Trump Indicted for 4th Time & 'Blind Side' Star Says Story Was a Lie

0:01Stop waiting for customers to fall into your funnel. It's 2025, and the same old strategies are, well, just kind of old. That's where Amazon ads can make a difference. Brands using four Amazon ad solutions saw dramatically higher growth compared to limited approaches. Our latest Marketing Brew article breaks down how they can help you reach customers everywhere they are, from prime video to Alexa to shopping with consistent messaging. Read the whole thing at marketingbrew.com slash amazon dash ads. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. On today's pod, a historic climate ruling for Gen Zers in Montana.

0:39And we're going to make you regret not studying machine learning in college. Then I break down what girl math is for Neil in today's Toby trend. Plus, Illinois just passed a law that will help funny toddlers cash in on the internet clout they earn their parents. It's Tuesday, August 15th. Let's ride.

1:02Before we get into our bread and butter business news, a lot went down in Atlanta last night that we should let you know about. Just down the street from where Beyonce was playing her show, former President Trump and 18 others were indicted for their efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Among other charges, they were accused of violating the state's racketeering law, also known as RICO, which has historically been used to take down mob bosses and gang leaders. So the D.A. in this county alleges that they were effectively running a criminal enterprise to mess with democracy and ensure Trump won the state, even though he didn't have enough votes.

1:42According to the indictment, which was 98 pages long, and I did not read it all before this show, their efforts to overturn the election include Trump calling Georgia's secretary of state to find him enough votes to win, harassing a state election worker just trying to do their job, and one of his lawyers trying to mess with voting machines and steal data from a voting machine company. So some pretty serious anti-democratic stuff. Big picture for Trump, the front runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. It is his fourth indictment in five months. He's pleaded not guilty to the other criminal charges and he called his Georgia indictment a witch hunt.

2:21He and the other defendants have been told to voluntary surrender by noon on August 25th. I just don't know how he's going to campaign and keep up with these legal troubles at the same time. He's already spent$40 million so far on legal bills, and the indictments just keep coming. You mentioned it, but he's been indicted in New York, Georgia, D.C., and Florida. He's on his own heiress tour of indictments. My question is, when is the 1989 indictment dropping? But all right, Neil, let's jump into today's top story, which truly rocked my world when it broke yesterday. Remember Michael Orr, the offensive tackle lifted out of poverty by a benevolent Southern family called the Toohees?

3:01in a story that was first immortalized by Michael Lewis in his book called The Blind Side, and then in a Hollywood blockbuster starring Sandra Bullock. Well, it turns out that story is not as happy and uplifting as we all expected. According to a 14-page petition filed in probate court, Michael Orr says that the Toohees never actually took him in and adopted him. Instead, he alleges that right after he turned 18, they tricked him into signing a document that made them his conservators which any britney spears fans know gives them legal authority to make business decisions in his name and while the dad sean tuy told a local newspaper yesterday that he was stunned by or's allegations and that they didn't make any money off the film people remain unconvinced neil i really hate to use this pun right now but i think i have to this story totally blindsided me right so or sorry it's okay we're all there um So Orr has expressed his regret about the movie in the past few years, saying that he did not like how he was portrayed in it.

4:09But these allegations are completely new that he was he was not adopted. He never said he didn't live with the family and that they didn't take him in. But he said that, you know, this is the first time we're learning that he claims he was not adopted. And Sean Toohey, the dad, also agreed with it. But the crux of this is the fact that he said he was exploited by the family for their enrichment over the movie and future proceeds. The mom is now a motivational speaker and has a foundation and continues to use the fact that they are claims that they adopted him to kind of advance her foundation and her career as this motivational speaker.

4:44And this movie made a ton of money. So there was a lot of money at stake. Yeah, it made$300 million. And then according to the legal filing, the movie paid the Tuohys and their true birth children each$225 ,000 plus two and a half percent of the film's defined net proceeds. But since he was a conservator and not actually an adopted child, he saw none of those proceeds. Then also there's this really shady document that was reportedly signed in 2007 where Orr appears to give away to 20th Century Fox Studio the rights to his entire life story without any payment whatsoever. Orr says he has no memory or no recollection of signing that document.

5:24And here's where it gets even shadier. The lawyer listed on that document is Deborah Branahan, which is a close family friend of the Tuis. And so it is just like once you start putting the pieces together, you can see how maybe this wasn't just a innocent mistake. Like it was a friend of the family who drafted up these documents. So it does get a little bit sketchy. And we should say the dad, yeah, you mentioned, gave this interview yesterday where he said he would gladly end the conservatorship. He didn't really explain why it existed in the first place, but he disputes the claim that Michael Orr never got any money from this movie.

6:00He said there was only a flat fee paid to the family and they all split it five ways between their two kids, the two parents and or. So that is the main dispute here is that or says he never saw any of the money. And the dad says, yes, like you, we split this evenly. Meanwhile, I didn't know this, but apparently the dad made more than$200 million selling fast food franchises. So that was a big portion of the movie where they like he takes them to the. I don't remember that part of the movie. I was like, oh, I'm like two hundred million dollars. So his contention was like, I don't even need this money.

6:34But there's also been more scrutiny on Michael Lewis, who is the journalist who wrote the book in the first place. And it's like, dude, you are snooping around like you are supposed to uncover truth about this case. And the fact that you didn't even discover the fact that he wasn't adopted because that is not disputed. Even Sean, too, he said, well, yeah, we didn't adopt him. There was a conservatorship. The fact that Michael Lewis never uncovered that as he wrote the book is a little disconcerting to people, given that Michael Lewis has a ton of bestselling books. Right. Yeah. I mean, big year for conservatorships, though.

7:07We mentioned Britney Spears, but I do think that her work and her publicity probably led to Michael Orr also looking into his legal arrangement. So I do think there is a bit of a through line between the two. So just just a big year for conservatorships. All right. Moving on. Gen Zers got themselves a huge sleigh in historic climate change case in Montana yesterday. That was probably worse than your blind. It was in a first of its kind ruling. A judge decided that Montana's fossil fuel policies infringed on the rights of young people as laid out in the state constitution. It is a decision that will give similar climate change cases playing out across the U.S.

7:46a major momentum boost since the ruling affirms for the first time in the U.S. that a government has a duty to protect its citizens from climate change. We discussed this case when it was on trial about two months ago. So here's a quick recap. 16 young people in Montana sued the state over a policy that restricted projects from evaluating factors like greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts when getting permits. The U said that allowing greenhouse gases to proliferate unchecked is illegal in Montana. And that is because Montana is one of just three states where in the Constitution, it literally says you and future generations have the right to a clean and healthful environment.

8:26The young people argued that Montana's government was not adhering to that rule. And they won their case in what one legal expert from Columbia Law School called the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by a court. I remember when we first covered this story and our kind of asterisk that we attached to it was this is probably not going to pass. It's great that it actually made it to court, but now this has gone a step beyond. And the fact that they won definitely caught a lot of legal experts by surprise because remember, a lot of these cases were dismissed before they even made it to court.

8:57And now the judge kind of put their foot down and said, listen, this is going to be a thing that is, we're setting a new legal precedent and that these emissions do affect these these kids. And so I do think it's a new era of kind of climate legal action. Yeah. So we just mentioned what the opposition said. This is the state. And, you know, there's a this is a big fossil fuel state in Montana where they have a lot of coal, a lot of natural gas. But the opposition was like, look, Montana, Montana's small in the grand scheme of things, how is, you know, how are our emissions compared to China or India actually impacting climate change?

9:38They're not really. But then the judge just said that, look, any additional greenhouse gas into the atmosphere is, you know, in violation of our constitution, which says we owe kids and their descendants and everyone living in the state a healthy environment. So we'll see what happens. I think legal experts were like, look, you know, this is a great ruling for climate change and it really put a face to the issue. But it's up to the state now to enact the policy. The state's going to appeal it. So it may have, you know, not so many immediate effects in the year or two, but it's definitely like a huge kind of rallying cry for these efforts across the country.

10:17For sure. All right, Neil, let's move on to our next story, which actually also involves the youth in a legal case. Starting next year, a new Illinois law says that child influencers can sue their legal guardians if earnings from their content aren't set aside. So we've all seen the videos, Neil, of new parents parading their kids around for likes and views. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's the path you choose for your family, but it always didn't quite feel right that the kids, often the stars of the show, had no part in reaping the financial rewards from that content. So lots of states have laws for other forms of entertainment like TV and movies that ensure money is set aside for minors.

10:58But this Illinois law that comes into effect next year is the first to especially target social media. Neil, this feels like a no-brainer. What do you think about this new law? I want to focus on how it began, how this law came into being, which was that there was a 13-year-old named Shreya Nalamothu who was scrolling on TikTok during the pandemic board and just saw all these videos you were talking about and she just thought to herself wait who is looking out for these kids and she used the word I thought it was innocuous at first and I was like a 13 year old just said the word innocuous like you've got to be kidding me she is brilliant anyway so she petitioned her local legislature and got this legislation started going and so she was really the impetus from it and it was just because she was looking at social media videos and thinking look, these kids did not consent to this.

11:50They're being paraded around. Their parents are making a boatload of money from them through sponsorship deals and no one's looking out for them. Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, it is super invasive too, because these parents are sharing very intimate details of their children's lives, like their first steps, potty training, whenever they get in trouble, like there's all these very intimate details that they have no ability to consent to. And so you do feel like there should be some protections in place. and it's just so easy to film your kid because you're already filming them and your kid your kid is uh doing funny stuff and so like the temptation to put them online like i again i'm not i'm not hating on anyone who decides to do this but it does feel like we're entering like this next wave of people kind of waking up to the fact that maybe one i shouldn't be putting everything my child does on the internet i mean remember bobby althoff um who is the big podcaster who's done podcasts with Drake, Mark Cuban.

12:48She's been around social media. You've probably seen her face. She got her start filming her kids and then recently decided to wipe all of their content from the internet citing privacy concerns. So it does feel like parents are waking up to the fact that maybe they shouldn't be parading their kids around like this. I don't quite understand why this is compelling content. I mean, I love my friends. They show me pictures of their kids and I'm kind of bored after 15 seconds of looking at their kids. So I don't know why anyone would want to watch more, but I'm just like, anyway, I do want to mention that this is modeled after another law that was started in California in 1939, which is called the it's colloquially called the Jackie Coogan law after a child star named Jackie Coogan in the silent film era, who basically all of his money was lost by his parents and he sued them.

13:41And so that was kind of the first rights given to young people who starred in videos. And that's spread to a bunch of other states. It's not called the Jackie Coogan law in other states. But that requires that an employer set aside 15 % of an actor's earnings in a trust initially so that they have some in the bank so their parents can't squander it all. The U's, man. The U's are racking up W's, as they might say. All right, Neil, before we jump into the next story, we're going to take a quick break.

14:38and put American patients first. Visit phrma.org slash middlemen. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast? Smart move. Being financially savvy? Smart move. Another smart move? Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

15:18All right, Neil, we are back with another edition of Toby's Trends, where I, a terminally online Gen Zer, educate you, and also pretty online millennial, about a trend I've had my eye on recently. And that trend is girl math. So girl math is a phrase first coined by a couple of New Zealand podcasters, and it's essentially a new ideology behind how a person, usually a girl, justifies various purchases. It comes with its own set of logic and rules. For instance, if you don't buy something that is$50 at the store, you then save$50 and can spend it elsewhere. If something is on sale for at least 30 % off, you're actually losing money by not buying it.

16:00If you preload your Starbucks card with cash, then buy a drink. That drink is free. Anything under$5, free. Buy tickets for a concert in advance. That concert is free. So you get the picture. It's a way of assigning a certain type of logic to justify purchase that otherwise might be psychologically or fiscally stressful. Neil, have you wrapped your mind around what girl math is? It sounds like something I don't know. I feel like I kind of have a similar view. If it's under$5, I'm like, all right, well, it's not costing me anything. And then, you know, if you have a flight or a ticket to a concert way in advance, you, you know, you're thinking that I already have it.

16:37I don't know. Maybe I'm not a girl, but maybe I've been using girl math all of these years. Like, what do you think it's, do you think it speaks to anything larger in our society or? It is definitely like a lot of people do. We've talked about like the psychological phenomenon behind how you justify some purchases. And I feel like this is just putting a label on something that a lot of us have felt deep within ourselves. This is also just part of a broader trend of, I mean, call it a girl trend summer because we've also, this is kind of a successor to girl dinner, which has also been this huge trend.

17:10And girl dinner is basically assembling a bunch of snacks kind of chaotically, but also a little artfully in order to have kind of a filling, but also not traditional dinner in some way. and so I do think that if we want to blow it up into a very large trend it is something that a lot of people it's putting a label on something that a lot of people do everyone's like throwing together stuff from the fridge it's not actually a dinner it's more snacks but it fills you up that's girl dinner so it's the summer of the girl trend lazy girl job right like lazy girl job is there's just been this growing use of the word girl this summer I think it's it's very unmistakable and you know i'm curious about why that is but after you know you didn't hear the word girl a lot in the past couple years and then all of a sudden every single thing is like barbie taylor swift lazy girl dinner girl math it's the summer of the girl yeah and it's been very fun summer i will say that so maybe there's some even for a non-girl yeah just watching it i'm happy for them all right let's hit our next story uh for everyone who doesn't want to disappoint their parents but isn't interested in being a doctor or a lawyer there is another profession where you can make a ton of money and restore the family name.

18:20It is not a UPS driver, though that is probably a good option. It is an AI engineer. Companies are offering extraordinarily high salaries for top AI talent since they see these people unlocking major cost savings and efficiencies for them in the long run, according to a new Wall Street Journal article. Here are a few examples. The dating app Hinge is offering a VP of AI a base salary of up to$398 ,000 per year. Amazon is paying a senior manager of applied science and generative AI a top salary of$340 ,000. And recently, Netflix went viral for posting an AI job with total compensation of up to$900 ,000 annually.

19:00And while AI job postings are still far below more traditional software developer roles, they're growing really fast. AI job posts on the work marketplace Upwork have jumped more than 1 ,000 percent in Q2 over the same period last year. The bottom line here, there is an arms race for AI engineers right now. And if you've got the qualifications, I see a house with a three-car garage in your future. I mean, this is just simple market economics, right? Supply and demand, where it's not like we suddenly, we have this immense demand and then there's not enough supply to meet it. Like these AI engineers aren't appearing out of thin air.

19:36So of course there's this arms race for who can get the best ones. A lot of companies have just said, hey, we can't hire people. So we're either going to acquire smaller startups and just bring all those AI people under our umbrella, or they're training people internally because there just simply isn't enough people out there who are trained to do these jobs. And one reason for such frenzied demand for these is that it's not concentrated to a single industry. It isn't just big tech hiring AI companies. It's Walmart. It's Procter & Gamble. It's Goldman Sachs. It's real estate companies like JLL.

20:11Everyone is looking for a similar role of someone who can unlock the mat, like a source or an AI source or who can unlock the cost saving magic of AI. And so all of those companies hiring for AI talent is definitely putting pressure on the labor market. Like you said, there's, there's not enough people. So although one on that, one thing that recruiters have had their eye on is people trying to game the system where they are seeing people who are just normal candidates in data science or engineers, They've begun inserting AI into their existing job titles just so they get flagged or are more eye-catching.

20:44So there is a little bit of gaming the system on both sides where it's kind of the joke of proficient in Microsoft Excel. The new thing is going to be proficient in AI and everyone goes, okay, well, give us a prompt or something. I think a layperson would not know the difference between what a regular software developer does and what an AI developer does. I mean, I think in some cases they are the same. Regular software developers use AI and machine learning. It's part of their skill set. And so I don't see why they can't put AI over there. But I think it's funny in the first place that AI is leading to a jobs boom right now, right?

21:21Because everyone's like, oh, AI is going to take our jobs. AI is taking our jobs. And maybe it will in the long term. But for now, it's leading to an overall net positive gain in jobs because people need to design the systems that will eventually take people's jobs. Yeah, it is. It is a little bit ironic. And if you do see the graph of the amount of jobs listed, it is truly up. It's a banana. Yeah. All right. We've arrived at the last story of our show in which we all need to pray for the people of Massachusetts. My people. Duncan announced yesterday a new line of alcoholic drinks, spiked iced tea and spiked iced coffee, in an effort to slide into the growing ready-to-drink market.

22:01Its spiked iced tea will be 5 % ABV and come in flavors like Slightly Sweet and Strawberry Dragon Fruit, while the coffee will be 6 % ABV and have flavors like caramel and mocha. Caramel? What do you say? Caramel. Okay, we're on the same page. This isn't really a shock. Duncan has already partnered with Harpoon Brewery, also New England, on various beers and everyone and their mother is getting into this canned spike beverage space, which is growing 7 % each year. But I wouldn't necessarily consider this a guaranteed home run either. Twisted Tea dominates the spiked iced tea market and many brands have failed to come up with a successful spiked coffee line.

22:38Do you really think that people will be into alcoholic coffee that isn't an espresso martini? It is very hard for me to see a world where this truly catches on and become mainstream. Because, yeah, it's not a very relaxing beverage. It's definitely something that you would need to. It feels like you're splurging on. It feels like a treat. Because I don't understand where it fits in in the grand scheme of things. Like maybe if you're starting out like a big drinking day, if you're tailgating, you start with a spiked coffee. Really weird. In the industry, it's called sessionable. Yeah, right. So like a session beer is low ABV where you can just kind of chill with many of them all day.

23:16This is the exact opposite of that. This is not sessionable. The thing is it only has 30 milligrams of caffeine. A regular coffee has 100 milligrams. So it's not going to get you super buzzed in both ways. Although I do love this. So Duncan president Scott Murphy told CNN that the logic behind creating this drink means that you can start your day and end your day with Duncan. so I don't know maybe he is envisioning it as like a nightcap I do think the espresso martini there is a espresso martini wave that we're currently in is that a lot of people love that kind of late at night so maybe this could fill that gap of all right we're trying to get back up for a night out let's get a little hit of that caffeine and then also have the alcoholic content so can you imagine showing up to a pre-game and just having like six if it catches on things right That could be a thing.

24:09I think it's absolutely hilarious, though. I do think the teas have a better chance of catching on. Twisted tea dominates this market. It is Boston Beer Company's best-selling product. But I don't think anyone has a crazy affiliation with Twisted Tea. Like, their brand isn't that strong. I think the Dunkin' brand is much bigger. And I think that Dunkin' could easily supplant Twisted Tea in that market. Because I don't know anyone who drinks Twisted Tea or is like, I love twisted tea. Yeah. But people love Dunkin'. Yeah, people love Dunkin' and the flavors are pretty interesting for Dunkin' too where you have some slightly sweet and some half and half and some less sweet ones.

24:50So I think that the tea, even though Dunkin' is... Spill the tea. All right, so we are... I think we agree. We're bullish on the tea. We are not bullish on... We should try one before tomorrow's show and see. We're going to try one. Is it in New York? It's only in two... It's only in about a dozen states. Even if it's not New York, we'll travel and bring it back. We'll go. All right. That is our show for today. I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday. We love getting emails from our listeners, so please write in to Morning Brew Daily at MorningBrew.com. Someone wrote a huge essay about whether we should be spreading aerosols into the sky to deflect the sun's rays and cool the planet.

25:30I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I cannot wait to dive in this morning. Let's roll these credits. Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Bellas and Raymond Liu are our associate producers. Isabel Nguyen is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio. Hair and makeup is returning their Oscar for The Blind Side in light of new revelations. Devin Emery is our chief content officer. And our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.

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