In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee. He’s best-known for opposing aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of brain damaged cartoon dogs online.

Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.

Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.

Politically, Mike Lee isn’t just conservative — he’s the most ideologically extreme senator of the 113th Congress, according to a BYU study. NYT, GovTrack, and FiveThirtyEight all rank him on the far-right fringe. His voting aligned with Trump 81% of the time.

In 2019, Mike flew solo to Russia after the rest of his delegation were denied visas. While others backed out, he insisted on holding private talks with Russian officials — because nothing says “America First” like going to Russia to “do politics”.

In a 2022 debate, Mikey was grilled over his ties to Russia. Along with Rand Paul, he’s the only US senator not blacklisted by Moscow. Both voted against a major Russia sanctions bill in 2017, earning Lee the nickname “Putin’s most reliable yes man in the Senate.”

After the January 6 Capitol attack, “Based Mike” compared Trump to a Book of Mormon war hero and spent 14 hours a day helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. He texted Mark Meadows about alternate electors and pushed various conspiracy theories about the election.

According to Mikey, Trump deserved a “mulligan.” He voted against a commission to investigate the attack, then pushed disinformation claiming the FBI was behind it. All while over 100 emails showed his deep involvement in trying to overturn the election.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mikey has become one of the most fervent opponents of U.S. aid to the defending country. There was a brief moment in the spring of 2022 when he voted for military aid and even joined a video call with Zelenskyy.

But by mid-2022, that changed, and Mikey began opposing every aid package to Ukraine. We can only guess what shifted during that time, but my bet is he got a call from the Trump/MAGA camp or the Heritage Foundation, telling him to fall in line.

In 2024, he had become one of the biggest opponents of Ukraine aid. He introduced bills, spread pro-Kremlin disinformation, and even spoke for nearly four hours on the Senate floor, arguing against a bill that would send more aid to Ukraine.

Interestingly, “Based Mike” fully supports military aid to Israel. He even tried to separate Biden’s aid package to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel so that only Israel would receive funding. The whole “let’s fund Israel but not Ukraine or Taiwan” shtick is wildly…

…inconsistent bordering on schizophrenic foreign policy — and ironically, it goes against any true “America First” principle. But it all starts to make sense when you realize AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, has paid him $368,778 while Ukraine and Taiwan paid zero.

Naturally, all the Kremlin bootlickers are happy to hand Mikey a microphone. He’s appeared on Tucker Carlson’s and Jordan Peterson’s shows, plus a lineup of smaller grifters and podcasters eager to let him spew unfiltered bullshit to their audiences.

Mike’s anti-Ukraine rhetoric repeats typical MAGA and Russian troll farm talking points: “unaccountable aid,” “mission creep,” “money laundering” (used in the wrong sense of course, just the usual vatnik copy and paste) and so on. Nothing original or “based” about parroting them.

Also, with a tiny fraction of US aid, Ukraine is doing America’s job — bleeding out an evil empire without a single US boot on the ground.

Like his MAGA ally Elbridge “Cheese” Colby, Biased Mike also has a tendency to get into online fights with brain damaged NAFO dogs. And like so many clowns before him, he actually thinks NAFO is a government-funded op or run by the CIA, getting his news from well-known vatnik propaganda outlet The Grayzone.

And this guy is a US Senator!?

These days, Mikey’s focused on getting the US to leave NATO. He says it only benefits other countries — not America — despite the fact that only one NATO member has ever invoked Article 5: the US, after the September 11, 2001 WTC terrorist attacks.

For claiming to be a “devout Christian,” Mikey’s social media posts are absolutely vile. After a Trump-supporting gunman murdered two Minnesota lawmakers and targeted others, he posted: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

He also mocked Governor Tim Walz with “Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street.” After being confronted by two senators and facing nationwide backlash over his verbal diarrhea, “Based Mike” quietly deleted the posts.

Mikey’s unhinged “Based Mike” persona isn’t just a stain on the Senate, it’s also a growing headache for his church. According to Politico, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are now debating whether his reckless posts are a liability to the faith.

To conclude: As Billy Binion from Reason wrote, “Mike Lee’s transformation from a principled, policy-driven lawmaker into a desperate shitposter should be studied. Not the first time a middle-aged, nerdy guy morphed into a teenager online after getting a taste of internet fame.”

The 2nd edition of Vatnik Soup — The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation is officially out!

You can order your copy here:

The Book | Vatnik Soup