Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) calls in to talk about the Iran situation and his thoughts on it. Also, Ian Bremmer is with us to discuss the risks of 2020 and if America is still a Christian country.
00:00:00.000Hey, welcome to the Glenn Beck program. It is the podcast today. We've got a lot. We have very controversial Mike Lee on. He's normally not controversial, but he is today. He was very upset about the briefing that he got in Congress. We talked to him about that. And also, where does he stand on President Trump?
00:00:21.020Well, it's not what you're going to hear from the rest of the media. This is an interview worth listening to all the way through. Also, Ian Bremmer is with us. The risks of 2020. What are the things that he sees over the horizon this year? And was America a Christian founding? Are we a Christian based country?
00:00:46.940A professor from Oregon actually chimes in. Don't miss it.
00:01:01.180You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:01:05.340We have Senator Mike Lee on the phone with us now, who is is either loved or hated by so many, and I think misunderstood in this particular case. Senator, welcome to the program.
00:01:26.040Thanks so much, Glenn. Good to be with you as always.
00:01:27.680So, Mike, you are not saying that the president shouldn't have gotten Soleimani or that he hasn't handled this right.
00:01:49.040I want to make sure that any subsequent military action against Iran is carried out only through the constitutional formula, which is through a declaration of war or an authorization for the use of military force.
00:02:02.600I actually think the president wants the same. I think the president wants to follow the Constitution. I commend the president. I support the president.
00:02:07.640This president has been actually the most respectful and the most restrained in his use of military power as commander-in-chief, more so than any other president in my lifetime.
00:02:21.420Unfortunately, some of those around him seem to be coming from a slightly different place, and that worries me.
00:02:28.500I was shocked because I felt exactly the same way about President Trump.
00:02:33.040I was really proud of the way he has restrained himself. He, you know, he didn't go and lob missiles after they took down our drone.
00:02:42.260You know, they've captured our sailors, et cetera, et cetera. And he really didn't do any of the things that I think other presidents would have done.
00:02:52.420And yet he didn't look weak. And he just drew the line of, you kill our people, and that's a different story.
00:03:01.620He drops the bomb. This all goes fairly well as of today, goes fairly well.
00:03:08.940But I was shocked, Mike, to hear on television all of the people from the right that were saying, we've got to bomb their oil fields.
00:03:18.140We've got to go after them. No, no, no, no. We don't want that.
00:03:22.480We don't want that. And President Trump doesn't want that.
00:03:25.800And look, this is one of the many reasons I have endorsed his reelection.
00:03:31.800One of the reasons why I'm the co-chair of his reelection campaign in my home state of Utah is because I think he has shown tremendous restraint as commander in chief.
00:03:40.200And it's one of the things I love about him.
00:03:42.340He wants desperately to not get us involved in unnecessary, unconstitutional, undeclared wars throughout the world.
00:03:48.400And so it worries me when I see some people around him making arguments that are consistent with those that have been made over the course of many decades that have driven a wedge between the American people and the war power.
00:04:01.620The war power is supposed to belong in the people's branch, which is Congress, because it's the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals.
00:04:08.720Okay. Now, wait a minute. I want to make sure that we're talking about the same thing, because it's my understanding that the way the world works, it is so fast.
00:04:17.360And it's like this in the Constitution. The president has the right to strike, but then he's got to go to Congress within 30 days and get a war powers act passed.
00:04:33.600So we have a declaration of war. Otherwise, all the military have to come home and everything else because you hold the purse.
00:04:42.240Yeah, that's right. The president has the president has the power inherently under Article 2 to order a strike that is discreet and that is necessary in order to repel an actual or imminent attack.
00:04:55.360But, you know, further actions, a sustained military effort, something that would qualify as an act of war does, in fact, require congressional authorization.
00:05:06.000And that's what they need to obtain. So I think the president agrees with me on that.
00:05:11.160I just think some of those surrounding him, advising him and advising Congress on behalf of the executive branch yesterday are not adequately taking that into account.
00:05:19.560Yeah, I think the American people need to be very careful because we we hear everything in black and white now, and there are extremists on both sides.
00:05:28.120There are people in Washington that I hear, and I think they are actually their hatred and their politics against Trump are so strong.
00:05:38.320It's almost like they want us to lose. They want us to. I mean, they're standing behind terrorists. It's crazy.
00:05:47.120And on the other side, there are extremists that want us to go to war with Iran.
00:05:53.880I think the average American person is like, look, if you kill our people, you hit them, you hit them hard, you move on, and we don't have to go to war with Iran.
00:06:04.460It's not the right idea. I think that's where the average person is.
00:06:08.560But the politics in Washington, which brings me to this question, how can you said yesterday, which I completely agree with you, you said, you know, it's our we have to debate.
00:06:24.360It's un-American. And the people that were advising Trump and advising you and informing you on what was going on, you said, came in and said, don't don't debate this because it will empower Iran.
00:06:38.960And I agree with them. However, I also agree with you that that's your job. You have to do that. We're not a dictatorship. We have to have that debate.
00:06:50.320However, in this particular time period, do you really think, Mike, we could get honest debate on the floor?
00:06:58.720I mean, I'm not saying we stop debate, but I just don't think that there's there's honest debate now.
00:07:05.320Anything that Donald Trump does. Look, we could and we should.
00:07:09.960And under the War Powers Act, we can and we must have that debate.
00:07:14.200The Constitution requires us to have it. And if we get ever get to the point where we can get mired into a global conflict or a war of any kind and Congress says, oh, we can't possibly handle that.
00:07:25.540And we've got a major problem with Congress. I agree.
00:07:28.060But look, we do have procedural mechanisms through the War Powers Act to advance debate on this issue.
00:07:33.260There are some people who are fond of saying, well, the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.
00:07:36.940Look, the War Powers Act doesn't fundamentally change the balance of power between the executive branch and the legislative branch.
00:07:42.780All it does is provide a schedule, a timeline by which members of Congress can advance certain arguments for an up or down vote on signaling our approval or lack thereof of a particular military action.
00:07:55.540That's exactly what the Constitution expects of us. And we should do it.
00:07:58.320The problem is people are hearing you today and we're living in such a black and white world.
00:08:05.740You were saying this under Obama and you were saying this privately about the War Powers Act under Bush.
00:08:15.940This is something that is not about Donald Trump.
00:08:19.860You were leading the fight on Yemen. We're in Yemen. What are we doing in Yemen? Fighting a war.
00:08:28.820Barack Obama got us involved in Yemen through executive action without bothering to go to Congress.
00:08:33.640That has continued for several years, notwithstanding the fact that it was never declared by Congress, notwithstanding the fact that it's unconstitutional to do it that way,
00:08:41.160notwithstanding the fact that the American people have no national security interest.
00:08:46.120They are not made safer by our involvement as a co-belligerent in the Saudi-led coalition effort against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
00:08:56.480And so that's what I'm saying here is that I was consistent in previous administrations on this.
00:09:02.020I'm being consistent under President Trump.
00:09:04.360And President Trump himself, I believe, agrees with us.
00:09:08.060That is, that the president himself shouldn't be free to get us involved in a war.
00:09:13.000The power belongs to the people's branch in Congress.
00:09:54.280The House votes today on restraining the president from doing things, and I believe that that is mainly political in the House.
00:10:07.360So, you said that you wanted to know which way to vote, and you were looking at yesterday, and the people who came over to brief you were the worst that you've ever seen.
00:10:19.300And were they saying that you had to vote with them, or just not discuss it, or what was it that they said?
00:10:31.620Glenn, the most important and the most troubling thing that they said was that they refused to commit to any set of circumstances in which they would be required to come back and seek authorization from Congress before undertaking additional acts against Iran.
00:10:47.720They wanted to hold open the possibility that almost anything, even right down to taking down the Supreme Leader, might be authorized either under their inherent authority under Article II or under the 2002 authorization for the use of military force or otherwise, and that they might not necessarily have to come back to Congress.
00:11:08.580And there was a suggestion in there also that we shouldn't be debating it, that we shouldn't have this discussion, because that might embolden Iran, and it might make us look weak.
00:11:19.500Look, this is the whole reason the Founding Fathers put this thing in Article I, Section 8, the whole reason they put it in Congress.
00:11:26.020They didn't want to have the executive capable of getting us into a war.
00:11:30.560President Trump doesn't disagree with that.
00:11:32.480In fact, I believe he agrees with the Founding Fathers' decision to do that, and that's why I think he was ill-served yesterday by those briefing the Senate.
00:11:43.860I just want to play devil's advocate here one more time.
00:11:47.340The Founders, when they did this, could not be heard in the capitals of our enemies live, and also did not have a world that was controlled by a State Department and manipulated in the media as it is today.
00:12:12.380You do see the point that, and I'm not saying we don't debate, but you do understand the point that the debate, especially if it becomes political, does send the message that we are not all on the same page.
00:12:30.900It does, and that is precisely the point of the war power being put in Article I, Section 8, and being a power of Congress.
00:12:38.340It's a feature, not a bug, to require debate and careful deliberation in the public eye before going to war.
00:12:45.860The Founding Fathers never wanted or intended it to be easy to get involved in a war.
00:12:52.380There are, moreover, more than adequate means of dealing with the modern realities that you described without supporting the Constitution.
00:12:59.260The president has inherent power to repel an actual or imminent attack on the United States.
00:13:04.680The president also has certain power to order special operations teams to go in outside the War Powers Act process and strike in a more clandestine fashion.
00:13:16.500Neither of those is impaired by this kind of debate and discussion about whether we should go into war.
00:13:22.760We haven't had a war declaration since 1942.
00:13:29.760It is a problem, and it shows this gradual decline over the last 80 years away from the constitutional framework and in a direction that allows for the consolidation of power.
00:13:41.900I've been against that in previous administrations.
00:13:44.680I'm against that in this administration, which is headed by a president who agrees with me.
00:19:52.760At this point, everything could change.
00:19:55.480But at this point, I can't imagine Americans saying, yeah, yeah, we got to go with these people and the socialist and radical ideas that they have.
00:20:07.100Because I don't think America lives there.
00:22:59.720You'd think that that would be a fairly sensible position to be able to take.
00:23:03.860But as you know and as you just said, it's becoming more challenging.
00:23:08.860I was heartened that actually the interview that I did on CNN that was sort of as all this was coming down the pike on Monday morning was then picked up and promoted and talked about on Fox News.
00:23:22.320And it's just so rare that that actually happens in a sensible way because there's just so much of two completely separate countries in two completely separate bubbles in digesting different information and news and deciding that they have a team.
00:23:37.340And if you're not on the team, it doesn't really matter whether you do something that's smart or good.
00:23:41.960You know, I mean, like, would I have supported Obama if he had had the same – if he had killed Soleimani and the Iranians had responded with nothing and let's please talk?
00:23:58.240It is shocking that I have to thank you for that.
00:24:00.440But let me point out that you're a thinking human being still, and those are rare.
00:24:05.440So looking at the report that was released on Monday from your group, you're looking at the top risks for 2020.
00:24:15.000Do you put Iran in the top risk at all?
00:24:19.460We put it – we had a broad risk about what we call Shia crescendo of challenges to stability in both Syria, Iraq, and Iran as risk number eight towards the bottom of the list.
00:24:36.320But Iran itself was considered a red herring, that actually it was going to be talked up a lot.
00:24:43.080People were going to say we're going to war, and we didn't buy any of it.
00:25:00.120I mean, look, there's no question Iran is still a very serious adversary of the United States in the region.
00:25:07.540That's not – that didn't change overnight.
00:25:10.620But we have now established a real deterrent.
00:25:13.840They have now backed down, and there is a window of opportunity for negotiations.
00:25:18.280I mean, so much so that the likelihood of negotiations being pursued between the U.S. and Iran directly this year, in my view, are greater than a resumption of military conflict directly between the two sides.
00:25:30.980And I think that's quite something to say.
00:25:32.360So, you say the number one risk for 2020 in the U.S. is who governs the U.S.
00:25:40.060In 2020, U.S. institutions will be tested as never before, and November election will produce a result many will see as illegitimate.
00:25:47.380If Trump wins amid credible charges of irregularities, the result will be contested.
00:25:52.800If he loses, particularly if the vote is close, it will be the same.
00:25:56.220Either scenario would create months of lawsuits in a political vacuum, but unlike the contested Bush-Gore 2000 election, the loser is unlikely to accept a court-decided outcome as legitimate.
00:26:15.780It's not like the United States is about to become Hungary or Turkey.
00:26:19.840It's not like our institutions are going to break.
00:26:21.820But I do think that we're going to – the equivalent is Brexit, right, and not the Brexit reality that's coming at the end of January, but rather what happened after they voted, which is that the people that lost said, no, we want another vote.
00:26:41.720And so for three years, you had the Brits tearing each other up at the exception, at the expense of getting any legislation done, of actually governing, of actually leading.
00:26:52.540And I fear that we're entering a period like that in the United States.
00:26:57.360Again, the U.K. institutions are still there.
00:26:59.960The royals took a beating over the last few days.
00:27:02.280But leaving that aside, the institutions are still there.
00:28:49.140Or if anybody else did, do you think that we live in a world that Washington will give us a fair trial and call everyone to the witness stand?
00:29:24.560And doesn't this – this breakdown, I think, is happening in Washington, I'm not sure that it is happening as much as it – in the middle of America and the non-political America.
00:29:39.340I'm not sure that it's happening as strong as it is on TV and in Washington.
00:29:44.360I think both Democrats and Republicans see this entire thing as this – but neither side is being right here.
00:29:52.480Again, I think that the sclerotic partisanship, the capture of our political process by big money and special interests on both sides has led to an awful lot of angry people, a lot of Americans that feel that the system is broken, that it's disenfranchised, that it's rigged.
00:30:12.360And, you know, that is about Washington.
00:30:16.320But, you know, there was a story last year that one piece of data that, I mean, I think articulated this for me that had nothing to do with Washington.
00:30:24.300But, my God, it feels the same way for everyone, which is, you know, around this varsity blues scandal with all the parents, the wealthy parents buying their way into universities.
00:30:33.000So, it turned out that last year in Greenwich, Connecticut, 50% of the high schoolers taking the SAT, 50% of them, had notes from psychologists allowing them to take the test unmonitored over two days as opposed to four hours.
00:31:40.780Well, I like the way you put that because, you know, I mean, Trump, his two of his biggest foreign policy wins have been the same basic strategy.
00:31:49.400They've been what he just did with Iran and then what he did with Mexico when he said, I'm going to destroy your economy.
00:31:55.380Literally, your head's going to spin if you don't actually tighten up the borders.
00:31:58.680In both cases, Trump's like this guy at the poker table with a massive stack of chips in front of him.
00:32:04.040It doesn't really matter if he's holding a 2-9 or a pocket aces.
00:32:07.160He just put all of his chips in and you're going to fold.
00:32:13.620China's ability to say no to the United States is actually quite robust.
00:32:17.760And so we are going to get this deal signed on January 15th, this phase one trade deal.
00:32:22.740The Chinese are sending Lu He to Washington, D.C., the lead trade negotiator.
00:32:27.460And it'll get signed and the markets will be pleased and tariffs, some tariffs will be reduced as a consequence.
00:32:33.320But that's as far as it goes, in my view, Glenn.
00:32:35.660This year, we're going to have U.S.-China relations deteriorate on a host of fronts.
00:32:41.640We've got this woman from Huawei that we haven't been talking about for months, but she's about to go through her extradition hearing in Canada in just a couple weeks' time, the week after the phase one deal is signed.
00:32:51.600That's much more meaningful for the Chinese than the phase one deal if you talk to their leaders.
00:32:55.600You've got Taiwanese elections this weekend, going to move in a more nationalist direction on the back of their solidarity with the demonstrators in Hong Kong.
00:33:03.740Hong Kong, the Chinese just appointed a new liaison to manage the region, much more hardline and senior than the one they had previously appointed.
00:33:14.380That's clearly not moving in any good direction.
00:33:16.600You've got the Uyghurs, the ethnic minority, Muslim minority, 1.5 million of them in re-education camps and forced labor.
00:33:25.960Inside China and Congress, bipartisan, believe it or not, one of the few things that they agree on in Congress right now is we need a harder-line policy on China.
00:33:34.540And Trump signed it, even though he didn't really want to because he thought it might screw up his trade deal.
00:33:39.200So, I mean, I think on all of these different issues, the U.S.-China relationship, the world's two largest economies in the world, are actually heading towards more confrontation this year.
00:33:47.380And do you see that becoming a Cold War kind of scenario?
00:33:55.140Or, I mean, you know, if Hong Kong falls, Taiwan is next.
00:34:02.600Or is it a Cold War or a Hot War possibility that is on the horizon in the years to come?
00:34:08.920We're not going to intervene in Hong Kong at all.
00:34:14.060And I think we're still very far from military confrontation over Taiwan or over the South China Sea, for example, where we all have a lot of military assets and territories contested.
00:34:25.340But there is a Cold War that's already here when we talk about technology and even the language that Xi Jinping uses, this idea of a long march that they are now on in building AI supremacy by 2030.
00:34:41.980The Chinese have decided to decouple their technology systems, their algorithms, their big data, their cloud from that of the United States.
00:34:51.600And, you know, if you listen to Bill Gates or Steve Pinker or any of the people that are more optimistic about the future of the world, the reason they give you for that optimism fundamentally is globalization.
00:35:00.880It's because ideas and people and goods and services have moved faster and faster across borders over the last generations, really post-World War II, right?
00:35:11.700And suddenly we're taking a very significant step in the other direction.
00:35:16.920For the first time, really, in your and my lifetimes, we're seeing that happen.
00:35:21.660Where the future of the global economy is being divided into two, a U.S. sphere and a Chinese sphere.
00:35:30.120And that clearly – that does have elements of real Cold War because in trade, we can fight with the Chinese.
00:35:36.460But ultimately, we do want to trade more with them.