second, they can appeal the case
to the European Court of Human Rights.
Which seems more hopeful,
but British Justice Secretary Dominic Raab
has promised to propose a new Bill of Rights,
letting the UK ignore the court's rulings.
And Boris Johnson's been threatening to pull out
of the European Convention of Human Rights entirely
because of a ruling it made last week
blocking the deportation of some migrants to Rwanda.
Plus, each court would have to agree
to hear Assange's appeal in the first place,
which is not guaranteed.
And ultimately, if this happens,
if he is extradited to the United States,
he will face 175 years behind bars for espionage charges.
So with this, you have WikiLeaks calling this,
"a dark day for press freedom and for British democracy."
And all this comes after weeks of calls for Patel
to block the extradition, from journalists, politicians,
rights groups, and Assange's family,
with his wife, Stella, responding to the news by saying.
- We're gonna fight this.
We're gonna use every appeal avenue
and we're gonna fight.
I'm gonna spend every waking hour,
fighting for Julian until he's free.
- And his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, saying,
"This is the outcome that we have been concerned about
for the last decade.
This decision is a grave threat to freedom of speech,
not just for Julian but for every journalist and editor
and media worker in this country."
You also had major creators like Hasan Piker speaking out,
saying, "Assange should be free."
Also hitting on reports that the CIA under Trump
discussed potentially assassinating Assange.
And of course, with this story,
there's way more to talk about.
So, to get some insight, I reached out to Kevin Gosztola,
a journalist specializing in whistle blowers
and press freedom,
who has covered the Assange case from inside the courtroom.
With him first explaining just how unprecedented
this is in modern American history.
- Obviously we've seen in continents like Africa,
South America and the Middle East,
countries that are much, much, much less free and open,
that they do this to journalists,
but it's always held up and celebrated that in the West,
in western democracies, in like UK and The United States,
that we won't do this to the press.
And they had always set a boundary that this law,
the Espionage Act from 1917,
which is over a hundred years old,
that they would only use this
to target people who leaked information to the press,
who were violating their oath,
allegedly, or the agreement that they had signed,
when they got a security clearance.
Throughout history, they had threatened press groups,
or they had threatened media organizations,
they had threatened journalists with prosecution.
They had stopped, and never gone beyond threatening
a number of journalists and organizations with prosecution.
But now, with this case,
they have claimed the authority
to decide who is and is not a journalist.
- Kevin, then talking about
some of the more extra-judicial methods
the US government used to pressure Assange,
which are being examined in a Spanish court.
- Former CIA Director, Mike Pompeo,
and another former CIA official
were summoned to give testimony and share what they know
cause it was sourced for this Yahoo news report
that got a lot of attention
because the headline was in bold,
and it said that, it accused Mike Pompeo
and the CIA of being involved in developing secret war plans
to kidnap or poison or even consider killing Julian Assange
outright while he was in the embassy.
We get to 2017, 2018,
and this company called Undercover Global,
it's a private security company
run by a man named David Morales,
he develops this arrangement,
which we think goes all the way to the CIA,
but there is still some things to be proven
before we state that definitively.
But we know the CIA had access to audio and video recordings
from inside the embassy.
And they're involved in going after his attorneys,
trying to identify Julian Assange's,
who we know now are, his children.
He has Stella and his family interested in all his visitors,
collecting and putting together files on people,
they were going after doctors, collect his medical notes,
but one of the things they did that was the most outrageous,
towards the baby that was coming in,
who they suspected was Julian Assange's son.
They tried to steal a diaper
from his son
to do a DNA test,
to try to confirm whether it was his or not.
The fact that they had cameras,
they were bugging all parts of the embassy,
they bugged the women's bathroom,
where attorneys were actually already going into to meet
because they believe that other parts
of the Ecuador embassy were being snooped on.
And so this is all known because of documents
that are in the possession of his lawyers.
He's got one lawyer named Aitor Martinez,
who represents him in Spain,
and they have all these documents, files,
there's whistle blowers that came forward
and passed on information, there's two of them.
They're unnamed, we don't know who they are.
They're in fear for their safety,
that they could be retaliated against by David Morales
who has a military background.
- And so with all this, as far as what happens next,
you have Kevin saying.
- Unfortunately for Julian Assange,
who's been in prison for over three years now in Belmarsh,
since being booted and kicked out of the Ecuador embassy,
it probably means another year,
if not longer,
of legal battling.
And then, maybe, he does get closer
to being put on a plane and brought to the US for trial.
- And so, thank you again to Kevin for the time,
but, with all this, I do wanna pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on any and all aspects of this story?
What are you feeling and why?
Let me know.
But ultimately that is where that story
and today's show ends.
Thank you for watching, liking,
being a part of that conversation down below.
If you want some more news,
I got you covered right here,
but with that said, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in.
I love your faces and I'll see you tomorrow.