Vibes Only

It is Pride Month, it is primary season, and the Democratic Party is having a moment. Brian and Glennis are back with our third-time guest, political strategist and one of the fastest growing podcasters in the game right now, Keith Edwards, for a wide-ranging conversation about Trump's health, the gerrymandering debate splitting the left, and the Patagonia versus Pattie Gonia trademark war that took over every progressive's Threads feed this week.

But first, we have to talk about Maine. Graham Platner, the oyster farmer and Marine veteran running to unseat Susan Collins, is now facing reports that he sexted multiple women early in his marriage, the latest in a string of controversies that includes a covered Nazi tattoo and a pattern of bad online judgment. Brian and Glennis land in very different places on whether any of it matters, and the conversation ends up being less about Platner specifically and more about what Democrats are actually looking for in a candidate right now, and what they are willing to overlook to get there.

Then Brian lifts the mood with the Oath candidate of the week: Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy winning musician running to flip a gerrymandered seat in Texas by performing at quinceañeras and meeting voters where they actually are. Glennis, reporting from Washington DC, takes us to the White House lawn, where a UFC cage is going up for Trump's 80th birthday.

After that, Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado - who under pressure from Trump - commuted the sentence of Tina Peters. Miss Peters, if you’re nasty, was the election denier convicted of tampering with voting equipment. She walked out of prison and went straight to Steve Bannon's podcast to call herself a political prisoner and accuse Democrats of cheating in the midterms. Polis was censured by the Colorado legislature and responded by showing up to a public event with his mouth duct-taped shut. Brian and Glennis are speechless, and then they are not.

We also check in on the AI IPO wave, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all signaling public offerings at a combined valuation approaching three trillion dollars, and what that level of speculative concentration in the market actually means for the rest of us.

Then Keith Edwards joins the pod. He makes the case that authoritarianism, while real, has not fully landed the way some feared, and that Democrats are in a stronger political position than they have been in a decade. He tracks Trump's health with his signature forensic attention, flags six days without a public presidential appearance, and wonders out loud why the mainstream media is not pressing harder on the story. He and Glennis dig into the Patagonia versus Pattie Gonia lawsuit, the online mob dynamics that made it impossible to read clearly at first, and why trademark law exists to protect small businesses too, not just outdoor apparel giants. And he and Brian go back and forth on gerrymandering, with Brian now firmly in the outcomes camp and Keith holding the line on means.

Also, Keith did not respond to Pattie Gonia’s DMs. Glennis is wearing what may or may not be a Proud Boys jacket. Brian does his Rick Devens impression. And the gang has some things to say about Susan Collins' continued presence in the United States Senate.

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A full bonus episode with the complete Keith Edwards interview drops this Friday, everywhere you get Vibes Only.

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This is the one we promised. Our full, unedited conversation with our first guest of Season 3; with public defender, creator, and iconic Survivor player Eliza Orlins. A slice of it ran in Thursday's episode. Here's the whole thing.

Eliza anchored "Cover to Cover-Up," 24 straight hours live streaming a reading of the Epstein files, Cory Booker filibuster style, after Steve Schmidt and the Save America movement connected her with the redacted reading room in Tribeca. She takes us inside how it actually came together, the overnight scramble to fill the midnight to 7:30 AM hours, and what it felt like to read victim testimony out loud for a full day.

She has been on the Epstein beat since 2018, when she watched the Manhattan DA's office quietly request a downward departure on his sex offender registration level, something she says she had never once seen in 15 years of public defending. She walks through what is actually in the files, the two million plus pages still hidden, the improper redactions in the pages we do have, and the Treasury documents that implicate Jamie Dimon and the banks. Then she makes the point that lands hardest: in every horrific case she ever read as a public defender, there was at least the promise of accountability. With Epstein, the richest and most powerful men in the world (Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Leon Black) have faced none. The reading room is now going on the road and opening two blocks from the White House, just in time for Trump's birthday.

There is more here than made the Thursday cut. Eliza gets into the Democratic "autopsy," Rob Flaherty's much more honest version of it, and why she thinks the left is decades late on building real creator infrastructure because no one is watching cable news anymore. It is the clearest case we have heard for why shows like this one exist.

Then things get a bit more personal as Eliza explains why she believes she will never be invited back to Survivor after she publicly torched CBS over its hard right turn, the $16 million settlement, Bari Weiss taking over CBS News, and a returning contestant's on air antisemitic rant. There are Survivor 50 hot takes, a MAGA alliance theory, and a Roy Moore connection you will not see coming.

A programming note: this episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse and trafficking. Listener discretion advised.

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Brian and Glennis are back with their first guest of Season 3, and it is a big one. Public defender, creator, and iconic Survivor player Eliza Orlins joins to talk about the 24 hours she spent live streaming a reading of the Epstein files, Cory Booker filibuster style, after Steve Schmidt and the Save America movement connected her with the redacted reading room in Tribeca.

Eliza has been on the Epstein beat since 2018, when she watched the Manhattan DA's office quietly request a downward departure on his sex offender registration level, something she says she had never once seen in 15 years of public defending. She walks through what is actually in the files, the two million plus pages still hidden, the improper redactions in the pages we do have, and the Treasury documents that implicate Jamie Dimon and the banks. She makes the point that lands hardest: in every horrific case she ever read as a public defender, there was at least the promise of accountability. With Epstein, the richest and most powerful men in the world (Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Leon Black) have faced none. The reading room is now going on the road and opening two blocks from the White House, just in time for Trump's 80th birthday.

Then it gets personal. Eliza explains why she believes she will never be invited back to Survivor after she publicly torched CBS over its hard right turn, the $16 million settlement, Bari Weiss taking over CBS News, and a returning contestant's on air antisemitic rant. There are Survivor 50 hot takes, a MAGA alliance theory, and a Roy Moore connection you will not see coming.

After Eliza, Brian and Glennis turn to the Texas runoff that just wiped out John Cornyn. Ken Paxton, who is indicted, impeached, settled a whistleblower suit for $3.3 million in taxpayer money, and is comically corrupt by any measure, won by nearly 28 points on the strength of a single Trump endorsement. It capped the most expensive primary in US history at over $100 million, with roughly $80 million of that spent against Paxton, and it did not matter. Brian and Glennis dig into the chicken and egg of a Trump endorsement, why an unelectable nominee may be the best case scenario for Democrats and James Talarico, and the growing list of Republicans Trump is turning into lame duck enemies inside his own caucus.

Then, in What Fresh Hell Is This number 642: the UFC cage Trump is building on the White House lawn for his birthday, the billionaires set to watch from the front row, Paramount's $7.7 billion UFC deal, and the illegal online casino sponsoring the whole thing that Trump keeps posting about. Brian and Glennis make the case that the whole spectacle is rage bait engineered to make liberals look out of touch, and lay out how to talk about it without taking the bait.

They close on a genuinely good vibe out of South Carolina, where the state Senate killed a new map that would have eliminated its only majority Black district.

And one more thing: a bonus episode with Eliza Orlins drops this Friday.

A programming note: this episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse and trafficking. Listener discretion advised.

EPISODE LINKS

Eliza's 24 Hour Livestream of the Epstein Files

Eliza's YouTube

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Brian and Glennis are back, this time remote (Glennis is sick, not with hantavirus or Ebola, thanks for asking). And the corruption story of the season just dropped. Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion claiming emotional damages over a leaked piece of his 2019 tax return. A federal judge called it bullshit, brought in legal experts who agreed it was bullshit, then settled by creating a $1.7 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" controlled by five allies of AG Todd Blanche, with no transparency requirements and the explicit purpose of paying out January 6 defendants. Glennis just paid her taxes. Brian explains why this is the most brazen self-dealing in modern American politics.

This week, Brian Derrick (Political Strategist and Founder of Oath) and Glennis Meagher (Political and New Media Strategist and Co-founder of Generator Collective) walk through the slush fund, what it means that taxpayer money is about to flow to people who assaulted police officers at the Capitol, and why Brian thinks the Trump children and several cabinet members are still on a path to prison even if Trump himself never is.

Then the corruption deep dive. New reporting that Trump made more than 3,600 individual stock trades in Q1, often on the same day he was visiting manufacturing plants, tweeting about specific companies, or calling into CNBC and Fox News to pump them. His personal net worth has more than doubled in a year. His inner circle is making prediction market trades minutes before Iran announcements move oil. The White House says he has nothing to do with any of it. Brian and Glennis go through the receipts.

The political board is also moving fast. Bill Cassidy, the fake moderate Louisiana Republican who voted for all of Trump's nominees and then pretended to be outraged, came in third in his own primary after Trump endorsed against him. He gave a speech that could turn him into a serious thorn in Trump's side on committee votes, nominees, and DHS funding for the rest of his term. Sitting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew to Kentucky on duty to campaign against Thomas Massey, the last Republican still pushing on the Epstein files. Trump's approval is now 37%, the lowest of his political career. The Democratic generic ballot is at +11, larger than the 2018 wave. Plus the most expensive House primary in U.S. history (in Kentucky, of all places, where ad buys are cheap), Georgia Supreme Court races that could flip the court by 2028, and a Pennsylvania primary where Shapiro, AOC, and Bernie Sanders all backed the same firefighter.

Then the Supreme Court reform conversation Kamala Harris just reopened. Glennis lays out her preference for 18 year term limits and two appointments per president. Brian walks through FDR's court packing threat and what it actually accomplished. And both of them dig into what Republicans just did in Utah and North Carolina, where they literally added seats and reheard cases to overturn rulings they didn't like. The case for Democrats getting comfortable with court reform is no longer theoretical.

Plus Three Mile Island is being turned into a data center. AOC is on a community tour about data center siting and the energy bills they leave behind. The Musk versus Altman trial wrapped in two hours. Taco Trump threatened Iran and chickened out by sundown. Telehealth abortion access survived at SCOTUS. And Alligator Alcatraz, the Florida Everglades tarp over a swamp internment camp that cost $1.5 billion, is closing.

The midterms are less than six months out and the receipts keep coming.

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Brian and Glennis are back in studio for week two and a lot just happened. Trump's economic disapproval hit 70%, the highest of his political career. Inflation jumped to 3.8%. Gas hit $4.50 a gallon. The Supreme Court greenlit racial gerrymandering as long as you call it partisan. Five states moved to redraw their maps in seven days. And the President of the United States looked into a camera, on his way to Marine One, and said "I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody."

In this episode, Brian Derrick (Political Strategist and Founder of Oath) and Glennis Meagher (Political and New Media Strategist and Co-founder of Generator Collective) walk through the economic data dump that should be the only thing Democrats talk about: the biggest monthly jump in credit card debt since the pandemic, a savings rate at its lowest level since 2022, consumer sentiment cratering, and 80% of Americans saying Trump's policies are driving up the cost of living in their communities. While he spends a billion dollars on a gold ballroom and proposes a $1.5 trillion military budget, the largest in U.S. history and more than the next ten countries combined.

Then the redistricting wave. Brian breaks down all five fronts. The Supreme Court ruling that opened the door. The Virginia Supreme Court body blow that overturned a ballot measure passed by voters and cost Democrats four seats. Tennessee breaking up the city of Memphis. Louisiana pausing a primary 40,000 votes in to redraw the map. Alabama getting a green light to eliminate its only majority Black district. He pulls out the board and walks through the math: Democrats are likely down five additional seats before a single vote is cast, which means flipping the House is now an eight seat lift, not three. The path is still there. He explains why.

Plus the bombshell that Iran still has 90% of its missile capacity after $70 billion in U.S. bombing. The Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel circus on Capitol Hill (including Patel demanding $21 billion for the FBI while polygraphing his own agents over leaks). The unconstitutional War Powers Act workaround the Trump administration is trying to pull. The California gubernatorial jungle primary heating up between Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan. And the Nebraska Senate move where a Democrat won her primary specifically to drop out and clear the path for independent Dan Osborne, after Pete Ricketts tried to buy the seat by recruiting a fake MAGA Democrat to split the vote.

Also: Glennis recounts sitting ten feet from JD Vance and Kash Patel at a USA hockey game in Milan with effectively no security, the Mitch McConnell Capitol Hill moment that even Brian is calling elder abuse, Spencer Pratt running for LA Mayor as a 9/11 truther, the leaked Sam Altman texts that have now turned "directionally very bad" into a meme, and Glennis pitches a startup idea live on the pod called facial DNA.

The midterms are six months out and the receipts are piling up - stick with us.

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We were gone for ten weeks and Trump started a war, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the government had its longest shutdown in history, two cabinet secretaries got pushed out over Epstein, and Republicans quietly added $70 billion more for ICE to a reconciliation bill nobody could stop. Season 3 of Vibes Only is here and Brian Derrick (Political Strategist and Founder of @oath.vote) and Glennis Meagher (Political and New Media Strategist and Co-founder of @generatorcollective) have a lot to catch you up on.

In the Season 3 premiere, Brian and Glennis break down Trump's war with Iran, the $72 billion the U.S. has burned in 60 days, the 3,400 civilians killed, the 14 American troops dead, and why this is the first Middle East war in our lifetime that's actually a voting issue (it has a lot to do with the price of gas). Then they get into how Democrats got played on the ICE reconciliation bill — Schumer specifically — and the $1 million Oath has now raised for the ICE Accountability Fund to prosecute officers and back the people fighting on the ground.

The bigger conversation is Louisiana v. Callais. Brian walks through what the 6-3 ruling actually does to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which Southern states are about to gerrymander Black voters out of Congress, and why Oath has always built its plan around flipping 12 House seats, not 3. Plus the Democratic counter-strike taking shape across ten states, why Brian is more fired up than worried, and the early primary signals out of Ohio and Indiana (Sherrod Brown is back, Janet Mills dropped out, and Trump just spent $15 million in Indiana on pure revenge).

Also: Glennis brings receipts on Anna Nicole Smith, Brian compares the Trump assassination plot to a concept of a plan, and they make an official on-air challenge to Keith Edwards to come debate gerrymandering. The midterms are six months out. Buckle up.

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The newest batch of Epstein files was just released by the DOJ, with some 3 million documents. Today, Brian and Glennis talk about what this new batch means for Trump and how everyone involved in the files should be prosecuted.

Plus, Brian and Glennis discuss the Democrats' demands to approve DHS funding and the big reveal about where the Trump family has been getting their money.

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This past Saturday, Alex Pretti was gunned down by ICE agents in Minnesota as he tried to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed. It feels like a turning point, and now is the time to demand action from your representatives. Today, Glennis and Brian talk about what you can do to help stop ICE and why “defunding ICE” is not as simple as it sounds.

Plus, Glennis and Brian discuss how Trump has brought us even further into economic collapse, and why the 2028 presidential election will be a doozy for both parties. 

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In the wake of Renee Good’s murder, there have been a lot of calls from politicians and the public to abolish ICE. Today, Brian and Glennis talk about why that’s a much taller ask than you’d think.

Plus, Brian and Glennis get into the whole Greenland conversation, and how billionaire MAGAnites are more out of touch than ever. 

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Last week, an ICE officer shot and killed a woman named Renee Good in Minneapolis. Today, Brian and Glennis talk about the aftermath that has followed and why Renee Good’s death has ignited discourse from both sides of the aisle. 

Plus, Brian and Glennis talk about Jerome Powell’s surprising hero moment and weigh in on the online discourses around the Texas Senate race.

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