us. trace: i want to play this part of this op-ed for you. the video op-ed in the new york times and it was titled please stop telling me america is great. i m going to play this and get your response. it watch. a bit of patriotism is great. especially when it s built on old or fake news, so as we gear up for another election season for politicians tell us america is great, or that it isn t, and then proceed to make it worse, let s try a more truthful approach. america may once have been the greatest, but today america, we are just okay. trace: senator, we played you 28 seconds, that was a much longer piece. it goes into saying how america is really more impoverished and countries like latvia, lithuania, and mexico, saying how our health care is worse. a lot of the claims critics say are absolutely preposterous. your take on that new york times piece? absolute nonsense.
says this is what our founders would have wanted. republican senator from utah mike lee joins me now. he sits on the senate judiciary committee and is the author of our lost declaration, america s fight against tyranny from king george to the deep state. senator, so good to see you. thank you for joining us, sir. thank you, trace. trace: is it so bad to show off our compliments on fourth of july? is it so bad to show off our pride on this day? no, not at all. tanks are great, and if we want to clap for some tanks as they come by before we light up the grills and watch fireworks, that s fine. what these people are needing to come to terms with is the fact that this president, president donald j. trump, has been more respectful of his power as commander in chief and more careful about using it than any president in our lifetimes. and i think that they are freaking out about that and that s part of why they re mad about this. this isn t a problem. this is celebrating our country and
time because that message is resonating with people. trace: you when i talk about this hold on one second, jack. we talked about this on friday morning. i was on america s newsroom and it was after the debate on thursday and we talked about the fact that bernie s name really never came up. we were talking about on friday morning and his name just never came up, and that s not a good thing. it really isn t, because you want your name to resonate. bernie sanders is talking about the same things in 2020 that he was talking about in 2016, so that tends to be a problem. if it s not resonating now, when is it going to resonate, quickly. what i would say as he remains in the top four contenders of a race that is 22, 23 plus people. that s pretty impressive. trace: jack, your thoughts on that? let me say this. i don t think is going to be the nominee. i don t think he has a shot at being the nominee anymore, but whether he is or not, he s won the debate because if you look at the t
if 20 billion have volunteers over a ten-year period matt, plus he wants grants on top of that. we want people to volunteer but you should do it through your church or the united way or the red cross. maybe your local school. there s plenty of places to volunteer. what he wants us to implement his own policies and his own politics and have the government pay for it by the tune of $20 billion. that s just more big government. trace: i think you re right. what s happening happening as a lot of churches, a lot of private organizations are growing, so the need for some of these other groups isn t as vast as it was years ago. he said, quoting here, this is because our national our social fabric needs axing is what he says. this is just coming off the debates and something else to kind of lift him up, is that a fair assessment? yeah, but it s a retread of an old idea. he s going to present it as if it s new and it s exciting, but it s just big government
politics. a classic liberal line that they need more government to fix the nation has problems. but they really should be doing is focusing on and supporting those nonprofit groups. let them do their thing but without the government funding, this decision is to take money out of somebody s wallet and give it to somebody else. i don t want them taking that money out of my wallet. we are already $20 trillion in debt. trace: it s interesting because we were talking to the previous panel but how the performance of bernie sanders isn t what they were really hoping for. pete buttigieg came at him in the debates and he didn t have a breakout moment, but he was steady throughout. his fund-raising appears steady. he s trying to lift himself, is this kind of a reaction to what happened last week during the debates? just looking for something else to lift himself up, and to do that he s moving a bit more to the left [boos] i think you ve seen senator warren in the moves that she s made, beca