The Ben Shapiro Situation is Looking Really Bad

0:00 Ben Shapiro spent a decade building The Daily Wire

0:02 into one of the largest conservative media empires in but now,

0:05 this past week, between mass layoffs, a public fight with Candace Owens,

0:08 and a YouTube audience that has gone down anywhere from 70 to 85% in 18 months,

0:12 you've got a question being asked on both sides of the MAGA Civil War.

0:14 Is this empire actually collapsing in real depending on who you ask,

0:18 the answer is either yes, we're watching Enron or no, calm down,

0:21 they're it was an absolute bloodbath, not allow them to spin it.

0:25 Okay, I'm talking entire departments,

0:27 big people at the firm, lawyers at the firm,

0:30 the chief operating officer, the executive vice president,

0:34 virtually the entire marketing department.

0:36 The production team has now been reduced to a mere skeleton crew.

0:40 No one was safe.

0:42 Not even Ben's team was because make no mistake,

0:44 this is like the equivalent of Enron, right?

0:48 It's a virtual overnight collapse Okay.

0:51 So on May 1st, you have the Daily Wire confirming mass the company

0:54 telling the rap the cuts were largely concentrated at its national headquarters.

0:57 And they said that the restructuring is tied

0:59 to investment in new production formats and geographic Right.

1:01 They didn't, in that initial announcement,

1:03 give a and so then you have Candace Owens walking in, who you might remember,

1:06 was fired from the Daily Wire in 2024 over

1:08 her comments about Israel in a series of statements widely

1:11 criticized his you had Owens posting on Twitter claiming

1:13 that 50% of the company's staff had been let though.

1:15 She then bumped that number to 60%,

1:17 and she went on her show and called it an absolute bloodbath,

1:20 like the equivalent of Enron, saying it's a virtual overnight collapse.

1:23 Right.

1:23 But then you had the Daily Wire firing back

1:25 with editor in chief Brant share posting on Twitter.

1:27 Yes, the company had layoffs today.

1:29 It's always really tough.

1:30 No, it was nowhere near 50% of the That's

1:33 insane and also insane to post without and while

1:35 the spokesperson for the outlet said that the layoffs

1:37 amounted to 13% of the staff this year,

1:39 that figure didn't include layoffs from the prior and so

1:41 the company appears to still have more than 200 employees.

1:43 And you had Puck News putting the number closer to 20% or around 42 employees.

1:47 there was an independent industry tracker called Layoff

1:49 Hedge pegged at around 100 so the situation is

1:52 no one outside of the company really knows

1:54 the number owns probably inflating it the Daily Wire.

1:57 I could see them underplaying it.

1:58 And the truth is maybe probably somewhere in but whatever.

2:01 Those numbers are where the story gets harder for the Daily Wire to spin is

2:04 with the audience or because that's third party

2:06 that's not and according to data from Vidic,

2:08 Ben Shapiro's YouTube views, they're down roughly 70% since December of 2024.

2:12 you also had IV time citing different analytics tools,

2:14 putting the drop at closer to 85% from his late 2023 by the way,

2:18 people saying those are not normal declines for a flagship channel,

2:21 saying those are collapse shaped declines.

2:24 also data from Social blade shows that the daily

2:25 wires YouTube subscriber base is plateaued or shrunk.

2:28 And 15 of the last 16 months since the start of 2025, By March of this year,

2:31 the company's website traffic was about half of what

2:33 it had been a year on the Spotify chart,

2:35 Shapiro's show is currently ranked 48th, Owens is 16th,

2:38 Tucker Carlson is eighth, Theo Vaughan's fifth.

2:40 Joe Rogan is, of course, number for comparison's sake, by 2020,

2:44 The Daily Wire had been Facebook's top

2:45 English language publisher for three straight but 2023,

2:48 it was being valued in the hundreds of millions of But now, five years later,

2:51 you've got the company fighting publicly about whether it's still

2:53 actually healthy or as far as why is this happening?

2:56 You have the daily wires official explanation

2:57 from Shapiro being essentially two things at first,

3:00 they acknowledge that revenues down from 2024,

3:02 though Shapiro says that cash flow still dwarfs what their critics and second,

3:05 Shapiro argues that the audience losses are the result

3:08 of staying principled while other right wing outlets,

3:10 in his telling Chase clicks by, quote,

3:12 embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill,

3:15 extolling the wonders of Russian supermarkets,

3:17 and mocking the widow of Charlie And so that is a very specific,

3:20 very pointed and if you've been following

3:22 any right wing media for the past year,

3:23 I know that we've been trying to talk about it more and more,

3:25 because what's happening there is very important to talk Tucker Carlson,

3:28 Candace Owens and a handful of figures.

3:30 They've been peeling more and more of that Daily

3:32 Wire audience and then also people like Megan Kelly saying,

3:34 well, it's not really about algorithms at or saying that.

3:37 It's actually about Shapiro's unwavering position on Israel

3:39 and the Iran war at a moment when a substantial

3:42 chunk of the younger conservative base has been

3:43 moving in the opposite so folks like Tucker Carlson,

3:46 they've managed to benefit from that he's gotten very, very popular lately.

3:50 I read with viewers because he's been standing up for Islam,

3:56 I know for a fact he has a lot of young men flocking to him.

3:59 And so while he may have lost some contingent of the Fox News audience,

4:03 that's very, very pro-Israel and, you know,

4:06 pro-Trump and you can't say anything about Trump.

4:08 For every one of those who leaves, there is another newer,

4:13 younger audience member who does want

4:16 to hear these traditional lines challenged.

4:19 then Shapiro, responding to her clip on Twitter, saying,

4:22 go get them clicks with Kelly, then shooting back,

4:24 don't you have a company to know,

4:26 whether you think Kelly is right about the cause,

4:27 that the underlying observation here, it's not really debatable.

4:30 conservative media center of gravity,

4:32 it's been Carlson's audience is growing, Owens audiences growing.

4:36 Nick Fuentes, who is thought as kind of a fringe no one even cares about

4:39 figure just 2 or 3 years ago has a huge audience and The Daily Wire,

4:43 which is just a few years ago,

4:44 the dominant brand in this space is not but then also.

4:48 This is my favorite part of the situation.

4:49 there is a very specific business decision that's been getting

4:52 a ton of blame for the company's financial and it is.

4:54 And I'm not joking here, a fantasy series called The Pendragon Cycle.

4:58 Rise of the Merlin.

4:59 Right.

4:59 To give you a little quick background here, the Pendragon Cycle,

5:01 it was the personal passion project of Jeremy Boring.

5:04 Daily wire co-founder, former co-CEO,

5:06 the the guy who left the company in early 2025.

5:08 and it is a seven episode Arthurian legend adaptation filmed across Italy,

5:12 Hungary and according to The Hollywood Reporter and Media,

5:15 the budget was seven figures per episode and eight figures overall.

5:18 so believed to be somewhere between 10 and $30 million total,

5:21 depending on which reporting that you right

5:23 page six cited $3 million per episode, putting the total above $20 million,

5:26 making it the most expensive production in Daily

5:28 Wire written with this according to Candace Owens.

5:30 So take that with the appropriate amount of Shapiro and his other co-founder,

5:35 Caleb Robinson, had grown disillusioned with borings leadership,

5:37 specifically because of Pendragon.

5:39 Pendragon, Jeremy's high school dream,

5:40 drove the company into the ground financially

5:43 with a project I want to be clear about,

5:45 not even Disney studios would have invested tens of millions of dollars in.

5:48 That's a tremendous financial risk.

5:51 now.

5:51 That said, boring has publicly defended the show.

5:53 He called the criticism of his management lies and said

5:56 that revenue grew every year that he was at the I've

5:58 read almost every day for a year in change

6:01 that I left the Daily Wire after bankrupting the company.

6:04 That's not true.

6:05 Every single year that I led the Daily Wire,

6:08 we grew revenue every year, year over year for ten straight years.

6:13 My last full quarter as CEO was, at that time,

6:15 the biggest quarter in the history of the company.

6:17 My last full year at CEO was, at that time,

6:20 the biggest year in the history of the company.

6:23 Just like the year before it had been and the year before

6:25 that and the year before within Owens's

6:27 response to essentially being sure revenue grew.

6:29 That just means that you sold more stuff.

6:31 The question is what you spent to do.

6:33 he says revenue grew every year while I was there.

6:36 All that means is we sold more stuff,

6:38 Revenue means how much money the company is taking

6:41 in, but how much it spends matters much more.

6:44 What is the profit?

6:46 right.

6:46 Whatever the actual financial impact of Pendragon was,

6:48 that's the public facing story.

6:50 this fantasy show became, fairly or not, the symbol of a company that's drifted

6:54 from podcast and political commentary into expensive

6:56 prestige production that it may not have had the audience to and hey,

6:59 I know for a lot of people it is fun to watch them.

7:01 Just like eating their own tail,

7:03 beating each other but it's also it's very important and enlightening.

7:06 Right.

7:06 Because it is part of a bigger pattern

7:08 that we've seen playing out across the right

7:09 wing media for kind of the better part

7:11 of two years traditional center of conservative media, Fox News, The Daily Wire,

7:14 the older talk radio brand's built audiences on a particular consensus.

7:17 things that were pro-business, pro-Israel, hawkish on foreign policy,

7:21 broadly pro-establishment that consensus is now actively

7:24 under attack from within the right itself.

7:26 we see that with Carlson, Owens,

7:27 Fuentes and just countless list of and the audience

7:30 especially that younger audience is by every

7:32 available data point going towards that second and that's

7:35 also interesting enlightening because the Daily Wire situation,

7:37 I mean they were essentially viewed

7:38 as an upstart ten years were the scrappy ones.

7:40 They were able to thrive because the legacy

7:42 ignored but now they're seen as the legacy.

7:44 Right?

7:44 They are the internet's Fox the wall.

7:47 So without that Fox News money and they're

7:49 watching a generation of independence and podcasters peel

7:51 off their people that used to be aligned

7:53 with them or even worked at that company.

7:55 but as far as if the company is going to die, at least according to Shapiro, no.

7:59 and time will tell whether that is true or it's just kind of PR posturing.

8:03 but also while it is incredibly important and I'll be honest,

8:05 a little bit of fun to talk about the MAGA Civil

8:07 there is a version of this story that's been talked about less,

8:10 and that is the one that is happening

8:11 on the other side of the Because it appears

8:13 that Pennsylvania Governor John Shapiro just got caught by Axios

8:16 quietly working against a congressional candidate endorsed by AOC.

8:19 so you see Pennsylvania's third

8:20 congressional district by Cook Political Reports.

8:22 Count is the most Democratic district in the entire country.

8:24 It's a D the current congressman, Dwight Evans, he's retiring,

8:27 which means that the May 19th

8:29 Democratic primary is effectively the November election.

8:31 whoever wins, unless the sky falls, that's going to be the person that goes

8:34 to you've got state Senator Sharif Street,

8:36 the establishment favorite, former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party,

8:40 son of former Philly Mayor John Street,

8:41 backed by the city's Democratic Committee and the Building

8:44 Trades then you've got Doctor Ayla Stanford,

8:46 a pediatric surgeon, a political newcomer.

8:47 right.

8:47 And she built her public profile during Covid,

8:49 running mobile testing clinics and black communities.

8:51 And she's actually endorsed by the retiring representative.

8:53 and then you've got State Representative Chris Rabb,

8:55 the five term state legislator from Northwest Philadelphia,

8:57 endorsed by the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board

9:00 and a long list of national progressives.

9:02 and that list, it's where things get

9:04 politically National endorsements include AOC, Chris Van Hollen,

9:07 Jamie Raskin, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna,

9:10 Pramila Jayapal, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

9:13 write in the Justice Democrats, the DSA,

9:14 the Working Families Party, and the Sunrise Movement.

9:16 They're all behind AOC has even fundraised

9:18 for him and is reportedly heading to Philly this month to campaign for him

9:21 in and so you've got essentially the establishment,

9:23 the centrist outsider and the progressive.

9:25 That's the and then boom.

9:26 Over the weekend, Axios turns this into a national because according to Axios,

9:30 which talked to three sources familiar with the situation,

9:32 Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is, quote,

9:34 quietly trying to derail Rams campaign.

9:36 and the key word is privately talking to allies,

9:38 telling them that he disapproves of Raban, according to the reporting.

9:41 asking Philadelphia's politically powerful building trades

9:43 union to back off attacking Ala Stanford.

9:45 with the belief being that if the unions go too hard at Stanford,

9:49 they could inadvertently help Rabb No.

9:50 Shapiro spokesman pushed back hard on this Axios saying this is yet another

9:54 DC story more focused on clicks than the reality on the ground in Pennsylvania,

9:58 saying the governor has not endorsed or opposed

10:00 anyone in this primary saying he looks forward

10:02 to working directly with whoever wins to win

10:03 in which to be fair is technically true.

10:06 Shapiro has not publicly endorsed anyone in PA but that's also kind

10:09 of the point of this reporting argument

10:11 isn't that Shapiro is openly opposing rap.

10:13 The argument is that he is working against

10:15 him without leaving fingerprints on the ones with this.

10:17 I do want to note that it does not appear like

10:18 Shapiro is actually anti progressive across the He's backing Bob Brooks.

10:22 He's a Bernie Sanders endorsed candidate in Pennsylvania seventh Congressional

10:25 he also has alliances with working families party members in Philadelphia.

10:28 and so then the natural question becomes, well, why this guy specifically?

10:31 Why Rab.

10:32 and with that you have both the Axios reporting and the Philadelphia

10:35 coverage pointing to kind of a couple of the first being policy,

10:38 has been a sharp public critic of Shapiro's

10:39 record from the left for On immigration,

10:41 grabs called for Pennsylvania to stop state collaboration with he's

10:45 been publicly critical of Ice operations in the state,

10:47 he's written letters to DHS objecting to Ice facilities.

10:50 He said that his administration will aggressively

10:52 pursue every option to block proposed federal facilities.

10:54 Rams argument is essentially that the rhetoric,

10:56 it doesn't match the on the ground cooperation.

10:58 multiple agencies are still signed on to immigration enforcement.

11:01 but then also the second and possibly bigger flashpoint is Shapiro is Jewish.

11:05 He's publicly said that he supports the country of Israel,

11:07 but he's been openly critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu's

11:09 Right with that, Shapiro said on a recent podcast appearance.

11:13 have profound differences from the with the policies of Netanyahu,

11:19 I think he and Trump have politicized and poisoned

11:24 the relationship between the United States and Israel.

11:28 And I think at the end of the day,

11:31 that makes America less safe but positions to the left of that right,

11:35 he's been one of the loudest voices in Pennsylvania politics,

11:37 calling Israel's conduct in Gaza a genocide.

11:39 And he's made criticism of pro-Israel lobbying organizations

11:42 a centerpiece of his and actually that part

11:44 of his record got very scrutinized last and it's

11:46 because of this December social media incident that I want,

11:48 I want to try to be careful in December of 2025,

11:50 two gunmen a 50 year old man and his 24 year old son,

11:53 motivated by what Australian authorities described as Islamic State ideology,

11:56 opened fire at a Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.

12:00 15 people were and in the immediate aftermath,

12:02 an Instagram post went up on rabbi's campaign account that in part said,

12:05 we all know the gunman were likely Zionists themselves.

12:08 Right.

12:08 In that post.

12:09 It resurfaced last week.

12:09 You had campaign saying that a former

12:12 staffer made the repost without authorization.

12:13 You would rap himself saying, quote,

12:15 he has never and would never say anything like this abhorrent comment.

12:18 campaign condemned anti-Semitism in the strongest terms

12:21 you had Stanford's campaign calling the post disqualifying,

12:23 and Raab has so far not publicly named the so all

12:26 of that is why some Democrats reportedly included in that, as Shapiro,

12:29 are uncomfortable with Raab potentially becoming

12:31 a National party But then also another

12:32 reason this is getting a lot of attention is because you have people saying,

12:35 well, this Democratic situation in the Philly primary,

12:37 it's not about the Philly rather it's

12:40 about what the Philly primary signals about 2028.

12:42 And there you have both Shapiro and AOC,

12:44 widely seen as potential 2028 presidential candidates.

12:47 those two, I mean, they represent two very different

12:49 theories on how Democrats have the moderate Governor Lane,

12:51 which says that you win nationally by holding

12:53 the center and flipping persuadable Republicans and the populist,

12:56 progressive lane, which says that you win

12:57 by energizing the base and running on big

13:00 economic justice many saying this race essentially

13:02 is a proxy fight between the two theories.

13:04 Rab wins, AOC gets to point

13:06 to a national progressive victory in deep blue Philadelphia.

13:08 and if Stanford or Street win,

13:09 Shapiro gets to point at the limits of the progressive lane,

13:12 even in friendly and you had a Pennsylvania Democratic strategist telling Axios,

13:15 Chris is an actual problem for Shapiro for what

13:17 he wants to be when he grows all that said,

13:19 I think then we also have to kind of do a reality check on this situation.

13:23 There are a few things that people have to keep in mind as the national framing

13:25 on this race just gets louder and There's not

13:27 a lot of trust in the polling right now.

13:29 Reportedly, there's been no public independent polling of this race so

13:32 It's a claims about who's ahead or who's behind by what margin.

13:35 That should be kind of taken very lightly.

13:36 Like with a grain of two rebs not

13:38 actually the obvious Stanford has more cash on hand.

13:41 The Rab or Street?

13:42 Street as the city's Democratic committee, the mayor,

13:44 the building trades unions and the AFC

13:46 behind the walls of the Enquirer endorse Rob,

13:48 outside superPACs have spent roughly $1 million on TV ads boosted him.

13:51 But also, this race could end up going to any of the and then also three.

13:55 I think the Democratic Civil War framing right now,

13:57 it is real, but I think it is also overstated and overheated.

14:00 Are we seeing Axios using that phrase?

14:02 Strategists are using that phrase.

14:04 It makes for a clean narrative.

14:05 Oh, I love the headline.

14:06 but also if you if you take a look at the actual policy gap between,

14:10 let's say, Stanford and Rab, it is narrower than the framing suggests.

14:13 both Democrats.

14:14 They both want to flip Republican seats.

14:15 And the fight, it's about tone.

14:17 It's about foreign policy and which donors

14:19 and labor groups have allowed or voice in primaries.

14:21 honestly, as Democrats head into a midterm cycle where

14:23 the maps just got worse for them, and in 2028,

14:25 who knows what the maps are going to look

14:27 like it is going to be important to learn lessons,

14:29 but also specifically local lessons about what can because both lanes that we've

14:32 talked about have produced wins in different places at different but for now,

14:35 we'll have to wait and see,

14:37 though we will have an answer here relatively and then

14:39 there's more we've got to dive into in just a minute.

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15:36 we sent but then diving right back into the news,

15:38 two months into a war that Donald Trump publicly says is over.

15:41 Gas is at 450 a gallon.

15:43 U.S.

15:43 missile stockpiles are reportedly half depleted.

15:45 Instead of addressing any of it, his defense secretary spent the weekend trying

15:48 to open a federal investigation into a sitting U.S.

15:51 senator.

15:51 and he did so for repeating something the defense

15:53 secretary himself said in a public hearing seven days earlier.

15:56 But as far as where things stand right now,

15:58 Iran has officially responded to the latest US peace proposal,

16:00 and Trump has officially rejected it.

16:02 in his own words, he said on Truth Social, totally unacceptable.

16:05 And in a follow up at the Oval Office,

16:06 he called the ceasefire unbelievably weak and on life support.

16:09 this came after a week where on May 3rd,

16:12 Trump announced Project Freedom, the U.S.

16:13 military would escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz,

16:16 which Iran has been effectively blockading.

16:17 Project Freedom got two commercial vessels through.

16:19 It also triggered Iranian retaliation against

16:21 US and allied forces in the region.

16:23 roughly 36 hours after launch, Trump paused the we paused it,

16:26 citing great progress towards a deal.

16:28 though then also you had reporting from NBC and other outlets

16:30 saying that the pause was at least partially because Saudi Arabia

16:32 denied the US military use of its bases and airspace

16:35 for the also the great progress that Trump cited was a one page,

16:38 14 point memorandum of understanding sent to Iran outlining

16:41 a 30 day window to gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz,

16:44 while negotiators worked on a longer term deal.

16:46 the structure, according to Axios,

16:47 would have eventually included Iran making nuclear concessions in exchange

16:50 for sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets.

16:52 right.

16:52 But then Iran sent its counterproposal this weekend.

16:55 And, to put it bluntly, it is not what the U.S.

16:57 wanted to hear.

16:57 Iran's response reportedly kept the 14 point MLU structure,

17:00 but layered in some hard asks one explicit guarantees that the U.S.

17:04 won't attack again to lift sanctions and release

17:06 frozen Iranian assets immediately upon signing the MOU,

17:09 not at the end of a longer term negotiation.

17:11 three and the war on all fronts,

17:12 including the ongoing Israeli operations in Lebanon for U.S.

17:16 recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

17:18 and then five on the nuclear program,

17:20 which apparently is the entire reason this war started,

17:22 even though where we were given multiple reasons.

17:24 Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said this morning

17:26 that the regime is focused on what is urgent first,

17:28 and that it will discuss what decision is

17:30 to be made later regarding Iran's nuclear program and materials.

17:33 Whenever the time is right.

17:34 which really just seems like a lot of words to, yeah, maybe we'll get to it.

17:37 spokesperson also called the Iranian proposal reasonable,

17:39 generous and responsible and said that Iran wasn't demanding concessions,

17:42 just legitimate rights.

17:43 and as far as how people read that responds, well,

17:46 you had one former senior Israeli

17:47 military intelligence officer posting on social media.

17:49 one thing is clear.

17:50 The Iranian regime's reply reflects the mindset of a leadership

17:53 that believes it survived the war and won, not that it lost.

17:56 As a result, its demands remain high

17:58 and its willingness to compromise is extremely limited.

18:00 while that's an Israeli analyst.

18:01 And so you have to factor in that lens, that point of view,

18:04 the underlying read there that Iran is not

18:05 negotiating like a country that thinks that it's lost.

18:08 That's also what U.S.

18:09 officials have been telling outlets like NBC news privately.

18:11 and then as far as Trump's response, it came in two forms.

18:13 first up on Truth Social.

18:14 He laid into Iran for what he said was playing games with the U.S.

18:17 for 47 years.

18:18 He also took a separate shot at Barack Obama for the original nuclear deal,

18:21 calling Obama the greatest sucker of them all.

18:23 and then he confirmed he'd read Iran's counterproposal and rejected then second.

18:27 He told Fox News that he's now thinking about restarting Project Freedom,

18:30 but with what he described as an expanded scope beyond just escorting ships,

18:33 though, he didn't clarify what that meant.

18:35 also, we got this from the Oval Office today when

18:37 he was asked about if you had an actual plan.

18:39 lot of people said, well, does he have a plan?

18:42 You have, of course, they do have the best plan ever.

18:44 And Iran has been defeated militarily.

18:46 Totally.

18:47 Have a little left.

18:49 They probably built up during this period of time.

18:51 We'll knock that out in about a day.

18:53 But I have a plan.

18:54 You know, it's a very simple plan.

18:56 I don't know why you don't say it like it is.

18:58 Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

19:00 written, while all of whatever that was is playing out, here's what it costs.

19:04 jumped 3% this morning, with Brant Crude hitting nearly $105 a US gas prices,

19:08 which end up actually lagging oil by a few days.

19:10 It's averaging about 450 a gallon, about 50% higher than before the war started.

19:14 you've got Energy Secretary Chris Wright telling CBS

19:16 that the administration is open to pausing the federal gas tax,

19:19 which would shave about 18.4 cents per gallon.

19:21 also you had right offering this on whether

19:23 the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal.

19:25 I mean, I don't know about interim deals or whatever,

19:27 but we know where the endpoint is going to be.

19:30 The endpoint is going to be free

19:32 flow of traffic through the international waters

19:34 that are the Straits of Hormuz and an end to the Iranian nuclear program.

19:39 That's where we're going to end the pathway from here to there.

19:42 We're going to find out.

19:43 and so we'll call it the vibe being communicated by both

19:45 Trump and his energy secretary is we know how this ends.

19:48 We just don't know how we're getting there.

19:50 Which just to point out, is a goal, not a plan.

19:52 and then also, as you have the Trump administration kind of rolling

19:55 around in the shit that they shat on the shag carpet.

19:58 You have Senator Mark Kelly, right?

19:59 A retired Navy captain, former astronaut, a member of both the Armed Services

20:03 and Intelligence committees going on CBS's Face the Nation

20:05 this week and and saying that the Pentagon

20:07 had brief senators on how depleted U.S.

20:08 weapons stockpiles have become because of this war.

20:10 think it's fair to say it's shocking

20:12 the how deep we have gone into these magazines,

20:15 because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal,

20:21 without a plan, without a timeline.

20:23 And because of that, we've expended a lot of munitions.

20:28 And that means the American people are less safe,

20:31 and that assessments publicly backed up.

20:32 CNN, citing internal Defense Department stockpile assessments,

20:34 reported that as of April 21st, the U.S.

20:37 military had expended at least 45% of its precision strike missile stockpile,

20:40 at least half of its inventory of that interceptors,

20:43 and nearly 50% of its Patriot air defense stockpile.

20:45 and the center for Strategic

20:46 and International Studies independently reported similar numbers.

20:49 so Kelly's concern, it's not random.

20:50 It's shared by multiple independent analysts,

20:52 looks consistent with publicly available reporting.

20:54 And his core argument is that the US is running through

20:57 the missiles that it would need for a hypothetical conflict with China.

20:59 Or which then brings us to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

21:02 Right.

21:02 Because he responded to Kelly's CBS appearance by not addressing the substance,

21:05 but by accusing Kelly of leaking a classified briefing and announcing

21:08 that the Pentagon would investigate with headset

21:10 saying captain Mark Kelly strikes again.

21:12 Now he's blabbing on TV falsely and dumbly

21:14 about a classified Pentagon briefing he received.

21:16 Did he violate his oath again?

21:18 Department of War legal counsel will review.

21:20 Twitch.

21:20 Kelly's response was kind of perfect.

21:21 he just posted a video clip of himself in headset at a Senate hearing one week

21:25 earlier where headset himself said publicly that it

21:27 would take years to replenish the depleted stockpiles.

21:30 with him then writing.

21:30 We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago,

21:33 and you said it would take years to replenish some of these stockpiles.

21:36 That's not classified.

21:37 It is a quote from you.

21:38 this war is coming at a serious cost.

21:40 And you and the president still haven't explained

21:41 to the American people what the goal is.

21:43 and, you know, it is important that this is

21:44 not the first time headsets pulled any of this.

21:46 this would be the second Pentagon investigation that headset

21:48 has opened against Kelly or the first being over

21:50 Kelly's participation in a video with five other Democratic

21:53 veterans turned lawmakers urging service members to refuse illegal orders.

21:56 that actually got struck down by a federal

21:58 judge earlier this year as unconstitutionally retaliatory.

22:00 but again, as all of this is playing out, there is a very real economic cost.

22:04 It's just hitting millions of Americans right now.

22:06 this is already a drag on the American people, the American economy.

22:09 And the only question is how bad is it going

22:12 to get as we get closer and closer to summer?

22:15 and then there's more we're going to dive into in just a minute.

22:17 But first, a quick the really it's more of a friendly reminder if

22:20 you need an that also is not just sticking your head in the sand.

22:24 You got to come out and see us or sold out show in New York.

22:26 It was a blast.

22:27 And we have 12 more dates coming Seattle and Portland,

22:29 their first up in followed by Boston, Philly, San Francisco, Phoenix,

22:34 Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Saint Paul, DC and it's a little of what you know,

22:38 it's a little of what you don't know.

22:39 And honestly, it's a some meet and greets, exclusive merch.

22:42 You know, the regular good But a lot of it is about getting together,

22:45 crashing out together,

22:46 having a good time and not feeling you know, Alex and I, we'd love to have you.

22:49 And you can go get tickets right now at Crashing Out tour.

22:52 but then the final thing we need to talk about today is

22:54 why Florida's attorney general said last month that if it were a person,

22:57 it would be facing charges for murder.

22:59 And yesterday, the widow of a man killed in the 2025 Florida State University

23:03 shooting filed a federal lawsuit that essentially

23:05 asked the court to take that argument seriously.

23:07 Because on Sunday, attorneys for Vandana Joshi filed

23:09 a federal lawsuit in the northern District of Florida.

23:11 her husband, Terrell Jarboe, is 45 years old.

23:13 He was a regional vice president for the company

23:15 that ran food service at Florida State University.

23:17 He had a wife, he had kids.

23:19 And on April 17th, 2025, he was killed in a shooting on the FSU campus.

23:23 and this lawsuit names two defendants,

23:25 first is the man who's accused of carrying out the shooting.

23:27 a then 20 year old FSU student, now 21, charged with two counts of first degree

23:31 murder and seven counts of attempted murder.

23:32 he's pleaded not guilty.

23:33 His trial is scheduled for October.

23:35 And then the second defendant is OpenAI, right.

23:37 The company that makes ChatGPT the legal argument is

23:39 that the AI chatbot spent months in conversations with the shooter,

23:42 conversations that, taken together,

23:43 should have triggered some kind of safety response.

23:45 that system appears to have failed to do so.

23:47 And so her attorney put the case this way,

23:48 saying quote, he literally utilized OpenAI and ChatGPT as his coconspirator.

23:52 That's the allegation.

23:53 now, according to the complaint,

23:55 which is built on ChatGPT chat logs released by Florida law enforcement,

23:57 this shooter went roughly 18 months talking to the chat bot.

24:00 the attorneys say that the chat history covers about 16,000 different exchanges.

24:03 And it was just everything, right.

24:05 Homework help, work out advice,

24:07 relationship questions, loneliness, bullying, depression.

24:09 by the plaintiff's account, the AI was friendly engage sympathetic.

24:13 It became, in effect, a daily presence in his life.

24:15 also threaded through those routine exchanges.

24:17 The lawsuit alleges they there was a separate set of conversations,

24:20 conversations about Hitler, about Nazi ism,

24:22 about prior mass shootings, including Columbine and Virginia Tech,

24:25 right about what kinds of attacks attract national media attention.

24:28 the complaint actually quotes a response in which the chat bot allegedly told

24:30 the shooter that attacks involving children

24:32 are more likely to generate national coverage,

24:34 and it's that specific a change that's kind

24:35 of drawn the most attention since the suit was filed.

24:38 though the lawsuit also alleges that the shooter

24:39 uploaded images of firearms that he

24:41 had gotten and that ChatGPT provided operational advice on how to use them.

24:44 things including, according to the lawsuit,

24:45 specific instructions about the weapon used in the attack.

24:48 and so the core legal claim is and this is

24:49 where a lot of people are to be paying attention.

24:51 that the alleged shooter had extensive conversations with ChatGPT,

24:54 which cumulatively would have led any thinking human to conclude

24:57 that he was contemplating an imminent plan to harm others.

25:00 but saying.

25:00 However, ChatGPT either effectively failed to connect the dots

25:03 or else it was never properly designed to recognize them.

25:06 and so the suit it alleges negligence, gross negligence,

25:08 strict products liability, defective design,

25:10 failure to warn negligence and wrongful death.

25:13 as far as open AI.

25:14 They've denied the lawsuits.

25:15 Core claim.

25:16 their spokesperson telling ABC news and NBC news, quote,

25:18 last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy.

25:21 But ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime.

25:24 and their argument is kind of in three parts.

25:26 one the information that ChatGPT provided was, in their words,

25:29 factual responses to questions with information that could

25:31 be found broadly across public sources on the internet.

25:33 two the product did not, in their characterization,

25:36 encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity.

25:38 three, when they became aware of the shooting,

25:40 they identified an account believed to be associated

25:42 with the suspect and proactively shared that information with law enforcement.

25:45 then with that, you also have OpenAI saying

25:46 that they're continuing to strengthen safeguards to detect harmful intent.

25:49 so that's their defense.

25:50 And whether that holds up, it's going to depend on the question that the lawsuit

25:53 explicitly tees up Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

25:56 Right.

25:56 Which is the law that shields internet platforms

25:58 are being held responsible for user generated content.

26:01 it's essentially what you've seen protect Facebook

26:02 from being sued every time someone post something harmful.

26:04 but also this lawsuit anticipated that move and argues that section

26:08 230 does not apply here because ChatGPT is not a passive platform.

26:12 writing is not hosting other people's words.

26:13 OpenAI created the model, trained the model, and operates it as an active

26:17 conversational product that generates its own responses.

26:19 and so that distinction right between a platform

26:21 that hosts user content and a product that generates content,

26:23 is one that courts really haven't settled when it comes to generative AI.

26:26 and so what you're gonna see is that this lawsuit and then others like it,

26:29 they're going to push that question out into the open.

26:30 right.

26:31 Because there are also other lawsuits like this.

26:33 In Canada, families of seven victims from a February school shooting in Tumblr,

26:36 Ridge, British Columbia.

26:37 They filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI,

26:38 And that was an attack that killed six students

26:40 between 12 and 13 years old and a teacher.

26:42 actually, with that, you're the Wall Street

26:43 Journal reporting that OpenAI's own automated moderation

26:46 tools had flagged the alleged shooter's chats

26:48 were content violations months before the attack.

26:50 with her graphic descriptions of violence.

26:51 And so the case there argues that OpenAI knew and just didn't act.

26:54 Right.

26:54 More of these stories are popping up.

26:55 You CBS news also reporting this week that the suspect

26:58 in last month's killings of two University of South Florida

27:01 graduate students allegedly used ChatGPT to figure out how to dispose

27:04 of a body in the lead up to the disappearances.

27:06 So what we're talking about today is not a one off in this case here.

27:08 It's going to have an impact,

27:10 because you got a growing category of cases that are going to ask

27:12 or it's a question that the legal system has never asked before.

27:14 is the legal responsibility of an AI company when

27:16 a user appears to be planning violence using a chat bot,

27:19 and the chat bot does not escalate, it?

27:20 then also there's going to be a question of do

27:22 we actually see criminal charges versus just a civil lawsuit.

27:25 also honestly, whether it's this story or anything I covered today,

27:28 I'd really love to know your thoughts.

27:29 Because, yes, this is a new show, but I also like it to be a conversation,

27:32 because without the conversation, it's just all bad stuff all the time.

27:36 And, We we already have enough of that.

27:38 But that, my friends.

27:39 Beautiful bastards is the end of your Monday Philip DeFranco of course.

27:42 Do not forget, I'll be back to hang and entertain or ruin

27:45 your day tomorrow with another brand new Philip DeFranco Thank you for watching.

27:48 I love yo faces.

27:49 And I'll see you