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Graham Platner · Newsradio WGAN

0:26
Welcome. It's a healthy conversation on
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News Radio WGAN with Doctor Lisa Belisle and myself, Doctor Jeff
0:32
Barkin. We're continuing a series of
0:35
dialogues with political candidates.
0:37
And today in studio, we're really fortunate to have Graham
0:40
Plattner. Graham joins us as a candidate
0:43
for the United States Senate from Maine, but his story does
0:46
not begin in Washington. It begins instead in coastal
0:49
Maine, in communities where work is practical, politics is
0:53
personal, and people often know one another not by resume, but
0:57
by whether they show up. He's been described as an oyster
1:01
farmer, a Marine, an Army veteran, a local harbor master
1:05
and a planning board chair, roles that really place him at
1:08
the intersection of service, small business, the working
1:11
waterfront and local government. This conversation will not be
1:15
about slogans. It's about whether a person's
1:17
lived experience can translate into public judgement.
1:21
Maine is aging. Young people struggle to stay,
1:24
Housing is scarce, health care is expensive, taxes are
1:28
contested, and our politics often feel angrier than the
1:32
problems themselves. Today, we'll ask Graham Plattner
1:35
where he comes from, what shaped him, what he's learned from war
1:39
and work, and how we would apply those lessons to the real lives
1:42
of Maine people. Graham Plattner, welcome to A
1:45
HEALTHY CONVERSATION. Thank you very much for having
1:47
me. No, it's a pleasure to be here.
1:49
So you got Lisa. You got me.
1:51
Hey, Lisa. Hey, good to see you.
1:54
Good to see everybody. Thanks for joining us.
1:56
Oh no, it's my absolute pleasure.
1:58
This is great. So harbormaster to almost
2:01
Senator Senate candidate, just sort of tell us quickly about
2:05
that art because I have so. Many questions.
2:07
It's been a very surreal nine months.
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So just put it that way. Yeah.
2:11
This, this. I mean, it's this was not
2:12
something that I was planning on doing.
2:14
I came back to Maine after my military service and really had
2:20
intended to settle in to the town I grew up in.
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I have a house about a few houses a few doors down from the
2:26
one I grew up on. I live on the street I grew up
2:28
on. I work out of the Sullivan boat
2:29
launch, which is just across the street from me, and getting
2:33
involved in my community planning board, harbour master,
2:36
doing a lot of community organizing work.
2:38
That's been kind of like my focus for the past however many
2:41
years. And in all of that, I, you know,
2:46
there's a point where you begin to run up against the
2:49
realization that when the problems are systemic on the
2:53
ground in your community, you're just putting band aids on
2:56
things. And I've been very frustrated
2:58
for a long time, fully convinced that a politics in Maine that
3:02
represents the actual needs of working people in the state
3:06
across the political divide, whether it's around wages or
3:10
healthcare, whether it's on a fairer tax code, which are
3:12
getting money out of politics. This is the kind of politics
3:15
that really, I think flourishes or could flourish here.
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And yet year after year, cycle after cycle, I never really saw
3:21
it materialize. And then last summer I had an
3:25
opportunity in late July, people came to my house.
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Some folks affiliated with the with labor unions in Maine had
3:32
been working on a project to find someone who works for a
3:34
living, who has a very kind of normal life to run for U.S.
3:38
Senate. And I myself had begin to come
3:42
to the conclusion that a place like the US Senate, because of
3:46
its sort of unique institutional power and the frankly visibility
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one gets in the send this one out of 100, the kind of politics
3:58
I want to see materialize, that's a place to really tackle
4:01
it. And I'd felt that way for a
4:03
while, hoping that one day I would work on the campaign or
4:06
volunteer for somebody who was undertaking that kind of that
4:09
kind of political project. And then one day people came to
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my house and said, we think you should run for United States
4:16
Senate. And my wife and I thought it was
4:18
the dumbest, most insane thing we'd ever heard because
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generally 1 needs an immense amount of money to take this on.
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But they came back with this idea that was like, look, we
4:29
start with some unions, we start with some community
4:31
organizations. We start building power the old
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fashioned way. We stick to small dollar
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donations. We don't take money from super
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PACs and we don't take money from corporations.
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And, and like, we think there's like an actual path here.
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And you know, it's just one of those moments where you have to
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ask yourself, like, do you believe in what you think you
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believe in? Because it's easy to think that
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you do when you're just sitting around on the Internet being
4:55
angry about the state of things, when you're just going to
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protest and hanging out with folks in your community where it
5:01
feels good. But when you're asked to like,
5:05
frankly, throw your life away in some ways, a life that my wife
5:09
Amy and I worked really hard to build, a life that we're very
5:11
proud of, then you have to like, really wonder.
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And we just realized that we do, we do believe.
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And so we said yes. And that was we agreed that I
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think on August 5th of last summer and we launched the
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campaign on August 19th. And then our lives have turned
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upside down. It's safe to say that you have
5:31
become a phenom. I think that's the word that the
5:34
that is popular, like Taylor Swift and it's a real phenom.
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I mean, you've taken over. I mean, Susan Collins, Senator
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Collins has been in the Senate for many, many terms.
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I know that she started out as saying she was going to only do
5:47
2 terms, but that was I think many many terms ago.
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Many terms. Ago, many terms ago and I what I
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want to do is channel I'm a psychiatrist or practicing
5:55
psychiatrist. Don't let that scare you.
5:57
It's, it's all it's all good, it's all cool.
6:00
It's like parties. If somebody says, what do you
6:02
do? If I say psychiatrist, it's
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dampens the conversation, you know, but I, I don't want to do
6:09
that, but I want to channel some very real questions that I've
6:12
gotten and heard from people, which I think reflect sort of a
6:15
cross section. And just to give you an
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opportunity to contrast yourself, let's sort of start
6:20
with your military background because that's pretty
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impressive. You have an amazing history of
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service. My son-in-law, Alex, he served
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three tours, brutal tours, heavy combat exposure, Purple Heart,
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the whole thing. Question for you.
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If you were elected US senator, actually a two-part question.
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When, under what circumstances would you deploy U.S. troops?
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Would you actually put American men and American women in harm's
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way? A&B thinking about Iran and
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what's going on in the Middle East?
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Where, where do you stand in terms of supporting Israel?
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So to the first question, as someone who also had several
6:59
significant combat tours, I joined the Marine Corps 2004.
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My first deployment was 2005 outside of Fallujah, second
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tours 2006 in the city of Ramadi.
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I did a Marine Expeditionary Unit deployment on ship in 2007
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and 8, and then went back to Afghanistan in 2010 and 11 as a
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rifle squad leader in the United States Army, with some time in a
7:21
long range surveillance company in between.
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I went to reconnaissance school, that kind of stuff, and I was an
7:25
infantryman. That's hardcore.
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Stuff just for our listeners. Bottom line.
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I, I, I very much enjoy, I mean, I, I, I enjoyed the challenge of
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the infantry. I was a machine gunner in the
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Marine Corps and I was a long range surveillance team leader
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in the Army and the rifle squad leader.
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My combat service in Iraq and Afghanistan has really gotten me
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to a point where I do not support the deployment of troops
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to war zones unless we are talking about a very clear
7:57
necessity for National Defense. And if we're going to be honest
8:01
with ourselves, since the end of World War Two, there have been a
8:06
lot of uses of U.S. military force overseas that I think in
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hindsight, we can all mostly agree have not been good for the
8:14
United States. Vietnam, American, American
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intelligence involvement in Latin America throughout the 70s
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and the 80s, certainly Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I mean, we lost those wars, wars that I fought in and no one's
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ever been to been able to explain to me like what I did in
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2006 in Ramadi, which was an intensely violent place.
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What did that do for the town of Sullivan?
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ME? And the answer is nothing.
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In fact, we expended in the end, it's going to be trillions of
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dollars on these wars, thousands of dead Americans, 10s of
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thousands, hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans and Iraqis.
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And for what? Like to this day, I, I, it's
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never been clear to me like what benefit that brought us.
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And now that big said, some people made an immense amount of
9:05
money and there were people in places of political power that
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got to use these wars as tools for them to protect their
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political futures. That happened across both
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parties over many decades of presidencies.
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And I mean, there was a reason we call these things forever
9:21
wars. They've been going on for quite
9:23
some time. I I do not believe that we
9:28
should abuse the resource that is the willingness of young
9:32
American men and women to put their lives on the line for
9:36
their nation. It is a resource that should be
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jealously guarded. It is precious.
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And yet in my life I have seen it abused over and over and over
9:45
again. And I've taken part in wars that
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I think were, were been a reflection of that.
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So I mean, I want to be, I'm, I'm not a pacifist, but I have
9:56
essentially become anti war. I unless we are talking about
10:00
like imminent destruction of the United States, invasion.
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If we're talking about like real, like clear and tangible
10:08
evidence that the American people and the American project
10:11
is at risk. I'm, I, I think a lot of the
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wars we have fought over the years have been wars of choice.
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They've been adventures that we took on to protect people and
10:20
political power or to make some people very wealthy.
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And by extension, the current war, it's the United States and
10:25
Israel against Iran. What are your thoughts about
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Israel and just sort of speaking to the Jewish community?
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Yeah, well, I mean, I I will. So my, my stepbrother lives in
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Jerusalem. He's an American Jew moved to
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Israel. He lives there with his his wife
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and children. I'm very close with them.
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He's my stepbrother. We we love each other.
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I want him and his family to be safe.
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I also think that they're not going to be safe until
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Palestinians are treated with the same dignity and respect
10:51
that Israeli citizens are treated.
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And as of late, the Netanyahu government has been showing no
10:58
evidence that has any interest in that kind of future.
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The the horrific violence that has been perpetrated in Gaza,
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the continued ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
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These are things that I think I do not want to see American tax
11:13
dollars supporting that kind of behavior.
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I mostly because I don't want to see American tax dollars
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supporting any kind of human rights abuse anywhere in the
11:24
world. I mean, I'm not a big fan of us
11:25
giving money to the Saudis either.
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This is Money that we should be spending here in the United
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States. We have crumbling
11:30
infrastructure, collapsing healthcare, collapsing school
11:33
systems. The idea that we're shunting
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billions of dollars per year overseas I find to be really
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counterintuitive to the American project, and I think a lot of
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Americans feel that way. We're here with Graham Plattner,
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Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
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It's a healthy conversation. By the way, if you have ideas,
11:52
thoughts for us, feel free to reach out.
11:54
Send us an e-mail at healthyconversation@wgan.com.
11:58
Here with Doctor Lisa Belisle. I'm Doctor Jeff Barkin.
12:01
It is News Radio WGAN. We'll be right back.
12:18
You're listening to a Healthy Conversation with Doctor Lisa
12:21
Belial and Doctor Jeff Parkin on News Radio WGANAM 560 FM 98.5.
12:27
We've been talking with Graham Plattner about his main roots,
12:30
military service, and local civic life.
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As we move into policy, I want to talk about what life feels
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like for younger workers and families in Maine right now.
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Maine's population is older than most.
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Housing is tight. Childcare is expensive,
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expensive in many communities. The number simply don't work for
12:48
people who want to stay. So Graham, when you look at
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Maine right now, what do you think is making it hardest for
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younger adults and families to stay here?
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And, and you are one of these people that moved back to Maine,
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so you know this yourself. I mean, the answer at its core
13:03
is cost. You know, we have seen a massive
13:07
increase over the years in the cost of housing, in the cost of
13:11
good daily goods and services we require.
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We have seen a diminishment in services when it comes to things
13:18
like child care, health care and education.
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And at the exact same time, we have not seen an increase in
13:25
wages that reflects any of this. And I just want to give you a
13:29
good example of a really good friend of mine in Sullivan from
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Sullivan, born and raised, works three jobs.
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She works incredibly hard and she pays over 60% of her monthly
13:40
income in rent. It's it's like how, how is that
13:45
person? It's not like it's not like
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she's not lazy. She's got multiple gigs.
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She works all the time she has, she's just got nothing left.
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There's no saving for retirement.
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She has absolutely no opportunity to buy a home.
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I mean, and down East, man, it's the same as everywhere.
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If you're lucky to find a home, it's completely outside the
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realm of affordability for most working folks.
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And, you know, over the years it's been funny.
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I, I, when I got into the oyster farming business, starting a
14:15
couple years ago, as the farm got bigger and got more
14:17
successful, I would get invited to these like small business
14:21
development kind of meetings, you know, Zoom meetings and
14:26
stuff like that to talk about starting a small business in
14:29
eastern Maine. And the question always was
14:30
like, oh, how did you pull it off?
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And nobody liked my answer because my answer was, oh, it's
14:35
easy. I get free healthcare.
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I'm a disabled combat vet. I got blown up enough times in
14:41
Iraq and Afghanistan that the VA says that I deserve healthcare
14:44
because of that foundational support.
14:47
I got to take the risk of starting a business in sinking
14:51
my energy and time into it because I didn't have to worry
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about where my healthcare came from.
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I didn't have to think about co-pays, I didn't have to
14:57
deductibles. I didn't have to fight with
14:59
insurance companies after years of paying premiums.
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And they run an AI program that tells me I don't need the thing
15:04
that my doctor says I need. Like, I don't have to do any of
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that. I just go to the hospital, get
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things looked at and I think a lot.
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And I also went to college on the GI Bill, so I don't have any
15:15
student loans. And so there's just this like,
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I'm like, that's how, right? Like that's how I got to take
15:20
the time and sync my, my intellect and my physicality
15:24
into making a living on the sea and building a small business
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and making a robust, and it's small.
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We're never going to make $1,000,000.
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But I don't want to. I just want to live in the town
15:32
of Sullivan ME and do work that I find fulfilling that brings me
15:37
joy. And, and then I also have time
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leftover to do the stuff in my life I want to do.
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It's important, I think, for people to have time.
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I mean, to be honest, back in the 1800s, there's a whole labor
15:49
movement around an 8 hour work day.
15:51
And now we have an, an, a system in which people are like taking
15:54
on multiple jobs, gig work just so they can try to afford rent.
15:58
I think that affordability issue.
16:00
And I know everybody loves using the word affordability and you
16:03
know, it's kind of the new political catch phrase, but it's
16:06
true. The reason it's hard is
16:08
everything costs too much. I mean childcare, my brother and
16:11
his wife work 2 full time jobs so they can afford childcare so
16:17
they can work 2 full time jobs. Like that's not that's insane.
16:22
And the amount that young families are spending.
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Of course, then you got childcare providers who want to
16:27
provide good quality childcare, want to pay their employees,
16:30
want to have like their their businesses insured properly.
16:35
But to do that, they have to up rates to an extent that young
16:40
families can't afford. I mean, it, it really is.
16:42
We're kind of in the sort of cycle right now of absolutely no
16:47
one can figure out how to make the math work.
16:50
But what's insane to me is that's all happening while we
16:55
become the richest society in the history of the world, where
16:59
we have seen the largest consolidation of wealth in the
17:03
highest echelons of our society at rates we've never seen
17:06
before. We've now surpassed the Gilded
17:08
Age. And to me, these things are not
17:10
remotely disconnected. It's fairly obvious to me that a
17:13
system that is going to allow for that hoarding of wealth is
17:16
also a because all the money that goes up there and doesn't
17:19
exist in the real world is literally wealth that isn't down
17:21
here. And then we just everyone's kind
17:24
of competing for scraps. And I think that that at its
17:27
core is the that's the fundamental issue of our time is
17:33
figuring out how do we create a society that does not have this
17:38
massive wealth disparity because we have to pull that wealth back
17:42
into the real world and get it back into communities.
17:45
And then, I mean, frankly, I want people to have the same,
17:48
the same opportunity I had to take a risk and start a business
17:52
because they don't have to think about healthcare or they don't
17:54
have to think about childcare, or they don't have to watch
17:56
their like wages remain stagnant while the price of everything
17:59
else goes up. That that is not a life.
18:04
That is just work. And work used to be something
18:09
that you did to live. You work so you could have a
18:12
life. And today a lot of people are
18:13
just living so they can work. And that that makes no sense to
18:17
me in a society that has as much as we do.
18:20
So when I was working in leadership and as a healthcare
18:24
provider in rural Maine, one of the issues we had even in rural
18:28
Maine was housing. So what you're talking about is
18:31
very true. And Main Housing says that there
18:35
were 755 affordable units completed in 2020512109 more
18:41
under construction and entering 2026.
18:44
That's progress, but it seems like it's not quite enough
18:46
progress for the state of Maine given what you're describing,
18:49
so. We are also 80,000 units short.
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Well, so this is this is the question.
18:56
So what from a federal level, what should we be doing?
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How are you going to be able to bring these resources to the
19:03
state of Maine and actually benefit the people who need
19:05
them, the young families, the older people who need to be able
19:08
to stay here in order to contribute to our economy?
19:11
So 1, Maine has the oldest housing stock in the United
19:14
States. So our across the board we have
19:16
the oldest houses and many of them are incredibly energy
19:20
inefficient. Many of them are also like
19:22
getting to a point where they're going to enter dilapidation
19:25
unless there is work done on them.
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Maine also happens to have a lot of people who are very good at
19:31
carpentry, contracting and building things, but we don't
19:34
have is the capital to connect these two things.
19:37
Few weeks ago we rolled out our our energy policy and one of the
19:40
things I have in there is a is a whole federal whole home repair
19:43
program where we bring in federal dollars to the state of
19:46
Maine to provide people not just to put in a heat pump, but to
19:50
actually fix your house, update your home, update your
19:56
insulation, update the hole in the roof that you haven't been
19:59
able to get to because all the contractors you call are too
20:02
busy working on homes for summer people because that's where the
20:04
money is. You know, it's AI mean that's by
20:07
the way, that's an example of a friend of mine.
20:09
So like that happens and and I very much think that there is an
20:13
opportunity right now to. Not just bring in money to
20:17
update our housing stock, not just to build much more energy
20:21
efficient homes or I would say retrofit older homes to be more
20:25
energy efficient. It's also an opportunity to
20:28
create an immense amount of work in the state, work that will be
20:32
done by Mainers like that. And I think then the money will
20:37
then stay here in the state of Maine, increasing the
20:40
effectiveness of our local economy, increasing the velocity
20:43
of that money as it moves around our local economy.
20:46
And to me, that's just one thing.
20:48
That's just one program we could tackle.
20:50
I think on the whole, you know, housing is a problem everywhere.
20:53
It's not just the main problem. We absolutely need to get
20:56
private equity and hedge funds out of the single family home
20:58
business. That just should not be should
21:00
not be an option in my opinion. And, and I do think that, you
21:03
know, like back in the old days, Housing and Urban Development
21:06
was in the building business. Federal government used to
21:09
provide money and resources to build homes for a long time,
21:13
even long before the Trump administration.
21:14
It's just been in kind of like the property management
21:17
business. We need to get it back in the
21:18
home building business. I think we should be pretty
21:20
creative about public housing, cooperative housing.
21:23
There are lots of things that we used to do as a nation and we
21:27
have discarded them because we've we've moved to this kind
21:32
of neoliberal economic model where we just have to put
21:35
everything into the hands of like corporate power because
21:38
somehow that's supposed to give us the best outcome.
21:41
Clearly hasn't. So we need to be creative.
21:45
You've been listening to A Healthy Conversation with Doctor
21:48
Lisa Belle and Doctor Jeff Barkin on News Radio WGANAM 560
21:52
FM 98.5. We've been talking about
21:55
demographics, housing, what it takes to build a life in Maine.
21:58
When we come back, we'll turn to healthcare affordability and
22:01
what economic fairness means for families who may have coverage
22:04
on paper but still struggle to get care.
22:14
Welcome back. It is a healthy conversation
22:15
with Doctor Lisa Belisle and myself.
22:17
Doctor Jeff Barkin, News Radio, WGIN.
22:20
In studio we have Graham Plattner.
22:22
He is running to be the senator for the state of Maine against
22:26
Senator Susan Collins. I want to get into a couple of
22:30
things, but before we get into healthcare, which really is
22:33
Doctor Lisa and my sort of zone of interest.
22:38
When you came into the building, there was such excitement and
22:41
one of the people who was completely excited like The
22:43
Beatles. I mean it really was and it's
22:45
radio. I'm trying to really, I mean,
22:47
like, you don't see that sort of excitement typically, but there
22:51
was a lot of excitement. And one of the, the people who
22:53
who grabbed you was asking you specifically, you know, well,
22:57
why should I support you? And totally supported Janet
23:00
Mills before and now what is a Democrat and brought up this
23:04
question about money. And can you bring money to the
23:07
state of Maine? And I, I wanted to channel this
23:09
cause again, I'm a psychiatrist and I, I get this question or
23:13
concern from folks. And according to an analysis
23:17
from the Bipartisan Policy Center, in fiscal 2023, if you
23:22
were a state that had a senator that was on the Appropriations
23:26
Committee, you got $24.45 per residence.
23:31
So the state actually got from the federal government and these
23:33
things called congressionally directed spending or earmarks,
23:37
CVS pork, whatever you want to call it, OK, that if your state
23:42
had somebody on appropriations, if you if they didn't, you got
23:45
24 bucks. If you had a senator on
23:47
appropriations, that number went up from $24.00 to $103.00.
23:53
And in Maine, with Susan Collins as the chair of appropriations,
23:57
we actually get a much greater amount.
24:00
We get $328.00 per Mainer for Susan Collins being the chair of
24:05
the Appropriations Committee. And that money does go to main
24:09
projects. So really the question becomes,
24:11
you have this incredible passion, I mean an energy that
24:14
it's a phenom. That's the only word I could
24:16
use. And the question that I keep
24:18
hearing and concern I keep hearing is, well, Maine gets so
24:23
much money from the federal government.
24:25
We get the second greatest amount per capita from the
24:29
federal government, second only to Alaska.
24:32
And it's felt largely because of Senator Collins senior role on
24:36
appropriations. If you're elected, how will that
24:39
change and how could that impact the budget for Maine?
24:43
So I think there the way we have to look at this two ways.
24:46
One, Senator Collins has been in power for 30 years.
24:50
And in that 30 years, despite all the money she's brought back
24:53
to Maine, that didn't change the deterioration of material
24:58
conditions for people in this state.
25:00
It didn't change the fact that housing is unaffordable.
25:03
It hasn't changed the fact that young families struggle to find
25:05
childcare. It didn't change the fact that
25:07
our healthcare system is quite literally collapsing, especially
25:11
in the rural parts of the state like where I live.
25:15
The money she has brought back has not shifted any of the
25:19
structural problems. And, and I think that's really
25:24
key to understand because she always points to the money and
25:27
says no, no, no. This is why I'm, This is why you
25:30
can't lose me. I am.
25:32
I am so important. And concerned.
25:35
And she's always concerned. The problem is, is, and I think
25:39
this is the pitch that we're going to make, is that yes, she
25:42
has been able to bring money into the state of Maine, but it
25:45
has not translated to the systemic changes necessary to
25:50
fix our healthcare system, to fix our housing system.
25:54
It certainly hasn't increased wages in the state of Maine.
25:58
It has not increased Social Security benefits for retirees.
26:02
But if that money went away, like hypothetically you win and
26:05
you're not on appropriations, you're obviously not going to be
26:07
chair of appropriations, right? Hypothetically that money goes
26:11
away. The bipartisan council, like
26:13
they're they're not making stuff up.
26:15
How would we make it so Maine has the resources to support
26:19
young people, housing, jobs, healthcare?
26:21
What's the plan? How do we?
26:22
Do the plan is the actual systemic changes and this I
26:25
think is the second part of this, which is that one we are
26:27
going to lose Susan Collins someday, we will lose Susan
26:30
Collins and her seniority. So the question is, do we want
26:34
to lose her to a senator who just wants to continue playing
26:37
the game as it's been played, where we have not seen any
26:40
structural shift whatsoever to our political system, to our
26:43
economic system, to the way that we do healthcare and housing in
26:46
this country? Or do we want to replace her
26:49
with someone who has the time, the energy and the inclination
26:54
to rebuild that kind of power long term?
26:57
I want to go to appropriations. Every small rural state needs at
27:01
least one senator who sees it as their role to get to a place
27:05
like appropriations to bring that money in.
27:07
I mean, I don't want to be flippant, but it's your job.
27:11
She always talks about the money she brings back.
27:13
Like, yeah, you're supposed to. You're a senator from a small
27:16
rural state. You don't get a Gold Star for
27:18
showing up to work. We're going to need someone to
27:21
rebuild. And I very much want to do that
27:22
work. But I also want to go to places
27:24
like commerce, agriculture and help committees that I think are
27:29
going to be most effective one for us to increase the potential
27:32
of Maine industries to be competitive on the national
27:35
international market, whether it's with our ocean, whether
27:39
it's with the forest or our farmland.
27:41
I do very much think Maine is not.
27:43
We have not reached our full potential with our forest
27:46
products industry, with our farming, with the way that we
27:49
use the Gulf of Maine, which is a truly spectacular natural
27:52
resource that very few other states would have access to.
27:56
I want to go to places and I also want to work on programs
28:00
like for instance, a tax code that is going to go after the
28:06
wealth where it's been hoarded, go after corporate power, where
28:10
it has consolidated ownership of frankly, our entire economic
28:15
system and take that away and get that money back down here
28:18
into the real world through programs like we talked about
28:22
earlier around housing, but also do things like healthcare.
28:25
And I, and, and the thing that gets me is that Susan Collins
28:28
always makes it sound like these two things are mutually
28:31
exclusive. As if, well, because I try to, I
28:34
bring in earmarks. Therefore that's all I can do.
28:38
It's like you can work to bring earmarks in and fight for, say,
28:44
raising access to Medicaid. You can fight for increasing
28:49
reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid to allow our rural
28:52
hospitals to be more effective. You can bring in federal money
28:56
through programs to increase our housing supply, while you also
29:02
bring in earmarks for bridges and for projects at BIW.
29:05
Like all of these things, they're not mutually exclusive.
29:08
And I think Collins for a really long time has used this frankly
29:12
fiction that only she can do this as a fig leaf for the fact
29:18
that she still shows up year after year supporting policies
29:22
that lower taxes on billionaires and corporation, that raise
29:27
taxes in many ways on working people and raise our burden.
29:31
Because the the effective tax rate for a working person in
29:34
this country is far higher than that of a billionaire or the CEO
29:38
of a private equity fund. She has been part of the system
29:42
that has created that reality. She never fought back against
29:45
it. And there is a unique irony that
29:47
after years in your my whole life, I'm 41, my whole adult
29:51
life, I have heard that one day Susan Collins was going to be
29:54
chair of appropriations. And when that day came, Maine
29:57
would see a boon of riches. Then she became chair of
30:00
appropriations. But because she also has no
30:03
spine to stand up to Donald Trump, that power has really
30:07
ceased to exist because the Trump administration, they're
30:10
not even they're not even spending funds that by law,
30:13
they're supposed to by appropriation.
30:16
Amusingly enough, the power she built has suddenly become pretty
30:20
toothless because of her inability to rally with other
30:24
Republican senators to actually stand up against a lawless
30:27
Trump. Administration and for many of
30:28
the policies that have been put into place, people will not
30:32
understand that until they experience it.
30:34
January 1st of 2027, that's right.
30:36
That's literally around the corner.
30:37
It's around the corner. Right, it's coming.
30:39
Thoughts about that? No, no, in particular
30:41
healthcare. I mean, we are, we are already
30:43
seeing a closing of rural hospitals and a diminishment in
30:47
services as healthcare institutions prepare for what's
30:51
coming, because what is coming is a massive cut in Medicaid, in
30:56
Medicare money. And do you have and you have
30:58
people who are cheering it on, which makes no sense.
31:01
It makes no sense because if we, if we see this, I mean we need
31:06
to be putting money into our rural healthcare system through
31:09
an increasing an increasing of reimbursement rates.
31:12
And I also fund money. We also need to bring in federal
31:14
dollars to reopen rural hospitals and to provide the
31:18
resources so they can bring back the care that they used to
31:21
provide. But instead we're going to see a
31:24
mass diminishment in that rural Healthcare is not profitable.
31:30
It never has been. It has always been propped up by
31:33
Medicaid and Medicare, and as we lose those things, we're going
31:36
to see a really horrific decrease in already decreasing
31:40
services. Here with Graham Plattner, it's
31:42
a healthy conversation on News Radio WGAN.
31:44
We've got a lot more questions. If you go and make it into the
31:47
Centagram, I hope that you could begin to lower the age of
31:50
Medicare eligibility by two years every year until we make
31:55
cradle to grave coverage the norm, it's a healthy
31:58
conversation. We'll be right back.
32:08
You're listening to a Healthy Conversation with Doctor Lisa
32:10
Belial and Doctor Jeff Barkin on News Radio WGANAM 560 FM 98.5.
32:16
We've been talking with Graham Plattner about taxation,
32:19
affordability and healthcare. And we really, as we're closing,
32:24
want to talk with you, Graham, about leadership.
32:26
And this is something Jeff and I feel very strongly about.
32:29
Maine voters usually have a pretty good sense of
32:31
performance. They also know when somebody's
32:33
trying too hard, when somebody's trying to pull the wool over
32:36
their eyes. There's definitely people who
32:38
don't agree with at least your campaign so far and don't know
32:42
you as a leader yet. So.
32:44
So tell me, how do you speak to these people who maybe already
32:48
don't agree with some of the things you're saying, but you
32:50
certainly would need their support if you ended up in the
32:53
Senate representing Maine? So my leadership philosophy
32:57
comes out of my time in the infantry, and in the infantry,
33:01
the we, we. It's the concept of the servant
33:05
leader, the idea that the people below you, the your subordinates
33:11
in in your unit, they are not there to serve you.
33:15
You are there to serve them. You are there to make sure that
33:18
they are going to be most effective at accomplishing their
33:21
mission. And for instance, in the
33:23
infantry, leaders eat last, leaders sleep last.
33:28
The lowest ranking person is always the first one in the chow
33:31
line. The lowest ranking person is
33:33
always the first person to bed down for the night.
33:35
And, and that's how it's supposed to be.
33:38
Your, your position is a place of responsibility to increase
33:44
the effectiveness of, of your Marines, of your soldiers by
33:50
frankly making their lives easier.
33:51
They're going to be better. Obviously there's training and
33:54
there's all the other stuff. And then there's combat
33:55
leadership, which is a whole other kind of topic.
33:57
But that does to me, that really informs how I look at how I look
34:01
at politics as well. You know, in fact, I'll just be
34:05
very upfront. I don't like the term leadership
34:07
at all when it comes to this. I like the term representation
34:11
because it is not it. It's not you're not trying to go
34:14
lead people. You're trying to represent them
34:17
in the democratic system that we call our representative
34:21
Republic. That is what you're trying to
34:23
do. And the best way to do that is
34:27
to be accessible to folks. So something that has been big
34:30
on our campaign is I hold public events constantly.
34:35
I, I've, I've held over 70 town halls around the state of Maine
34:38
and frankly countless smaller ones that we don't even call
34:42
town halls. But at all these things, we
34:44
don't screen questions, We don't, we don't control the
34:47
crowd any it's public. Anybody's allowed to come.
34:50
And anybody can ask me anything. And I want to be there to hear
34:54
from them because I know I don't.
34:56
It's, it's crazy to me that this even seems unique.
34:58
But if you're going to represent people in the democratic system,
35:02
you have to go talk to them and you have to go listen to them.
35:05
You need to be accessible. I think one of the biggest
35:08
problems we have in our political system today is our
35:10
quote UN quote, representatives have become inaccessible.
35:13
I mean, I know that until August of last year, when I was just a
35:17
working guy on the coast of Maine, there is no way I could
35:21
have access to my senator unless they came to Ellsworth, ME on a
35:25
weekend or on a weeknight when I was not working and I had time
35:29
to go down there and give them a piece of my mind, I would not be
35:31
able to do it. And so that's why for us, I
35:34
mean, being going to communities, going all over the
35:37
state, people in Maine work really hard.
35:39
They don't have a lot of free time.
35:41
And so you've got to go out and go to their communities and make
35:46
yourself accessible to them. And if you're not willing to do
35:49
it, if you're not willing to put yourself in a place of sometimes
35:52
discomfort, if you're not willing to answer hard
35:54
questions, if you're not willing to face your constituents, you
35:57
probably shouldn't be running for the United States Senate.
36:00
You probably shouldn't be trying to represent your neighbors and
36:04
your community if you're not willing to hear from them.
36:07
And, and all of that, I think really does at its core come
36:11
from my time in the infantry, this idea that you really have
36:14
to be a more of a servant and a representative than someone
36:19
who's kind of being elevated to direct everyone else.
36:24
And, and I think that's that that reflects the way that we
36:27
have structured the campaign. It reflects the the
36:30
accessibility, it reflects the public events.
36:33
And I very much wanted to continue to reflect how the
36:36
campaign works and then reflect how we structure our Senate
36:39
office. I mean, I want a Senate office
36:41
that it's it is we are going to spend more time going out to
36:45
listen to working people Then we are like having lobbyists come
36:49
in and try to tell me like what's best for their industry.
36:52
I don't care. There are plenty of senators who
36:54
represent the interest of lobbyists.
36:56
We need a lot more senators who are going to go up there and be
36:59
accessible to working folks and represent their needs and their
37:02
will. And that's a choice that you
37:04
make. That's a choice that you make as
37:06
a representative, and it's a choice you make as you structure
37:09
your office. Sadly, we have not seen that as
37:12
a choice that's been made often, and I mean anytime recently.
37:17
So you have made yourself very accessible.
37:20
And as Jeff mentioned at the beginning of our show, you've
37:24
gotten a lot of acclaim, but you've also faced some scrutiny
37:27
over some of your past comments and also some controversy, which
37:32
we're not really going to get into.
37:33
But what have you learned over the course of navigating the
37:38
scrutiny and the comments and the people who disagree with you
37:40
about responsibility and public trust?
37:42
And and as you work through this with a group of people who are
37:46
not because, you know, if you're in the Army, if you're in the
37:48
Marines, there's a command and control way of leadership.
37:50
There's people who have to listen to what you have to say.
37:53
And what you've just described is, is not command and control.
37:56
You've described representation. So in six years, when you come
37:59
back, let's let's move forward and say, yes, Graham Plattner,
38:02
senator from Maine, six years Fast forward, what would you
38:06
want to be able to point to and say this is better?
38:08
I did this for the people, for the state of Maine and, and I
38:12
did this despite the scrutiny and the controversy that I
38:15
started out with. Well, first, I would say that
38:17
what I have definitely learned is that the, the reality that
38:21
the media sphere lives in is entirely disconnected from the
38:25
reality that real people live in.
38:27
It has been amazing to me to like go around Maine and talk to
38:30
people and explain everything and all of, and then and you
38:34
know, and, and that has been frankly like a really, it's for
38:37
me, it's an important story to tell.
38:38
I want to talk about my journey as a person.
38:42
I want to talk about the fact that after my combat service, I
38:45
was disillusioned and depressed and had anxiety and PTSD and all
38:49
of the things that came from that.
38:50
And then through therapy and also through connecting with my
38:53
community, I got better and I built better tools and I learned
38:58
how to be more open and more loving.
39:00
And that has made my life better.
39:02
I'm a happier person because of it.
39:03
I want to tell that story. And it's been so interesting to
39:07
tell that story around the state of Maine very directly with
39:10
people. And then the moment I talked to,
39:13
like, somebody from, like, you know, a journalistic outlet
39:16
who's supposed to be like, the political journalism people,
39:19
instead of ever asking me about policy, instead of ever asking
39:21
me about, like, even politics, all they want to talk about is
39:24
like, well, you did say this on the Internet 15 years ago.
39:27
And I'm like, yeah, man, I feel like that's not actually what
39:30
people care about. Notice that we're not asking.
39:33
I know, so I got to ask. And you guys asked about policy?
39:36
I'm going to ask you the hardest question of the month, OK?
39:39
If you're elected, promise to come back and be a guest of
39:41
ours. Gladly.
39:43
It's fun. Gladly no.
39:44
This is really fun, but I will say to the second part of the
39:46
question about like what I want to accomplish.
39:50
I want the people of Maine to know that in the six years that
39:55
I've been up there, I've been fighting tirelessly to improve
39:59
the material reality of working folks.
40:02
Whether this is bills working on like tax reform to whether it's
40:06
bills or whether it's even just structural policies and ways to
40:10
go after corporate power, whether it's in our food system
40:12
or a healthcare system or pharmaceutical system.
40:15
Whether it is something like, for instance, increasing
40:19
Medicare reimbursement rates, I mean that will that could quite
40:22
literally save rural hospitals in Maine, something that simple
40:26
really could do a lot. I want to go fight tirelessly
40:28
for it. And I want people to understand
40:30
and know that like I am under no illusions that the power
40:34
structures we are up against want to give us these things.
40:39
We're going to have to fight them tooth and nail the entire
40:42
way. But I very much want the people
40:44
of Maine to visibly see that that is what I am doing.
40:47
That there will be no doubt that that is the project we have
40:51
undertaken. And that I've done everything in
40:52
my power, whether it's my structural power with my votes
40:55
and my ability to craft legislation, or if it's with the
40:57
power of my voice, with being one of 100 of, quote UN quote,
41:02
the most powerful people in America.
41:04
You need to bring a level of activism to the role if you're
41:07
going to use it in all of its power.
41:09
And I very much intend to do that.
41:11
And I mean, I, I, I, I know a lot of people feel there's a
41:16
lack of hope right now. There's a real feeling that
41:18
things are bad and getting worse.
41:20
There's a feeling that it's almost not even worth fighting
41:23
because this almost, it's like the power, the money in politics
41:28
is so vast. But I think what this campaign
41:31
is showing is that when people get together and organize, we
41:35
can build enough power to push back against the money.
41:38
We can build enough power to push back against the entrenched
41:40
institutional politics that has brought us to this point.
41:44
And I have an immense amount of hope because in American
41:48
history, the times that have been, frankly, often our most
41:52
difficult happened right before we get the biggest jumps
41:57
forward. 1929, the crash that brought about the Great
42:00
Depression. By 1934, we were in the New Deal
42:04
era. We were fixing this country.
42:07
We were inventing Social Security.
42:09
We were dragging millions of Americans out of poverty in
42:14
building the society that went on to win the Second World War.
42:18
Building the society that in the 50s and 60s, for all of its
42:20
faults, which were many, still had the lowest margin of wealth
42:24
inequality ever in American history.
42:26
Highest rates of union density, highest marginal tax rates.
42:30
I'm sure there was no connection that we got that because things
42:36
got dark. Things are dark right now.
42:38
But I think that as we build power now, as we build this kind
42:42
of reimagining what the American political system is really
42:46
supposed to be for, which is, I think, reflecting the needs and
42:49
the will of most Americans, not just the wealthiest ones, we
42:54
build this now. The darkness that we are
42:56
feeling, it's going to give way to an immense amount of light in
43:00
an immense amount of structural change that has to happen.
43:03
And I quite honestly am excited that in the next 6 years, that's
43:07
exactly the project that we're going to be tackling with people
43:09
from all over the country and lots of other people in the
43:12
United States Senate. As an oyster farmer, you know
43:15
that man's economy is physical and local and at the same time
43:20
we need to be open to new opportunity.
43:22
I mean, we are currently in what has been termed the fourth
43:24
industrial revolution with AI, for example.
43:27
So how do you protect the traditional industries while
43:30
also making room for new opportunity?
43:33
Yeah, one industrial planning, a thing that we used to do in this
43:38
nation and have stopped doing for a very long time.
43:41
When I look at Maine's fisheries and working waterfront
43:44
communities, what I see is a real we are not, we are not
43:50
living up to our potential. As an aquaculturist, I can tell
43:54
you that growing bivalve bivalves is a incredibly
43:59
sustainable way of raising animal protein.
44:01
The Gulf of Maine, uniquely clean, uniquely healthy.
44:04
We have a lot of potential out here to do a lot more.
44:07
We can protect the heritage industries like lobstering and
44:11
ground fishing through many of the policies that we've had and
44:14
I think by smarter policies than some of the ones we've had as of
44:18
late. Certainly when it comes around
44:19
certain certain issues like like right whales.
44:23
But I very much believe that we we have so much potential that
44:26
goes plus we have our boat building.
44:27
We have, I mean Maine is full of people who know how to make the
44:31
ocean work for us. What we need to be doing is
44:33
putting in resources development, allowing that to
44:37
happen. And I think we can do the same
44:38
with our small farms and we can do the same with our forest
44:41
products. Graham Plattner, thank you so
44:43
much for joining us. It's a healthy conversation with
44:46
Doctor Lisa Belisle. I'm Doctor Jeff Barkin.
44:48
Have a great week, Graham. Have a great week, Lisa.
44:51
This has been great. Thank you.
44:53
Thanks, Graham. We'll be back next week.
44:55
Have a great one, everybody.