PDS Published 10/29/2026
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What's really going on with this crazy Candace Owens Macron case?
And these wild updates Alaska's Mary Dan Sullivan scandal now has a criminal investigation. But how serious is it, really? 1000 DHS employees, including ice ages, got docks.
And it has everyone fighting. And with this Haley Stevens Abdullah said controversy really exposes. we're talking about all of that. Even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show.
You daily dive into the news, starting with this Mary Dan Sullivan situation has been one of the wildest rides of this election cycle.
Right. So many people have understandably been focused on Texas, Michigan, Maine. But Alaska.
what a wild one with so many twists and turns. And now the newest involves a new investigation from the New York Times Right. Though to give a little background here to understand this Senate race.
At the center of this story are two men by the name of Dan One is a retired schoolteacher.
One is incumbent Republican senator, and both are running for Senate as Republicans.
and they are facing off against Democrat Mary much written pretty much since Dan the teacher first popped up back in May.
Republicans have been accusing him of being a Democrat plant meant to siphon voters away from Senator also.
And also, for the purposes of this story, I'm going to be talking about Dan the teacher and Senator Or we need to distinguish between the two somehow.
And that seems like the easiest way so Dan the teacher, he's maintained that, hey, he is running completely of his own volition, right?
That he is not part of some Democratic plot or anything like says he says, hey, he's just not happy with the way Senator Sullivan has run things and believes the Republican Party doesn't need to be but he also has it done much to clear up the mystery either.
Right?
He hasn't given many interviews or really done any that we probably couldn't have gotten very far if he did, because Republicans have been doing a lot of work trying to derail his campaign from the very despite.
But despite their best efforts, he was on the primary ballot labeled as Sullivan Daniel J. Jr, with the incumbent senator listed as Sullivan Dan Right.
As clear a distinction as you can make under the many, many saw it as a, you know, actually a pretty clear and during the primaries, he managed to get enough votes to make it to the general election because, right, in Alaska,
the top four candidates who get the most votes advance to the next round, regardless Right.
And so then Republicans escalated things with Trump's DOJ filing a lawsuit looking to block the certification of the Senate race in Alaska. If Senator Sullivan narrowly right, right.
Arguing that the name confusion contained the result.
And that lawsuit then prompted a wave of backlash, with some accusing the Trump administration of trying to claim undue authority over the midterm anyway.
And you had that, including David Becker of the center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that advises election officials saying that he couldn't remember a single other instance
where the federal government tried to seek to block certification of an and absolutely never this close to an election.
And DOJ, making this claim this late smells of political interference and is against DOJ saying the feds have absolutely no authority
to tell Alaska when and how to adding the state officials are following Alaska state law as the Constitution even and you've even seen Alaska leaders
speaking out against the lawsuit, including Republican Lisa murkowski, who made it very clear that the state had handled differentiating the two Dan Sullivan's just fine on the ballot department,
the Department of Justice should have never filed this even and even Senator Sullivan's team said that the state had handled the issue with their statement, we'll let the DOJ complaint run its
But adding Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan's strong record of delivering for Right. So really, no one was putting much stock into any of this.
And even legal experts were saying the chances of success here, then but then you have the New York Times dropping this Right, right.
A big thing is that throughout this whole ordeal, Plato and her campaign had maintained, hey. They had nothing to do with Dan the teacher's Except.
Except you now have the time saying that according to interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that is not the case claiming not only did
his team work to recruit Dan the teacher into the race, they also work to recruit other would be spoilers.
In order to further dilute Senator Sullivan's support and and the way they break it down is that in the summer of 2025, Mary patrol, his campaigns, decided to lure in some potential spoiler candidates under the state's unusual for right, right.
At least according to Elisa Rios, who is Bitola, his former campaign manager and and while and while ballot stacking tactics.
Their common in politics, and they're generally considered legal and have been employed by both parties, specifically in Alaska. This maneuver, it took it to new Specifically.
Specifically, it said that a staffer was asked to find as many people named Dan Sullivan and Alaska and saying they combed through voting records and compiled a list of Dan Sullivan's from then
and then reportedly a few months later, a Democratic Senatorial campaign Committee operative named Jared Kurtz from Ohio had met with Dan, said, right, who said he was willing and according and according to Rios,
Kurt said that Dan, the teacher, told them in that meeting that he hated Trump and had no interest in being a politician.
But he liked Portola and was and from there and from there, Kurtz reportedly touch base with Dan the teacher on a couple of occasions over the next few months, which apparently caused
some anxiety amongst Portola staffers about whether they were going But also but also, apparently it wasn't just Matthew Matthew Salisbury of Anchorage also really sat though apparently it took the time showing him a photo to determine because.
Right.
Because when he was talking to Matthew, Kurtz reportedly called himself Zane, but still tried convincing Matthew, who had once tried to run for U.S.
House, to saying, saying he was looking for independent minded candidates and that his backers would support Matthew with But apparently, apparently, when he wouldn't provide any information about his background or political party or even who was footing the bill, Matthew started hearing alarm not, I'm not naive.
I had to have that general idea that they're not and apparently and apparently even the fourth name on the general elections ballot this year, Gerald, he said that he was recruited to run for Senate by a guy from though apparently he couldn't remember his name.
And there were even reportedly efforts to support some of these candidates financially. Right.
The this just kind of goes here, but but one of the big questions on everyone's mind at this point is, did Mary Tola herself know that before and before we can really answer that.
You then have to deal with what a lot of people see as a red flag of this investigation, and that is Elisa Rios.
Portola is former because because you see, Rios was one of 12 people who the time spoke to for this investigation, and she at first agreed to a series right? Right.
A big thing is that she was fired and would appear to be an out of nowhere staff shakeup back in August, and was planning on filing a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Except except last week is the times was getting ready to publish a story.
She tried backing out, saying that she wanted to take back her previous statements and didn't want to be a source in Though there you had the time saying, that's not how this works. Too bad.
You know, there's standards don't obligate reporters to comply with requests like that.
And they've never agreed that previous interviews couldn't Plus, plus, they said that her interviews were consistent with the rest And the and the reason we need to note all this now is because one, it's important context to the investigation.
And two, the times does directly quote Elisa Rios is saying that while Mary Pattullo wasn't directly involved with the ballot stacking project, she was, quote,
definitely with all that said, Mary's campaign, obviously they've denied the whole thing along with the desk.
Both have said they haven't participated in the recruitment of any spoilers to the ballot in Alaska, including Dan the teacher.
Mary herself also doesn't seem to be worried about it, calling the times investigation a distraction and saying nobody's waking up worried about ballot composition, not even me I'm worried about my bills.
I'm worried about affordability in health care. also, at the same time, Republicans jumping all over this right to them. They're like, oh, this is a chance. They're saying this is everything that they were claiming and more.
And specifically, you've got Trump accusing Democrats and petulant campaign of perjury and fraud and taking the truth social this morning to say it has been determined that the Democrats in Alaska
illegally searched for and recruited a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in order to defraud, confuse and obfuscate the election, thereby taking votes away from the real Senator Dan Sullivan.
adding Mary should suffer the legal and political consequences for what she has a fraud on the American public.
And Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Pattullo or fake Dan Sullivan on the and well with this, you had many saying.
It's ironic that he apparently is deciding to trust the fake News York Times about this one, though. Regardless, you also had JD Vance echoing that, calling for a fraud investigation.
and actually, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy went to step further than calling for an investigation. He ordered right.
Announcing on social media that he's ordered an investigation into whether or not criminal charges or civil action is warranted, and Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate
they actually intend to support, saying deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections. anyone, or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable.
the a huge, big thing here is that there is some doubt about whether they actually did break the law here.
If they did what's been said because like I mentioned earlier, ballot stacking is not technically illegal and campaign definitely not the first to do it, even if they did it even in Alaska.
and in fact, that many, including many Democrats coming out to defend the plan by posting lists of times at both the right and left have done some even applauding campaign for fighting tooth and nail in what could be an existential election.
right.
You've got no shortage of experts saying it has a long history in American politics dating all the way back to JFK.
but as far as what Trump and co try to pull from this or if this is kind of just trying to get in advance save face for losing an we'll have to wait and see.
And of course, in the meantime, I'd love to know your Right.
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And then also, you know, while we wait to see how this case in Alaska plays out, we then have to talk about major updates to a legal battle against Candace Owens.
because Candace actually just got a huge win in her case with the Macrons.
Or you just had a judge in Delaware limit their lawsuit against her, meaning that she cannot be personally sued for defamation, but the case can't continue against her two businesses. Right.
Because quick refresher.
Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte sued Candace for defamation because she has repeatedly spread the false conspiracy that Brigitte was born a and she has discussed this theory on her show.
She did an entire investigative series into it, and she even once wrote that she would, quote, stake her entire professional reputation on the fact that Reggie Macron is, in fact, a
and you've got the Macron saying these claims are demonstrably false and they've caused tremendous damage.
And you have the suit alleging that they have been subjected to a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit driven lies, saying it is invasive to humanizing and deeply unjust.
and that lawsuit being filed in Delaware in this week. The judge overseeing the case ruled that because Candace lives in Tennessee.
He has no jurisdiction over and so if the Macrons end up winning the case, her personal assets would likely still be protected.
though like I said earlier, because the lawsuit was filed against both her and her companies, which are registered in Delaware, those businesses still remain as defendants.
but that's also there is a chance that Macron's could face even more setbacks in their case against Candice. Right.
Because you also had the judge saying that France's statute of limitations could apply, as that is where most of the reputational harm against the Macron's occurred.
and that actually makes for a much shorter window, because in France there is a three month time limit for defamation claims, But it can also be extended to a year for cases where someone's race, religion, sex or sexual orientation was targeted.
And so now both parties are going to have to make arguments about which time frames should apply, but also in the event that the judge thinks that it should be just three months, that could force the dismissal of the entire lawsuit.
and so what you had was Candace celebrating this ruling in multiple posts, writing This case represents one of the grossest legal overreaches by a foreign government leader in human history.
A sitting presidents attempt to personally bankrupt a single podcaster from outside the nation in which he governs, saying, I am tremendously grateful to the Delaware courts and to the presiding judge for looking at this case objectively.
and in that poll, she also claimed that she was never being sued for stating that Brigitte was born a but it is worth noting that the defamation counts in the suit do specifically reference her claims about Bridget's gender.
Right. That is a huge part of the But still. Candace continued celebrating the win.
Another post I am in the absolute best mood over this Macron saying it feels like a year and a half of my family having to deal with a psychotic lies regarding pending bankruptcy,
secret accounts and plans to flee the country has finally come to an But again, at least as of now. This has not actually come to an She was personally dismissed.
Yes, but the case is still living and breathing for and actually, the Macron's legal team, they don't seem to be too pressed about it. Right.
They told Politico that they are pleased that the court will allow the case to continue against the LLCs and as for Mrs.
Owens personally, we are keeping all options open to ensure that in addition to the liability she still faces through her companies, she is held accountable personally.
and they're actually not the only ones that are kind of spinning all this in their because, Candace, you know, a lot of people there is this incredibly controversial figure, but she's also become even more divisive in MAGA and so.
You're also seeing some conservative influencers framing this legal development against With people like Tim Poole, for example, claiming that Macron scored a big legal win because the case was not fully
and you also had been Shapiro tearing into Candace's post where she reveled in the judge's decision, So no, this is not some sort of exoneration of Candace Owens. This is a personal jurisdiction technical issue.
so even if you're not from Delaware, you register your business in Delaware.
And all the court said there was you can't be sued personally in Delaware just because you registered a business there.
That is not an exaggeration, but leave it to Candace to completely misinterpret law because she can't even speak English properly. and so we're gonna have to see where all this goes. Right.
If the suit keeps moving forward, if the Macrons end up taking separate action against then, and then also, you know, as this is playing out, there are other defamation cases against Candace that we need to keep an eye on over claims around Charlie Kirk's so, so a lot still at play.
And really the only question is how long is the road and where does
And then there's more we got to dive into in just a minute after a quick break with our sponsor.
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Let's talk about this, this drama that also has weight to it, because you have a lot of Democrats asking, whose side is Haley Stevens on?
it appears to be, because just days from this critical election, you have Stevens, who lost to Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate primary, blasting his campaign on CNN. right.
Also responding to the not at all awkward news that her fiancé, Jason Turkish, will be voting for Republican Mike Rogers.
like a lot of households across America, we're a household divided. I still very much want our Democratic nominee.
His name is Abdul.
To win this race, our nominee is in a very strong position to denounce the hateful ads that have hurt people.
You know, we've got one with Tucker Carlson, who is a racist, anti-black, white supremacist apologist,
and we've got another that's blaming Jews for the cost of groceries. But someone, so to speak, up right now, Caitlyn. And that's me.
I want to encourage, you know, this campaign to shut out the hate and to call it out
and to make people who were in my coalition right field make them feel comfortable about coming to the polls.
Right. That's okay. So you are voting for John? Just a. Yes. and what many took is a pained expression from her.
It kind of says a lot of it. you've got people saying the mixed messaging here, which is very on.
new people like this, it shows Maggie Hassan calling this interview a de facto UN endorsement.
you had others joking that Stevens is rocketing to the top of the list for worst Democratic primary loser of 2026.
with, this being kind of just the latest instance of her seeming to distance herself from El-Sayed and dissing the campaign. Right. She hasn't campaigned alongside him at all recently.
She confirmed in a text message on Wednesday that she wouldn't appear with him in his last week of the campaign.
you also the New York Times we're looking at Stevens has been even more critical of outside and private, leaving some allies wondering if she would in fact vote for him.
and as far as their specific disagreements with him, those appear to be mostly around his criticisms of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza.
Because Stevens, whose campaign was heavily backed by Apple, is staunchly pro-Israel.
you've had her calling him out for what she sees as alienating black and Jewish voters, coalitions that she did well with in the primaries. specifically calling out those two. And she referenced.
Or the Tucker Carlson that refers to a recent else I Ed spa that features a bunch of prominent conservatives saying nice things about them, or negative things about Rogers.
that was created by his campaign to exclusively on Fox News and Newsmax. don't want to take my word for it. How about some folks you know a little bit better? But you gotta respect that door because you beat the machine.
I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers again.
or was, critical, but many saying that's not El-Sayed endorsing those people, that just him trying to reach voters who watch those shows. and then the other ad that Stevens referenced on CNN.
And it wasn't even created by, say, ads campaign.
Radio was created by rebellion Pack, and that's the one we talked about recently, where a couple realizes they can't buy eggs because they have to, quote, set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.
and even though El-Sayed campaign confirmed that that ad was not affiliated in any way with them, that statement clearly isn't enough for Stevens. And so she and her fiance see eye to eye either.
when he says genocide over and over again, when he refuses to condemn and add that says Jews are to blame for the price of bananas,
he makes my community by saying the with that you had many noting that had never uses the word Jews and there is a difference between Jews or Jewish people or whatever word you want to use. And the Israeli government.
though many, including Stevens, Turkish and others, they connect with you.
And you actually a Turkish telling the Detroit News, I've just seen an escalation in his rhetoric since the primary, and it makes folks unsafe, saying every time he talks about genocide in Gaza, Jews get death threats, and adding, we have never seen a candidate for U.S.
Senate act so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community, as we have seen from Abdul.
then he actually attended a Rogers event last night, which was sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition entitled who Will Keep Us Safe? Rogers versus al. So, yeah.
And the week of October 7th and the Temple Israel attack.
also with this, there have been a lot of people going, okay, who is this Turkish guy?
and, well, a quickie background is that Turkish is a disability and civil rights attorney, not a politician.
but he's apparently been getting more and more involved in politics over the last few years, and he donated nearly $200,000 to federal Democratic candidates and committees this cycle.
but also a big thing is that he gave over $24,000 to Susan Collins's Allied committees last year. So this is definitely not his first rodeo supporting Republicans.
with this current news, you've got some folks out there saying, you know, I get divided households, but her fiance should not be making statements to Detroit News to undermine her endorsement
because Stevens technically still said that she's voting for LCA, even if she said it through gritted teeth. right. As far as I'll say, Ed's response to Stevens is beyond, say, voting for Rogers.
You had him keeping it respectful.
So if folks see, another issue that is more important to them and decide that their disagreement with me on that is bigger than their agree with me on all these other things, that is their choice.
So, you know, I'm welcoming a big tent of folks to come together around the effort to push back on Trump, to push back on gas prices, to push back on the price of groceries, to push back, on the the way he's making harder to see doctors.
so you've got I'm trying to bring the focus back to everyday issues that affect the majority of people in the state.
for now, like this race, which is one of the most pivotal in the country, it's currently a tossup.
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Right, but then jumping from that to some important election news, the Federal Election Commission was hacked and its electronic filing system was down for nearly 48 hours, just days before the midterms.
you've got experts saying one, that shutdown is totally unprecedented before an election.
And two, it is massively significant because that filing system is the only official way to track who is making donations and how candidates and PAC spend money.
and so as a result, the outage prevented Americans from seeing time sensitive campaign finance disclosures at a time when spending is surging in an election cycle that has now become the most expensive ever in U.S.
history for political advertising, has even surpassed years with presidential races.
and according to the FEC incident update page, the filing system went down at around 10 p.m. eastern on Monday, though notably previous disclosures were still viewable. We just couldn't see new ones.
and then at around 8 p.m.
on Tuesday, they issued a new status message saying that the issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.
but it actually took until yesterday evening for the FEC to finally get the system back online with the agency saying on Twitter that they were still working to restore the system search feature.
but at least as of reporting, the FEC has provided absolutely zero information about what caused this major shutdown.
Which is especially concerning because you had Reuters obtaining an email that the agency sent to several campaign compliance firms Monday night that read, have a bad actor attempting to breach FEC systems.
a result, we had to temporarily shut down our web facing services.
right now, it's not clear whether anyone gained access to the FEC systems or if any data was compromised, and the total lack of transparency from the agency.
It's just causing more alarm, You have some experts noting that a cyberattack would be a good way for the bad actors to hide. Controversial Last-Minute spending.
now, to be very clear, the FEC does not play any role in administering the elections that are now less than a week away.
still, this outage is a big deal, especially because it's coming at an absolutely critical time. Right.
In the 20 days before an election, federal candidate committees must report certain contributions or loans of a thousand bucks or more within 48 hours, while PACs and others, they just have 24 hours to disclose certain spending.
there's a good reason for that rapid transparency, especially because spending absolutely skyrockets in the final stretch of an election. ran.
According to reports, candidates and their allied super PACs spent over $1 billion just in the first two weeks of October alone. when you look at the numbers, it's just staggering.
according to the research director at Open Secrets, superPACs and dark money groups have spent an average of over $50 million per day just over the last week.
and again, all of this is just for the final push of historic levels of funding. Right. The ad tracking service, ad impact.
just reported that this year's midterms have seen a record $11.21 billion in total ad spending in reservations, narrowly surpassing the previous record set in 2024.
which is absolutely insane because there was a presidential election that cycle, and one that accounted for nearly a third of all ad spending.
mean, we're talking about sums that are larger than the entire annual budget for many states, which is then also, I don't know if it's ironic or crazy, given the fact that so much of the money is being poured into ads focused on affordability.
is when the FEC filing system was down for nearly two full days, we had no way of tracking how enormous quantities of money are being given and spent.
we thought you were an expert noting that the, the timing here is especially notable because early voting is already underway in some of these states, and arguing what are they going to vote without the full picture that the law entitles them to?
that becomes even more alarming when you consider where most of the money is coming from.
Rick is like in every election since Citizens United spending has largely been driven by super PACs which accept unlimited sums from ultra rich mega-donors and corporations,
and then spend as much of that money as they want on campaigns with very few restrictions.
and actually, according to a recent analysis by the Washington Post, the 50 largest donors have poured more than $2.77 billion into influencing this year's midterms.
and of course, the biggest spender by far is Elon Musk, who has spent $446 million of his own money, way more than the roughly $290 million given 2024, despite the fact that he said he was going to cut back after that election.
but instead, he became the single biggest individual political donor in modern American history.
And what's wild is that number is astronomical, but it's also kind of nothing for him, Think of it this way. Elon Musk is an on again, off again trillionaire.
Depending on the day of the week. so him dropping $446 million just on this cycle.
We while it seems huge for him, that's like if you were a millionaire and you decided, hey, I guess I'll spend $446.
And of course, all of that has helped the Republicans get a huge lead on spending, right?
Among the top 50 contributors this cycle, Republican leaning donors gave $1.7 billion, more than double the 832 million from Democratic leaning givers.
also, like, we don't even know where a lot of the money is coming from with, for example, the New York Times review revealing that about $1 billion in anonymous dark money has been infused into the election largely through super PACs.
and while the FEC is filing systems back up now, there will likely be a lag in data because Politico obtained an automated email informing filers that they wouldn't be fine as long as they file within 24 hours of the system being back online.
in the meantime.
Right, this total lack of transparency from the FEC about what actually happens is just cause conspiracies to swirl and undermine trust in the system at a time where we need it more than ever.
for now, we're just gonna have to keep a close eye on the situation and see if any more information comes out.
then there's even more we're going to dive into in just a minute after a quick break with our sponsor.
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Go now. and then Devin right back into the news. We need to talk about Utah now. Bringing criminal charges against Kalki in two of its top executives.
and you've got the state specifically accusing the prediction market and its executives of illegally promoting online gambling in violation of state this is actually just the latest front in this ongoing battle and one that goes
way beyond since Trump took office and rolled back Biden era attempts to regulate prediction markets, there's been this ongoing fight over who gets to control this massive
and we've had numerous states trying to impose regulations within their own borders, the Trump administration and industry leaders have fought back, filing lawsuits to block the policies and arguing that the prediction markets fall under federal jurisdiction.
you're seeing the litigation over this debate now spreading across 20 states. And many experts expect that this is going to be decided by the Supreme right. In the story that you have playing out in Utah.
It fits the kind of general right back in February. Cal.
She actually preemptively sued the state to stop it from enforcing gambling restrictions on the company, arguing that they lacked jurisdiction.
that was coming right as Utah was poised to pass legislation that would expand the state's strict gambling, banned to include proposition bets, which are bets on certain actions, statistics and occurrences.
but then in August, a federal judge ruled against Corsi, rejecting the request to block the state's restrictions and allowing Utah to enforce its you then had an appeals court also refusing to block the law from taking effect while the case plays right.
And then last week, you had Utah filing a civil lawsuit against, which is separate from the criminal one that they just and there, they allege that she is still operating in the state
and letting people place bets in violation of the newly expanded gambling estimating that she's made between 30.6 and $61.2 million in fees from wages
placed by Utah accounts, and asking the judge to stop the company from operating in the state and award millions of dollars in but then on Tuesday, with the Trump administration filing its own lawsuit against Utah, making that same jurisdiction argument that we've seen time and time right.
Team Trump saying that only the federal government can regulate prediction which brings us full circle back to the criminal charges that Utah just filed, which mark a dramatic escalation.
getting into the specifics, the state actually slapped County with 14 different counts, most of which are felony charges that carry jail time, including unlawful activity and online gambling Right.
In Utah actually isn't even the first state to file criminal charges against Arizona did it earlier this year in a lawsuit that similarly accused the company of operating in illegal gambling business in that
but with that one, you had a federal judge blocking the state from criminally prosecuted the Trump administration's request.
and so that ended up actually being something that the company mentioned in their statement responding to Utah's saying this is a crazy overreach.
Utah is clearly playing politics, saying, we look forward to putting a stop to this in court, just like we did in Arizona, but then also at the same time, you have some analysts predicting that this could be the beginning of a new tactic in the battle over regulatory power.
And we could see more states maybe doing the of course, we're going to have to keep our eyes on this.
I will say, given all the overlapping litigations playing out all over the country, it very much seems like this is going to be a Supreme Court but what I will say is it is always funny, whether it be Trump or certain Republicans, when and where they care about states rights.
like it seems to always matter.
Unless maybe, I don't know, it's connected to someone that gives a lot of money to the administration or the family is involved with in some you know, that's probably just coincidence and there's nothing to really look into.
No. No corruption. The swamp has been drained.
Hey, I will say regarding the Supreme Court that this could happen sooner than later because, I mean, just last month, new Jersey asked the High Court to rule on whether state or federal authorities have jurisdiction over prediction market.
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rabbit, then jumping from that to the final thing today, let's close it out with a few quick stories, starting with the fact that a hacktivist group just dox more than 41,000 Department
of Homeland Security employees, including Ice agents, Border Patrol, even undercover investigators, and posted it all online.
so you have this group calling itself the department piece, saying that it broke in through the single sign on service that DHS uses to log into its and then saying they handed the data to a transparency group that published it.
And a Swiss hacker then made a searchable database listing names, offices and assignments. and it appears to be real.
You had both the Washington Post and Reuters saying that they verified the data with DHS officials and by contacting people on the you're seeing very different reactions to this right. The people behind it.
And others, they're framing this as their argument being the federal agents have been operating masked and anonymous.
Well, running an aggressive immigration crackdown in the public deserves to know who is behind the policies. we're saying that it targets the architects of DHS. Not every employee, updates and others seeing it very differently.
recalling it a nightmare scenario, saying that the agents are masked to protect themselves as threats against them rise, and that this leak could endanger officers, their families, and ongoing criminal investigations.
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And then also in the news, you have two conservative influencers sitting out to expose voter fraud in Minnesota, but now they're the ones that are charged with it.
because back in August, James O'Keefe, formerly the Project Veritas guy and Cam Higbee, went to polling places during Minnesota's primary disguised in Muslim clothing using fake accents in the names of real registered voters.
they said the the point was to show how easy it is to game Minnesota's vouching system, where a registered voter can vouch that someone lives in the precinct they apparently filmed it all in hidden cameras.
can she vote if I vouch? I'm trying to get her back. Good luck with that.
Actually, she live within this precinct? Yes. Register. but now you have him being charged with felony unlawful voting and identity theft.
a huge key thing here is that they never actually cast a ballot, but prosecutors say that actually doesn't matter.
right under Minnesota law, giving election workers someone else's name to apply for a ballot is itself the crime any with the county attorney also noting the names they used included dead voters
and one real person who had already voted and said that this isn't about their policies or their disguises. It's about impersonating people.
you've got O'Keefe and Higbee firing back on it, lawfare and an attack on the First Amendment. Right. Arguing this is journalism and the lawsuits don't scare them. ultimately now a court is going to decide whether they committed.
and so while they apparently set out to prove how easy voter fraud is. they may have actually prove the opposite by getting charged. then finally today we have Fox News.
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Right there in the news, because their ratings haven't dropped this much in the month before an election in ten years.
where even though midterm air is going to be a mixed bag for ratings and recent years, reports say that Fox is generally done well in the October leading up to an Election Day.
but according to these Nielsen ratings that we're seeing now, Fox's primetime viewers fell 28% on its full day.
Viewers fell 27% compared to just last year, viewers in their demo 25 to 54 years old dropped by over 30%. That's a 25 year low. there were also like don't get it wrong.
They still have a pretty commanding lead over their competitors. despite a number of their people complaining about the mainstream media. They have the five most watched cable news shows.
on YouTube. They've gotten 3.8 billion views so far this year. but still you can't ignore the trends here. And with that, you have media analysts looking at Trump. right.
Because well Nielsen data doesn't track the why the ratings ebb and flow. Experts are speculating that Trump's low approval ratings, they're not helping.
the really there could be multiple factors at play it's for example Trump's also taking shots at Fox this year for things like airing interviews with Democratic candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Charles Booker.
he's also complaining that they've cut coverage of his rallies.
So that could have actually driven some people from tuning in and maybe going to something that's even more pro-Trump. Oh, wow.
You have reports saying that this election cycle in general, it seems to have favored the Democrats. and so all of that could be making their numbers worthwhile. Networks like amass now and CNN, they're seeing gains.
that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your Thursday's show.
but, hey, some quick housekeeping as we close down today's show and maybe, shows for the if you haven't already, you definitely join the text line over at (813) 213-4423.
You literally just text to also, if you haven't already, go to flip DeFranco. Sign up, get the newsletter. that way. If these videos get suppressed, you'll always get one in your mailbox.
and then also if you decide to upgrade your account, you can get the Philip DeFranco show with no but no matter what you do, including if you watch this video that YouTube thinks you'll see I will see you right back here on Monday at the latest.
Because, you know, the world might go crazy and we might have to do a bonus Thank you for watching. I love yo faces. And I'll see you then.
