Vibes Only
The polls are broken. The stakes are unprecedented. And the future of democracy, like it or not, hinges on one thing – VIBES. Vibes Only is here to check the vibes of American politics and break down the need-to-know news of the week. And while one of the two major parties in the country has overwhelmingly embraced a right-wing movement whose whole vibe is undermining democracy and social progress, it’s clear we need voices that can meet voters where they are and clearly and effectively call that BS out for what it is.
Co-host Brian Derrick has earned a reputation for his ability to break down political news and define the stakes to his sizable and dedicated social media audience. Co-host Glennis Meagher is a digital media savant who has built platforms to encourage millennials and gen z to engage with politics, some for the first time. Even when the news of the week could easily kill the vibe, Brian and Glennis are like those needed friends that have the unique ability to keep it real AND pull us out of a doom spiral.
New episodes of Vibes Only are available on Wednesdays wherever you get your podcasts.
Vibes Only
Trump & Vance Can't Hide from Project 2025 Ties
The vibes this week... Days after former President Donald Trump was struck in a mass shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania, he named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Brian and Glennis discuss the political reactions to the Trump rally shooting and the VP pick representing, perhaps, the most radical ticket in U.S. history.
To top it all off, on Monday Judge Aileen Cannon went out on a limb to throw out Trump's classified documents case - saying special prosecutor Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed.
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Brian Derrick: [00:00:00] No political violence,
Glennis Meagher: no conspiracies,
Brian Derrick: just vibes. This is Vibes Only, a podcast that checks the vibes of American politics each and every week. And the vibes this week,
News clip: former President Trump now arriving in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. This, of course, a day after he was targeted and attempted assassination.
Glennis Meagher: And the show certainly went on. This is an announcement on Truth Social by former President Trump. He has selected Ohio Senator J. D. Vance as his vice presidential pick and
News clip: A remarkable development. Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida has dismissed, dismissed the indictment against Donald Trump in this classified documents case.
Brian Derrick: We're going to discuss all of this. that before doing an it's giving pulling up our group chat. And if you can believe it, we'll leave you with a goodbye. Let's get into it.
Glennis Meagher: Hey, Brian. Hi, Glenis. How are ya? I'm, I'm okay. How are you?
Brian Derrick: I think that we're not supposed to be asking that question right now, in [00:01:00] liberal circles.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah,
Brian Derrick: it's impolite.
Glennis Meagher: Impolite. A lot has happened in the last week.
Brian Derrick: Yeah, I feel like we maybe have the most number of unique, significant events to discuss in a seven day period as we've had in maybe years. I know. Before we dive into it, I will say, As sporty as I am, I've been thinking a lot about boxing metaphors
Glennis Meagher: as
Brian Derrick: how to get through this, like, really insanely difficult time, and it's just a matter of fact that when you're in a boxing match, like, you're gonna take some punches.
You know what I mean? Like, and it is a requirement to win to be able to, like, you know. Get hit and keep going. I think there's a famous quote about that probably from Rocky or something. And so that has definitely been on my mind as every single news alert that I get has felt sort of like a gut punch.
And we're going to dive into these stories today is to just like, remember that being able. To get a setback or have a setback [00:02:00] and keep pushing forward is what it takes in order to make progress long term. And so we just have to think about this is our moment to take some body blows, absorb the punches, and then we're going to spring into action and come back in the coming weeks.
Yeah, and
Glennis Meagher: I might slightly disagree with you, Kelsa Preece, on this, in that I don't feel like, I mean, a lot of information has now become available to us, but I don't think fundamentally a lot has changed in this election cycle, because a lot of things are just manifesting to Prove to us exactly what the MAGA movement and conservative movement is trying to do to this country.
So let's get the shooting over with and talk about that. That was another traumatic experience collectively that the American people had to go through. I watched it pretty live. I happened to just get home. I was sat on couch ready to watch my like, smutty new Netflix movie and I got the text. There's a shooting at the Trump building.
rally. So a lot of things [00:03:00] happened very fast. Thank God for the counter snipers from the U. S. Secret Service stopping the shooter, which could have potentially led to more deaths, but a really scary moment in American history.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. I think yours was the first text that I got. Like
Glennis Meagher: shocking that I was the one breaking news.
And
Brian Derrick: that was like a solid 10 minutes before the New York Times push notification and all the other notifications. And yeah, it was Like a pit formed in my stomach, like right away. I mean, we will say what everyone is saying and what I also reacted on social media right away. Political violence has no place in this country.
If you're trying to advance any agenda by violence, like, you know, you're losing. We don't have reason to believe that this was like sort of a partisan, ideologically motivated attack.
Glennis Meagher: And thank. God for that. I was so deeply nervous that it was going to be not a white male, a registered Republican white male, [00:04:00] which could have led to, I think, a deep escalation.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. But that's why it's, it's good to remember it was a mass shooting. If it's a mass shooting, the odds are pretty good that it's going to be a white male,
Glennis Meagher: domestic terrorist. Yeah.
Brian Derrick: Regardless of that fact, Republicans were extremely quick to start pointing fingers, blaming Joe Biden directly, blaming Democrats at large, which is the definition of gaslighting.
Glennis Meagher: Totally. And I immediately thought of what we talked about last week on the pod. We had that Heritage Foundation clip poll of that white conservative dude baiting, essentially, the left to take up arms. Cut to all of these Republicans going on the record saying that this is what the left wanted, which doesn't work when the shooter is a registered Republican.
Brian Derrick: Yeah, Senator Tim Scott, Representative Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, all tweeted things that were pointing directly at Democrats and trying to blame them. But the most egregious examples to me were [00:05:00] from Mike Collins, Who literally tweeted that Joe Biden quote, sent the orders. And then the second one was from JD Vance, who we are going to discuss is, is Trump's vice presidential pick also tweeted that Biden was responsible and that that his quote rhetoric led directly to president Trump's attempted assassination, which is obviously false and has zero.
That's Absolutely gaslighting based on zero evidence that turned out to be false, but work to not unify, not lower the temperature, but to raise the specter of violence and the partisan nature of what could be a Have been sort of a moment for pause and reflection as Joe Biden tried to make it in his multiple addresses after the event, they literally tried to go as partisan and political as possible, which is a shame.
Glennis Meagher: It's a shame and it's a lie because lest we forget, it's Donald J. Trump who Is the man who [00:06:00] has been stoking this political violence, who has been baiting this political violence, who has been continuously using the rhetoric of political violence since before January 6th, where they were calling for Mike Pence to be hanged by a noose.
I don't know if you recall, they called for the execution of former chief of staff, Mark Milley. They've talked about shooting immigrants in the legs or feeding them to alligators when they're trying to cross the border. Southern border. So there's many, many examples of this kind of language being used.
Brian Derrick: I've been waiting for someone to do a super clip of all of the Republican campaign ads where they shoot guns at some sort of effigy of a political opponent. Oftentimes Nancy Pelosi, Marjorie Taylor Greene has one. We saw the candidate for secretary of state make one both with a flamethrower and with a rifle recently.
Oh yeah. In Missouri, in Missouri. Thank you. And the list goes on and on and on. And so the idea that you're going to be putting campaign dollars behind an ad where you are shooting some sort of representation of your political opponent [00:07:00] and then claiming that Democrats Are the ones using violent rhetoric because we call out Trump for the threats of democracy that he actually is.
And the high stakes of deduction is frustrating. I was on News Nation, a conservative outlet on Sunday and got into a interesting dialogue
Glennis Meagher: with
Brian Derrick: their Republican commentator about just that because he was trying to blame Joe Biden. I was not having it. Notice how
Glennis Meagher: no, no Republicans are like blaming the guns and the fact that People who might be mentally unwell, say
Brian Derrick: part, say that part.
Let's talk about it.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. Let's talk about the gun laws specifically in PA. Cause my initial, I'm all, you know, the way that I maintain sanity in this election cycle is I can't control what I can control. And I think about how can we solve this problem? And my immediate thought was, how did this shooter before we even knew who it was, get access to the gun that they had, what shooting range ranges did they go to, to practice shooting a semi automatic.
Weapon over a football field [00:08:00] length.
Brian Derrick: It's important to remember there will always be people on the fringe and at the political extremes. I mean, I think of the example, Ronald Reagan's shooter was, was trying to do it for Jodie Foster.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, it was trying to impress an actress.
Brian Derrick: Like there, there are people out there who are unwell and might try to take this upon themselves to assassinate someone.
We have to keep assault weapons out of the hands of those people. In this case, has made it extremely difficult to do that.
Glennis Meagher: Totally. And even the name itself, Assault Weapon, it's just violent in and of itself. And, you know, people, I'm very against like the lone wolf theory, because a lone wolf does not exist if the system is in place for them to facilitate their action and allow for that.
So assault rifles, which was similar to the weapon used in the shooting, is banned in nine states, but Pennsylvania is not one of them. Pennsylvania requires background checks for pistols and AR 15s [00:09:00] if that gun is purchased from a dealer, not in private sales. So If I had an AR 15, Brian, and we live in the state of Pennsylvania, and you came to me and you said, I'd love to buy that gun from you.
And I'm like, okay, you seem, you seem cool. Here's the gun. No background check required.
Brian Derrick: Right.
Glennis Meagher: That is
Brian Derrick: bananas,
Glennis Meagher: bananas.
Brian Derrick: In addition, Pennsylvania does not have extreme risk protection orders. So if there was somebody concerned that this shooter could be a danger to himself or others, they do not have the ability to get the weapons taken away.
There are. No bans on large capacity magazines, no waiting periods, no strong concealed carry law, no open carry regulations, no laws to prevent child access to weapons, and no ability to pass local gun laws that are different from the state law. So even if you want your city or your county to pass to be more judicious about who has access to weapons of war.
They [00:10:00] have prevented you from being able to do that.
Glennis Meagher: I don't have children, but I would not want to live in the state of Pennsylvania if people don't have to lock up their guns in their homes. 101. The country, yeah. Gun safety 101. Right. So anyway, when we talk about this, yeah, we talk about this because of course what happened on Saturday is a horrible, heinous tragedy.
Donald Trump did not lose his life, but someone else did two other people are in hospital critically injured, but I think they're stable now. Thank God. I will also know Donald Trump did not go visit any of the victims in hospital. Just saying,
Brian Derrick: I feel like the last thing we have to hit on is that after acknowledging this is a horrible thing, political violence has no place in our country.
Like, we are glad that Donald Trump did not die. I am very glad that Donald Trump did not die. We have to also acknowledge the imagery of the event could not have been better for Donald Trump if it was scripted. Truly, politically, it is hard to believe what happened, happened [00:11:00] the way that it did. That he was actually hit in the ear.
It wasn't just like shots rang out nearby. He was actually hit in the ear. That we have these images of him with a fist raised with an American flag behind him with blood on his face and that he's completely fine. He was fine literally minutes later, was, was in zero way incapacitated, is like the luck, the luck.
It's so
Glennis Meagher: I don't know if you saw, I was on, I was hot on Instagram immediately because everyone was sharing this photo and I was like, this is everyone's, whether you like the man or not. I'm like, don't, this is like at this point, political propaganda. Don't share this photo. Don't share this photo. Don't share this photo.
Someone still died. Someone still died. I know Donald Trump is alive and I'm with you. Thank God. Like what a nightmare. I agree with you that it's like, you can't. You can't write this. Him
Brian Derrick: jumping back up through a crowd of Secret Service agents and raising his fist and yelling to the crowd is not a sign of how strong it is.
It is. It is a sign he can read a room and he knows how to like elicit an emotional [00:12:00] response. We know that. And so that was a political move. It shouldn't make you feel like he's, you know, this sort of invincible figure, it should make you feel like he's a manipulator, the most swampy political creature ever, that even when his life is on the line, he's thinking about how to gain power, how to use the situation to his advantage.
But like, that's pretty telling, in my opinion, as to what was on his mind at that moment.
Glennis Meagher: But I will say, I don't know if you saw him in the RNC last night. He's got a little, like, diaper on his ear. The, the, the, the imagery has kind of, I think, been trumped by that now.
Okay, shooting Saturday, VP pick on Monday. Were you surprised? J. D. Vance is the guy.
Brian Derrick: I was not surprised. It's, first of all, VP picks don't matter that much. Like, we have, like, real data that shows it doesn't change the landscape very much. What it does, for sure, is give us some [00:13:00] insight into how the candidate is thinking based on who they pick.
This is not my original thought. There was a lot of chatter saying, If Donald Trump Thinks he's gonna win. He'll pick J. D. Vance. If he's worried about his prospects, he's gonna pick Marco Rubio, right? Because Rubio could appeal to Latino voters. We've talked about this in a way
Glennis Meagher: we're talking about. Oh, it's gonna be Rubio.
Brian Derrick: And so I do think that Vance is the least bad option because he is literally a Trump copycat. It is control C control V. And that does not expand his appeal. It does not. And so I didn't get
Glennis Meagher: this yesterday on the tarmac. Did you see that? He's like carbon copy. Carbon copy. Right. Walked away. Yeah.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. And Vance is much more clearly an extremist than some of the alternatives, like a Doug Burnham, the governor of North Dakota or something, because he outright has said he would not have certified the election in 2020 as.
Vice President. That alone is disqualifying to any normal person.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. And music to Trump's ears, [00:14:00] by the way.
Brian Derrick: Absolutely. Number two, he supports a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest because he said two wrongs don't make a right. Good luck with that policy. And number three, he literally has no spine and doesn't stand by any of it.
Any of his values or positions, he is willing to do anything to advance his political career. He was a never trumper. People already know this. This is all over the internet. He was a never trumper. He said that Trump was likely to be America's Hitler. That's his word. And now he has like been one of his most vocal proponents.
And I think that for some people that will play well. And for many people, they will see that as a good thing.
Glennis Meagher: Spineless. Well, here's my thing. If say he is VP and then becomes president, do I really want him at like at the negotiating table knowing that he's such a flip flopper and in 2016 was saying that Trump was to your point America's Hitler, that he was a never Trump guy, that he was an idiot, that he can't stomach him, that he's cultural heroin, all of these things.
I [00:15:00] don't trust you as far as I can throw you, which isn't far. So it's just like you give me no confidence, not that I would even consider him like, you know, he is not. Someone I'm supporting, but I look at these people. I'm like, Okay, well, how do people view him? What? Like, you can't trust him,
Brian Derrick: right? And he's also not been around for very long.
And so we already are finding out new things about him. JD Vance was at the Heritage Foundation, which is the organization that produced project 2025 and is responsible for this ultra extremist I'm agenda. And he literally said.
JD Vance: This organization is going to play a major role in helping us figure out how to govern at the White House, at the Senate, at the House, and all across our great countries.
Glennis Meagher: Correct me if I'm wrong, did, didn't Donald Trump, just last week, Separate and distance himself from project 2025 because he saw that it was getting a lot of traction as being a very dangerous, very bad thing that people were very scared about. And it's become a big talking point. It has [00:16:00] been, you know, in our circles, and it's becoming more of a cultural talking point, right?
Am I losing my mind? Didn't Donald Trump say last week? I have nothing to do with it, even though 40 of his former staffers work at the Heritage Foundation.
Brian Derrick: That is correct. It was a full Mariah Carey, I don't know her
Glennis Meagher: moment
Brian Derrick: when it's like, no, we know you know her, we know that you know her, your entire staff is working there and you have directly aligned your policy agenda to be their policy agenda.
Glennis Meagher: Oh, Brian, we have a Trump receipt actually to that point. This is a video that just surfaced this week from Trump. In April of 22, he keynoted a heritage foundation dinner as like the heritage foundation had just started working on project 2025. And he said,
Donald Trump: the critical job of institutions such as heritage is to.
Lay the groundwork and heritage does such an incredible job at that. This is a great group and they're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and [00:17:00] what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that's coming, that's coming.
Glennis Meagher: So there's Trump saying that project 2025 is. From the voters will be the mandate to rebuild and reshape America.
Brian Derrick: Yeah, I am very glad that project 2025 has been breaking through, um, and that people are starting to really see what it's all about because we'll have like irreparable harm to the way that our government functions and the country's future as a whole, particularly if you are not a white, straight male, land owning, rich.
Glennis Meagher: Right. If you're not a founding father, you're
Brian Derrick: fucked. Yeah. Right. So to point out just how extreme Vance really has become, he also did an interview where he referenced Andrew Jackson, former president, as a example for how Trump could push his agenda over the rulings [00:18:00] of the Supreme Court. And so
Glennis Meagher: the racist, genocidal Andrew Jackson.
Brian Derrick: Exactly. So the Supreme Court had ruled in an 1832 case that the U. S. government had to respect Native American legal rights to land ownership. And Jackson just straight up ignored the ruling and continued to let these white settlers take the land. And that is what led to what we now call the Trail of Tears and the deaths of over 60, 000 Native Americans.
Advance! is holding this up as the example to say, we are going to fire every single middle level bureaucrat in the U S government. And when the courts say that that's not allowed, that that's illegal, it's unconstitutional. We are simply going to have Trump ignore the law. And this is the exact quote from Vance.
You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did and say, the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. And you just do whatever you want. And that is how democracy falls apart. [00:19:00]
Glennis Meagher: 1000 percent the trail of tears is like the I'm using air quotes, the pretty way that the history books discuss the genocide of an entire population of Native Americans in this country.
If they're referencing a horrific thing that the United States has has done is something that we should be modeling moving forward. It's Sickening.
Brian Derrick: It is. And knowing how extreme the Supreme Court is, if they are already preparing to have to overrule this conservative Supreme Court majority, that this majority is not extreme enough for them, that should really give everybody pause.
Because we're getting the most wild, out of sync rulings from the court that we've gotten in decades. And they're saying they're not going to go far enough. We already know that they're going to rule against our crazy ass agenda. And so we're just going to ignore them. And they have
Glennis Meagher: no interest in an actual functioning democracy.
Brian Derrick: And so once again, we circle back to what we started, where we started when it comes to this rhetoric question of, okay, [00:20:00] Donald Trump got shot in the ear. That does not mean that we stop. Calling out the actual threat to democracy that he and now JD Vance pose to the country. We have to continue to do that because they are saying the quiet part out loud.
They are telling us what they want to do. And when that means the end of or dramatic erosion of democracy, we have to say it.
Should we talk about your second favorite judge in America? Who? Eileen Cannon. Oh, after after Clarence Thomas is your first, obviously, um, Miss
Glennis Meagher: Cannon, Miss Cannon, she dismissed one of Trump's cases. There's so many. It is still hard to keep up with them, but she dismissed the classified documents case. So if you remember on the Internet, all of those incredible photos at like Mar a Lago with like Boxes of papers in the bathroom and spread out like all over it was that case and
Brian Derrick: the more recent news that trump had been like Moving them around as the fbi was looking for [00:21:00] them.
Like
Glennis Meagher: wait, I didn't know that he was literally Tampering with like
Brian Derrick: yeah, he was hiding them from them. Yes. He was literally hiding them from them. Yes
Glennis Meagher: Nightmare, she said this case is over.
Brian Derrick: She dismissed the case specifically for based on the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. So it was not about the merits of the case or how strong their arguments were about Trump's crimes, but she is taking a technicality route and that absolutely can and from every lawyer that I've talked to will be overturned.
Her ruling will be overturned from
Glennis Meagher: I'm reading in this in these notes that Clarence Thomas is was in fact like a core part of this. dismissal because she's citing his concurrence from the immunity ruling that happened earlier this month and saying that special counsels just don't apply here.
Brian Derrick: It's, it's a team up, like a super villain team up.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. This case was never going to court before the November election anyway, [00:22:00] but now it will be delayed even further because there will be an appeal, presumably.
Brian Derrick: Oh yes, definitely further delayed. And so that means that we're only going to get A trial if Trump loses in the right
Glennis Meagher: because Trump's D. O. J.
Would never prosecute Trump,
Brian Derrick: right? Jack Smith will not have a job. If Trump wins in November, he will be gone. This decision is so out of touch with reality. It's sort of baffling to I think most lawyers and legal experts that I'm reading and other people's minds. It's just another really lucky break for Trump.
He appointed this judge. And so it's not shocking. She is not qualified to be in the position she is in now. We think that she's auditioning to try to get a Supreme Court appointment in a second Trump term if that happens. So that's not surprising. But the timing! Of it as in between his assassination attempt and the RNC is like the luckiest thing of all time.
And they're just building a lot of momentum. And that's why we're all feeling the way that we're feeling. Well, let's jump into an [00:23:00] it's giving because these stories are in Trump's words, some humdingers. There was an interesting exchange between Don Jr. And an MSNBC reporter. Let's take a look.
MSNBC Reporter: Immigration's important to him. I covered the family separation crisis closely. Will we continue to see policies like separating 5, 000 children deliberately from their parents?
Donald Trump Jr.: You mean the Obama administration? You know they didn't do that, sir.
MSNBC Reporter: Will there be a second family separation policy?
Donald Trump Jr.: It's MSDNC, so I expect nothing less from you clowns.
Even, even today, even 48 hours later, you couldn't wait. You couldn't wait with your lies and with your nonsense, so just get out of here.
Brian Derrick: The
MSNBC Reporter: denomination
Brian Derrick: continues here in the Florida delegation. We're about to hear from Eric and Don Jr. It's giving, maybe it's lies. It's Michelle Wolf.
Glennis Meagher: It's giving full of shit.
Brian Derrick: Obama.
Glennis Meagher: What? His anger, Donald Trump Jr. 's anger, it's tangible. Through the screen, like his body language. He's so [00:24:00] activated by truth. He's activated by truth and facts. Triggered.
Brian Derrick: You could say triggered.
Glennis Meagher: Triggered. Yeah, he's triggered.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. I feel, I feel for the reporter trying to like, imagine trying to report.
No. Some sort of fact based journalism from the RNC.
Glennis Meagher: Nightmare.
Brian Derrick: This, uh, looking for a needle in a haystack. So teleprompters are in vogue at the moment. We've been talking about them. It's Joe Biden. There was like a whole thing around Trump's teleprompter and now Mike Johnson.
Glennis Meagher: Okay. Mega Mike,
Mike Johnson: unless the president is reading off a teleprompter, uh, I don't think he's capable of making these big decisions and that is something that should alarm all of us and it's something that we need to be talking about.
I think people are, ladies and gentlemen, It is now my honor to introduce the Attorney General. And there goes the teleprompter.
Glennis Meagher: Wait, literally pot kettle. Did he not [00:25:00] know who he was introducing? It's not that hard.
Brian Derrick: I don't know. Yeah, he should study up and not need a teleprompter if he's going to be making these big decisions. Back at Mike.
Glennis Meagher: Pot kettle.
Okay. So can I, I'm going to tell you some of the stuff that my group chats were obviously on fire. Starting. Well, one, I was at net roots and I was like filming a lot of the keynotes and sending it to people because I found it deeply inspirational. And I find that in the progressive movement, people do not.
It's if you're not seeing and hearing from progressive leaders, you don't, you can't envision that reality for America. And If you don't think this work is happening, you don't think it's possible to exist. And I was, you know, I was recording a lot of the keynotes and sending them to friends, being like, this is the America we want.
I was like such on a high. And then Saturday, of course, my, my group chat changed. There's a lot of, you know, the internet, I will say the devil works hard. The internet works harder. The, the memes coming out immediately. One of them, you know, that, that iconic [00:26:00] image now that we talked about earlier. Was started to be spread very, very rapidly.
I tried to put a kibosh on it. It didn't work. One of them I really loved that went viral was do not, I repeat, do not get your ears pierced at Claire's, which is just funny people saying that Trump was in his Van Gogh era, you know, the internet. Yes. The internet is internetting.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. I think I'm trying to think of one non Trump related group chat subject.
I think. Only the soccer games broke through both the Euro and Copa
Glennis Meagher: drama.
Brian Derrick: There was serious drama.
Glennis Meagher: The United States of America is set to host the world cup in 2026, which is a huge deal. There are two main issues, security and the field itself and the turf, the grass, how it's being maintained. Those who care or don't care as messy had a pretty massive ankle injury in the finals.
It's very sad. It could have been his last appearance in a Copa for Argentina. Most likely was his last appearance for Argentina in a Copa. It's [00:27:00] drama. We want the RNC should put in one of their make America insert wealthy, great, whatever. Make our fields playable once again.
Brian Derrick: Agreed. I'm absolutely thrilled.
I'm ecstatic for the World Cup. Hopefully we'll still have a democracy by then.
Glennis Meagher: This was actually in the group chat was that. 10 minutes post Trump shooting, Elon Musk takes that image and says, I will be endorsing Donald Trump and then cut to a few days later, not only am I endorsing, I'm going to give him a monthly Elon Musk campaign stipend, essentially, and
Brian Derrick: an allowance.
Glennis Meagher: An allowance of 45 million
Brian Derrick: per month. And for those of you who don't count doll hairs in the political space, that is a shit ton of money is I think the technical term. That's a lot of money.
Glennis Meagher: Billionaires need to be taxed fairly. And we
Brian Derrick: need campaign finance reform
Glennis Meagher: so
Brian Derrick: badly.
Glennis Meagher: So badly. Like the fact that Elon Musk can spend 45 million over the next three [00:28:00] and a half months.
Is mind blowing. I want every Vibes Only listener to sit with that. Forty five million dollars. Think about what that could do. Think about how many kids could have free lunch at school. How many, like, roadways could be fixed. Like, it is I can't even. That man does not need that much money.
Brian Derrick: That's more than a quarter of what Obama spent on his entire election.
Just coming from one person.
Glennis Meagher: Hold for shock.
Okay, good vibe, goodbye. So speaking of billionaires, part of the Inflation Reduction Act was to ramp up enforcement efforts to track down past due taxes. From millionaires. Millionaires were just not paying them. So, through the Inflation Reduction Act, they put up more resources behind tracking down that money, honey.
And, to date, the IRS has now collected more than 1 billion in past due [00:29:00] taxes from millionaires.
Brian Derrick: That's a lot of money.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. The IRS, they identified about 1600 taxpayers who had more than 1 million in income, who had more than 250, 000 in tax debt. So they went line by line and tracked down those people and more, and now have collected close to 1 billion in outstanding taxes.
You got to pay your taxes. That's like, what is the saying? Nothing's certain in life, except for death and taxes.
Brian Derrick: Period. Even if you're a millionaire. Right. Those are all the Vibes this week. Thanks for hanging out with us in this really difficult time. We hope it helps to join us and check the Vibes even when they are, well, you know.
Once again, hang in there. Catch us again next week, same time, same place.
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 Maroney with support from [00:30:00] Courier's Kyle Tharp, R.
C. DiMezzo, and Daniel Strasburger. Tara McGowan is founder and publisher of Courier.
