August 24th, 2023

August 24th, 2023

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - AUGUST 23: Republican presidential candidates (L-R), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted by FOX News at the Fiserv Forum on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 8 presidential hopefuls squared off in the first Republican debate as former U.S. President Donald Trump, currently facing indictments in four locations, declined to participate in the event. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, after the first GOP Presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy is the toughest to unravel because he is essentially a blank slate with little to no record to back what he claims he will do. We can’t have someone who says they will lead a revolution if they have never stepped on the playing field, because talk can only get you so far. Ron DeSantis made a strong case for what he would do on the Federal level because of what he has done as Governor of Florida, especially with the Covid pandemic and firing Soros prosecutors. DeSantis won the debate last night because he has the evidence to show that when he says he will do something, he does it. Donald Trump is nothing like Vivek Ramaswamy because Trump got involved in Conservative causes and spoke to groups like the Tea Party before running for President, and turned that into action once he became President, which is why a lot of people liked him and still like him as the GOP nominee. Also, Democrats have made a disgraceful spectacle out of Donald Trump’s indictments, especially with Trump’s booking at the Fulton County jail in Georgia. Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is using the law to break the law, forcing Trump to go through all of this just to get a mugshot. The problem is not any of the charges or investigations, which are absurd on their face, but what all of this has done to our country. Democrats are destroying this Republic, colluding and conspiring to drop indictments all over the place; how are Republicans ever supposed to win if they get away with this.

Photo by Win McNamee

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

Rough transcription of Hour 1

Segment 1
Hello, America. Mark Levin here, our number 877-381-3811.  877-381-3811. And President Trump will be arraigned in another humiliating act by the government. Humiliating to our justice system. And when that occurs, if he says anything, we will be there. You’ve heard a lot of people go on and on and on about the debate last night. Rush Limbaugh used to say to me. But they haven’t heard from you yet, Mark. So that in a few points on the Internet, let me let me give you my opinions. It’s not very complicated. I completely write off anybody who does not understand. The nature of the enemy that we’re facing. And it’s not Donald Trump. Asa Hutchinson, to me sounded like the kind of bureaucrats I used to have to listen to the Department of Justice. He did not agree that the military should be used on the border, except for processing paper. Let us know all we need right now. It’s not going to work. He’s a throwback. We 5 million, some say 6 million illegal aliens who’ve poured into this country. Something has to change. Chris Christie honestly did better than I thought. He wasn’t as bad as I thought. And I’ll get to Mike Pence in a minute, because I think Mike Pence took the role of Chris Christie for the most part. But I’ll get to this. Chris Christie really has no reason to be there. He doesn’t have much of an agenda. He hasn’t thought about it very much. They give you that as a perhaps. Sort of a student debating society. I just don’t I don’t see any lane for him. I don’t see any reason for him. The governor of Bergen from North Dakota seems like a perfectly fine man, I think would be a great secretary of energy, maybe secretary commerce. I do like his. Federalism approach for the most part. But again, I’m not sure why he’s there. That’s three reality out of the eight. Now let’s get to the tough part. Stay with Nikki Haley. I think she presented herself very well. But something huge was missing. Massively huge. Whether you like or not or agree with or not. She almost didn’t talk about her eight year record at all as governor. She mentioned school choice. I think I didn’t hear anything else. She attacked the spending at the federal level. What did she do with spending at the state level that taxes go up? Did spending go up? I have no idea, nor do I have the interest to even Google it and look it up. But she certainly wasn’t running on her eight year record at all. Which tells me it was milquetoast. Because if she had a great record as governor, she would have talked about it at least a little more than she did. Which was almost not at all. But I don’t know exactly what she brings to the table. In terms of a presidential run. I do understand that she’s a woman. She reminded us of that repeatedly. And I do take offense when people say, you know, when you want to hear people talk, yeah, PAC Man, when you want action, you pick a woman. Really? What about Nancy Pelosi? Last time I checked, and I’ve never checked but checked, at least reportedly. She’s a woman. Kamala Harris is a woman. The governor of Michigan is a woman. So these bromides, these stereotypes, I’m just not into it in the least. She’s not Margaret Thatcher. If that’s the impression she wants to leave. So that’s my comment on that. Then we have. So that’s what four of the eight Mr. here. Something like that. I want to move to. We had Tim Scott. Extremely likable, very decent, very nice guy. I got to believe he’s running for vice president. He didn’t say anything. He hasn’t said before here and elsewhere, which is okay. But it’s really kind of hard to run for president as a senator when you’re one of 100. And what do you do? You say I sponsored this legislation, I voted for that and so forth and so on. That’s great. But when you take the measure of the man, he’s a good man. He’s a good man. Actually, I think he’d be a very effective president. But I don’t know for sure. That leaves us with three. Mike Pence to me last night look like a lunatic. He was loud. He was obnoxious. He went over his time repeatedly. Was absolutely disrespectful. I think he did a better Chris Christie than Chris Christie did. Chris Christie is a man I’ve known for decades and I’ve seen anything like this. And then I don’t agree with the question. We’re all supposed to pay homage to Mike Pence as the president of the Senate. Did he do the right thing or not? Oh, yeah, I think so. Oh, yeah, Yeah. Then there’s Christie. We have to all agree the right thing. And then we have Pence himself patting himself in the head on the back, taking bows. Kissing his own ass and all the rest. It’s amazing to me. Not one person on that stage. Well, they all didn’t have a chance. Quite frankly. Raise your hand. Who needs to go to the restroom? I do agree. That was ridiculous. But still, I thought the moderators were terrific under the circumstances, particularly those who kept interrupting, especially Pence. And by the way, afterwards, Pence whines that he doesn’t get enough time that the major subjects weren’t discussed. I mean, he was the subject of like 10 minutes of it. I saw say to him that I feel really is repugnant. The other thing he kept taking credit for things that Trump had done. You know, in the Trump Pence administrate, you know, the vice president does nothing. They sit there and wait for the president to die or resign so they can fill the slot. That’s it. They have almost no constitutional duty except to be the president of the Senate. There’s not another duty. None. Which is why a lot of people who are really effective or they’ve been leaders, they don’t want to be vice president. Pence wanted to be vice president, so don’t tell me he did all these things as vice president. The only thing I remember Pence ever doing, there’s actually two standing behind Trump and smiling. And promoting 4G. Those are the two things I remember Mr. British. But he was utterly obnoxious. So that to me is a huge negative. And you can see on the Never Trumpers and the Democrats, they keep praising him. Of course, he’s the January six Kennedy. And I would say this to Mike Pence now. You say you upheld the Constitution. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. Police say to me the exact verbiage in the Constitution. Show us where it is. You claim to be an originalist and a textualist that says what the powers of the vice president, that is the president of the Senate. What the what are the powers actually that he has or doesn’t have when the electoral votes are being counted? The Constitution says nothing. Not a word. Now, you may have done the right thing, but don’t tell us that you were upholding the Constitution. You weren’t upholding anything. And as I recall, you fought like hell. You didn’t want to get in front of that grand jury that was investigating January six. And then executive privilege is denied. President Trump. Then you go. You. You make your statements. And then afterwards, when the indictment is released in your statements I quoted. Now, my God, look, he’s the Hulk. I’m the one that stood up for democracy. I’m the one that said that. Shut up and sit down. Well, you. But even that didn’t matter to me that much. I went down to to. The VEC. And. Dismantle it. I don’t trust Vic. Why don’t I trust Vivek? So many people, particularly my brothers and sisters at Fox, they’re really swayed by him. Particularly President Trump loves the guy. Well, he should, because the guy is definitely 100% in his corner. And that’s fine with me, but that’s not my point. Why would we agree? Prisoner? How would even get elected president? What are you talking about, Mark? With the slightest bit of research not done by me, but done by others. Would you have to expect you got opposition research, you got the media, you got all kinds of stuff going on out there. He’s flip flopped on a number of issues already. And Eddie stands out there and says, I’m not bought. I’m not a politician. The people want the truth. Now, he says he’s going to abolish five federal agencies. Now he’s not. You have to have Congress passed authorizing legislation in this case to eliminate these departments and agencies. He doesn’t have a magic wand anymore that Joe Biden has a magic wand when it comes to student loans. How would he do this? He won’t. If he could have done it, Ronald Reagan would have done it. Reagan fought like how to get rid of the Department of Education. It was brand new. After Carter, he was blocked in the Senate. By Republicans. And nobody had more influence over Republicans than a man who won a massive landslide popular vote in a massive landslide Electoral College vote. So how are you going to get rid of this Department of Education? And here’s my problem. It’s like the gun control, nut jobs and all the rest. When they’re talking like this, they don’t have an actual solution or we can’t find an actual solution. When you’re waving stuff in front of people that either you know cannot be accomplished or should know cannot be accomplished. I’m going to abolish the Department of Education. And parents have a responsibility to raise their children properly. I don’t think we disagree with the latter, and we certainly support the former. But where’s it going to get us right now? Nowhere. So I asked myself. Has Mr. Revolution. He said, We got to lead a revolution. When did he come to this revolution? I challenge you. Go online yourself. Go wherever you want. Who is he? Go back three years. Four years? Five years? How about in Virginia when the parental rights group started and burst onto the scene? Did he participate? Was he involved in it? Has he gone to parental groups so far? Has he said we need to lead a revolution? I need you to be part of it. Has he gone to the Tea Party groups that are still there fighting? He said we need a revolution. I want to work with you. We got to fight it. Has he gone to pro-life groups and said, Look, we need to rev this is the grass roots. It’s not Washington. They’re not all on the take. We’re talking about millions of citizens who were already. Become activists. You’ve got to embrace them. You’ve got to figure out how to expand that base of activists. It’s the. Bottom up. It’s the grass roots. As much as I love it, it’s not showing up on cable and Fox or even CNN or going to Kensington, Philadelphia, or the east side of Chicago. I’m all for that, too. But that’s not where your revolution is going to be led. Your revolution has to be led. By people who are serious about saving the country. Now I’ve got a lot more to say. I’ll be right back.

Segment 2
Now we got more. Hopefully you’ll stick with me after the bottom of the hour. You don’t have to agree with anything I say. So certainly no requirement there. But I’m trying to look at something that others are not. We pretty much know about the evidence, and I get the dissenters. Last January, when he was asked about climate change, the Ramaswamy said he believes there’s climate change and he believes Mann contributes to it. That’s not what he said on the stage last night. He made the most. Forward statement that it doesn’t exist. Now I notice that some of those who would have challenged him didn’t actually have time because they were running out of time, folks. This so-called climate change is the biggest ruse pushed by the Democrat Party, the globalists and permanent governments. That is the bureaucracy in every society in the UN. It destroys the individual, it destroys capitalism, it destroys our sovereignty, it destroys representative government, it destroys our lifestyle. It is the vessel through which this Marxist revolution, not solely but significantly, is being poured. And he’s going to lead a revolution. What kind of revolution if you don’t even acknowledge what you said five months ago, giving aid and comfort to their revolution? Exactly what kind of revolution is this going to look like? I’m just curious. I’m curious, but I’ve got more to say. I’ll be right back.

Segment 3
Try and keep an open mind folks as they go through this and then describe me if you like. Okay. But Vivek is the toughest to unravel because he’s a blank slate or at least was. Tell me. Let me ask you this. Just be honest with yourself. 911. Who is responsible for 911? Al Qaeda. Right. With the backing of Saudi Arabia. Right. So why would you even entertain conspiracy theories involving our own government? That’s lunacy. 911. We know who the enemy is. We know what they did. That’s playing with people’s memories. HATCH Playing with families that suffered from that. What is that about? Seriously? You think you’re going to get through a general election without being pummeled over something like that? But let’s move on. Is it really that hard? To explain how Israel is different than, say, Syria. Is it that hard or different than Saudi Arabia? That Israel should integrate into the other middle, Middle Eastern countries and that he’s going to have that and accomplish it. How is he going to do that? We don’t have any idea. None. First of all, it’s a stupid statement. Taiwan. Taiwan is going to show us how to manufacture computer chips. And then when they’re done showing us how to manufacture computer chips and we become independent when it comes to computer chips. Then they’re on their own. Do you agree with that? Seriously? And by the way, Vivek, don’t call me anymore. I don’t want any of these candidates calling me off the offline. You want to call me on the show? Call me. Don’t call me or ask me to speak to you. I don’t want to talk to anybody offline. I talk to my audience straight out. That’s why Haley was able to nail him, because his positions were so strange. Meanwhile, on TV, both on the left and the right, they play over and over and over again. Why? It’s good for ratings. Now, let me ask you this. You got one candidate on stage. Who applied to be and became a fellow for Paul Soros’s organization. George Soros, his older brother. You got another candidate on stage. Who has fired two George Soros supported prosecutors in his state. Does that mean anything? Anybody? You’re going to lead a revolution. How could you possibly have? I don’t care if it’s ten years ago, 15 years ago, ten weeks ago. At this point, you’re really a mature person. Your mind is is is an adult. It’s developed. You’re making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. You’re you’re an entrepreneur. You really don’t know what the source family’s up to. And one question you didn’t get, Why did you pay somebody to broom things off your Wikipedia page? I mean, have any of the others? I doubt they could even get away for it. But here’s my point to you. Seriously, I don’t want to move on to the. You’re 38 years old. You’ve made almost $700 million. And that is a great thing. You’ve had to build business alliances. So surely you understand as a nation we have to have allies, right? You didn’t build all that on your own, you probably had to have some banks, investors, partners. But when it comes to Israel and Taiwan and countries like that. You take a different position. I’m also sick of this line. Sick of it. And by the way, too many of them use it. That I want to spend our money on our border, not Ukraine’s border. Ladies and gentlemen, I remember when we used to be able to protect our border. And fight the Nazis and fight the Japanese and fight the the fascists in Italy. I remember all that. Now. I wasn’t there. Read about it. I remember that we as a nation. We are able to secure our border and. Give aid and support to our allies. I remember that. Don’t you remember that? So let me get this straight. Let me get this straight. If we support an ally, whether it’s Ukraine or anybody else, I guess. We can’t build the Southern war. Is that what these pseudo conservatives are actually saying? So we can pass away $1,000,000,000,000 in debt every single year. But we can’t come up with $25 billion to secure our border. Because of support we give to other countries that are fighting wars that we might have to fight if they weren’t fighting them. Are you kidding me? And by the way, I do reject the kind of John McCain, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham interventionist mentality. The Reagan doctrine is a doctrine that Donald Trump is used to. It’s the Reagan doctrine. It’s the most prudential and successful foreign policy doctrine in American history. Not a DeSantis. It wasn’t very flashy, was he? It wasn’t very flashy. I don’t feel like he got a whole lot of time either, to be honest with it, because the guy next to him on his I guess his right or two to over Mike Pence wouldn’t shut the hell up. He was the Chris Christie of the night. He was angry. He was obnoxious. Kept talking about himself. There’s not a lot to talk about, Mike, quite frankly. You’re a vice president. And stop with the Trump Pence administration. Did this. Trump Pence administration did that. And then when it comes to January six, that’s Trump. Trump, Trump. I saved the nation. Honestly making a damn fool out of himself. It’s embarrassing. It’s upsetting to me. I knew the guy. And no, I don’t want to talk to you either. So there’s two Santas. Good looking guy. Whether he’s the best looking on the stage doesn’t really matter. Well spoken man certainly doesn’t have the flair to speak the way that speaks. Very few people do. I think Barack Obama is another one who did, but not. But not the governor of Florida. It’s okay. But why did he stand out? Because he had a great one liner. I don’t think he had any great one liners. But he was a dynamic speaker like Ronald Reagan. No, I wouldn’t say that. This is what TV focuses on. This is what commentators focus on. In my humble opinion, why did Ron DeSantis win that debate? He was respectful. He was decent. He came across to me. Like an Ohioan. Like the blue collar gentleman he says he is and how he was raised. But even more. Why, that’s not enough, right? Because the man has already led a revolution. He doesn’t talk about the revolution. He’s going to lead more than anybody on the stage. He talked about what he did in Florida. Florida is the freest. One of the most populous. One of the most vigorous. States on the face of the earth. When he got there, it wasn’t that way. He completely changed the political dynamics of that state where candidates, including Trump, were worried if they could win by a percent, a 10th of a percent, maybe 2%. Now, the Democrats write it off in one term as governor. In one term. They all talk about school choice. The most extensive school choice program in the United States, two places, Arizona and Florida. But Florida is a massive state. They talk about breaking the back of the teachers union. He did. He did. They talk about we don’t want our kids taught about sexualization. We don’t want them talk. About critical race theory in the year he ended it. He stopped it. There’s not another person on that stage that can say any of these things. None of them. We talk about the corporatists and wokeism and what they’re doing to our country. He took on America’s darling Disney that had been devoured. My left wing corporatist ally. Went toe to toe, nose to nose with them, did something that he took a lot of heat for. He went after Mickey, for God sakes. And many people on that stage attacked them for it. Why did he do it? Because they were trying to use their corporatist wokeism power to stop what he was trying to do in the classrooms. Education, Not this other crap. And he said, you know what? California doesn’t get to come into Florida and do that to us. The pandemic. If he wasn’t the first, he was pretty damn close to opening a state. Keeping his schools open. Rejecting mask mandates. He had. Because my family and I benefited from it. He set up all over the state. All over the state. Through volunteer fire houses, through community centers and everything else. Monoclonal. If you wanted it. Shots for people who got COVID. Wasn’t approved by the federal government, he said. I don’t care what they approve. My scientists, my expertise, I read it. I know what works. By the way, it did work. He looked at the science, he said the only people right now who should be getting vaccines are people with terrible morbidities and the very elderly. And so he prioritized. He didn’t do what the governors of New York did in the rest, these blue state governors, in some of these red state governors, you saw real Marxism and fascism. Going after churches and synagogues and mosques. Literally tracking license plates for people parked in these megachurches. So they could arrest them. None of that happened in Florida. He passed an entire Bill of Rights for parents in Florida. He invited police from other states to come to Florida. He would give them a bonus. He said law and order. They passed very tough laws. They saw what was happening all over the country. Cities burning. So we put maximum penalties in their sentences in there. Not one major city in Florida. Apparently not one. Now, why do I say this? Because for a good chunk of the year, we live there. When somebody talks about he’s going to lead a revolution and he’s never been on the playing field before. With $650 million. God bless the guy. He’s not really invested in grassroots efforts or anything like that. The only thing we see is the Soros can add this a complete blank slate, if not worse. But he can talk, man. And then you look at a guy. Who doesn’t have the gift of gab. And you hear the commentators have about four weeks of experience themselves and they say, you know, this other guy connects. This guy doesn’t connect. Not one of them lives in Florida now. One of them. Because when you live there, you know, he connects. He won the debate last night because when he says he’s going to do something. The evidence is he’ll do it. He’s not a beast. He will muscle his way through the system and he will beat the system. I’ll be right back.

Segment 4
By the way, after the top of the hour, I want to get into some of these issues where the Democrats are now crying foul. Now by the Democrats. I mean, the Democrats dressed up as journalists on the usual corrupt Democrat Party private platforms. We never said we believe in abortion on demand. Oh, yes, they did. In fact, they voted for it. All of this is in my new book, The Democrat Party Hates America. And in that section I hear people talking about these things are in the book. I’m just starting to wonder if we shouldn’t have sent out pre-publication copies, to be perfectly honest with you. But that’s the way these things are done, I guess. And when you read it, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. But I will prove to you that they did exactly that. So when you hit them where it hurts, of course they have to resort to lying and the media have to resort to lying. That doesn’t mean you don’t hit them where it hurts you and where it hurts. And I’ll prove to you that that’s exactly what they did right after Roe v Wade was overturned. They said that we’re going to clarify Roe v Wade. And what they did is they codified abortion on demand, the elimination of parental notification and the elimination of every single state regulation of abortion. It’s in their bill, but we’ll get into that in a minute. And it’s in the book. Page 206, Page 207. I’ve anticipated everything they will say and I’ve explained everything they’ve already done. I don’t just mean in our lifetime. It’s not the usual list that people spit out either. There are things in there you’ve never heard of before. That’s why I sent the book to smart people, as well as hosts and so forth. But smart people, people have been around a long time. We’ve read a lot about this stuff. And the word I get back is I didn’t know X, I didn’t know why. I don’t know how they’re going to debate that. They’re not. So they’re going to lie. What do you think people like Trump. He’s really nothing like Vivek Ramaswamy. He went out there and worked with pro-life groups and Tea Party groups a couple of years before he decided to run. He would even call me and speak to me now and then. Which is fine. I don’t care if they do or they don’t. But he wanted to understand. He wanted to know. And he was no flash in the pan, as you could tell. And look at his substantive accomplishments. And I think that’s why a lot of people like him, too. I’ll be back.