On Friday’s Mark Levin Show, 2 reporters are revealing Politico’s Hunter Biden cover-up. They were told they couldn’t write about the Hunter Biden laptop story. Politico is a perfect example of the abuse the media does by not reporting what’s going on. We don’t have a free press anymore; these newsrooms are controlled by left-wing kooks. Also, there is a vote set to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are undermining national security by voting no. It’s not clear what Senators Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis might do. Afterward, President Trump explains that FEMA needs to be overhauled or cut completely. He’s right, FEMA has become a burdensome, bloated bureaucracy. Trump thinks like a can-do executive and bureaucrats are not used to it. Later, Iran could be weeks away from a nuke. Iran is on its back thanks to the Israelis. Israel can attack their nuclear sites, but they are still being held back. There should be no deal with Iran; if we make a deal with them, they will get nukes. Then, these politicians in California didn’t take care of the basics to protect their communities from wildfires. They mismanaged water resources. Conditions on aid is necessary to save lives in the future. Finally, Heritage President Kevin Roberts calls in to weigh in on Trump’s January 6th pardons and the President’s 100-day agenda.
The American Conservative
Revisiting the Panama Canal Debate of 1978
Photo by Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg
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. It’s going to be a killer show. 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. President Trump soon is landing in California. Governor. Gavin Newsom, as he calls them. He’ll be greeting him. And Trump said, I don’t know why he’s there. I didn’t invite him. So I think with that as a background, Mr. Producer, if we can get a live line into that, if it happens, we’ll see what is said. We’ll listen in. Ladies and gentlemen, if we can get that done, I think we can. Well, we have a a vote, I think, later tonight on the confirmation of Pete Hegseth. And there’s four Republicans in play. I’m wrong about that. There’s two Republicans who have announced they will not Collins and Murkowski. Sacco and Vanzetti of the Republican Party. And in doing so, they are undermining American national security, of course, because we need him in there right now as defense secretary. So they don’t use the advise and consent provision in the Constitution to advise and consent. They use that provision in order to delay, sabotage and undermine. Even when it comes to a secretary of defense and they came up with a phony. Letter this last time or affidavit, if you will. And it was so preposterous. Nobody’s buying it except those who want to. Who are the other two, Mark? Mitch McConnell. We’re still not clear what he’s going to do. The suggestion earlier was that he would vote for Brexit. And then, of course, we have this guy, Thom Tillis, son of North Carolina. Apparently, he’s not sure. He’s not sure. Well, we shall see what Thom Tillis does. Because apparently it’s in his hands as to whether or not Pete Hegseth is confirmed or not. I don’t know what his problem is. Thom Tillis. But that’s. Again, something we will watch for the next 3 hours. We’ll keep a very close eye. There’s a lot going on today in this evening. So we will be watching all of it as carefully as we can. There was a story that kind of broke yesterday. I didn’t have time to get to it because, again, there was so much going on. And that’s these two former Politico reporters, Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri. Now of Puck. Excuse you. Puck. P. U. C. K. The Palmeiras podcast. And they said, look, we were told by Politico, we’re not do we’re not to write about the laptop. Excuse me. Now, when I know you’re not around on your laptop, by the way, this whole cover up on the laptop, it’s not just Politico, it’s The Washington Post, The New York Times, the whole kit and caboodle. But I thought it would be worthwhile if you heard actually what these two reporters said, because it further underscores that we do not have a free press when it comes to the corporate platform Press. Politico was started many years ago to create a new platform. It was started by a few the Washington Compost reporters. And it is as bad as the Washington compost. The bad habits remain. The bad habits. So let’s check this out. These two reporters. Cat 16 go. Another great example when Politico did that terrible ill fated headline. 51 intelligence agents or former intelligence agents say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation or bore the hallmarks of disinformation. Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true. But then Facebook also pulled back. We’re going to pull this back right away. President Trump’s coming to the cameras and as soon as he speaks, we want to go. Here we go. A little while ago. We have that. In very good shape. We have the congressman in charge and. Michael Whatley And we’re going to do a lot of work. We have the California engineers working as they are here, and I think you’re going to see some very big progress. You left them high and dry, and now we’re going to be taking a little tour. With several of the people from the area. I appreciate the governor coming out and meeting me. Seven. You very much and we’ll be talking about it. But we want to get it fixed. We want to get the problem fixed. And there’ll be some way. Like you got hit by a bomb. Yeah. Like you got hit by. Most importantly, thank you for being. Means a great deal to all of us, not just the folks at Palisades, the folks in Argentina that were devastated. We’re going to need your support. We’re going to need your help. You were there for us during COVID. I don’t forget that. And I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together. To get this speedy recovery. Tremendous numbers of lives have been affected. A lot of real estate affected. Nobody nobody’s ever probably seen. We could almost say since the Second World War. If you’re thinking that mean nothing like this has happened and we’re going to get it fixed and we’ll get it permanently fixed so it can happen again. And again we’ll be talking a. Appreciate it, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have. A lot over the past week or so for what has happened in this state. How do you plan to win that? We’re looking to get something completed. And the way you get it completed is to work to get the governor and the state. And we’re going to get it completed. They’re going to need a lot of federal help, unless you don’t need any help, any need a lot of federal help. We’re going to take care of things. You know, I have the comment here. This guy gets all dressed up this city at the city government, all dresses up for the French Laundry, whatever the hell that is. And then he meets the president of the United States and he’s wearing jeans. Right, Mr. Producer? Guys got no class. They’re done. No class whatsoever. That’s the way it goes, I suppose. Really grotesque. Anyway, let’s start at the top again. Now, if we may, with this issue of Politico telling its two reporters not to cover the Hunter laptop. You know this, folks. This this is going on all over the place. Going on all of the time. All the time, rather. Go. Another great example. When Politico did that terrible ill fated headline, 51 intelligence agents or former intelligence agents say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation or bore the hallmarks of disinformation. Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true. But then Facebook also pulled all stories down about the Hunter Biden laptop. And I think Twitter at the same time to correct and punish the New York Post. It didn’t help. I mean, Politico, my former employer and I knew at the time didn’t do itself any favors. I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop. And I was told this came from on high at Politico. Don’t write about the laptop. Don’t talk about the laptop and don’t tweet about the laptop. And the only thing political wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation at the least. Yeah. I mean, I had a hard time, you know, I wrote some pretty serious reporting on Hunter Biden, which actually ended up getting him prosecuted. The story on the guy and consulting with me, because you had you did the original reporting and you came to me like, how do I write about this? I got like, honest, I don’t know. Yeah, it was hard to get it out. I spent three, three months on it. I went to the laptop shop and I did all of the reporting in Delaware and I did all of that. But yeah, I had it had to be like much the 100% nailed down. I had everything, you know, the police reports every like I, you know, I’m a solid reporter, but I do wonder if it could have it would have been published a little quicker, those different type of story. Well, since we’re spilling tea about a former employer, I still have a copy of the story on my external hard drive In 2019, a rival presidential Democratic campaign of Joe Biden’s gave to me the tackling the Apple Research, the tax lien on Hunter Biden for the period of time that it went to Burisma. And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, the former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail. That story was killed by the editors and now no explanation for that either. And so that general experience, you know, I’d stop there. That’s two stories they kill, right? Mr. Producer? Two. It’s incredible. Politico. Politico. What a joke. Go ahead. Thanks. But as a reporter having witnessed the way in which the two candidates were just get called like the terrible mainstream media, it’s like you don’t understand the process there. We also do understand the dumb decision, the mayor and cowardly editors, the man above us when we’re trying to do our jobs. You know what I mean? We’re just looking for scoops, man. The big bias is toward a good story. You hear about this for Politico? And, you know, it’s the same mindset throughout the the left wing media. You know, this was going on and worse that CNN and MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post. That’s why they’re rising up at The Washington Post, the rising up in The New York Times, The Post especially. They don’t like the idea that Bezos total A, we need some balance in this thing. How dare you? We’re not going to endorse any candidate that would include Kamala Harris. They got some resignations. The guy that owns the L.A. Times out there, same damn thing. The newsrooms are controlled by these leftist kooks, these leftist kooks. New York Times is a is a very bad newspaper in this regard. Very, very bad newspaper. And so a combination of things has happened. Now in the media framework. There’s a revolution going on of sorts. That doesn’t mean that they’re going to roll over and play dead. But they’re not making any money. CNN has to lay people off, even though the sugar daddy, the multinational corporation that owns them, can do whatever it wants to. But they’ve just laid off a bunch of people. I believe they’re moving. Jim Acosta, who is a non reporter, bigmouth leftist to midnight or something, I’m going to resist. Why do you have to threaten to resign? Just resign. Just leave and see if anybody gives a You know what? They got fake Jake TAPPER there. They got Wolf BLITZER there. They’ve got, what, a bunch of boring, monotonous Hamas mouthpieces they have there. And then you look at MSNBC, MSNBC is effectively. Well, what can we call this? MSNBC is effectively like BLM, but white. You know what I’m saying, Mr. Producer? Sort of a white BLM. There’s sort of a white lives matter, if you will. That’s what they kind of are over. Now they have a one and a BLM type here and there. But I mean, mostly it’s a wlm type. I mean, look at the main lineup. You’ve got. At night, especially Rachel MADDOW. Last time I checked, she’s white. Lawrence O’Donnell. White. What else you got there? I don’t even track it that closely. Got Yeah. Who else you get that whole lineup? Not many blacks, right? Not many minorities at all. I mean, at least CNN at some point had a Hamas supporting host. Right. And that was MSNBC. They had a Hamas supporting host. It was actually out of the closet. But if you look what’s happening, these media organizations put us putting aside the sugar daddies around them. They are hurting and they are hurting badly. The Washington Post has really minimal subscribers. They’ve lost. Enormous percentage of subscribers. You see, even liberals. I don’t mean radical Marxist leftists, I mean even sort of mainstream old time liberals. They still don’t want to be lied to. They still don’t want to be lied to. I mean, they’re knee jerk in many ways, but they don’t want to be lied to. They don’t want to read. You know, newspapers that don’t tell them the truth. Here you have a cover up of several stories that Politico. Politico should go out of business. It’s not in the news business. A cover up. We’ve seen the same thing with the other media when it came to the laptop. The New York Times. Anyway, I think it’s good that these two reporters have come forward. They may be liberal, they may be Democrat, but at least they have some ounce of integrity. And that’s the way it used to be. We always knew the media were liberal. 40, 50, 60 years ago. But these these hosts and these news reporters tried to try to kind of put it aside. They try. But today it’s out of the closet. They hired Democrats. They hired Democrats, staffers. You got Pisarski there. You got you got all kinds of people there. I mean, out of the Clinton administration, Obama administration, they’re all they populate the whole damn thing. We’ll be right back.
Segment 2
You know, President Trump is a remarkable man. Truly is. He’s in California this evening. He’s got energy like nobody in anybody’s ever seen in my life, despite what he’s been through, including assassination attempts. But before he goes to California, goes in North Carolina, and he promises we’re going to send the Army Corps of Engineers and they’re going to do something about this as well as funds and so forth. He says it’s unbelievable. It’s been sitting here like this for months. FEMA, he’s right. FEMA’s become a burdensome, bloated bureaucracy. And what he wants to do is he still wants to help, but he wants to block grant the funds to the states. Which will know what to do about it. Which we’ll know what to do about. And. I think that that is such a brilliant idea. It really is. It’s very, very important. Then Reagan administration at the Department of Education many, many years ago when I was a deputy assistant principal deputy assistant secretary on my way to becoming chief of staff for justice. I’m just explaining a little context. We took the funds because we couldn’t eliminate the department. The Republicans blocked us in the Senate. The Republican. And so what we did is we took the funds from the elementary and secondary education funds, and we brought and we block printed them and we sent it to the states for the states to give it to the cities, the towns, the counties and so forth as they saw fit with very general minimal guidelines. You know, they had to spend it on elementary and secondary education. But we felt we didn’t we didn’t know exactly what they should or shouldn’t do. And I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense. Either get rid of FEMA or you turn it into basically into a a check rating operation and you block grant the funds and you send them to North Carolina. In the case of California, the amount of money is massive. You have to force the local and state governments to do the right thing. We can’t send them $100 billion. I’ll be back.
Segment 3
All right, let’s get down to it. President Trump, the Asheville Airport, you went beyond the Asheville Airport, actually went in and met many of the people. He’s a very, very compassionate man. You know, the wife of the volunteer firefighter in Butler, Pennsylvania. She said yesterday that Donald Trump called her every day for about two weeks after her husband was murdered. Every day. And remember he did a go fund me or the equivalent. Actually, I think he just did. It raised significant amounts of money. He just felt so horrible about what happened to that man. And when he says and when he looks in North Carolina and says, look at this, look at this mess, it’s still here, FEMA. What’s the point of FEMA? It’s not working. It’s not functioning. What does he say? We got to fix this. We had to change this. Cut to reduce. Go. I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of them. I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go. And whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA. And then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area. They’ve never been to the area. And they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about. They want to bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have. And FEMA’s turned out to be a disaster. And that’s also true. And here he has the guts to say it. FEMA is a disaster. Here’s even more. I just look how he thinks. He thinks like a real can do. Executive businessmen and the bureaucrats are not used to this. These government agencies are not used to FEMA, just figures that they’re you know, they’re immune from criticism because of the mission. Well, the mission isn’t getting done. And so you have these leaders, great leaders like Trump, like DeSantis, who know it and want to do something about it. And Trump Trump just does not let things sit. He tackles them to the ground. It’s an amazing thing You’re witnessing history here. He did this in the first term, but this terms like nothing we’ve ever seen, nothing we’ve ever seen. Cut three ago. I’m pleased to announce that under our leadership, the federal government will be surging. Housing solutions to this state that go beyond mere temporary hotel stays. That ended up being very short term. The government wouldn’t do it any longer, which is ridiculous. Well, Marshal, all available resources to bring back potable water and make your water and infrastructure dramatically more reliable very quickly. Today, I’ll also be signing an executive order, slashing all red tape and bureaucratic barriers and permits to ensure the rapid reconstruction of the roads here in western North Carolina. We’re going to go through a permitting process that’s called no permitting, just get it done. That’s the way they built the many years ago, I guarantee you that. Right. See, They say this guy’s built buildings. And they know there’s a huge problem. Listen, these people need houses. They need a roof over their head. And he knows that. So he’s signing this executive order to slash all this red tape and to do something about it. He was in California. He’s in California still. He goes out there and he said, look, we’re not going to turn $100 billion or whatever the amount of money is over the state of California, which will not do what the state of California supposed to do. And I’ll give you evidence of that. They got an enormous amount of money from this so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which was a climate change Act, which was a massive ruse to send money, particularly to these blue states and these left wing groups. They had plenty of money in California to start addressing these issues, especially the provision of water to make sure their hydrants work, to make sure their sprinklers work, to make sure firefighters get what they need. They had plenty of money to take care of the the undergrowth and these forests and all the dead trees and the and the plants. And they were warned over and over again that it’s a tinderbox, that it’s going to be a disaster. But they didn’t care. Newsom lied about what he was doing. You could see that they were cutting back on funding for firefighters. For fire trucks, I mean, doing exactly the wrong thing. But they always have money for illegal aliens and homeless people and redistribution of wealth and all the rest of the crap. And that’s what he’s talking about. You want money? We want to help you. But we got to figure out a way to get this done so it doesn’t just keep happening. Look at all the destitution. Look at the dead people. God. We’ve got to figure out how to do something about this. So there’s going to be strings attached and there should be. There’s going to be strings attached. Hello. And there should be. Now. I want you to listen to the first cut for Trump at the Asheville, North Carolina, Airport in Fletcher, North Carolina. Cut, Fargo. I don’t know. I was told the ship was going to travel with us to California. I wasn’t thrilled, to be honest with you. And I saw him last night on television. It looks like he got hit with a baseball bat or something. What happened to him? Something happened to him. It was well, it looked like a bad hit. It looked like he got beat around. But. But I’ll ask Caroline to find out what happened. You know, if he wanted to come out, I would have done that. But I don’t know, I. Somebody said that he wanted to come on the plane, but I think he’s staying back for the votes. And what has shift done exactly for the state of California? Nothing. Nothing is a bad dude. It’s a bad person. All talk. No action. Big mouth. Now he terminated Fauci’s security. I don’t even know Fauci had security, to be honest with you. America had no idea. I didn’t know Fauci had security. For the rest of his life. Now, Fauci was the highest paid bureaucrat for many, many years. He’s a multimillionaire. And so, of course, the question is, why doesn’t he pay for his own security? Why do we have to pay for it? And I didn’t know he’s getting threats. Apparently he is. But let’s check this out. Cut five. Go. A security detail for Anthony Crouch, who was terminated last night. Sir. Do you have a comment? No. I think, you know, when you work for governor government, at some point, your security detail comes off and you know you can’t have them forever. So I think it’s very standard. If it would be for somebody else, you wouldn’t be asking the question. The question is very fair. But, you know, you work for government. We took some off other people, too. But you can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you work for government. Yeah, we’ll see what happens. You know, partially responsible. We will have more to say about, you know, John Bolton. You know, they all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security, too. All the people you’re talking about, they can go out like you gave him some good numbers, A very good security people. They can hire their own security. They all made a lot of money. Fortune made a lot of money. They all did. So if they, you know, felt that strongly, I think that certainly I would not take responsibility. Hmm. I’ll be right back.
Segment 4
So over at the Constipated News Network, which is an utter and complete turmoil right now. Jim Acosta. So you really don’t care about in one day he will be doing news reports such as they are from airport radar and sonograms to where he belongs. By the way, whatever happened to Chris Wallace, Mr. Producer, where is he? He’s nowhere. He’s nowhere where he has a soapbox on the corner somewhere and he’s yelling at the top of his lungs with a raincoat on handing out cigarettes or something of that sort. And I’m sure Jim Acosta would follow. He’s been nothing but a circus clown. Oh, excuse me. We’re like circus clowns. He’s been nothing but a schmuck. And so, of course, they have John Bolton on. When John Bolton was actually rational. In my opinion, saying they wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. They would mock John Bolton. But because John Bolton now is sort of the anti-Trump, they bring him on as often as they can. Does he have anything to contribute? Not really. He’s sort of the Adam Kinzinger of John Bolton’s. Nor does he think about the revoking of security. And so, of course, what do you think John Bolton thinks about that? Cut six go? I guess, you know, he did vow retribution during the campaign. Is that what this is? What’s your response to that? Well, great question. Now, no. Do they want to push you to midnight? And why do they want to push you to midnight? And the only people will watch you on CNN at midnight is the people who turn on their TV and they need the light from the TV. A lot of people need sort of a soft light from TV to fall asleep, believe it or not. Believe it or not. Go ahead. No, I think I think it is retribution. Look, there are several people, several former former officials who are being protected because of Iranian threats made against their lives in connection with the elimination of Qassim Soleimani back in January of 2020, a decision President Trump himself approved. The if you could ask all of us, I’ll speak for all of. But I think I can do that. We’d be delighted to say we’d like to see the protection ended well before the end of our lives if the threat diminishes. Okay. Okay. You’re going to have to pay for your own security. It’s not fun. But it’s something you’ll need to do. One of the things that is concerning a lot of people is the Islamo Nazi regime in Iran. And in that regard. We’ve talked about this a lot as recently as last evening. Their speed toward getting a nuclear bomb. Trey Yingst, a very good reporter out of Israel, said they’re weeks away. The IAEA of the United Nations said they’re weeks away. We’re apparently sending over. Steven What cuff to negotiate with them. We’re like the 10th administration negotiating with the Islamic Nazi regime. They’re on their back thanks to the Israelis. Their ground to air missile system is dead, thanks to the Israelis. Their electricity is all but dead, thanks to the Israelis. Their gas lines are free for the attacking, thanks to the Israelis. The Israelis can attack their nuclear sites. And we’re holding them back, apparently. Just like Biden. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Especially after they were attacked. And I recollect President Trump saying they ought to take out their nuclear sites. No negotiation works with terrorists. Even if they say, sure, we’ll do it. And then when Trump’s gone, they’ll do what they do. But. If they fear Donald Trump, it’s the Israelis they fear because it’s the Israelis who are there, have the capacity not only able to go, they want to go there chomping at the bit to go. I don’t know what this negotiated settlement is this negotiation going to look like? Are they going to sign it like that’s going to make a difference? I’m serious, folks. This is the old way of thinking. And I think Donald Trump was enormously successful on foreign policy because he rejected all that. And I would encourage him to reject all this advice to these restrictions or strainers, whatever these this little cabal of morons and low I.Q. types keep talking about, that’s a dead end. That’s a disaster. That’s a complete disaster. I know these people are laced throughout the government. They weaseled their way in. There are more and more reports about who they are, part of the Coke Foundation operation. Part of the Coke. Soros, Quincy Institute. How the hell did they get anywhere near the Trump government? I’m just being very serious about this, folks. They shouldn’t. And so President Trump was asked about this by Sean HANNITY. By the way, I’m going to be on Jessie Waters show tonight. I yeah, I will be on Jesse Waters show tonight. There’s a lot of shows that have been asking me to come on. I haven’t been doing it. Number one, because of the injury and number two, because I got a ton to do. But we’re going to start doing more because there’s just too much important going on. So I’ll be on his show tonight. Good guy, by the way. Really nice guy. Anyway, what I was saying was he was asked in this interview with HANNITY about taking out the Iranian nukes. Now, we’re not going to have enough time this year, but I do want to hit it. I do want to hit it after into the next hour, because it’s very important. Iran has hypersonic missiles. They will perfect them even further with the help of the communist Chinese and the Russians. They’ll perfect them even further and they’ll put nuclear warheads on them. And once they get a nuclear warhead, they will continue to perfected, perfected, perfected, and they’ll be capable of hitting our cities. I just don’t want Iran to get a nuclear capacity on our watch for sure at all. But on Donald Trump’s watch, when we’re waving around, you know, hey, we got a deal. We got a deal. Got to think very hard about this. So we’ll address this again at the top of the next hour. I’ll be right back.