Transcript

Josh Filler · Newsradio WGAN

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Every week we get a chance to talk to Josh and that time is
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now. What's going on, Howie?
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How are things, Josh? Things are well, Matt and I too,
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take Graham Plattner very seriously.
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I have from the beginning and that's why I said he was going
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to be the nominee and that Mills wouldn't even make it to
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primary. Day.
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Yeah, I know. I I hate being right about that.
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I'm sure you do too. But alas, we are where we're at.
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You know, maybe we'll get to that a little bit as we continue
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our conversation. But I actually wanted to pick
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your Supreme Court brain first, if I could, because those of you
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out there who are listening to my voice right now, who are
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Supreme Court watchers. And it does delight me by the
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way, that so much of my audience actually does this.
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You know, may have noticed this very interesting little conflict
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between Samuel Alito in particular and Katenji Brown
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Jackson, which is related to timing of decisions and some
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snark that's going back and forth between some of the
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justices over, frankly, this this decision about the
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Louisiana districts and the Voting Rights Act, which we
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talked about a little bit last week.
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But also, you know, the usage and consideration of the new
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congressional districts. And then going way back in time
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all the way to the Dobbs case, there's been these conflicts
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about timing and releases and whatnot.
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Can you maybe break down this whole conflict a little bit for
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me and chat briefly about what's going on in the side of the
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Supreme Court? Yeah, I have been reading
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Supreme Court cases for over 30 years and I don't recall ever
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reading anything quite like Alito and Jackson's back and
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forth, not even on a final, you know, an opinion that comes out,
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but really on a, on an order on implementation of that opinion
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and decision. And it's, it got really
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personal. And it, it's something that,
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look, in every organization, there's disagreements and they
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can be profound and then maybe personal disagreements.
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But the Supreme Court has always been the tightest ship in
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Washington when it comes to leaks.
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It's always been the the least likely to leak.
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That's why the Dobbs leak on the abortion case was so shocking to
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so many people. Not only was it a leak, but it
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was a leak on a huge issue. It had catastrophic political
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consequences, which I think the leaker intended.
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But, you know, regardless, the Supreme Court is usually kept to
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the straight and narrow. And this is another example, I
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think, where, you know, things are bubbling over.
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And like you said it, it has to do with the decision on whether
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to wait or immediately enforce the court's decision on the
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Louisiana congressional map case.
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Normally it takes a little over 30 days as a whole bureaucratic
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process of certification and sending it down.
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And the parties basically asked that that be waived, that it be
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implemented immediately. And eight of the justices, this
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isn't just Alito versus Jackson. Eight of the justices agreed to
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waive the the the length of time and to immediately enforce and
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for. Good reason too, right?
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I mean, it's like as Alito said in his, in his decision, right?
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It's like, what do you want him to do?
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Like, you know, quite a contest under any legal and
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unconstitutional map. Of course we have to.
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Yeah, and, and, and Hitanji Brown Jackson basically attacked
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the integrity of the the court and basically said you're doing
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this to help Republicans. And Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas,
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the those were the ones that signed up to Alito's retort to
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her basically said drop dead. And we've had enough.
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We've had enough of this nonsense.
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Your arguments are incoherent and now they're getting
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personal. And it was a takedown of her
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that was just brutal. It was it was ruthless.
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And it's probably a sign of things to come, especially if
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the Democrats can get into the White House and make more
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appointments. Yeah.
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I mean, I don't expect this, this rhetorical verbal
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chastisement to really alter her behavior, though.
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She's been showing pretty clearly from the very beginning
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that she seems comfortable to be, you know, frankly, often
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times the one, the one person who's behaving this way and
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acting like this, like the decorum of the court, then the,
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the history of the court doesn't seem to matter very much.
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And I doubt this is going to do much to fix that.
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No, and look, there's no problem being the odd man outs 'cause
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sometimes history is proven that that one or two people, the
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dissent proves to be correct in the end.
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That happens. Her problem is the manner in
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which she does it. Not only is she wrong on the law
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and in Elena Kagan has pointed that out to her in her own
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concurring opinions that, you know, keep away from from
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Jackson. It's the way in which she
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attacks the integrity of her colleagues, abuse of power,
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partisan gain. You know, these are things that,
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you know, they're human. They don't want to be called out
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like that and especially if it's not true.
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So, you know, I think if she if she wants to be the odd man out,
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that's fine. But if she wants to have any
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kind of a working relationship with her colleagues, she better
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clean up her act. Indeed.
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So as it relates to that, by the way, Josh, before I leave the
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topic with the decision that was made that again we spoke about
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last week, I hope everybody's sort of up on what it means and
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the implications from it. We're starting to see the next
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shoe drop, right? I mean, Louisiana obviously is
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already taking steps. You've got Florida's redoing
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their map, obviously Tennessee's redoing theirs.
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There's there's a lot of these that are happening.
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And in fact, even in Indiana, you had that primary that just
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took place earlier this week where the incumbent state
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senators that had blocked the redistricting plan there than
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before, you know, more or less you almost universally lost
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against the challengers that were more of the Trump's
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election. And we're far more open to doing
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a redistricting there. So it is now sparked a new round
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of the redistricting battle, which seems to be particularly
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weighted against the Democrats because we're talking about a
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lot of the southern states here controlled by Republicans.
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Yeah. As we talked about last week, I
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mean, basically the the decision precludes majority minority
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districts in order to form some level of proportional
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representation, ensuring that there's a black member of
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Congress or Hispanic member of Congress that's gone.
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So, yeah, the red states that were required to do that, as we
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discussed, are going to have to, in many cases, redistrict and
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are going to want to redistrict, obviously, because it's going to
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benefit Republicans. But as we've seen in Virginia,
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partisan gerrymandering, which was allowed even before this
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decision is, is going to kick off in in blue states or even in
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purple states. The battle for this is
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ultimately going to take place under state law in state courts.
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The Supreme Court is not going to get in the middle of partisan
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gerrymandering. They said that in Louisiana
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case. They've said it before.
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So you're going to see this take place in the state courts, and
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you're seeing it in Virginia. The Republicans that are trying
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to block that are fighting it out in the Virginia Supreme
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Court. Speaking with Josh Filler, as we
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do every Thursday at this time, and we always love doing that.
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You brought up earlier the Graham Plattner experience and
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and all of that fun stuff. You know, I'd love now about a
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week hence of her dropping out of that race to go over with you
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your thoughts on her dropping out and what the dynamic is now
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that it is just a Platner versus Collins race.
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All due respect to the the gadfly that's in that Democratic
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primary still, but it is clearly going to be the two of them
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facing off against each other. Diagnose for me though, if you
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could first Mills and her epic flame out.
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I mean, the how did this happen? Why, why did she think it
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wouldn't happen? Why did it happen?
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You know, break this all down for me.
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I think she thought, and I think the Democrats in Washington,
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they talked her into doing this. They all believed that once
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Platinum was outed for the Nazi tattoo, for the outrageous posts
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on Reddit about rape victims, about communism, about police,
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about rural voters, that he would implode.
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And once that didn't happen, there was nowhere left to go.
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I mean, Mills could not run on her record.
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And if she couldn't take him down for his own personal
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failings, he didn't have a record to to go against anyway,
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right? I mean, that's one of the
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challenges with a guy like Plattner is there's no public
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record to go off of to challenge.
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He's a blank slate. And Mills found out the hard way
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that, you know, if she couldn't take him down the first time,
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there was nothing left in the in the ammo packet.
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So she basically and out of ammunition and there was never
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an appetite for her candidacy to begin with.
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There was a poll out of Unhi, think you saw it too, where
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Democrat voters said, you know, we like Mills.
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We're happy with what she did. Don't ask me why, but but we
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don't see her as the future. We don't see her as the future.
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And that was so telling to me that it's just it's over, Janet,
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your, your political career in it in Maine politics and elected
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politics is over. The Collins campaign needs to be
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ready for this and learn the lessons here that, you know, he
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doesn't have a political public record the way Mills did, the
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way Collins does. And they need to be able to
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pivot and and deal with that because Mills couldn't.
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She clearly had nowhere left to go.
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No, she did not. Before we get out of here, Josh,
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I do have to ask you to check in with your old friends in New
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York. You and I have had a couple
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conversations about the new mayor, Zoram Amdani, and how
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things are going in New York. Something close to your heart, I
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know. Obviously.
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Seems like they're running out of money, though.
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This experiment is going exactly as well as I thought it would.
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It's kind of funny to watch him, you know, do those really like,
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you know, Gen. Z like Instagram video things
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that he's recording out in front of like a billionaires house and
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tell him to go screw himself? And then have to actually watch
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the consequences of his posture and his attitude and whatnot to,
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you know, like, you know, paying basically it's paying the pipe
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here a little bit, right? Like he's, he's chasing him out
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of town and he's discouraging commerce and, and everybody
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who's in the city that cares about this stuff is pretty sour
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on him. And it's kind of, I don't know,
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paying, paying him back a little bit right now because they're
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having a hard time. Yeah, he and the mayor of
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Seattle, they're in a contest to see who can drive out the
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business community the fastest. She was just caught on record
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laughing about companies leaving.
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Starbucks is leaving, or at least on the process of leaving
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Seattle. Yeah.
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Zora Mamdani proves Margaret Thatcher right.
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The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other
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people's money from Mamdani. He's done it in record time,
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five months even. I didn't think it would implode
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this quickly, but within five months, he's now begging the
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state of New York to bail the city out financially.
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I don't think that's going to happen entirely.
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It's going to put the governor in a bit of a pickle.
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Obviously she's got an election coming up, but there's the the
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state doesn't have any money. The states broke too.
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So the lesson here is socialism doesn't work.
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I don't know why we have to learn this lesson every 10 or 15
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years. But this time will be different,
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Josh. Yeah, they just didn't do it
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right the last time. Exactly.
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And it's not going to work in Seattle either.
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So, you know, we can all get our popcorn and watch these cities
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implode. But if they don't change course,
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Matt, I mean, things can get ugly in New York.
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I mean, you and I are old enough to remember this.
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I don't think Mumdani is. But, you know, if he doesn't
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realize that his ideas are just plain stupid, that city's in
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real trouble. Yeah.
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Well, we're going to have to end there.
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Unfortunately, We're out of time.
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Josh Filler, as always, appreciate it.
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Thanks a lot. And we'll talk next Thursday.