Although Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has long been one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, he did not formerly have a reputation as a MAGA radical.
A lengthy new profile from The Atlantic's Tim Alberta explores how Lee has transformed not only from one of former President Donald Trump's top critics into a staunch Trump supporter, but how the senator himself has undergone a personality metamorphosis that many longtime colleagues and staffers say has rendered him "unrecognizable."
"Once a good-natured Latter-day Saint whose idea of edgy was doing corny impersonations of his fellow senators, he now regularly engages in crude conspiracy theories," writes Alberta. "Once a politician who seemed to be fashioning himself as a modern Daniel Patrick Moynihan of the right, Lee is now a very online MAGA influencer. It’s as if Ned Flanders became a 4chan troll."
Although Lee used to pride himself for having a strict, originalist view of the United States Constitution, Alberta notes that he was also part of the "alternate electors" scheme to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 victory that has landed dozens of people in legal hot water.
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When asked about this, and about Trump's efforts to remain in power by having Vice President Mike Pence unilaterally throw out certified election results, Lee insisted to Alberta that neither he nor the former president did anything wrong.
“Remember, he in fact left office," Lee told Alberta. “Now, sure, he did some unconventional things beforehand.”
“Unconventional?” interjected a seemingly incredulous Alberta.
“Some unorthodox things,” Lee insisted. “Things that I would not have advised him to do.”
In fact, Trump not only pressured Pence to throw out the certified results, but then sent a mob of angry supporters down to the United States Capitol building where they physically assaulted police officers, broke into the building and chanted for Pence's hanging.
Spencer Stokes, who served as Lee's first chief of staff in the Senate, tells Alberta that Lee is simply drawn to whichever faction will give him the most applause — at one time, it was the more libertarian-leaning Tea Party, and now it's the more nationalist MAGA faction.
“Had he not gotten caught up in the Tea Party movement when he first got elected, he might have had a very different career. He might have been much more of a mainstream Republican,” said Stokes. “But Mike craves respect. Those groups on the right gave it to him. And because there were no accolades from the mainstream, he stayed where the accolades were.