January 23rd, 2025

January 23rd, 2025

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, why don’t we put tariffs on Qatar and Saudi Arabia? Qatar for funding Hamas, which murdered American citizens, and Saudi Arabia for ripping us off on oil prices, helping drive up the cost of gasoline for all Americans. If it’s good enough for our allies, it’s good enough for these Arab countries. Also, the IAEA says that Iran is accelerating their uranium enrichment program. If the U.S. is going to talk to Iran they’ll need to talk very fast and every deal Iran has made has been nothing but subterfuge to buy time. Now, there’s no time left. Later, a federal Judge ruled after 25 minutes of arguments that Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship was unconstitutional. This judge knew what he wanted to do – temporarily block Trump’s order no matter what. Afterward, Democrat members of Congress keep trashing Pete Hegseth as a drunk. There should be background checks for them, just so we can make sure none of them are drunks, cheats, spies, or reprobates of other sorts.  This would be especially useful for Senators, who are in the apparent business of smearing and degrading presidential nominees they disagree with.

X
If we can threaten allies and neighbors with tariffs, you would think we could threaten Qatar with sanctions for funding terrorists that killed Americans.

Memri
Qatari Government Media On Gaza Ceasefire: A ‘Crushing Historic Victory’ For Hamas And A ‘Significant Defeat’ For Israel

Reuters
Iran is ‘pressing the gas pedal’ on uranium enrichment, IAEA chief says

X
Uniformed Hamas gunmen are roaming the streets of Gaza executing critics in broad daylight.

NBC News
Federal district court judge temporarily blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order

Photo by EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP

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. Movement on that Hegseth nomination. We will get into that more executive orders. We will get into that. Tons more, actually. But before we do. There was a fantastic point made. I thought. On the Internet. Let’s see. Who was this? Give the man his due. Michael P present. A present? He makes a fantastic point. What does he say? He says, if we can threaten our allies and neighbors with tariffs. You would think we could threaten Qatar with sanctions for funding terrorists that killed American. You know, a toll to get Doha to course. Correct. Why is Qatar special? I think that’s an enormously. Important question. Fact, I think it’s a great question. And I would ask this. To further elaborate on the gentleman’s point. Why don’t we put tariffs on Qatar? Why don’t we put tariffs on Qatar and Saudi Arabia? Qatar for funding Hamas, as he mentioned, which murdered American citizens and Saudi Arabia for ripping us off on oil prices, upping drive up the cost of gasoline for all of you, all Americans. Saudi Arabia has a huge part in that. If it’s good enough for our allies, it’s good enough for these two Arab countries, don’t you think, America? So we will lead the effort here. Because we like the word tariffs, too, to certainly under certain circumstances. Qatar should be terrified. Forgiving $1.8 billion to Hamas. For protecting its leaders. Hamas, which murdered American citizens. Qatar should be terrified if we turn off our allies, many of whom deserve it. Certainly Qatar deserves to be terrified. And by the way, the Qatar official media. I now a certain go to memory dot org one of my favorite sites MRI dawg. They interpret all the Arabic so you don’t have to. Qatar. Listen to this. Qatar is celebrating the deal. As a victory for Hamas. Right there. It’s in writing. I want you to take a look at it. Hamas, which murdered American citizens. Hamas, which was given $1.8 billion by Qatar. We have our head so far up Qatar’s assets, not even funny. Why aren’t we putting tariffs on Qatar? Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is driving up the cost of oil and gasoline in this country, including winter heating fuel. Many of us are freezing right now. They’re driving up the cost of oil. They’re driving up the cost of gasoline at the pump that you’re paying for. That’s not the only reason, but they are a reason. They’re part of an oligopoly of Arab countries, Arab oil producing countries. We never hear about this. We never talk about it. Rather than kissing Saudi Arabia’s ass, shouldn’t we be tapping Saudi Arabia to. Despite the fact we still don’t have all the facts about them behind 911. I’m quite serious about all of this. So let’s put tariffs on Qatar. Let’s put tariffs on Saudi Arabia. Now, that’s my recommendation to the administration. To be at least consistent to actually be more than consistent. Look how Saudi Arabia is ripping us off and the price of fuel, they’re ripping us off. One of the ways that we can bring a lot of money into our country is to put tariffs on Saudi Arabia. That’s all. The balance of trade with Saudi Arabia is completely out of sync. They’re ripping us off. You know, our country makes deals with them, tariffs them. I’m for it. Tariff Qatar. Qatar, which funded Hamas, which killed American citizens. Tariffs then. What do you think of that, Mr. Producer? It’s a great idea, right? Yeah. We can get lots of money in here, too. These are two. Basically dictatorships, Monica monarchical dictatorships. They’re sitting on a flood of oil. Yes. And you’re paying for the whole damn thing. You know, we. The American people. We’re paying through the nose. And so at a minimum, I think we should heavily tariff them. I like the idea that the gentleman had. I’m just expanding it. I’m just expanding it, I think. I think President Trump’s on to something. I really do. I just think that the Trump administration should expand it to cover Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And I passed that along to them as a is a positive suggestion. Now Iran. I’m reading correctly, and I don’t know that it’s accurate. So I want to say that right now there are anonymous leaks supposedly from within the administration. There’s an element now within the administration they call themselves restructures. I never heard of it. You never heard of it? The American people never heard of it. It’s sort of a small cabal of very strange individuals. With our Ridge Colby and a few of these other guy. Now, some of them are so extreme, they just believe that the United States should not be engaged. Really. In any type of support for military activity, even with our allies. And the Koch Soros Quincy Institute. And Coke has also set up something else. I think he calls it defense something or other. And these individuals, some of them are secreting their ways into the Pentagon before Pete Hegseth gets their. And they say, look, the Middle East is not our problem. Israel is not our problem. At least this fella Aldrich Colby believes communist China is a problem. But some of them say, Nah, it’s not a problem. They take Taiwan. It’s none of our business. No big deal. Now these people are going to get us slaughtered. These people are going to bring us World War Three. There’s no appeasing evil. There’s no appeasing Hitler. There was no appeasing Stalin. There’s no appeasing Iran. Appeasement doesn’t work. It just doesn’t even though there’s a big ocean. They have what’s called jets and bombers and hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons and killer satellites. See what I mean? This isn’t Christopher Columbus. America. This is 2024, 2025 America. There’s things called technology out there now. And some of this technology is absolutely frightening, as a matter of fact. And so some of them support Iran. Some of them support Iran. Saddam say we shouldn’t be providing anything to the state of Israel, we shouldn’t be providing anything to Ukraine. Even if those countries purchased it on their own. Just stay out of it. Stay out of We’ve had enough of these forever. Worse. This is about as stupid as it gets. We don’t create forever wars. The enemy does. Nanometres. You can have short wars, too, by the way, Mr. Producer. With nuclear weapons. They’re over in about 15 minutes. Is that preferred? I don’t think so. You see when it comes to foreign policy, here’s the deal. You shouldn’t be an ideologue. You shouldn’t be an ideologue forever. Wars. No wars. Interventionist restrictionists. Foreign policy, as I wrote at length in liberty and tyranny should be based on what? Prudence. Prudence. Judgment. Based on the facts at the time. It’s not ideological that in all cases you do X and in all cases you do Y, unless of course we’re attacked and we know what we do in all cases. But you folks understand Donald Trump understands one of the reasons he’s talking about the Panama Canal as ours is because communist China controls both ends of it. And as he points out, we didn’t build it at the loss of 38,000 Americans and God knows how much money. For the communist Chinese. So he’s saying we want to take it back. He’s right. He looks at Greenland. He says, Look at the steps that communist China and Russia are taking. They’re threatening us even on Alaska. They’re trying to take control of a certain strategic points in the geography of the planet. To choke us off. So Greenland. Come join America. Donald Trump understands it. He’s not one of these so-called restrictionist, but these guys are sort of squirreling their way into the system. And there’s a number of articles that have been written about it and posted, and you can read it yourself. So it is concerning. It is concerning. Now we bring this to your attention and we bring it to the attention of the president and his allies and his friends who want him to succeed. God knows we do. We want him to be the greatest president in American history. And he’s already heading in that direction. What he has done since he was inaugurated is unbelievable. It’s unprecedented. It’s historic. One of the things I do not want to happen on his watch, which I consider our watch, we the people who support Donald Trump. It’s for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. They didn’t get it on Obama’s watch. No, they didn’t get it on Biden’s watch. And I certainly don’t want them to get it on President Trump’s watch. And this is important. Because I don’t know what to believe. I’m reading these conflicting stories again, Leaks Anonymous that he doesn’t support taking military action against their nuclear sites, and yet he did support it not too long ago when Israel was defending itself. My attitude always is don’t take anything off the table. And I don’t believe he has taken anything off the table. So I don’t know what to make of these leaks other than maybe it’s the restrictionists. Maybe it’s the restrictionists who are trying to push him into a corner. That’s their name. They give it to themselves. I had never heard of it before. But here’s this piece from Reuters from yesterday. Iran is pressing the gas pedal on uranium enrichment, IAEA chief says. Now, the IAEA is the UN. They’re no friends of ours. They’ve been special players, the Islamo Nazis in Iran, and they are banging the pots and pans. And they’re saying to us, they’re saying to the others in the West, hey, this country is on its back. It’s economically spent. It’s ground to air. Missile defense system was destroyed by the Israelis. The Israelis almost killed their ability to move gasoline around in their own country, even though are oil producing country. And their answer is to get nukes as fast as they can. And if I heard correctly today. We’re going to begin a negotiation or discussion process or something with the Iranians. Now, this has been going on since the Islamo Nazis took over Iran. Back in the 70. All administrations negotiate with it and all administrations fail when they do. Obviously, Donald Trump is the best negotiator ever. Seriously? Really? Ever. But you’re still dealing with a terrorist regime that is desperate to hang on. And so the United Nations organization that is responsible for overseeing their enrichment of uranium is saying, hey, they are accelerating it now. And I want you to read this. I want to read this day because if Iran gets nukes, they have hypersonic missiles. And if they put nuclear warheads on it, you might say, well, we can shoot them out of the sky. What if we miss one? One. Remember, Iran now has a presence in our own hemisphere in Central America. In Central America. They have a presence in Venezuela. Thank you, Joe Biden for nothing says Iran is pressing the gas pedal on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade. U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said today, adding that Iran’s recently announced acceleration in enrichment was starting to take effect. Rossi said last month Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that’s the U.N., that it would dramatically accelerate enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% of weapons grade. And by the way, to get from 60% to 90% is a blink of an eye once you have hit that 60% number. Western powers called the step a serious escalation and said there was no civil justification for enriching to that level and that no other country had done so without producing nuclear weapons. Iran has said its program is entirely peaceful and has the right to enrich uranium to any level it wants. You believe that America. Before I was producing more or less seven kilograms uranium up up to 60% per month. Now it’s above 30 or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration. They are pressing the gas pedal, said Grossi to the World Economic Forum in Davos, part of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yardstick about 42 kilograms of uranium enriched to that level is enough in principle, if enriched further for one nuclear bomb. Rossi said Iran currently had about 200. Up to 60%. That’s half a nuclear bomb. And they’re almost there. Would take time to install and bring online the extra centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, but that the acceleration was happening. Now we’re going to start seeing steady increases from now on, he said. He called diplomacy with Iran. And the administration of President Trump has agreed. Well, let me suggest we better hurry the hell up if we’re going to be yakking to these guys. I have more on this when I return.

Segment 2
They better get Pete Hegseth in that secretary of defense position as fast as possible. When you have people like Collins and Murkowski were voted against proceeding with him today, they’re giving aid and comfort to the Islamo Nazi regime in Iran. All the terrorists around the world, the communist Chinese and others. We cannot afford to have that slide empty. And his positions are well known because of his. Pierce, Fox, Fox and friends, we can see that he held. We know exactly where he stands. I have complete faith in President trump. You said that he will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If necessary, they will be taken out and he would back the Israelis. I have complete faith in President Trump who said of this so-called deal with Hamas fails that Israel will be free to go back into Gaza and take care of business. He’s a man of his word. That’s why we love him. I’ll be right back.

Segment 3
I call him as I see him Baby Tray yanks to Fox. You’re well familiar with Trey Yingst. He just posted this. Iran is rapidly accelerating uranium enrichment closer to weapons grade level. Their breakout time for a nuclear weapon is measured now in weeks. So I don’t believe all these leaks by anonymous sources that Donald Trump has taken military action off the table or that he’s told Israel to take it off the table. I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why. Because he supported military action. When Israel was under attack, he said, Take out their nuclear sites and take out the oil sites. And so he’s very consistent about these things. That’s number one. Number two. Those words did not cross Donald Trump’s lips. If Donald Trump wanted to say that we’re taking military steps off the table, Donald Trump would likely have said so. Number three. I feel certain that Donald Trump doesn’t want right out of the box. In his foreign policy record to be that Iran did, in fact, develop nuclear weapons. Where they didn’t with Obama, where they didn’t with Biden, even though they helped facilitate it. So I don’t believe he wants anything to do with this. So I’m not believing these leaks. I’m not believing these leaks. Sure, if he wants to talk, he sends his envoy over there to talk. As long as they talk fast, man, because they’re running out of time. That’s okay. That’s fine. If, on the other hand, Iran tries to try excuse me, tries to cut some kind of deal, that’s not really okay, Is it American? Because eventually this administration will be over in four years. And even if they were to here to any kind of a plan in four years, they’d break out. So this is a problem. Now, tomorrow and the next day. And I don’t think we could have anybody better than Donald Trump at the helm to deal with this. But we do need to get Pete Hegseth over at the Defense Department. There is a very strange fusion between the Charles Koch radical libertarians who reject immigration policies. Did you know that? Reject America’s superpower status. And George Soros. Who believes the same thing from the left. There is an overlap between the radical libertarians and the Marxist Islamists. There just are overlaps. And they created this thing called the Quincy Institute, funded at least originally by these two multi-billionaires, Soros and Koch. Coke also funded a a so-called defense foundation. And some of these so-called restrictionists, that’s what they call themselves. They’re all over the media. They’re all over the Internet. They’re all over podcast. They’re very proud of themselves. As imbecilic and kook like that as they are. And some of them are trying to and have secreted themselves into the Pentagon. So. The more that Susan Collins an idiot. And Lisa Murkowski, another idiot. And the Democrats try to slow walk. Hague sets confirmation so he can become secretary of defense and take control of that department. The more of this crap is going to go on, apparently. I’m here to defend Donald Trump. I’m here to defend what he wants to do. I’m here to defend him from saboteurs. We want Donald Trump to succeed. We voted for Donald Trump. We love the man. We can’t have these Lilliputian. Who represent a small cabal. And are they playthings of billionaires or the radical left? And the radical libertarian, whatever you call them. To use our foreign policy to undermine the president in the United States. We got a fight that. We’ve got to fight that. And so we stand with Donald Trump. We stand with America first. America first also means the number one military on the face of the earth. America first means that we don’t coddle and subsidize our enemies. I mean, after all, didn’t Iran try to assassinate Donald Trump? We don’t subsidize and and coddle Hamas, which is responsible for the murder of American citizens. And the Hitler Youth in our streets. Spends billions of dollars in our country and all over the world. Which today it’s government owned publications. Nothing is published there or broadcast there without the control of the the inbred who run Qatar. Congratulating Hamas on the deal that Qatar negotiated on our behalf. It’s right there. I posted it, didn’t I, Mr. Producer? I think I did. And you go to this wonderful site memory dot org MMR. I thought it was founded by and is run by a professor is a very brave and smart man. And they, as I said, they hire interpreters. They have interpreted what what’s going on in Qatar. Qatar plays one game. With our government. With the politicians in Washington. It buys with the businessmen, it buys and then plays another game back in the Middle East as one of the leading sponsors of terrorism. Qatar should be on our terrorism watch list. I don’t know why we’re negotiating using Qatar as a mediator, but there they are. And so, as I said, there was a brilliant post earlier. I gave the. Credit where credit is due said, Hey, wait a minute, tariffs are a good thing. And if we’re going to tariff Canada, we’re going to tariff these other countries, including allies who are ripping us off. Why the hell wouldn’t we tariff Saudi Arabia for ripping us off on the price of fuel, oil and gasoline? Why would we do that? Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a lot of money that can pour into this country a whole lot. Unless they lower the price of oil. Lower the price of oil. I know they’re going to put $600 billion into our country. That’s nothing for Saudi Arabia over over a period of years. They don’t get the buy our allegiance. They don’t get to by our silence. Let me ask you something, Mr. and Mrs. America. If Saudi Arabia put $600 billion in our country, which is great. Is that going to lower the price of gasoline at the pump? Not $0.01, not one penny. They’re basically giving back some of the money they’ve taken from us. That’s why I said Mr. Brit is. So that should be near the top of the list. Saudi. Dictatorial monarchy for tariffs. In my personal view, that’s just my opinion. That’s what I’m recommending over the airwaves here, just to try and get more money into our country. And to try and lower the price of gasoline for the American people as well as drill, baby, drill. Absolutely. 100%. And so this is a pro-American American first. Notion. It fits beautifully into President Trump’s. Priorities, I believe. I believe and again, I’m not going to believe stories with anonymous people said to be in the administration who say that Donald Trump has told the Israelis that he’s taking military off the table. I don’t believe that for a second. This would be the Donald Trump who took out Soleimani. Baghdadi. Who dropped missiles in Syria. We’re talking about a a terrorist regime that hates us. That would completely change the balance of power in the Middle East, a terrorist regime that’s on its back economically. Collapsing, militarily collapsing that hopes that it can get one nuclear bomb, just one and then more. When you get one, you get many more. Drag itself back into relevancy. They continue. To threaten the United States of America. Death to America. Iran’s our enemy. Now you can talk to them. But Trey Yingst at Fox has reported. The International Atomic Energy Commission has reported that these bastards are moving as fast as they can because they believe once they get an atomic bomb. You’re in the clear. They can fund terrorism in Gaza. They could fund terrorism in Lebanon. They could fund terrorism in Yemen. They can fund terrorism in our streets. And what the hell are you going to do about it? Now they have hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads. Not only that, when they develop. In the next few weeks. That bomb. I’m sure the Communist Chinese and the fascistic Russians will give them additional technology. So those hypersonic missiles, which are already intercontinental intercontinental ballistic missiles, meaning they can hit our our cities, will be even further perfected. Because remember, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China are part of this axis of evil. They work together. They share technology together. Try these restrictions are a bunch of morons. I’m a restrictor now. You’re a clown. And you know, it’s not black and white. If you’re not a restrictor, you’re a radical interventionist like John McCain. Our Lindsey Graham. They used to accuse Rubio of that. Now they don’t now because he’s secretary of state, by the way. He is secretary of state. He just got 99 to 0 vote. Isn’t it strange we don’t hear from him, Mr. Producer? I’d invite him on the program, but I know he won’t come on the program for reasons that I don’t know. But nonetheless. He needs to get a little skin in the game, I would think. Isn’t that why President Trump is relying on him? I think, chose him among the first of the appointments to the cabinet. He goes through 99 to 0, which is really remarkable considering so many of the reprobates on the Democrat side. So there he is. They they ran him through on Inauguration Day to get him in there, get him in the State Department. And I’m not hearing anything. I know he’s down there dealing with Panama and everything, but when you’re secretary of state, you can have to deal with a lot, have a lot of confidence in him. I’m just waiting to hear from him, that’s all. Waiting to hear anything he has to say. That would be very, very, I think, helpful to President Trump to. So I say all these things because we want President Trump to succeed. We have faith in President Trump. Because his instincts are good. Because he knows when to drop the hammer. Unless we hear from him himself. I don’t believe he’s taken anything off the table, including military action on behalf of Israel in support of Israel. I mean. And we’ll see because this isn’t going to go on for years. Trey Angst is reporting this goes on for weeks. And so for sending our envoy over there to talk to Iran, he better have like speed reading her, speed talking. He’s got to talk like Chris MATTHEWS or our buddy Ben SHAPIRO. You know what I mean? Mr. Producer, very quickly. And I’d be curious to see whatever deal is hatched. And how we’re going to hold them to it and who’s going to hold them to it. I’m just curious to see what that would be. Because terrorists don’t hold any deal. What’s a terrorist? A terrorist is a genocidal monster. Who believes he or she succeeds. By not following the rules. By destroying the civil society. So they’ll sign anything? Yeah. Okay. Phase one. Yeah, we’ll sign that. That’s fine. You know what Hamas is doing today? And there’s video up that I just put up. On my social sites. They’re murdering Palestinians who they believe. We’re too sympathetic. Two ending to ending. The war in Gaza. In the streets in the light of day. They’re Hamas camouflage uniforms. They’re going around executing other Palestinians who they think supported this deal. What do you think of that? There is literally nothing. I’m not the first to say this, but there’s literally nothing we can do. Nothing we can do. For the Palestinians. If Hamas won’t destroy. Which is why Benjamin Netanyahu, the Churchill of our time, has said we must destroy Hamas where there can be no civil society, there can be no progress, there can be no peace. We must destroy it. Because here they are now in Gaza executing. Palestinians. Who wanted the peace deal. And who they thought was soft. That’s pretty damn shocking. I’ll be right back.

Segment 4
So that’s the state of affairs today. Why do I focus so much in the Middle East? Well, let’s see. Iran. Remember when they took hostages? Hamas. They took American hostages. Iran with a nuclear weapon. I wonder why I focus on this so much? Because I love my country. And why am I talking about this so much right now? Because I love my president. And we all want him to succeed and to succeed strongly. Now. I don’t have time to do it until after the break, but I want to get into this birthright citizenship. And I want you to know, I. I drilled down deeply on it, on Life, Liberty and Levin on Saturday. Among other things, we have Mollie Hemingway, We have Peter Schweitzer. Peter Schweitzer is going to drill down on these pardons for the Biden crime family in a way you’ve never heard before. Mollie Hemingway has her brilliant take on the first days of the Trump presidency. It’s going to be a killer show 8 p.m. Eastern Time. And I’m sure by now you’ve set your DVR. I’m sure you love nights have set your DVR. I don’t believe there’s any football on Saturday. College football’s over. I love college football, but it’s over. So there I am, 8 p.m. Eastern time. Again, you can set your DVR now. There’s two big game Sunday. They just are. Make sure you set your DVR again. 8 p.m. Sunday. Another killer show. Our shows really have been strong. Not because of me. Because of you. They’ve been very, very strong. Birthright citizenship. A Reagan judge in Seattle. I’ve explained this before, this federal district judge, he’s federal district judges. Even though a Reagan or a Trump or a Bush would have appointed some of them. In some cases, it’s part of a deal in order to get to federal district trial judges. They may have to agree to one for the senators in that state. Seattle, Washington Washington state is radical left because of Seattle mostly. Not exclusively, but mostly. This so-called Reagan judge is one of those liberal Democrat judges that said this old guy is a disgrace. And I’m going to explain it in just a few minutes. When we return. I’ll be right back.