Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mike Lee

Interview

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Here more on all of this is Utah Senator Mike Lee.

Let's first talk about S.R.1, let's talk about the infrastructure, the use of reconciliation and then we'll get to this issue about the filibuster in a minute.

SEN. MIKE LEE (R-UT): Fantastic. Look, I'm thrilled that we defeated S.1 tonight. This was the victory for the angels. This bill was written in hell by the devil himself.

This bill wouldn't make it easier to vote. This would make it easier to vote illegally. This is the "corrupt politicians act", and I'm glad we defeated it.

Most importantly, Sean, we have to remember that this would have arranged for federal taxpayer dollars to fund campaigns. Several of my colleagues have pointed out to me in the last few days that in their campaigns, if this bill had been law, they would personally have been entitled to tens of millions of dollars in federal taxpayer subsidies into their campaigns.

Sean, there's one thing the American people do not want, and that's for the federal government to be running politicians' campaigns. And I'm thrilled that we stopped at.

HANNITY: All right. There are five things I've identified. If we want integrity in our elections and if we want confidence and results, I think there are five simple things.

One is voter ID. You need ID to get into a Democratic National convention, the White House, the Capitol. You needed to buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine, and a pack of cigarettes or a Juul pod which I happen to have handy at all times.

But the question is, so if you need for all of that, you need signature verification, you need voter ID, you need chain of custody controls, you should clean up and modernize the voting rolls every election season, that just makes common sense. And most states have laws that say partisan observers get to watch the vote counts start to finish.

We know none of that happened in 2020. Is there anything I'm missing, anything you would add? And why would anyone oppose any of those items?

LEE: No one should oppose any of those items. Unless, of course, they want to steal the election, unless they wanted, of course, undermine the integrity of an election.

In some states, they do have those things. In some states, they did follow them, and those states have more -- have elections that actually have credibility.

One of the flaws in this is that it would have consolidated all of this law and made it federal, and effectively precluded states from updating their own voter registration files or imposing voter ID requirements, or any of the good things that you identified. It would have also made normal the practice of vote trafficking whereby professional political operatives could come in and for money collect votes and then cast them for other people.

HANNITY: Right.

LEE: That is illegal in most good states and should be illegal everywhere. This law --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I'm from New York, Senator.

LEE: -- illegal everywhere.

HANNITY: I don't trust people that pick up other people's ballots. I don't know, I believe some nefarious things potentially could happen.

Let me ask you especially about -- all right. So, you have Joe Biden. You have Stacey Abrams. You have Raphael Warnock. You know, all -- Joe leading the call, Jim Crow 2.0.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Joe Biden has represented the state of Delaware for decades, right? Maybe even you'd argue centuries, it's been so long.

Now, in the state of Virginia, their new law allows 17 days in person or early voting. They have a drop box in every precinct in Georgia. You don't need an excuse to do a mail in ballot or an absentee ballot.

In the state of Delaware, there's no drop boxes. There's no early voting.

Both states require voting ID.

How does he get away with saying George's new law, which is far more accessible than his state of Delaware, how does he get away with playing the race card and calling it Jim Crow 2.0?

LEE: He gets away with it because he's a progressive Democrat and he therefore has a compliant media enterprise behind him.

But this is wrong. This bill S.1, of course, had nothing to do with 2020. It had nothing to do with Georgia's law this year or Texas' law this year. No, this was written years ago. That was all a ruse.

And that's why it's so essential that we make sure this remains defeated. You can read more about it on my website, at leeforsenate.com. But I've been absolutely concerned, panicked, that if there's any chance this becomes law, it would be devastating for the country. This would be bad for everyone other than Democratic political incumbents.

HANNITY: All right. We have one great senator from Utah -- Senator, thank you for being with us. We appreciate it.

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