Republican senators reveal why they skipped Mike Lee's 4-hour filibuster

WASHINGTON — Republican senators completely missed Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) four-hour filibuster on Saturday.

Raw Story polled Democratic and Republican senators at the U.S. Capitol on whether they saw the big speech. Eleven Republicans confessed they missed it.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) all told Raw Story they didn't watch.

Among the things Lee complained about was Russia's invasion of Ukraine, claiming it was a "proxy war."

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told Raw Story that Lee, has no business coming to Arizona until he passes the border security bill Republicans negotiated before abandoning it on Donald Trump's orders.

Kelly confessed he was "uninterested" in Lee's floor speech on Saturday since GOP senators are unwilling to fix what they've spent years complaining about.

“We should’ve voted on the border security bill," Kelly said. "I mean, these guys talk about this for years and have the opportunity to pass meaningful legislation to stop the crisis? I don’t want to hear his speech. I don’t want to see him coming back to Arizona until he passes the bill that was bipartisan, that they, basically, had agreed to.”

Tuberville, who had difficulty remembering the Super Bowl teams this week, called the Senate's Sunday session an example of “organized grab-ass here today."

When asked what Sen. Romney was doing instead, he told Raw Story, “Livin the life."

Meanwhile, Democratic colleague, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) knew it was happening, but that's about it.

“I saw a few texts about it. I have no idea what that accomplishes or who the audience is,” he said on Sunday.

New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan drew the short straw and was the official who watched Lee bellow in the near-empty chamber for a few hours.

“I got to preside and babysit for two hours,” she said.

“You know what? I decided to go to Target,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) told Raw Story when asked if she caught any of Lee's speech.

Lee posted the video of his filibuster on YouTube. It has 1,868 views as of publication.