Small children, adults and seniors attended the town hall meeting that lasted almost one hour and 11 people were able to bring their concerns to Lee, which he addressed on the spot.

Although Lee has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate, he made clear his support for former President Donald Trump during the town hall meeting.

The supportive statement was in response to a question from a man who said he grew up in Utah, is an 80-year-old military veteran and a retired professor and businessman. He mentioned that Lee pledged his allegiance and respect for Trump in 2020 and compared him to one of his heroes, Captain Moroni, a military commander from the Book of Mormon.

The man asked Lee, “Are you prepared today to defend your allegiance to Donald Trump and want him to be our next president? If so, how can you defend his dishonest, obscene and criminal actions during his entire life?” The question was met with cheering, clapping and boos from the crowd.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

Lee responded by saying, “Since Jan. 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden took office, the average Utah family has been incurring $1,000 of additional monthly living expenses every single month. … So yes, do I wish Donald Trump was still president of the United States? Absolutely.”

“I wish he were still president, and if he gets elected president again, that would be good for America,” he added. “America has suffered enough under Joe Biden.”

There were many community members from around Utah who voiced their support and love for Lee, and there were many who voiced their concern about certain legislation and asked which bills Lee was in support or not in support of.

One man asked if Lee would be curtailing President Joe Biden’s executive order 1authorizing a digital currency, which the man said “has the potential for totally disrupting our lives and destroying the wealth that we’ve accumulated.”

Said Lee, “That’s going to happen over my dead body. I will fight that at every turn.” He said if a digital currency is adopted it will be the end of “sound money” as well as the fourth and fifth amendments. Those pertain to unlawful searches and seizures and criminal procedures.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

“They will be able to use your currency, your financial transactions to track everything you do, and with it to regulate your life,” he said. “If you want to live in China, move to China. You want to live like the Chinese people have to live?”

Lee has introduced legislation in the Senate called the No CBDC Act, referring to a central bank digital currency.

To open the meeting, Lee spoke of the importance of the checks and balance system within each branch of government. When each branch and level of government focuses on the functions they should be over and “stays within its sphere,” Lee said liberty and protection is provided to the people. He added, “Whether or not a Bill of Rights is worth more than the paper on which it’s printed has everything to do with whether that system of government has protections in it and protects the people against the dangerous accumulation of power in the hands of a few.”

He claimed that over the past 80 years, the vertical protection of federalism and the horizontal separation of powers has been replaced with an inverted pyramid of structure with state and local levels of government on the bottom with a broad base of power and a narrow base of power at the top. He said part of the issue comes from Congress often delegating lawmaking power instead of creating the laws themselves. However, when this delegation happens, Lee said it is often unelected bureaucrats making the laws.

The solution to this, Lee said, is a legislative proposal called the REINS Act, which stands for “Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny.” The REINS Act, Lee explained, requires rules that come from an executive branch agency that are “affecting your material rights, the way you run your business or live your life, subjecting you to the risk of imprisonment,or fines or something else. Those rules would have to be approved by Congress.”

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

Lee also addressed how to prevent the misuse and “wasteful” spending of taxpayer money. “This is a simple problem with a simple solution,” he said. “In this country, we’ve been electing people who will vote for any spending bill — literally any spending bill, even a spending bill that spends $1 trillion or $2 trillion more than we can bring in. And sadly, it’s been Republicans and Democrats alike who have been doing it. … Those people need to lose elections if we’re ever going to get that under control.”

Moving the conversation to education, one resident asked, “Could you explain to me why it is deemed inappropriate to teach gay children, trans children and otherwise queer children that nothing is wrong with them, that they’re not broken?”

Lee responded by saying the federal government’s role is not over primary and secondary education. He said many of the bills regarding that topic have been voted on because parents in many states are concerned that an inappropriate amount of attention is being paid to sexual issues.

The resident asked what was sexual about the issues brought up, to which Lee responded, “The issues that you brought up, I think most people wouldn’t find offensive, but I think those statutes usually deal with something broader than what you described. But again, (I am) not a state lawmaker; take it up with your state lawmakers.”

Lee was unavailable after the town hall for follow-up questions from the Daily Herald.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald