Mike Lee

I know that the world is focused on Iran but here’s what President Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday about the so-called “SAVE Act” (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility): "It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL."The original bill, introduced by Senator Mike Lee way back in January 2025, has undergone a few enhancements at the hands of Senator Lee's colleagues, but the core desideratum is simple: that American elections must be secure, i.e., only those entitled to vote should be allowed to vote.

The world judges a country by its capital. Paris, London and Rome are showcases of national ambition and a source of pride. How might one judge the United States after visiting Washington, DC? Corrupt, lawless and increasingly unsafe after dark? In a city meant to project strength and stability, one finds instead great domes and marble colonnades sharing the streets with open-air crime scenes. This July, a 21-year-old congressional intern, Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, was shot to death after being caught in an ongoing dispute between two rival groups. In 2023, Phillip Todd, a staffer for Senator Rand Paul took a knife to the chest.

Politico recently published a piece titled “Mike Lee Can’t Stop Throwing Social Media Grenades. His Church Isn’t Happy.” It cast Senator Lee as a liability to his own religion and positioned him against the church. The entire article hinges on a premise that is misleading at best and manipulative at worst: that Lee, being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church), must conform to a certain political tone or risk disapproval from “his Church.” But this article isn’t reporting on some objective religious rift. It’s a political attack dressed up in ecclesiastical robes. The author of the piece is himself a member of the LDS church.

A lot can change in a year. We have a new president, a new congressional majority, a new season of The White Lotus.  But what about crime in Washington, DC, the subject of my last piece for this magazine back in April 2024? Is our nation’s capital still racked with carjackings and homicides – or have we begun inching our way back to some form of public order? In 2023, Washington saw 274 reported homicides, making it the district’s deadliest year in two decades. There were also 959 carjackings and 3,470 robberies. Overall, violent crime was up 39 percent. We did a lot better in 2024. There were just 187 murders, a 32 percent reduction, while robberies dropped 39 percent.

When a man has three consecutive daughters, people inevitably ask if he intends to “keep going for a boy.” I always handle these questions with the requisite courtesy laugh before speaking honestly: I’m not going for anything beyond what is assigned me by the Most High, who is both funny and just. After six in a row, people start believing you. They will return your courtesy laugh and pause before moving on to other small talk. The bomb won’t go off until they hit the pillow: “Holy moly, what did McMorris do?”   After Friday, I will amend my answer with a hearty “Yes. God is both funny and just.” For nothing would be funnier than if he sent me a son.

After a long wait, the text of the bipartisan Senate bill for Ukraine and border funding was finally released on Sunday night. The massive piece of legislation clocks in at 370 pages and, in addition to the border policy changes previously reported on here, sends an additional $60 billion to Ukraine, tightens asylum standards, prohibits removal of unaccompanied minors, authorizes $1.4 billion in FEMA funding for resources for migrants settling in the US and gives President Biden the authority to overturn any emergency authorization at the border. The House GOP’s verdict is in: Speaker Johnson asserted that the legislation is “dead on arrival” in his chamber.  “I’ve seen enough.

Sometimes the true power of someone new to politics is that they don't arrive in Washington with any of the preconceived notions about the possible. In a political moment that is decidedly post-norms, that's what made Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville's stance against an array of foes, including many on his own side of the aisle, so impressive. Tuberville came to Washington as a cipher. He was a Republican, certainly, and a conservative endorsed by Donald Trump by dint of the failure of Jeff Sessions's brief tenure as attorney general. But it was convenient to think of him as a former football coach who viewed being one of the hundred members of the United States Senate as a step down from the task of raising up some of the most talented athletes in the nation.

After the US House stole the spotlight last week, sources on the Hill say a similar, yet more “behind-closed-doors” brouhaha is brewing within the Senate. In the face of a government shutdown, conservatives have been in “constant” cross-chamber communication. For instance, when the Schumer-McConnell bill, with its $6 billion of funding for Ukraine, was on the table the weekend before last, Senate Republicans were apprised that House Democrats were filibustering to get it passed. As the House convened on Saturday September 30, and the Senate convened at noon for a 1 p.m.

A group of Republican congressmen and senators sent a letter to top US government health officials on Monday demanding answers on recent claims about "directed evolution" research made by a Pfizer employee during an undercover sting operation. A copy of the letter, which was sent to Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Robert Califf, and National Institutes of Health acting director Lawrence Tabak, was obtained by The Spectator. Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson, and Representatives Chip Roy, Andy Biggs, Greg Steube, Eric Burlison, Bill Posey, Mary Miller, Lauren Boebert and Bob Good all signed the letter.

When Republican senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul walked out of a military briefing Wednesday over the recent US attack that took out top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, they were not happy about how that exchange went.Sen. Paul said the briefing was 'less than satisfying', blasting the meeting as 'insulting to logic and the Constitution'.A fiery Sen. Lee elaborated further. 'I had hoped and expected to receive more information outlining the legal, factual, and moral justification for the attack,' Lee said. 'The briefing lasted only 75 minutes, whereupon our briefers left. This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate.