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Donald Trump isn't the president Mike Lee wanted. The Utah senator disagreed with Trump's bombastic style, his calls for a Muslim ban and his attacks on traditional conservatism. So he voted for independent candidate Evan McMullin in protest.

But Trump is in the White House, and Lee says Republicans should make the most of the new leader by piggybacking on the administration's populist movement to advance conservative policies — particularly tax and immigration reforms.

"Conservatives may not support everything this coalition does. And when we don't, we should say so," Lee said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. last week. "But we are a part of it now."

He suggests that Trump's election "represents a substantive indictment of Washington's political and policymaking consensus," including the GOP. Forging ahead with a conservative agenda, then, he says, will require maneuvering in unison with the president to help "the forgotten man" whom Trump appealed to during his campaign.

"Conservatives — especially conservatives who had misgivings about candidate Trump — have a duty now to help him see how and where our principles can serve his mandate," he said.

The senator, who unseated incumbent Republican Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010 during the tea party movement, targets the president's calls for economic improvement and a refocusing on the American worker. Lee advocates eliminating the federal tax on corporations, which ranges from 15 percent to 35 percent based on a company's income, to "redirect billions of dollars from the IRS into workers' paychecks" and incentivize creating jobs in the country rather than outsourcing to foreign entities.

"Suddenly, the United States would become the best place to do business — almost any kind of business — anywhere in the world," Lee told the audience at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. "Overnight, the fastest and easiest way for global elites to make money would be to create productive, sustainable, middle-class jobs here in the United States."

To offset removing the corporate tax, Lee suggested taxing investment income at a rate similar to what average workers shell out on their paychecks. It is uncommon for a Republican lawmaker to call for an increase in taxes on capital gains, though standard for one to seek a lower corporate tax rate. Lee has suggested that his plan is a middle-of-the-road solution to Trump's support of taxing imports. Lee also approaches Trump's hard-line immigration initiatives, noting that there is "no silver bullet solution to this problem."

The president in recent weeks issued executive orders laying the groundwork for a wall between the United States and Mexico, as well as sweeping guidelines halting refugee programs and limiting immigration. A federal court stymied the latter edict, though the administration is seeking to issue a reworked order that would reduce or block travel from seven mostly Muslim countries.

At the time, Lee said he had some "technical questions" about the action; he later said the order could be implemented legally.

Lee offered his own ideas, including limiting immigration to just nuclear families, not extended relatives, and recruiting high-skilled immigrant workers while reducing "low-skilled inflows."

These outlined reforms, Lee says, amount to a new wave of federalism to return power to the states during "an anxious time for the Republican Party."

He quotes Trump's inaugural speech, highlighting the president's call for "transferring power from Washington, D.C.," and giving it to the people.

By working with Trump, Lee says, offering a slight edit to the president's catchphrase, Republicans can find a way to "make America greater than ever."