Republicans Faceplant on IVF, Impeachment Efforts, and Basic Governance

Glennis Meagher: [00:00:00] The 2024 election and the future of democracy hinges on vibes and vibes only.

Brian Derrick: So we’ve got to check them. And here to help us do that this week is Emily Amick, aka at Emily in your phone. We’re going to

Glennis Meagher: talk with her a little bit about the fallout of the Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled frozen embryos are people and the calculations we’re seeing Republicans make in real time on the unpopular decision that uses their own logic.

Brian Derrick: She’ll stick around as we discuss the gathering of the most Staunch MAGA extremists in the country who are planning to end democracy, the latest Republican efforts to impeach just about everybody, and potentially another government shutdown. We’ll round

Glennis Meagher: out the vibes this week with a brief presidential primary update, then introduce you to the trad boy phenomena, pull up our group chat, and leave you with a good vibe.

Lots to get into. Let’s do it.

Big day! Big day! Tell em! Alright, dear friend. Emily in your phone is here. So we were talking all about IVF [00:01:00] repro last week, and we kept saying we wish Emily were here with us. And this week, here she is.

Emily Amick: Here I am. I’m outside of your phone, into your headphones. Excited to be here at Vibes

Brian Derrick: Only. If you don’t already follow Emily, Emily’s incredible.

She makes really digestible content breaking down the most important things that are happening in government and in politics. She is a lawyer. by trade and so has been especially helpful for me and I think thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of others in understanding rulings that are coming from the Supreme Court and lots of complicated or seemingly complicated issues that impact all of our fundamental rights.

So as Glennis said, super relevant. Perfect timing to have you on to chat about some of the crazy shit that’s been coming out of courts lately. Let’s dive in to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. Can you give us your, like, high level reaction to [00:02:00] the Embryos Are Children saga? Yeah,

Emily Amick: I mean, I think this is a logical extension of personhood arguments, right?

There’s no way to say that personhood begins at fertilization and have IVF be functionally legal. And, you know, I think a point of information about this Alabama Supreme Court ruling is that it’s about civil litigation. So it’s not about criminal. It’s about, are you liable? For things that happen on a monetary basis.

And so the reason that we have seen such a chilling effect so quickly is because the lawyers retained by all of these hospitals and fertility clinics are like, Oh, this is not good. If any time we make a mistake with an embryo, we are going to be held as if we killed a human person that is an unsustainable financial thing to have.

Because of course, in the United States. You can earn a lot of money in a civil trial, you know, OJ Simpsons, the, the example that [00:03:00] everyone thinks of when you murder someone, we use monetary damages as a way to disincentivize behavior. What’s been really interesting is seeing Republicans across the country try to claim that they had no idea this was happening whilst they have spent years and years and years, decades.

Even arguing for legal personhood of fertilized

Brian Derrick: eggs. Say that. Say that. That is something that’s been blowing up on the internet this week is after this ruling came out, Republican’s literally scrambling, freaking out. They know that banning IVF, super unpopular across the board. And so they’re like, no, no, no, no.

We support, we support IVF. But then there’s, they’re literally co sponsors of a bill that would. ban

Emily Amick: it. But I’ll say it’s not unpopular across the board. There are people, right? The anti choice slash pro life activists are jazzed about this because, of course, you have that activist faction of the conservative party [00:04:00] who believe in biblical conservatism.

Sure. And we saw that reflected in the concurrence from the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice. And they are ecstatic about this decision. And they say yes. An embryo is a baby and I think one of the most interesting things to see has been to see Nikki Haley try to walk the line because she both tries to insist that an embryo is a baby but also that we should allow IVF.

Brian Derrick: Well we have to, have to, have to talk about the Tommy Tuberville. Clip.

MSNBC News Correspondent: Do you have a reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on the fact that embryos are children?

Tommy Tuberville: Yeah. I was all for it. We need to have more kids. We need to have an opportunity to do that. And this, I thought this was the right thing to do,

MSNBC News Correspondent: but IVF is used to have more children and right now IVF services are paused at some of the clinics in Alabama.

Aren’t you concerned that this could impact people who are trying to have kids?

Tommy Tuberville: Well, that’s for, that’s for another

conversation.

Emily Amick: They’ve put baby in a corner.

Brian Derrick: Yeah, literally, literally. I think there are a few other angles to this that [00:05:00] we’ve seen this story sort of spiral out into. One that also caught my eye this week is the Missouri law that says that pregnant women can’t get divorced.

Ladies, ladies, any comment? Any comment?

Emily Amick: You know, obviously the most salient concern about the Missouri law is domestic violence victims who are trapped in abusive situations and cannot escape because their partner has impregnated them. And it’s an exceptionally effective tool for an abusive partner to use to trap a woman.

You know, it also connects more broadly to something we are seeing across the right, which is this effort to end no fault divorce. Right? And this is something, the Overton window hasn’t shifted yet on the issue of divorce in the same way it has shifted on other issues that the conservatives have been pushing for a long time, but this is all some bigger plan that is the war on women.

Brian Derrick: Tell us, I know that you like are deeply connected in these spaces and you [00:06:00] honestly subject yourself to a lot of this really right wing rhetoric to see what’s happening in their algorithm and in their echo chambers. Can you talk a little bit about what that community looks like online, particularly post Alabama ruling?

Yeah,

Emily Amick: I love Instagram and I love politics and for a long time, the only overlap of that Venn diagram was far right wing conservative influencers, wellness junkies, and so I have been following all of these people for a really long time and obviously there’s huge amounts of money to be made to be a right wing influencer and so there’s lots of women who are doing it and they’re doing it really, really, really well.

Excellent, excellent communicators. And You know, there’s a huge portion of them who are pro life activists, self described pro life activists. And you know, what we’ve seen, what I’m seeing from them is a defense of the position and a defense of the fact that we have to [00:07:00] do what it takes to protect these babies.

And can you imagine being a mother of children in a cryogenic nursery, which is the parlance of the decision, and someone comes in and ruins them and we have to protect these mothers. And I’m seeing a lot of that. Uh, but you know. Media Matters reported that Fox News has not been covering this issue. So to a significant degree, what I’ve seen is they’re just focusing on the border.

They’re not talking about this issue. And they are very, very good at ignoring what they

Brian Derrick: don’t want to talk about. I want to dive one. level deeper on the Instagram of it all. You’ve opened up a whole new world to me and I know a lot of other people with like the trad wives content. Tell us for the, for those who are less Instagram plugged in or less plugged into conservative.

Spheres of influence. Tell us more about like what that movement is about, what it looks like and why it’s insidious. Tries. Wives

Emily Amick: are really interesting and they’ve [00:08:00] really taken the discourse has taken over a tech talk, which is always really funny. People have really hit on it. You know, I think in the way the discourse has manifested has really grown, especially over the last couple of weeks and months, but a tribe wife is a woman who is in a quote unquote traditional marriage, which means she defers to, she doesn’t work outside of the home and she’s focused on.

Rearing her Children, making food, keeping the home, deferring to her husband on all decisions. I saw one trad wife posting about specifically politics, how she’s really she loves that she doesn’t have to think about it and she can just vote for whomever her husband tells her to vote for. Um, And you know, it, the thing is, choose your own choice girl, right?

Like if this is what people want to be doing, go for it. But that’s not what is happening online. And a lot of the attention has been spent on these like massive accounts like ballerina farms who are creating a very, very whitewashed figurative and literal version of what it means to be a traditional wife.

But this is something we have seen coming out of [00:09:00] the Christian evangelical homesteader community for a long, long time. And it is this idea of, again, shifting the Overton window away from feminism. It is shifting the Overton window away from women in the workplace away from sending your children to public schools where they have to be masked and vaxxed, right, which is terrible for the children.

It’s about wellness to right wing pipeline ideology. And it’s all wrapped into this conversation. And what has been really interesting to see on TikTok is the reactions. From women who are like, I’m a former trad wife. And a lot of these are religious women, right? Mormons who were like, I believe that this was my task.

And my husband left me when I was. 3040 and I have no ability to earn income and I have to take care of these children and he gave me nothing and it really fucking sucked or I was a DV victim and I had no way out because I had no financial security and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s the same conversation that.

Women and people were having the first [00:10:00] time around when we tried to end trad wives and right before, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s a big part though, of the, the conservative Christian biblical ideology that they are trying to push to again, change the Overton window, shift the cultural norms. Yeah.

Glennis Meagher: And just a comment, like I’m so deep on Tik Tok and what I am served is to your point, very well off trad wives where we’re seeing them make cereal from scratch or ice cream from scratch for their beloved husband and children.

But we’re not seeing the actual admin of Homemaking, which is the cleaning of the toilets, the grocery shopping, the child care. So it’s very interesting, the marketing of it, and to your point about these conservative messengers being very good at what they do. They’re showing an idealized version of what being a trad wife is like.

Emily Amick: Looks like I think what the right is very good at doing is tapping into a feeling and a feeling of the [00:11:00] vibes Right now for a lot of people are very overwhelmed branding The vibes are overwhelmed. The vibes are I want to tap out from the rat race Capitalism is beast and I get too much information not enough money life is too hard and what they are offering is an exit path, right?

Like, girl, if your life is too hard right now, I have a solution for you. You just give it all up. Go to a homestead. It’ll be amazing. All you’ll do is like, bake sourdough. You’ll make organic Play Doh for your kids. And like, you won’t have to make these hard decisions. The man will make them. Um, men renowned for making excellent decisions.

So, uh, sounds like a

Brian Derrick: great plan. I was like, are they, are they taking applications from gays? I’m like, sounds, sounds great. Sign, sign me up

Glennis Meagher: over here. You heard it here first. Brian Derrick is pivoting from, uh, political content on his Instagram to wannabe

Brian Derrick: trad wife. Trad wife. Gay trad wife. First one. Glass [00:12:00] ceilings.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah. Glass ceiling who? So, CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Like, we needed to hear more from them. Well, we did. Uh. Regressive, repressive, there were some Nazis there, like full blown 2024 Nazis were like out and about in the flesh. Like

Brian Derrick: doing salute, salute and all.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah, they were like fully like, we’re not cosplaying here.

We mean it. Uh, and there was a lot of, a lot of viral moments, uh, one of which we’ll share here, just in terms of like, what they’re rooting the entire conference in. I just wanted to say, welcome

Brian Derrick: to the end of democracy.

Jack Posebiec: We’re here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6th, but we will, we will endeavor.

To forget, to get rid of it and replace it with, with this right here, we’ll replace it with this right here. Amen. That’s right, because all glory, all glory is not to government, [00:13:00] all glory to God. Okay. Bye. I know.

Brian Derrick: Guys, guys,

Emily Amick: you know, he’s a successful shit poster. I mean, it’s really remarkable. Like I remember back in the old days when he would just post random hot takes on Twitter that would totally misinformed.

And now, now he’s national news. Look at

Glennis Meagher: him now, literally look at him now.

Brian Derrick: Like a headline type of event at CPAC. That’s crazy. Um. There’s no, that’s an indefensible thing to say under any context in like a political setting. Um, and for, for our audio only listeners, he’s holding up a, I think it’s a rosary, or like, or a crucifix, and he’s saying Was he?

Yeah, that’s, that’s like,

Glennis Meagher: Oh, I thought he was like, fisting the world, like,

Brian Derrick: Do you, do you want to retake that?

Glennis Meagher: Oh, I guess. No, leave it.

Brian Derrick: Okay, great. Um, he was not doing any kind of salute. He’s [00:14:00] holding up a crucifix necklace. And so he’s saying all glory to a Catholic or Christian evangelical God, not to our democracy and that their theocracy, their idea of what this Christian, um, what, what they believe is, is like this, are, are what our, our nation should be, which is a Christian white nationalist nation is more important.

Then the will of the voters like that’s explicitly what he’s saying, right?

Glennis Meagher: Yes. And he got a lot of heat very quickly on the internet because of these statements, which he quickly walked. Well, yeah, I know. I’m not like defending them. I’m just like the internet responded in, in good time. And he walked them back saying I’m a satirical person.

It was strictly satirical. Ha ha ha. And it’s like, babe, you’re not, I assure you, you mean what you say? You mean what you say?

Brian Derrick: I think someone who. is never shy about his extremism is Stephen Miller, who also had a [00:15:00] moment at CPAC. A number of states have passed laws saying that you can’t have this in the curriculum, or you can’t have that in the curriculum, and you can’t teach DEI, and so on and so forth.

Without exception, I can promise you, all the commies in the classroom Changed the name of their lecture, changed one word, changed one little paragraph in the syllabus, and did the exact same damn thing every single day because they’re communists and that’s what they do. Were they sued? No. Were they arrested if they broke a law and it’s applicable?

No. Did any DA anywhere, if you’re talking about trans issues, think of arresting somebody for abusing children with trans ideology? No. So until we get serious All the way down to the local DA, all the way up to the state AG, and every office in between, including judges, electing people who have power and will use that power and measure their success by changing the real world, then we aren’t going to be able to beat the left, and that’s just the honest truth.

It’s [00:16:00] scary that they don’t think. That they’re, they’ve gone far enough on turning what should be, um, non partisan, um, offices, like judges, like DAs, into more ideological. Positions and part of the culture war as he’s talking about, like, how do we prosecute people for being trans or for supporting, um, trans people, like, that’s extremely concerning, um, that From his perspective, someone who’s deeply, deeply entrenched and is being floated as a potential attorney general in a second Trump administration.

Is he? Yes. Yes. The goal is to turn these things into a much more extremely ideological state. It’s concerning.

Emily Amick: Gone are the days of small government.

Brian Derrick: Yeah. Right. Remember that.

Glennis Meagher: I’m sorry that I have to bring him up, but Donald Trump was at CPAC. So I’m just going to give [00:17:00] you some quick highlights. And by highlights, I mean low lights from his speech.

He said that the January 6th insurrectionists have been treated unfairly calling them again, this word hostages.

Donald Trump: You heard the J six hostages. Didn’t you? You heard that. And, uh, I will tell you, there’s never been, in the history of our country, a group of people treated the way they’ve been treated.

There’s never been anything like it.

Glennis Meagher: He also claimed that he himself, Donald Trump, is a political dissident.

Donald Trump: I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president, But as a proud political dissident, I am a dissident

Brian Derrick: criminal.

Glennis Meagher: Truly, you’re a criminal, buddy. He said suburban women are gonna want him back.

Donald Trump: Suburban women, they’re gonna love me so much. They’re gonna say, Oh, I wish we had that guy back.

Glennis Meagher: Disgusting. And this one was really Hmm. To me.

Donald Trump: November 5th will be our new liberation day, but for the liars and [00:18:00] cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day.

Their judgment day.

Glennis Meagher: Okay. Gross. Whatever, Donald.

Brian Derrick: I hate it. Um.

Glennis Meagher: I hate it too. I’m not a, I’m not a liar, a cheater, a fraudster and censor and an imposter.

Brian Derrick: Yeah, I feel like he does a terrifyingly good job at pulling in the far, far right, then the Nazi arm of the party through events like this. He’s great at the dog whistles and dropping the hints and just enough to tell the Nazis that like, Oh no, we’re, we’re on the same page here.

Glennis Meagher: Totally. He’s pulling from the Hitler marketing playbook.

Brian Derrick: Emily. It is now the fourth time, fifth time that we’re talking about a potential government shutdown in the last six months. It [00:19:00] is literally endless.

Emily Amick: They have no ability to govern without creating illusory leverage, right?

Glennis Meagher: Wait, wait, wait, what’s that? What’s illusory leverage? I’m gonna do there. Uh,

Emily Amick: you know, they have no like, illusory is not real, right?

Like they’ve created an illusion of leverage. I thought

Glennis Meagher: this was a new lever. Goosey. Yeah.

Emily Amick: Maybe it’s sometimes I get snapped up for using legal terms of art, which I’m like, girl, it’s not my fault. Like, I’ve been Practicing law for a long time.

Brian Derrick: Classically trained. Absolutely. Classically trained

Emily Amick: lawyer. Um, this is creating leverage because they have no ability to govern otherwise.

And the irony here is, you know, Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson, uh, created his little laddered plan because it would give them time to come up with solutions. And what have they done with their time? They have walked up again to the end date. They have mere [00:20:00] days, and there’s no clear path to victory. And part of this is because he doesn’t have the ability to pass anything in his own chamber.

Right? Like, you know, the Democrats in the Senate, they can pass shit. And he’s not

passing anything.

Brian Derrick: Totally. There are, there are four key constituencies that you need some degree of support from in order to pass these. Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, House Democrats, House Republicans. And three of the four.

Are on board and ready to go and it’s just House Republicans that are, as you say, incapable of governing and we won’t get into like the nuances. There is potentially going to be a government shutdown. Maybe it will be averted. Maybe it will not. But I think the through line here every time every four weeks to six weeks that we’ve had to do this dance is The Republican Party, particularly in the House, which [00:21:00] is more responsive to the, the country’s mood because there are elections every two years instead of six for, for Senators, um, And they’re more unhinged.

Like, Well, totally. I mean, and I think that that’s, I think that’s a big part of why, right, is that we’re replacing a huge portion of them every two years. There’s like a record number of Republicans, particularly moderates, that are leaving and they’re explicitly leaving. This November, because they’re saying we can’t do anything with these people.

I can’t work with these people. Um, and so what happens, Emily, when a party falls apart in the way that the Republican party is, is falling apart in the house when they swing so far to the extreme. Yeah,

Emily Amick: I mean, the answer to your question is conceivably voters either reward that behavior or don’t reward that behavior and TBD.

That’s what November 2024 is all about. I think like a great irony here is that, [00:22:00] uh, if As part, if in this upcoming process, what we get as the outcome is two more CRs, a deal brokered by Kevin McCarthy, the deal that lost him his speakership, that drops down, you know, the budget by 1%, essentially, which for a lot of House Republicans is a win, but it’s not a policy based win, it would go into effect, and so like the great irony of McCarthy losing his seat over something that’s a win.

At this point, a most viable outcome because there is seemingly, there’s no, there’s no nadir between the two groups right now because what, you know, House Republicans are saying they want is so extreme and part of this is because of our partisan primary system and the fact that a lot of these moderates are also, they’re just constantly fearful of getting primaried from the right and getting primaried by a really Christian conservative baga type person who [00:23:00] sounds more fun and voters are like, we want to watch that show.

And so this is the show that voters vote. You know what I mean? Like, this is the show that Republican voters wanted. Not all of them, some of them, but getting back to the seal of it all right. Matt Gaetz has learned a lesson, the same lesson that Chaya has learned, which is that, you know, if you do this trick, you are rewarded with headlines and inches and media coverage.

And so he’s doing it again. And this is how they’ve learned, this is how they’ve been governing and how they’ve been accomplishing things. And the problem is, they seem, I mean, Mike Johnson has No ability, like he has no experience that would lend him to know another way of doing things, um, and they

Brian Derrick: don’t know how to do it.

And I think that we can pull, we can go straight into the other major event that’s happening in the house these days is [00:24:00] Impeachment because that is the only thing that they seem to be able to agree on is attacking Democrats like they have no ability as you as you’re saying to move the ball forward to pass any kind of policy, any kind of budget that could meaningfully help the country or address our challenges.

And so instead they just play political games and the game that it. is they’re playing this week is impeaching Mayorkas, who’s the first cabinet member to have been impeached by the house in 150 years. And they’re now sort of sitting around twiddling their thumbs, deciding when to give that over to the Senate.

At which point the Senate will decide whether they’re going to dismiss it right away or hold a trial.

Glennis Meagher: For the audience, those who don’t know, Mayorkas is Secretary of Homeland Security, and he’s being impeached on the

Emily Amick: border. Well, he’s being impeached because he didn’t do what the Republicans want, right?

This is like, this is [00:25:00] not an impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, which is the technical standard that they are supposed to be following. Yeah, lawyer here. This isn’t a, it’s an impeachment because they’re like, We don’t like that you are letting people into this country. We think that that is a violation of your oath to this country.

That’s our, functionally, their opinion. And we don’t like how you’re implying, applying the laws. That you have full authority to apply any way you please. And, and that’s really the standard.

Glennis Meagher: And I want to remind for the audience that a few weeks ago We had a bill for the border and for immigration that did not move forward because Republicans would not agree to it because Donald Trump said no.

So this really is just political baseball and

Brian Derrick: theater. Plenty of Senate Republicans have said that they don’t think that performing your duty is differently or having a difference in policy goals is reason for impeachment. So I don’t think that even Senate Republicans are on board, but the question, so it’s not a [00:26:00] question as to whether he will be convicted.

There’s, there’s no question about that. He will not be convicted and removed by the Senate, but the question is like. Will there be a trial? And I was doing, I was looking at some vote counts, even though I try not to. And it does seem it’s just a majority vote. We only need 51. And so it does look like it could come down to cinema.

Who’s I think the only, like she’s an independent, but like the only person who caught her, she doesn’t caucus with Democrats is the only vote that we need who has not explicitly stated how. That she is planning to acquit or like dismiss the thing altogether just

Glennis Meagher: the way she likes it, by the way,

Emily Amick: right?

Yeah, she’s got to make sure she’s the center of the attention.

Brian Derrick: Always,

Emily Amick: you know, and I think that there’s a strategic question here for Chuck Schumer, which is, do you put on the show to show how empty the accusations of Republicans are? I mean, you know, we have heard for [00:27:00] years and years and years about Joe Biden having this, you know, this allegation, the specter of impropriety with regards to Burisma and Hunter and Ukraine and all this.

And we only just recently learned like this was all based on information planted by literal Russia. Uh, and it’s been years and years of the specter of impropriety, which has effectively messaged to the populace. So the question is like, you know, I’ve had a lot of A lot of DMS people asking me, isn’t there a way to like, Sue house Republicans for defaming my orcas?

And that’s, I’m like, that’s not, that’s not the point. That’s not the point. You know, the, the, what, what I think you, this random fake person who I’m talking about or asking me is like, why aren’t we having a public square conversation in which we call out the Republicans vacuousness? In their attack on Mayorkas, and the opportunity for that is, it exists, and that is the Senate [00:28:00] trial.

But of course, if the Senate is busy doing a trial, what they are not doing is working. And that’s why, right now, the House is holding on to the Mayorkas impeachment, because the minute they pass it to the Senate, the Senate is required to start acting on it. And we have a government fund this week, slash network, you know, March 1st and March 8th, or the, uh, the The dates so they they can’t be consumed by an impeachment trial or else the government will shut down

Brian Derrick: right?

Yeah, knock on wood Let’s get those funding bills passed and then we can yeah and deal with this I do think that a lot of Democrats just want the issue of immigration to Leave headlines, which seems unlikely to me, but that does seem to be the argument that I’m seeing against holding any kind of trial in the Senate is like Republicans just want to grandstand and like bash Biden on immigration, which Like, undeniably is a bad issue for him [00:29:00] politically, whether you agree with, like, how he’s approached it or not, or you think it’s too progressive or too conservative, like, it’s, it’s not a strong issue.

And so I think that they just want to keep it in headlines as long as possible.

Emily Amick: Yeah. I mean, do we allow them to dictate the terms of a conversation?

Brian Derrick: Totally. Totally. Fair point.

Glennis Meagher: Brian, you know, I’m checking out till Super Tuesday. That date is fast approaching, but can you give me an update on what’s going on?

Today’s

Brian Derrick: a big day. Yeah, I feel like you have a project that’s due soon and you’re like starting to feel the dread. Super Tuesday is when Glenn is forced to tune in.

Glennis Meagher: I’m asking you for your notebook.

Brian Derrick: I’ve been taking notes all semester, baby. And

Glennis Meagher: definitely Emily’s,

Brian Derrick: for sure. So we just had the South Carolina Republican primary, Trump beat Haley, zero surprise there.

It was 60 percent to 40%, which is honestly, it was somehow embarrassing for both of them. So Haley got defeated by 20 points in a state that she was governor twice. She was [00:30:00] elected to two terms as governor. And. A huge number of voters were saying that Trump is or would or would be unfit to hold office if he’s convicted of crimes or already.

And so, like, all the exit polling that you look at just shows huge fractures in the Republican electorate, even in a state as far right in the conservative movement as South Carolina. Looking forward When you hear this, we will have the results of the Michigan primary, and I think the major thing that people are watching there Biden.

There is an ongoing campaign for Democrats to vote uncommitted instead of voting for Biden to register their discontent with him as the nominee, either specifically because of his policy towards Israel, his age, or. something else. There are normally about 20, 000 [00:31:00] uncommitted votes in any given primary.

And so what we’re really watching for is if there’s a huge increase in uncommitted votes that could potentially definitely generate headlines, could potentially create more uncertainty or, or just like add questions to the democratic primary. And on the flip side of that, if there is not this huge uncommitted Wave in Michigan.

I would expect the Biden team to come out really Aggressively to shut down any and all criticism because if it’s going to happen somewhere, this is where it’s going to happen. There’s a huge Arab American population in Michigan. There have been plenty of reports about issues going on with the electorate there.

And so this would be the moment for that to happen. Okay.

Glennis Meagher: So the 20, 000 benchmark is good to know. Thank you for that. So we’ll see. I don’t have the results at our time of recording, but when you’re listening tomorrow [00:32:00] morning or Wednesday morning, we’ll have them.

Brian Derrick: DM us and jump into the group chat. Yes.

Glennis Meagher: And then we have Super Tuesday next week. So my, that’s where I’m going to start chiming in, I guess. So this is called Super Tuesday because they, there are a huge bunch of states that have primaries. So we have Alabama, Alaska, which is GOP only, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Go Cats, Virginia, and the U.

S. Territory of American Samoa. So, I’m going to start studying it, I guess, and I’ll report all those out to you next

Brian Derrick: week. Yeah, the big takeaway for Super Tuesday, we’ll talk about it more next week, is that it’s likely, it’s likely the official end of the Republican primary if Haley, Haley has only committed to staying in through Super Tuesday, and so she could easily drop out after she loses all of the states that you just listed.

Most of them, if not all of them, are [00:33:00] winner take all states. I think, I think a majority of them are winner take all states for the Republican primary. And so Trump’s delegate number is going to skyrocket. The math will essentially not exist for, for Haley to win the nomination and she may drop out or maybe she’ll just stay in to be a thorn in Trump’s side.

Who knows? Rest is still

Glennis Meagher: unwritten, as Natasha Bedingfield once said.

Emily, thank you so much for being here with

Brian Derrick: us today. Truly, I learned a lot. I’m not gonna lie. Today, I will chalk up today as the start of my trad wife journey. And I will owe that all to you,

Emily Amick: Emily. I’ll start sending you my recipes. Ryan and demand that you cook them.

Brian Derrick: Excellent. I can’t wait. Well,

Glennis Meagher: okay. If you don’t follow Emily Amick, Emily in your phone on Instagram, she is my number one follow.

I’m not just saying that because I’m friends with her. She literally gives me the information I need in a very digestible, approachable way that gives me [00:34:00] optimism and hope.

Emily Amick: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Please come find me. Happy to be here. Happy to bring the group chat. To the public.

Glennis Meagher: Yeah, at least in the group chat.

Reveal. Reveal.

Emily Amick: Reveal.

Glennis Meagher: That was actually thrilling to have a member of the group chat. On the pod, we’re going to talk about the group chat without our group chat member. It

Brian Derrick: feels a little bit like a, like a, uh, the reverse of a three way call where you’re like, someone’s listening. We’re like, Oh, you can go now. And now we’re going to talk about, about

Glennis Meagher: teenage trauma, um, for Jen.

Gen Z that was, you know, back in the day when we had to use landline landlines and like when we would call someone, we’d be like, Hi, Mr. Mr. Derek, is Brian home? I’d like to speak with him. And then they’d be like, sure, Glenn is please, please hold. We’ll see if Brian’s around like the How insane that we had to, like, formally call people’s [00:35:00] landlines to talk to them.

You

Brian Derrick: cosplaying an entire conversation from high school right now is, like, iconic.

Glennis Meagher: Um, okay, group chat. You said this one. Can you tell me about this? I didn’t realize that it was a gay thing, but it’s

Brian Derrick: a gay thing. It’s totally a gay thing. Okay, so Gemini AI is the Google version of ChatGPT, kind of, and they had to turn it off because it’s like, secretly gay.

Oh my god, it’s giving me Don’t say gay! Why did they turn it I do not know, but they have been asking it like, Oh, show me a picture of a Pope. And it would show like a black woman as Pope. And then they would be like, show me a picture of like an American family. And it was just like gay fans, like gays. So conservatives were shaped.

Freaking out like having a total meltdown because it didn’t show the exact image of what they expected when they were typing these certain [00:36:00] prompts in. And I just thought that it was funny. And so they’re like, obviously still working out the kinks with a bunch of these generative A. I. things, which is why I’m not overly concerned they’re going to end the world this year and save us from the election.

But for the time being, I thought that it was just an absolute blast to have AI on our side triggering the conservative snowflakes.

Glennis Meagher: Gay rights, gay rights.

Brian Derrick: And speaking of, I guess it was a pretty gay week in the group chat, did you see the Nick Offerman clip? I

Glennis Meagher: did. I thought it was good. I thought that he was like, everyone shut up.

Because, okay, for those who don’t know, an amazing, I found it to be an amazing TV show, The Last of Us, which is based off a video game. This one episode broke my heart. It was beautiful. It felt like a film. And it was Nick Offerman. And the guy from the White Lotus, Marie Bartlett, thank you. And it’s a love story.

And he won a, what awards, a spirit award. And there was a lot of [00:37:00] pushback that this love story was a gay love story.

Nick Offerman: When homophobic hate comes my way and says, why did you have to make it a gay story? Uh, We say, because you ask questions like that, it’s not a gay story, it’s a love story, you, you asshole.

Brian Derrick: It was like these two dudes, and neither one read immediately as like, flaming homosexual.

Glennis Meagher: Especially, I would say, because Nick Offerman’s character was like, a doomsayer, like, world ender prepper, which I think in the cultural zeitgeist, one usually assumes is like, an alt right, you know. Gun, NRA carrying, you know, member of society, and he was that, but then also gay.

Brian Derrick: If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready. Okay. For the apocalypse.

Glennis Meagher: Right. I wasn’t inspired by that. I was like, ooh, should I have like canned beans?

Brian Derrick: Meanwhile, Glennis literally put a Luna [00:38:00] bar in a paper Whole Foods bag by the door and she’s

Glennis Meagher: fully ready. I’m ready to go back. Wait, one more thing. I didn’t talk about it in the group chat, but I want to talk about it with you right now as I watch Oppenheimer.

Have you seen it yet?

Brian Derrick: I just saw it for the first time.

Glennis Meagher: So I’m a very curious person and during Oppenheimer I started googling if an atomic bomb hit New York City or both city people. Like how, how big would the blast zone be? And what was so funny to

Brian Derrick: me Everyone, everyone in New York has googled that at least once.

Glennis Meagher: By the way. It’s a fact. They don’t even care. Like, it’s not about, we’re all dead. Any New Yorker, if you’re listening to this, just FYI, like, there’s no, we’re, we’re dead. All the results are how far outside of New York City does it go? Because everyone’s

Brian Derrick: assuming. New Yorkers. Which is honestly nice that we don’t have to worry about what the escape plan is, because there’s no escape.

There’s no escape. My

Glennis Meagher: Luna bar in my Whole Foods bag is burnt up in the 10, 000 foot flame nuke.

Brian Derrick: Alright, my [00:39:00] good vibe for this week is a very wonky story that I got super into about immigration. I saw this piece Axios covered it and this Brand new study, first of its kind, looked at the economic impact of people who have resettled in the United States as refugees and asylum seekers over essentially the last 15 years.

And what they found was that those individuals had a net positive economic impact of over 120 billion to the U. S. economy. After you consider the costs of settling them and support services and all of these things because they were hardworking people who were paying their taxes and contributing to our economy.

And as we have all always known. America is a land, is the land of immigrants. And [00:40:00] this is such a cool way to show that story in a new way. Um, especially as people are having so much economic uncertainty and like feeling those vibes that like, here’s a reason for you to have a lot of hope looking forward and a critical resource for the United States moving forward are, are immigrant communities.

Those are all the vibes for this week. Thanks again to Emily at Emily in your phone for joining us and thank you for tuning in. We hope you’re enjoying the pod. If you want to help us, please share this episode with a friend, family member, or better yet, talk to them about something that you heard on the episode today and tell them where you heard it.

If you have any stories that you’d like to hear us talk about next week, please share them with us at vibes at courier newsroom. com. You can find Courier, Glenys and I. on social media and reach out there. Lastly, if you like to watch your podcasts, you can find Vibes Only on YouTube. We’ll be back again next week to keep checking the [00:41:00] vibes of American politics, culture, and the state of our democracy.

See you then.

Glennis Meagher: Vibes Only is a production of Courier, a civic media company that protects and strengthens our democracy through credible, fact based journalism and seeks to create a more informed, engaged, and representative America. Vibes Only is produced by Devin Moroney with support from Courier’s Kyle Tharp, R.

C. Di Mezzo, and Daniel Strasburger. Tara McGowan is founder and publisher of Courier.