Senator Mike Lee
Appearances
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Doing great. It's good to be with you, as always.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Oh, heck yeah. And look, it's been a few years since I've made that request, but we've got a new sheriff in town. Our new energy secretary, our new president are open to this. In the past, they've told me to pound sand. It wasn't just today isn't a good day. They told me I could not go. Not then, not ever. And that's BS.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
And, you know, perhaps I do need to bring along an assistant or a mouse, as you put it, named Glenn.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
And most of the video footage that I saw from that visit in the 1970s, which is the most recent one I've seen, it looked to me like mostly a lot of fanfare about the door. I mean, there's this giant door that's like 10 feet thick and about 10 guys it took to operate all the wheels to open it.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
But you know, there wasn't a lot of time spent on the gold, very little time spent actually inspecting it, testing it, making sure it was there, that it was what it purported to be. That's one of the many reasons why the American people, as our government has gotten bigger, as it's gotten more expensive, as it's gotten more intrusive, as it's gotten more, frankly, dishonest.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
People don't trust it, and they want verification.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
No, no, no. You're exactly right. Look, there are two rules in life that everyone needs to know. Number one, a good way to end any party. or at least the fund of any party, is to use the word rehypothecation. A good way to end the trust in a government is to inject the word rehypothecation into their gold reserves.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
That's going to end a lot of the trust that people might have in the financial stability of that country and its monetary system. And so I think that's a very good question that we need to ask when we visit Fort Knox together.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Yeah, that seems a little bit anemic for what is needed here. Now, if they start, one could say, I suppose, that it is a good start. But remember, this is not the budget that the Senate still would have to act on it. And I personally prefer a much more aggressive approach and would much rather see a more aggressive approach like that.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
It's been discussed extensively by my friend and colleague from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson. Senator Ron Johnson has pointed out That if we just went back to pre-COVID spending levels and then made upward adjustments for inflation and population increase since COVID with respect to Social Security and Medicare, that we could get very, very close to balance.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
We could be at balance within just a few years, like two, three years. So why not take a more aggressive approach like that? Why, why not use the budget as an opportunity to set that plan, set that predicate to just say, we're not doing this anymore because we can't afford it. And it's going to shut our country and our autonomy down if we keep messing with this.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Well, okay. So there are a lot of reasons. A lot of people are eager to point out, look, um, as Republicans have a top, they've got only, uh, You know, depending on the day, the phase of the moon, the day of the week, they've only got that one, two or three seat majority cushion. And there are a lot of variances of opinion, but this is exactly the kind of moment when we need leadership.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
We need bold people to just stand up and say, no, we're not doing this. We're going to be more aggressive about it. There's still opportunity to do that. This is not the end of the process. We're still very near the beginning of the process. And I personally hope that the, Ron Johnson approach will gain more appeal and more of that will get injected into whatever ends up getting passed.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Yes, yes, it would. The REINS Act bottom line is that it requires what the Constitution already mandates in Article 1, Sections 1 and 7. We read that you cannot make a federal law without Congress, and that to pass a federal law, that requires a couple of things. First, bicameral passage, meaning passage of the same bill in the House and in the Senate.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Secondly, you have to present that to the president, who can then sign it, veto it, or acquiesce to it. Now, that should be simple, right? Because Article I, Sections 1 and 7 make that clear. And yet, for the last 85 years or so, Congress has been in this death spiral of delegating its lawmaking powers.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
In short, we will say things like, well, we shall have good law in Area X, and we hereby delegate to Agency Y the power to make good law in that area. That's nonsense. That makes the work easier for members of Congress, and it insulates members of Congress from political accountability in all the wrong ways.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
100% because these people who make most of your laws measured by weight, volume, regulatory compliance costs, you name it, are now made by men and women, not of our own choosing. This is a real problem. Remember what Madison said in Federalist 62? Of course I do. He said in effect, he said, it'll be of little avail to the American people that their laws may be written by men of their own choosing.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
If those laws be so voluminous, complex, and ever-changing, they can't know from one day to the next what the law says and what it requires. We don't live in that dystopian nightmare. That's exactly what I remember. 100,000 pages a year is what these bureaucratic pinheads put out every year. And not only are they so ever-changing, you can't know what the law says from one day to the next.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
They're not even written by men and women of our own choosing. This is tyranny of the sort that would have made King George III blush with envy. These guys are tyrants, and we've got to take it back. It is Congress's fault. Congress must fix that. Congress may fix it and must fix it by passing the range act.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
Okay. So the affirmative defense for individuals, if you are sued, remember these laws put out by the beer credit print heads, if you violate them, they can put you in prison. They can find you millions of dollars. They can shut down your business.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
The new provision of the RAINS Act that I inserted last year would allow an individual who had one of these enforced against him or her to raise as an affirmative defense, hey, I wasn't on notice. You have to be adequately placed on notice. It's one of the hallmark characteristics of due process. You're placed adequately on notice as to what your obligation is.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
And the way you need to be placed on notice is that something is passed by vote to the houses of Congress and then given to the president for signature. And if you can point out that the affirmative legal obligations in that regulation were not evident on the face of any statute passed by Congress, then you could use that as a defense and you can be let off the hook for that.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
This is as it should be. But currently you can go to prison or have your business shut down if you don't comply with whatever the bureaucratic. So you have to do right.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
No, that's, that's exactly right. And I tell some stories that came a book about 10 years ago called our last constitution. It's, uh, uh, tell some stories about among other things, a father and son, a construction duo who were building houses in Florida, Escambia bay. They ran a foul of one of these regulations. They were not on notice of it.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
They both ended up serving prison time just for clearing some land. They hadn't even built anything on it yet. They started to clear some land to get ready to dig a foundation. for some homes. They had no reason to believe they were violating any regulation.
The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Vivek Ramaswamy | 2/26/25
But unbeknownst to them, some bureaucratic pinhead had designated that a wetland area, even though it didn't have any visible wetland characteristics, and they went to prison for it. This is exactly the kind of thing the RAINS Act would protect you from.