Josh Filler

We get an opportunity to speak with Josh Filler, who is joining us once again, as he usually does at this time. Got plenty of things to talk over with him. Josh, how are things? Doing well, Matt. How are you? Not too shabby. Appreciate you asking. Let's go back in time here a little bit because I haven't had an opportunity to ask you about this yet. But we had many conversations, Josh Filler, about the president's prior attempts and the Supreme Court ruling that ultimately came down. related to how we view citizenship in this country. In other words, are you granted citizenship upon your birth on this soil or is it something else? And the president had, of course, used executive orders to attempt to change that definition from how the 14th Amendment has historically been interpreted. The Supreme Court said, not so much. And now he's making a different cut at it. And I remember at the time, Josh, you telling me that the birth tourism issue specifically was one area that maybe the justices at the Supreme Court would have been a little bit more interested in or willing to give leeway to the administration on, et cetera. So it seems to me, and definitely correct me if I'm wrong here, that the president might be a little bit more narrowly tailoring his... efforts in this regard to try to be a bit more palatable in the end. Am I misinterpreting that? What do you make of these most recent executive orders on birth tourism specifically? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a hard play at birth tourism. There's two executive orders, and one is based on enforcing an existing statute. And this is what one big difference between the first executive order that I'm talking about now among the two new ones and the very first executive order that tried to interpret the 14th Amendment. The president was kind of out there, as I said. trying to interpret and enforce the 14th Amendment without any congressional authorization. And Brett Kavanaugh in particular picked up on that as I had done early on. This time it's different. This time he is specifically declaring that birth tourism as an enterprise, as a business. is illegal under existing immigration law, and he's directing the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to basically come up with policies to dismantle it. And the State Department has a task force now. I saw Marco Rubio announced that they've dismantled or gone after, revoke the visas of roughly 600 people. tied to different entities that basically foster birth tourism. These are commercial enterprises where you will pay somebody who will facilitate your entry into the United States, often on fraudulent terms to get here to birth child. So they've declared war on birth tourism, but importantly, they're going after it under existing law. I think they're on very solid legal ground.

The second order is a little more aggressive. This one is based on interpreting the Supreme Court decision itself. And in doing so, Trump has some of it is not particularly out there. He's declaring that the following people are not going to be birth citizen. They're not going to be citizens at birth to include children of alien enemies. Okay. All right. So that's probably, I can't imagine two alien enemy parents suing to get their kid birthright citizenship. Children of ambassadors, children of international employees who have international organization, immunity, and so forth. There's a list of them that are not particularly controversial. However, tying back to birth citizen, birth tourism. There is a category of people, basically the children of those who are engaged or participate in birth tourism. Now, there's no question you can go after the parents on this. It's a bit of an open question whether or not the children will lose their citizenship just because mom and dad were engaged in potentially fraudulent activity. So where does this go, Josh Filler? I mean, I know that like all things that Trump does, particularly in the space of immigration, there'll be challenges, legal challenges filed. This will probably go through the exact same pipeline, I would assume. I mean, does this kind of thing ultimately end back up at the Supreme Court, you think? It might. I don't think the first of the two new orders will. I don't think there's a problem there. I think you could see a case where a child of two non-citizen parents who are engaged in birth tourism doesn't get citizenship and either the parents or some guardian sues. It'll go to the Supreme Court only, I think, if there's splits. in the in the circuit court of appeals or if the order itself is rejected outright if the order is enforced the court just may not take it up but if it's not if it's if it's if it's blocked by the courts or there's disagreement among the courts then i think it will end up in the supreme court Josh Filler joins us at this time every Thursday, and we always appreciate that. One of the other things I wanted to talk to you about, Josh, was more political in nature. We had, again, some more primary elections that took place this week on Tuesday. One of the more watched ones in the country was Wisconsin, where there was yet again, as we've seen all year, this battle between the Democratic establishment and the progressive... you know, sort of democratic socialist element, if you will. And what was interesting about that was, of course, that the DSA candidate for once this year lost. What did you take away from not only that race, but what else you saw that day? There was South Carolina, there was Minnesota, lots of things happened.

Yeah, the one in Wisconsin is really, really strange. So David Crowley, who's the Milwaukee County Executive, not exactly a raging moderate in his own right. One, but what was so strange about this, I'm sure, you know, I missed eye on politics yesterday, so I apologize. But Crowley drops out of the race in July, gets back in. He's down double digits in every poll. and yet eeks out this half a point victory. Was this a victory for Thanksgiving? I mean, I'm serious. Like, I mean, that one interview alone, you know, where you're talking about basically wanting there not to be any cops and that Thanksgiving sucks. It seems to me that. It might have planted a bug in the heads of even the Democrats that, whoa, this candidate might be a little bit weird. Like maybe this, maybe we should rethink this a little bit. I mean, was that it? Or was there something else at play? I don't know. I mean, the polling industry really needs to take a bath, go out of business for a while, do something. I mean, this is, she was up by double digits in five major polls. Yeah, I mean, I think that interview, I mean, that's how I heard of her. Right? I mean, I never heard of this woman until I heard that there's a woman in Wisconsin who wants to cancel the police and Thanksgiving. And I thought, oh, she must be the Democratic frontrunner. And of course she was. But yeah, that might have done it. I don't know. But what a strange. I've just never seen anything quite like that. No, nor have I... And I think it's going to be harder for the Republicans now, for sure. Well, certainly in Wisconsin, yeah. But, I mean, as you look across the country, right, this is part of a much larger tapestry of decisions that's been made everywhere else. And you had... What I was talking about yesterday, and I did say this a little bit in politics, which you missed. But, like, when you look at all these Senate races, just to take one element of what this year is going to be all about, it's so confusing and weird. I mean, in Texas, for instance, Telerico seems to have what you could... probably say is an actual lead assuming. that you can trust any of the polling, which you can't, obviously. But he, like in five or six polls, has something that looks like a lead. In Texas, of all places, Iowa is extremely close. You know, and then in places like Georgia, which is a prime pickup opportunity for the Republicans, they're not even close there. They're down like eight or ten points to awesome. And I, you know, it doesn't look very good in a lot of those places. And yet, Susan Collins looks like she's hanging tough. In New Hampshire, it's suspiciously close there where a Sununu is running.

and it's like two or three points, and he's actually leading in one of the polls I saw. Michigan, obviously, with Abdul El-Sayed, I mean, having that guy involved and saying that he doesn't like the Fourth of July and fireworks, certainly the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, what do I make of all this? This is going to be a really bizarre year overall, and we might have this very odd, like split decision or something like that happening across the country. Yeah, I mean, it's possible. I mean, Ken Paxton in Texas is a real wild card. His behavior, particularly his divorce and the way that's been playing out publicly does not sit well with religious conservatives and you have an off-year election. I mean, it's just, it could be the perfect storm down there. I'm still extremely skeptical. I would still put my money. on Ken Paxton and open borders vegan in Texas. I'm not sure James Talarico's got it in him. This is a guy who's talked, you know, very, very strangely about, you know, multiple genders. That stuff just doesn't sit well in Texas. But. You know, it is a strange year. There's a massive realignment still going on in this country. And it's happening in the Democrat Party. We're seeing it happening on the right. I mean, Tucker Carlson's basically taken his ball and gone home with leaving the Republican Party. That doesn't get that much attention. But we'll see in a close race. you know, might that kind of movement have an effect? It's really going to be an interesting year. Okay. So final question for you, Josh Filler, in the remaining time that we have here together, I did not really anticipate that you and I would be having a discussion about women's basketball and the WNBA. But I must ask you because of the cultural touchstones that are involved in it. I mean, you had Sophie Cunningham, obviously, I think we might have touched on this a few weeks ago, but that whole... back and forth over her comments on trans athletes in the WNBA. You've now had multiple NBA or former NBA players who have declared that they want to play in the NBA to, I think, make the point that that's ridiculous. You had the WNBA now actually having meetings to define what a woman is. You have owners, you have coaches. They're throwing their own players under the bus for their opinions about it and vice versa. I mean, it is a mess. Right. Is this, am I looking at professional wrestling? Is this like all staged for my benefit? Is this all like a ratings ploy? Or is this just a genuine social conflict, which is coming to a head in, I guess, women's basketball? I am conflicted on that question. When it first started, I thought it was a genuine issue. But I remembered the WNBA has never made a profit. It has been a losing business enterprise, I think, for 30 years. The NBA subsidizes it. And it's gotten more attention in the last year, starting with Caitlin Clark and now with Sophie Cunningham.

It started with their play, but now it's all about the cultural issue, about what is a woman and who should be allowed to play. And I'm wondering, seriously, is this an effort to just gin up attention? It may be a combination of both, but... You know, I will say. Well, here's my theory, right? Maybe it started as, you know, like a genuine, like, I don't think anybody really expected Sophie Cunningham to come out and be like, you know, saying anything about that kind of stuff in the WNBA. So she does. And then you had the idiot owner who mouthed off about it and then ended up getting suspended and that's actually a good thing. And then the players and then like all of a sudden they're assaulting people on the basketball court and everything else. And I feel like. When that stuff started to happen, the people who were in, you know, the WNBA sort of, you know, annals of power, the commissioner's office and all that sort of smelled an opportunity. They're like, well, actually, this isn't so bad. You know, maybe we can start selling this a little bit. Like, let's lean into it. Let's, let's stir the controversy that maybe has already been stirred a little bit, a little more. I think that might be it. Just might. That was my theory. And honestly, if these three or four former NBA players, you know, Royce White, Larry Bernie Sanders and so forth, if they get back, maybe somebody will actually watch the WBA. Tell me you wouldn't watch that if they actually let them play. Of course you would. I mean, it would be a freak show. It'd be like you said, professional wrestling. Yeah, it would. But Josh, here's the funny thing about this, whether it's theater or it's not. I know that immediately the players that made that declaration were sort of poohed, made fun of, and ridiculed by the WNBA brass or whatever, but it does bring up an uncomfortable question, which is, are you going to set up some kind of authority, whether it's the commissioner, whether it's a rule that you write into the WNBA draft rules, whether it's, I mean, something. that decides whether or not someone is being genuine about their declaration of being a transgender athlete and whether or not you allow transgender athletes in at all. Because if you let them in at all, then you set yourself up into the position of having to judge whether or not somebody is really transgender or whether it's somebody who's just making a spectacle out of themselves. And who do you appoint to do that? What is the criteria by which you judge it? That's a wicked... uncomfortable thing to set up. And I think they know that. I feel like they backed themselves into a little bit of a corner here. Well, yeah, they have. And it was as obvious as a sunrise that that's exactly what you would have to do if you took this seriously. Either you go the route that, you know, sex is binary. There's male and female. It's determined at birth. And whether you take hormones or have surgery doesn't change that. That's, I think, the actual scientific way. Or you do what you just described.

And I mean, my view on this is very simple. Boys and girls, men and women, should have their own sports and their own spaces. And regardless of performance, whether you're good enough as a girl or bad enough as a boy, you play with your own sex. And that's it, okay? We don't start moving people around and going down this rabbit hole and just leave it alone. Otherwise, you get the spectacle that we're now experiencing. Indeed. And that's where we're going to have to end. Josh Filler joins us every Thursday. I always appreciate it, sir, and we'll talk again next week. See you then. Have you going.