Sen. Dan Sullivan on Truckers, SCOTUS, Military Vax Mandate

BUCK: Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, here he was recently with some members of a convoy, I believe, up in Alaska. Play it.

BUCK: Senator Sullivan was up there at a trucker protest in Alaska, and he is with us now. Senator Dan Sullivan, good to have you on, sir.

SEN. SULLIVAN: Hey! Clay, Buck, good to be on the show. Thanks.

BUCK: Great to have you. So what’s going on? A lot of us stateside and, you know, in the lower 48 in particular, but certainly up in Alaska I know people are talking about this too. I wondered, is there gonna be a trucker protest, a trucker convoy similar to what’s happened in Canada? What’s going on up in your state in Alaska? Tell us about it.

SEN. SULLIVAN: Well, look, people are very motivated to support not just the truckers but this whole issue of this illegal, unconstitutional vaccine mandate. I think, you know, the rally that I was at back home over the weekend, this is bringing out people who don’t always protest. This is bringing about average Alaskans, average Americans ’cause people are tired of this.

And I will tell you, the one thing that I tried to emphasize in my remarks is a lot of people right now have amnesia. Think about it, you guys. The truckers and other front-line workers during the pandemic two years ago when things were just hitting our country, they were telling everybody, “Hey, you gotta telework.” Well, guess what?

There’s a lot of people in America who couldn’t telework: The people who are keeping the shelves in our stores full, the people who are producing oil and gas, the front-line police and first responders, our military. So I was saying, “Hey, it’s not just the truckers who we want to support, but we gotta remember these are the people who kept us going during the pandemic,” and now they’re being forgotten or being told they’re gonna be fired if they don’t get a vaccine. It’s outrageous.

CLAY: What are you hearing, Senator Sullivan…? I appreciate you coming on with us. What are you hearing from your constituents about supply chain issues all over Alaska, I would imagine, maybe even more pronounced than in many other parts of the country given how difficult it can be to ship things and move things around? And what are you hearing about this massive, I feel like, outpouring against covid restrictions in general? I know Alaska has got a great affinity for freedom. What are your constituents telling you in the state about both those issues?

SEN. SULLIVAN: Well, they’re interrelated, and it’s a great question because, as you mentioned, we in Alaska are very vulnerable to supply chains. A lot of what the Canadians say is their policies directly impact us. I was talking to a trucker at that rally who said for months and months he was driving through Canada to deliver supplies to Alaskans. He had actually gotten a vaccination, but now he said, “I’m being required to get a booster, and I can’t supply the people of Alaska.”

Literally one of the guys at the rally who I was talking to. So to me, they are very interconnected. But again, I will say that my constituents are just tired of this federal overreach. Here’s something that I think was really important, and it hasn’t been discussed well. When we put together the CARES Act — and look, nobody knew what was really gonna happen.

That was the first big relief bill. The overriding principle that we put in that bill — Democrats and the Republicans, Trump administration, all of us working together — was if you’re a business or an airline or something that’s getting federal aid, you actually have to keep your workers. You have to keep them. The whole point of the CARES Act was keeping people together, keeping people working.

Joe Biden comes in, you guys, and takes a sledgehammer to that principle and flips it on its head and says to employers, “If people don’t get vaccinated, you gotta go fire the very people who are keeping us safe when there was no vaccine.” Think about the illogical nature of that. So I think the average Alaskan is viewing these mandates as something that we’re just not tired of but that the government, the federal government has no right to enact.

And the one thing I said at the rally that I think a lot of people wanted to hear was that we’re actually winning. We are winning. When these unconstitutional and illegal vaccination mandates have been challenged, we won in almost every court, including the U.S. Supreme Court. And you guys may have seen it, we put forward — I was the lead cosponsor of — a Congressional Review Act resolution.

That’s a resolution that has the force of law in the Senate. It passed with bipartisan numbers of senators — (chuckles) Democrats voted for it, too — to overturn Biden’s illegal mandate. So we’re winning, and I think the people are behind us, and I think there’s just a weariness here, but also a sense that the government has gotten way out of its lane in terms of its constitutional and legal authorities.

CLAY: It’s interesting you mentioned that, Senator Sullivan. Like me, you met your wife in law school, I believe. You were at Georgetown, and I believe I’ve got all that correct. I’m curious what you think about the uproar surrounding Ilya Shapiro, who is a Georgetown professor. As an alum — and certainly you’re gonna be enmeshed in the decision of who the next Supreme Court justice is. What did you think of that fracas, that controversy, and how does it play into the larger context in which a Supreme Court justice will soon be considered on Capitol Hill? You’re an alum of Georgetown. I’m curious what you think.

SEN. SULLIVAN: Well, look, what I’ve been saying on the Supreme Court nominee is that I’m gonna do what I think every Senator should do, is meet with the nominee, go over his or her record, and — importantly — treat him or her and the office with the respect and dignity that it requires. Okay? This is a very, very important position no matter who’s nominated. But what I’m not gonna do is take part in any kind of fiasco circus that you saw with Brett Kavanaugh, right?

That was a low point, in my view, of how this is supposed to be done, and I don’t anticipate on the Republican side any kind of those antics. We’re gonna be focused on the record and on the judicial philosophy. What I do with every single Supreme Court nominee that I have vetted and met with… I’m not on the Judiciary Committee. But I take it very serious, because as you guys probably know, there are many federal court decisions that only relate to Alaska, federal laws that only relate to Alaska.

And what I do with all the justices or judges who want to be justices and come before me, is I try to educate them on those, whether I’m gonna vote for them are not. “Hey, are you aware of this? Are you aware of that?” I also grill them on the Second Amendment. Very, very, very important to my constituents. A lot of judges aren’t fully up to speed on the Heller decision.

That’s the Scalia decision that said for the first time in American history that the Second Amendment is an individual right that is not related to your service in a militia. Gigantic issue for the great state of Alaska and my constituents. So I do it with respect, but also grill ’em on things that matter to the people I represent, and then get to judicial philosophy: What is your view of your role on the court?

BUCK: Senator Sullivan we’ve only got about —

SEN. SULLIVAN: We won’t treat them the way Kavanaugh was treated.

BUCK: Yeah, was horrible.

SEN. SULLIVAN: That was outrageous, and we can’t go there again. We shouldn’t go there again.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska. Sir, just before you go, I wanted to know. You were an infantry officer and a colonel in the United States Marine Corps. Thank you for your service. There have been members of the military who have been fired from their jobs, who have been kicked out for the vaccine mandate issue in recent days. What do you think could be done, should be done at the government level?

I mean, assuming let’s say maybe even Republicans take control of the House and the Senate in this midterm, how do we make amends for that? Because I think that’s a stain on the honor of this country that we would kick out men and women for not getting a shot that, as we all saw, didn’t stop the spread in the first place. What should be done?

SEN. SULLIVAN: Well, look. I’m actually still serving. I’m a colonel in the Reserves. I just spent 10 days out in the INDOPACOM theater as part of an exercise operation — or exercise Keen Edge, a bilateral exercise — with the Japanese military. So I’m still very involved and on the Armed Services Committee. Look, I think the one thing that has to happen is the exemption process that’s going on through military has to be taken seriously.

You know, in the military, you go through, and you get all kinds of vaccines when you’re first in, when you’re going through the boot camp or officer candidate school. I do think it’s a little different from the average citizen given that history. But what I have been concerned about right now is up until now you’re reading about services that haven’t provided any exemptions for anything. And I think that that, even for the military, is under the law, and it’s something that we need to look hard at with regard to keeping our force ready, lethal, strong, but also making sure they’re abiding by the rules that relate to these kind of vaccines.

CLAY: Senator Sullivan, appreciate you joining us. Keep us updated on the Alaskan truckers joining alongside of the Canadian truckers and we look forward to talking to you again soon.

SEN. SULLIVAN: Great. Clay, Buck, thanks very much, and I look forward to getting back on the show.

BUCK: Thank you.