After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Democrats including President Biden called for unity and a lowering of the political temperature. But do they really mean it? Senator Mike Lee joins Glenn and Stu to reveal the one thing Biden could do to prove that he’s serious: “It’s really cute for the media and for people on the Left to tell us to take the temperature down when they themselves do quite the opposite of that…The best thing that they could do to take down the temperature would be to end the political lawfare.” Plus, Glenn and Sen. Lee discuss the clear differences between this RNC and previous years.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Let me tell you about Senator Mike Lee, who is joining us now. The good senator from Utah. Mike, I don't -- are you at the RNC convention this week?
MIKE: I am. Very much so. It's good to be here.
STU: Thank you so much, Senator, appreciate that. Glenn is having a little bit of audio trouble, and cannot hear anything. So we're going to pick this up from -- it's been a heck of a take. It's been a heck of a week, as you may have noticed.
Senator, we're at the RNC, and what we're getting just after a terrible, terrible weekend, and weekend that changed the country for a very long time. We're getting an idea, from every source, right now, to attic temperature down.
And, of course, this is a good instinct.
I know something that I think you agree with.
But do you agree with the -- the messaging here from the media, who I think has participated in rationing the temperature up quite a bit over the past few years.
MIKE: It's really cute for the media and for people on the left, to tell us to take the temperature down, when they themselves do quite the opposite of that. And then nitpick at every single stage, what Republicans do, what nonprogressives do.
Look, the best thing that they could do, to take down the temperature, would be to end, for example, the political lawfare.
I have said from the beginning, that President Biden really wanted to do that.
He could call for the criminal charges against his political opponent. To be dismissed.
You know, he can do that directly for the federal charges. For the state charges. He could call upon the governors of New York and Georgia, to do that.
That was a better signal than anything I could think of. And, look, it's not going to cost them anything anyway.
Because the way things are going with the Florida charges being dismissed, with the likelihood that the other cases will run into trouble anyway.
It's not panning out the way they had hoped.
It doesn't look like there's a credible path for them to be able to lock him up before November anyway. He would get some credibility, I would think, by doing that.
But instead, the left continues by saying, yeah, Republicans got to change their messaging. And they nitpick at anything, any Republican says, by highlighting the differences between the parties as a reason why we're doing it wrong.
GLENN: So, Mike, Keith Olbermann just came out yesterday. And said, the judge in the Florida case, needs to be arrested by Merrick Garland, even if you have to make up charges. There's nothing like made-up charges to save a democracy.
But what is it, they're definitely going to take this to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Is -- do you know anything about the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and how this might play.
MIKE: Well, look, the judge was right to dismiss those charges. Justice Thomas pointed out some very legitimate reasons why Jack Smith's appointment would pass Constitutional muster. I think he's right. I think the district judge was right to do this. It's very difficult to predict how the 11th Circuit might respond to this.
But I think if the 11th Circuit held this correctly under the law, they are going to affirm that decision.
And in any event, the idea that Keith HEP Olbermann would say that, and I've not heard that until now. It's disgusting.
That is -- it doesn't get much more Third World dictatorish, than that.
It doesn't get much more state-owned media than that. For a media figure to come out and suggest that a judge making a ruling should be arrested, even if it's necessary, based on trumped up, contrived, nonexistent legal charges.
GLENN: So, Mike, yesterday, when -- when I was watching the convention. Before Trump got in there.
It had a sense of joy to it, that I have not -- I mean, it was the happy warrior. It was Reagan 1984.
Ask it at least connected with me. I don't know what it felt like on the floor. And then when Donald Trump walked out, he seemed different. Is it just me?
What did it feel like in the room?
MIKE: He seems much more somber.
He seems shaken, but reinvigorated by the support that he's getting. And I think that shows.
And I think it's impossible for him to have gone through that experience. Nearly getting killed.
It almost being possible to not feel that.
To feel something had changed.
And perhaps, even on kind of the spiritual level, to have felt like he had a mission, and a purpose for which he had been preserved. And that's my sense of things.
GLENN: It is -- does it feel like to you, that we've turned a page, and we're in a different chapter now of this American story?
MIKE: Absolutely. Now, particularly, as it relates to this election cycle. My sense is that on the left, there are -- there are still some weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth going on as to this election. But I think they've almost ripped it off now. They're almost to the point now that -- where they're realizing, this is a lost cause.
Because whether they stick with President Biden or try to cast him off, for someone else. There's so many political problems with that happen.
There's not really a good outcome. But regardless, now that President Trump has been attacked like this. And shot. There's so much sympathy. That naturally goes out to have.
I don't like to use the word unbeatable, because we don't tempt fate. But it's target to feel a little bit like that.
GLENN: Are you hearing that from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle?
MIKE: No. They don't say it. They don't say it out loud. But there are -- there's very much a sense of -- I don't know. It's not quite resignation.
But there's less fight in them.
They don't really have a clear path anymore.
All along, they've been relying on all sorts of things. To demonize Donald Trump. With media. Demonize him further, through the lawfare against him. There were very much looking forward to the perp walk moment where they could cuff him, arrest him, and take him into custody.
And they've thought that that was going to be their big shining moment. And now with the immunity ruling, with yesterday's ruling. From U.S. District Court for the southern district of Florida.
And the -- more recent developments with Trump. Being shot.
Nog none of those things are panning out for them well. And it almost seems like they've all backfired for him. Because again, the public sympathy is turning toward Trump.
GLENN: So it looks like, when Lester Holt asked who was in charge of Secret Service, that the president didn't even really know who was in charge of the Secret Service.
MIKE: He mis-gendered her. He mis-gendered her. He said I -- the head of the Secret Service, it's a woman. So that really raises all kinds of questions, as to whether he knows or is in touch with who is running the Secret Service or not. And I think we know the answer to that now.
GLENN: So the idea that this could happen. And honestly, no one would even have the honor, to step down.
It's another case where something horrible has happened, and no accountability. Is there going to be accountability on this?
MIKE: But there will be an accountability. It's -- it's unfortunate. But the accountability doesn't seem to be coming, because as you pointed out, this thing happened on Saturday. And we absolutely should have seen some accountability, by now.
Even though, it's only Tuesday. But with each passing hour, that nothing happens. It seems less likely during this administration.
But I can assure you with the way things are going. We're going to have most likely, Republican control of the Senate and the House and the White House this year. So I can absolutely assure you, that by then, we will have robust, aggressive investigations. And we will be able to figure out what happened here.
But in the meantime, just basic conversations that I've been having, that I'm sure you have been having, Glenn.
With people who know what they're doing in this area. With current and former Secret Service agents that I know, and people who have sharp shooter experience from the military or otherwise.
Have had conversation after conversation with experts in this area. Who point out things like, look, it is the most elementary point of securing an area, that you don't allow an elevated perch only 148 yards away from the place where you're supposed to be protecting someone.
You don't allow that to go unintended. To go -- you also don't ignore multiple observations, by multiple attendees. Saying, hey. There's a guy with a rifle on that roof.
Somebody ought to check that out.
The minute they were made aware of that.
The president should have been kept off the stage. Or if he was already on the stage, removed immediately.
Until they neutralized the threat.
It's also difficult to understand, why it is that there were so many requests made apparently, from President Trump's campaign for increased security, when they didn't provide it. They just didn't offer that. And that's unfortunate. So it's kind of a perfect storm, in some ways.
Some of it was an unfortunate asset of circumstances.
My understanding is Jill Biden. Vice president Harris. Former President Trump, were all in Pennsylvania, on the same day.
And the Secret Service is stretched thin.
That too, is something we have to look at. Glenn, if they're stretched that thin, maybe we need to restructure the Secret Service.
Maybe, just maybe, we should look at the fact that the Secret Service ought to be devoted entirely to dignitary protection. My understanding is that at any given moment, most of the human resources are devoted to the investigation of financial crimes.
That things like counterfeiting and stuff like that, had been historically part of their mission. Look, the mission of the Secret Service, is kind of a dog's breakfast.
It reminds me a little bit of a union, that Homer Simpson belongs to in the Simpsons. It's like the union of nuclear power plant workers, valet dancers, and patriot chefs.
This -- this odd combination of things that have nothing to do with each other. Maybe the Secret Service needs once in a while, to just about dignitary protection.
GLENN: Well, I -- as somebody who has spent a lot of time with Secret Service, and I admire some of the Secret Service agents, even those though that are just Treasury agents. When they come to town, when a Donald Trump or a dignitary comes to town, these guys are called off their desk, and they're put in the line of duty. And they're not trained for that. I mean, maybe they're trained.
But they're not prepared for it. They're desk people. And it's a totally different mindset, from -- from a desk person, to somebody who has to put their body in the way. And absorb a bullet.
Mike, the thing that you hope you will see, or we will see, this week, from the RNC?
MIKE: Okay. One of the things I want to hear. I haven't heard yet. I hope and expect that it's copping coming.
We hear a lot of talks that sound like a little bit of a diagnosis of the problem. Without a prescription for the cure. I want to hear as much detail as possible. About what it is, that we're going to do to get at the ailment. And by the ailment. I mean first and foremost, the ailment within. And the ailment surrounding the ailment infecting our government. Our federal government.
I -- I want to hear some fairly specific plans about what we're going to do to deweaponize the platform, that is the United States government. I want to hear plans about tax reform, about regulatory reform.
Plans that talk about how it is that we're going to shift power back to the American people, where it belongs.
GLENN: Was it significant to you, that -- what's-his-face?
Turtle head. Stu. That he was -- McConnell was booed yesterday?
MIKE: You know, things like that happen from time to time. And you hate to see that. Any person going through that. I think there are some people who don't like him, and they make their minds known, yesterday, loud and clear.
I don't know whether that's exactly the most productive way of going about it. But it is what it is. I was a little surprised to see it.
GLENN: Yeah. Well, there you are. I'm a better Christian that you, says Mike Lee. (laughter)
Thanks a lot, Mike Lee. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Good to talk to you, my friend.
