February 20th, 2025

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, aggregator sites like Drudge and Mediaite, often run by left-wing individuals, spin content from this show to create misleading headlines, such as claiming Levin is defying President Trump over his views on Putin, and Zelensky. This narrative is pseudo-news meant to provoke a nonexistent feud – it won’t work. Later, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, called in and emphasized that Israel is engaged in a fight for its civilization. He revealed the grim news that Hamas had returned four bodies, with Hamas shamelessly rejoicing in the act. However, he clarified that the fourth body, Shiri Bibas, was not the mother’s body but instead an unidentified one. These terrorists are monstrous. Also, Kash Patel has been confirmed as FBI Director. This marks a stark contrast to Trump’s first term when Democrats stalled his nominees for months. Yet, despite not even stepping into the role, Patel is already facing Democrat attacks. Finally, the EPA discovered that the Biden administration awarded $2 billion to a Stacey Abrams-linked climate group. There needs to be a criminal investigation of this. None of this would have been uncovered if not for Trump. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls in to discuss these findings. The EPA found billions of dollars’ worth of “Gold Bars.”

Photo by Shawn Thew/EPA/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 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. First of all, congratulations to Kash Patel and many of you had a lot to do with that, contacting your members of the Senate as we discussed. And I want to thank you for that. He’s going to be a great director of the FBI. All the really all the cabinet positions and individuals that we cared about have now been confirmed. So I want to thank you very, very much. This is very different. The first time around when they were dragging out these nominees. And Schumer was successful in it. And we got ahead of this president got ahead of this. And push this agenda very, very important. We talked about it here on The Blaze and on Fox. And I want to thank you all. Who got involved in that process. And I want to thank the Republicans who voted for these members excuse me, for these nominees as well. Very, very important for the presidency in this president to have these cabinet secretaries. There were these particular cabinet secretaries. You know, it’s very weird. These aggregation sites are aggregator sites, whether it’s Drudge or media ID and so forth. There’s some really good ones. But there’s some that I just scratch my head sometimes, and I wonder why they even exist. Take this site called Media Eye, set up by Dan Abrams, who likes to pose as a serious lawyer while he’s Jerry Springer on cable TV. There. This guy, Kobe Hall, I think his name is. I think he was some. Behind the scenes guy on cable or whatever? I don’t know. Then they have mostly left wing. Individuals whose job I guess it is to. Pick off TV shows and radio shows and clips and then put titles on them and then put their spin on them. I don’t know everybody who listens to this program. Four years knows what I think about Putin in Russia. I’ve been behind this microphone almost 25 years. Putin’s been the dictator Russia for 24 years. Everybody knows what I think of Putin in Russia. Listen to this program. Everybody knows what I think of Zelensky and Ukraine. Especially since Russia invaded Ukraine. I haven’t made it a secret. I talk about it all the time. All the time. Now my position is not hidden. My position is not unknown. Some people love it, some people hate it. That’s the nature of the beast. And so yesterday when I said my what my position was and I went through it and I talked about the poll numbers for Zelinski, I talked about the poll numbers for Putin who started the war and so forth. So big headline at Media eight, which absolutely hates Donald Trump and me. About how I am defying Donald Trump. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Defying Donald Trump. What does that even mean? I’m a broadcaster. I’m a writer. I’m probably the biggest certainly one of the biggest supporters of this president. I have my views about Russia and Ukraine. And Donald Trump’s views about Russia and Ukraine are not the same as the views. And some of these people. In podcasting and radio on TV who claim to speak for Donald Trump? Not officially. But they just project. They say what he thinks and they’re often dead wrong. You know, the Democrats who tried to tie Putin to Trump, they’re still trying to do it. And yet we have some real kooks from the Quincy Institute funded by Soros and Coke and just others, gadflies. Who are trying to do the same thing. In their own perverse way. Donald Trump is not tied to Putin. He’s not Putin’s sucker. He’s not Putin’s mouthpiece. He has certain views about certain things. And sometimes he’s ten steps ahead of us. As he has been in the Middle East. And in other places, too. So my views are my views. They’re not a quote unquote, defiance of Donald Trump. They’re not an attack on Donald Trump. 81% of the American people don’t trust Putin. That’s out from Wednesday. That means the vast majority of you, the vast majority of MAGA, Make America Great again. Don’t trust or like Putin. They say 9% of the American people do. Now 73% of Republicans do not. 93% of Democrats do not. But there’s a nine percenter group out there who I call Putin quoits because it rhymes with hemorrhoids. It’s not that they just oppose supporting Ukraine. It’s that they have their heads up Putin’s ass. That’s the problem. Now, these are important distinctions. But it’s lost on Isaac. Sure. I think his name is. It’s lost on the Drudge Report. Because why? I wrote a book called On Freedom of the Press. This is pseudo news. So they desperately want a fight between Mark Levine and Donald Trump. Not going to happen. It isn’t happening. Let me tell you something else. I think the only guy, the only person who can pull off a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is Trump, just as he’s done in the Middle East. But I have my views. About Ukraine and Russia. I have my views about a lot of things that don’t always sync up with Ronald Reagan or Milton Friedman or Bill Buckley or Donald Trump. But the difference is we come at this from the same perspective. We love America. We’re concerned about America’s security. You know, big people, mature adults, they have discussions about these things. It doesn’t mean it’s personal. It doesn’t even mean it has anything to do with Donald Trump. I gave my opinion now when I said these Putin boys are un-American. They’re dangerous. Had nothing to do with Donald Trump. I couldn’t have been more clear yesterday. You can go back on the Mark Levin show, which is where these guys went anyway and listen to it. We put the audio of this show up a few hours after it’s over and go listen to it. I speak real English. Yeah. Plain English. So even left wing kooks looking for a fight can understand exactly what I’m saying. So these. These efforts, these these these efforts to to bait hits, I guess they call it, right, Mr. Producer? At mediocre right or the Drudge Report reject them. Completely. I’ve also talked about Biden. And gave a lot of money to Ukraine and a lot of arms to Ukraine and a lot of strictures to Ukraine. So Ukraine couldn’t win. So Ukraine’s fighting a war against Russia that can blow out its cities, that can blow out its energy systems, that can that can do horrendous damage to the people of Ukraine. But Ukraine cannot attack Russian cities. So Biden did Ukraine, what he was trying to do to Netanyahu and Israel. Supported them to a point. Restrictions on the use of their weapons. Do not take out Iran. Do not take out Iran’s nuclear sites. Do not go into Lebanon. But Netanyahu went anyway. Thank God he did. And so far, don’t go into Rafah. Don’t go into these other. But so thank God he did. But Ukraine is up against Russia, a country that’s three or four times the population has a massive industrial center, certainly compared to Ukraine. Ukraine’s mostly an agricultural country. So I don’t even understand what the controversy is about, because there is none. These are pseudo events. This is an effort. By pathetic sites, they get click bait. Now, let me tell you something. I’ll give you an example. The media two stories. First, when conservative media should tell the unvarnished truth about Donald Trump’s ghastly attacks on Ukraine. Same Guy Hears headline Mark Levin Defies Trump by Backing Zelensky in Trashing Putin Bashes Sick and un-American Foreign Policy. Aren’t those headlines contradictory? Mr. Biden’s. First, they say Mark and others should tell the unvarnished truth about Donald Trump’s carefully attacks on Ukraine. Their next story is Mark Levin defies Trump by backing Zelensky and trashing Putin. So which one is it? Which one is it? They don’t even know which one it is because they’re stupid. That’s why they work at media hype and that’s why they’re aggregators and that’s why they steal content from somebody else. Put their own headlines on it, which are so misleading. And do what they do. So did Donald Trump call me today about this? Of course not. Did I call him about this today? Of course not. If a great relationship, nobody’s going to get in between it. They try and create these controversies. My God, there’s a split. There’s no split. I have my opinion. I voice my opinion. And I’m going to always voice my opinion, and I always have. Even when I was in the Reagan administration, the Justice Department, there were times I personally disagree with the position of the Reagan administration, and I said so. So what? That’s my opinion. I will back up my opinion. I will explain my opinion. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed at all. I have a lot of faith in President Trump that he knows what he’s doing. A lot of faith that he knows what he’s doing. This is just the first act in a multi act event. That’s what it is. He’s not. A, you know, a double talk diplomat. He knows exactly what he’s thinking. He’s also very strategic about the things he says. Maybe he believes Wolinsky is too dug in and he’s trying to loosen them up. I have no idea. None. No idea at all. But. The facts of the facts about who Putin is, what he is, the people he’s murdered. Murdered people who challenged him in elections has never had a fair election. She responsible for a half a million deaths along with Assad? His body in Syria. And we can go on and on and on. My problem is with the Putin choice in the Republican Party. The Putin choice in the so-called populist movement. Dispute noise in the Marxist Islamist left. My problem is with them. Trump is no Putin void. That whole Russia collusion thing was always a lie. Trump was tougher on Russia than anybody. That’s right. He cut off their their gas line to Germany. He put in the toughest sanctions against Putin and his oligarchs. He actually was the first one to give military weapons to Ukraine to help. To help at least deal with Russia should they invade while Obama was giving blankets. This is his record. He’s not a Putin white. He doesn’t suck up to Putin. He’s trying to do what he said he wants to do, bring peace to the region, and he’ll do it his way. And strategically, he’s absolutely brilliant. And I will continue to give my opinion about Putin, about Zelensky. About Ukraine and about Russia. And the problem with the 9% pure noise is they don’t even want you to have an opinion. You’re either in with them or they’re coming after you. I’m shaken. I could care less. I could care less. 100%. So this has nothing to do with people say, Wow, he’s defying Trump. Trump doesn’t roll that way. He’s defying Trump. He’s different people around him. Many of them give him different opinions quietly and personally. That’s what he does. I’m not an adviser unless he asked me a question, which he does from time to time. Not on this. And that’s the way it is. There’s nothing else to it. There’s nothing controversial immediate your me an apology and Drudge. I don’t even think Drudge runs that crap anymore over there at the Drudge Report. I just don’t think so. I’ll be right back.

Segment 2
Horrors in Israel, just absolute horrors. And I have some breaking news, too. And we have the ambassador to the United States from Israel in just a few minutes. Did you see the video of the men, women, children? Hamas in camouflage as well. Partying, playing music, dancing, laughing. Is the four bodies. The dead. Israelis were given to the Red Cross. Did you see them introduce? It was stomach turning. One of the babies, of course, was ten months old, nine months old when they kidnapped the little boy and. The other little boy was two years old. They murdered them and they murdered a mother. They murdered this old man. The oldest of the hostages. And now there’s breaking news from open source intel. IDF after completing the identification process by the National Center for Forensic Medicine in cooperation with the Israel Police. IDF representatives have enforced the Bibi’s family. That’s the mother and the two babies that were murdered that their loved one’s heroine Curb as a blessed memory have been identified. During the identification process, it was found that the additional body received was not that of their mother, Cherie Bevis. No match was found for any other abductee. It’s an anonymous body without identification. So they withheld withheld the mother’s body. They broke the cease fire. There were multiple bomb attempts, terrorist attempts, again, in Israel on buses today. We’re going to discuss that as well with the ambassador from Israel. Hamas needs to be obliterated and in a very painful way. I’ll be right back.

Segment 3
We’re here with Ambassador Leiter, ambassador to the United States from Israel, who himself lost a son tragically, in this war. We had him on about a year or so ago. It’s a horrible thing. Six children lost their father. You lost your son. So you know what this is all about personally, Mr. Ambassador, and. What’s going on with this? Hamas in the way they’re even releasing these bodies are so disgusting, so barbaric. I’d like you to tell the American people what happened today and how the Israeli people view this. Well, thank you, Mark. Good evening. Good to be with you. Look, we’re in a we’re in a civilizational battle. This isn’t a local issue. It’s not a regional issue. It’s a civilizational issue. And we’re at the forefront of this battle against barbarism. What happened today, aside from the fact that four people were returned dead after they were taken hostage by by the way, I must reveal to you now, has just been revealed to the public about 10 minutes ago that the the fourth body who was supposed to be the mother of these two babies is not the mother. It’s not the mother. No. The only thing they’re going to laugh at us to the very moment they returned an anonymous body. We have no idea who it is. It’s not one of the hostages. You know, just to. Just to try to degrade and embarrass and poke fun the same way they had this really horrific, ghoulish celebration as they released the bodies today with marching music. These are these are very depraved people. And it’s very important to understand that, you know, there’s something called evil. For many years, there was an attempt to, you know, that moral equivalence and everything is subjective. And no, there’s such a thing as objective evil. I think the secretary of state today called it pure evil. Hamas is pure evil, but not just Hamas. You’ve got the Islamic Jihad there as well. We don’t know who was responsible for the second act of depravity today. And by the grace of God, nobody additionally was killed. But we had three massive bombs go off at bus depots just south of Tel Aviv. The fourth one didn’t explode. But what we did find on the fourth one was a inscription in Arabic which called for the victory of jihad. So, I mean, we know where it’s coming from. So they returned bodies that they had taken hostage and they tried to kill more people today. And really, by the grace of God, the bombs didn’t go off because had they. Well, they went off, but they went off at the depot and they going off during, you know, prime time, during rush hour, there could have been scores of people killed. So, again, this is a fight against barbarity and we’re a resilient people. Mark, we’re going to win this. It just I think at least in the United States and our government, the tide has turned 100%. That is. Even though the prior regime claimed to be supportive of Israel, they withheld weapons and they limited what you could do with the weapons and so forth and so on. I get a very different sense from the Trump administration, from his secretary of state, from his national security adviser, Defense Department, and all the rest. But they’ve about had it with these terrorists, too. And and they’re 100% behind Israel. Obviously, there needs to be coordination between allies and so forth. But every time President Trump sees something like this, it absolutely turns his stomach. You get that sense, too. Well, I do. And I think it’s not just emotional. I think the president is echoing a sense of moral clarity. And when the president speaks of moral clarity, everybody around him, his ministers, his secretaries, the administration speaks of moral clarity. And, you know, it is a stark difference. The music we heard until recently was, you know, more humanitarian aid to Gaza. We were never holding up humanitarian aid. The only thing that was being held up were were weapons to Israel that we had paid for. We had a seven front war. We’re still in this battle. And and we had an arms embargo we had to deal with. And in this case, the music is very different. The music is this is evil. And Israel has not only the right, but the obligation to defeat its enemies, because these are not just enemies of Israel. These are enemies of Israel and of Western civilization. We’re the little Satan. You here in the United States, the big Satan. If we lose, they’re coming for you next. So we need we need to win this battle for Western civilization. And we understand that. And we’re poised to do that. And actually, they did compress on 911, and they’re going to come for us again, which is a very important point that you’re making. This family. They lose the mother. They lose the two little babies. I mean, murdering a nine month old. And I believe Arya was four years old at the time. These beautiful little boys and their mother and we were there watching them take them away. You can see the absolute horror on the mother’s face like she knew, Oh my God, something horrific is going to happen. I mean, the people in Israel must just be in such. First of all, pain and anger. No. Well, you know, Margaret, the father guardian, actually ran out of their home in the kibbutz, seven year old’s to protect his family. And he was snatched. He was taken hostage. And he didn’t even know what happened to his his wife and the two little children. They were taken separately afterwards and held separately. And there’s going to be even more disturbing evidence coming out as to just how they were killed and when they were killed. I can’t get into it now. But really, really horrific kind of behavior. It’s depraved and what we’re feeling. Well, you know, look, we’re feeling like a people at war. We’re battle scarred. This has been a year and a half of war. You mentioned my son. I know so many people who, you know, have lost. Last night, as a matter of fact, there were 12 orphans who lost their fathers who came to visit Washington. And I sat next to an orphan whose father was killed together with my son. You had you had three generations where, you know, it’s my son, his father, and they’re still together. They were the team that led the forces into Gaza. And in response to October 7th, and they walked into a booby trap on the end of the second week of the war. But what I can tell you is when I looked out over these 12 orphans and when each one of them spoke a little bit about their their fathers and about their future. Each one is about 16, 17, and they’re talking about the day they’re looking forward to enlisting in the IDF, in the Israeli army, to help protect and defend the Jewish people in the state of Israel. And it was with such pride that I heard these young men speaking. So, yes, the population is hurting. Everybody has been affected by this war. Everybody knows someone who has lost someone. And then you have to remember all the injured soldiers. We’ve got over 5000 seriously injured soldiers. And then we have all the people of injured by Palestinian terrorism, which is almost a daily occurrence in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere. And then we’ve got tens of thousands of people have been removed from their homes because of the Hezbollah missiles in the north, because of the attack in the south outside of Gaza, and people removed from their homes for a year and a half also have tremendous issues to deal with, tremendous challenges. Many of them cannot go back yet to their homes. So we’ve got a nation in trauma, but it’s also a nation resilient and determined to win this war. We’re going to win this war. We’re to come out on top of the war because we understand this is this is our mission. And not just for ourselves, but really for humanity. It’s a civilizational battle for humanity, which we must win. And with the help of the United States, with the help of the Trump administration, with a full backing of our closest ally, our big brother, we’re going to do this right. You’re listening to Ambassador Leiter, the Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Obviously, I’m not going to press you elaborate. That’s not my intention. But you did say that. These children were murdered in a horrendous way. Did you say that? I did. I did. But it’s premature at this point to go through what I believe. I believe that in the near future, it’s going to be it’s going to be released. It should look, it shouldn’t surprise anyone. But we discussed this. Well, look, these people are being kept in underground tunnels, for God’s sake. You know, I made the point that a. In one of the big temples here in Washington the other night, it was 500 days. They were marking 500 days to take the hostages. You know, the Ten Commandments, we’ve got thou shalt not kill. It’s actually thou shalt not murder, because sometimes in war, for example, you have to kill the Thou shalt not. Murder is the correct translation. And the next commandment is thou shalt not steal. And stealing. Our rabbis explained to us in that passage refers to stealing human beings. You can’t you don’t steal human beings. You don’t hold human beings hostage. That’s something that is, you know, prehistoric, almost. And these people want to take us back in time and and a whole you know, if you if you go through Jerusalem, we have tunnels still. But these tunnels unearth history and they take us back to the indigenous nature of the Jewish people, to the land of Israel. And they show what it was like at the time of King David and King Solomon. You walk you walk with a tour book, which is really the book, which is the Bible, that you don’t need to buy a tour book. You just take the Bible, you walk through these tunnels, and yet these people, these Hamas and Islamic Jihad, these operatives of Iran, build tunnels to. But they’re to keep people in dungeons down below and to keep missiles that they fire into our civilian population centers. Mark, I’m sure you know this, but the the extent of the tunnels and this was all international funding, they took the money instead of giving it to poor people who need it for for for social issues, for health issues, for educational issues. They used it to store missiles and now people and there’s 450 miles of tunnel. I mean, that’s the width of the state of Pennsylvania. In Gaza itself, that’s what we had to we had to confront. That’s what our soldiers are incredibly brave soldiers had to confront. They had to fight a war aboveground, underground. And I’ve spoken to many experts who are in Fallujah and Mosul and some of the most difficult battles. They said they didn’t have to face anything like this. This is just beyond beyond difficult. And we were able to do it with with great courage and, well, taking care of the civilian population at the same time. So, you know, we’re going to we’re going to persist. We’re going to make the case. And now, please, God, with the help of the American administration, the Trump administration, President Trump and and his cabinet, we’re going to we’re going to see this thing through the through to the end. And the end is when the head of the snake, when Iran is denuclearize, Iran is responsible for all of these terror proxies. And if they’re allowed to achieve nuclear capabilities, that means that all of their terror proxies will be operating under a nuclear umbrella. This is impossible. This is existential. Existential not only for us, but for Europe and for the United States. We we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. We literally have 2 minutes in a heart break means they’ll cut us off right in the middle of a sentence. But in 2 minutes time, tell us about your son who passed away. Well, my son was killed on November 10th, just before the beginning of the Shabbat. He was 39. He had spent 15 years in special ops in the Air Force. He trained with the Delta Force. He led many operations that were very successful. He was very brave, very courageous. He left six children at the age of 33. He decided to go to med school, and he was supposed to start his rounds in the hospital on October 8th. He was a very loving, kind individual. And the reason why he went to med school, because he wanted to save lives after having spent so much time in special ops. So he’s terribly missed. He was my best friend, my oldest of eight children. But I’m very proud to have had a son as as courageous as as as beautiful a human being as anybody could ask for. And I’m sure he was and would be very proud of his father, too. And, Ambassador, I want to thank you. Appreciate that, Marc. Thank you. You became a good friend, a friend of the family. We very much appreciate you, Ambassador Leiter, Give our best to the prime minister and all the folks over there. I will do that. Thank you so much. God bless you. What a remarkable human being, folks. And Israel is filled with remarkable human beings. I said human beings, civilized human beings. They were up against these subhuman monsters. And I can’t imagine what they did to those little babies. But obviously, it was something horrific. It’s just it’s almost it’s just unspeakable. We’ll be right back.

Segment 4
Israel’s ambassador to the United States just told us that the two babies who were killed were killed in pretty horrible ways. And he was an avowed wasn’t free to discuss it. They’ll come out eventually, he said. And we’ve also learned today that literally 15, 20 minutes ago that the mother, those two babies, her body said to be turned over to the Israelis, was not turned over to the Israelis. It was somebody else’s body, but not but not one of the hostages. And at the same time, almost simultaneously, while this was going on, there were bombs planted on, I think it was five buses, a few of which blew up, but they blew up in the depot and a couple that didn’t blow up. And so this is what our Israeli brothers and sisters are facing. This is what they’re facing. And I certainly hope, given what the ambassador said on this program, that the Drudge Report will actually report some news, that media will actually report some news. The stop playing games. That those two babies were murdered in horrendous ways. And at some point we’re going to learn about it. And that their mother’s body was not returned. And keep something in mind, in exchange for these bodies, including an old man who I think was 85 or 86 years old, the oldest hostage was also murdered in his body. Was traded for what? A couple of hundred military age terrorists who were let out of prison. So murdered babies in horrendous ways. A murdered old man. A murdered mother whose body wasn’t returned in exchange for. Military age terrorists who were convicted. Of crimes, including crimes against humanity. I don’t want to hear anything more about any more cease fires, and I don’t want to hear anything more about a two state solution kind of crap. Is this You’re dealing with barbarians, subhuman pieces of crap. That’s enough already. They didn’t kill these people because they were Israelis. They killed them because they were Jews. It’s that simple. It’s not about land. It’s not about geography. It never has been, and it never will be. What do you think the river to the sea means? They will not leave these people alone. They will not leave them alone. Some of our friends might call this a forever war. How do you end this forever war? He gave up. You retrench? You isolate? Well, the enemy doesn’t wait. They don’t give a damn what you do. They’re on offense. Always. It’s a lesson to be learned by we, the people here in the United States of America. It’s just horrendous. What they do to babies and women and all the rest of it. It’s sick. I don’t even think the Vikings did this, Mr. Producer. I don’t think the barbarians that destroyed the Roman Empire did anything like this. I don’t think just Hitler. Hitler’s the only one. They love Hitler. I’ll be right back.