Steve Daines Three Part Interview
Part 1
The People’s Post:
By far this was the most popular question and we thought it was really an important one.
I think you had a statement back on Jan 2 about restoring Montanans confidence in elections so in light of that the biggest question was “Why did you withdraw from the challenge electoral college after first supporting it?”
Daines:
Well, here are the facts. I had reached out to the White House, the Presidents team, asking for the evidence that would suggest that one state, two states, three states or more should be challenged and actually rejected during the electoral vote tally which happened on Jan. 6th. They said, “Steve we will get it for you.” And I said, “Listen you provide me the evidence because I want to present that on the floor of the United States Senate and I will object. Ted Cruz and I and about 10 other US senators put together a statement and we, by the way, to be clear the intent of the 11 senators who were part of that went with Cruz were to object which I did. I signed the objection because you have at least one senator to object and you have to have at least one house member to object and if that happens in the joint session then you go to the separate bodies senate and house then you have a debate for two hours. So, I did sign the objection but our intent, and you can go back and look what Ted Cruz, he was kind of a spokesperson for our group, was not to overturn the election on Jan 6. Our intent was to create an audit group with bipartisan group of senators members of congress and court justices that would go through and do an audit of every state. We would then present the findings to their state legislatures and allow the state legislatures to reconsider their certification of the electoral votes because our founding fathers were wise in not putting a concentration of power in Washington, D.C. None of us, as conservatives ever want to see congress overturning an election. Our founding fathers were deeply skeptical of concentrations of power and that’s why we had separations of power. That is the role of the states, unless there is absolutely egregious evidence that is compelling and says you know Arizona you've certified the election but look at all this evidence here that says you were in error in doing so. Then would be a place where we would have a debate and possibly send it back to the states.
The People’s Post:
Sen Cruz and Sen Hawley seemed like the only two who said “No we’re sticking in here and keeping the challenge.
Daines:
It’s a two-step process so you have to object and I did that. The objection then created the two-hour debate. But then I think the actual question here is what about the actual vote that occurred? You read the Role Call of states in alphabetical order and the first state that was going to get an objection was Arizona and that’s an A and that was the state remember it was 10,457 votes separated Biden from Trump in Arizona in their certified results. Remember I pleaded with the White House for evidence. They never gave it to me just to be clear, never got it and had I had the evidence then I would have gone and made the argument and said ok Arizona’s evidence says I should overturn Arizona’s results. Our goal and my goal was not to overturn a state unless the evidence was compelling. Also, our goal was to get this audit committee put together and we didn’t have the votes to do it. as i walked down on the floor just to be clear on this, I had made the decision when I left my office that I wasn’t going to overturn any state. I’d object yes to have the debate but unless we had the evidence its chilling to me to think and I disagree with my colleagues who actually cast that vote overturning a state without the actual evidence in hand. Can you imagine in 2024 President Trump runs and he wins and it comes down to Montana lets say 3 electoral votes hypothetically and there’s talk about voter irregularities in Montana. Even though we have certified our election, can you imagine Kamala Harris stepping in and senators and congressman and saying we are going to overturn the state of Montana without having any evidence in hand That’s what we had on Jan 6. I know there’s more audits going on and investigations but I would humbly submit to you that they have yet to produce the evidence that would suggest Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin ,those are the three states that were really the biggest problems, and Pennsylvania to some degree and were still waiting to see it.
The People’s Post:
So, do you support the current Arizona Audit?
Daines:
Yes, absolutely.
Part 2
The People’s Post: What is your opinion on the January 6th shooting of an unarmed air force veteran named Ashley Babbitt who was shot by a capitol police officer still unnamed.
Senator Daines: Well, the DOJ is conducting an investigation on this right now and I have to be very careful on this because these are criminal investigations and they're going to get the information and I think frankly having politicians trying to exploit this is disappointing to me I will just tell you this, you aren't going to have me exploit this. This is an absolute horrible situation where, you know, she lost her life that day…and I want the members of law enforcement and the DOJ to do their investigation. I think this is the best way to approach this versus politicians getting in front of us here and trying to exploit this and stirring everybody up or raise money off it. I won’t go there. Let the investigation conclude.
The People’s Post: It would seem you tweeted about the capitol officer who died, which was tragic, but they never heard you talk about Ashley Babbitt. Why is that?
Senator Daines:
Oh, Ok I don't know if we sent something out. It was horrible what happened that day. I’m sorry if people assumed that it didn’t …it was a horrible moment for all of us to see someone lose their life that day. My apologies if that’s the case but its terrible, horrible. Everything I read about her, her life, her husband. It was just a really sad outcome. Let’s let the department of justice investigation continue here and get to the bottom of what was going on there. I literally went to see the place where she fell when she was mortally wounded just hours after that happened. I wanted to go see what happened, see it myself just off the floor of the house literally just 30 or 40 ft. to the doors of the house chambers.
Staff Member: I apologize to interrupt we are pushing upon time
People’s Post: Can we ask you one more question?
Part 3
People’s Post:
Do you support the current Arizona election audit?
Senator Daines:
They have every right to continue to audit and get to the bottom of the truth, absolutely! Here’s what we need to do. We need to restore the faith in elections. Were there voter irregularities in the last election? Yes. Was there enough irregularity that we can have the compelling evidence to suggest we overturn a state? We have not yet seen that. Absolutely, always. It will always help us get better as it relates to tightening up procedures or processes, whether it was some cyber intrusion on an electronic system or, I think more likely. What I have seen is just you have voters who do not have actual physical addresses who got ballots to post office addresses and mailed them in. They get all jumbled up and you should go back and do forensic audits. Do these voters still live at these addresses? That takes a lot of time, and that’s one of the problems we exposed. It was that there was not enough time from Election Day to certification to actually do what audits needed to ensure that there was not voter fraud.
I’m proud of what Montanans have done, by the way - requiring identification photo ID now to vote. And, by the way, the reason I hope we, as conservatives, understand is that you don’t want Washington, DC running elections. You don’t! That’s what Pelosi and Schumer are trying now. They have a bill that will take over and federalize the elections. We've got to respect the states, and that’s why, unless I have the evidence in hand, I would not vote against certified state results. And the White House said they would give me some. And guess what, they never did. And I swore an oath to the Constitution, and that was to defend and protect the rule of law. And as much as I wanted a different outcome in the election, let me tell you something, the evidence was never there. And I’m happy to have that discussion more, but I think it is important that folks understand what was going on that day (Jan 6th).
The People’s Post: We’ll pass that on to the Gallatin Valley Republican Voters.
Paid for by Gallatin County Republican Chair Committee. Treasurer, Debbie Moran PO Box 2005 Bozeman, MT 59771-2005