Ed Sheeran Just Made The Macklemore Mess So Much Worse

Ed Sheeran just broke his silence and addressed the whole Macklemore Free Palestine scandal, but he just made everything worse. The Sidney Sweeney nude sports betting ad controversy, it just got even bigger. The US just admitted it as weapons in orbit right now, but no one's saying what they are. You've got Trump losing his mind with the Supreme Court now shooting down his plan to overhaul mail-in voting. We're talking about all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show, you daily dive into the news, starting with this. Ed Sheeran just made his whole Macklemore Israel scandal so much worse, because as we talked about yesterday, Macklemore, he got kicked off of Ed Sheeran's tour. Right in this, because at two shows, he said a version of, one of the reasons I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart, free Palestine. So the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them. And the key thing, adding to all my Jewish brothers and sisters' criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, in no way is a criticism of you. Saying my message is for peace, for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. And Robert Kraft and a bunch of owners said, no, we can't have that. Boycott him, get him out of the tour. And that's what happened. And as far as the public, you had people blaming Ed Sheeran, you had people blaming Robert Kraft, and you know, all those people involved. But you also had many going, hey, well, Ed Sheeran, is he gonna say something? And well, he broke his silence today in a six-image carousel post, saying, I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine, saying the suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy, saying there are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated. So we came out against all wars, which, you had some saying felt a little bit like he was saying all lives matter. He then adds, Macklemore asked to join my tour last year, and I agreed, saying because I respect him as an artist. But then going to say that after Macklemore's performances, venues on my upcoming tour dates communicated that they would pull shows if he was still supporting, saying I was informed that this stance was based on how Macklemore conveyed part of his message during his performance, rather than everything that was said. He then goes on to claim that he spoke to the venues at length all week, he tried to build a bridge, noting that yes, one of those people was Robert Kraft, but ultimately the venues and promoters decision was final. And that was a big thing, he tried to get across, he was like, this was not me, even though I'm the talent and reason that everyone's showing up. Saying Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter's decision, it was not mine. Macklemore's contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me. And then he tried to make it about, you know, not him making money as an artist, but it's all the other supporting people. Saying I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living. And then the statement, it gets to the part where we're seeing the most pushback. With Ed Sheeran writing, I have always used my platform in music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won't ever change. Saying those who have been to one of my shows will know that they are about unity, joy, escapism, love and a place for everyone to feel welcome. And then he adds, I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them and it doesn't mean I don't care. Nor does it mean I don't support causes in my own personal way. Saying there is a reason I do not use my professional platform for politics. My audience includes young people, often children of all backgrounds. And to that, and again, this is just my opinion here, are you scared you're going to offend young people by saying, that genocide is bad? That as Miss Rachel has pointed out, that tens of thousands of kids shouldn't have just been killed? With the men going on to say, I choose to use my fame and platform to be a place of safety and sanctuary to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed. If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change. Then to that, I would say, Ed, your silence was loud. Your inaction was gargantuan. I will say, I also find it off-putting that he is making himself seem like he has less power in this situation. Like he's not the main fucking attraction, worldwide phenomenon, Ed Sheeran. Right? He's like, oh no, the guy that's just off camera that you can't see, that has no name. They're the one that's responsible, not me, Ed Sheeran. I'm not complicit. And with his little opinion section, oh no, yesterday I saw a post that popped up on Twitter going, oh my God, Philip DeFranco calls out Ed Sheeran. And one of the replies was, the both sides king is calling you a fence sitter. Right? And then there were a lot of people that were like, oh, well, if you haven't seen him in 10 years, he actually is more comfortable talking about this and that. And I will say, and this is, I think, a very human thing. We often become very angry or extra annoyed with people. With things that we see in ourselves or see in past versions of ourselves. And this nothing, I'm against all wars and you don't know what I'm doing behind the scenes, even though I'm letting people that speak out get shit can statement. It makes me angry, yes, in the moment, but it also makes me extra angry because yes, I do think back to myself 10, 11 years ago, where I think subconsciously I was more interested in people liking me than actually saying things that mattered, that might piss some people off. But as we've seen shit just get, just so horrible, especially over the last 10 years, how do you stay, silent, especially if you are in a privileged situation? Like if you're just trying to survive, you're trying to make ends meet, like every dollar matters. Yeah, I understand you might be walking on some eggshells, but when you have fuck you money, when you are in a fuck you position, that is where you can see the biggest cowards. And I don't wanna hear this shit about, oh, I have a young audience. Miss Rachel's out here talking about this. And that's why I have to give Miss Rachel her flower. She is in a position where she could be truly devastated. Like before she came out and talked, these creators where you don't know where they stand politically because they don't just talk about that kind of thing. They are the biggest at risk of losing audience from sharing opinions. And while you and I, we might not think that it's courageous to say something like kids shouldn't be getting murdered. Apparently it fucking is. People have tried to ruin Miss Rachel for her spreading a message of love. So just to close, Ed Sheeran, you're a fucking coward. And also not speaking out, not taking a side when we're talking about what, again, not what just some random internet guy is saying, what scholars and experts in genocide have been calling a genocide. Why? Why do people have been pointing to Netanyahu and saying what he is doing? He is a war criminal committing war crimes. Being silent on that is a choice. That is taking a side. And the same goes for being neutral in the face of atrocities and in the face of people that are trying to promote love and peace getting shit canned. I wrote this today and I mean it. 10 years ago, I was the centrist fence-sitting final boss. Like I get it to a certain degree, Ed. I thought that it made me enlightened, but looking back, it was just cowardice. Too many things are too fucked right now to stay silent or neutral. And actually jumping back into the news of this, we're seeing more dominoes fall now. Ed Sheeran's tour opener, Irish singer, Aaron Rowe, he just dropped out of the tour, saying, "As Irish people, we all know too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation." Saying, "I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their positions of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children." Saying, "I would lose all respect for myself to carry on as normal." And we also saw a musical artist in front of the show, Phineas, announcing, "I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran." Saying, "I stand with Palestine and its people. Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed." So for now, we're gonna have to see how this continues to play out. Right, but then, next up in the news, let's talk about how this Sidney Sweeney nude ad scandal, it's getting even bigger. Right, 'cause just last week, we talked about how there's been a ton of backlash over celebrity prediction market promos. People not just getting mad at Sidney Sweeney, but also people like LeBron James and others who are taking checks from these companies. And with James and others, there's been a lot of scrutiny because they're actively playing. Right, but also, Sidney's ad, it was for Novig, which is a platform that's devoted to sports wagering, and it has now caught the attention of a ton of female athletes who have, well, in a number of different ways, have reacted because, a quick reminder, the ad, it starts like this. - Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. - With Sidney, throughout the rest of the video, having sports equipment on hand, though it's mostly only being used to cover her body. What we've seen is that you've had a ton of athletes just not appreciating seeing a woman hypersexualized in a sports context or a setting. Right, thinking this ad, it's clearly meant to appeal to men, so it labels them as the people who know sports, implying that the subject is a guy's thing and that the space that women can take up, it's more really the provocative roles that Sidney's playing. Within groups like female athlete projects, Novig noting that sports has long treated women's bodies as commodities. Right, because you've had a ton of female athletes saying, you know, they already constantly feel objectified while competing, or whether it's because the sport puts focus on their bodies, the outfits they have to wear expose a lot of skin, or whatever it is. Right, so you had one Olympic skier from Canada saying, - It was, in her head, probably some funny joke, but it's not a joke when your life is actually you being a female athlete and being, like, sexualized or not taken seriously or not given the same opportunities. - You then also had gymnast Gracie Kramer adding, - I've spent my entire life competing in a sport where female athletes have been over-sexualized, reduced to our bodies and forced to fight to be taken seriously for what we can actually do. And saying, when sexualization is used as a way to get men interested in women's sports, it reinforces the exact narrative we've been trying to dismantle. So you've just had a ton of female athletes, including Olympians and world record holders, sharing videos titled, "This is what women in sports really looks like," followed by montages of their success. And a lot of those videos have blown up, with runner and Olympic medalist Amy Hunt even making the point immediately after competing this weekend. - Hey, Sidney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like, 21/4. Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears. - And you then had her adding this morning on Good Morning Britain. - It's about what your body can do and not so much what it looks like. I think when we see the stats of 64% of young girls drop out of exercise and sport before they reach the age of 16, we don't need to place any kind of barrier whatsoever in their way in terms of providing the opportunity and the empowerment for them to still exercise, whatever that looks like. - You've also had places like The Athletic putting out an op-ed calling the promo a time warp that ignores decades of progress in women's sports and adding, the reason Sweeney's advertisement has infuriated so many women in sport is that if there is a group that has managed to genuinely force change in the perception of what women are capable of since the turn of the century, of what it means to be a strong and powerful woman, to be a girl without prostrating to the male gaze, it is women in sport. And while Sidney Sweeney has not directly addressed the backlash, what you did see is her post a series of Instagram stories depicting images from ESPN's Body Issue, where you have athletes, both men and women, posing nude in ways comparable to Sidney's ad. So it's some saying, oh, were these photos maybe the inspiration or was she just trying to show at least that she's not the first person to pair nudity in sports? But I will say you did have the CEO of Novig addressing the uproar this morning. - We're hugely supportive of women's sports. I think it's a huge component of our platform. I think we never intended to portray female sports. Sidney's an actress, the biggest movie star in the world. We're a prediction market. - Right, and then with all this, one of the things you've seen is people trying to turn this into a left versus right issue. So you've had people like the founder of the Make America Hot Again organization, which is apparently a thing telling you in the New York Times, "The left has always been the party of sexual liberation your clothes off and all that. Now, all of a sudden, they're really upset because a pretty girl got naked doing a sports ad. Within the Telegraph, also writing a piece claiming the outrage exposes the hypocrisy of the woke left and then asking, how come the my body, my choice mantra doesn't apply if the woman looks like this? So personally, you know, I know Sidney Sweeney has her politics, but I don't see this as a left versus right issue. In addition to the growing concerns we've seen in the country around gambling and the promotion of gambling and just how devastating it can be for a lot of people, a lot of the criticism appears to be connected to kind of pick-me's. And there are pick-me's on the left and right. And I mean, pick-me's, they're not even limited to being a woman. But also, I'll say in many ways, this is probably exactly what Novig wanted. Because as you had one marketing professor telling the Times, Novig is a company with not much market share, and so polarizing people is a reasonable strategy. Saying they are betting, excuse the pun, that their own audience will not be the same as the people who are most defended by the ad. And in fact, as of this morning, it was number 11 in the Apple App Store's sports charts, which is someone whose career started by having thumbnails of very attractive women, is not shocking to hear. When you're starting at zero, or you're the little guy, literally any attention is good attention. And for a lot of people, they stick with that even when they're big. Especially, as noted, when the audience they want is not the audience most inclined to be offended or bothered by something like this. So you can easily argue that this campaign has been a huge win for them, right? People are downloading the app. Except, it does seem at least to some degree, Sidney herself is taking hits. Because while she gained around 50,000 followers in the days immediately after the ad came out, when the backlash was building Sunday and Monday, she lost over 200,000. And well now, there's that backlash to backlash that has caused her to see a tick this morning. She's down overall, I think, around 200,000 in the last two weeks. Though, when you pull out, right, you look at the bigger context, Sidney has nearly 26 million followers. To this, it's one, not the biggest chunk for her. And two, it's most likely part of her pivot. She has been positioning herself a very specific way more and more in the recent years. So overall, I think this is not going to derail anything, but it will be interesting to see whatever her continued evolution is. Because you can kind of compare this to the American Eagle incident from last year. It caused the company's stock to get a quick boost, but it also was part of, considering her reputation based off of what she did and how she reacted to it. Yeah. Like I said, the last time we talked about this, my bigger concern is one, just the promotion of gambling in general. That's also a thing that I've evolved on personally in recent years. And two, while I understand the different reactions here, my bigger concern are the people that are involved in these sports also promoting it. But then that also is an extension to how sports media in general has changed, how close the actual teams and the ownership are, as well as the people covering it to the gambling. And then there's more we're going to dive into in just a second. First, let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, the Crashing Out Tour, it's taught me when life gets chaotic, the first thing to disappear, it's usually the habits that keep you feeling like a functioning human. 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For me, AG1 is just one of those small routines that makes staying consistent easier. And for a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com slash DeFranco. That's drinkag1.com or just scan that QR code. But then, Devin, right back into the news, we've got to talk about this Star Wars arms race in outer space that everyone's freaking out about, right? This would have been a very easy thing to miss, right? Because it comes from a comment the Air Force Secretary made at the Air and Space Forces Association Conference in Maryland, right? That thing that we all knew was happening. But yeah, his name is Troy Mink, and you had him talking about how Russia and China threaten American satellites when he said, This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force. against hostile adversary action. You had a lot of people hearing that and going, wait, wait, what? Excuse me? The United States has deployed weapons in space? Right, because for context, in the past, whenever anyone's asked a Pentagon official if the U.S. has orbital weapons, they've been like, eh, any other questions out there? But also, if you ask the experts, they say that anyone who's been paying attention, they really wouldn't be that surprised by this. Right, with, for example, the astronomer Jonathan McDowell telling The Guardian that it was reasonable to assume Washington had space weapons since there have been several satellite launches with secret payloads. But you also had him adding that while the existence of these weapons is not shocking, saying that now the U.S. sees conflict in space as something that is conceptually normalized, whereas 20 years ago it was, no, we will never want to do that. But also, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Right, like, what kind of weapons are up there? How many are there? How long have they been there? And whether they've been tested? And as for the first question, there are two broad categories of weapons, kinetic and non-kinetic. Right, kinetic weapons are anything that uses physical force to attack a spacecraft, whether it's a missile or a suicide satellite ramming itself into the enemy. And then non-kinetic weapons include everything else, like lasers and microwave rays, radio jammers. Signal spoofing. Right, and then with that, you know, pretty much everyone who likes humanity, they're often crossing their fingers hoping that the U.S.'s weapons, they're more of the second kind, right? Because the kinetic ones, they cause a huge mess. Right, when you blow up stuff in space, it produces thousands of little pieces of debris that can circle the Earth and potentially smash into other stuff. And depending on how small you count them as mattering, less than a centimeter or over 10 centimeters, there's anywhere from tens of thousands to tens of millions of pieces of debris up there. And that matters because even the tiniest piece of debris traveling at over 17,000 miles per hour, 10 times faster than a bullet, is not a big deal. And so, you know, a bullet, it can puncture a space suit or damage a sensitive piece of equipment. And the more debris there is, the more likely some pieces are going to crash into other pieces, breaking them up into clouds of even smaller pieces that in turn crash into others. By creating a chain reaction experts call the Kessler syndrome. So if you like your GPS or the internet or cool science, that's pretty scary. Now, the good thing here is that most experts say they think the U.S.'s weapons are probably non-kinetic since officials have long raised concerns about debris. And they also guess that whatever weapons program it is, it probably spanned multiple presidents since this kind of thing usually takes years. Now with this, what ABC asked Space Force about it, all they said was these capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands. Saying the U.S. has warned about Russian and Chinese weapons testing and operationalization since 2007. Due to their actions, it is no longer a question that space is a warfighting domain, which if they're right, at least historically speaking, that's a pretty big leap, right? Ancient warfare took place on land and sea, then air combat began in the 20th century. And now it's looking like space is going to be joining the battlefield. And arguably it does make sense, right? Satellites provide militaries with navigation, communications, intelligence, targeting, and a lot more. So, you know, data, missile warnings, among so many other things, right? Even in the Ukraine where we've seen how space has been leveraged with Elon Musk reportedly turning off Starlink satellites for troops on the front lines. But generally, or at least historically, since Sputnik made Americans panic in 1957, the world's superpowers have tried to keep the fighting out of space. Though, of course, there have been some exceptions with the most extreme being what was called Starfish Prime in 1962. Because fun fact or whatever, I don't even know what qualifies as a fun fact anymore. The United States detonated a 1.4 megaton nuclear warhead in space, releasing an electromagnetic pulse that knocked out satellites, disrupted radios, and even broke streetlights in Hawaii. Then after that, people were being like, okay, that was fun. Let's chill for a bit. And so they signed the Outer Space Treaty, which banned weapons of mass destruction in orbit. But it said nothing about, let's call them, weapons of moderate destruction. So the relative peace in space was balanced for decades by nothing more than kind of a norm. And now both China and Russia claim that the U.S. is breaking that norm, with Beijing saying, we oppose any arms race in outer space or any attempts to weaponize it or turn it into a war zone. And you had a Kremlin spokesperson saying that space must be free of any weapon and calling for the complete demilitarization of space. But that is arguably very hypocritical because both Russia and China reportedly have ground-based anti-satellite weapons, as well as capabilities involving jamming, spoofing, and cyber operations. In fact, in 2021, Moscow tested an anti-satellite missile by shooting down one of its own satellites, creating a ton of debris and pissing everyone off. And while it's not strictly a military thing, China demonstrated a space tug capability, where a spacecraft was able to go up to a satellite, grapple it, and pull it into a different orbit. But still, that said, the U.S. acknowledging its own space-based capabilities is an escalation, with one expert now that the United States has officially acknowledged it as those systems in space, it has opened the door for China and Russia to do the same, which people in the U.S. will then use as justification for why we needed those systems there in the first place. Meanwhile, you've got the Air Force Secretary also announcing that the space-based missile interceptors are Trump's Golden Dome. They're now flight-ready. Though, just last month, you had the Space Force General managing the project, warning that there would be no Golden Dome if Congress didn't approve funding for it. But yeah, main point, I guess, prepare for the Star Wars, right? And then, jumping from space news, we've got to talk about how just weeks to go before the midterms, you have the Supreme Court officially striking down the administration's unprecedented restrictions on mail-in ballots, right? Blocking Trump from wreaking havoc on millions of voters, at least for now. In this ruling, it is absolutely massive. About one-third of all voters used mail-in ballots in the last election. So Trump's efforts here, they could have impacted tens of millions of voters set to vote by mail in an absolutely crucial midterm election. But it's going to determine control of the House and Senate, as well as countless key state and local elections. And it's important to remember that this decision stems from an executive order that Trump signed back in March that directed the administration to create a national list of citizens and mandated the U.S. Postal Service can only send ballots to people on that list. And under that policy, states would also be required to send the USPS lists of voters who receive mail-in ballots. With Trump's sole supposed reasoning being that these moves were necessary to prevent his unproven claims of voter fraud. So a bunch of states sued. They argued that Trump had exceeded his authority because the Constitution gives Congress and states the power to administer elections. But then last month, you had the Supreme Court striking down the challenge and allowing the administration to move forward, ruling that it was too soon for the states to sue because the administration had not started implementing its plans yet. But then, just a few days later, boom, the USPS rule gets officially published. And so the two dozen states, they file another legal challenge. And so once again, the federal judge agreed to block the order. So the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which then brings us full circle to the ruling yesterday. And while in their brief order, the Supreme Court majority did not explain their decision in detail, which is actually typical in emergency rulings like this. The court just wrote that the Trump administration was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the lower court order. But very notably here, while the order didn't give a vote count, conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh actually wrote a concurring opinion, writing that he believed that there was at least a fair prospect the administration had acted within its authority, but arguing that the state and local authorities wouldn't have time to implement the changes before the midterms. And that is on the other hand, the Supreme Court's On the other side, you have Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting, with Alito arguing that the states that challenged Trump's mail-in ballot order likely lack standing, saying that he believed that the administration would win the case because the Postal Service has sweeping authority to regulate the mail. And while Alito did acknowledge the practical issues that election officials may have in implementing the plan before the midterms, he argued that it wasn't serious enough to stop the order from taking effect. Or with him notably going on to say that states that brought the challenge in the lower courts, they bear a substantial share of the blame for the timing, claiming that the litigation cast a cloud over the government's ability to issue a final rule, which I will say is just whoo, an absolutely wild next level of gaslighting. In order for many states to comply with Trump's plan, they'd have to replace envelopes, train staff, and make other difficult changes, preparations that experts say would take a year, if not longer. So even if they had started implementing the policy immediately after Trump signed it in March, they wouldn't have had enough time. Beyond that, it's also absolutely insane that Alito would just force states to implement the order less than two months before election day, if he had his way. Numerous states, both red and blue, they've said that it would be incredibly challenging if not entirely impossible to implement these sweeping changes before the midterms. Right, for one thing, the plan would have required states to use a new kind of envelope approved by USPS that included a unique barcode for each voter. So not only would that force local election officials to obtain special printers, but some states, they argued that just redesigning ballots at this juncture could be challenging for many, and for some, it wouldn't even be possible. Right, certain states, they literally already started sending out mail-in ballots for the midterms, and in some cases, voters even submitted their ballots. And that's why you had the plaintiffs in the case arguing that changing the USPS requirements so close to the election, it threatened to cause catastrophic harms, leading to mass confusion, and a, quote, significant risk that millions more voters would be denied the ability to vote. But then also, in addition to that, the postal service doesn't seem to even be ready to handle Trump's plan. Right, a key part of this rule is that the states would be required to give the federal government lists of voters who are eligible to receive mail ballots. And while the USPS has said that those lists needed to be uploaded through a government portal, that system literally isn't even online yet. And that, as the portal itself, that's a whole other can of worms. Right, I did a whole segment for you on this a few weeks back, I'll link to it in the description. Definitely watch it if you don't remember it or didn't see it, but a quick TLDR is that you had a whistleblower filing an absolutely insane complaint that outlined numerous dire warnings about the portal. And specifically, the whistleblower alleged that the USPS has been secretly rushing to implement the new portal without proper testing, claiming that a project like this would normally take nine months to a year or more, but leadership forced them to do it in just three months. Though I will say the most significant allegation that the whistleblower made was that the postal service had adopted a policy that would result in a batch of thousands of ballots being rejected if a USPS employee sampled a single barcode that did not match voter data that the state submitted to the portal. With then the complaint arguing that, as a result, the whole system created the potential for a quote, catastrophic failure, which could derail the midterm elections and prevent millions of American voters from getting their ballots. Now, a big thing is you have the Trump administration disputing that characterization, but it's also very important we flag it here because this Supreme Court ruling, it could just be temporary. Because to be clear, Trump's evil plan, it's not gonna be implemented before the midterms, full stop, but the Supreme Court's ruling here sends the case back down to lower courts, which will litigate whether Trump's order can be implemented for future elections, including the 2028 presidential race. Because yesterday's ruling was just an emergency order, or this case could make its way back to the Supreme Court, or where the justices could then rule on its merits and determine whether Trump actually has the power to enact this policy. And so that's why Kavanaugh's opinion here, it is so important to know, right? He said that it was possible the administration actually had authority here, but it was just too close to the midterms. And that is, we already know, Alito and Thomas, they are ready to play ball. And so one of the big questions is Kavanaugh's words. Do they represent, do they tip off the other conservative justices' opinions here? Because this thing, this whole situation, it is maybe not even just a game changer. It could be a game ender, especially, depending on what the ruling is and when it comes down in context to when the election's happening. And then there's even more we're gonna dive into in just a minute, but first, let me thank a sponsor. Cliff J is going to a near orchestra concert, and all I had to do was enter our weekly $500 SeatGeek giveaway. But today's sponsor, SeatGeek, they've doled out nearly $60,000 to you guys to get you off the couch and into the comedy club, stadium, or concert hall since 2024, and it's been awesome. And if you haven't done it yet, do it, 'cause fall is here and the events are stacking up, right? Football, baseball, tours for Bruno Mars, Harry Styles, or your favorite comedians. I mean, get out there. It's free to enter and it takes two seconds. All while, SeatGeek's the number one rated ticketing app with over 28 million downloads and tickets to over 70,000 events. 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Product availability varies by market. See FanDuel.com for eligibility. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. - Reaching your audience on Spotify with display ads is easy. Use your existing creative and launch your first campaign in minutes with Spotify Ads Manager. - And then, Devin, right back into the news. We've got to cram in some more news you need to know today before I let you go out back into the world. Starting with the fact that after months of being MIA, you had Mitch McConnell making his timely return to the Senate just in time to help with a series of massive votes that are on the line. And McConnell's effectively been missing from public since his hospitalization back in June following a fall at his home. Though even before then, his health was under a microscope. And he's had a series of health scares. He's kind of just froze up there sometimes. But his most recent disappearance, it led to widespread speculation that he might've actually been dead, or at the very least that he was going to step away from politics months ahead of his retirement in January. But today, you had McConnell himself giving some brief remarks to reporters about why he was coming back. We will say, first up, reporters were not allowed to take videos despite that normally being allowed, right? Red flag, though, that's because it's been widely reported that he spoke slowly and with some difficulty. So he's apparently not looking exactly like a peak form. He also apparently kind of touched on that, saying that, that he might be missing a few votes due to his health. But still, he said he was coming back to support a farm bill. And because he has an ongoing interest in NATO, and quote, "backing up our good friends, we're totally in the fight against the Russians." Also, there are other bills on the line, like the Republican leaders wanted to push for regulations on cryptocurrency in college sports. But hey, really the main point of this, and just so many similar situations, is we need term limits and we need age limits in Congress. And I don't know, I think we just need to treat being in Congress and running the country as important and as dangerous as driving a car. 'Cause a lot of these people, it feels like they're fine driving this country off a cliff if it means they have hands on the wheel. We then also, in the news, have to talk about this scumbag Beau French. Because he is the Republican candidate for the Texas Road Commission. And he has been so racist in just the last few days that he's even got Texas Republicans clutching their pearls. Because Beau posted a shot from a University of Texas game where they won, and all of a sudden, you see a lot of people celebrating. And apparently he was like, hmm, I don't see a lot of white people in this shot. And so with that, he posted, "I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn't believe it. The problem is far worse than anyone imagined." But then a lot of people going, "Oh my God, that's so bigoted." And then others going, "Oh no, don't go full mask off." Or with John Cornyn calling him out, asking if other Republicans were gonna condemn his intolerance and racism or just look the other way. And while you have people blowing him up online, he did not appear phased. Because he has since doubled down and tripled down on that post. You then also had him trying to brush off the backlash on a recent radio show saying, "The radical left wants to make everything about race." And saying that it's not racist to point out that we should be favoring Texans over foreigners. But one, you have people saying that favoring people because they aren't foreigners is literally textbook racism. Especially because 80% of UT's student body actually is from Texas anyway. And personally, when I look at that photo, I think, isn't this what a lot of Republicans, including Beau French himself, has said they do want? Right, Beau French in the past said he doesn't have an issue with foreigners or immigrants. Instead, he has a problem with immigrants who do not assimilate. But if you look at that picture, is that not assimilation? I see frat bro American Texans pumped about the SEC. And I'll also say, I think a number of the Republicans that are calling this out, they're doing it because they're trying not to get so destroyed in the midterms. - This kind of stuff is just bulletin board material for the Democrats. It's really. He's got to think about his fellow Republicans who are in tougher races than he is. - But then the final bit of news we're gonna talk about today is that High Rocks just had to change their rules after a world champ literally shat herself to the finish line. Right, 'cause you had Joanna Wytrzak taking home first place this weekend. But also, she was apparently having stomach issues because mid-race, she ended up completely covered in her own poop. But one, that didn't stop her. And two, neither did the High Rocks officials. And so you had that sparking a lot of backlash online, with Wytrzak posting on Instagram after it all happened saying, "Win's a win." And you had other supporting her saying, "You may think you're tough, but are you I shit myself through the entire physical competition and still won tough." But then you also had a lot of people calling High Rocks out for letting her create a biohazard for other competitors, saying this actually should have been an immediate forfeit, especially because all of them had to share the same equipment. Now, High Rocks, they say they removed any equipment and deep cleaned the lanes that she used overnight. But there, you have people saying, "Too little, too late," judging by the response they're getting online. And so then with all this, you had them making a statement apologizing, saying, "In the moment, protocols became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood." And adding that they're making rule book changes immediately to make sure something like this doesn't ever happen again. But that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your Tuesday show. Thank you for being a part of this community, being a part of another daily dive into the news. I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.