August 15th, 2024

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, Donald Trump was in front of the press for an hour and a half today to discuss various issues with substance and knowledge and without using notes. Trump is not hiding out like Kamala Harris because he is an extraordinarily unique candidate that cannot be destroyed. Trump is a blue-collar Billionaire with real-world experience, while Harris and the radical Marxist Washington politicians have no experience and only wreck the economy because they are driven by an ideology. The system was working perfectly until Democrats took over and installed Bidenomics, and the solution is not Kamalanomics and price control. Harris is an economic Marxist who relies on class warfare in order to expand government control of the economy, and they do not care if they destroy the country in the process. This is all Marxist class warfare populism.

Photo by Adam Gray

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Rough transcription of Hour 1

Segment 1
Hello, America. Mark Levin here. Our number 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. You know, I. Right up to the beginning of this program, I was watching President Trump from about 4:30 p.m. Eastern till about a minute ago. And he was in front of the press for an hour and a half. Fantastic temperament. Talking voice. Was exquisitely detailed about the economy and prices and jobs. And yet he was able to. Discuss with substance and knowledge. No notes. A wide range of issues. Let me tell you something. As somebody who has. Spent most of his life studying American history. World history. Presidential elections and so forth. Before TV. Before radio, before the Internet. This is how campaigns were run. A candidate would go before. Back then a local media. The community. They would explain why they’re running. It would take questions. They would respond to the questions. And they would stay for an hour, hour and a half, 2 hours, because it took time to get from one town to another. They weren’t in a hurry. They wanted to persuade. They wanted to convince. The townspeople and the local. Newspaper. That they were the right candidate and that the people of that community, the people that town, should vote for them. They weren’t packaged. It wasn’t a mass of what we have today. Corporate media. Through which everything is defined. We didn’t have people. Self-righteous. Who told you what you just heard? I told you what you didn’t hear. You would hear directly. Directly from the candidate. That’s what just took place. For over an hour and a half. Calmly going through the issues, calmly discussing. Things that were on his mind. That’s the Donald Trump I know. He’s a brilliant man. He’s a decent man. He’s a kind man. That’s the Donald Trump I know. And I hope. You got to listen to, or at least watch what he was saying. He’s running. And every man, if you would, in every person campaign. He’s not hiding out. He’s not. Substituting a personal connection, personal communication with glitzy ads. And he certainly doesn’t have the vast majority of the media speaking for him. Now there will be glitzy ads. Because not to do so would be campaign malpractice. But that’s not my point. You’re watching an extraordinarily unique man, an extraordinarily unique candidate. He infuriates the media. He infuriates Washington and New York and L.A. He infuriates the hangers on, the pollsters, the grifters, the operatives. He infuriates the politicians. He infuriates them because he’s not them. He’s not them. And that’s why you like him. I coined this phrase years ago with him. He’s a blue collar billionaire. That’s what he is. This is a man who build a skyline and in building a skyline. He spoke with. He got to know he kept it with. Plumbers, electricians. Men and women who pour cement. Construction workers. Roofers. You name it. There’s so many trades that go into building these. He’s absolutely unbelievable. Pasolini’s. He created tens of thousands of jobs. That affected families in a positive way so they could put food on the table, put a little money away for school, put all the money away, maybe for a vacation, for a savings, for retirement, for a health care. When they say, What are you going to do? What they mean in Washington is. What government program are you going to create? How much more money are you going to spend? This isn’t his language. This isn’t his mindset. He knows how to create jobs. He knows how to help families. He knows about inflation. When Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. He almost went under because of inflation, mortgage rates, borrowing rates and so forth. He knows how damaging it is. That was remarkable. That was an incredible 90 minutes that the vast majority of the media and commentators are not going to understand. You will understand it. It was mesmerizing. Mesmerizing. All the commentators will not understand it. All the pollsters will not understand it. It’s not their world. Their world is right now, as I speak, at some cafe in Washington, DC. Some some pub in New York. Some glitzy restaurant in L.A.. The man has a charisma. He’s got. A connection. This is why they trash them. This is why they indict him. This is why they try and put him in jail. This is why they try to get under his skin. This is why they press his hot buttons. They don’t want you to see it. They don’t want you to hear it. He knows what works. And when I ask you a simple question. If corporations are greedy. They put it a little differently. If businesses are greedy, if they want to rip you off. If that’s why prices are high and products are smaller. Then why weren’t they that way four years ago, Mr. Producer? Why weren’t they greedy four years ago? Why weren’t they greedy during the four year term of Donald Trump? Why weren’t they greedy during the eight year term of Ronald Reagan? Two term? What? They’re only greedy when the Democrats are in office. I’ll think about this. Think it through. If these big businesses are greedy. Why are they greedy all the time? Why isn’t there inflation all the time? Why isn’t packaging smaller all the time? It’s not. They’re not. Why? Because the Democrats economic policy is not economic policy, it’s governmental policy. It is policy based on ideology. It’s policy based on power politics. It’s not based on economics. And so they want to blame the consequences. On everybody but themselves. They’re never circumspect. They never take a step back. They never look in the mirror. They’re always on the attack. Why are fast food prices what they are today? But they weren’t four years ago. Why is it that people can’t afford groceries? They have to use their credit cards now when they didn’t have to? Four years ago. Why are gasoline prices where I am in Florida? Regular gasoline, about $4.25. And four or five years ago there are 90. All of a sudden everybody deciding, you know, let’s get greedy. Let’s rip everybody off. That’s not what’s happening. Kamala Harris has spent her entire life in government. She’s been a disaster. Joe Biden has spent his entire life in government. This is all they know. Regulations. Executive orders, administrative fiats. Taxing redistribution of wealth. These aren’t economic decisions. These are ideological decisions. They destroy. The market system. People can’t predict. They don’t know how to invest. Restaurants don’t know how much food to buy. They don’t even know if they’re going to be in business. And it just goes right through the economic chain. I want to discuss a few of these issues. Like wage and price controls, because that’s really what Kamala Harris is putting out there right now before her Friday, her tomorrow speech. And increases in the minimum wage. I want to discuss this. We’ll be right back.

Segment 2
A buddy of mine writes me that the president trust must have. Ended his press conference so as not to preempt your radio show. Literally 2 minutes before the show. And you know what’s interesting about that? The other week, he ended one of his rallies. Just before 8 p.m. Eastern time when Life, Liberty and Levin was coming on. Now I know he watches Life, Liberty and Levin and he loves it. And he may well listen to the radio show he used to. I know that when he lived in Trump Tower, but. In New Jersey. Obviously, you can hear the radio show as well. On ABC. So I have no idea now that all that said. Let’s talk some basic economics. Okay. Because what Kamala Harris isn’t talking about and she won’t really talk about tomorrow, is an economics. What she’s going to do is what I called it the other day. Marxist class warfare populism. The New York Post has an excellent editorial. It’s total comms economic con, which is exactly what it is. Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial today. Drug price controls mean fewer cures. Let me explain it this way. Let’s talk about government run health care. Where does it work? Canada is an advanced industrial society. It’s got a relatively small population. It has government run universal health care. There is a fantastic institute, I think it still exists called the Fraser Institute. And it is a market oriented institute and. They put out reports. So they used to explaining the wait times. Four major procedures. Bypass surgery. You know, hip replacements. Things that you really shouldn’t wait for. And in some cases you die while you’re waiting. It’s notorious. In Britain and France notorious. When you apply an ideology to an industry. You get an ideology. In Cuba. The wage and price controls. The government controls the wages and the prices. So there is no gouging, so-called. There’s no profiteering. So caught. So there’s no profit. There’s no products. There’s no food. Think of your own situation, your own job, your own life for that of family members and friends. Why are you motivated to work? If you want to make money, want to put food on the table, want to take care of yourself and your family, of course. You also want to put a little bit of money away. You want to have a pension one day, you want to retire. You want to have a car? Want of a place to live? You want to be able to go to sporting events, sporting events or whatever. Look at your union. Those of you who are union members, why do you want more pay? Every union isn’t paid exactly the same thing. Every union worker isn’t paid exactly the same thing. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t everybody get exactly the same thing? Well, we have seniority and different. Exactly. Human beings aren’t built psychologically or physically. Just to be equal. And government can’t create equal. Whether it’s health care, whether it’s food, whether it’s housing, it cannot create it. Should we eliminate sports altogether? There’s nothing equal about sports. You have great players. They make a fortune. You have poor players. They don’t make anything. They don’t get into the pros. Well, why is that? Every industry, every business, every walk of life. Some people get A’s, some people get C’s. It’s free will. It’s the human condition. That’s what makes us a vibrant creature, if you will. But stick with me. I’ll be right back.

Segment 3
What we’re going to discuss isn’t discussed in schools anymore. It’s not discussed in the media anymore. Basic economics. Because for the left, the dumber the people are, the better. Richard Nixon tried wage and price controls. Whip inflation. Now, I think they called it when they put out little buttons. Was August 1971. And he basically did it to get them through the election. And he won in 1972 by a landslide. He also destroyed the economy. And it took a long time to recover. After the stock market crash. 1929. When Franklin Roosevelt became president, he put in wage and price controls and a hell of a lot more. The Depression lasted ten years. It was significantly prolonged. In fact, the stock market crash. We saw it, as Milton Friedman wrote at great length. From the tightening of the money supply when the money supply should have been loosened. By then fairly new Federal Reserve. Government has a role in all of this. And the role is usually quite poor. Now, why is that? Well, what’s government? And who makes the decisions in government. The mass. Majority of people making these decisions don’t have private sector experience. They don’t have experience in buying things, supplying things, selling things, developing things, creating things, growing things, packaging things. Retailing things. None. Government really is the only entity where you don’t need any experience whatsoever? None. To run more and more of society. Kamala Harris has no idea. Joe Biden has no idea. None. Now here’s what happens. Let’s talk about the minimum wage. Okay. In California. They decided to call it the living wage, and so they jacked it up to $20 an hour. Businesses collapsed. Businesses left California. Businesses are not moving to California. California is not creating businesses. So the state is becoming poorer and poorer and poorer. Why is that? Well, the living wage. Well, first of all, who’s on the minimum wage? Who’s on the minimum wage. Well, students. Part time workers. People who are on the first rung of the ladder. They want to get a job and work their way up the ladder. Some people, obviously, for raising a family. But people with all kinds of diverse economic conditions are receiving the minimum wage. They’re not all poor. So people say a living wage, that doesn’t mean anything. Just throw the phrase out of living wage. That’s number one. Number two, who does it benefit? It doesn’t benefit people who are looking for a job because with a higher minimum wage, they’re not going to get a job. So young people just graduating from high school, not going to college or. In college, but they want to get a job on the. They’re not going to get one. People who already have a job. A certain percentage of them are going to lose a job. Why? Because there are technologies available. Where executives have no choice. We’re business. People have no choice. When somebody who owns a. A restaurant has no choice. But they go mechanical. Those people are going to lose their jobs. Because here’s the secret. Small businesses, tiny businesses, medium size, big business. They’re not in business to hire people. They’re not in business to hire people. Their business to make money for the people who own them or invest in them. Sporting teams are not in business. To pay athletes. Massive tens of millions of dollars. They’re in business to make money. So they will pay them tens of millions of dollars if they can make money, if they can fill their stadiums, and if they can charge a certain price for the ticket. Otherwise they’re not going to make millions. The athlete. It can be the higher tier of our economy or the lowest tier of our economy. None of this is comprehended by the ideologues because they don’t. Have any experience and don’t care to have any experience. They rule by the Iron Fist. If you run. A McDonald’s franchise. And the price of beef that you obtain is going up. The price of bread for rolls, hamburger is going up. The price of potatoes. They’re going up. You have to pass that along to the consumer if you’re going to pay your employees and make a profit. It’s that simple. It’s that simple. You’re not in business just to be in business. You’re not in business to have employees. I’d never heard of anybody say, I’m going in business so I can hire seven people. Have you ever heard that? Misattributed. Never. I went on a football team so I could make athletes millionaires. No, that’s not why you own a football team. Does it matter whether the industry is whatever the businesses? So the government comes in. They come into the McDonald’s. Well, by the government, I mean a regulation from Washington, D.C.. Passed by politicians and implemented by bureaucrats. The bureaucrats are utterly unaffected. It won’t affect their salary. Your bonus. Their pension, their medical care utterly unaffected. And also they’ve never run a McDonald’s. Many of them perhaps never even worked in a McDonald’s. Maybe they don’t even go to McDonald’s. Doesn’t matter. I doubt many of them have ever actually drilled for oil to. They can’t possibly have the answers because they don’t understand the problem. They’re driven by ideology. So if you say to McDonald’s, you know, you’re making these hamburger patties a little too small and the buns a little too small, and you’re you’re leaving like two or three French fries out of the bag of French fries. Therefore, we’re going to call that gouging. Smaller packages, smaller sandwiches, fewer French fries. Same price, even higher. You’re gouging. Therefore, we’re going to punish you. All that does. Is further stress the enterprise. Because they can’t make ends meet. They can’t pay all their bills. They can’t pay for the food and the supplies. They can’t pay for the cardboard and the paper and the plastic spoons. They can’t pay for all the sugar packages and all the and all the cream packages. They can’t pay for all this stuff. So they fire people. Minimum wages up. They’re attacked for gouging. Taxes are up, regulations are up. You wonder how people can even make it anymore. So what happens to you? Mr.. Mrs.. Consumer Shortages. Shortages. Because you cannot produce. More product. You cannot produce more services under these circumstances. You have to pull back. So the economy contracts. Hiring contracts. And rather than defeat inflation, you feed inflation. And that’s what happens. It creates this economic cycle that gets worse and worse and worse and worse. We call this the general rubric for this is industrial policy. Industrial. Policy, that is. Politicians and bureaucrats in faraway places. Determined policy, everything from assembly lines. The oil fields. The ranches. The growing of food on farms. To packaging, to trucking and delivering to end prices. We call this industrial policy. And of course. The most autocratic regimes. One industrial policy to control the people. That’s who they are. That’s what they do. But even some of them recognize they have to have some level of capitalism, the market system. And we see that even in places like communist China. But you kill development, you kill. You kill the creation of new products. You kill creativity. Technological advances. Because the capital is not available or it’s too expensive to invest in these things. So prices. I kept artificially low wages are kept artificially high. You have shortages in some cases, like at gas stations, you have lines or you have Thursdays you can buy or even days and odd days. There has to be a method for distributing product and service. And you substituting the market system, voluntary interaction, people who are responding rationally to what they’re paying or what their expenses are, who understand very little, their little piece of the world better than anybody else. You’re substituting that with an iron fisted. Bureaucracy driven by politicians. And so you create shortages. You create long lost, you create poverty. You create poverty. And the way the demagogue gets away with this is to say they’re greedy. The drought. You haven’t heard from our guys. The drug companies are greedy. The oil companies are greedy. McDonald’s is greedy. They’re all greedy. That means your greedy. Because average Americans are pulling their weight at every one of these businesses. Who do you think is drilling for oil? Who do you think’s making the automobile? Who do you think’s building a home? The various trades that are involved. Who do you think works at McDonald’s? Who do you think drives the trucks to deliver this? That in the. We do. We do. It’s nothing to do with greed. Again, I will ask you this test question. Tested against this everything. When you hear Kamala Harris in the record. How come? The food companies weren’t greedy four years ago. The packages didn’t change. How come the fast food restaurants weren’t greedy four years ago? How come this that the other product, the other service. How come they were reasonably priced affordable gasoline. Four years ago. But all of a sudden, everybody’s greedy. All of a sudden, everybody’s greedy. Because all of a sudden everybody is not greedy. Biden nomics is destroying the economy. The answer, per Kamala nomics. Is price controls. Wage controls. When you increase the minimum wage just because you can. Or when you talk cuz people are gouging. This is the language of the demagogue. It’s the language of the demigod. And when we come back, what effect does open borders had when millions of millions of mostly poor people are pouring into the country on the economy? I’ll be right back.

Segment 4
So The Washington Post is reporting that she is going to propose price controls. Calling it price gouging, where she’ll have very steep penalties. This will create enormous economic dislocation. And why just for food? How about clothing? How about energy? You see, ladies and gentlemen, the way to fix all this. It’s called the market system to push government out of the way to reduce regulations and taxes, to let people be people. Whether they’re blue collar workers, whether the union or non-union. Whether they’re raising cattle in Montana. Raising corn in Kansas. Whether they are assembly lines in our industrial heartland. Drilling for oil. In western Pennsylvania. This isn’t what you do. President Trump calls this the Maduro economics. He’s exactly right. You don’t follow Maduro and Castro. And create economic poverty. Now she’s starting to show a little bit of angle America. This is crazy. But everything she proposes is crazy. Crazy. But if we’re going to have price controls on food, I think we ought to have salary controls in sports, don’t you, Mr. Producer? I think that I have salary controls in media. I think we ought to have salary controls all through our government. I’ll be right back.