Debate Week Vibes

Glennis Meagher: [00:00:00] No pundits,

Brian Derrick: no mute buttons,

Glennis Meagher: just vibes. This is vibes only a podcast that promises to check the vibes of American politics every week. And the vibes this week,

Brian Derrick: I’ll lose the debate on purpose. Maybe I’ll do something like that. Joining us to preview the first presidential debate of 2024 and vibe check the race is democratic strategist and friend of the pod, Keith Edwards.

Let’s get into it. It’s fight night guys. It’s debate time. I’m excited.

Glennis Meagher: Wait, can we go around do a round Robin? How are you feeling in one word for the debate on Thursday, Brian?

Brian Derrick: Um, I’m going to say aggressive.

Glennis Meagher: Wow. Keith?

Brian Derrick: I’m excited.

Glennis Meagher: And I’m nervous.

Brian Derrick: Yeah, that’s fair. I feel like Biden’s going to come out swinging.

Yes.

Glennis Meagher: Let’s talk about the stakes. So what’s at play here? This is like the earliest debate in a presidential that we’ve ever had. How are we, like, Good, bad, ugly, neutral. Like what are the actual stakes? Understanding the internet moves so fast. The news cycle moves so fast. What are we looking at?

Keith Edwards: I have a lot of thoughts about [00:01:00] this.

Yeah. Hit us with it. All right. One thought is that in one way it doesn’t matter because it’s so early, but I think in terms of like, Vibes and momentum. You know, I think for, for whatever reason, the media has complete amnesia. They, they always forget that Joe Biden’s got it. And then he’s going to come out swinging like you’re saying, Ryan, and then the meetings, you’re all right, Joe Biden, you know, that they, they kind of buy, they, they are kind of susceptible to the right wing messaging as well.

And so I think like wake with the state of the union, when everyone was like, Oh my God, Joe Biden’s on a corpse, he can actually deliver each. I think the same thing is going to happen here.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah. Do you think that’s a good thing that the media is like has such low expectations and such a low bar?

Brian Derrick: No, it’s helpful for Biden though.

It’s helpful.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah,

Brian Derrick: I do think so. I mean, Trump has been literally setting Biden up in everybody’s eyes as a senile, uh, dawdling old man. That’s what the right is saying. [00:02:00] And so when he comes out, he’s really sharp. He knows how to talk policy. He can go toe to toe with Trump. He knows how to show his heart to America.

That’s why people voted for him in 2020. And if he does those things, he’s going to absolutely crush those really low expectations. So I do think it’s helpful to him, even though it’s an unfair sort of biased Framing that they’ve bought into based on what Kevin McCarthy is saying. We’ve talked about this.

Like that’s not an unbiased source. It’s ridiculous. On the other hand, Trump, I think, I think the stakes are lower for Trump.

Glennis Meagher: And he’s already setting it up as such.

Brian Derrick: Yeah, say more.

Glennis Meagher: Well, he’s saying that he might now be better off if he loses, giving it’s like this far out. It might be a good thing for him if he loses a debate.

He’s also suggesting that the president is going to be like pumped up, like juiced up on air quotes here, illegal drugs. And he’s been, he’s like already complaining about the debate rules. So he like, does not want to play on this playground and he’s already setting himself up to like fall and break his arm.[00:03:00]

Brian Derrick: Let’s also be clear that Trump said that he would debate Biden, quote, anywhere. Any time, any place. And so for him to now be getting cold feet is funny to me. It

Glennis Meagher: is funny. Keith, what’s your read on Trump being like, actually, I might lose. I might lose.

Keith Edwards: Well, that’s, it’s, it’s extremely Trump to want to basically say all the things.

So he’s not going to be wrong either way. You know, and I think that clip went viral. I think we were talking about it, maybe we’re, maybe we’re doing it now, where that woman got caught off of CNN.

Karoline Leavitt: President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network on CNN with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years and their biased coverage of him.

Kasie Hunt: My colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I’ll also say that if you talk to analysts of debates previous, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing. What do you expect from Joe Biden?

Karoline Leavitt: [00:04:00] Well, first of all, it’s, it would take someone five minutes to Google Jake Tapper, Donald Trump, to see that Jake Tapper has consistently frequently likened President Trump to Adolf Hitler. Ma’am, we’re going to stop this interview

Kasie Hunt: if you’re going to keep attacking my colleagues. Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues.

Biden and Donald

Karoline Leavitt: Trump, who you work for. I am stating facts that your colleagues have stated in the past. Okay, I’m sorry guys, we’re going to come

Keith Edwards: back out to the panel. I personally believe that was a way to create this narrative, the beginning of a narrative, that Jake Tapper And CNN are out to get Trump so that when he does lose, they have something they can point to as evidence.

Glennis Meagher: They’re laying the narrative groundwork.

Keith Edwards: Yes, I think so.

Brian Derrick: Oh, absolutely. Like, definitely. They have been, instead of trying to like work the debate to their advantage, I think that they’re just outright trying to cast the entire thing as Biased and illegitimate,

Glennis Meagher: he literally said that he’s going to be debating three, three people instead of one half of a person.

So he’s saying that the president [00:05:00] is one half of a person, but that he’s going to be debating the moderators as well, which is just such like, what a victim Donald Trump. Oh my god, what a victim,

Keith Edwards: but this is the first time ever that they’re going to be muting the mics when the candidates are not speaking.

Thank God. No. I know. How was that not

Kasie Hunt: a thing before?

Keith Edwards: One of the worst things that ever happened was when they removed Trump from Twitter. Because it, it blinded a lot of the population to Trump’s most insane ideas and thoughts. And I think this is like a small version of that where they are going to be moderating him.

They’re going to make him more moderate, but not showing who he is. I think it’s a terrible decision.

Brian Derrick: Oh, I strongly, I strongly disagree. I don’t think that we need. Trump to be unhinged and out of control in order to show how extreme he is. Like, I, I don’t think that we, we need both. And so the idea that Biden will actually have time to speak and communicate his ideas, thinking back to the Trump Hillary [00:06:00] debate, it was a farce.

Like it was literally theatrics. It was not a exchange of ideas in any way. And I think that we need to move as far away from the reality show, That all of this has become and back to a actual dialogue about the role of the president and the policies that each one of them stands for. Because if you actually understand both side by side, Biden will win in a landslide.

Glennis Meagher: Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. Like what policies are we actually going to see outlined? What You know, I’m seeing a lot of messaging saying it’s for voters is a choice between two people. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think a huge part of this election is that we as Americans, of course, it’s a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.

Like, no doubt I can read a ballot, but it’s a choice about how do you want to move forward? As a country, or how do you want to move backwards decades as a country? And that’s, that’s the choice between Trump and Biden. Trump wants to bring us back. He [00:07:00] wants to give like more tax credits or tax cuts rather to the ultra wealthy.

Brian, you talked about this last week. I think it’s a really important thing to keep like doubling down on about how he favors and is going to incentivize big business and the ultra wealthy. So do we think any of those actual policy initiatives are going to get Push through in this debate, or is it just going to be like a RuPaul’s drag race fake debate?

Look over there.

Keith Edwards: Well, I’m almost certain Biden will talk about policy and Trump will talk about policy vis a vis, you know, the more extreme things he wants to do, like, you know, deport 10 million undocumented immigrants and that sort of thing. But I do think in some ways we are in a post policy America.

I don’t think policy is the number one thing people vote on anymore. Do you think it’s vibes? Yeah! It is a little bit like vibes, but I also think that, you know, people are voting for their team. And there’s a very slim minority of voters who actually are like swayed. But also, what can, [00:08:00] what can anyone hear?

We’ve done this before. It’s like, this is like Terminator 3, you know, like how many sequels we need of this, you know? But what can anyone hear? If they don’t like Trump or they like Biden, you know, like who is really persuadable right now, you know? I mean, I’m sure there’s people out there. I haven’t met one.

Have you, but

Brian Derrick: I mean, yes. And you just commented how people have Trump amnesia and how like people are, people forget, right. And so like, I do think it’s an opportunity to remind people what Trump’s presidency was actually about and what it was like. People only remember back to COVID and then it’s just like, Blank space before that.

Kasie Hunt: And

Brian Derrick: it’s a good idea. And it’s like a good opportunity to remind people of, of who Biden really is not through the media lens of an old man, but like in his own words, direct to camera, spelling out what he wants to do, what his values are, what he’s about. So I do think it has a. Place where they

Keith Edwards: shouldn’t mute him because they should show the full.

Glennis Meagher: I [00:09:00] think that men will be men and they will just scream and get very emotional. And I think Trump is going to talk over the mic regardless. There’s only so much muting you can actually do. He’s still going to talk like just because his mic is muted. Well, that does not mean he will be silenced. You know, I know it depends on how

Brian Derrick: far apart

Keith Edwards: they are on stage and

Glennis Meagher: where like the boom mics are.

Yeah.

Keith Edwards: Right. I. I have heard from a reporter that like that campaign, the Trump campaign believes that Trump is going to try to appear more moderate.

Brian Derrick: Yeah. That is strategically, that would be the way to go, right? Like that’s exactly what he needs to do to win over this movable middle. I agree with you, Keith, that it’s like a very small percentage of people, but like when we’re talking about the double haters, people who actively dislike both of them, which is a probably historically large number of people, this cycle, like, Some of those people are, are undecided.

Some of those people have not figured out which one they dislike less. And I do think that to Glenis’s earlier [00:10:00] question, we might be voting on vibes and campaigns might be focused on vibes and personality and those types of things. But like debates. are about policy, and they still have a place in our election system, and people still deserve to have some thoughtful dialogue about what the two paths are and what the difference is in how each one will approach the election.

Their next term, and I think that we need Jake Tapper and Dana Bash to try to put forth actual policy conversation, tough questions, and show people the differences aside from the drama, the personality, the convictions, the headlines,

Keith Edwards: etc. Do you think they’re going to fall into the trap? Of going harder on Biden to not appear partisan potentially,

Glennis Meagher: but Biden’s a pro, even though he may be old, he is a pro and he has a lot of experience.

So, you know, Keith, your earlier point about the state of the union, like if he can just be like focused [00:11:00] and ready to go, like he has the receipts to remind America about how bad a Donald Trump presidency was. And he understands his policies. And he understands the path that he wants to take America forward.

forward with he’s doing a lot of debate prep. He’s like camp David, like locked in,

Kasie Hunt: like

Glennis Meagher: training, you know, like I’m, you know, contrast, contrast, contrast. And I think Joe Biden knows that and he’s just going to dig his heels in and go for it.

Brian Derrick: I’m curious if there are any like specific issues or moments that you guys are looking for.

Yes. Yeah. Go.

Glennis Meagher: I would love Joe Biden to say abortion.

Brian Derrick: You know how I feel about that, but I feel that

Glennis Meagher: it’s like not that important, but just say it. I think that it’s not that important

Brian Derrick: when he’s been as aggressive on the issue as he has. But I get it. I get it. It’s like,

Glennis Meagher: it was like, it’s like not saying it’s like being a gun reform advocate and not saying assault weapon or not saying machine gun.

It’s like semantics, but I think they’re important [00:12:00] semantics.

Keith Edwards: Keith. There’s a couple things I want Joe Biden to be pissed righteously indignant Joe Biden defending democracy. I want him to acknowledge I’m old. I just want him to say that, like do some sort of, maybe not a self deprecating joke. The thing with bullies, if you make fun of yourself or you take their attack and you just say it, it takes all of the power out of it.

So I hope Joe Biden takes his power back. And says, I’m old. There’s no denying I’m old. What I’m not is an insurrectionist, you know?

Glennis Meagher: Also, not much older than you, Donald Trump. Like, Donald Trump is old too.

Brian Derrick: Right. It’s vibes. It’s vibes. For me, I think there are three moments in particular that I’ll be looking for.

One is Trump being pushed on whether he will ban abortion medication. Because the next administration could essentially ban abortion nationwide via executive action with the FDA if they do that. So will Trump ban all abortion medication nationwide? Number two, [00:13:00] how does Biden respond to Hunter? It’s definitely going to come up and it can go one of two ways.

Hunter occasionally rattles Biden, understandably. Right. But like when he’s asked about his family, he has been defensive before in the past. He also has an opportunity to like speak to an extremely relatable topic as a father going through a really difficult situation with their child who’s suffering, who has suffered from addiction.

And so I think that. That moment could go either direction and it’s going to be really important. And then the third one is how Biden prosecutes the case on Trump’s convictions. The way that he frames it, I think is incredibly important. Does it come across as a partisan cheap shot, right? Or does he really capture the threat that Trump poses to democracy via all of these cases?

And does it come across as opportunistic or. Like more of a thoughtful thing. So I feel like those are the three that I will be most looking for once the debate gets rolling.[00:14:00]

Let’s zoom out from the debate and talk about the overall state of the race. This really is, I think, kicking off the election season for most non political junkies in earnest. But how do you guys see the current state of the race between Biden and Trump? Biden took the lead. The 538 averages.

Glennis Meagher: But we don’t love polls on vibes only because the polls are broken.

Brian Derrick: We can say the polls are broken as much as we want. And we know that our listeners are out here refreshing five 38 on a regular basis. Like we know it is a real thing and it affects the national conversation when these things come out. So it’s a legitimate thing to talk about even as we acknowledge that like they’re not predictive, they have specific problems based on projections of turnout and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It’s like a both. And But yeah, we have new polling data. As Keith mentioned, we have new fundraising data.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah, wait, I want to, first of all, Brian Derrick of vibes only was quoted in the New York Times. [00:15:00] I read that, Brian. Good job.

Brian Derrick: Thank you.

Glennis Meagher: Literally, as soon as we stopped recording last week, and you had the moment of talking about like the ultra rich and Donald Trump and contributions and backdoor meetings with oil executives for a billion dollars, we get a New York Times alert that Timothy Mellon Who’s like a very secretive, conservative donor, but he gave 50 million in one contribution to a pro Trump group.

Brian Derrick: That’s insane.

Glennis Meagher: That’s insane.

Brian Derrick: So much. 50

Glennis Meagher: million, like Dr. Evil Voice. That is so much money.

Brian Derrick: Do you know who else he’s funding?

Glennis Meagher: Uh, do I want to know?

Brian Derrick: LFK Jr. RFK Jr. . Yes. Yeah. This guy who’s just in the shadows writing the, these massive seven, eight figure checks. Right? Super frustrating. Trump did have a banger of a quarter, uh, especially the last two months since his conviction.

He raised a historic amount of money, I think it was over $55 million in the [00:16:00] 48 hours after the conviction, and then followed that up with. A bunch of max out donations, which are essentially million dollar contributions from billionaires who he’s trying to sell his policy platform to. And so as we’ve seen, he’s like going to oil execs.

He’s saying, will you raise me a billion dollars? If I do X, Y, Z thing to give you profits, he’s telling corporations, he’s going to cut the corporate tax rates so that Netflix doesn’t have to pay federal taxes the way that Biden has made them do. He’s telling the ultra rich that he’s wants to cut their taxes.

He wants to the 2017 Trump’s tax cuts. He truly is trying to give away as much American money as possible to the super wealthy in exchange for them raising all this money and it’s working. He’s literally raising hundreds of millions of dollars with that strategy.

Keith Edwards: But I liked what you said in the times, which is that.

You can’t, you can’t get your time back, you know, you can’t get the investment time back. So like, sure, you can have a hundred million dollars more, but Biden has been investing in advertising, investing in infrastructure [00:17:00] offices for months. And, and this isn’t talked about enough. Is that yeah, Biden is running a traditional campaign, which means that they have a plan about things they want to do when they’re going to do them when they’re going to say them.

Trump is not running anything. He’s not running anything. He’s running his mouth. He’s running his mouth

Glennis Meagher: and he’s running up his legal bill.

Keith Edwards: Yes. So, so the fact that sure. Trump raised a million, a hundred million. Okay. Who cares? He’s not spending it effectively. And because the media pays attention to him in this grossly negligent way.

Um, I think it might not matter as much on the margins that he’s not spending the way he should. But then again, elections, especially presidential elections are one on the margins. So the fact that Trump, like all of this stuff, it might seem small, but it’s the small things that make a big difference in campaigns.

And I think what you said was really, it’s not something that is talked about enough, was it, which is that Biden is investing in a longterm. Strategy here and Trump doesn’t have a strategy besides like whatever he’s going to post [00:18:00] about today and talk about, you know, Can

Glennis Meagher: we just take a beat on that?

Because I want for our vibes only listeners to understand what you mean when you say a traditional campaign.

Brian Derrick: Essentially what that means is that Biden raised money early and has invested in staff first and foremost, he’s opened dozens at this point, I believe it’s in the hundreds of campaign offices.

Across every battleground state, and that enables you to actually have a presence in the communities to be on the doors to be knocking and talking to voters, uh, to be doing much more individualized and personalized voter contact to be doing voter registration, all of these things that take months to like recruit people, hire them, train them, deploy them, target, Get it.

follow up, it takes a long time. And so that is the point of investing early and why it was helpful that Biden had money early versus when you get money super late in the game. And I think what Keith is alluding to [00:19:00] is all you can really do is, is buy more ads, more TV or digital. And there’s diminishing returns there.

Once someone has seen that ad 10 times, like what more is 50 million more dollars behind that ad going to accomplish. And so I do think that we’re seeing Biden run more of a traditional on the ground campaign, and it also doesn’t get covered by the media, but he’s been barnstorming these States. He’s doing events.

He’s on the ground in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Arizona and Nevada and North Carolina. Like he has a really busy schedule as well. So Keith, what am

Keith Edwards: I leaving out? No, I think that’s right. And I think because of that, Biden is set up. I mean, I think there’s also like the whole messaging structure of everything.

Like, I don’t think people realize that campaigns have a sense of like when they want to talk about things. Right. And so I’m sure there’s going to be a moment when Biden talks about X, if you’re like, why isn’t Biden talking about this yet? Like project 2025, for instance, right. I’m sure they want him to mention it.

They don’t want to do it now. They want to do it when people are more tuned in. No, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that would be my guess. [00:20:00]

Glennis Meagher: Right. Theoretically, like there is a messaging timeline and there’s like milestones and when people want to talk about things and policies like the office of gun violence prevention, doing more events and being on the ground, talking about things, et cetera.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. So I think that it’s better to have a strategy. Then it’d just be shooting from the hip, you know, and for Trump, it does work somewhat. Well, but we’re going to see this in the debates too, where Biden’s actually planning. It needs to be methodical, but what he wants to say is even surgical. So you make sure that he says the right thing at the right time.

Trump is not practicing at all, you know? And I think that works to his advantage in some ways, but in a lot of other ways, it doesn’t. I think that’s also reflective in the way that they campaign.

Brian Derrick: Right. Keith, quick plug for your YouTube, Keith is now on YouTube and in a recent video, you talked about Trump’s like true social stock and how that relates to sort of the current state of the race.

Can you talk to us about it a little bit?

Keith Edwards: Yes. So there was a day where Trump’s true social stock was plummeting and I was like, Oh, that’s interesting because I [00:21:00] don’t consider that he has a stock. I know that he has true social. But then I thought to myself, well, I wonder what the performance of the stock has been.

And then when I lined up the highs and lows with what was happening in the news or the media narrative, it almost lined up perfectly. Or if you want a primary, it was up, you’ve lost DC. It was down the day that the first like criminal trial happened. It was all the way up because the media narrative was like, this is terrible for Biden.

It’s great for Trump. It’s going to make him up a lot. And then when they picked the juries jury selection, it was all the way down. Now the reason why it’s like this is because it’s a stock that has no value aside from the fact that someone who might have their own social media platform. Yeah. The only reason why that stock is up or down, it doesn’t make money.

They have 500, 000, maybe monthly users if that’s to be believed. So it’s all based on whether or not Trump is going to be the president. Just speculation. Yeah, yes.

Brian Derrick: Yeah, it’s essentially Game Stop. But but like tied to the [00:22:00] news.

Glennis Meagher: Can I take this moment because we’re already kind of talking about it. Can we go another round Robin and just give like one or two sentences about how we’re feeling like what our vibe is for November.

Keith Edwards: Okay, so I’m imagining it’s election day right now in my, in my, in my spirit, and I am nervous. As can I swear? Yes. Nervous as fuck. Imagine it’s election day. Like I’m sweating right now thinking about it. But I have to imagine after everything we’ve seen, after everything Trump has done, everything Trump has not done, which is to reach out to voters and be moderate, you know, a moderating force.

His base is only shrunk. He’s a convicted felon. He is an insurrectionist. Joe Biden has a record he can run on that is actually one of progress. It’s not perfect. No president is. I have to imagine America will choose President Biden.

Glennis Meagher: I agree.

Brian Derrick: Yes, I agree. [00:23:00] And I have to just say out loud that I think the rationale of basing it on like what we believe America to be.

Is very 2016 vibes to me, you know what I mean? Where like, we were all so blindsided that people would make that choice.

Keith Edwards: He’s not a, he’s not an unknown quantity. That’s a difference. Now it could be a thing. Like I’m going to make an analogy of like relationships. It could be. That America is like, you know, I kind of want, you know, I want the guy that roughed me up and like the sex was kind of good and maybe the relationship wasn’t great, but you know, I kind of miss like the, you know, I’d like miss the freakiness of it, you know, like that’s a thing that happens in relationships.

It could be what happens here. Like I don’t want the guy that loves me and is like steady and like, I want the, you know, I want the guy that treated me bad. There’s like a romanticism of like, we accept the love. We think we deserve.

Glennis Meagher: I think enough Americans have enough empathy to think about their neighbors and to remove their [00:24:00] personal privilege or lack of excitement or motivation around this election to think about other people and how a second Trump presidency might work.

drastically impact their lives for the worst. And I think digital media is very important in getting that messaging out the last two months of an election of really creating the contrast between the two candidates, creating the contrast between the two futures that we can see as a country. And like, I definitely hear you, Keith and Brian, that like that idea that like, A better America.

Like people are like, what? No, my groceries are expensive. Like what better America? But I do believe that the majority of Americans want people to feel safe and have access to affordable healthcare and feel safe in schools and feel like they have good economic opportunity. And because of that, they’ll go vote.

Keith Edwards: Yeah,

Glennis Meagher: I think that’s right.

Keith Edwards: I mean, I, I also think that, you know, when, when Americans have the opportunity to vote for [00:25:00] pro democracy candidates and pro abortion candidates, they vote overwhelmingly for those candidates.

Brian Derrick: What is it giving? It’s giving shark attack. Sharks have literally been on the attack. They’re everywhere.

Glennis Meagher: So let’s see. Trump was talking about sharks. Let’s see what he’s saying.

Donald Trump: Because of MIT, my relationship to MIT, very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater.

And there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 over there. By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark. I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what, who she was.

These people are quick. He said, there’s no problem with sharks. They just didn’t really understand [00:26:00] a young woman swimming now really got decimated and other people to a lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here. Do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking.

Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer. He said, you know, nobody’s ever asked me that question. I said, I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.

But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that. We’re going to end it for boats. We’re going to end it for trucks.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah, literally it’s giving he lost the plot. Like he’s always pointing a finger at Joe Biden for a senior moment.

What was the point of that story?

Brian Derrick: I have no idea. It’s giving Trump on the Titanic.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah.

Brian Derrick: Like, would you rather be electrocuted [00:27:00] or

Keith Edwards: eaten by a shark? I transcribed this and I put this into chat GBT. Explain this to me. And it said, this doesn’t, it was like, this is a rambling speech. That doesn’t quite make sense.

Wow. If

Brian Derrick: the AI can’t even parse it out, then you know that you’re really off handed.

Keith Edwards: It just said this, does this make sense? It’s like, no,

Glennis Meagher: he’s obsessed. He’s recently very obsessed with sharks. He was like doing a speech in front of like Michigan last week. And he was like, look at this beautiful lake, blah, blah, blah.

You don’t have sharks. That’s a big advantage. I’ll take the one without the sharks. He’s like. obsessed with sharks.

Brian Derrick: We had another one that was a slightly less ranting but way more disturbing.

Donald Trump: Dana White. Did anyone ever hear of Dana White? He’s a legend, right? UFC. Ultimate fighter. Ultimate fighting. And he has, he’s a fantastic man.

I said, Dana, I have an idea. Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of [00:28:00] fighters? And then you have the champion of your league. These are the greatest fighters in the world. Fight the champion of the migrants. I think the migrant guy might win. That’s how tough they are.

He didn’t like that idea too much, but actually it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had. No, it’s, uh, these are tough people. These people are tough and they’re nasty mean.

Brian Derrick: It’s up there. It’s up there in the worst ideas you’ve ever had.

Glennis Meagher: Oh, it’s like this dehumanization of it’s literally giving

Brian Derrick: like Jordan Peele movie.

You know what I mean? Like that is psycho

Keith Edwards: racist. It’s horrifying. Super racist. Also, that is who was in the White House. That’s I mean, Like he had a great idea, which was insane, but he actually thinks it’s a great idea. And he’s like, why don’t we do this? That’s what he was like with all major problems in the white house.

I know it’s preaching to the choir, but that to me was, I’ve never, I didn’t see that clip before. And that to me is like, Oh, that’s probably how it was [00:29:00] during COVID,

Glennis Meagher: right? With the bleach drinking or the horse, whatever

Brian Derrick: in charge of the nukes.

Glennis Meagher: Oh, well, well, well, Brian, someone messaged our group chat. She is a, I’m not an elder millennial yet, but she self identifies as an elder millennial and she also likes birds. So in case you missed it last week, Brian has a thing against birds. Ravens. Wow.

Brian Derrick: Wow. Okay.

Glennis Meagher: Gladys

Brian Derrick: is defaming me and then went on to literally put out a libelous Instagram story.

I’ve been getting DMs all week of people saying, why do you hate birds? I do not hate birds.

Glennis Meagher: Birds are awesome. They’re like little dinosaurs.

Brian Derrick: Unlike you. Oh my god. Eye roll please.

Glennis Meagher: I had a cardinal on my terrace yesterday and it was beautiful.

Brian Derrick: Okay, I’m not a bird hater. Are cardinals the [00:30:00] red ones? I just don’t care about RFK liking birds.

And I love that that was your takeaway from the group chats that we got sent in. The real takeaway was that people were split 50 50 on whether Trump or Biden will win in a nail biter.

Glennis Meagher: I know, I’m looking for allies, okay? I’m looking for bird allies. Yeah, that’s true. So just say that again so everyone can hear.

Brian Derrick: Our listeners are pretty much split 50 50 on whether Trump or Biden will win in November. So that means that we got to give y’all some hope and then also keep you motivated to keep volunteering and donating.

Glennis Meagher: Also, yes, like we said this last week, we need to be texting all of our friends, anyone who’s like following a poll, who’s following the news.

You don’t want to wake up like you did in 2016 wondering what you could have done, like have conversations with your friends and family. phone bank, spend some money, do what you are able to do in your capacity, period,

Brian Derrick: period. We have definitely had Jamal Bowman [00:31:00] in the group chat. By the time you are hearing this, we should know the result of the competitive Democratic primary election, the incumbent Jamal Bowman versus George Latimer.

And it’s like really causing a lot of drama in New York in particular, APAC’s involved AOC and Bernie just had a big event in DC and that’s been spicy. And I have friends on every side of the issue, so I’m very curious to see how it plays out.

Glennis Meagher: Same.

Brian Derrick: Keith, I was going to say, you’ve been blowing up the group chat.

Our, our collective group chat about dark matter. Oh, best show on TV right now. In my opinion, Keith claims that dark matter, which is an Apple TV is Apple, Apple plus whatever show, which is from a book that I read forever ago. I feel like this novel by Blake Crouch, which is the sci fi novel. Keith claimed that last week was the best episode of television he’s ever seen.

I think [00:32:00] I actually do believe

Keith Edwards: that statement. Like I was not just being hyperbolic. That’s a big statement to my TV. It because all right, no one if you watch the show, then you know, but if you haven’t watched the show, no spoilers, the long lead up to this moment, episode. Yeah. And it delivered on every single thing you’d hope.

And I’m really good at predicting where stories are going because I’m a writer and, you know, whatever. But like, there were things in this where I was like, I did not expect that. It was very funny.

Glennis Meagher: Here’s my thing. No one on the group chat actually told me if this was or was not about the scientific. I said, no, I

Brian Derrick: answered that.

I said it wasn’t. I said it wasn’t. So it’s

Glennis Meagher: not about the unknown particle that takes up like 80 percent of our universe that no one understands? In a way,

Keith Edwards: but not really.

Brian Derrick: It tangentially, like it’s tangentially related, but in the way that all good sci fi does, they’re only using like the science as an element to elicit really interesting questions about [00:33:00] like humanity and love and friendship and like all these other themes.

That’s why I love sci fi so much. I’ll add it

Glennis Meagher: to the list. It doesn’t read like a physics

Brian Derrick: book. Apple TV is your new HBO. That’s my hot take. That’s kind of real. That is kind of real. Most of my favorite shows are now Apple. I will also say, my last thing in the group chat was that I tried to watch the debate in person, live, with Keith and Emily and they said they’re both going to be too busy making content, that they don’t have time to hang out with me, which is rude.

Keith Edwards: Do you want to come over? You can still come over. No, I don’t want this pity invite live on the pod. You want to be, no, I mean, you can still come over. I don’t, I just don’t think you’d want to be like, we could be live together. Do you want to do that? We could be silently on our screens in the

Brian Derrick: same room.

Keith Edwards: Thanks

Brian Derrick: for joining us, Keith. Thank you for having me. It was fun.

Glennis Meagher: Our pleasure. Truly.

Brian Derrick: I feel like this was a very helpful vibe check on the presidential and really appreciate you bringing the perspective. I’m going to be glued to your channel, [00:34:00] uh, during the debate, even though we won’t be in person together and all of your content, especially on YouTube.

Yeah. Tomorrow. Subscribe. If you’re

Glennis Meagher: listening to vibes only on a Wednesday. Tune into Keith’s YouTube, Instagram, TikTok for debate coverage

Keith Edwards: at Keith Edwards. Very

Brian Derrick: easy

for our good vibe this week. We have a new policy from the Biden administration that is going to help keep more families together. So the Biden administration put out a new rule that says that if you have been in the U. S. for more than 10 years and you are married to a U. S. citizen, then you can now pursue a path to citizenship for yourself.

Even if you are currently undocumented. And so what this means is that instead of the current situation where someone who’s married to an American citizen could have to leave the United States for years in order to apply for citizenship, now they can stay in the U S with their partner, continue to build their family and follow that same legal path [00:35:00] towards citizenship.

Glennis Meagher: While staying with their family and not having to leave the country.

Brian Derrick: Exactly. So this, I think, again, shows the stark contrast between Biden and Trump, both of whom I think want to bring order and structure to the border and our immigration system. But I think that Biden’s interested in doing it in a way that can keep families together and support people rather than tearing people apart.

Glennis Meagher: Good vibe. Thank you, Brian. Thanks again to Keith Edwards for being on the show today. And thank you for listening. Don’t forget to text us about how you’re watching or listening to This Week’s This Week. debate and how you’re feeling about it. Tune back in next week and we’ll chat all about it. Bye till then.

Brian Derrick: Vibes Only is produced by Devin Maroney, with support from Couriers Kyle Tharp, RC Di Mezzo, and Daniel Strasburger. Tara McGowan is founder and publisher of Courier.