The Markiplier GoPro Situation is Crazier Than You Think

Why the shocking Markiplier GoPro situation is even bigger and crazier than you think, though it's also raised eyebrows of people like MKBHD. Amazon may have been screwing people out of tens of billions of dollars by secretly rigging auctions. The Abdul-Elsaid, CBS News cable, as the internet divided and even more skeptical on if they could trust mainstream news. And you've got this new bombshell claim from a whistleblower about the USPS and how millions of mail-in ballots could be caught in the crossfire derailing the midterm elections. We're talking about all of that and even more. And today's brand new, Philip DeFranco, show you daily died into the news starting with this. We've got to talk about this insane Markiplier GoPro situation because it is bigger and weirder than a lot of people realize, because if you didn't know GoPro, which is largely known as the action camera company, they haven't been doing so hot. Red and you, profits, camera sales, all down significantly, they're losing money, they recently caught almost a quarter of their workforce. The stock has dropped over 55% this year, more than 90% over the past five years, and it put it at risk of falling off the Nasdaq. The company's total value went from a peak of $11 billion in 2014 to around $100 million give or take. You had an auditor even saying there was substantial doubt about the company's ability to survive the next 12 months. Then, yesterday happened. All of a sudden, you see the stock explode by more than 128% in a single day, and the only thing that had really changed publicly was this little report from Bloomberg that revealed the identity of the company's now single biggest investor, Markiplier, where they're ultimately getting a hold of an 8.5% stake in GoPro. So immediately seeing this, I reached out to Markiplier, and among other things that we talked about, he explained why he thought that it was undervalued. I figured that what the market cap said it was is undervalued simply by the name. They are literally the Kleenex of cameras because people will colloquially call an action cam, a GoPro, even if it's not that brand. So I just assumed from that alone they had value, but I knew that they were up to something. It seems horribly ignorant of me to say that I accidentally got to where I am, but there was no intention to get to this point where I have to submit paperwork and say, "I am a blah, blah owner of this company. I had never done that for any company before." It was just, you know, I really believed in it, and I was like, "This seems like a good investment," and then I learned what a 13G was, and I'm like, "Oh, God, I have to file with the SEC. Oh, God." And when you invested, I believe, did you file as kind of a passive investor? Yeah. So 13G, 13D. 13G is passive with no intention of having influence over the company. 13D is like, "I want to say in this," and it's like, "I would rather stick as a 13G," because, you know, I don't think you would even be able to say anything about the company if you were 13D and had, like, insider information. Ransomark, he appears to believe, at least to some degree, in the company, he's used GoPro cameras, or some of his YouTube videos, he's shot the book, "Pine the Scenes," or his debut film, "Iron Long On One," right? He's clearly a fan of the company. I mean, I'm not trying to be a pie in the sky optimistically. Oh, they could have had his, like, "Look, they released their financials, you know, I definitely looked at it, but, you know, sometimes you guys swing for the senses, and I think that this is an example of GoPro doing that with the mission one. That is a swing for the fences. That's, like, going all out on a camera, and it actually is legitimately great." But also, while you had many, you know, excited buy or amused by Markiplier, you know, throwing himself into the space like this, you also had the news of his investment rubbing some people the wrong way. And part of that reaction appears to be connected to how a few days ago before this report came out that he was investing, and before the spike in the stock price, Markiplier put out a video, hyping up GoPro's new camera. Right? It's called the ILS Mission One. It's tiny. It's relatively or comparatively cheap, like 700 bucks minus any extra equipment, and you've got GoPro marketing it as a cinema camera, suggesting that you could use it as your movies, which of course appeals to Markiplier now that he's a filmmaker. And so in this video, you had Mark comparing it favorably to the Red Comodo X, which cost seven grand for the camera, and thousands more for the lens and other equipment. So this can shoot 6K resolution. That can shoot 8K, and that can shoot 8K 60. This can do 6K 80, I believe. This can do 4K 120 frames per second. That GoPro can do 4K 240 frames per second, and it looks amazing. You can see the speed difference between them. If slow motion is what you need, this at 1/10 the price is kicking this thing's ass. Sometimes this footage looks better. I'm not blowing smoke. I'm not paid to say that. But now you're seeing some people go, "Hey, you never disclosed in that video that you're a shareholder in the company." Or with people noting that while Mark said that the video was sponsored by GoPro, and you even had an affiliate link, it's some feeling like he wasn't transparent about how much money he stood to gain from promoting the camera. And among these apparent critics was one of the biggest tech YouTubers in the world, MKBHD or Mark Has Brown. Because you had Mark Has responding to the headline about Mark's investment with a screenshot from that sponsored video saying, "This is not a line I see crossed very often, but to each their own." And so I asked Mark what his reaction was to that and what's your reaction? I don't know actually. What is the line that's being crossed? I think for me, when I look at it, I believe very much in it, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. The accessibility that opens up, I want more people to make movies. I want more people to make YouTube videos. I want more people to make content that looks really good, learning to build the skills to be YouTubers. I'm not going to be a YouTuber forever. And the more I saw about the camera, I'm like, "Oh, this is actually something that I can use." And there's an opportunity here for me to tell people about it, because I think that it's a good entry point for cinematography that other companies just don't have. And a lot of people don't have access to. So the cinema market is a fundamentally different market from the action camera market. And it's one that those other companies don't have right now anyway. They probably will eventually, but they don't have a cinema line. And not many cameras do. And no camera does at this price point where it's actually like in the cinema camera style. This opens up a lot of possibilities for a lot of people. So me knowing cameras and knowing where it's useful, I'm like, "Oh, that is actually valuable." That's actually valuable. And you then had Markiplier adding that while there was a risk that he could lose his money here, there was also a chance that this could open the door to more people making cool content. So it was a risky city was willing to take on. And you also had him saying that even though the filing went through before his video about the ILS went live, it wasn't something that GoPro asked him to make or even knew about. I don't even know if GoPro was aware that I was an investor because it's like, "That's just file with the SEC." Apparently, when you buy stocks, the company doesn't know who's buying it until they publicly disclose through one of those forms. And then he also added that he used what tools were available to let people know that there was some sort of money element for him here. But I've said sponsorship from the beginning because I wanted to imply that I had some monetary gain behind it. I do not know the exact rules for with which I need to disclose. And I want to make that very clear. I asked the lawyers and they said there was no need to do that. But I put sponsorship anyway in there because I wanted to imply that I had a financial gain to it. There is no box in YouTube to say, "I am partially invested in this company. The only box to check is I have paid product placement in there." And that puts a disclosure in the beginning of the video. And that's what I have. So there might be. I do not know. I feel like I did as much as I should have done. But then this morning, the story gets even crazy because you had GoPro announcing a merger with Starman Optical Inc. And then this private optical photonics company with GoPro's press release saying there would be an aggregate cash payment of $285 million or $1.14 per share to the GoPro shareholders. Or which is notable because before they put a hold on things to make this announcement, it was trading at roughly $1.50. So that's going to be very interesting to see what that means with the shareholders who jumped on after-mark. And actually, I reached back out to Mark today and he didn't have much more information than what was in the press release. A lot of people would say, "I never spoke to anyone higher up at GoPro." Never talked to Nick. Had no idea about this happening. It is just such a hilarious coincidence that all this happens right at the same time. I don't know what the financial situation was and necessitated this and the urgency there of. I think I don't know if Nick Woodman was in the shower this morning looking at the stock prices biting a towel and crying, you know, just like, "Oh, was I too earthly on this?" But then even beyond the money, there was other stuff to talk about because GoPro also said that they're moving into the AI space with this merger. And more specifically, the large and rapidly growing market for AI infrastructure and optical transceivers. And with this, I went on to explain the reported plans to Mark who appeared to be receiving this information for the first time. The syn gadget article is now saying GoPro is also planning to push into defense, government, robotics, and aerospace sectors bolstered by the combined companies, IP optics, and imaging. You might be part defense contractor now. Uh-oh. You know, as someone who went to engineering school, it's like that's where a lot of engineers reluctantly end up working for some part of the military industrial complex. And somehow I've escaped engineering school and circled right back into it. I want to hold on just because I want to believe that the cameras will still continue. That's what I think was important for this year, especially in terms of independent filmmaking and people getting started into it, I hope that the cameras continue. And so for now, we're going to have to wait to see what happens, right? The company is still going to remain public with shareholders continuing to own about 10% of it. And as a recording, now that things are unhaulted, though again, things are going to be moving shares right now, trading it around a buck 20, but definitely crazy news in general. Very crazy 36 hours. And while we wait to see what happens, I would love to know your thoughts in those comments down below. And then actually, shifting gears from that, we've got to talk about this Abdul al-Sahed situation. But first, two quick things. I'm going to be in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver, not this, but next weekend. And I'd love to see a beautiful face and crash out together. Just got back from our fantastic Boston and Philadelphia shows, hence also my voice. There's good times, meet and greets, exclusive merch, and you can get your tickets for those cities and dates, or even more at crashingouttour.com. I'll put a link in the description and the top comment for you. And then two, we're going to dive into some more news right after a quick word from the sponsor. You know, when I'm hiring, the people who stand out to me, they're the ones who clearly put thought into why they want to be involved. Because I want this job and I actually understand what you're building. Those are two very different things. And I've had people reach out for opportunities who didn't just send a resume. 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Four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. So try it free today at ziprecruiter.com/defranko. That ziprecruiter.com/defranko. ziprecruiter meet your match on ziprecruiter. But then, Devon, right back into the news, we've got to talk about this very wise Abdul El-Sahead scandal. Or because it all started with an article that CBS News published yesterday resurfacing old tweets El-Sahead had written, referencing 9/11. Or because both the leave line of that story and the tweet sharing it online said, as the nation prepares to mark 25 years in September 11th, 2001, Abdul El-Sahead, the Democratic nominee for US Senate and Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack. And that ended up rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, with many arguing that CBS's language insinuated that El-Sahead, who was a teenager at the time of the attacks, was somehow involved in or tied to 9/11. With many arguing that this is an especially Islamophobic narrative to push, because if elected, he would be the first Muslim senator. And he would some lawmakers slamming the story, writing, "What an insane, blatantly racist headline, unreal, and CBS News shame on you, targeting a duel like this is intentional and coordinated, disgusting." And as for what's in the article itself, that also faced a ton of criticism. Or because just by the third paragraph, you had it focused on El-Sahead campaigning with and then distancing himself from Hassan Pike. Or before then, bring up two tweets El-Sahead deleted from 2020 and 2021. With the first being from early in the COVID pandemic, as El-Sahead was previously a public health official. And so at one point, after the COVID death toll surpassed the death toll of 9/11, he compared the number of lives lost and then later wrote about the response, saying, "That means we'll spend the next 10 years fighting a war of Republic health and against poverty, like we launched a global war on terror after 9/11." And to another post on the anniversary of 9/11, he wrote, "Today I mourn the 3000 lives, 6000 injuries, an infrastructural devastation in New York City, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my fate. Tomorrow I'll mourn one million lives, millions of injuries, an infrastructural devastation in three countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country." And while CBS focused on just those deleted tweets, specifically, it's also worth noting that every single post to his from before July of 2023 has been deleted. And you would have spokesperson for his campaign previously saying they purge those old posts to prevent them from being taken out of context. But still, you had CBS singling out just a couple of them. And you then have the article describing him as someone who, quote, "aposed American wars and capitalized on anger over anti-Arab sentiment in a state with a robust and active Muslim community." And they're reporting didn't do much to ease the backlash, with people think that it was bizarre for CBS to put out a whole hit piece about these posts. And because when it comes to COVID, El Sayed was far from the only person comparing the death toll to 9/11. And as far as the other post, many just think that he can grieve the lives lost on 9/11 while also condemning the war that followed. And actually, in response to all this, you had El Sayed telling CBS, I think all of us look back and say 9/11 was an awful thing that happened in this country. And I think all of us also look back and say, think about all the wars that were fought and how much safer do we feel like they made us. My point is just to say that what happened on 9/11 is a disaster. It was a terrible attack on our country. And our responsibility is also to think about how do we build in America where we are protecting our servicemen and women from being asked to fight wars. We have no business fighting that ultimately end up doing harm to people. But then you also saw the outrage around this getting even bigger when status reported that Barry Weiss, the right, the controversial editor and chief of CBS News, directed that the headline be tweaked to reference 9/11. And while she reportedly praised the story in front of the entire network during an editorial meeting, other staffers at the outlet apparently do not agree with status claiming that many employees viewed the story with disdain believing it served as yet another blemish calling into question the organization's objectivity under new ownership. Because as we've covered in detail, there's been a ton of backlash should things that are happening at CBS News ever since the merger that put David Ellison in charge. For people of you, I'm just as this major suck up to Trump, whether it be because of his father's ties to the administration or because he wants to get even more acquisitions approved. And not only was his choice to hire Barry in the first place controversial, she's been accused of pulling stories that paint the Trump administration in a bad light. Now, his status explained this is just the latest incident where CBS has gone out of its way to report critically on democratic Muslim public figures, reclaiming among other things that the outlet's been combative in its coverage on Zoraan Mamdan. And regarding this story on El Sayed, you had one former senior staff for telling status that the story is shameful and the racism is overt. To the outlet adding, it's difficult to imagine CBS News treating El Sayed's post as a major story if they have been written by a non-Muslim candidate saying he didn't praise the 9/11 attackers, minimize the horror of the terrorist attacks or promote conspiracy theories as to what happened that day. But also say this CBS report isn't the only case where El Sayed's older marks are causing controversy. Right, earlier this year, you had a man driving a truck into a synagogue near Detroit while preschool was in session and an attack described as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. In the suspect, apparently it had recently lost family members during an Israeli air strike in Lebanon. And at the time, you had El Sayed calling the attack heinous and praising the security who stopped the suspect from doing anything further, but he also said, "As an epidemiologist, I've spent my career studying the worst things that happened to people to understand how to stop them from happening. And I'll never forget one of the simplest lessons I learned while on my psychiatry rotation in medical school, hurt people, hurt people." And you would some here thinking that by saying hurt people, hurt people, he was expressing sympathy for the perpetrator. And actually, over the weekend, El Sayed apologized for this, saying that his attempts to contextualize violence were not appropriate and adding, "I made a mistake, I should have issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop." They're saying Republicans thinking that this is an opportunity, and in fact, you had JD Vance bring it up again yesterday, saying, "There's something about Abdul El Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today. And it's people who see themselves not as citizens of a combination, fighting for every single person, whether they're Jewish or Christian, whether they're white or black or brown, but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others." And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America. Branson now, you have a ton of headlines saying JD Vance called El Sayed evil. The wall so we'll see how long those stick around because Vance is now also making headlines for a different reason, because what appears to be leaked audio, Vance talking to a gathering of Jewish donors and activists came out, and reportedly Vance, quote, "Defended his engagement with influencers whom Mr. Coleman, the coalition's chairman, characterizes having platformed anti-semitism." With Vance saying, "A lot of people in this room are going to disagree with things that Tucker Carlson or Megan Kellier, Joe Rogan, have said." But with using Rogan as an example, he argued that, quote, "The best approach is to actually go in there and talk to him and make the argument as best as you can." Which I will say is interesting that the media is not then immediately jumping on a one to two week news cycle of saying that JD Vance needs to denounce any and all of those people. Branson, apparently, that's the new meta, right? And actually, while I'm saying that sarcastically, because the media does not treat everyone the same and there's some fuckery afoot right now. In that New York Times article, they actually published a statement from Nick Fuentes in response to JD Vance. With Fuentes saying, JD Vance panders to the far right, but simply doesn't want the baggage of associating with the far right. And saying, "If he has a problem with anti-semit, then he should start by disavowing his best friend Tucker Carlson." But then also, while you have that playing out, there is actually a thing that Republicans and Democrats do agree on right now, and that is that Amazon sucks. Because you've got the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 22 states suing Amazon over what they say was a secret scheme to inflate ad prices, where with a lawsuit filed on Monday and a federal court, Seattle, where Amazon's based and it accuses the company of sneakily increasing ad prices for more than a million brands and sellers over a seven-year period, potentially extracting tens of billions of dollars from advertising customers. And these customers include over half a million small and medium-sized businesses that bid for ad placements on Amazon.com and the mobile app. And a key thing at the center of this 181-page complaint is a hidden, soft reserve price. Basically, if the FTC said that Amazon secretly set a higher minimum price for ads and had advertisers paying more than they realized they needed to, and actually to kind of zoom out for a second to explain how all this works, Amazon sells its ads using auctions, which is the industry standard. And prospective advertisers bid to a place sponsored product ad, sponsored brand ads, and display ads next to the results that appear when shop research for products. But then here's where things get interesting. Amazon allegedly told advertisers that they would only pay one cent more than the second place bid. And so if you were willing to pay 10 bucks for an ad placement and that the next high bid are offered $7, you should theoretically be paying $701. But thing is, according to the FTC, advertisers have been paying their own bid about 80% of the time, turning what was supposed to be a second price auction into a first price auction, all without customers knowledge or consent. And so then the question is, well, why does the distinction matter so much? And well, that's because it totally affects how advertisers bid. In a first price auction, you know you're going to pay for what you bid, so you would typically bid lower to avoid overpaying. The mindset there is how low can I bid and still win? Whereas in a second price auction, you're likely to bid a little higher because you're expecting to pay what the next high bid offers. And so if these FTC allegations are true, I mean, people have been competing in super rigged auctions. And actually, according to the complaint, senior executives at Amazon were actively concealing the real pricing system from its advertisers, giving false and misleading answers to advertisers who asked the company directly if it had changed its auction format. And then you have the chairman of the FTC saying in a statement, "When one of the world's largest online retailers engages in unfair and deceptive conduct, the impact can be staggering," saying Amazon has millions of advertising customers who were misled into paying significantly higher prices and saying a very key thing of why this matters to you, these higher costs were largely passed on to American consumers. So with all this, you have Amazon denying the claims. In a blog post, you have the company responding by calling the FTC's lawsuit misguided and saying that it fundamentally misunderstands how advertisers operate. But they say there has actually become more effective over the years and that the average cost per click of its ads remained flat when adjusted for inflation, claiming the complaint cites no evidence of consumer price increases. But also, at the same time, Amazon's own internal documents cited in the lawsuit do appear to support the FTC's allegations. Right, one Amazon executive quoted in the complaint said that the employees discuss raising prices while, quote, "hoping that advertisers don't notice and decrease bids or ad spend." And employees also quoted as saying that the system is good for Amazon because advertisers must pay more for the same advertising and the benefits Amazon comes at the cost of advertisers. Plus, the complaint includes studies and tests where Amazon teams tested how much they could manipulate the bidding system to make more money. And as California's attorney general Rob Bonta put it, "Amazon has taken many steps to hide this scheme because as employees have admitted internally, it knows how it's going to work." knows it creates an irrevocable damage to advertiser trusts, words straight from an Amazon employee. And while right now, we don't know how much money and damages the FTC in states are seeking from Amazon. You did have Pennsylvania AG Dave Sunday saying in a statement that he's hopeful the lawsuit will provide restitution payments to the sellers affected by this alleged scheme. And New York AG Letitia James also said that the FTC in states are seeking a court order to bar Amazon from continuing the illegal scheme and to make them pay penalties, restitution, and other damages. Also it feels necessary to point out that this is not the first time that Amazon Space accusations will call it "sust tactics" or they've been the target of several federal lawsuits recently. And in fact about a year ago, they paid a $2.5 billion settlement to resolve a lawsuit over their prime membership program or with the U.S. government saying that they contends to millions of people into paying for subscriptions that were intentionally hard to cancel. In 2023, they also paid $30 million to settle the FTC's allegations of privacy violations involving its voices to stand on Alexa and doorbell camera ring. And then also, I almost forgot this, and in other cases, going to trial later this year, they were accused of being a monopolist that suffocates competitors and raises costs for both sellers and shoppers. And that last one's important to keep in mind because, in addition to this latest lawsuit, where we saw backlash including Amazon shares falling 2.5% after the news broke, this is also sparked an interesting conversation around the fact that Amazon really has no competition. Right, it is incredibly difficult for businesses to avoid the platform if they want to reach those millions of users. And so even if people in businesses feel like they are being majorly scammed or have been, they're probably going to keep buying ad space on the site. And so it appears to be another example of what happens when one company has too much power. We're going to have to wait to see how things play out. And then, from that, we've got to talk about this crazy mail-in voting situation, but first, a quick word from our sponsor. It's kind of insane how many companies know something about you just because you gave them your email address once. Or you buy something, sign up for an app, join a mailing list, and suddenly, your inbox has become a pretty detailed record of what you do online. Or which is why I like today's sponsor, Proton Mail. Privacy is an extra feature for that, and it's basically the entire point. Proton Mail is a free email service built around protecting your information rather than using your inbox to build an advertising profile. With zero access encryption, your emails are protected so that even Proton can't read them. It also blocks email trackers, but default may get harder for companies to quietly monitor your activity. And one of the really nice things is you're not trading convenience or privacy. 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Right, those are the exact words in this absolutely explosive federal whistleblower report alleging that the U.S. Postal Service has been secretly rushing to implement Trump's executive order on mail-in voting. And that is despite the fact that there is literally a court order blocking those plans and that mail-in voting for midterm elections officially starts this week. And in case you're coming into this kind of cold, some background to bring you up to speak. Trump signs an executive order back in March directing his administration to create a national list of citizens in mandate that the U.S.P.S. only send ballots to the people on that list. So then, a bunch of states sued, and in June, you had a federal judge in Massachusetts blocking the order from taking effect. Ruling that Trump's actions were unconstitutional and arguing that the U.S.P.S. didn't have the power to determine which voters should receive ballots. But then, as we talked about last week, the Supreme Court gave Trump a major win and struck down the federal judge's ruling, which effectively cleared the way for the administration to move forward with its plans. Though, very notably, the court did not actually rule on the legality of the executive order. They just said that it was too early for the states to bring a lawsuit because the administration hadn't started implementing its plans. But, just a few days before the Supreme Court ruling, the U.S.P.S. formally published its new plans to comply with Trump's order, so the same federal judge in Massachusetts issued a new order on Thursday, temporarily blocking that rule from being enacted, arguing that changing the rules two months before election date would cause widespread chaos. Now, this new whistleblower report, which was published by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, claims that the Postal Service has been actively defying those court orders almost the entire time. And specifically, you have this federal employee claiming that the agency was working to implement a new online portal where state election officials submit absentee voters' names and ballot envelope barcodes before they can send those ballots out to the voters. Now, notably here, the report says that they were initially told the project was going to be stopped after the initial federal court order back in June. But just a few weeks later, the project was suddenly resumed without explanation of what authority permitted U.S.P.S. to ignore the court order. And that's incredibly significant because the Trump administration openly said that they had stopped working on that particular part of the executive order after the federal ruling. And then, even beyond that, the U.S.P.S. still kept working on the online portal even after the federal judge once again blocked them from doing so in a ruling last Thursday. And also, the open defiance of court orders, that's not even the most insane and terrifying thing in this report, which also hearing those words coming out of my mouth is a scary fucking sentence. But no, the scariest part of all of this is the fact that there are a ton of incredibly alarming problems with the portal. And I'm not talking about like a couple of small bugs. I'm talking about massive systemic democracy-destroying problems. Right, specifically, you have the whistleblower alleging that the whole process of creating and implementing the portal was, quote, "secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed." And adding that the system was entirely new and untested. And there were a ton of different red flags outlined in the nearly 20-page report. Among other things, you had the requirements constantly changing, developer teams being separated and not communicating with each other, individual parts of the software weren't being sufficiently tested before being combined, and in general, there was widespread confusion among workers. You've got the whistleblower alleging that the project's development deviates dangerously from even the most basic software development best practices. And meanwhile, developers were under a massive rush to make the system public by September 1st, right today, with the report explicitly stating that IT workers felt that even if they could get the portal together in time, there wouldn't be enough time to test and fix any issue that would inevitably arise in customer testing. I mean, the whistleblower even explicitly said that a project of this magnitude would normally take nine months to a year or more, but leadership forced them to do it in just three months. But there was one major flaw with the central aspect of the system, and this is kind of the most important thing here. Right, the disclosure, it says that the Postal Service has secretly adopted an internal policy that has the potential to blow up the entire mail-in voting system. And under that policy, in order for the Postal Service to verify the mail-in ballots that states want to send out, they left it scan barcodes on a sample of envelopes to make sure that they match the information in the new portal. But if they find even one mismatch, they're refused to accept the entire batch of ballots. And so that would mean that if there's a single mismatch in a sample of 10,000 ballots, it would prevent the other 9,999 ballots from being mailed until the discrepancies resume. And a key thing here is this 0% failure policy hasn't been made public at all with the report alleging that the administration has hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters. But at this point of failure, it's absolutely massive. As you have the whistleblower explaining, even under normal circumstances, this would be problematic because of predictable errors in any barcode scanning process. But because the system was designed in such a sloppy and rushed manner, there's a much higher risk that it will contribute to failures in the verification process. According to the whistleblower, state election officials will be required to resolve any errors identified by the portal, and USPS will refuse to accept the ballot batch again until the whistle-called errors are resolved. And so as a result, the process could delay ballots by the thousands in repeated verification cycles. And thus, prevent states from mailing enormous numbers of ballots, warning that, quote, "potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all." Are giving it the risky and app hazard development of the project could result in catastrophic failure, which could derail the midterm elections. But according to Blumenthal, the senator who released this report, if the poorly made portal mistakenly marks a ballot is unbearified, there's no clear process for state election officials of voters to challenge the rejection. So this could be an absolutely monumental problem that could disenfranchise countless voters, especially in states with some of the most competitive races that will determine control of not only Congress, but also many state governments. But at least as a recording, we have no idea the status of this portal, right? It was supposed to be released today, but lawyers for the whistleblower say it's unclear if that's still the plan. So we end up just having no fucking idea if they're moving ahead with this plan. And that's even though officials in North Carolina are set to start mailing ballots on Friday and other states, they're scheduled to follow suit in the coming days and weeks. And of course, hypothetically, legal challenges could prevent it from being used. You also have the USPS clearly ignoring court orders, literally blocking them from doing this in the first place. And unfortunately, the Trump administration has shown time and time again that the rule of law literally means nothing to them, especially when it interferes with their efforts to undermine elections and further the collapse of American democracy. But on that, shill and shipper note, it actually brings us to the end of today's Tuesday show. Thank you for being a part of another daily dive in the news together. I'd also, I will say, love to hear from you on anything that stood out to you today in those comments. Got more for you to watch right here, but whatever you do, no, my name's been Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.