Mike Lee Gives Three Reasons He's Concerned About Donald Trump, Says He Can List More—Not Something He Couldn't Get Over Though

Utah not a fan of Trump

Gage Skidmore

Asked by NewsmaxTV's Steve Malzberg why he hadn't yet endorsed Donald Trump, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered three reasons: Trump's suggestion that "best friend" Ted Cruz's father was involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination, that Trump's "made statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant," and that he's "wildly unpopular" in Utah, a state with "people who are members of a religious minority church" and thus rightly nervous about Trump. A poll in early June showed Trump and Hillary Clinton tied in Utah with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 14 percent. Utah last voted for a Democrat for president when it chose Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964.

"I could go on if you'd like," Lee offered, before saying Trump's statements were not something he couldn't get over, provided he "heard the right things" from Trump. Lee said he hoped he could "get over these concerns" and that "Trump can help me identify them."

Watch the interview below:

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

There will be quite a few Republicans holding their nose for Trump in November.

[pronomian]

Like they did for romney 4 years ago and mccain before that.

[prolefeed]

He sounds like Paul Ryan demanding stuff from Trump, shortly before endorsing him despite not getting any concessions whatsoever.

Mike Lee is, perhaps, offended by something he didn't mention, Trump questioning whether Romney is a "real Mormon", or at least acutely aware that a lot of his fellow Mormons are pissed off about that.

[VG Zaytsev]

Fuck em.

Hairy Reid's a member in good standing of their cult.

[Suthenboy]

How does that work exactly? Reid is a habitual liar and all around a pretty nasty guy. I never would have pegged him for a Mormon.

[VG Zaytsev]

Their "church" is a fucking racket - that's how that works.

[pronomian]

More proof? Glen Beck, nuff said.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

Et tu Mike Lee?

[GILMORE?]

You were expecting him to endorse Gary Johnson?

[Libertarian]

I think he should. Bonus: I think Lee, Amash, Massie, and Paul would be a lot more popular as part of Hillary's opposition than they would be in a Republican admin.

[GILMORE?]

""I think he should. ""

That's not the same as what i was asking.

See, there is this thing called "the Republican Party"; members don't actually have to like each other very much, but they're generally expected to support the candidacy of fellow party members unless they've got like billions of dollars of their own money and a constituency that is beholden to them until the end of time.

[Thymirus]

There's a perplexing impulse otherwise decent people have to make impermissibly little of Trump's shortcomings in attempts to justify their support for his candidacy. He's a political gamer with nary a principle.

[Cynical Asshole]

There's a perplexing impulse otherwise decent people have to make impermissibly little of Trump's shortcomings in attempts to justify their support for his candidacy.

I call this phenomenon "teamtardation." We'll see plenty of it in supporters of both parties as November approaches. By the time election day rolls around teamtardation sufferers will be incapable of even forming a coherent thought. The only thing their brains will be able formulate will be "My TEAM good... other TEAM BAD..." as they're reduced to a zombie like state. We're already seeing it in some cases.

[Thymirus]

I confronted some anti-Brexit, anti-Second Amendment leftist on my fiancee's Facebook feed over his retarded praise for Clinton, claiming she's America's salvation. His repetitive, static responses were very slight variations of, "Democrats care about people and nature, and Republicans are hateful and dangerous. I support Democrats, and I'm terrified of Republicans."

Trying to explain to him that Trump and Clinton are individuals whose utter awfulness is evident in the way they conduct themselves, and by what they say, was totally futile.

"BUT SHE'S A DEMOCRAT! DEMOCRATS CARE!"

[Cynical Asshole]

We're already well into Idiocracy.

"Brawndo's got electrolytes! It's what plants crave!"

"Hillary's a Democrat! Democrats are good!"

[thrakkorzog]

Yeah, I feel for yeah.

"Trump, said he's gonna kill terrorists and kill their families. If we elect Trump expect more wars."

"So What? Hillary Clinton has already supported every war, or 'military action' the U.S has been involved in over the past 25 year. Including extrajudicial killings of terrorists and their families. There's no problem Clinton doesn't think can be fixed by killing more brown people."

"But Trump's a Warmonger."
"OK Trump's not exactly my first choice. In fact, he's my second to last choice, but at least he's a bit of a wild card."
"If we elect a woman, then there will be no more wars."
"I could cite Thatcher, Boudica, and Indira Gandhi to point out why that doesn't make any sense. But yeah, you're not even listening so fuck it, vaginas equal no wars."

[Thymirus]

Tits + vulva = no war.

It's all the patriarchy's fault. Men and their intrusive, aggressive penises! Gah!

Women, on the other hand, with the ever-serene clitoris, the tranquil vagina, and the peacemaking breasts, are a force for peace.

Therefore, Hillary 2016.

/Logic.

[Hugh Akston]

I'm sort of confused by this comment. Who is Lee supposedly betraying?

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

The People.

[Thymirus]

Morality.

[GILMORE?]

"morality"

uh, politics?

[GILMORE?]

more or less my same point.

[Libertarian]

Religious intolerance, conspiracy theories, and unpopular.

"Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was the parade?"

[mad.casual]

"Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was the parade?"

For the Cuban Missile Crisis alone, I consider being a part of plot to assassinate Kennedy a neutral comment (at worst) about a person's character.

[dajjal]

Anyone who votes for Trump for the sake of the Supreme Court is delusional. He has expressed nothing but contempt for principled judges who rule in accordance to laws and rules that stand the way of his business ambitions. Anyone can copy a list from the Heritage Foundation web site. He is more likely to pick his limo driver or Corey Lewandewski assuming they make up by then. He is a far greater threat to the Constitution than Hillary and has expressed outright contempt for it and has systematically challenged every protection of speech, assembly, press, and search/seizure. The only thing he stands behind is 2A, yet he is eager to create lists of people to prohibit from owning them and which can double as Trumpkins' target practice. Hillary is bad for the SC and the Constitution. Trump is an existential threat.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

+1 Harriet Miers.

[Cynical Asshole]

I believe you mean Supreme Court Justice Harriet Miers. Oh wait...

[Tony]

That is the question--would Trump allow himself to be a puppet of Heritage and other establishment Republican outfits, or will he go completely rogue on everything. I thought the former for a long time, but now that it's clear that he can't even stop being a racist embarrassment for the general election, an Ivanka vice presidency and Gary Busey appointment to the SC seem like the way things are going.

[robc]

Gary Busey appointment to the SC

Are you trying to get me to switch to Trump?

[SugarFree]

Busey is a terrible choice for SCOTUS unless they are going to start letting cameras into the room.

[Cynical Asshole]

Busey for Press Secretary. That'll put him in front of cameras almost every day.

[SugarFree]

Fuck yes.

[WTF]

I would vote Trump if I could get that.

[Thymirus]

http://a.disquscdn.com/get?url.....=600&h=331

[LynchPin1477]

I think he'd do or say whatever he felt he needed to do or say to remain in power, within some fairly broad limits of what his ego allows, so that he could use the office for his own personal gain. He'd be an American Berlusconni. That's not a good thing. I don't think it would be apocalyptic, either.

What worries me more about Trump is how he has gained support. The racist and xenophobic elements are certainly there, but I think that gets a disproportionate amount of focus - there are real, if flawed, economic and geopolitical reasons that a lot of people seem to be gravitating to him. But he's still building support by playing on people's fears and insecurities, by playing the strongman role, and his policy suggestions would be very damaging. If that were the end of it, and we could be rid of Trump after four years, then OK. But the rise of a powerful right-populist party that is ready to fall in line behind a worse strongman than Trump is a problem we'd potentially be stuck with for a while.

[Cynical Asshole]

He is a far greater threat to the Constitution than Hillary and has expressed outright contempt for it and has systematically challenged every protection of speech, assembly, press, and search/seizure.

You mean Hillary "all rights are subject to reasonable regulation" Clinton? I'd say they're equally horrible when it comes to constitutional rights.

Hillary is bad for the SC and the Constitution. Trump is an existential threat.

An existential threat to what? The Republic? Look around you, it's already dead, we just haven't buried the corpse yet. We've got a Congress that sits on its hands and lets the president usurp their war making authority and rule by executive fiat with a "pen and a phone," a SCOTUS that rubber stamps any legislation that gets challenged no matter what mental gymnastics are required, and oh yeah, the presidential candidate that you claim to prefer should be in prison but will most likely skate because rule of law is dead. And you think Trump is an existential threat? We're in full on empire mode dude, the only difference is so far we still have the illusion of choice for who our next Emporer is.

[Cynical Asshole]

Don't get me wrong, they're both horrible choices, but which one is worse? That's like having to choose between being force fed shit with little bits of undigested corn in it or little bits of undigested peanuts in it. Who the fuck cares? Either way you're eating shit.

[dajjal]

Cynical asshole says whaattt?

[Cynical Asshole]

A very cogent, well thought out, logical response...

[VG Zaytsev]

but which one is worse?

Duh, the one that has full support of their political party, the bureaucracy, media and courts is way worse - and that's obviously Hillary.

"But Trump says mean things that embarrass me and hurt muh feellllzzzz".

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Trump represents resurgent nationalism, which is basically the only hope the country has of breaking the back of a left whose worst instincts are being emboldened by demographic shifts that have added a huge amount of lofo bloc voters and the usual SJW campus bullshittery.

We can deal with the SJWs and university goons--what good is college in the internet era anyway?--but not when the Democrats have a stranglehold on the executive and the federal courts and give us a revolving door between exec cabinets & the judiciary and hard-left academia.

[widget]

He has expressed nothing but contempt for principled judges who rule in accordance to laws and rules that stand the way of his business ambitions.

As a businessman he hires lawyers to argue on his behalf. What would you expect him to do if you were a shareholder in one of his enterprises? He might propose poor choices for SCOTUS but he wouldn't get to just appoint them. In fact, he'd get some very strong bipartisan opposition if he did nominate a Harriet Myers. Trump's quirkiness is a good thing. He will not be a powerful president. Congress will find its balls again. Sorry, that's awfully sexist. HRC is a deep state operative with dirt on everyone. She could actually get away with a Lorreta Lynch type SJW SCOTUS appointment.

[dajjal]

They are both horrible. The Senate should vote on Garland before it's too late.

[pronomian]

And the alternative cockroach is??????

[Hamster of Doom]

If a Utah senator is such a vital figure of importance to the life of a woman living in rural Texas that I need updating on his smallest thought and opinion, we might be doing something wrong.

[Hugh Akston]

Wait, are you complaining about the site that regularly reports on both large and small political stores from across the nation and the globe is reporting on the opinion of a fairly prominent politician who doesn't happen to live in your ZIP code?

Seems to me your complaint should be about whoever is holding the gun to your head and forcing you to visit this site.

[Hamster of Doom]

Try assuming that I'm not bitching about the site, and read again. There may possibly be another interpretation.

I'm just spitballing here, of course. What I really meant is unknown and unknowable, particularly to me.

[Thymirus]

I'm in your head. I know you better than you know yourself.

/Magical Internet Anarchist.

[Hamster of Doom]

The day is not complete until someone in the commentariat carefully, logically explains why they know better than I do what I was thinking.

[Riven]

Look, Hamster, if Hugh wanted your opinion, he'd have told it to you.

[Hugh Akston]

Listen catfish, I'm not the bad guy here. I might be the dumb guy, but I'm not sure I would know if I was.

[Cynical Asshole]

A lot of very powerful warlocks and mind readers comment here. I suggest wearing a tin foil hat at all times. It'll also block the mind control rays from the secret government satellites.

[robc]

Dont make the mistake of using aluminum foil though. That concentrates the rays.

[lap83]

I would never presume to know what a hamster is thinking. I had one when I was a kid and she outsmarted us a few times, until we put a dictionary on the lid of her cage so she'd stop escaping.

[Hamster of Doom]

I know so many words now.

So many.

Fear me.

[Riven]

I'm just imagining putting Hamster under a large laundry basket and putting a dictionary on top of it....

Your evil plans have been thwarted!

[Thymirus]

When the cops show up and ask you why you've got a grown woman trapped naked under a massive-ass laundry basket, what'll you say?

[Riven]

Well, I hadn't specified that she needed to be naked, but now that you mention it...

...And I imagine the cops wouldn't mind watching.

[Thymirus]

Two naked women and a dictionary = linguist erotica.

*Pages Heroic Mulatto.*

[(((Renegade)))]

Ummm, no. A naked woman and a bearded diabetic 46 year old from Kentucky who likes catfishing.

[Thymirus]

Is that serious, or a quip?

[Riven]

What do you think?

[(((Renegade)))]

Think of it in a quantum mechanical sense- it is simultaneously true and not true until observation collapses the wavefunction into one state or the other.

[pronomian]

She came with the basket?

[Bodica Slayer of Woodchip]

Hammie - we're all not Michael Hihn.

[thrakkorzog]

Hey Hamster, I feel for you. I live In Allen. If Hillary starts winning Plano, then I need stronger drugs, because seriously that should not be happening.

[dajjal]

I figured Trump would pump the "You're fired!" line to prove he's not afraid to purge the government of the elitists and cronies he always rails against. He never did, and in fact Hillary is using that line against him. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine GJ firing anyone because he tries to be so nice. Yet he's supposedly not afraid to veto bills. Everything's upside down.

[prolefeed]

I'm sure GayJay would fire a lot of fed gov employees in the nicest possible manner.

[AlmightyJB]

Won't be long now

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/28.....ar=synacor

[lap83]

until Skynet?

[Riven]

Mildly relevant joke that had me guffawing for way too long:

"My girlfriend asked me last night why I carry a gun around the house; what am I afraid of, she asks. Decepticons, I answered. She laughed, I laughed, the toaster laughed. I shot the toaster."

[widget]

The Butlerian Jihad awaits too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad

[np]

Perhaps coincidentally, 19th-century author Samuel Butler introduced the idea of evolved machines supplanting mankind as the dominant species in his 1863 article "Darwin among the Machines" and later works. Butler goes on to suggest that all machines be immediately destroyed to avoid this outcome.[4]

Written by Samuel Butler but signed Cellarius (q.v.), the article raised the possibility that machines were a kind of "mechanical life" undergoing constant evolution, and that eventually machines might supplant humans as the dominant species:

Wow, what he describes in the Darwin among the Machines was prescient.
From Psibernetix, the company the DoD and USAF contracted for this:

Our Mother AI, EVE

This algorithm is basically the software implementation of evolution and survival of the fittest. "Populations" of potential systems are made, evaluated, and then bred to create new populations, until an answer is found that meets the desired criteria.

Our patent-pending EVE system takes the place of traditional Genetic Algorithms, but rather than be a passive search algorithm, EVE is herself a Genetic Fuzzy Tree. The fact that EVE is a Genetic Fuzzy Tree that creates and optimizes other Genetic Fuzzy Trees means that she can teach herself how to best teach other AIs.

[OldMexican sine qua non]

Utah last voted for a Democrat for president when it chose Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Those treacherous bastards!

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered three reasons[...]

None of which are valid enough to refuse to endorse a man who knitted together the words 'Mexicans", 'Rapists' and 'Wall' with such mastery that made many among the xenophobic and economically-illiterate right faint in ecstasy.

[widget]

You are talking about what Trump said after a criminal illegal Mexican immigrant gunned down a bystander on the San Francisco Warf.

That was a blunder on Trump's part - an unforced error for someone who generally has better instincts. Mexicans (Mexican-Americans, whatever) in California are very pissed off about that and I don't blame them one bit.

[pronomian]

What is an irishman's proudest moments? When his son takes his first steps......

up to the bar.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I impugn every irishman in the world?

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Dead president = sympathy vote.

BHO better watch his back if Hillary is down in the polls come October.

[pronomian]

Bill will have a friendly talk with trump, take out his wallet to show him pics of his grandchildren and an autopsy picture of vince foster will fall out, just like he did with lynch.

[Microaggressor]

But he said some of them are good people. What more do you want?!

[pronomian]

And some are.