December 8th, 2022

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, President Biden just traded the world’s foremost terrorist arms dealer for Brittney Griner, a female pro basketball player. Some in the media say she was chosen because choosing otherwise would be viewed as bigotry. Viktor Bout, the merchant of Death as he’s known, is now free to work with Putin while a U.S Marine remains behind bars in Russia. Later, Sen. Tom Cotton weighs in on the prisoner exchange that Biden capitulated to with Russia. Cotton added that while Greiner admitted to her crime, Paul Whelan a US Marine who’s been imprisoned for 4 years, denies any such crime of espionage has been committed. Then, like clockwork, the bureaucrats are once again whining about a government shutdown. Yet it wasn’t as portrayed in such a dire manner when the government shut down the private sector during COVID. Afterward, Elon Musk released more Twitter Files to journalist Bari Weiss which reveal that many conservative accounts, including a scientist from Stanford University, and entire topics were blacklisted from searches and from trending on the platform. If this has been occurring at Twitter imagine what has been happening at other platforms like Facebook, Google and media organizations like the New York Times. Meanwhile, Dan Bongino calls in with his reaction to the news that he was blacklisted by Twitter. Finally, Sen. Mike Braun joins the program to discuss the potential coming government shutdown for not having a budget in place. Braun says the best way to deal with debt is an Article V convention of States.

Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP

The podcast for this show can be streamed or downloaded from the Audio Rewind page.

Rough transcript of Hour 1

Hour 1 Segment 1

So Joe Biden just traded. Just traded. I guess like it’s some kind of a baseball game. The number one terrorist arms dealer on the face of the planet. For a basketball player. The went into Russia shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine and had been preparing to invade Ukraine. With marijuana vaping or whatever it is in her suitcase. And of course, Putin exploited it by locking her up for nine years. In the meantime, a marine. Who’s been there for four years, have stuck. They’re accused of espionage. And we don’t normally use Marines for espionage. Mr. Producer. And there’s another individual over there who’s in prison for using marijuana. So why is this basketball player, women’s basketball player? Why is she being released in exchange for Viktor Bout? Anybody know? Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what the Huffington Post thinks. Anybody out there who dares to question this is obviously a bigot in a racist. Because Griner is African-American. She’s a lesbian. And so you’re a bigot. You see, And you’re a racist. And just because she very publicly said as a member, a star of the Women’s National Basketball Association, that she would not. Come out to any basketball game. While the national anthems are being played. As her form of protest against systemic. Police, racism and racial injustice. It doesn’t mean the country shouldn’t have bent over backwards to trade her. To get her back in exchange for the world’s most horrendous arms dealer and terrorist. Meanwhile, the other two Americans remain in prison because Putin wouldn’t give them up, especially the Marine. Especially the Marine. So you have to ask yourself, America, well, under what conditions can we get this Marine back? I mean, there’s only one worst of the worst arms dealer and terrorist, right? What’s left? Nothing’s left. So people are asking legitimate questions. That’s number one. Number two. Yes, if Donald Trump had made such a trade. Rather than. Rather than for Brittney Griner. But for somebody else, he would be told and said to be selling out to the Russians, wouldn’t he? This demonstrates that he’s on the Russian payroll, right? Number three, how do you think the rest of the world is going to view this? They’re going to think this is easy pickings. Easy pickings. And they’re going to be right. No, this quote unquote, trade should never have been made ever. And I don’t really care. What the radical left media have to say. They do not care about the security of this country. And for them, all the talk about equality, the fact is in our country, some people are more equal than others. And that is the people of the left are clearly viewed as superior to everybody else. Because the media are the people with the left. That’s why Barack Obama can go to Georgia and smear and character, assassinate Herschel Walker. Herschel Walker, an accomplished black man. Who’s treated in a very racist way. By Obama. By Joe Scarborough. It’s a it’s a free attack. But not for the left. That’s why The View and other people brought on national TV platforms can get away with saying the things they say, the racist things. The misogynistic things against conservative women. But this is a disaster. And of course, we needed to use the Saudis and the UAE as the intermediaries because Biden simply doesn’t have any clout. So Biden. Gave up what Putin wanted. You can be sure that he’s going to use this guy who’s been called the merchant of Death. In his campaign, not just against the Ukrainians, but against his own people, against other countries and so forth. And I’m sure Brittney Griner will go back to being an anti-American reprobate. But that’s okay. You see, it’s okay. And if you disagree with this, you’re obviously a white supremacist or a racist. There could be no other explanation. Steven Green, writing at PJ Media, Viktor Bout arms dealer terrorists and worse, who more than earned his merchant of death sobriquet is once more a free man. But who is he? The world’s most successful arms merchant was born 55 years ago, an ethnic Ukrainian in Soviet Tajikistan, part of the Turkic Central Asia. Also known as sanctions buster. Bout got his start in arms dealing during the chaotic years after the fall of the Soviet Union. That heavily militarized former superpower left everything from state of the art jets and tanks to nuclear missiles and bombers all scattered around newly independent countries like Ukraine and Kentucky and Kazakhstan. There were lots of shady deals to be made with cash strapped governments and high ranking military officers. Bout reportedly smuggled more than $32 billion in various weapons out of Ukraine during the nineties. It was during the same period, 1994, to be exact, that then President Bill Clinton was negotiating the Budapest Memorandum between Russian Federation and several former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Kiev, agreed to give up former Soviet nuclear weapons and delivery systems in exchange for security guarantees that turned out to be worthless. Worthless. Maybe the best that can be said about the Budapest Memorandum is that it may have prevented Bolt from getting his hands on any nuclear weapons because this guy will sell literally anybody part of his 2012 conviction in a New York federal court was for attempting to buy and sell anti-aircraft missiles to terrorist organizations for use against passenger jets, including ours. By the way. That was sentenced to 25 years in prison. And Moscow has been trying to get him released ever since. Ever since. Well, now they got him. You have to ask why the Kremlin would be so eager to get a terrorist sponsor released from prison. I can give you two answers. Person is about is almost certainly been paying kickbacks, protection money really to the criminal clique that runs the Russian Federation. The other, at least according to several European governments, is that Russia is itself a terrorist state. The fact about the early 2000, he got heavily involved in trafficking weapons to various African dictators and thugs is believed sometimes to have been working at the behest of Russian intelligence. It was arrested by Thai authorities in 2008 after a sting operation involving a paid DEA informant that was involved in a conspiracy to supply Russian anti-aircraft and armor piercing rocket launchers to Fark, the communist rebel group in Colombia. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2010 and charged with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill American officers or employers, employees, rather, and conspiring to acquire and use and anti-aircraft missile, as well as wire fraud and money laundering and all the rest. And just like that. As I speak. He’s back in Russia. I’m sure he’ll be a very good citizen there, and I’m sure he won’t lash out against the United States. And this is what Joe Biden did. And he wants to be celebrated and he wants to be thanked. And he wants to be praised for what he did. Now he should be condemned for what he did. Condemned. Meanwhile, Paul Whalen. The Marine. He’s been there for four years. I’m not Nostradamus. I can’t make predictions. But I suspect I’ll be there now for a lot longer. Because there’s nothing to trade for him, is there? And apparently Russia. Really? Bargained. Very tough, very hard. Because the best we could do was to get a basketball player. Who shows nothing but contempt for this country publicly. And Russia got exactly what they wanted. Just another day in the neighborhood. We’ll be right back.

Hour 1 Segment 2

Michael Braun is the former chief of operations for U.S. drug enforcement. He was on 60 Minutes on November 2010. And he’s talking about he’s talking about the man who Joe Biden just released on the World Cup. One goal, Victor, booed in my eyes, is one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth. On the face of the earth. Without a doubt, Mike Braun, the former chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told us Boot first exploded on the scene in war torn West Africa in the late 1980s. Elevating bloody conflicts from machetes and single shot. Rifles to AK 47. Not by the thousands, but by the tens of thousands. So he weaponizes civil war in Africa. He transformed these young adolescent warriors into insidious, mindless, maniacally driven killing machines that operated with assembly line efficiencies. Now, 43 boot from the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan is a mystery man who reportedly served in the Soviet Air Force and Intelligence service. The U.S. has indicted him on four terror related charges, including conspiracy to kill Americans. What makes him a threat to the United States? He is a shadow facilitator. He’s arming not only designated terrorist groups, insurgent groups, but he’s also arming very powerful drug trafficking cartels around the globe, taking advantage of Russian military contacts at the highest levels in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Federal prosecutors allege Boot essentially became a one stop shop, offering an unlimited supply of stockpiled Cold War weapons to bad guys around the world, including Charles Taylor of Liberia, who’s now on trial for war crimes, according to the U.S. indictment, but had a unique selling point when it came to weapons trafficking. A fleet of cargo, airplanes capable of transporting weapons and military equipment any time, anywhere. More than 60 planes in all. His own private air force. Those Russian aircraft were built like flying dump trucks. He could move this stuff and drop it with pinpoint accuracy to any desert, to any jungle, to any other remote place in the world. Right into the hands of what I refer to as the potpourri of global scum. And this is what sites like the Huffington Compost is defending. In essence, they are defending the release of this man. Onto the world who has brought the death of tens of thousands across the globe. Particularly in the Third World, and particularly in Africa. Now they haven’t been composed and they’re their so-called reporter. But she’s not alone. This is the mindset. They don’t care about the thousands of deaths and the mayhem. That have occurred in Africa as a result of this man. They pretend to support African-Americans in this country. But they close their eyes and they ignore to what this man has done to the rest of the world. And what now he’ll continue to do to the rest of the world. There is no rational explanation for what just took place. None. I understand empathy and compassion. I really do. But empathy and compassion cuts the other way here. The fact that we are able to get this mass murder. The greatest threat on the face of the earth, according to this former head of the DEA. Was really almost accidental, given the fact that the Thai government caught him. Reminds me what Obama did in exchanging some of the most ruthless Taliban. In this case for an American deserter. Some of whom now are the leading government officials in Afghanistan slaughtering people, slaughtering women. That wasn’t exactly a fair trade either, do you think, America? I’ll be right back.

Hour 1 Segment 3

So Joe Biden has just released the greatest threat, the greatest individual threat when it comes to orange arms sales and transfers and supporting terrorism. And guerrilla organizations on the face of the earth. So, Joe Biden, when anything happens in our country, says, I don’t understand this, these automatic semiautomatic weapons, and we ought to limit the amount of bullets and the that we have and so forth and so on. What do you need him for? Always attacking the honorable, law abiding American citizen, the Bill of Rights, all of it, and particularly the Second Amendment. And your Joe Biden just released the most craven vile. Mass murdering gun dealer. You have to assume some of these guns are going to wind up in the United States on the face of the earth. For a basketball player. Who disrespected. Tens of millions of Americans irresponsibly goes to Russia right before the invasion as the Russians are building up their invasion forces. As the State Department puts out warnings and puts this marijuana vaping crap in her suitcase. And the left wing media says if you don’t agree with this trade. And you’re a racist despite the fact that this killer bout. Has by arming these various entities, slaughtered thousands, if not tens of thousands of minorities, particularly Africans, but not merely Africans, many other people. And there’s not a peep about it. Nothing. Hostage negotiation. My friend Debbie Burlingame writes. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators. You remember them, folks, don’t you? You remember 911 are now in plea negotiations to take the death penalty off the table, plea negotiations with the Biden administration. These are the same men who in 2008 calling themselves the 911 Shura Council, proudly declared their guilt and called the charges for the death of 3000 innocent people. Badges of honour, which we carry with pride, quote unquote. Over the following hundred and 46 bombings, nine dead or maimed for life, including NYPD bomb squad officers. Clinton. Lopez Rivera, the leader, refused to denounce terrorism. He was released by Obama. And she rightly points out five Taliban leaders traded away by Obama for Bergdahl. Who was a traitor. Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire in the U.S. Senate, hitting five lawmakers, including one in the chest paroled by Carter. Like Carter. But to. But to release this mass murder so that now the rest of the free world has to deal with this, including us. And to be celebrated for it. Is contemptible. Absolutely contemptible. And the precedent it sets, as Deborah points out, and I’m mentioning and others are pointing out, is just unbelievable. Tom Cotton will be on the program. To discuss this further with me in about 4550 minutes. Because he, too, understands the gravity of this and the gravity of this is a big deal. Paul Whalen, who is this Marine who’s a Russian prisoner, was actually able to talk to CNN today. Here’s what he said in part. Cut five. Go. I have to say, I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred. I’m happy that Britney is going home today and that Trevor went home when he did, but I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here. My bags are packed. I’m ready to go home. I just need an airplane to come and get me. Cut six. Go. I would say that if the message could go to President Biden that, you know, this is a precarious situation that needs to be resolved quickly. And I would hope that he and his administration would do everything they could to get me home, regardless of the price they might have to pay at this point. You understand what that man saying, America? He’s saying it’s a precarious situation. And pay whatever price you have to, that he needs to go home at this point. Sounds to me like he’s being threatened, doesn’t it? To you, Mr. Producer? Just listen carefully to what he’s saying, because I’m sure he chose his words very carefully. Remember Jeremiah Denton, the great senator, the great patriot from Alabama? The left attacked him to. And remember when the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had him do a propaganda film and remember, he kept blinking and blinking and. Our Pentagon said, what’s wrong with his eyes? And then somebody figure it out. He was blinking S.O.S.. Torture. What a fantastic man. He was a fantastic man. The left attacked him, too. But Paul Whelan, to me is sending a message. You listen to my show and I appreciate it. And I try to really look at these issues. It’s not one of many issues for me. It’s an issue that’s very, very important. And I’m looking at this carefully and I’m watching and I’m listening. And I’m using what? What brain cells. I have to figure these things out. And when you listen to what this man says and I’m going to play this part of it again, he is saying it’s precarious. Regardless of the price they may have to pay at this point. That tells me that this guy’s life is on the line. Because they just gave up the biggest. The biggest want that Putin won it for the basketball player. Play it again. Please go. I would say that if the message could go to President Biden that, you know, this is a precarious situation that needs to be resolved quickly. And I would hope that he and his administration would do everything they could to get me home regardless of the price they might have to pay at this point. Got it. Now for a Don Lemon at CNN and all the other leftists. Who cares? Because this is a momentous event. Why can’t I go? So I would be I think I would be remiss if we did not mention also the importance this place for the LGBTQ community. As we’ve been talking about black women, this is big. So this is for the LGBTQ community. Glad releasing a statement. Obviously, just I’m summarizing here that they’re happy and it shows that the struggles and the danger that members of the LGBT community face around the world. But when you look at what is happening with the LGBT community, specifically here in the United States, what does this say? Does this bring attention to that? And it shows that, hey, look, if this is this is the areas see, this is the areas. And yet, Don Lemon, as dumb and as absurd as this as this man is, he’s basically told you why this train. Took place. He’s basically told you why. But what Don Lemon will not say, even though he’s African-American, is the hell this man unleashed throughout the African continent and elsewhere against minorities, among other. That he won’t mention. How do these other countries feel? Wonder if the Mexican cartels are now going to benefit. Just wondering. It’s just it’s just shocking. It’s contemptible that this man is now released. And remember, the bottom line here with Biden is all the talk about gun control and removing clips with more than what is it, two shots or whatever he’s got in mind. He just released on the world the most horrendous arms dealer in the history of the world. And I don’t think he’s going to be limiting his clients at all. And this is a guy who sells and trades in big stuff, anti-aircraft missiles who can take out airliners. Anti-aircraft missiles. And he hates our country. AK 47 by the tens of thousands. Last time I checked, there are semiautomatic, Joe. No questions, no pushback, no nothing. This is the best we could do, they say. And that’s why Mr. Whalen, the Marine who’s been there for years now, says he’s in a precarious position and suggest that we get him home regardless of the price because he knows that big. And Charlotte has already been traded for the basketball player who wouldn’t stand for the national anthem. I’ll be right back.

Hour 1 Segment 4

So Van Jones, who’s a disaster. He’s on CNN today. And what does he have to say about all of this? Cut 10 go: This is huge. Is huge. First of all, that’s a decade defining image. When you saw her wife sitting there, Kamala Harris is there, the president’s there, such a human image. And yet it just shows this president got it done. He cared enough about this individual person to get her home. It was shocking for the I think for young Americans to see an icon like that snatched, locked up, treated like garbage. And just nine years, ten years for bringing some cannabis, oil, medical, medically, medically, medically described. So these are decade defining images. I guarantee you they’re going to be young people ten years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years who will remember this moment because she is an icon. And you know what, Van Jones? I guarantee you that people are going to die as a result of this, particularly throughout the third world that you claim to care about. Because many thousands have already died at the hands of this brutal arms dealer and terrorist. And it’s interesting to me what your myopic focus is on here. It really is. And this is exactly what I mean by the left, particularly in the media. They’re human beings and they’re human beings. And what about Mr. Whalen, the Marine? What if this trade had been made for Mr. Whalen and Brittney Griner was behind? What would Van Jones say then? Racism. What were the media say then? We know. So for the left, some lives are more important than others. And in every case, you’ve got to make a political point, either for or against. I don’t really talk about the best interests of the United States of America by releasing somebody like this. No. It’s about a community, the LGBTQ community. As if this man with these weapons is going to make very, very sure that he doesn’t kill gay people or transgender people or bisexual people or lesbians. It’s going to be very, very careful about that when he’s handing out tens of thousands of AK 47. Our ground to air missiles. And this is the kind of commentary we get. Asinine. Political. Ideological. These are clowns. These are fools. A mass murder was just let loose an administration that claims to be concerned about too many guns on the streets. The politics first, baby. That’s the way it works. And according to Van Jones and Don Lemon and the Biden White House, this is what America is all about. It’s time to celebrate. And Biden got it done. Biden got nothing done, you damn fool. They buckled to this. A buckle to this. And you know damn well that if she wasn’t of the left, she wasn’t an iconic basketball player. If she wasn’t a cause celeb. Mr. Whelan is not a cause celeb. He’s not an iconic figure of any kind that this wouldn’t have happened. You and I know that. And so they’re basically celebrating the release of a mass murderer who’s going to murder more killing black people, brown people, white people, gay people, transitioning people. May I say straight people won’t matter. It won’t matter.