The Secret $50M Plot They Don't Want You Talking About

FanDuel is now available everywhere in the U.S. ♪ I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere, man. ♪ So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are. Including these places. ♪ I've been to Georgia, Houston, Cleveland, Minnesota, Buffalo, Lincoln, Chi-Town, Arizona, Tampa. ♪ Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See FanDuel.com for eligibility. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. We need to talk about how Trump's Iran problem just got so big, Alex Jones is openly talking about how to stop him, and people are diving into Israel's $50 million experiment to change U.S. public opinion. Also, eBay is shelling out $50 million over one of the wildest corporate stalking campaigns you'll ever see. We go inside the hidden brain injury crisis in the Coast Guard that seemingly nobody saw coming. And after a mother of three killed her three kids, you have the trial hinging on one question: Is she actually responsible, or was it her mental illness? We're breaking down all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco Show. You daily dive into the news starting with this. We need to talk about Lindsey Clancy. Because in January of 2023, while her husband was running errands, picking up dinner, she strangled her five-year-old, three-year-old, and eight-month-old child. And that then led to a suicide attempt that didn't kill her, but left her paralyzed. And the reason that we're talking about this now is because she is now on trial, and there's a lot of talk about what's happening so far. In the opening statements of the trial, you had prosecutors arguing that this was a carefully planned killing, that she intentionally plotted to get her husband out of the house beforehand, with the assistant DA saying, "The defendant made a calculated decision. The evidence in this case will prove beyond a reasonable doubt. That this defendant coldly and efficiently executed first Dawson, then Cora, and finally Callen. She did so with no hesitation, with deliberate premeditation, and extreme atrocity and cruelty." But according to her lawyers, she had bipolar disorder and an overall deteriorating mental state following the birth of her third child that only got worse with a laundry list of medications that she was prescribed. And saying that it all reached a peak on that night when voices kept telling her, "This is your last chance. Kill your children so you can kill yourself." Also, Clancy was actually a labor and delivery nurse herself, and she had dealt with some anxiety with the births of her first two kids. But they say that what she suffered after having a third child was incredibly severe. And when people say that she was given a laundry list of medications, I mean that in the four months leading up to the deaths of her kids, she was given 13 psychiatric medications from multiple providers. In fact, there were over 30 prescriptions issued between September of 2022 and January of 2023. And they included Zoloft, Ativan, Benadryl, Prozac, Ambien, Klonopin, Valium, Seroquel, Trazodone, and more. She had also checked into a psychiatric hospital and was discharged 19 days before she killed her kids. And actually, now both she and her now ex, they filed lawsuits over the treatment that she received, alleging that clinicians didn't properly monitor her reactions to those drugs or attend to her worsening condition, and that in the month before the killings, she reported panic, insomnia, numbness, suicidal ideation, and a fear that something awful might happen. And you had them claiming that all of that led to a male voice telling her she should die, that this is her last chance, and that her children would suffer if she was gone. And you had her then-husband Patrick testifying in court this week saying that Lindsay told him about her mental health struggles, including intrusive thoughts of harming herself and the kids. And then he also said that no one ever said that she shouldn't be alone with those kids. And added, "I didn't know what psychosis was until after this happened." And in court, some of the most devastating moments actually came from his testimony as he revealed that he thought Lindsay was actually having a good day before he came home to this worst case scenario. - How was Lindsay's mood? - She seemed happy. She was having one of her best days. - One of her best days? - Everybody's saying she'd been playing outside with the kids, building a snowman, but then the jurors, they also heard just the chilling 911 call that he initially phoned in after discovering Lindsay's suicide attempt, right? And then he said he was gonna go check on the kids, but what followed was sobbing, screaming, and crying before he told the dispatcher that she had killed them. But then also, something key to this whole situation is that before this trial, Patrick actually spoke in defense of Lindsay, saying that he believes this only happened because of her illness. "Previously, riding my family was the best thing that ever happened to me. Lindsay has recently been portrayed largely by people who have never met her and never knew who the real Lindsay was. Our marriage was wonderful and diametrically grew stronger as her condition rapidly worsened. I took as much pride in being her husband as I did in being a father and felt persistently lucky to have her in my life," and adding, "I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay as I have. The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone, me, our kids, family. The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace." And while you have the prosecutors insisting that this case is about Lindsay herself, not about postpartum health, it has led to a ton of conversations about postpartum psychosis and how little we might understand it. Right, because while it often gets lumped in with postpartum depression, it is a very different illness, and it's actually much rarer and far more severe. It comes with delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, extreme insomnia, and way more. And while, of course, postpartum depression and anxiety, they are serious, they require help and treatment and compassion, you also had one counselor telling USA Today that psychosis is considered a true medical emergency needing immediate attention. And that's as it might not always be obvious, right? You had one perinatal psychiatrist writing for "Time" magazine saying, "It waxes and wanes so a mother can appear happy, intact, and even functional, which is what makes it so dangerous. Her clinical picture can shift hour to hour. A psychotic mother may believe others would stop her if they knew her plan to harm herself or her baby, but the voices in her head are still telling her to act." And you had that psychiatrist also writing that the illness might be rising. Right, in a recent eight-week stretch, 6% of their postpartum patients met the criteria for a psychotic disorder. That is almost six times higher than the rates published in medical literature. And this is something that can happen to anyone, even though it's often linked to bipolar disorder, roughly half of the women who develop postpartum psychosis have no prior psychiatric history. Also, I'll say, sleep deprivation can be a huge risk factor, with Time noting that there is a reason that it has been used as a form of torture. And now with this trial, you had the New York Times explaining, "The killings and resulting murder charges have revived a long running debate about how the legal system should treat mentally ill mothers who kill their children." Because even though awareness around postpartum illness, it's grown in recent years, currently, Illinois is actually the only state with a law specifically allowing for these disorders to be a mitigating factor in sentencing. And so that's why you had one attorney telling the AP that the verdict is going to come down to how the jury saw her intent versus her mental capacity and dadding. Whenever there are deaths of children, it rattles emotions. Some people naturally will identify and sympathize with Clancy and her postpartum depression, and others will not be able to understand how one could end their children's lives and demand responsibility. This current case brings back up an old case that happened back in 2001. And that's because in Texas, you had this mom who drowned her five kids because she thought that it was going to save them from hell. And you had her lawyers similarly arguing that she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis. And she actually got her initial murder conviction overturned and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. And what you're seeing in Lindsey's case is that if she was convicted, she faces life in prison. And if she's found not guilty, she'd go to a state mental health facility. And so while we wait to see how all this plays out, I really would, I'm so interested to know your thoughts on this specific case and cases like this in general. Next up from that, let's jump to a very different kind of story. And it actually starts with a question, which is, have you ever been doom scrolling in the darkest bowels of Twitter and thought, you know what this really needs? Banking services. Or because if you have, great news for you. Elon Musk just launched XMoney, which is a broader part of his effort to make X an everything platform where people can use it like social media, shop, and bank all in one horrible place. Maybe one day we'll even get gambling. You can bet the over under on how many non-consensual AI deep fakes you come across in the next 30 minutes. But specifically XMoney is a bank account adjacent product. It lets users make deposits, send money to each other, transfer funds, pay bills, and even more. And you'll be given a physical Visa debit card emblazoned with your Twitter handle that'll provide 3% cash back on eligible purchases and fee free ATM withdrawals worldwide. Now, very notably here, this is not actually its own new bank. The platform uses embedded banking and tech infrastructure from Cross River Bank. Right now, it's only available to people who pay for premium or premium plus subscriptions. Though I will say there have also been some reports that X intends to expand access to more people at a later date. And also you're seeing some weirdness with the reporting somehow, let's say, that XMoney is currently invite only. Others claim that exclusivity was just for the beta version. But regardless, you do have a number of experts saying that this product could be genuinely competitive. Right, for one thing, it offers an enticing 6% yield on deposits for premium plus members. So it appears that regular premium members will need to deposit at least $1,000 before they can access that rate. Additionally, XMoney deposits are FDIC insured, which is a benefit that's not offered to more traditional peer-to-peer platforms like Venmo or PayPal, meaning that funds stored on those apps carry insolvency risks. And then of course, there is the huge structural advantage that comes with delivering a product to 4.4 million pre-existing paid subscribers. And of course, that's not even considering the potentially hundreds of millions of more users, depending on whether there are major expansions in the future. There is just an inherent built-in distribution advantage that this app has. That said, there are a number of pretty major red flags. For one, we've already seen multiple reports that XMoney only has money transmitter licenses to operate in 40 or 41 different states, but that excludes New York and Massachusetts, which are two of the biggest financial markets in the country. So that'd make it pretty hard for the platform to be a significant disruptor. And actually with this, you had Ars Technica reporting that in late 2024, they withdrew its application for a money transmitter license in New York, seemingly after a law firm warned banking regulators that the company was unfit to process payments and should be investigated over its alleged troubling and deep ties to Saudi Arabia. But then when we looked at XMoney's list of licenses, it appeared that New York was on there. And in fact, we only counted three states that the company didn't list licenses for, though Massachusetts was one of them, right? And that could have something to do with the fact that Senator Elizabeth Warren has fought against this plan fiercely. Are you writing a letter earlier this year warning that X cannot be trusted to handle the responsibilities that come with this platform, arguing that the company failed to prevent abuses and fraud or protect user privacy? And they're noting that the platform has failed to adequately address rampant pornography and the circulation of child sexual abuse material, while also allowing sanctioned terrorist actors to pay for accounts. But also very notably, Warren also pointed out XMoney's main partner, Cross River Bank, was subject to "serious enforcement action by federal regulators in 2023 for unsafe and unsound practices related to fair lending." And then adding that the same bank also faced federal enforcement action in 2018 for unfair and deceptive practices. And then it also doesn't end there. You have some analysts arguing that unless X dramatically expands the support teams that Musk has cut, this new venture isn't at all equipped to handle the customer service demands that come with money management and banking. Right, noting that most banks, they have huge teams to manage disputes and fraud and ensure that customers do not get cut off from their money. And actually on that note, there's a big lack of clarity, we'll call it, around how people will have access to their money under certain circumstances. And so for example, an FAQ on the website for XMoney seems to indicate that users could lose their funds entirely if they don't report unauthorized transactions quickly enough, though it also doesn't seem to define how long that would be. Also, you've got Some outlets reporting that the company hasn't published a specific policy outlining what would happen to a user's money if their social media account on Twitter is suspended, restricted, or permanently banned. Does that seem like it could be a huge hole? And then of course, there's just the Elon Musk of it all. Right, since you've had him taking over, X has become kind of a cesspool of controversy, questionable data practices, privacy violations, fraud, and so many other problems. All of which has been further politicized by Musk's specific brand of alt-right ideology. Meanwhile, you have traditional banks and peer-to-peer platforms that have spent years building up infrastructure to handle disputes, fraud remediation, and customer service in general. And so one of the biggest questions is, will people trust Elon Musk with their money? And not in like a, I'll buy his stock sort of way, but literally his company holding your money. And well for me, that's a fucking hard pass. He does have a cult of personality and there is gonna be support there. And then there's more that we're gonna dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, let's be honest. 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Call 1-800-GAMBLER. - Having right back into the news, we need to talk about Trump's war with Iran again, because it is widening once again, the potential economic fallout, it's somehow growing even more massive, and the situation is ultimately so out of control that you might find yourself agreeing with far-right conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones. All while you have the guy who seems to be the leading skeptic of the war within the White House, Vice President, J.D. Vance, apparently getting a talking to from Bibi Netanyahu. And actually, let's start there, because while Trump's apparent clashes with Netanyahu has gotten a lot of attention, and I say apparent clashes because he's still largely just letting him do what he wants, the divide between Vance and the Israeli prime ministry, that seems to run deeper. You have a situation where it's known that Vance has been less than enthusiastic about the war, just, you know, from the very beginning, though he supported it publicly. And as far back as March, he expressed his frustration with Netanyahu directly, or with him reportedly pointing out over the phone several of Netanyahu's predictions about the war that have proved far too optimistic, especially one that the Iranian people would rise up and overthrow the regime. Then in early June, you had him saying that Netanyahu had certainly gotten some things wrong in an interview with CBS. And then after the administration signing of a now dead deal with Iran, he issued a public warning to members of Netanyahu's government who were criticizing the agreement. - Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world. - And so with all that, you have some advances orbit reportedly coming to believe that Israelis are so pissed off that they're running an influence operation that is specifically aimed at smearing the vice president's name. And so for example, you had one Vance ally telling the Washington Post that it was obvious to anyone with an IQ above 70, that a barrage of online attacks against him has been totally inauthentic and probably coordinated to a certain extent. And there, you had him speaking about and specifically referring to a massive uptick in activity right after Vance appeared on Joe Rogan's show, where he said this. - I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal. There are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely. - And then fast forward to this week, and you had Netanyahu reportedly confronting Vance in a one-on-one meeting in Washington with one official saying the conversation was direct, another saying that it was frank and candid, and another saying it was good and honest. And that's as you also had Netanyahu speaking to ABC news about it and denying that anyone in the Israeli government was trying to manipulate public opinion. - I had a very good conversation with the vice president this morning. And I think we straightened that out because we're not, that's not our policy. Individuals in our system can have their opinions, but government policy is dictated by me. And that's not our policy. - But notably, while it's not clear that the aims are exactly as Vance or his allies have claimed, there is real evidence of Israeli-backed influence operations targeting Americans. We even had Vance himself referring to a Time Magazine story about a former Trump campaign official whose firm was paid $1.5 million a month to stop young conservatives from turning against Israel, as well as influence how AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude characterize Israel in the war. And then you also had the Wall Street Journal reporting earlier this month that the company's contract with the Israeli government was worth nearly $50 million. It also involves sending millions of AI-written texts to people all across the country. And then of course, in addition to that, the question of what kind of influence Israel has over the Trump administration specifically is a whole other question. Right, in the Rogan interview, Vance still claimed that Trump decided to start and continue the war completely separate from any influence from Israel. Right, and you're getting the same story from Netanyahu who told ABC that he defers to Trump. - We're partners, we're allies. He's the senior partner. It's the United States of America, let's not forget. - But then among those who disagree with his narrative and take are actually several influential former MAGA figures who have turned on Trump, at least temporarily. Or on a number of certain issues. Right, and that includes the likes of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones. Right, and Jones, while he no longer owns InfoWars because he lost that $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit, he is still around while the people from The Onion kind of make a mockery of everything that he is or was. And he's now also saying that Trump should be forced out of office because of the Iran war. - The big issue is how to stop Trump. And we have to have Congress go for the war powers. They've three times tried to vote war powers. They're supposed to authorize a war. This is a war. This is the draft ready. If this isn't a war, nothing's a war. I mean, this is absolutely out of control. And so I'm calling for it right now. 25th Amendment, impeachment, whatever needs to happen to get this front and center to get control of our country. - And while Jones went on to argue that they want total war as a pretext to strip our rights and take our freedoms, his basic point is that the situation is just out of control. And at least that part is very spot on. Right, since the start of the war and the near total lockdown of the Strait of Hormuz, several countries, but especially Saudi Arabia, have increasingly exported oil through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is this key waterway for cargo heading from the Red Sea to China and other countries in Asia. But now you've got the Houthis in Yemen targeting ships there and in the Red Sea, and this has caused a massive drop in the number of ships passing through. So the Saudis, they're already turning their ships away from the Bab al-Mandab. They're rerouting nearly half of the crude that they were exporting through the Red Sea north to the Suez Canal, which handles about 10% of all seaborne trade, not just oil. The only problem there is Egypt, right? The country that controls the Suez Canal. It just came under attack for the very first time since the war began in February, where you had a drone hitting a port near the canal that also happens to house a key liquefied natural gas hub and setting two ships on fire, including an American-owned gas storage tanker. And this came the same day that Saudi Arabia acknowledged direct involvement in the war for the very first time when it said it had joined the U.S. in attacking Iranian-backed militias in Iran. And you also had it coming a few days after Ukraine attacked an Iranian ship, prompting Iran to consider retaliatory strikes on a Ukrainian port. So what you have is just another example of how this war threatens to pull even more countries into the fight, though also this particular one, it could have especially devastating economic consequences. Because even though the attack didn't target the Suez Canal directly or even appear to disrupt traffic, it clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of this waterway and the potential of the widening war to further disrupt global treaty. And actually, according to Iranians who spoke with the New York Times, that was the intention. Though they didn't say whether Iran or one of its allies had carried out that strike. And while as of recording, no one's claimed responsibility there, Iran, they have claimed responsibility for other attacks. You've had them continuing to target ships that have tried to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without its permission. It's also launched strikes on an American air base in Kuwait, which state media claimed destroyed two drone hangars and a fuel depot with this coming only hours after Kuwait's government said a worker was killed in an earlier Iranian strike in the country's north. Also missiles and drones, they've been intercepted on their way to Jordan. And in response, you had US Central Command saying that they had completed another heavy wave of strikes on Iranian targets this morning. But then of course, that'll probably trigger another response and so on and so forth, and we'll see where we go. Right now, it appears to be in a circle with more bodies dropping here and there and money set on fire. Right, but then from that, let's talk about this other piece of news we should talk about today. And it's a story that's making waves in more than one way. Is there anything that looks more fun than this right here? Crashing through huge waves in a motorboat as the wind ripples your shirt and the seawater sprays your face? How about soaring through the sky at a fighter jet like Tom Cruise or firing a bazooka from your shoulder? - Secure! Morgan! - Well, as it turns out, all that fun has a hidden cost. Right, because all these weapons that the military depends on, grenades, tanks, artillery, anything that explodes, they're really fucking loud. And as we've talked about on the show before, when that percussive shockwave hits your ears, it doesn't just damage your hearing, it reaches your brain. And it's the same with fighter jets. All that catapulting from aircraft carriers, veering, sharp turns, diving at 100 miles an hour subjects your skull to intense G-forces. Now also, we know from concussions that people can recover within a matter of days or weeks. And then we also know, we've seen it with NFL players, that repeated trauma to the head over an entire career can result in permanent brain damage. And that's because our human brains have a consistency comparable to jello. And if you shake it around too much, the delicate threads holding it together begin to fray, which then leads to a bunch of fun stuff like depression, panic attacks, psychosis, violent outbursts, paranoia, you get it. And one of the times we talked about this in the past was a couple of years ago, because that was when the New York Times' Dave Phillips published an investigation into soldiers suffering from this. And what you had him finding was that their symptoms usually got misdiagnosed as PTSD, and many, they ended up homeless, at a psych ward, or dead from taking their own lives. And well now, Phillips' latest report found that the problem is even bigger than he initially knew. It's not just blast exposure or G-forces even jolting around in a vehicle does the same thing. And that implicates the U.S. Coast Guard, because like I showed you a minute ago, they've got these teams of elite rescuers called surfmen who drive these special boats called 47s because they're 47 feet long. And they just plow these things, the rolling surf, even waves as tall as 25 feet. It's designed to flip right side up, even if they capsize. And while it may look like fun, and I kind of want to do it, day after day doing this for 20 years, you're going to end up feeling the toll. And in fact, you had one surfman telling the Times, "A 20-foot wave breaking on you is like being in a car crash. If you were out training in big surf, that's like 20 car accidents a day." And another adding, "You do these surf drills, going through all these waves, and you feel like you have the worst hangover ever for three days." But also a hangover, it would be a completely different thing, right? You get some water, a big bowl of mac and cheese, maybe you're good. What happened with Brett Bonner, that's something completely different. Bonner is the main case study that Phillips examined, and his symptoms, they started early. First, he had trouble sleeping, and often woke up thrashing with disturbing dreams. So in 2009, the Coast Guard told him, "Hey, you've got PTSD. Here's a prescription for Zoloft. Now get back to work." But his symptoms only got worse expanding by 2013 to include headaches and sensitivity to bright lights and loud noises. Then in 2014, he began having panic attacks. So once again, you had doctors saying, "Hey, you've got an anxiety disorder. Here's a prescription for Effexor. Now get back to work." Then in 2015, he had what was called brain zaps. In 2016, he had a violent seizure. And even after a neurologist told him that it looked like his brain had suffered repeated concussions over a long period of time, nobody connected it to the boats. And by the time that he retired in 2022, it was just too late. But then he was ranting, screaming, getting violent, setting things on fire. And last year, he finally reached his breaking point you had him hurling arm loads of old Coast Guard manuals and CDs and his living room fire plays. And he walked outside and while on FaceTime with his wife and kids, he tragically took his own life. He went to his obituary explaining that he passed away after a long and courageous battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. But his daughter, Kaylee, she wasn't convinced. She thought, "Hey, it might have something to do with his career in the Coast Guard." And so for her senior year of high school research project, she sent questionnaires to 77 active and retired surfmen. And the responses she got back were shocking, right? Because while a few of them had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, a vast majority of them suffered from the symptoms. Headaches, memory lapses, cognitive problems, anxiety attacks, mood swings, and on and on. Now granted, it was one small survey from a high school student, so that's not exactly robust evidence. But one, the Times spoke to numerous people who described watching their fellow surfmen inexplicably falling apart mentally after years of service. And two, the fact that a high schooler asked these questions at all before anyone in the Coast Guard did is kind of a fucking problem. This branch has never studied the hazard that waves may pose to the brain and knows little about the force of the hits or the consequences of years of exposure. But also something fucking wild, NATO is is conducting a study of that problem across 15 countries and several Coast Guards have joined it, except, do you wanna guess which one? The fucking US Coast Guard. But as far as this NATO study, they put sensors on boats and crew members in the Swedish Navy. And actually what they showed was that the force of each wave hit was several times greater up at their heads than down at the decks. And even the lead researcher telling the Times, eventually we realized that the force of the heels hitting the deck travels up through the legs and spine and neck like the crack of a whip. But also, even if the US Coast Guard isn't aware of this, the US Navy definitely is. Because their own models already show that a wave hit that measures, say, six Gs on the deck, which is manageable, actually feels like 60 Gs up by the head, which, as the Times notes, is like a car crash. And in fact, they have known about this danger since at least 1994 when a Navy study put sensors on boats and found that crews experienced more than 120 whiplash events per hour. But for whatever reason, the Coast Guard just seems to be uniquely far behind in recognizing, nevermind solving, this huge problem. They've also not routinely tested for brain injuries. It hasn't given formal briefings on the effects of wave hits. It's resisted joining any of these studies. And so, understandably, you have a lot of veterans frustrated with one 51-year-old retiree telling the Times, "We all signed up knowing this job was dangerous, "but no one ever warned you at the end "you'll have serious anxiety, paranoia, headaches, "that you'll go out to the garage and take out the trash "and forget why you're there." Now, I'm a very critical guy, and to be fair, the Coast Guard did just acknowledge this problem publicly for the first time, but it kind of feels like someone admitted to cheating because you said, "Hey, it seems like you're cheating." But it was only after they were prodded by the Times' questioning, and so now it's finally joined a study by the DoD, and there's a new initiative focusing on preventing, detecting, and treating injuries. And then there's even more that we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first, I gotta do some housekeeping, two updates, two promos. The first is I just gotta say, y'all are crushing Lindsay's fundraise push for this week at lindsayforga.com/donate. She came on the show yesterday, did a fantastic segment, and also with it, it came a fundraising goal. Because obviously, while we're fundraising a lot of it ourselves, she is facing crazy opposition from billionaires like Rick Jackson, gambling money, and crazy PACs funding her house seat opponent in Georgia. In less than 24 hours, y'all got her to 65% of her fundraise goal. So one, thank you. And two, if you haven't yet, but you can, we'd love you to join the LFG army and pitch in at lindsayforga.com/donate. The average donation has been 40 bucks, but whether you're going higher or even, people have done like $3, you're amazing. And then two, just a friendly reminder, we are going on tour in just three weeks now. Even more so than being on that stage, doing our thing together, I just love meeting y'all. And so I'd love for y'all to crash out with myself and Alex, 12 dates, 12 cities, 12 great shows. And you should definitely grab your seats before you got to get some bad ones the week of, because like me, you maybe suck at planning. And you can grab them right now at crashingouttour.com for Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, California, Phoenix, Arizona, Denver, Colorado, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, St. Paul, Minnesota, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And we'd love to have you for a very normal show about a very normal country at a very normal time. But then diving back into the news for your final block today, let's cram in some more news you need to know. Starting with the fact that Senate Republicans just put a hold on Todd Blanche's AG domination, demanding more answers about the settlement that Trump got in his lawsuit against the IRS. Right, 'cause there was that weird $10 billion lawsuit that ended with a deal to drop the tax probes against the president and create a billion dollar slush fund for people that he said were wronged by the DOJ. You had many saying it was like he was suing himself and then negotiated a deal with himself. And of course, that was signed, sealed, and delivered by Blanche himself. Now the Trump administration eventually said that they were abandoning the slush fund part, but Senators John Cornyn and Tom Hanks and Tom Tillis, they're saying they need that in writing. And then also, and this is really huge, they want more clarity on the scope of Trump's immunity deal. Cornyn said that he wants the Trump administration to modify the deal to make it clear that it only applies to his current audits, not any that may come in the future. But then with all these questions, he says that the DOJ has been stonewalled, saying the ball is in Blanche's court. We've been trying to help them get to a conclusion here and they won't let us. And obviously, Cornyn has a loaded relationship with Trump and his lackeys after his loss in the Texas primaries against MAGA man, Ken Paxton. So you have Trump saying maybe John Cornyn's upset with me because I didn't endorse him. And you had him doubling down on his choice to put Blanche up for the position, saying Todd Blanche is a star and everyone knows it. I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name if they do not do the right thing and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office. Tillis called that idea tone deaf, saying he should listen to Blanche and others who think if it's dead, it should be rendered completely dead. And Cornyn also responded saying Trump's mistaken if he thinks it's only him and Tillis who have concerns about the tax issue. So there, we're just gonna have to wait to see what Trump decides to do. Also in the news, you had what I think is easily the craziest story this week. eBay and its former executives are now paying nearly $56 million to settle a case that sounds less like corporate business and more like just a horror movie script. Because back in 2019, you had David and Ina Steiner running a modest newsletter covering e-commerce news. But then when they published articles that were critical of eBay, the company leadership, they didn't just ignore it and move on with their multi-billion dollar business. Instead, you had former CEO Devin Wenig literally texting another executive saying it was time to crush Ina and take her down. And eBay employees, they took that very, very literally. I mean, what followed was a full-blown terror campaign. We're talking live spiders, boxes, cockroaches, a bloody pig's head mask, a funeral wreath, and pornographic magazines sent to their neighbors in David's name. And you didn't have it stopping there because eBay security staff literally flew across the country to stalk the couple. They tailed them in rental cars. They even tried to put a GPS tracker on their car. Seven former employees ended up facing criminal charges and prison time over all this. And eBay itself already paid a $3 million criminal penalty. But there wasn't just the criminal penalty because obviously the Steiners were gonna sue eBay and everyone else involved in civil court. And you now have that being settled with eBay and three former top executives shelling out $55.7 million. You've got the couple getting nearly 49 million, eBay's donating millions to charity, and former CEO, Devin Wenig, is personally paying $2 million. And with that, including a payout to a free speech nonprofit, other execs are paying out 500 grand each. And you have eBay saying that what happened was wrong and reprehensible, which, yeah, those are probably the tamest words you could use for what happened. And then for your last story today, let's talk about Colin Gray, because he is the man who gave his teenage son the gun that he used to kill four people at his school. And he just got 15 years behind bars. And that's after his son, Cole Gray, got life-threatening life in prison just a few days ago. And I will say, going into the sentencing, there was a chance that Colin was gonna get the same thing. Right, because you had district attorney, Brad Smith, asking the judge for an 80-year sentence. Right, because Colin, he was found guilty of second-degree murder in connection to the death of two of his son's classmates, as well as involuntary manslaughter for the death of two teachers. And then on top of that, he had additional charges for reckless conduct and cruelty to children. Right, and that, because leading up to the shooting, Cole was apparently showing signs of mental health issues. He also had dozens of pictures of Nicholas Cruz as another school shooter on his bedroom wall, and still, Colin let him have access to that gun. And so today, you had victim impact statement saying Colin was to blame for this tragedy, saying, "This wasn't unavoidable. This was preventable." Because of the choices made inside the Gray household, four families were handed life sentences of grief. In Colin's case, it's now one of a few where you have people holding the parents legally responsible for their kids committing mass shootings. And specifically with it, you had the judge on the case saying he didn't use gun locks, put the guns in a safe, remove the ammo, or let someone else keep the guns until Cole was doing better mentally. And for all of that, he said, "It was clear Colin failed as a parent." But y'all, that is gonna bring us to the end of your Thursday show. And I'll say, if you're subscribed and you have all your notifications turned on or you're on the text line, 813-213-4423. text me there. Be on the lookout. I might do a stream this weekend. I wanna talk to you guys about some stuff. There's also more you can check out right here in the meantime. But no matter what you do or what happens, let me just say thank you for watching. I love yo faces and I'll see you right back here next time.