Fox News "The Story" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Mike Lee

Interview

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MACCALLUM: So that was back on November the 14th, President Trump on criminal justice reform. And that was spurred at least in part by this meeting with Kim Kardashian but he's without the support of at least one GOP senator and potentially two or three more. Tom Cotton of Arkansas says the bad outweighs the good in this first step bill, that it will allow violent criminals to get out early and he's demanding answers from fellow Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeting this. "My colleague Mike Lee, Senator Mike Lee and I have a good faith substance of disagreement on the wisdom of the First-Step Act. By looking at the bill text hopefully, we can at least agree on the facts."

So here now to respond to that tonight, Utah Senator Mike Lee. Senator good to have you with us this evening.

SEN. MIKE LEE, R-UTAH: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: Your response to him.

LEE: Yes, my response to him is that this is something that will make the American people safer. Look, President Donald Trump has a strong track record of making the American people safe. And President Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party has looked at this bill and understands but we've got to be smart in the way we fight crime. In order to keep the American people safe, we've got to make sure that our federal sentencing system our federal incarceration system is working properly.

This bill makes some minor but very necessary tweaks to our federal criminal justice system and that's why I wholeheartedly endorse it.

MACCALLUM: Well, let me ask you about some of the specific elements of it because it allows for credits for involvement in programs in prison. And if you participate in those programs, some of them are you know rehabilitation programs others apparently according to some definitions go down to you know playing on the basketball team when you're allowed to do that in prison and that kind of community involvement.

But according to Senator Cotton, the following categories are not exempt from receiving these credits, drug-related robberies involving assault, using a deadly weapon to assault a law-enforcement officer, assault resulting in bodily injury to a spouse or child, violent carjacking and tracking and heroin and fentanyl. Your response.

LEE: My response is that none of these people, none of the people in the federal prison system will have any opportunity to participate in these programs unless they're deemed by the Bureau of Prisons to be low-risk or minimal risk. Now, people who engage in the type of violent crime you're describing or rarely if ever going to be deemed eligible for that. And so look, the whole purpose of this program is to identify those who are low or a minimal risk of harm of committing a future crime or of engaging in violent acts, as those who are deemed within those categories will be incentivized to go through programming.

And look it's unfair to say that they will get credit to watch T.V. programs or to play basketball. These are programs that are designed specifically to help reduce the risk of somebody we committing a crime after they get out of prison.

MACCALLUM: Understood. But would it be worth looking at the bill again and perhaps rewriting part of it so that people who have assaulted a law enforcement officer or a member -- or a spouse or a child would never be eligible to have their sentence reduced or do you believe that they should be considered that for that program if indeed they're deemed eligible.

LEE: It's going to have to be on a case-by-case basis. People will have their entire criminal history and their history as an inmate evaluated. And if any of those people can still be deemed to be a low or minimal risk then they might be eligible to participate only to the extent deemed appropriate.

MACCALLUM: How the vote looking on this? Because Senator McConnell basically said you know, look, if there's 60 votes and the sponsors want to bring it to the floor, they can bring it to the floor. Although he didn't sound like it was high on his list. You also have Senators Kennedy, Graham, and potentially Rubio, you know, sounding like they're a little bit on the fence on their yes on this.

LEE: No. Senator Graham is 100 percent yes. Senator Rubio hasn't announced a decision. He's still looking at the bill. I can tell you though, Martha, we have well in excess, far in excess of 60 votes. This thing is going to pass if it comes to the floor and that's why we're calling on Senator McConnell to bring it to the floor.

MACCALLUM: All right, I do want to ask you about the climate change report that came out on Friday. You were asked about it over the weekend and you said that you believe that the programs and the, you know, potential fixes for global warming would cost the economy dearly and that you hadn't seen anything that you thought would be able to improve the economy in the fix. And yet this report says that it's going to take as much as a ten percent bite out of the economy, out of GDP. So how do you square those two things?

LEE: Well, so say the people who really want those government programs, so say the people who want a carbon tax. Let's unravel that a little bit.

MACCALLUM: OK.

LEE: Let's think about what a carbon tax means. This is a tax on poor and middle-class Americans who will find that everything they buy not just when they refill their car but when they fill their grocery cart is going to be more expensive. If they're comfortable putting high tax on poon middle- class Americans on the basis of some promise that maybe this might over the next century have some fraction of a degree of difference in global temperature, a difference that's difficult to measure and for scientists to agree on, I've got a problem with that.

MACCALLUM: All right, I hope they'll get into it more later. Thank you very much, Senator Mike Lee. Good to see you tonight. Thank you, sir.

LEE: Thank you.

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