On Monday’s Mark Levin Show, if America isn’t careful, we will lose the country to the self-aggrandizing elites that use democracy to destroy democracy and use the law to destroy the law. Our ally Israel is a democracy yet their law enforcement and judicial systems have been politicized to go after political rivals. Israeli police used spyware called Pegasus to spy on Benjamin Netanyahu’s family, government colleagues, and journalists covering him before any investigations were even launched. This threat to the civil society is the greatest threat facing us today. Then, the left within the media has embraced Mike Pence for saying that he disagreed with President Trump that he could send the electoral ballots back to the states. The media has inaccurately portrayed this as Pence picking the next president – it’s not. It was simply Pence’s interpretation of his authority under the Constitution over whether he even had such authority. Later, Convention of States CEO Mark Meckler calls in to discuss a big upcoming vote in South Dakota that needs our support but could be blocked by Republicans that don’t want to lose power. Meckler underscored the need for strong leadership to secure the 18 votes needed for a convention of states. Afterward, former Ambassador David Freidman joins the show to discuss his new book, “Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East”. Friedman recalled the antisemitism he faced during his tenure and the uphill battle to bring peace to the middle east region.
THIS IS FROM:
Wall St Journal
Israel Launches Investigation Into Ballooning Spyware Scandal
Times Of Israel
Netanyahu rails against cops over spyware claims: Like IDF bombing Israeli civilians
NY Times
Where Fox News and Donald Trump Took Us
Inference
Thunder Out of China
Washington Examiner
Loudoun official coached principals on getting warrants for unmasked students
Breitbart
Senior State Department Staffer Told Ambassador David Friedman: ‘Don’t Be So Jewish’
The podcast for this show can be streamed or downloaded from the Audio Rewind page.
Image used with permission of Getty Images / Ahmad Gharabli
Rough transcript of Hour 1
Hour 1 Segment 1
Hello, America. Mark Levin, it’s great to be back with millions and millions of you and our audience, our friends, our national town hall meeting. It’s a great pleasure. All as well. We have a lot going on this afternoon in some parts of the country this evening and other parts. I wanted to jump into something many of you may not expect me to jump into first, but I am because it is a very, very important lesson on how you lose your country. How you lose your country. To the phony self-appointed elites. Self aggrandizing narcissists who use liberty to destroy liberty. He used the law to destroy the law, who used democracy to destroy democracy. Our ally, Israel, is supposed to be a democracy. Were competitive parties and competitive views and competitive elections. But it’s turned into something else. It’s turned into something else, the law enforcement bureaucracy that would be the police and the prosecutors and yes, unfortunately, judges. Are colluding and conspiring to run the country. The genius of our Constitution is that the framers gave us a bill of rights and they gave us a bill of Rights after the Constitution was adopted because the states demanded it or they weren’t going to adopt the Constitution. It didn’t really work out that way in Israel. Israel followed. Mostly the European parliamentary style. Most of its founders were of the left socialists and so forth to make it easy for white Americans. The Israeli parliament is very much like the Italian parliament and in my view. But you remember over the course of several years, election after election, Benjamin Netanyahu and his party, Likud, would win. They certainly win more votes than any other party. But they never seem to be able to form a government. There is one or two or three. Can Knesset member short? That’s all it would take. You look at the current government, the prime minister Bennett, I think you got five or six members elected. That 120. That’s not democracy. But that’s not my focus this evening. Ever hear of the Pegasus software exposing spyware system? The cell phone hacking system made by Israel’s NSA group to quote, fish for intelligence, even before any investigation has been opened against the targets. In other words, it’s so sophisticated that it’s enormously controversial, so controversial in our own country, the FBI started to flirt with it and people were objecting. They were objecting because, well, it might be used illegally, might be used against the citizenry. Can you imagine? Police using that system. Against the prime minister of Israel, his family, his friends. His ministers, his closest advisers and confidantes. Without anything akin to a court order. A court ruling, a court oversight. If I were to tell you, that’s what’s been going on on our allies country. For several years now. What would you think of that? According to calculous, if that’s how it’s pronounced, which is a news forum. Israeli police used the NSA’s Pegasus spyware against top government officials, journalists and activists. Most of whom were confidants or surrogates of. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Calculous. It was used against Benjamin Netanyahu’s sons, his advisers, without a court order. It was used Avner Netanyahu. Who they’ve dragged in is a codefendant, his trial, Iris Loic. And let me give you some of the list so you get the magnitude of what took place here, a number of mayors throughout Israel, Netanyahu’s media advisers, La Paz, Luk. You’re not to enrich, we’re targeted alongside head of the workers union, your cat’s a son of an ally of Netanyahu. Karen Turner, former director general of the Transportation Treasury Ministries, shy by bad, former director general of the Treasury Ministry, Amy Palmar, former justice minister, director general Avi Berger, former Communications Ministry Director General Shlomo Philbert, former Communications Ministry Director General Rami Leevi, businessman Yair Katz, who I mentioned. Avraham Elide, former editor of the Wollar website, one of the guys who they blackmailed, in my view. More on that in a minute. Ilan Yakutia, former Wollar CEO. Stella Hendler, former CEO. These are business people, obviously, after Netanyahu, I mentioned Netanyahu’s son, Iris Slavich, codefendant in Netanyahu’s trial, Yoram Chamoun of the Masra Zion Council had Miriam Furberg, Natanya mayor. In other words, a lot of these allies of Likud or Likud or allies of the prime minister Netanyahu in Judea and Samaria. The former Fonzo, former finance ministry director general Shabaab, the former justice minister, director general Imar Parmar, I mentioned Transportation Ministry Director General Karen Turner. She was also reportedly they were also reportedly hacked and a lot more. No businessmen and journalists, former government officials involved in so-called case, 4,000 against not who were targeted by police hacking efforts. So it’s not shocking, Mr.. They were spying on hacking into the phone calls. People all around the prime minister, including his family members, his closest advisers. This is what happens when you don’t have a rule of law, let alone a just rule of law. And this obsessive hate. By the left in the bureaucracy and the journalists. Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the greatest leaders of modern times, in my view. In fact, two of the witnesses that have been used or will be used against the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu were blackmailed. One of them who was a close associate of the prime minister’s, turns out he was having an affair. And first, they put him in a flea infested holding cell for a period of time. Then they do a brutal interrogation. Then they basically threaten his family with the information about his mistress, then they bring his mistress through the hallways of where he’s being detained so his mistress can see Sunnis, so he can see that his mistress is going to be interrogated. Meanwhile, even before all this was known, the entire case was falling apart, these various charges were all falling apart. The so-called government’s best witnesses were turning on the government. They several instances became Netanyahu’s best witnesses. And the charges that have been brought against Netanyahu. Are utterly preposterous. So broad, so ambiguous that they could be used really against any member of Canessa. And when you’re charging people with criminal activity, you need to be more than ambiguous and broad, you need to be very specific about the elements of the crime that you’re talking about. But this is on top of that, this is on top of that. And so this, as you can imagine, for people who actually think and people are actually concerned and people who actually believe in justice and the rule of law and so forth. Among those people, it’s causing quite a stir over in Israel. Let me be blunt, let me put it simply. They tried to take Netanyahu out. They trumped up charges against him, they spied on people, no doubt they took notes about what they said. They put the shoulder on witnesses, blackmailed some witnesses. They were using private information or information gotten by Stassi tactics, the old East German Stasi tactics. They have brought complete discredit to their state of Israel, complete discredit to their democratic processes, complete discredit to the rule of law. And this is what happens. When you have a police state in effect. Where the police are working with political prosecutors effectively. An attorney general who was a complete disaster, obsessed with taking down that Yahoo, a media that do not do it their job. As you check on on various elements of power, stay there. Taking the side of the opposition to Likud and Netanyahu and trying to take him out. This is what happens when the elements that in a free society begin to unravel and crack and and crumble and are devoured. By the radical left. The radical left controls the judiciary in Israel, it’s not a serious judiciary, not by any outside standards, not by ours. I mean, it’s fairly serious, but look at their. The media, the media and in Israel have no standards whatsoever. Well, that’s not true. They do have standards take off after Netanyahu and Likud. That’s it. That said, I could name reporters over there real. Crackpots, if you ask me. They don’t have a Fox News over there or conservative radio over there. Not to any great extent. So there’s nothing to balance them. I mean, even in the United States are powers sort of limit, but would say they have almost nothing. A paper here and there, a podcast here and there, but that’s not that’s no match for. For the media left oligarchy, so here Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold of the highest esteem in our country. Who has brought his country to to a pinnacle of economic success? That stands for national security, effectively fought off the Iran deal and on and on and on. During his terms. The U.S. embassies moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights, Israel’s sovereignty over it, is recognized by the United States and 50 other things in our relations with them all while he and his associates were being targeted. By the police state. And you know, the situation today, America. They may not cancel the case. The trial. In the United States, we have a doctrine called. Fruit from the poisonous tree. If law enforcement or prosecutors and anyone involved in that kind of activity breaks the law in the. Access to or accumulation of quote unquote, evidence, it’s all thrown out, and if it’s bad enough, the whole case is thrown out. You know what the government’s arguing here? Well, we still have their testimony. So they blackmail witnesses. And they say their testimony is still good. Now we’re going to find out very, very soon. If Israel. When it comes to the law and justice. Is that paper tiger or not? Because this is disgusting. I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 2
So you have, as I understand, the small newspaper that breaks. But the rest of the media in Israel didn’t break it because they didn’t want to look, they didn’t want to know do you know this was found out by accident, by accident, wasn’t found out by the judicial system. Prosecutors didn’t say anything. It was found out by accident. As I understand it. Before one of the days of trial, or at least during a discussion about an hour before the police were talking about what they had done. And it was overheard by other authorities. Who pass that information along by pure accident and then when all this was arising, the push for Netanyahu to resign, to cut a deal, to never serve in politics again, all the demands made of him, if this isn’t the greatest threat to the Israeli governing system and civil society, as great as any exterior enemy and I don’t know what is there destroying.
Hour 1 Segment 3
You know, we were talking at the break here, what was it, rich? March 6th or something? Twenty, seventeen, something like that. March 5th on a Thursday where I was pulling together these various public news articles and they all had a very similar theme excuse me, very similar theme about. Trump and the FBI and the Russians and the FISA court and everything, and I pulled them together eight, 10, 12 articles because I smelled a rat, because having served as chief of staff to an attorney general, I smell a rat and there were rats. And I said, apparently they’re spying. On Trump of the Trump campaign or somebody and I went into some discussion about this and I came under attack, I came under attack from the very phony news sources that were printing this stuff. I didn’t make it up, it was then and then, of course, I came under criticism because everything I read and. Didn’t have the facts exactly right. Well, I wasn’t in on the illegal conspiracy, so how about I have the facts exactly right. I’m an outsider and I have subpoena power. I don’t run a grand jury. I can’t depose anybody. I don’t have a right to documents. So I’m on the outside with you looking in and taking a measure of all the information I have. And it did turn out, didn’t it, that they abused FISA, that they were that they were examining different people when they would catch them on a different wire or eavesdropping information and on and on and on. So. We got it right. We got the sense of it right, and I’ll bet you we chased off a lot of future activity that would have gotten even worse like it has with Netanyahu here. Spying on Trump. But I want to turn attention on a lot of it to Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times and the headline for this story the other day was where Fox News and Donald Trump took us. As you can imagine, he didn’t like Fox, doesn’t like Fox, Ailes, Fox News, Fox News host and so forth, and of course, he never spoke to me. But that’s the nature of the phony journalism today. But he goes on like he’s writing a novel about all this stuff, brings up Chris Ruddy, brings up Glenn Beck, brings up let’s see here, who else does Sarah Palin? And of course, Sarah Palin got in trouble because she announced on my show, radio show that she wasn’t going to run for president because she and I were friends and other sorts of information here that he would never write, of course, about CNN. And it’s my understanding with people he has talked to, he’s been on the chase for a long time, including on mine, Mr. Producer. Jeremy Peters, didn’t you write a book not long ago that nobody read, I think he did. But regardless, Jeremy, why don’t you just listen to us and take us for our word? Why do you have to build all this intrigue and drama around what takes place? There’s no conspiracies. Nothing. And what do you mean, where we took what’s the title again, where we took where they took us, Fox News and Donald Trump, where they took us. Now, the left is schizophrenic. Actually, it’s worse than that. But that’s OK for now. They can’t decide if conservative talk radio has no reach as ineffective as losing ratings or if it’s the most diabolical, powerful force in the nation. They can’t decide if Donald Trump is forever defeated. He’ll come back and win another election. Now, they’re not for a free press, they’re not for differences of ideas, they want Fox to strike. You have this guy, Brian Stelter. I’ve been making fun of this eunuch for years. Others have now joined in the pack. And that’s fine. I like when they join in a little original thinking works from time to time, I would tell them. But nonetheless, it is what it is. This guy is dumber than he looks and he looks very dumb. He truly does. Helter Skelter B.S., Brian Stelter. And with his prepubescent voice, he sounds like Minnie Mouse and of course, I don’t hold that against him. It’s just an observation. Hey. Hi, everybody. How are you doing? No, I don’t have the greatest voice. But he is the worst voice, you get the difference and it always starts the same way. I don’t watch the show, you see the clips. If you watch what you see is clips day and night, and I don’t blame them because he’s an idiot. Hey, everybody, how are you doing? Oh, I didn’t tell you about the latest thing on Fox, Fox and Fox, this and Fox up. Meanwhile, he covered up his bosses affair with his other boss. That’ll blow over real fast because when leftists have affairs, it doesn’t matter. They’re expected to have affairs. They can have affairs with their friend’s wife, with dogs. Well, if they have affairs, it’s OK, whatever, because they’re proud of the fact that they don’t have any morals. You know, when we’re you know, we’re not we’re not like the Orthodox Jews and the evangelicals, you know. No, you’re not. So you look over there, it’s it’s a mess. I don’t know why anybody watch it except for comedy. Might be funny to watch these people who are on their last legs. Truly are. But nonetheless, so I would first of all, I would say this to Jeremy Peters. How can you work for The New York Times? How can you work for a corporation? That gave propaganda voice to Joseph Stalin while he was slaughtering the Ukrainians not that long ago, you know, less than 100 years ago. Matter of fact, 90 years to the year or newspaper, that did all it could to basically play down the Holocaust. And its chief correspondent in Berlin kind of took a liking to the Third Reich, aware that Jeremy. That’s not that long ago, Jeremy. What, 70, 80 years ago? Yes, Jeremy, 80 years ago, or a newspaper that brought certainly help bring Castro to power in Cuba, you know, you guys like Castro for sure, you’re out of the closet on that one, but you’re not alone. Obama is all the Democrats and all the murder and mayhem he brought to that island country. And just the general, you know, ethnic hate and anti-Semitism and racism that your newspaper promotes. And yet here you are worried about. Where Fox News and Donald Trump took us. What did The New York Times? And Franklin Roosevelt tegus. What did The New York Times and Franklin Roosevelt take us, and where is The New York Times taking us today? But he’s worried about Fox. Because Fox dares to and yeah, it’s not a corporate thing, I can tell you this, I do the Sunday show, right. Nobody ever calls me and tells me what to do ever. They might say, you want to think about that, because they’re not really. But we don’t all get together and say, hey, let’s be be conservatives, the hosts are very competitive, one to the other. I’m not involved in this every day. I do Sunday, you know. But he goes on Donald Trump and Donald Trump, they’re so obsessed with Donald Trump and Donald Trump that they’re even embracing Mike Pence now. They hate Mike Pence, remember? Remember, they used to mock in America because of his faith, because his fidelity to his wife. I look at Pence, you know, he’s. He’s a throwback. Now they use pense against Trump, unfortunately, I think Mike, who’s a friend of mine, sort of has bit the hook bit in the hook and of course, Mark Short a bit the hook and it went right through his cheek. Right, there is cheak, they go on these shows and they are used to attack Trump. Rather than understanding and figuring out how to spar with these reporters who are clearly on the side of the Democrats. No matter who the Republican nominee. It is they’re going to try and destroy that nominee. They do not support that nominee. Why don’t they ask me about January six? Why don’t they ask me about Elector’s, why don’t they ask me about what the Constitution says? The first hour of my show, what was it, two Fridays ago, Rich, or was it Friday at all? I don’t remember anymore when I spent an hour talking about this entire subject. We need to post that separately, can we do that? Let’s pose that separately, because I walk through this step by step and I’m not going to do it again unless I have to. The fact is, Vice President Pence and certainly march short. And the self appointed constitutional experts National Review and elsewhere Wall Street Journal do not have the foggiest idea if the framers intended the vice president of the United States to have substantive. Authority or not, they don’t have the foggiest idea. Because they never said in it they go on television and radio and they write because they have a definitive view. Of this law that was passed in 1868. Excuse me. And and they want you to think. If that law is definitive. That election counting. That was in 1887, whatever the hell it was. And of course, it’s ambiguous, but it doesn’t matter. Constitution trumps that statute and no, Congress is bound by the prior Congress, especially when it comes to this. And as I pointed out. No, no, no, no, no. The problem was the litigation strategy. The Democrats, their elected judges in the states, their governors who might be Democrats and the legislature, Republican or what have you in the violation of Article two. Section one. Close to. That was the real insurrection, so it be much better if the vice president, former vice president, would say, you know what’s interesting, this is kind of new territory since the passing of that statute over 100 years ago, 120 or so years ago, and then explain why he did or didn’t do what he did or didn’t do. But they don’t have a definitive answer to this. It’s like a mob mentality. Now, a mob mentality did agree with me on this. Yes, I do. OK, then you’re in. You’re OK. You must be smart. You’re a constitutional expert. Actually, you’re not any of those things. If the vice president had said, look, the Supreme Court doesn’t want to take a position, the Congress has the ultimate authority here. And if I become aware that a governor has usurped a state legislature under Article two of the Constitution or state court has imposed certain changes in elections that affect the selection of electors in violation of the federal constitution. And if the Supreme Court believes this is a political question under the political doctrine, and it’s up to me and others to make that decision or at least to consider that. That’s not the vice president choosing the president. That’s the vice president interpreting the constitution. Which may or may not result. In the selection of a president one way or another. There’s a big difference. I’m so sick of dealing with stupid people who suffer point themselves as legal analysts. I’m so sick of it. You have no idea. We’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 4
We have a situation now, ladies and gentlemen, where Biden and his flunkies are negotiating a new Iran deal, giving them tens of billions of dollars and God knows what else. And only 27 senators are demanding to know what the hell’s going on. Only 27 Republican senators, nearly 30 Senate Republicans sent a letter to Biden today as Politico obtained by National Security Daily, demanding that he give them a say over America’s re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal or they will try to block the move. Stating the president has statutory obligations, let senators weigh in. Says we’re committed to using the full range of options and leverage available to the U.S., that is U.S. senators to ensure that you meet those obligations at the implementation of any agreement will be severely, if not terminally hampered if you do not. We reiterate our view that any agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program is of such gravity for national security, that by definition it is a treaty requiring Senate advice and consent. Furthermore, genuinely robust nuclear agreement with Iran would be compelling enough to secure assent from two thirds of the Senate, and the only reason not to present it for a resolution of ratification said it’s too weak to pass muster. How the hell do you negotiate an agreement with an enemy like this by the most incompetent boobs to ever serve in Washington, D.C. and not inform the body? That is supposed to let me put it here. We’ve had this discussion over the years. The treaty provision has as its purpose, a very high bar. Two thirds of the senators present must approve of a treaty, so what presidents do is they call it something or just a side agreement. Yeah, yeah. And not in this case. As I argued back then, there’s a real treaty, but then you had guys like Bob Corker, Mitch McConnell and others. Who buckled? Who came up with some cockamamie scheme to make sure that. Obama could get his deal, but they could vote against it, so you at home would think that they were opposed to it when in fact, they grease the skids to make sure it would pass. Remember all that, Mr. Producer? We spent a lot of time talking about that. And so what’s going on now is Biden’s not even telling Congress what he’s doing, he’s not going to the Senate is who he needs to tell and he’s not doing it. And only 27 senators, 20 said, you know, Susan Collins is too busy out there trying to fix gerrymandering and the Democrats are killing us on gerrymandering, killing us. Because we have people like Susan Collins. Who talks like Katharine Hepburn on a good day, when we come back, I’m going to demonstrate to you that Dr. Anthony Fauci always supported Dana.