GLENNIS: 0:00

This week on Vibes Only, primary results in Arizona and Michigan. Is a DCCC endorsement helping or hurting candidates? And the 2028 elections where Kamala Harris keeps coming up as a front runner. Why?

BRIAN: 0:13

And the Oath candidate of the week is coming to us from Maine, where Graham Platner's replacement has finally been announced. We're gonna talk about Pete Hegseth, who keeps lying about the war in Iran.

GLENNIS: 0:23

And we've got a real serious round of clickbait or double-click examining the spread of diarrhea all over America because of our Crunchwrap Supremes, question mark? The Tate brothers getting arrested, and Mamdani's new video this week calling for Netanyahu's arrest.

BRIAN: 0:40

Let's get into it Hey, G. How we doing this morning?

GLENNIS: 0:49

I'm great, you know. How are you?

BRIAN: 0:52

Back, back, back, back again. Still alive, still here, on the move. We're finding new apartments.

GLENNIS: 0:57

Yeah, inquiring minds want to know, AKA my mom, are you getting a new apartment? Did it work out for you? Oh

BRIAN: 1:04

my gosh. New York real estate, it's just so crazy. It's so wild. I think I'm moving next week. That'll be news to all my friends. I'm hoping that my application for this one place gets accepted during this recording.

GLENNIS: 1:16

Okay. So we'll see. Lighting a candle

BRIAN: 1:18

Yeah. So we're waking up to election results in Arizona, which is the only state to have a primary in the month of July. It's a very quiet month, actually, for primaries. Democrats mostly had our slate set. We have Katie Hobbs running for governor for re-election. We have Adrian Fontes for Secretary of State, Kris Mayes for attorney general. We've talked about Kris Mayes on the pod before-

GLENNIS: 1:45

Mm-hmm

… BRIAN: 1:45

because she won her race by 280 votes out of 2.5 million.

GLENNIS: 1:49

Wow.

BRIAN: 1:49

Major, major Oath recommendation for the cycle. The results that Democrats were watching really closely were Arizona's 1st Congressional District, where we had Marlene Galán Woods up against Amish Shah as the two leading contenders. They both ran last cycle. He narrowly beat her in the primary and then lost in the general, and they both ran again. The DCCC came in and weighed in in this competitive primary, which is why people cared so much, because it's part of-

GLENNIS: 2:19

Ah… BRIAN: this pattern that we've seen of They did the same thing in Maine's 2nd Congressional District. They did the same thing in California 22. We don't have an official call from AP yet, but it looks like Amish- Ah

BRIAN: 2:31

Shah is going to win. Where this leaves us is what used to be an almost guaranteed win with a DCCC endorsement. That used to be the blessing that you needed from the National Party in order to win-

GLENNIS: 2:45

Yeah… BRIAN: the primary and get all this money. Now, in some places, in some races, seems to be an actual weight on the campaign they keep losing. The DCCC-endorsed candidates keep losing their primaries, and it's part of this anti-establishment energy. What do you think? Yeah, scarlet letter to be officially endorsed by any official party infrastructure.

BRIAN: 3:09

That's crazy.

GLENNIS: 3:10

It is crazy. It is crazy. It used to be like you were begging for that stamp of approval if you were a candidate, and now it's something that you really have to consider if it's worth receiving.

BRIAN: 3:20

I named the two other races where the DCCC-endorsed candidate lost. They picked Jasmeet Bains in California. She lost to Randy Villegas. They wanted Joe Baldacci coming out of Maine. He lost to Matt Dunlap, the state auditor. They won in Nebraska's second. That was Denise Powell versus John Cavanaugh. It's not a-

GLENNIS: 3:39

Mm

BRIAN: 3:39

straight string of losses, but w- it's notable because it's unusual for them to lose at all. It's unusual for them-

GLENNIS: 3:46

Yeah… BRIAN: to weigh in on primaries that it's unusual for them to do so and not pull the victor through the primary. We're seeing that people are just so mad at the Democratic Party. We've talked about this. The types of candidates that we're gonna see across the country are more specific to the actual demographic of who's voting, what they're looking for in their candidate, and we're seeing that some who are endorsed by the DCCC, it's helpful, and some it is not. Did you see Troy Jackson? He's the guy.

BRIAN: 4:14

I saw Troy Jackson. He's the guy. Our Maine nominee, he's actually gonna be our Oath candidate of the week if we just wanna-

GLENNIS: 4:20

Oh. Let's talk about it now… BRIAN: reel that up to the top. Let's remix.

BRIAN: 4:23

We can just do it right now. Troy Jackson, former state legislator in the state of Maine, has officially secured the required number of delegates to replace-

GLENNIS: 4:32

Mm-hmm

BRIAN: 4:32

Graham Platner on the ballot. People will remember Graham Platner won the nomination officially through a primary, dropped out because he's a sex pest, as Glennis said from the very, very, very, very beginning. He dropped out. He's a creep. We had to replace him, but it was too late, too short of a timeline to hold a primary, so delegates from every county in Maine are making the selection, and he announced that he had won the vast majority of their support. It'll become official this weekend.

GLENNIS: 5:00

I did a little bit more research on Mr. Jackson. Oh my God, now that's gonna be the song. Not Ms. Jackson.

BRIAN: 5:06

Sorry Ms. Jackson.

GLENNIS: 5:07

Mr. Jackson.

BRIAN and GLENNIS: 5:08

Woooooo

GLENNIS: 5:10

Um-

BRIAN: 5:12

I am for real… GLENNIS: he used to be a Republican. He- Never meant to make your mama cry.

GLENNIS: 5:17

I know. My brain is like, ah. What a good song though. Let's bring it back.

BRIAN: 5:19

I know.

GLENNIS: 5:21

Summer of 2026.

BRIAN: 5:22

Damn.

GLENNIS: 5:22

He used to be a Republican. However, he's been an economic populist from day one. The way he got into politics was that he organized his fellow loggers when the logging company from Canada wanted to replace the workers in Maine and import Canadian workers to do the labor. Troy Jackson said, "No, no, no."

BRIAN: 5:42

That's how I got into politics as well

GLENNIS: 5:44

Yeah, I mean-

BRIAN: 5:45

I know… GLENNIS: you were out there logging. You had your flannels on Organized my fellow loggers, and boom, 10 years later, here we are. He's a popular dude in the state. He campaigned quite a bit with Graham Platner, which a lot of people online I think were trying to make a disqualifying thing. None of us knew. Like, all the voters-

GLENNIS: 6:03

Yeah… BRIAN: were hyped, and, like, hyped, so I don't really know why. We, we have yet to see, like, real data. The first poll came out showing exact tie with Susan Collins. Mm.

BRIAN: 6:13

I need to see a bunch more data than we have right now. My guess is that one month from now, Maine will look more competitive than it did a month prior to Platner dropping out.

GLENNIS: 6:24

Yeah.

BRIAN: 6:24

So this is good news.

GLENNIS: 6:25

Yeah, this is my question for you. What are the chances? You're saying he's the Oath candidate of the week. You think he deserves additional resourcing 'cause maybe he has a chance.

BRIAN: 6:32

It's rare that we recommend contributions to Senate races because-

GLENNIS: 6:36

Mm… BRIAN: lots of those candidates are and your money is unlikely to be a deciding factor in the race, frankly. Yeah. But this is a unique circumstance. He's gonna start in end of July flat broke from zero- Mm… BRIAN: and needs to build a huge Yeah… BRIAN: with Susan Collins. And so moving resources there quickly is a good idea. Yeah.

BRIAN: 7:06

You might not hear me saying the same thing in September or even by late August.

GLENNIS: 7:11

Mm-hmm.

BRIAN: 7:11

We'll keep tabs on how much he's raising, but right now, if you wanna give to a Senate race, I actually think that that's a good place to do it. And we set up a nominee fund the instant that it was clear-

GLENNIS: 7:21

Mm… BRIAN: Platner was dropping. You can give right now. You don't have to wait for it to be official. Great. You heard it here first. Boom. Okay. Go ahead.

BRIAN: 7:29

I know you wanna talk Michigan. I do. But before we talk Michigan, I also just wanna quickly recap. On the Republican side in Arizona, we did get some 2020 election denier shenanigans people, all of whom Donald Trump had preferred, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

GLENNIS: 7:46

Yeah.

BRIAN: 7:47

It just increases the stakes even further because these are the people that will be in charge of the election in Arizona in 2028 when we need to win back the White House. If you don't want the governor of Arizona, who's gonna refuse to certify a Democratic win, if you don't want someone overseeing elections and voter rolls in the state who had worked to undermine the 2020 election, if you don't want someone representing Arizona voters as the attorney general in these post-election litigation cases, then you gotta get involved right now.

GLENNIS: 8:18

Mm-hmm.

BRIAN: 8:18

Because what we do in the next three months will determine who's in charge in 2028. Yeah. You gotta think ahead. The stakes just got higher last night.

GLENNIS: 8:24

Right.

BRIAN: 8:25

Period.

GLENNIS: 8:26

Period.

BRIAN: 8:26

On to Michigan. Okay. The shit show, the mudslinging, the drama.

GLENNIS: 8:31

The mudslinging.

BRIAN: 8:32

Talk to us.

GLENNIS: 8:33

Well, I don't- First of all, I only started lifting the hood on the Democratic primary in Michigan a couple weeks ago when a creator, Suzanne Lambert, hosting her pod, was making fun-

BRIAN: 8:46

Mm

GLENNIS: 8:46

of one of the candidates, Haley Stevens. She has a very distinct accent and, uh, style of oration.

BRIAN: 8:53

I'm gonna do it with some enthusiasm, and we're gonna do it with a little effort and a little enthusiasm, and a little stick it to 'em. That clip.

GLENNIS: 9:01

Yeah. Like, turn, turn that up to 11.

STEVENS: 9:05

And you better believe I'm gonna be doing on it with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of stick it to 'em, because that's the Michigan way.

GLENNIS: 9:17

It kinda went viral online. Suzanne has openly supported the other Democratic candidate, Abdul El-Sayed. Haley Stevens decided to respond to Suzanne on Twitter and kind of get into it with her. That's how I was really like, "Oh, this is happening in the Democratic primary." Abdul, very progressive. Haley Stevens, very moderate for a Democrat.

BRIAN: 9:40

Establishment, yeah.

GLENNIS: 9:41

Yeah.

BRIAN: 9:42

I mean, call me Neo because I've been dodging questions about this race for months. This is the race-

GLENNIS: 9:49

Neo who?

BRIAN: 9:51

Neo from The Matrix. It was a Matrix joke.

GLENNIS: 9:53

Oh.

BRIAN: 9:53

It was a Si- Yeah, sorry. Sorry. It was a nerd, it was a nerd joke. Zshew. You know how he dodges bullets? You know what I'm talking about?

GLENNIS: 9:58

Yeah, yeah. He's like zshew.

BRIAN: 10:00

Okay. Yeah. Uh, you can just insert a laugh track here. This was a three-way race. For the majority of the last year it was Abdul, Mallory McMorrow, Haley.

GLENNIS: 10:11

And- Forgot

BRIAN: 10:11

about

GLENNIS: 10:12

Mallory. She-

BRIAN: 10:13

She just dropped

GLENNIS: 10:13

out … already forgot about her. Yeah.

BRIAN: 10:15

Yep. She's gone and quickly forgotten, apparently. She split the difference between the two, so there was hope early-

GLENNIS: 10:21

Yeah… BRIAN: that she was kind of going That did not happen. Instead, people were pulled in either direction. Yeah.

BRIAN: 10:28

Um, yeah.

GLENNIS: 10:28

She also didn't pick a lane. She, she didn't really have-

BRIAN: 10:31

Right… GLENNIS: you, you didn't And if you don't stand for something clearly, and you're ambiguous with your policies, this is gonna happen. Yeah. I think the most deadly thing for a candidate these days is trying to be all things for all people. You can't.

GLENNIS: 10:46

Mm-hmm.

BRIAN: 10:46

You can't. And so now we have a fricking grudge match, dude. It's, like, really getting nasty. There's a ton of outside spending, like 50 million plus dollars thus far. Some of that AIPAC connected. I can't, off the top of my head, tell you how much of it is. They prefer Haley Stevens and are very, very anti-Abdul for his position on Israel. He's asked about it constantly. It's, like-

GLENNIS: 11:13

Constantly… BRIAN: a ton of the content that I see. It's, like, a lot of focus on Israel, which was a big issue in Michigan in 2024 for Harris as well. And sh- Haley Stevens focuses on it, too, and she's pro, which is obviously very polarizing.

BRIAN: 11:26

Right. R- I mean, yeah. This has turned into, like, the banner proxy fight-

GLENNIS: 11:30

Mm-hmm… BRIAN: in the Democratic Party soul of the Democratic Party, as Joe Biden would probably say. Three weeks away. The primary's on August 4th. Every poll is giving a kind of different take. The most recent one just came out, showed Haley Stevens up by seven, but- Seven?

BRIAN: 11:46

Mm-hmm, in the primary, yes. But there are other polls that show it closer or even show a slight Abdul edge. I don't think that there's super clear data on it. Conventional wisdom would be to put money on Haley Stevens because voters typically, like, come home in a way. But this year, like we've been talking about, what we just saw in Arizona, what we saw in Maine, what we saw in California, what we've seen all over the place. I mean, Colorado, right? We didn't even get into Colorado, but, like, the Colorado results-

GLENNIS: 12:15

Yeah

BRIAN: 12:16

what we're seeing is this really energized anti-establishment voting base, and that should really be concerning to the Stevens camp.

GLENNIS: 12:25

Let's see what happens. I'm curious to see what happens. I'm not personally invested in this primary. I prefer Abdul El-Sayed for progressive reasons. Let's see what the state of Michigan and the Democratic voters want.

BRIAN: 12:39

Yeah. You alluded to it with Suzanne Lambert, but there's just been a content creator extravaganza going on in this race. There's been a lot of accusations of people being paid by-

GLENNIS: 12:51

Really?… BRIAN: the campaigns. Oh my goodness, yes. I'm kinda like,"Oops, missed that."

BRIAN: 12:55

No, yeah, people are definitely accusing-

GLENNIS: 12:57

Oh… BRIAN: a bunch of people of being if they're critical of Abdul's, a- and vice versa somewhat as well. Although I do think widely creators have been pro-Abdul for a long time- Yes … at least in my- Yes… BRIAN: newsfeed and in my network, role boosting the campaign. And it's a whole new dimension of viability because you can create an online brand that feels- Mm-hmm… BRIAN: kind of ubiquitous, that Sometimes that wins elections, and sometimes- Mm-hmm… BRIAN: it means that the online from the reality on the ground. It is not super clear yet which is happening right now. A good example of this, the Deja Foxx race in Arizona, if people followed that primary, or- Jasmine

BRIAN: 13:48

Crockett

GLENNIS: 13:48

Who

BRIAN: 13:48

are you gonna say? Jasmine Crockett, Kat Abughazaleh. Yeah. Did I get it right?

GLENNIS: 13:54

Yep.

BRIAN: 13:54

Nice.

GLENNIS: 13:55

You did.

BRIAN: 13:55

Also ubiquitous on every podcast, on every show, on TV, viral moments constantly. She came close, whereas some of the other ones didn't. It doesn't always translate. That's what I'm trying to say. It doesn't always translate-

GLENNIS: 14:06

Totally

BRIAN: 14:07

into votes on the ground. The biggest concern for Abdul right now from the data that I have seen is his polling with Black voters. We don't have to get into 2028, but if you cannot win a plurality or a majority-

GLENNIS: 14:21

Yeah… BRIAN: of the Black vote, there going to struggle in, and I think Michigan might be one of them. Yeah. I do wanna get into '28 briefly, but I also wanna comment on your divorce statement of what people are seeing in their algorithm versus what's actually happening on the ground, and I think people saw Zohran Mamdani's very, very effective digital strategy. But what was very unique, and what I think other campaigns are going to try to replicate, is that a lot of the conversions that Zohran Mamdani had on his digital strategy were to volunteers to bring-

BRIAN: 14:56

Mm-hmm

GLENNIS: 14:56

that energy to the doors, and that's what you really need with a digital strategy in a state where you have to reach a lot of different people. And I think the same way we talked about the DCCC being potentially harmful for candidates, now we're also seeing a mass of creator support or a Greek choir of creator amplification around candidate statements can be harmful to the general electorate looking at that candidate because they're like, "Why does someone from Texas think they know who I should vote for in Michigan or what it's like to be a Michigander and our problems?" It's something that we definitely have to assess in '28. There is no denying that we will need very, very strong digital strategy and support and coalition. I would say that having a lot of factions in 2024 with Kamala Harris online really impacted how that vote turned out, but it has to be married to a strong, robust, like, 360 strategy. I do wanna touch briefly on '28 because you know who's being pushed to the top of my feed for '28?

BRIAN: 15:57

Ossoff. No doubt

GLENNIS: 15:59

No

BRIAN: 15:59

He's everywhere. Oh,

GLENNIS: 16:01

who? Kamala Harris. Oh, girl. New York Mag.

BRIAN: 16:04

Oh, girl.

GLENNIS: 16:04

New York Times, Today Explained all have headlines or podcasts about how no matter what we think right now, Kamala Harris is polling well and is the front runner.

BRIAN: 16:17

Silly. Silly, silly take. I never comment on, like, random shit on Instagram because I just, like, don't have the mental patience. I don't comment on, like-

GLENNIS: 16:25

Mm… BRIAN: mainstream media posts. Like, I'm not, I'm not doing that. Uh.

BRIAN: 16:30

But I did. I literally just did-

GLENNIS: 16:31

Oh… BRIAN: 'cause some, some bullshit MSNBC not, Kamala Harris is the front runner." What a dumb fucking take. I'm sorry. It's so silly. It's kind of like saying, "Like it or not, the walls in here are white." And it's like, okay, until I paint them. You know what I mean? It's a meaningless observation. Mm. Frankly. I think the whole thing is very silly. The race has not started. We do not even know for sure who is and isn't running. People haven't thought at all at large, right? We do. We think about it. We talk about it all the time, but, like, the average American is not thinking about which Democrat to support in 2028. We'll have to work really hard to get them to think about it even in the week before they fricking show up at the ballot box. So- My whole job

BRIAN: 17:18

It's very silly to me to make a mountain out of a molehill when at this point people will answer you if you ask them the question about anything. People will say that they have-

GLENNIS: 17:27

Mm-hmm… BRIAN: an opinion about anything. It doesn't mean that it's a strongly held belief. And so I think that that will go away immediately when it's time. It's a little clickbaity. I think Kamala Harris, of course, she has 99% name and face recognition, and that's-

BRIAN: 17:43

Right… GLENNIS: one of the hardest People are reading the articles, we're talking about it, so it's, it's working. But I, I feel like there's been an onslaught. And to your point of it's, it's not inevitable, don't, don't force it on us. It's not like she's starting out from where she ended in 2024. She's starting out from where she ended in 2020. In 2024, she was dropped in, through no fault of her own, to the nomination, and every Democrat in America immediately did absolutely everything in their power to help her. Like y- you were the person, you were our person, and so we just- Mm-hmm did it. That's not what a primary dynamic is. It's everyone looking for a reason not to like you. Mm-hmm. That's literally what a primary is. Everyone's looking for a reason not to like you. I'm not saying that she can't have changed or do better or whatever, but that environment did not favor her in 2020 because people found things that they did not like.

GLENNIS: 18:49

Sure. The thing that they're saying is she's making calls to Mayor Mamdani-

BRIAN: 18:53

Mm-hmm… GLENNIS: to the uncommitted The uncommitted movement was an actual very successful campaign to tell people to write in for the presidential in '24. The last thing I'll say on this, did you see that New York Times article adding to the clickbait of just like,"Who's gonna run for president?" Who… This is- Mm… GLENNIS: a list of kind of an exhaustive is in the running or contending to potentially be a candidate. It's fun if you care about stuff like that, but otherwise it's just bullshit. You don't know. Yeah.

GLENNIS: 19:27

Although I, I have my people, I think.

BRIAN: 19:30

Do you? Yeah, I mean, I thought that you were gonna say Ossoff at the top because he is definitely being hyped up as the guy at this point, but I also don't put too much stock in that.

GLENNIS: 19:40

Yeah, I like him.

BRIAN: 19:43

Should we talk about Iran?

GLENNIS: 19:46

Ugh. Yeah, we need to talk about Iran, the war that keeps on killing.

BRIAN: 19:52

I've become an Iran expert because I just finished season two of The Agency. What, what is that on? And if you are not watching… Exactly. If no one is watching this show- Wait… it is the best- It's on Paramount+ fucking show on T fucking V. It's so good.

GLENNIS: 20:06

Wait. Yeah. Who's in it? I think-

BRIAN: 20:07

Michael Fassbender.

GLENNIS: 20:08

I watched the first season. I, I didn't realize there's a second season.

BRIAN: 20:12

I'll move on. More serious matters. Yes. Pete Hegseth was on the Hill talking about Iran, lying, lying, lying, lying, lying- Lying … lying, lying, lying, lying. Everything that came out of his mouth was just a childish insult or a lie. Pete Hegseth is on the Hill saying the war has cost something like 40 billion. We know from independent reporting on popular information and others that it's closer to 100 billion.

GLENNIS: 20:33

Yeah, and he was asking on the Hill this week for an additional 70 billion, and Jeanne Shaheen was like,"What about the 150 billion in the military budget, half of which hasn't yet been spent, according to your records?" The gaslighting-

BRIAN: 20:51

Yeah… GLENNIS: on this war, it, I wish more Americans talked about it. I get that everyone's exhausted, and we're being lied to consistently. We were lied to about why we went into the war. We were lied to about the results of the war immediately. We're doing the exact same thing we were told in 2025 was already accomplished. Three more American service members were killed this week. One of them- Yeah… GLENNIS: was 19 years old. We also haven't gotten an official press conference from the Pentagon since May, so I don't even believe the United States government when they tell us what the casualty number is, because we're not getting told what's happening. Well, it came out that they've been hiding injuries, like serious injuries to service members have been deliberately hidden from the press and from the standard reporting that Department of Defense would do. It's showing a much more aggressive and successful attack by Iran against US personnel and interests in the region than previously thought. That is directly undermining what the administration has said was the case, to your point. Gillibrand also had an aggressive exchange with Hegseth. She quoted him directly and was like,"You said Iran's missile capability has been completely wiped out, that we bombed the thing at a-" Decimated,

GLENNIS: 22:19

he said.

BRIAN: 22:20

Decimated. That their abilities to build nuclear weapons, build missiles, and fight have been completely destroyed as of a year ago. And he's like, "Yeah, that's, that's correct." Trump

GLENNIS: 22:30

said 100% destroyed.

BRIAN: 22:32

And then she's like, "So how in the fuck did they just bomb and kill US service members in Jordan? Which is it? It can't be both." He has no answer for any of this 'cause he's so incompetent and unqualified to do the job that he's doing. It's really tragic-

GLENNIS: 22:48

Yeah… BRIAN: for, for

BRIAN: 22:49

service members.

GLENNIS: 22:51

It's horrible, and the taxpayer. No one wanted this war. He ran on no new wars. I, I had to, for my own sanity, go back and look at the reasons why Trump said we were getting into this war. He said, one, he wanted to completely shut down Iran's ballistic missile program. Hasn't happened. He wants to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. Hasn't happened. This is why, I don't know if you've seen the reports, they want to continue to bomb these enriched uranium sites that are buried deep, deep, deep, deep underground, under mountains that are bunker-busting bombs can't even infiltrate. He wants to destroy Iran's naval capability in the Strait of Hormuz. That hasn't happened. Who still has control? Iran. He wanted to cut off Iran's funding arming of proxy groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. But the Houthis are now getting involved with their own port.

BRIAN: 23:42

Right. And so now not only is the Strait of Hormuz under threat, but the most popular alternate route that you can go is now potentially under threat as well. It's a complete disaster, and now the conversation has shifted to ground invasion. We're now talking about boots on the ground in a new war that no one can remember why we started, to your point. That, that there has been no case made for why we're involved in the first place. Every step of the way, Trump has made it worse. It's only gotten-

GLENNIS: 24:19

Mm-hmm… BRIAN: worse and more people killed. The fact that it's even up for a debate that we would send in American troops- Troops … is just in- inconceivable, indefensible. Yeah. I was just, I was listening to The Daily on this, and they were explaining a month or two ago, they packed up a lot of troops to send them back, and then Trump re-escalated the war, and they had to literally turn the ship around and go back. It's-

BRIAN: 24:47

Oh my god… GLENNIS: crazy. I'm- Like-

… GLENNIS: 24:48

as you know, petty, and I wanted to see how much it was costing each American of voting age, the war-

BRIAN: 24:55

Oh… GLENNIS: specifically in your pocket. And this is, like, the, kind of the fake war number, so we probably have to double this. It might not seem like a lot, but right now it's sitting around $400 per person. That's a lot of gas. That's a lot of groceries. That's crazy. That's my rent. That's one-

GLENNIS: 25:11

Well… BRIAN: that's one- One week of rent… BRIAN: half of one day of Yeah . Yeah. I saw, uh, this was-- I don't know if you posted this. Republicans are like, "Oh, we have until September to figure this out, otherwise it won't hurt us in the polls."

BRIAN: 25:23

I did post about this . It's so psychotic.

GLENNIS: 25:27

It's

BRIAN: 25:27

psychotic. Republicans keep saying, like, "Oh my God, we're right on the verge. We're just gonna turn it around. It's gonna be fine. People will, like, totally forgive us in November." No, dude. Do you know what we learned in 2024? The fricking debate has crystallized by a year before the election.

GLENNIS: 25:43

Mm-hmm.

BRIAN: 25:43

It's kind of already done. It's, it's already cooked. Joe Biden, I, I mean, to the extent that he even has control of it, brought down inflation by more than 50%, to levels that are lower than inflation is right now, before the-

GLENNIS: 25:59

Mm… BRIAN: 2024 election. People might not remember that. He brought down inflation by more than 50%. It was lower at that time than it is right now. People still were like, "Prices are too damn high." Too- "Gotta vote him out." Yeah.

BRIAN: 26:10

"Vote him out. Vote him out."

GLENNIS: 26:10

Kitchen table issues.

BRIAN: 26:11

"It's his fault. Vote him out." Voters don't forgive, period.

GLENNIS: 26:13

Mm.

BRIAN: 26:13

It's not even about a timeline. They just don't forgive. And based on the facts, the narrative is-

GLENNIS: 26:17

Mm-hmm

BRIAN: 26:17

Donald Trump has made your life more expensive. Donald Trump has made choices in office to personally enrich himself at the expense of your family, 'cause you cannot afford beef, you cannot afford coffee, you cannot afford your house. That's because Donald Trump has put tariffs on everything, because he's blocked housing bills, because he's done horrible shit-

GLENNIS: 26:35

Mm-hmm

BRIAN: 26:36

and started new wars. And that is not going to shift no matter what happens. They could end the Iran war tomorrow, gas prices could come down next week, and that's not gonna change.

GLENNIS: 26:46

Uh, yeah, it's not gonna change that Donald Trump started a war that his sons are getting richer from, while

BRIAN: 26:53

your- Did you watch Joe Rogan learn that- Oh, it- in real time? And-

SHELLENBERGER: 26:57

Or what about the military drones? Those contracts, when this war started, that's you can look into who, who made money on that one.

ROGAN: 27:06

Who made money on that one? I- Don Jr.? What? Wait a minute. What did you- Google? I'm just Googling things for you here … Are you-- This has gotta be a mistake. I'm just Googling things. Where did Eric and Don Jr. invest in military drone company amid Iran war? Well, I didn't report it. That seems like propaganda- No reporting … from Iran or something.

GLENNIS: 27:27

Eat shit, Joe Rogan. Like- That's so embarrassing … worms for brains. So he's like, "Oh. Oh, this, uh…" Like-

BRIAN: 27:35

He said, "That sounds like propaganda." Yeah. He said, "That has to be propaganda." What do you mean? Look it up. What do you mean, bro? You can look it up.

GLENNIS: 27:43

Like, they sit on the board.

BRIAN: 27:44

It's in press releases. GLENNIS: They sit on the They have- It's-… GLENNIS: equity in the drone companies. Right

GLENNIS: 27:51

Your propaganda, Joe Rogan

BRIAN: 27:53

Their name's on the fucking list. Go look up the list

GLENNIS: 27:56

Which-

BRIAN: 27:56

There is their name. Look at the contract. It's published

GLENNIS: 27:59

By the way, even when things are happening in back rooms, AKA when Donald Trump was in a back room meeting with oil executives in 2024 saying, "If you give me a billion dollars, I'm gonna say, 'Drill, baby, drill.'" That's not propaganda. That also happened.

BRIAN: 28:13

Right.

GLENNIS: 28:13

The first day in office.

BRIAN: 28:14

I mean, we're spending billions of dollars paying wind and solar companies not to build.

GLENNIS: 28:20

It's crazy.

BRIAN: 28:21

Just because Trump is trying to help oil and gas companies.

GLENNIS: 28:25

You know what's crazy? In the Biden administration, the$7,500 tax credit for buying an electric vehicle, that's now gone. That's a lot of money-

BRIAN: 28:33

Yeah

GLENNIS: 28:33

that you would get out of your taxes just for buying a Prius. Gone.

BRIAN: 28:38

Boop. Glennis, let's hit them with some clickbait or double-click.

GLENNIS: 28:42

Okay.

BRIAN: 28:43

If you don't know, we're gonna go through headlines of the week, decide what is clickbait and what you should actually be paying attention to, or double-click. First one, "Trump's White House is spending money like drunken socialists." This was a Joe Scarborough opinion piece that talks about how Republicans are hypocrites because they're spending money like crazy on things like the war in Iran and taking a stake in private companies. What do you think?

GLENNIS: 29:12

I don't know. I do think that people use the term socialist like a slur. I think it's clickbaity in that sense. But I do think there's validity to the argument that a lot of what Trump is doing is evil socialism. We talked about this a couple months ago, where Trump having the government own stakes in these companies is essentially socialism. I don't like the use of socialist as a slur in this headline, but I think there's a point to be made that federal money, taxpayer dollars should be spent for things that actually help the American people, not put us into endless wars and help the 1%.

BRIAN: 29:45

I think that's right. For me, it's not even necessarily about the 2026 election or even 2028, because I don't think that this type of argument shifts people's frame. But I do think it-

GLENNIS: 29:57

Yeah… BRIAN: impacts people's Mm.

BRIAN: 30:00

And Republicans are still dining out on their brand from the Ronald Reagan days of being, like, fiscally conservative. It's not actually their platform anymore, and I do think that we have to continually call that out so that over time, with a long time window, a long timeframe, Democrats can reclaim what it means to be the more trusted party on the economy and spending.

GLENNIS: 30:25

I have one for you.

BRIAN: 30:26

Mm-hmm.

GLENNIS: 30:28

"Alpha male," air quotes,"Andrew Tate arrested in an outfit so feminine it sparked endless jokes."

BRIAN: 30:36

Clickbait. The Tate brothers' stuff is mostly clickbait. That's literally their whole job is clickbait. He's a despicable person. He's definitely a misogynist and, and all of these things, and they use rage bait-based algorithms to their advantage to grow their audiences. And so whatever the solution to them might be, prosecute the shit out of them, all the things, hold them accountable, and we have to find ways to drown out their message with other stuff, and it's harder to do that when people who hate them are propping up their platforms.

GLENNIS: 31:13

Yeah. I have one thing to add though, because I do think that the Tate brothers are a, a really excellent, derogatory excellent example of the Trump family hypocrisy. For those who don't recall, Andrew Tate and his brother were arrested by UK authorities in this situation. But what they are charged with are rape, human trafficking, child pornography. Trump went out of his way to protect these two men, who are almost most definitely sex criminals, against young women, if not girls, and the Trump family has gone out of their way to protect them. It all goes back to protecting the Epstein class, protecting horrible people at the expense of the American people. I'm glad to see them in the news again. I'm glad that people are talking about why are they even in Miami in the first place? Because Trump allowed them to be there. Trump allowed them to live freely, even though it is very clear they are horrible, horrible people.

BRIAN: 32:13

Next one, Zohran Mamdani put out a video saying that Netanyahu is a war criminal, but he will not arrest him when he is in New York City for the UN General Assembly.

GLENNIS: 32:22

Double-click because it's gone viral, the video, and this topic is still going to be extremely relevant in the elections this year and in '28. Democrats did not find a way to appropriately talk about the genocide in Palestine in '24. They need to come up with how they're going to talk about this in '26 and '28. Mamdani campaigned on this, that he would arrest Netanyahu if he came to-

BRIAN: 32:52

Uh-huh… GLENNIS: New York City The ICC has a warrant out for his arrest. Uh- Mm-hmm… GLENNIS: but then Trump in this situation"Actually, you're right, I can't." While I do think this was done for virality, I do think that this is gonna be a topic that we have to continue to talk about. It is a good example of how a politician can communicate a broken campaign promise and turn it into a win, which is a hard thing to do. Like-

GLENNIS: 33:17

Yeah… BRIAN: that's in- incredible, scroll through his Instagram. Most videos have between, like one and three million views. What does this have?

BRIAN: 33:26

So his Instagram reels, it has 53 million as of right now, and that's gonna keep climbing because we're still in the first day window. That's bananas.

GLENNIS: 33:36

Bananas. Yeah. Excellent point. I did watch the entire statement. It was very presidential. He was behind his desk speaking direct to camera. He can never run for president, as a reminder. He is not born in the United States of America, but he had a backbone on the issue, and he explained the reasoning why he would and could not arrest him, but continued to make his points very clear. One more. This is topical, I think. Cyclospora spreads through human feces. How did it get into our food supply, question mark.

BRIAN: 34:06

Double click. My Crunchwrap Supreme.

GLENNIS: 34:10

I know. I have to ask, are you eating lettuce? Are you eating berries?

BRIAN: 34:14

I'm eating lettuce. I'm eating berries. I have not changed a thing. I have not been to a Taco Bell. I don't really feel to talk about it much

GLENNIS: 34:23

It's not even Taco Bell

BRIAN: 34:23

But, well, I think it was.

GLENNIS: 34:25

It-

BRIAN: 34:25

No, I'm pretty sure it was. Was it not?

GLENNIS: 34:26

No, they, they came out and they said it's Taco Bell. Actually, my tinfoil hat's on a little bit right now because they came out and they said, "Taylor Farms tested positive. Taylor Farms is the main supplier of the lettuce that you have in your Crunchwrap Supreme, Taco Bell." 24 hours later, they were like, "Actually, that's not true." Turns out, though, the head of Taylor Farms, big MAGA guy.

BRIAN: 34:47

Right.

GLENNIS: 34:47

Big Trump supporter. So maybe he made a phone call and said, "Take that red card away."

BRIAN: 34:51

Right.

GLENNIS: 34:52

"I need people to keep buying my lettuce."

BRIAN: 34:53

I think that's exactly what happened. They, they gave over a million dollars to Trump. I don't really believe anything that the FDA has to say about Taylor Farms specifically, and Taylor Farms themselves have been trying to spin it. I saw some post going viral that was like, "The FDA has apologized to us," but meanwhile, the FDA is actively putting out guidance saying, "Do not eat anything from Taylor Farms." Regardless, I will be holding off of any chalupas for the time being. Not-

GLENNIS: 35:22

Yeah. It's really fucked up… BRIAN: one day it'll be safe, Taco Bell in shame once again. But- Well, I said that-

… BRIAN: 35:28

not today… GLENNIS: it was kind of outing everyone. Everyone who was sick, I was like, it's just outing people who are eating Taco Bell on the reg.

BRIAN: 35:34

I know! uh,

GLENNIS: 35:34

but, but it's not true. I think-

BRIAN: 35:36

I'm being attacked.

GLENNIS: 35:37

I know. The Taco Bell community, our friend Emily Amick, who we still have on the pod, she sent me a tweet yesterday. It was someone eating a Crunchwrap Supreme. The tweet was, "The safest day to fly was 9/12/2001." And they're like ea- I'm like,"Oh my God, that's bleak." Yeah.

BRIAN: 35:54

Oh my God.

GLENNIS: 35:54

It's, it's gnarly. I have to also say-

BRIAN: 35:56

Oh my God… GLENNIS: this is a direct result of the Yeah… GLENNIS: health. We could have attacked this much faster, more efficiently, with more resourcing. But I read this article, and it turns out that it requires a lot, a lot of resourcing to effectively find the source and to stop it. So- Totally. I mean-

GLENNIS: 36:21

Wash your food… BRIAN: for sure. Well, yeah. We can leave it at that. Do we wanna set them off with a good vibe? Yeah.

BRIAN: 36:31

Our good vibe of the day comes from a really unexpected source-

GLENNIS: 36:37

Mm-hmm

BRIAN: 36:37

but shows the power of karma. After Donald Trump helped Ken Paxton defeat incumbent Senator John Cornyn in Texas, Cornyn is getting a little taste of revenge. Cornyn is refusing to advance nominations for US ambassador slots, including Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano, horrible people in their own right, u- unless the Trump administration releases the money to prevent HIV and AIDS in Africa. So Trump has held back all of this money, increasing the risk for people abroad and domestically-

GLENNIS: 37:15

Killing people… BRIAN: killing people. Yeah. Ki- 100%. Yeah.

BRIAN: 37:17

Now we're gonna get one of two outcomes. Either we're gonna fund those programs, or we're going to kill the nominations that move through Cornyn's committee.

GLENNIS: 37:27

Right. I feel like we should have a revenge group, like Republicans that we call and are just, are like, "Do this, do this, do this, do this."

BRIAN: 37:35

The petty hotline, if you will.

GLENNIS: 37:37

The petty hotline. The petty hotline.

BRIAN: 37:41

What goes around comes around. Donald Trump's been trying to get all these incumbents out, and now they are the votes that he needs in order to do shit, and it sounds like, in some cases, they're not gonna play ball.

GLENNIS: 37:52

Let's lame duck his ass.

BRIAN: 37:54

Absolutely. That is Vibes Only for the week. Thank you guys so much for listening. Please make sure to like, subscribe, comment, share, and review wherever you get your podcasts. We are on YouTube. Check it out, and we'll be back next week with more vibes.

GLENNIS: 38:12

See you then.

BRIAN: 38:13

Wait, they accepted my counteroffer on the apartment. I just got my apartment.

GLENNIS: 38:17

Oh my God, amazing. Wait, where are you moving to? Around the block or something?

BRIAN: 38:22

72nd.

GLENNIS: 38:23

Oh, I like it down there.

BRIAN: 38:25

Whoop, whoop.