Mike Braun

Braun campaigning in Greenfield, Indiana

Braun won the Republican primary for the United States Senate in the 2018 election, defeating U.S. Representatives Todd Rokita and Luke Messer[16][17] by over 56,000 votes. He received 208,520 votes, or roughly 41% of the total.[4] Braun ran as an outsider, emphasizing his career in business.[18] He defeated Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly in the November general election[19] with 51% of the vote to Donnelly's 45%; the Libertarian candidate, Lucy Brenton, tallied less than 4%.[20] In late 2019, the Indianapolis Star reported that Braun's 2018 campaign was the beneficiary of $2.8 million in spending by a political action committee with strong connections to indicted money launderer Lev Parnas and one of his shell companies.[21] Parnas supplied photographs of him and Braun embracing at a 2018 campaign event to the House of Representatives as part of his cooperation with the impeachment of President Trump. They were made public in January 2020.[22]

2010s

On January 3, 2019, Braun was sworn in as the junior United States senator from Indiana by Vice President Mike Pence.[23]

On May 24, 2019, Braun was one of eight senators who voted against a $19.1 billion emergency aid package for states and territories that endured hurricanes, floods and fires. Braun said the disaster assistance process was "just another path for runaway spending on unrelated projects." Despite his opposition, the package was enacted with bipartisan support and President Trump's approval.[24]

After Trump announced that American troops would pull out of northern Syria in October 2019, Braun supported the move, saying, "I don’t think we can be the policeman of the world. We should lead, but we should do it in a way that is sustainable."[25] As a result, in that month, Turkey launched a military offensive against the American-allied Kurds in that area. After that, Braun called Trump "smart", questioning why the United States should "be in the crossfire" between Turkey and the Kurds. He called the idea that ISIS would recover strength as a result of the conflict "an assumption".[26]

On December 10, 2019, Braun said that the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump had been a "disaster for Democrats", adding that Democrats had wanted to impeach Trump ever since his election in 2016, "when they didn't have any idea of what their reason would be."[27]

2020s

In May 2020, Senator Chuck Schumer put forth a resolution to officially release the guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to safely lift restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A leaked version of the guidance showed that it was more detailed and restrictive than the White House recommendations released in April 2020. Braun blocked Schumer's resolution, saying that the CDC's recommendations would hinder the economy.[28]

On October 26, 2020, Braun voted to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.[29] He said Barrett would be "one of the best Supreme Court justices that we’ve put on the bench in a long time, someone that is that humble and that smart and embedded in those Midwestern values."[30]

Braun announced he planned to oppose the certification of the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021. He was participating in the certification when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the attack, he tweeted, "Though I will continue to push for a thorough investigation into the election irregularities many Hoosiers are concerned with as my objection was intended, I have withdrawn that objection and will vote to get this ugly day behind us." He voted to support the certification after Congress returned to session.[31] The South Bend Tribune called Braun's flip-flop "a case of too little, too late."[32] The Democratic Party of Indiana called for Braun's resignation, saying he “incited violence to overturn the presidential election and end American democracy.”[33]

Committee assignments

For the 116th United States Congress Braun was named to five Senate committees.[34] They are

• Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
  • Conservation, Forestry and Natural Resources (Chair)
  • Livestock, Marketing and Agriculture Security
  • Rural Development and Energy
• Environment and Public Works
  • Clean Air and Nuclear Safety (Chair)
  • Fisheries, Water and Wildlife
  • Transportation and Infrastructure
• Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
  • Employment and Workplace Safety
  • Primary Health and Retirement Security
• Budget
• Special Committee on Aging

Caucuses

• Senate Republican Conference

Braun opposes the Affordable Care Act, supported efforts at the congressional level to repeal it, and supports a lawsuit to roll it back.[35][36] Braun has called for "free-market competition" and "market-driven" solutions on health care.[37] During his 2018 Senate campaign, he criticized incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly as a "defender of Obamacare."[35] He expressed support for keeping in place protections for individuals with preexisting conditions; Politico and PolitiFact noted that both the House efforts and the lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which Braun supported, would weaken protections for preexisting conditions.[35][36]

Braun has said, "building the wall must be the first step to any solution" on illegal immigration.[38][37] He opposes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, known as DREAMers.[38]

Braun supported the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Republican Party's tax reform bill.[37] He said the tax reform bill was "revenue-neutral"; the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would increase U.S. debt.[37] Braun has called for cuts to the U.S. budget, saying that the U.S. "has a spending problem."[37]

In 2018, Braun supported Trump's trade and tariff policies, saying that they have "yielded phenomenal results."[37][39] Previously, he supported free trade policies.[39]

Braun opposes abortion.[37]

Asked for his view on the legalization of same-sex marriage, Braun said, "I believe in traditional marriage."[37][40] He fought to keep marriage defined as "between a man and a woman" in the Indiana Republican Party platform.[40] In the Indiana state legislature, he supported the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act and opposed amendments to the bill that would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.[40]

Braun is a self-described conservationist.[41] He has called Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg an "inspiration" and advocated that the Republican Party be more aggressive in combating climate change. Though he opposed the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, Braun supports using reforestation, carbon pricing, and carbon capture to reduce or mitigate carbon dioxide emissions linked to climate change.[41] He also serves as the chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which was founded in October 2019.[42][41] Braun sponsored the Growing Climate Solutions Act, a bill that would make it simpler for farmers to sell carbon credits on existing carbon trading markets in California and in the Northeast.[43]

During the First impeachment of Donald Trump, Braun voted to acquit Trump. When asked whether it is acceptable for Trump to withhold US foreign aid to coerce a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden, he said that he did not believe that such behavior was proper and that "it didn't happen."[44] Braun also said that Trump did what he did out of a desire to reduce corruption in Ukraine.[45] After Trump was acquitted, Braun said that Trump "hopefully" learned something from the trial.[46][47]

After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Trump refused to concede and made unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Braun defended Trump's attempt to overturn the election results and subvert the democratic process.[48] He wrote a Washington Examiner editorial criticizing the media for not taking accusations of voter fraud seriously.[48]