Senator Mike Lee: "Heaven help us all" if President can use drones on US soil

March 07, 2013

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Joining in the filibuster effort were a handful of other supporters in the GOP, interestingly they were mostly the new guard. The new guard consists of those who actually value the founding principles of this country and it’s founding documents, namely the Constitution. Senator Mike Lee is part of that new guard and talked about the filibuster, Holder, and battle for the soul of the GOP on radio today.

Read the transcript of the interview below:

GLENN: Sitting right behind Ted Cruz was Senator Mike Lee who is on the phone with us now. Senator, how are you, sir?
LEE: Doing great. It's good to be with you, Glenn.
GLENN: Is that the most incredible? You were ‑‑ I mean, I was watching your face sitting next to Ted Cruz. Your mouth was open, part of it just like, oh, my gosh. Is this the most incredible thing you've heard?
LEE: Yeah. But, you know, Ted's always great. Ted always is able to get to the heart of the issue.
GLENN: No, no, no. I mean ‑‑
LEE: ‑‑ very, very quickly.
GLENN: I didn't mean from Ted. I mean from the attorney general.
PAT: That he can't pin down whether or not it's constitutional.
LEE: I was ‑‑ I was shocked. When Ted gave him what I thought was a very clear hypothetical, a very clear opportunity for him to say, "Yeah, that would be unconstitutional, that would fall outside of all kinds of constitutional boundaries," and he didn't. You know, he eventually got there sort of, but only after a lot of prodding and even then it wasn't entirely certain what he was saying or why he was being so difficult to get there.
GLENN: Senator, is this, the drone business, you know, having the president issue an order to kill somebody, you know, with a drone without a warrant and without a trial, is there any ‑‑ is there any use to the Constitution at all if the president has claimed this ability and executes it?
LEE: Well, certainly not on a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil. I mean, one can fathom circumstances in which an individual engaged in an act of war against the United States outside the United States might become the casualty of an act of war by the United States defending itself. But what Cruz was talking about here was an American citizen on U.S. soil sitting in a cafe with a friend and so, yeah, one cannot conceive of a scenario in which that would be appropriate or constitutional.
GLENN: But the question is, is there any use for the Con ‑‑ does this president, is there ‑‑ is the Constitution and the constitutional republic as we know it of no use if the president can claim this power? Which he seems to be doing.
LEE: Yeah. Look, if the president can claim this power, if the president in fact were to utilize this power and to utilize it in the manner that was discussed yesterday at the hearing, yeah, heaven help us all. I mean, one would wonder what would be left of any of us. If your question is, is there anything left that's intact in the Constitution today? Certainly, yes, there is. But in order for that to remain the case, we've got to continue to stand up and we've got to continue to identify problems when we see them. And we've got to identify them early become ‑‑ before they become bigger problems.
GLENN: Right.
LEE: So that when we see something like this, when we see statements by this administration, reckless statements suggesting vast, vast power by the chief executive to snuff out human life without the due process of law, we've got to have people who are willing to stand up and say, no, that is not okay.
GLENN: So are you surprised? Because TheBlaze is putting together a slide show of the websites last night. We have ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the New York Times. None of them at 12:05 had anything at all on the front page about Rand Paul and the stand against the drones. None of them had that. Huffington Post did, TheBlaze did, the Drudge Report did. Even MSNBC had this as the lead. But the mainstream media had nothing. Are the ‑‑ A, is the mainstream media, are they so disconnected from anything at all anymore that they don't recognize what's happening with the drones; and B, are the American people even there anymore?
LEE: Yeah, Glenn, I can't figure out whether they're really smart or whether they're really dumb for not airing this. I tend to lean, of course, toward the conclusion that they're really dumb because the American people are concerned about this. This is an issue for many, many tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans and so they shouldn't be ignoring it. To the extent they continue to ignore this issue, they do so at their own peril.
The only argument for saying maybe they're really smart is if they really are that focused on protecting incumbent Democrats in congress or in the White House that they don't want to report it.
GLENN: Well, let me go ‑‑
LEE: They know that this is an issue where Republicans are standing up for individual liberties and Democrats are standing on the sidelines and trying to ignore it.
GLENN: That's another thing. That is truly remarkable to me. I mean, some of us, I mean, I have come to the party awfully darn late on some of the things like the PATRIOT Act. I asked for sunsets the whole time, but I actually believed that people in congress were more like me and more like you, that we were all decent and we were just trying to do the right thing and we would never ‑‑ you know, we'd never do things without warrants, et cetera, et cetera. What a fool. What a fool to give people in power that kind of power. However, the Democrats have been the ones the whole time that have been saying, "We stand up for the individual and this grotesque growth of power," and one ‑‑ wasn't it one yesterday? One stood up and joined your ranks on the floor of the Senate last night.
LEE: Well, no, we ‑‑ by the end of the evening, we had quite a few members of the Senate. But you're exactly right: We had only one Democrat who joined us and that was Ron Wyden of Oregon. Ron is a man of principle. Ron stands by the principles of the Constitution and especially when it comes to matters of individual liberty. I was thrilled to have him join us and I hope his willingness to join us will be a signal to others that will cause others on the other side of the aisle to join us as well.
GLENN: For anybody who doesn't believe that drones ‑‑ you know, I guess, I guess ‑‑ I was trying to drive in this morning and thinking what the hell is wrong with Americans? How can they not understand what this means? And I thought to myself, okay, let me put myself in the reverse shoes. That I have friends who are very, very big Barack Obama supporters and I know one of them is coming into ‑‑ one of them is coming into town today. He's my photographer, George Lange. He's darn near a Communist. I mean, he's a ‑‑ but he's a great guy. Oh, I've already ‑‑ nevermind. So he's coming into town, and I know I'm going to have the conversation with him, and he's most likely going to say, "I didn't know about it." But then when we talk about it, he'll say ‑‑ I'm guessing here ‑‑ "He'll never do that. The president will never do that. He wouldn't do it." How do you convince people that this does matter?
LEE: Well, first of all, to the extent they become aware of it, people will come to that conclusion on their own because when they hear about it, when they hear it discussed, when they discuss it with others, they will come to that conclusion on their own. But they have to hear about it first, which is exactly why it's so troubling that so many of these mainstream news media outlets were just showing nothing but radio silence on this issue.
But this, Glenn, is why you're seeing such a shift away from the mainstream news media. This is why you're seeing the ratings of some of these outlets dipping on the broadcast media side while simultaneously you've got ratings of Fox News doing well, you've got TheBlaze doing really well because people are realizing that there are other sources of information and they're coming to those sources because they realize they can get the truth from those sources and it won't be filtered in such a way as to protect one party and hurt the other.
STU: Senator, I heard Rand Paul over and over again through this filibuster say things to the effect of, "I just hope the president comes here and says what I think is in his heart, that it is not constitutional to kill Americans that are noncombatants on American soil." He said things like this over and over again in an effort to be cordial and keep the debate as civilized as possible. But if it were true that it was in his heart, wouldn't this be a really easy process? I mean, this is not a high hurdle you've set for this guy to clear.
LEE: Yeah, that's right. I really don't know why he didn't come forward because I think Rand Paul is right. I think the president probably does know that in his heart. I don't know. It may be that some of his political advisors were telling him that this wouldn't be a big deal, he didn't need to bother himself with something so trivial, perhaps that the Republicans would look foolish if the filibuster continued at what happened, it wouldn't surprise me.
GLENN: You are being a good, loyal, decent member of the Senate and also of your faith, Mike.
STU: (Laughing.)
GLENN: Stop it. In the heart of hearts, this president will absolutely use a drone on American citizens who he deems is a threat to not the Constitution but to what he believes America should be.
PAT: No comment on that.
GLENN: No comment. Okay.
STU: Very well advised.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: You're very smart for not responding to that.
PAT: Doing the right thing there.
GLENN: Mike, I wish you the best of luck. And is Brennan going to be confirmed?
LEE: You know, I suspect he will be confirmed. But at the end of this process we will see that a lot more attention has been brought during this confirmation process.
GLENN: Are you going to go ‑‑
LEE: With an issue that a lot of Americans ought to be concerned about. And I'm very happy with that.
GLENN: Are you going to vote for Brennan?
LEE: No, I'm not.
GLENN: Do you understand ‑‑ because you are a very strong constitutionalist. Do you understand Rand Paul's stance on this of, he says "I'm standing on the Constitution, I totally disagree with him but I have to do it because of constitutional reasons"? Do you believe that?
STU: His justification for voting for Hagel essentially.
GLENN: Yeah. Which, he's going to vote for, he's going to vote for ‑‑
STU: We don't know this yet.
GLENN: He said it to us on the air. Do you understand his constitutional objection?
LEE: I don't, to be perfectly honest. You mean that part with regard to not voting no?
GLENN: Yes.
LEE: I don't share ‑‑
PAT: I don't either.
LEE: I don't share that view. I respect Rand a lot and we agree on most things on the Constitution but we don't share that view in common. I don't think there's anything that requires me to vote yes for a nominee that I don't want to support.
GLENN: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.
PAT: I agree with him.
LEE: Thank you.
GLENN: God bless.
PAT: I've never seen anything in it that requires you to go ahead and approve every single person he nominates.

The Woodrow Wilson strategy to get out of Mother’s Day

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I’ve got a potentially helpful revelation that’s gonna blow the lid off your plans for this Sunday. It’s Mother’s Day.

Yeah, that sacred day where you’re guilt-tripped into buying flowers, braving crowded brunch buffets, and pretending you didn’t forget to mail the card. But what if I told you… you don’t have to do it? That’s right, there’s a loophole, a get-out-of-Mother’s-Day-free card, and it’s stamped with the name of none other than… Woodrow Wilson (I hate that guy).

Back in 1914, ol’ Woody Wilson signed a proclamation that officially made Mother’s Day a national holiday. Second Sunday in May, every year. He said it was a day to “publicly express our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” Sounds sweet, right? Until you peel back the curtain.

See, Wilson wasn’t some sentimental guy sitting around knitting doilies for his mom. No, no, no. This was a calculated move.

The idea for Mother’s Day had been floating around for decades, pushed by influential voices like Julia Ward Howe. By 1911, states were jumping on the bandwagon, but it took Wilson to make it federal. Why? Because he was a master of optics. This guy loved big, symbolic gestures to distract from the real stuff he was up to, like, oh, I don’t know, reshaping the entire federal government!

So here’s the deal: if you’re looking for an excuse to skip Mother’s Day, just lean into this. Say, “Sorry, Mom, I’m not celebrating a holiday cooked up by Woodrow Wilson!” I mean, think about it – this is the guy who gave us the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and don’t even get me started on his assault on basic liberties during World War I. You wanna trust THAT guy with your Sunday plans? I don’t think so! You tell your mom, “Look, I love you, but I’m not observing a Progressive holiday. I’m keeping my brunch money in protest.”

Now, I know what you might be thinking.

“Glenn, my mom’s gonna kill me if I try this.” Fair point. Moms can be scary. But hear me out: you can spin this. Tell her you’re honoring her EVERY DAY instead of some government-mandated holiday. You don’t need Wilson’s permission to love your mom! You can bake her a cake in June, call her in July, or, here’s a wild idea, visit her WITHOUT a Woodrow Wilson federal proclamation guilting you into it.

Shocking Christian massacres unveiled

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Is a Christian Genocide unfolding overseas?

Recent reports suggest an alarming escalation in violence against Christians, raising questions about whether these acts constitute genocide under international law. Recently, Glenn hosted former U.S. Army Special Forces Sniper Tim Kennedy, who discussed a predictive model that forecasts a surge in global Christian persecution for the summer of 2025.

From Africa to Asia and the Middle East, extreme actions—some described as genocidal—have intensified over the past year. Over 380 million Christians worldwide face high levels of persecution, a number that continues to climb. With rising international concern, the United Nations and human rights groups are urging protective measures by the global community. Is a Christian genocide being waged in the far corners of the globe? Where are they taking place, and what is being done?

India: Hindu Extremist Violence Escalates

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In India, attacks on Christians have surged as Hindu extremist groups gain influence within the country. In February 2025, Hindu nationalist leader Aadesh Soni organized a 50,000-person rally in Chhattisgarh, where he called for the rape and murder of all Christians in nearby villages and demanded the execution of Christian leaders to erase Christianity. Other incidents include forced conversions, such as a June 2024 attack in Chhattisgarh, where a Hindu mob gave Christian families a 10-day ultimatum to convert to Hinduism. In December 2024, a Christian man in Uttar Pradesh was attacked, forcibly converted, and paraded while the mob chanted "Death to Jesus."

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommends designating India a "Country of Particular Concern" and imposing targeted sanctions on those perpetrating these attacks. The international community is increasingly alarmed by the rising tide of religious violence in India.

Syria: Sectarian Violence Post-Regime Change

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Following the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria has seen a wave of sectarian violence targeting religious minorities, including Christians, with over 1,000 killed in early 2025. It remains unclear whether Christians are deliberately targeted or caught in broader conflicts, but many fear persecution by the new regime or extremist groups. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a dominant rebel group and known al-Qaeda splinter group now in power, is known for anti-Christian sentiments, heightening fears of increased persecution.

Christians, especially converts from Islam, face severe risks in the unstable post-regime environment. The international community is calling for humanitarian aid and protection for Syria’s vulnerable minority communities.

Democratic Republic of Congo: A "Silent Genocide"

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In February 2025, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an ISIS-affiliated group, beheaded 70 Christians—men, women, and children—in a Protestant church in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, after tying their hands. This horrific massacre, described as a "silent genocide" reminiscent of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has shocked the global community.

Since 1996, the ADF and other militias have killed over six million people, with Christians frequently targeted. A Christmas 2024 attack killed 46, further decimating churches in the region. With violence escalating, humanitarian organizations are urging immediate international intervention to address the crisis.

POLL: Starbase exposed: Musk’s vision or corporate takeover?

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Is Starbase the future of innovation or a step too far?

Elon Musk’s ambitious Starbase project in South Texas is reshaping Boca Chica into a cutting-edge hub for SpaceX’s Starship program, promising thousands of jobs and a leap toward Mars colonization. Supporters see Musk as a visionary, driving economic growth and innovation in a historically underserved region. However, local critics, including Brownsville residents and activists, argue that SpaceX’s presence raises rents, restricts beach access, and threatens environmental harm, with Starbase’s potential incorporation as a city sparking fears of unchecked corporate control. As pro-Musk advocates clash with anti-Musk skeptics, will Starbase unite the community or deepen the divide?

Let us know what you think in the poll below:

Is Starbase’s development a big win for South Texas?

Should Starbase become its own city?

Is Elon Musk’s vision more of a benefit than a burden for the region?

Shocking truth behind Trump-Zelenskyy mineral deal unveiled

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President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have finalized a landmark agreement that will shape the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations. The agreement focuses on mineral access and war recovery.

After a tense March meeting, Trump and Zelenskyy signed a deal on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, granting the U.S. preferential mineral rights in Ukraine in exchange for continued military support. Glenn analyzed an earlier version of the agreement in March, when Zelenskyy rejected it, highlighting its potential benefits for America, Ukraine, and Europe. Glenn praised the deal’s strategic alignment with U.S. interests, including reducing reliance on China for critical minerals and fostering regional peace.

However, the agreement signed this week differs from the March proposal Glenn praised. Negotiations led to significant revisions, reflecting compromises on both sides. What changes were made? What did each leader seek, and what did they achieve? How will this deal impact the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations and global geopolitics? Below, we break down the key aspects of the agreement.

What did Trump want?

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Trump aimed to curb what many perceive as Ukraine’s overreliance on U.S. aid while securing strategic advantages for America. His primary goals included obtaining reimbursement for the billions in military aid provided to Ukraine, gaining exclusive access to Ukraine’s valuable minerals (such as titanium, uranium, and lithium), and reducing Western dependence on China for critical resources. These minerals are essential for aerospace, energy, and technology sectors, and Trump saw their acquisition as a way to bolster U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. Additionally, he sought to advance peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war, positioning the U.S. as a key mediator.

Ultimately, Trump secured preferential—but not exclusive—rights to extract Ukraine’s minerals through the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, as outlined in the agreement. The U.S. will not receive reimbursement for past aid, but future military contributions will count toward the joint fund, designed to support Ukraine’s post-war recovery. Zelenskyy’s commitment to peace negotiations under U.S. leadership aligns with Trump’s goal of resolving the conflict, giving him leverage in discussions with Russia.

These outcomes partially meet Trump’s objectives. The preferential mineral rights strengthen U.S. access to critical resources, but the lack of exclusivity and reimbursement limits the deal’s financial benefits. The peace commitment, however, positions Trump as a central figure in shaping the war’s resolution, potentially enhancing his diplomatic influence.

What did Zelenskyy want?

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Zelenskyy sought to sustain U.S. military and economic support without the burden of repaying past aid, which has been critical for Ukraine’s defense against Russia. He also prioritized reconstruction funds to rebuild Ukraine’s war-torn economy and infrastructure. Security guarantees from the U.S. to deter future Russian aggression were a key demand, though controversial, as they risked entangling America in long-term commitments. Additionally, Zelenskyy aimed to retain control over Ukraine’s mineral wealth to safeguard national sovereignty and align with the country’s European Union membership aspirations.

The final deal delivered several of Zelenskyy’s priorities. The reconstruction fund, supported by future U.S. aid, provides a financial lifeline for Ukraine’s recovery without requiring repayment of past assistance. Ukraine retained ownership of its subsoil and decision-making authority over mineral extraction, granting only preferential access to the U.S. However, Zelenskyy conceded on security guarantees, a significant compromise, and agreed to pursue peace talks under Trump’s leadership, which may involve territorial or political concessions to Russia.

Zelenskyy’s outcomes reflect a delicate balance. The reconstruction fund and retained mineral control bolster Ukraine’s economic and sovereign interests, but the absence of security guarantees and pressure to negotiate peace could strain domestic support and challenge Ukraine’s long-term stability.

What does this mean for the future?

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While Trump didn’t secure all his demands, the deal advances several of his broader strategic goals. By gaining access to Ukraine’s mineral riches, the U.S. undermines China’s dominance over critical elements like lithium and graphite, essential for technology and energy industries. This shift reduces American and European dependence on Chinese supply chains, strengthening Western industrial and tech sectors. Most significantly, the agreement marks a pivotal step toward peace in Europe. Ending the Russia-Ukraine war, which has claimed thousands of lives, is a top priority for Trump, and Zelenskyy’s commitment to U.S.-led peace talks enhances Trump’s leverage in negotiations with Russia. Notably, the deal avoids binding U.S. commitments to Ukraine’s long-term defense, preserving flexibility for future administrations.

The deal’s broader implications align with the vision Glenn outlined in March, when he praised its potential to benefit America, Ukraine, and Europe by securing resources and creating peace. While the final agreement differs from Glenn's hopes, it still achieves key goals he outlined.

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