The Michael Knowles Show - October 30, 2022


Interview with Senator Mike Lee


Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

163.40726

Word count

2,451

Sentence count

190

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is running for re-election against Evan McMullin (D-VA) in a close race that could determine the outcome of the election. But how close is too close for a Republican to win a Senate election in Utah?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 We are in the absolute final stretch of the 2022 midterm elections.
00:00:05.840 Things are looking very, very good for Republicans right now.
00:00:09.800 And one of the absolutely most interesting races in the country
00:00:13.600 happens to concern one of my absolute favorite United States senators.
00:00:18.440 And that would be Senator Mike Lee over in Utah.
00:00:22.500 Good, strong conservative senator who's facing a little bit of a weird challenge
00:00:27.120 because he's running against, well, I guess he is running against a Democrat,
00:00:32.340 but he's running against a Democrat who says he's a Republican with the backing of the Democrats
00:00:37.140 and the very liberal Republican other senator from Utah is staying kind of neutral.
00:00:44.920 And anyway, it's very, very intricate and bizarre.
00:00:49.180 Senator Lee, thank you for coming on the show.
00:00:52.000 Oh, thanks for having me, Michael.
00:00:53.060 So, Senator, all sorts of crazy races to watch this year.
00:00:58.640 Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, all over the place.
00:01:04.040 Yours might be the strangest one, actually, of all of them.
00:01:07.140 Because I thought, look, this is a Republican year.
00:01:10.860 Mike Lee has one of the best conservative records in the United States Senate,
00:01:15.560 in the United States, frankly, as far as I'm concerned.
00:01:18.600 Utah is a very good conservative state, and yet there's this weird fact you're running against
00:01:24.660 this guy, Evan McMullin, who was the kind of never-Trump candidate from 2016,
00:01:33.800 who some Democrats gave a bunch of money to fruitlessly.
00:01:39.040 And now he's running for Senate in Utah, but the Democrats are backing him.
00:01:43.780 And I don't pretend to know all of the intricacies.
00:01:47.040 How does the race stand?
00:01:49.580 Here's where it stands.
00:01:50.740 Look, this race is much closer than it should be, for the simple reason that we've got an
00:01:55.340 independent who's telling Republicans he still thinks like a Republican.
00:01:59.100 He actually calls himself a conservative.
00:02:01.380 He's telling Democrats he'll vote like a Democrat.
00:02:04.720 And the local media is overwhelmingly liberal, entirely liberal, in fact.
00:02:09.220 And so they cover it up for him.
00:02:11.340 They don't actually make him talk about issues and where he would stand on things.
00:02:15.740 In fact, the most substance he's provided on how he would vote was provided to the Utah
00:02:23.060 Democratic Party while he was actively courting their endorsement.
00:02:26.060 You see, he went to them and said, don't run a Democrat because they have a D after their
00:02:30.300 name.
00:02:31.180 I'll have an I after my name, but I'll vote more or less how you want me to vote.
00:02:35.240 And I can get elected more easily than they can.
00:02:38.620 But let me tell you what I stand for.
00:02:39.920 And he rattled off a whole bunch of things where he stood with it, including the fact that
00:02:43.680 he voted for Joe Biden, he campaigned for Joe Biden, he encouraged others to do the same.
00:02:47.600 He supports things like H.R.1.
00:02:50.180 S.1.
00:02:51.000 This bill that would take over the authority to run federal elections, strip the states
00:02:56.160 of their authority to impose voter ID requirements and otherwise make it almost impossible for
00:03:02.960 any Republican ever to win an election again.
00:03:05.380 He also said that he would nuke the filibuster for purposes of passing H.R.1.
00:03:11.340 S.1.
00:03:11.980 This is really dangerous stuff.
00:03:13.860 But meanwhile, the mainstream news media in Utah, which is to say the entire media establishment
00:03:19.520 in Utah, save one or two radio talk show hosts, is backing this guy, helping this guy.
00:03:25.420 So, yeah, this race is closer than it should be.
00:03:27.840 So, it's probably as close a general election as we've had in quite a while for a U.S.
00:03:34.880 Senate race in Utah.
00:03:35.880 Wow.
00:03:36.480 It's not surprising in a certain way because it seems to me the only way the Democrats have
00:03:42.580 any hope of winning really anything this year is through chicanery. 1.00
00:03:47.060 And this is a great example of that kind of chicanery. 1.00
00:03:50.780 I actually didn't know that about McMullen's support for you in your very diplomatic, very
00:03:58.020 polite Utah way, or calling it H.R.1 and S.1.
00:04:02.660 A lot of people call it the Corrupt Politicians Act.
00:04:04.980 This is just such an awful piece of legislation.
00:04:09.020 Our mutual friend Ted Cruz coined that term, and I think it's a delightful and accurate way 1.00
00:04:14.320 of describing it.
00:04:15.280 Yeah, absolutely.
00:04:16.200 And so, to go in and basically cut a secret shady deal with the Democrats and say, look,
00:04:22.280 I'll pretend to be a Republican or at least an independent to get the Republicans to vote
00:04:26.520 for me, but don't worry.
00:04:27.880 I'm going to be a vote for you guys because I don't really, I don't really, I'm not running
00:04:31.340 on policy or anything.
00:04:32.340 I'm just voting to give the Democrats political power, just like I was campaigning to elect Joe
00:04:37.700 Biden, just like I was running to be a spoiler against Donald Trump, just like this guy who
00:04:42.560 kind of came out of nowhere, seems to continue to do.
00:04:46.040 You know, he's the Republican who just does whatever the Democrats want.
00:04:50.340 It just, to me, is so absolutely shady.
00:04:54.360 And I have to say, I mean, it seems to me, basically every single Senate Republican supports
00:05:00.940 you.
00:05:01.760 Every conservative that I know, that I've spoken about it with, supports you.
00:05:06.940 There is one senator who's been kind of quiet on the race, I can't help but notice.
00:05:10.960 Yeah, there's one.
00:05:13.820 Look, I'm very grateful to have the support of 48 of my Senate Republican colleagues.
00:05:20.040 There are 50 of us in total.
00:05:22.160 It's implicit that I support my own candidacy, which would be weird if I didn't.
00:05:27.480 There's one outlier, my fellow senator from Utah hasn't.
00:05:31.360 But look, I'm just grateful that I've got the support of all the others.
00:05:35.780 I mean, look, Susan Collins and I don't agree on everything.
00:05:38.180 You might be talking, but we don't.
00:05:41.100 And she endorses me.
00:05:43.060 Lisa McAlsey does as well.
00:05:45.740 So I'm grateful for their endorsement.
00:05:48.600 Doors always open to the remaining senator, my colleague from Utah, if he decides he wants
00:05:55.280 to get on board.
00:05:56.240 In the meantime, he said he's got two friends in this race and wants to stay out. 1.00
00:06:00.300 All right.
00:06:00.980 I guess that's his prerogative, his decision to make.
00:06:04.060 It speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned and I think really bolsters your conservative
00:06:08.680 bona fides as far as I'm concerned as well.
00:06:11.620 So, Senator Lee, I know it's a close race and there are all sorts of crazy things that
00:06:17.040 could happen between now and Election Day.
00:06:18.840 I'm confident you will be reelected.
00:06:21.240 I'm not surprised that the Democrats are doing everything they can to get rid of you.
00:06:25.320 You have been a big thorn in their side for many years now.
00:06:29.720 So what happens once the Republicans retake the Senate, you go back to Washington, D.C.?
00:06:35.340 What do we have to look forward to?
00:06:38.000 Well, look, I hope and expect that we will retake the majorities in both houses of Congress.
00:06:42.820 The House looks like pretty much a lock.
00:06:44.860 The Senate is looking better every day, you know, with some exceptions, including my race
00:06:49.640 here and there.
00:06:51.180 But when we get back, I really do think we'll be on a short leash from the American people 0.99
00:06:56.320 with good reason.
00:06:57.100 We'll be on a short leash in the sense that they will expect us to put an end to all of
00:07:04.800 the nonsense that Joe Biden is perpetrating on the American people.
00:07:08.900 We won't be able to do everything that we would like to do because we still don't occupy
00:07:12.800 the White House.
00:07:13.920 But we can put an end to the worst of the worst of what he's doing.
00:07:17.860 We can put an end to, you know, bringing in four trillion dollars last year and spending
00:07:22.140 seven.
00:07:22.620 That's not going to happen under Republican watch.
00:07:26.000 I would hope that we would also conduct real meaningful oversight and get answers to all
00:07:32.420 sorts of questions about things that have happened that shouldn't have happened to the government
00:07:36.080 over the last few years.
00:07:37.100 from the humanitarian crisis on the border to the fentanyl problem to Tony Fauci and what
00:07:45.680 appeared to be blatant lies that he told under oath.
00:07:50.540 I look forward to each of those things.
00:07:53.540 I look forward to figuring out what happened in Afghanistan, why we botched that so badly.
00:07:58.180 But again, this is another reason why this race matters.
00:08:02.960 My opponent has claimed that he won't caucus with either party, which means that he really
00:08:07.820 would be strengthening the hand of the Democrats and weakening the hand of Republicans if he
00:08:12.740 were elected.
00:08:14.560 So especially, I mean, who knows?
00:08:16.920 People are saying maybe the Republicans, they can win up to 54 seats, you know, on election
00:08:21.600 day.
00:08:22.020 Those are kind of the rosiest estimates.
00:08:23.880 But not so long ago, it was very unclear that the Republicans would retake the Senate.
00:08:28.640 It remains so.
00:08:29.660 And there's a very good chance Republicans don't retake the Senate.
00:08:32.260 And so a guy coming out there in a very conservative state and saying, I will not caucus with the
00:08:38.540 Republicans could be the difference between Joe Biden gets to do whatever he wants and Joe
00:08:44.560 Biden is stopped from instituting his legislative agenda.
00:08:48.200 No, that's exactly right.
00:08:49.600 And in fact, I recently discovered a tweet that my opponent sent out on January 3rd, 2021,
00:08:56.440 on the eve, literally, of the Georgia U.S. Senate race, the dual U.S. Senate race rung off.
00:09:04.340 And he encouraged people to defeat the two Republicans, to defeat them.
00:09:10.100 Because as he put it, the Republican Party is, I don't remember what exactly he said, it was
00:09:14.840 something like irredeemably lost and corrupt or something like that.
00:09:20.060 So he did his best to disempower a Republican majority then.
00:09:25.400 And by the way, that cost us at least $4 trillion in reckless inflationary spending.
00:09:31.860 Thanks for that, Evan.
00:09:33.620 We shouldn't do that again.
00:09:35.760 But look, he's making it close because the media is giving him millions of dollars in free
00:09:41.920 media.
00:09:42.880 They never make him answer anything.
00:09:44.280 He's raising millions of dollars off of ActBlue, the Democratic donor network.
00:09:51.240 And he's got a super PAC that has spent $3 or $4 million on attack ads on me.
00:09:57.280 So I've got to be able to combat that.
00:09:59.660 So if any of your listeners and viewers who want to support my campaign, they can do so
00:10:04.220 at leadforsenate.com.
00:10:05.740 And unlike Evan McMullin, which is not through ActBlue, I'm on wind radio.
00:10:11.040 Yeah, I always think, you know, Senator, I always think that you can judge a man by his enemies,
00:10:17.560 you know, and you can judge a man by his friends.
00:10:21.080 And I think you've got absolutely all the right enemies.
00:10:26.080 And I think that Evan McMullin has all of the wrong friends.
00:10:31.720 And I, you know, I just, the libs drive me crazy because the libs have a terrible agenda 1.00
00:10:39.300 and they cause all sorts of destruction in the country.
00:10:42.140 But there's one group that I have even less respect for than the libs who are destroying
00:10:48.160 the country.
00:10:48.560 And that, that would be the, the deceitful people who pretend to be conservative or Republican.
00:10:56.080 And then all they ever do is the bidding of that corrosive liberal establishment that is
00:11:02.100 destroying our, our fiscal situation, opening up our borders, you know, tearing the country apart.
00:11:09.600 And as far as I can tell, the only thing that your opponent has done in political life
00:11:17.580 is that, I can't, I, he's, he came onto the scene in 2016.
00:11:22.900 I mean, I'm sure he had, he had a career before that, but he came onto the political scene in 2016.
00:11:28.080 That's all the guy has ever done.
00:11:29.900 And I think we've really, really got to be aware of these deceitful people in politics.
00:11:34.900 You, I'm not just flattering you.
00:11:36.480 I say it because it's an important race and, and because I mean it, you have been a real straight
00:11:42.060 shooter.
00:11:42.640 You're a good guy.
00:11:43.380 I know you personally, uh, the seat is very important concern.
00:11:46.620 Utah is a conservative state.
00:11:48.760 It would be insane for Utah to have a, a Senator doing only the bidding of the Democratic
00:11:54.580 party.
00:11:55.020 It would be absolutely awful.
00:11:56.840 And so Senator, I really wish you the best of luck in the race.
00:11:59.960 I'm confident that you will win it.
00:12:01.940 How else can people support you?
00:12:04.320 Look, in addition to going to lead for Senate.com, uh, people who are online, um, communicating
00:12:10.800 on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on any social media platform, uh, can interact when
00:12:18.380 they see comments being made that don't make sense, uh, back them up with conservative
00:12:23.040 arguments, call out people, call about people who were, uh, praising my opponent is supposedly
00:12:28.500 a conservative hero.
00:12:29.700 Um, my opponent is rebranding himself still as a conservative.
00:12:35.380 After getting the democratic nomination and convincing them not to run a candidate, he's
00:12:39.680 now calling himself a conservative.
00:12:42.340 Uh, only he redefines conservative to mean he likes to go on hikes and he believes in America
00:12:47.240 and democracy.
00:12:48.960 He, uh, he, he actually ran sort of to the right of Donald Trump in 2016 because Donald
00:12:55.020 Trump was insufficiently committed to seeing Roe versus Wade overturned and standing up
00:12:59.580 for, for pro-life causes.
00:13:02.440 And, uh, then a few months ago he went on MSNBC and said that he's opposed to overturning
00:13:09.480 Roe versus Wade, but he still markets himself as pro-life only he's redefined the term pro-life
00:13:16.580 to mean that he believes we should have more social programs.
00:13:21.300 So, uh, he's really good at redefining things and I, uh, frequently want to tell him, I don't
00:13:26.260 think that word means what you think it means, sir.
00:13:28.940 Uh, anyway, uh, I can use all the help I can get in messaging and, uh, uh, really appreciate
00:13:35.080 you having me on your show.
00:13:36.020 Senator, my pleasure entirely.
00:13:38.060 I would strongly encourage our Utah listeners to go vote for the conservative in the race,
00:13:44.180 not the cynical opportunistic Democrat.
00:13:48.120 Senator, thank you for coming on the show.
00:13:50.260 Thank you, Michael.
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00:14:50.560 See you next time.
00:14:51.420 Bye.
00:14:52.680 Bye.
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00:14:53.640 Bye.
00:14:54.580 Bye.
00:14:54.660 Bye.
00:14:54.740 Bye.
00:14:55.200 Bye.
00:14:55.260 Bye.
00:14:56.220 Bye.
00:14:57.360 Bye.
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