Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Bryan Schott: Foreign

hello and welcome to Special Session. I am

your host, Bryan Schott. Well, you think it'd be a

quiet week in Utah politics. We're heading into the

summertime. Memorial Day weekend is right around the

corner. Three, three days off. I hope you have a

safe and happy holiday celebration,

but that doesn't mean that the political

news has slowed down here in Utah. We've got a lot to

talk about this week on the show. It looks like the Utah

Republican Party may have finally cracked the code

on how to overturn SB54 and get rid of

the signature gathering path, which they've hated ever since

it came to be in 2014. And

it's a lot of fun to paint yourself as a fiscal

conservative when you are a Republican,

but with Utah's members of Congress, we found out that

the rhetoric doesn't match the action

when the rubber hits the road. We'll talk about all

that in a second. Before we do, I'd like to take

a moment for a little bit of a shameless self

plug. If you're a business or you know

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Your support will help me continue doing what I'm doing

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my website, Utah Political Watch New. So my

email is in the show notes and I would love to

hear from you. Now that that's out of the way,

let's get to the important Utah political stories from the

last week.

I talked about this a little bit in last week's podcast,

but as I started thinking about it more and

I'm really starting to believe that the Utah Republican Party,

along with the Republican controlled legislature,

they are working on a plan to

overturn SB54, get rid of the

signature path for candidates, and put

caucus and convention delegates in charge

of the nomination process for the Republican Party,

which is Utah's largest political party.

I wrote about that this week, laid out a

possible scenario in which they

could do that this year

and put the delegates back in charge not only for

the 2026 election cycle, but the

2028 election cycle as well. And there's

not a whole h*** of a lot anybody could do about it.

Let's rewind a little bit. At last week's Utah

Republican Convention, there were three things that

happened that got my attention,

that got me started thinking about this. And

the more time I spent thinking about it, the more

convinced I Am that this is going to happen. The first thing that happened

there was a proposal, a change to the Republican Party's

constitution that would kick

signature gathering candidates out of the party. It would

revoke their party status. I've spoken about that before,

how that would put the party in direct conflict

with Utah law and

basically lead to a showdown

with the state and the courts. While they were

getting ready to debate that proposal, the sponsor got up

and said that he wanted to pull it off the agenda.

And he cryptically offered the reasoning

that he was made aware that there was a better

path forward or another way to do this that was in

the works. That by itself is not too unusual.

It's the kind of thing that happens a lot in

political party conventions. I've been going to these things for a long

time. I've been covering Utah politics for more than 25 years.

I've seen this sort of thing happen before.

But then later that day, Utah Senator

Mike Lee got up in his speech

to delegates and he said this.

>> Mike Lee: Mr. Governor, I ask you to convene a special

legislative session as soon as possible, bring

together the legislature and ask the legislature

to restore the caucus and

convention system. Do I call upon all within the sound

of my voice. If you agree with me, please

express it in any way you can to your state

senators, to your state representatives, anyone

else who will listen. Let's

reinstate the caucus and convention

system and tell the state, tell the government,

stay out of our nomination process. It doesn't belong to

you.

>> Bryan Schott: So that's number two. Lee calling on the governor

to convene a special session of the legislature

to overturn SB54.

It's kind of hard to take Lee serious on this

because he has used the signature path

in both of his reelection bids. In

2016, he paid a signature

gathering firm $128,000. And then

in 2022, his campaign paid that same

over $400,000. It's kind of hard to take him

seriously on that. It's easy to dismiss that

as just red meat to rile up the G O

P delegates. But then later in the

afternoon, after he had won another term as

Utah Republican Party chairman, Rob

Axon was speaking to the media and

he joined the chorus of people calling for

the end of signature gathering.

>> Rob Axson: Absolutely. I'm not a fan of the signature path. I believe in the

caucus convention system and that delegate path.

>> Bryan Schott: What specifically would you like the Utah legislature to do

regarding SB54?

>> Rob Axson: I mean, the quick answer to that, I'd like them to

repeal that, but.

>> Bryan Schott: It Sounds like that's not on the table.

>> Rob Axson: It is on one side of the

legislature. The votes are there in the House, the

votes are not there yet in the Senate. But it can't

be a vitriolic conversation. It's not threats.

It has to be a conversation that's transparent and

upfront and collaborative. If we can

show the value of what the Republican Party is doing

and trying to do and trying to grow and build additional

capacity, we make it a lot easier on these

elected officials to take the hard votes of repealing

SB54. It's going to take some time.

How long or how short that is, I don't know.

But what I do know is we have in our ability the,

the opportunity to build a strong party, and that will be a

benefit in repealing SB 54.

>> Bryan Schott: As author Ian Fleming wrote in Goldfinger once,

his happenstance twice as a coincidence,

three times is enemy action. And when you have

these three things happen on the same

day, it really starts to look

like, or at least smell like. There is

a plan in the works to

have the legislature overt

SB 54 and get rid of the signature

gathering path for candidates.

And the fact that they were talking about a special session, the

fact that Senator Mike Lee talked about a special

session really got my antenna twitching.

And here's why. If Republicans

wanted to repeal the signature gathering path, if they

wanted to get rid of signature gathering,

overturn SB 54, if they wanted it to be

in effect for the 2026 election, they would have to do

it before the filing period

starts on January 2, 2026.

Because if they were to wait for the general session

that starts later in January to do this

and tried to make it in effect for

2026, it'd be really hard to do that because

courts kind of frown on changing the rules

after the election cycle has already started.

So if they want to do it for this upcoming election, they

would need to do it before January

2nd. And doing it in a special session has some

advantages. For one, it would give opponents very

little mobilize special

sessions. The agenda is usually only set

about 48 hours before the special

session begins. Sometimes things are added

to a special session agenda that you're not

expecting or that you're not aware of. And

then when they make the language of the

legislation public, it's usually

the day before the special session begins. So there wouldn't

be a lot of time for opponents to mobilize

and react. Let's think back to last

year in August when the legislature called an

emergency emergency session Remember, lawmakers have

the ability to call themselves into special session for

emergencies and other issues. Well, they had a. They called themselves

into a special session in August and

that's when they put Amendment D

on the ballot, which was the proposed constitutional

amendment that would allow them to override

any voter approved ballot initiative.

And that whole process took a little bit more

than 48 hours. What happened was legislative

leaders issued the proclamation to convene that

session session on August 19. The language

of the bill that led to Amendment D, S J

R401 that was released to the public

on August 20. So the next day and then

on August 21 when they had the special session,

it had one public hearing in the Business and Labor

Interim committee and then later that afternoon it

breezed through the House and then the Senate in

a little more than two hours. If they

decide to do this, it would happen in very

short order. We already know that there's going to be a

special session at some point this year. A lot of people

expected it to happen this month in May,

but there was no call issued. They're usually

held in conjunction with

interim days, so I would assume the next one

would be towards the end of June

if they're going to have a special session.

Now if the legislature chooses to go down this

path, the only thing that could stop

this bill is if, if it

was open to a referendum. And as I have explained

before, if a piece of

legislation passes both the House and the

senate with a 2/3 majority,

not only is it veto proof, but it's

referendum proof. And I'm sure

the legislative leaders learned their lesson from

HB 2 67, the union busting bill

that they passed in the 2025 session. It

did not get that two thirds support in both

the House and the Senate which left it open for a

referendum. Protect UT workers. That's the coalition

of labor groups. They got together and

got enough signatures to put it on

the ballot. We're still waiting for an official determination, but the law

has been put on hold because they blew

past all of the signature

requirements to put it on the ballot.

So it's likely going to appear on the 2026

ballot. And I'm sure the legislative leaders

have learned their lesson and I'm pretty sure that

they would not bring something like this

to the floor unless they knew they had

enough votes in the House and the Senate

to forego or to head off any

referendum effort. Doing this would not be

a popular move. There's been some recent polling that shows

only 12% of Utahns want

Candidates to be nominated exclusively

by delegates at political conventions.

44% of plurality. They like the current

dual track system. Taking this move, which would likely

be unpopular, likely caused some backlash.

Uh, they're not gonna bring it to the floor unless they have enough

votes to make sure that there's no

referendum effort. 22 of the 29 seats in

the Senate are held by the Republican Party. They could lose two

votes and still have that referendum proof majority.

In the House, the margin is a little bit

more comfortable. They have 61 seats in the

House out of 75. And they could lose 11

and still have 50 votes in the House to avoid

a referendum. So war gaming this out. If

they were to pass a bill in a special

session to eliminate the signature gathering

effort, uh, it would mean that in

2026 at least there

would be no signature gathering path

for candidates in the Republican Party. Now there are no

major elections. It's the midterm elections, just the

four congressional seats. The entire House of Representatives and

half the Senate would be up for elections. There

aren't any statewide races on the

ballot. But there's a possibility that it could

also be in effect for the 2028

election in which you have, Governor, you have one

U.S. senate seat up, that Senator Mike Lee's U.S. senate

seat, that one's up for election

and the presidential election and other

statewide races. Remember,

SB54 came out of a

compromise that was struck between Republican

lawmakers and a group called Count My

Vote. And this group was in the

process of preparing a ballot initiative in

2014. They were going to try to put it on the

2014 ballot to eliminate

the caucus and convention system from the

nominating process. It would have

the state go to a direct primary where all

candidates gather signatures to appear

on the ballot. Polling at the time showed that if

this, this ballot initiative were to

qualify for the ballot, then

it would probably pass. There was a

big majority of Utahns who favored this move.

And so Republican legislators, they recognized that this

was a problem and they wanted to

preserve the caucus and convention system. So

SB54 was a compromise to keep the

caucus and convention system in place. But

delegates hate it. They absolutely hate

this because it dilutes their power. If you

look at the numbers just in

terms of who these delegates are and the

decisions that they're making, according to voter

registration firms are about 855,000

active Republican voters in the state.

There were

2,650 Republican

delegates who showed up, up for this

year's state convention. That's just

0.3% of all the

active Republican voters in Utah. It really

doesn't take a lot of imagination to think that

a number of office holders

who are Republicans would not be in office

right now if the signature gathering

path was not available to them. The

biggest example is Senator John Curtis.

His career probably would have ended in

2017. He ran

in the special election to replace Representative

Jason Chaffetz after he suddenly

resigned from Congress. Curtis

was a candidate in the

convention, but convention delegates eliminated

him. They picked Chris Herod and. But

Curtis collected signatures, and so did political

newcomer Tanner Ange. He collected his signatures too.

They both got on the ballot. John Curtis won the

primary election and to win a

seat in Congress. And then again in

2024, John Curtis, if there was

no signature gathering path, he would not be in the

U.S. senate today because Trent Staggs

Riverton Mayor he won the

nomination outright at convention. So

he would probably be a US Senator today

if there was no signature gathering pass. Same too for

Governor Spencer Cox. He'd probably be back home on his

farm in Fairview if the signature

gathering path did not exist because Phil Lyman

would have won the Republican nomination

outright at the GOP convention. And when

you look at how the convention process

plays out, not just at the state level, where you have

about 4,000 Republican delegates

who would be in charge of the nominating process

for the statewide races, U.S.

senate, and then about a thousand in each of the four

congressional districts, but when you get down

to legislative seats, sometimes it's just a

few dozen delegates who would make the decision

on who the nomination would be. The example that comes to

mind is Representative Ken Ivory. He was forced

into his first ever primary election in

2024 because his opponent gathered

signatures. If she hadn't gathered

signatures, he would have won the nomination outright

at convention, and he would have only needed 38 votes to do

it. 38 votes. And that's the process that

Republican delegates really want to return to

because they would be the gatekeepers. They would be a

politburo like group that

would control access to the

Republican ballot or to the Republican

nomination. Now, I explained that

SB54 was in response to

a possible ballot initiative. So

you might be asking yourself, well, wouldn't they just start a ballot

initiative again to try and get

rid of the caucus convention system, a ballot initiative,

because if Republicans do this, they will have broken that

compromise. And, and how about just launching a

ballot initiative again? Well, yes, they could,

but there are a couple of hurdles. First of all, if they did it this year, it

would be very, very difficult to get a Ballot

initiative on the 2026 ballot because they'd

be running up against some severe time

constraints. Usually ballot organizers have.

Sometimes it's like 316 days from the day

that they file the language or the

deadline if they wanted to get it on the 2026 ballot.

Because they wouldn't have 316 days before

the election time in February

to turn in signatures.

It's a herculean effort for them to

do that. Not only would they have to hit the same signature

goal that the referendum organizers did, which is

8% of all the active voters in Utah, which

is just over 140,000 statewide,

but they would have to hit that 8%

in 26 of the

state's 29 Senate districts. For a

referendum, you have to hit it in 15

Senate districts. For a ballot initiatives,

you have to hit it in 26 of 29,

not 15 of 29. So it's much harder

to get a ballot initiative

on the ballot. There are some other hurdles that the

legislature has put in the way of ballot

initiatives since 2014.

The biggest one is that if you want to use

paid signature gatherers, they can only be

paid hourly now. In the past they were paid

by the signature. You can only pay

hourly now, which cuts down on

the number of people who will want to stand outside and get

paid to collect signatures. You can still get

paid by the signature if you are

collecting signatures for political

candidates, but not for ballot initiatives. So

that's a new hurdle. Also this last year

there's a new requirement that sponsors would have to

include a detailed breakdown of how the new

law would be funded, whether it would lead to a

tax increase. This probably wouldn't

do that. But they also have

to publish the proposed law in newspapers

around the state for at least 60 days before the election.

And that would cost more than a million dollars. So you've got that

million dollar price tag in addition to

holding public hearings and collecting

all of these signatures all before mid February.

So it'd be really hard for

organizers to get an initiative on

the ballot for 2026 to try

and get signature gathering back

or get rid of the caucus system, convention system for

nominating candidates by 2028. More

realistically is there would

be a ballot initiative to try and

get on the 2028

ballot. But then nothing would

happen until 2030 and 2028 is

a big election. Not only is a presidential election, but

got an open governor's race. Governor Spencer Cox

is not running again. And so

you could see Republican delegates controlling the

nomination. The Republican nomination for

governor in 2028, no signature

gathering candidates at all. Remember, in 2020,

it was a four way primary. Governor

Spencer Cox collected signatures, but he also won the

convention vote. Greg Hughes advanced out of

convention to the primary. You had Thomas Wright and John

Huntsman both collecting signatures.

And then last year, Cox collected signatures,

which saved his bacon because Lyman

overwhelmingly won the vote at

convention. But you could conceivably see

one nominee come out of convention in 2028,

or two people for a primary and no

signature gathering candidates. And that's probably attractive,

especially to some legislators

who are taking a serious look at running for

governor in 2028. And what

a pitch that would be to Republican delegates,

telling them, I'm the guy who got rid

of the hated signature gathering

path. Give me your nomination for governor.

This whole timeline makes a lot of

sense. It's all gonna come down to whether

legislative leaders can get enough votes in the House

and the Senate to head off a referendum if they

can get enough Republicans on board with

this plan. And I would expect that we will

see a special session called

this year to eliminate the caucus

and convention system.

Utah's Republicans in Congress, like

most Republicans in Congress, like to say that

they are deficit hawks. They talk about

the dangers of an exploding national

debt. We're more than $36 trillion

in debt right now. The federal budget deficit,

they talk about the dangers of because they don't

want to, and I'm paraphrasing aggressively

here, leave a big bill for their grandchildren.

So they're very focused on the budget.

Or are they? Because on Thursday,

all four of the Republicans in the House,

Representatives Blake Moore, Celeste Malloy, Burgess

Owens and Mike Kennedy, voted in

favor of Donald Trump's big,

beautiful bill, the budget, and

the tax and spending reconciliation

bill. The that was going through the House. It's headed over to the

Senate. It passed by one vote. All four of them

voted in favor of it. And that was

odd because there was an assessment

of the bill and analysis of the bill by the

nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office

that came out this week that concluded

this bill would increase the

federal deficit by $3.8

trillion, nearly $4 trillion by

2034. Most of that

cost comes from extending the tax

cuts passed during President Donald Trump's first

term. So this bill blows

a $4 trillion hole in

the budget by 2034. Now, this

analysis found that most of the benefit, most of

the financial benefit from this bill would

go to the wealthiest Americans, the

wealthiest households in the country, and the most

vulnerable citizens, the lower income households.

They would face deep cuts to essential

and have their financial resources or have the

financial resources available to them

diminished because of this legislation. The

analysis found that the proposal cuts roughly

$700 billion from Medicaid.

There's $267 billion

in reduced federal spending on SNAP, which is

more commonly known as food

stamps. And it's curious that these

so called the self professed budget hawks

would vote for this legislation. And so I asked them, I

reached out to all four of them and said what

do you think about this analysis from the Congressional Budget Office,

a nonpartisan organization? What, what are your thoughts

on this? Do you have any statement on this while you're supporting this

legislation? And unsurprisingly, none of them

got back to me. They remained completely

silent. And if you look at the

ways that they have

professed their intentions

or, or painted themselves as fiscally

responsible, it's quite striking. Representative Blake

Moore, he's in Republican leadership in the House. He's

on the influential House Ways and Means Committee.

He's also on the House Budget Committee, two very

powerful budgeting committees in the House. And

he's part of a group called the Bipartisan Fiscal

Forum, which is a group of Congressional Democrats and

Republicans who are focused on

quote, the nation's unsustainable

debt trajectory. Um,

in the past, Moore has slammed the Biden administration

for failing to address government spending that

contributed to a growing federal

deficit. And when he sent a

taped video to Republican

delegates at the convention on Saturday,

he said extending the

2017 Trump tax cuts was

crucial, was a crucial step, was something

that was critical for Congress to do.

>> Mike Lee: The key aspect to this is taking what we did

in 2017 and

making that permanent. This was a big part of my very

first election and a lot of the conversation at that time

was how do you extend these

Trump tax cuts? We are going to be able to

through this legislation, make the majority of that

permanent, giving businesses and families

consistency and be this is extremely

pro growth policy that

helps grow the economy, increase

revenues and does

holy wholly good things for, for American

families and businesses and wage growth.

>> Bryan Schott: Moore is also the co chair of the House Doge

Caucus, which is when you saw a bunch

of Republicans cheer Elon

Musk's efforts to come in and slash

federal spending. By the way, he's kind of, kind of

disappeared from Washington and just like

Elon, so has the Doge caucus. They've met a couple of

times and now they don't really exist

anymore. But more who has been

focused on wasteful government spending, on

reigning in the debt, supported this

bill so too did Representative BURGESS

Owens. In 2021. He had a

very strong statement attacking Congressional

Democrats and the Biden administration. When

the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the

Build Better act, which was designed

to help reduce the economic impacts

and help the country recover from the COVID

pandemic, the CBO concluded

that it would increase the federal deficit by

367 billion, a third of a

trillion dollars. And he called the spending bill a

scam and said it would cripple families in Utah and

across the country. He had nothing to say about

this bill. Bill that is

passed on a straight party line vote that

balloons the deficit by nearly $4

trillion. Representative Mike Kennedy has spent years

warning about the impact the national debt will have on

future generations. Kennedy did

not respond to questions about why he

supported the big beautiful bill

that was passed by the House. Also, leading up

to the vote, he dismissed claims that

the reconciliation package would lead

to Americans losing healthcare cover. He called that

fear mongering. But the CBO

analysis says that because of the spending cuts

in the reconciliation package, approximately

15 million Americans are going to

lose their health coverage through the Medicaid cuts.

And by the way, the CBO also confirmed

that because of the increase to the

deficit from this bill that was passed this

week, it's also going to trigger about half

a trillion dollars in mandatory

Medicare cuts. So not only is it

cutting Medicaid, but there will be about half a

trillion dollars in automatic cuts

to Medicare. Now, Kennedy has

claimed that the Medicaid program is rife with

fraud and abuse. And. And any of these cuts

that are coming from a bill would be addressing

that problem. But there's very little evidence to

back up his claims. And Representative Celeste

Malloy, she has not been as outspoken

on the debt and def as she has been in the past.

But it's interesting because right before they

passed this bill, the House stripped out a

provision that she put in that would have sold

about 50,000 acres of public land in

Utah and Nevada out of the bill. So that

was pulled out of the bill before it passed the House.

There were a lot of concerns about that provision,

so she tried to do it along with

Representative Mark Amade of Nevada, but that was stripped out of the

bill before final passage. So there

are plenty of examples of Republic Republicans from Utah

and Congress slamming

increases to the deficit, slamming government spending

when Democrats are in charge. But when the Republicans are

in charge, it seems like they're just fine with

exploding the federal budget by nearly $4

trillion in the next decade or

so.

This is an absolutely terrifying Commentary,

Commentary on where our politics is right

now. This week, a Farmington man was

arrested after he allegedly

threatened and stalked Salt Lake City Mayor Aaron

Mendenhall. He was upset about her move to

change city flags to get around the state

law passed earlier this year, the pride flag

ban. HB77 he started making some

threats on social media earlier in

May. It was right after Mendenhall

publicly unveiled these flags

that she said complied with state law. She

drove a big truck right through a loophole in the law where

they took the sago lily symbol

off of the Salt Lake City flag and added

it to a pride flag, a transgender

visibility flag, and a Juneteenth flag. And then the

City Council adopted those as official flags of the city,

all perfectly legal, all complying with

the law. HB77 but this

gentleman from Farmington made some threats about her in

social media. The most notable one was

a reply to a tweet where he

says, when you see her and her family,

end them immediately. Utah will

rise up. And then there were a couple of red drops, I'm

assuming to signify blood and some

American flags on that. Now, he had an assumed

name on Twitter, but law enforcement was able

to figure out who was behind the username.

They questioned him at his home. He claimed

that his account had been hacked. About an hour after the police

finished talking with him the first time, and he claimed that he had been

hacked, he made another tweet. He tweeted

another reply to Mendenhall

that read time for action. And they realized that

he was actually at the Salt Lake City

and County building at that time,

and security personnel were monitoring him

with security cameras. He was walking around the building,

trying to enter through locked doors. The arrest

report said that when he started entering

the main doors of the building, he noticed that

security was watching him, and so he walked

back to his truck. He was later arrested

and booked into Davis County Jail. This whole

situation is terrifying,

but it's a sign of

where our politics are going. We have much

more violent rhetoric in our politics. It's

become much more us versus them. Our

politics are very tribal. We paint our political opponents

as enemies, as something

to be defeated. And while it is

horrifying that this happened, it's also

completely unsurprising. Friend of the

POD Mike Madrid, longtime political analyst.

He said that we are starting to enter

a period of prolonged, politically

motivated violence. This is his prediction coming true.

And I fear that this is going

to be a lot like the troubles in

Northern Ireland from the late 60s until

the late 80s when there was a lot of

sectarian violence. It was an asymmetrical

conflict. And I fear that

we're going to see more of that over the next

10 to 20 years. Like Mike Madrid has

predicted, this sort of thing has happened to me. I've been

doxed by people who don't like my coverage. I've

had people show up at my house and leave

threats. I understand just

how scary this is and

so take this seriously. There's a reason

why I don't like to go out in public anymore. There's a

reason why I do not go to the

movie theater. I rarely go go to

events in public because I just don't want to take that

risk anymore. People know my face, they know who

I am. I'm not a huge celebrity, but there are people who know

who I am. I don't want to open myself up to that.

And this sort of thing, I fear, is going

to become more and more

commonplace. And I fear you're going to see political

leaders targeted, politicians targeted.

I'm really, really scared that we're heading into

a very dark period of American

history. When I first heard this, my first reaction

was I was shocked. And my second reaction was

I hope this doesn't lead to more stuff like this because

it's terrible.

There was an article in the Deseret News this week that

talked about the anger and

reaction from Phil Lyman supporters to

Senator Mike Lee endorsing Rob Action

for Utah Republican Party Chair. The

article points out that Lyman supporters are calling

for Lee to be primaried Lee to face

a primary challenger and that he's part of the

establishment of the Republican Party. And then

Lee supporters coming in and basically saying, no,

he's not part of the establishment. Here's what you need to know

about this article. The person quoted in the

article as calling for Mike Lee to

be primaried is Sophie

Anderson. I have dealt with her for years. She is

a conspiracy theorist. She's an election

denier. She is part of an online

duo along with Jen Orton,

calling them themselves the two red Pills.

And they have developed a little bit of a

following since the 2020 election. They

roped Phil Lyman into their orbit along

with former Representative Steve

Christiansen who were convinced that there's

fraud in the election in 2020. She first came

to prominence when she led the charge against a

group home for youth in her

neighborhood and then she was arrested

as part of a group that disrupted a

GR school board meeting during the COVID

pandemic. Then she got into election denialism

and she has Connections to

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy. There's video and

pictures of her flying on his plane

down to Las Vegas for a conference with the

Constitutional sheriffs, another far right fringe group.

So Sophie Anderson, who is quoted

several times in this article as an example of

the discontent within the Republican Party with

Mike Lee, and that right there is why you can immediately

dismiss this article. Because

Sophie Anderson is not a credible person.

She is fringy even for the fringes

of the Utah Republican Party. So the fact that

she's quoted extensively in this article, you can

immediately dismiss it. I guess

the thesis statement of this article is that they're

upset that Mike Lee endorsed Rob

Axon and he's become part of

the GOP establishment. That is

laughable. First of all, Mike Lee and Rob

Axon have a long history. Axon was one of

top staffers. So of course Mike Lee is going to

endorse him. I think the thing they're really upset

about is the Donald Trump endorsement

of Rob Axon right before the convention.

That most likely was brokered by Mike

Lee, who has become close to the president.

I think that was the most damaging thing to

Phil Lyman's campaign because he came close to winning

at convention. He lost by only 124.

It was a 52 to 48% split among

the delegates. So he came really close. But I

think that the Donald Trump endorsement, which can

only have been brokered because of

Senator Mike Lee, really kneecapped Lyman

because Lyman made the fact that he was pardoned

by Trump a centerpiece of his campaign for governor last

year and for party chair this year. And

he held up that pardon from Trump as part of his

bona fides. And how it somehow

bestowed legitimacy upon him

in Trump world. And for Trump to come out and then

endorse his opponent right before the convention that

completely kneecapped him. They're not upset that

Mike Lee endorsed Rob Axon. And I don't think that

Mike Lee's endorsement is the reason why Rob

Axon won, at least not the complete reason. I think it's

the Donald Trump endorsement and that's why they're calling for Mike Lee

to lose in a primary. Who's going

to challenge Mike Lee seriously?

He fended off two challengers in 2022

to Ali Isom and Becky Edwards.

And I just don't see anyone mounting a serious

challenge to Mike Lee in the Republican

Party. The nomination is his for as long as

he wants it. He's going to keep that seat for as long as he

wants. Unless there is a titanic shift in

Utah's political landscape.

And I really think that the Republican Party

dodged a bullet here because if they had

elected Phil Lyman as the party chair,

it would have turned over the keys to the party to

Sophie and Anderson. What's not said in this article is

that she was one of the people who was a

major player in Lyman's campaign.

She was doing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff for

Lyman. She's been an ardent supporter of him. This

article doesn't mention that at all. It doesn't mention the

role that she played in that campaign.

Had he won, she would have had access to a

large portion of the Republican apparatus,

Republican machinery in this state. And that, that

I think should terrify

and give a lot of Republicans pause because

she was almost given a large amount of

power. I suspect that had he won,

Lyman was going to try to hire her for

staff position in the party or make

her some sort of advisor, give her access

to a lot of the data and a lot of the

fundraising mechanism for the party. And

that would have been a major disaster. So one,

you can dismiss this article in the Deseret

News because they don't dig into Sophie

Anderson. They probably should have found a better person to

personify the discontent with Mike Lee

within the Republican Party. And two,

to think that Mike Lee is somehow the

establishment now. He's the mainstream

of the Utah Republican Party, but he's not the establishment. To think

that he's the establishment is somehow just completely

laughable. Foreign

that's going to do it for this week. I hope everybody

has a wonderful and safe

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Once again, I hope you have a safe and happy Memorial

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