On Wednesday’s Mark Levin Show, a majority of Americans believe that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has a national security implication for the U.S. This slaughter plus Putin’s repeated nuclear threats are even more of a reason to topple Putin. Putin’s history of assassinating dissenters and his past with Alexi Navalny seem to be forgotten on the pro-Putin wing of the Democrat and Republican Parties since they’re busy attacking NATO. Then, Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson claims that she can’t define what a woman is during her senate confirmation hearing. Jackson was pressed on her passivity in sentencing sex offenders (who went on to re-offend) and critical race theory. Later, James O’Keefe joins the show to explain how the federal government spied on Project Veritas by obtaining their emails from Microsoft corporation and then placed a gag order on Microsoft to silence them and keep it secret. It’s now been revealed that Uber was also forced to hand over Project Veritas’ ride history and it’s unknown how many vendors it approached to violate O’Keefe’s first amendment rights. Afterward, Rep Ted Budd joins the show with an update on his campaign for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
THIS IS FROM:
Fox News
Fox News Poll: Voters want the US to do more to help Ukraine against Russia
American Greatness
Paleos and Putin
NY Times
How Ukraine’s Outgunned Air Force Is Fighting Back Against Russian Jets
Twitter
Sen Blackburn to Jackson: “Can you provide a definition of the word ‘woman’?”
Daily Wire
Dick Durbin Says Questioning Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Judicial Record Is An ‘Unfair’ Attack
Politico
Project Veritas says feds secretly accessed its emails
Project Veritas
Microsoft Corporation Legal Documents Show Biden DOJ Spying on Project Veritas Journalists; Hides it from Federal Court Judge
NY Post
Stormy Daniels loses appeal in Trump case, vows not to ‘pay a penny’
The podcast for this show can be streamed or downloaded from the Audio Rewind page.
Image used with permission of Getty Images / dia images
Rough transcript of Hour 1
Hour 1 Segment 1
I asked about a month ago when Russia started this war and invaded Ukraine. Is Ukraine allowed to win? Or even the stalemate, the situation. And apparently not. I would argue, yes, but apparently not. It’s one of the reasons they can’t get the MiG 29 said they want. There’s a recent poll out that hot off the presses by Fox. By 63 percent, the 32 percent Americans want the United States to do more. So this. This argument that it’s. The Washington war machine. A Washington defense contractor. Or the neocons. There’s a lie. Is a lie, unless you think 63 percent of the American people fall in that category and clearly they don’t. Despite the best efforts of the Putin wing of the Democrat Republican parties and the media. By 76 to 19 percent, the American people approve of President Zelensky actions in Ukraine. I’d say that’s pretty overwhelming. And whether or not this has a national security interest in the United States, 85 to 14 percent, 85 percent say yes. Now, to get sixty three percent of the American people, 76 percent of the American people and ultimately 85 percent of the American people to agree on something is a big deal. I’m going to get to the Supreme Court. Don’t worry, I was all over it yesterday. I’m going to be all over it today. But I want to finish this. We now hear the media regurgitating the Russian propaganda, which is if Putin doesn’t make more headway in Russia, you know, it’s not enough to be slaughtering the people in Mariupol and now capturing aid workers, 15 of them have been kidnapped or sending 24, 100 Ukrainian children into Russia. And God knows what else. If Putin fears he’s going to lose, the argument goes he may resort to nukes. Is that more of a reason to support efforts to take him out? I don’t understand this, I really don’t. This will be the first war in human history. Well, the greatest war criminals of war criminals in this particular war, for sure. Who’s threatening nuclear weapons against people, perhaps NATO, perhaps even us, is immune. From the war in the sense that that individual is not to be targeted even by surrogates, even by surrogates of Ukraine. While he targets the president of Ukraine and has failed on several occasions with the Viognier group. And the Chechnyans. Even while he’s known to be an assassin, not just a character assassin, a real assassin. Scores of reporters, political opponents. People who fall out of favor, they just wind up dead wherever they are in the world. One guy did in the hotel room in Washington, D.C.. In London and Germany and so forth. And so when I hear this, I say more the reason to support at least. Quietly, efforts to take up Hughton. If he’s threatening. Nuclear weapons, if he’s a war criminal, which clearly he is. If he slaughtering thousands of innocent people. And if you believe, as I do and the vast majority of American people do, that this battle in Ukraine. Clearly relates to the United States and our national security. China’s watching, Iran’s watching, North Korea is watching. The Eastern European countries are well aware. Of what Russia is capable of. Well, then it makes sense, doesn’t it? Makes a lot of sense. Um, I guess I’m going to have to find this. I’m trying to find it, but I cannot I do notice that the Putin wing of the media has been relatively quiet about a gentleman by the name of Alexi Navalny. Now, you heard me talk about this man yesterday, Alexey Navalny. Alexei Navalny is the leader. Of the. Opposition most effective leader, he also has run a group. Questioning the corruption that exists. In. In Russia. And yesterday, he was given a nine and a half year sentence on top of two years that he’s already served. And they’re now afraid that he might be assassinated while in a Russian prison. Why is it that so few outlets have even reported on this? I notice as I’m watching this and I’m really quite shocked by this, why is that? Why is it that so few? So-called conservatives and conservative outlets have reported on this. Because I want to address this again. There is a difference, ladies and gentlemen, there is a difference. Between. People who have. Sort of a romantic pacifist, anti-war mentality. And I think they’re very dangerous, but I’m just saying there’s a difference between that. Where people may have, from their perspective, a legitimate argument. That this is an America’s war, as they say it. And yet people who effectively use it more ways than one. Putin’s talking points in the talking points of his surrogates in the United States. And lie about Zelensky and lie about the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian people are not Nazis. The president of Ukraine is Jewish, his wife’s Jewish, his kids are Jewish, the family’s Jewish. You can try and tie in this neo-Nazi group. As one of these sort of so-called independent journalists nincompoops does. And say, look at this, the government is linked to this group. The government is not promoting the group. I mean, they sound like the left in this country trying to link conservatives to the neo-Nazis and the Klansmen and white nationalists and all the rest. Because maybe they see a Confederate flag or maybe they hear somebody use the N-word or maybe they hear somebody who’s on the. And this is amazing coming from the media who gives the real anti Semites in this country. Like Omar, AOC, Talib, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, in the Democrat Party and many in the media, a pass like The New York Times gets a pass. Despite its long history of anti-Semitism, the Democrat Party gets a pass despite its long history of racism, segregation, even slavery. They get a pass. But this guy who was jailed by. Putin gets almost no attention in this country. Why is that? And then NATO was attacked. When NATO decides they’re going to move more troops to the eastern front of Eastern Europe. Which borders Ukraine, I don’t understand, NATO is a military alliance, why wouldn’t they move more troops? To Eastern. To the eastern front. Where the threats exist, this is bizarre. People want to know how many troops know what kind of planes or whatever. You’re not going to get tactical information from our government or from NATO. Why would you? Why would you? So, of course, they’re going to move military forces where military forces may need to exist. So I know you, the vast majority of you in this audience, we all agree. Our view is quite a traditional view, it’s a Reaganite view, it’s even a Trump view. And I think that’s why 63 percent of the American people, according to Fox, what the American people to do more or not just the American people. Let me correct that one. The nations of the world that do more in terms of assisting the Ukrainians, not talking about troops or no fly zones. Why 76 percent approve of Solinsky and what he’s doing, despite the best efforts of Russia and Russia mouthpieces. An 85 percent. Believe that Ukraine does matter to the U.S. and our national security versus 14 percent. So if you listen to the media, depending what you listen to radio, TV, what you read. You would never believe it’s 85 to 14, you believe it’s 85 to 14 against, but it’s not. So are all Americans warmongers? Are all Americans neocon’s? Are all Americans part of the Military-Industrial Complex trying to profit from this? No, I don’t think so. I’ll be right back
Hour 1 Segment 2
American Greatness website is a really outstanding site, and it is aligned in most ways and not everybody with. President Trump and his policies and there’s an article there today by Paul Gottfried. Palios and Putin. As a card carrying member of the old right for the last 50 years, having suffered the slings and indignities that come with it, I’m responding to other members of my fraternity who can’t bring themselves to condemn Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine and his destruction of its people. This recognition of Putin’s aggression and what it might portend for Ukraine’s neighborhoods to the west is not been lost on Europeans, including Europeans on the right. Marine Le Pen and Eric is a more in France, the alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the present conservative governments of Hungary and Poland. These are all governments and so forth of the right have all been on record condemning excuse Putin’s brutal invasion. None of these figures is in love with wackiness or his kind words for what now passes for constitutional government in the West. But they do understand. Putin is a Russian expansionist and that the murder and mayhem he’s now raining down on Ukrainians is nothing do excuse is nothing new, at least even worse, atrocities in Chechnya and later in Syria. The attempts to defend Putin’s actions in Ukraine proceed from two unshakable beliefs among his defenders on the traditional American right. The more grandiose explanation is that Putin is the upholder of Western conservative values who is courageously battling LGBTQ plus enthusiasts in his country. He’s also said to be fighting back rhetorically against attacks on the family coming from one time constitutional democracy that have fallen into the bands of totalitarians. Putin is also supposedly a man of faith who devotes his energies to defending the orthodox state religion and who is opening up monasteries and rebuilding churches in his country. We therefore cannot criticize him without endangering his sacred mission if he smashing Ukrainian cities while that’s the price we pay for all the good he’s doing. I’ve also been hearing from acquaintance that Ukrainians should not really constitute a nation, but are ethnic Russians or mischievously denying their identity. The Kiev Russia settlement we talked about this yesterday that took place in the 10th century, was carried out by Scandinavians, was supposedly the starting point for the Russian national adventure. And so-called Ukrainian is just another name for Russians who happen to be living in the area in which the Russian state originally took form. In any case, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is supposedly just a corrupt, lowbrow comic who has built up by the US government against his Godlee Russian counterpart. You’ve heard this on radio and TV. The second reason for this rallying to Putin is that he is not responsible for his aggression. The U.S. State Department and scheming neoconservatives have created the present tensions between the Russians and Ukrainians. This happens to be partially true if we recount the US government’s involvement in the overthrow of a pro-Russian government in Kiev in February 2014 and Joe Biden’s recent hints to the Ukrainians about his fitness for NATO membership, neoconservatives have incited hatred against Putin as an antidemocratic leader and have been confusing statecraft with ideological wars for decades. I’d be the last person to defend these fanatical warmongers, and having suffered professionally at their hand, I have no reason to like them. But it was Putin, not the neocons, who invaded Ukraine and Russian military forces, not Victoria Nuland at the State Department of the Wall Street Journal editorial page who are murdering Ukrainian civilians. I keep telling friends on the right who want to stress those other circumstances, so-called leading to Putin’s invasion, that by all means, let’s discuss them. But we should preface that discussion by blaming Putin and his military for the havoc they have wrought. They have behaved outrageously, no matter how defective American foreign policy has been, and no matter how repugnant neoconservative rhetoric may sound. Looking at babies killed and maimed in the streets of Kharkov in Mariupol, it seems to me that the blame should be ascribed to someone more immediately responsible than blundering US foreign policy mavens or rabid neoconservative journalists. Without belaboring historical parallels, I can’t help noticing the similarities, he writes. Between Putin’s attack on the Ukrainians, who are certainly fighting like a nation and Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. In both cases, historians could cite abuses that the invaded countries committed against members of the nations who were invading them. And he says in Poland in particular with the with the Germans, but a brutal invasion and occupation characterised by the devastation of civilian populations, that’s a whole nother story. Members of the old right who have told me repeatedly that Abraham Lincoln was wrong to invade the seceded South and that Ukrainians have been sorely oppressed under Russian rule, have undergone a staggering sea change.
Hour 1 Segment 3
All right. So NATO’s approving more troops for the eastern flank, as it should. Certainly, in my opinion. Ukraine’s Air Force, how is it that this Air Force, which is actually quite small. Is doing so well against the. The heavily, heavily armed. Russian, heavily outnumbered. Well, this is a piece in The New York Times each night, Ukrainian pilots like Angela loiter in an undisclosed aircraft hangar waiting, waiting, waiting until the tension is broken with a shouted one word come in air. You hustles into us as you 27 supersonic jet and hastily taxies toward the runway, getting airborne as quickly as possible takes off so fast he doesn’t yet know his mission for the night. But the big picture is always the same to bring the fight to the Russian Air Force as a virtue that is vastly superior in numbers but has so far failed to win control of the skies above Ukraine. I don’t do any checks, he said. The Ukrainian Air Force pilot, who on a condition of granting an interview, was not permitted to give his surname or rank. I just take off. A month into the fighting, one of the biggest surprises of the war in Ukraine is Russia’s failure to defeat the Ukrainian air force. Military analysts had expected Russian forces to quickly destroy or paralyze Ukraine’s air defenses, a military aircraft, yet neither has happened. Instead, top gun style air aerial dogfights, rare and modern warfare are now raging over the country. Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight, said the pilot Andri, who’s twenty five and has flown ten missions in the war, every fight with the Russian jets. There’s no equality. They always have five times more planes in the air. You know why they’re begging? For those MiGs, the success of Ukrainian pilots has helped protect Ukrainian soldiers on the ground and prevented wider bombing in cities. Since pilots have intercepted some Russian cruise missiles, Ukrainian officials also say the country’s military shot down 97 fixed wing Russian aircraft. That number could not be verified, but the crumbled remnants of Russian jet fighters have crashed into rivers, fields and houses. The Ukrainian Air Force is operating near total secrecy. Its fighter jets can fly from airstrips in western Ukraine, airports that have been bombed, yet retain enough runway for takeoffs and landings even from highways. Analysts say they’re vastly outnumbered. Russia’s believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies five to 10. Ukraine pilots do have one advantage. Most of the country Russian planes fly over territory controlled by the Ukrainian military, which can move anti-aircraft missiles to harass and even shoot down planes. Ukraine has been effective in this case because we operate on our own land, usually in not a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, the enemy flying into our air space is flying into the zone of our air defense systems. He described the strategy luring Russian planes into their defensive traps. Dave, to put particular dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the principal attack planner for the Desert Storm air campaign in Iraq, said the impressive performance of Ukrainian pilots had helped counter their disadvantages and numbers. He said Ukraine now has roughly 55 operational fighter jets, a number that is dwindling from shoot downs. Mechanical failure, says Ukraine. Pilots are stressing them to match performance. My God, if they don’t get these additional MiGs, I don’t know what they’re going to do. Ukraine’s president Zelensky has appealed repeatedly to Western governments to replenish the Ukrainian air force and has asked NATO to enforce a no fly zone over the country, a step Western leaders, of course, refused to take. Russian troops have already fired nearly 1000 missiles at Ukraine, countless bombs, Mr. Wolinsky said into a video. Our government says now it’s 1100. Pilotless drones are also a tool in Ukrainian military’s arsenal, but not in the battle for control of the airspace. Ukraine flies, Turkish made armed drone. The Barack Khatab TEEB to a plodding propeller aircraft that is lethally effective in destroying tanks or artillery pieces on the ground but cannot hit targets in the air if Ukraine’s air defenses fail. Russian jets could easily pick them off. As in other aspects of Ukraine’s war effort, volunteers play a role in the air battles. A volunteer network watches and listens to Russian jets, calling in coordinates an estimated speed and altitude. Other private Ukrainian pilots have removed up to date civilian navigation equipment from their planes and have handed it over to the Air Force in case it can be helpful. Air to air combat has been rare in modern war, with only isolated examples in recent decades. U.S. pilots, for example, have not flown extensive aerial dogfights since the first Iraq war in 1991. Since then, U.S. fighter jets have engaged in air to air combat on just a few occasions, shooting down 10 planes in the Balkan wars. One plane in Syria, according to Mr. Deptula. In the night sky, Angela, this is the Ukrainian pilot said he relies on instruments to discern the positions of enemy planes, which he says are always present. He shot down a Russian jet but was not permitted to say how many or which type. He said his targeting system can fire at planes a few dozen miles away. I mostly have tests of hitting airborne targets of intercepting enemy jets, he said, I wait for the missile to lock on my target and then I press fire when he shoots down a Russian jet, he said. I’m happy that this plane will no longer bomb my peaceful towns. And as we see in practice, that is exactly what Russian jets are doing. Most of the aerial combat in Ukraine has been nocturnal as Russian aircraft attack in the dark when they are less vulnerable to air defenses in the dogfights over Ukraine, ARTlE said the Russians have been flying an array of modern Sukhoi jets, such as the SU 30. Asou 34. Enescu 35. You said I had situations when I was approaching a Russian jet to close enough distance to target and fire, he said they could already detect it, but was waiting for my missile to lock on while at the same time from the ground, they tell me that a missile was fired at me already. He said he maneuvered his jet through a series of extreme banks, dives and climbs in order to exhaust the fuel supplies of the missiles coming after him. He said The time I have to save myself depends on how far down the missile was fired at me and what kind of missile. My God is such a brave man, brave man, these pilots are as brave as can be. Still, he said in an interview on a clear, sunny day, I can still feel a huge rush of adrenaline in my body because every fight is a fight and every flight is a fight. And he graduated from the Kharkiv Air Force school after deciding to become a pilot as a teenager. Neither me nor my friends ever thought we would have to face a real war, he said. But that’s not how it turned out. He moved his wife to a safer part of Ukraine, but she has not left the country, said she spends her days weaving homemade camouflage nets for the Ukrainian army. He never tells family members when he’s going on duty, he said, calling only after returning from a night flight. They only have to use my skills to win, he said my skills are better than the Russians, but on the other day, many of my friends and even more experienced than me are already dead. They need more jet fighters. They need more makes. 63 percent of the American people. Believes so as well. And that includes a majority, a good majority of Republicans. I want to go back to this Fox poll. Just so you know, you’re not in the minority, as you would think, depending on who you’re listening to and how much you’re listening to. See here, Mr. Producer, and pulling it up, looking for it. Oh, boy. 63 percent. Of the public says we should be doing more to help the Ukrainians. Seventy six percent say. That they view Zelensky in a very positive light. Eighty five percent say Ukraine matters to the United States. What do you think of that? Well, I think they’re right. Now, let us let us dig a little bit more deeper into this, how about Republicans? And let’s take a look at this as I pull it up. 82 percent are concerned about the invasion, 76 percent approve of Ukrainian President Zelensky, how he’s responded. It’s an issue Democrats and Republicans largely agree on, 90 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Republicans think what happens in Ukraine makes it. Our friends here at home, eight in 10 Democrats and Republicans approve of Zelensky and two thirds in each party want to do more for Ukraine. There’s almost no difference between the parties on this. Almost no difference in the end, it’s overwhelming, so the nation is united in this, we have the outlanders, you hear some of them, you see some of them, you read some of them. They’re the outliers. Some of them are pute nights. Some of them are pacifists. Some of them just legitimately oppose this. They look at Afghanistan and Iraq and many of them are very young and they see the whole world through Afghanistan and Iraq and those wars rather than through the bigger picture, a World War two and circumstances like that. You don’t hear a lot of novel thinking for most of these people. It’s like, why? Well, because we don’t want a nuclear war. Will you send your kids if we’re going to watch the Ukrainian border, shouldn’t we watch Mars? And there’s an answer to all that, because that’s really silly. But we ought to watch our border. What does that have to do with the Ukrainian border? Nothing. So what’s the point of that kind of nonsense, we should be securing our border and helping the Ukrainians? Where are you going to send your child? What kind of an argument is that? You’re talking about national policy. I don’t know, is your kid a cop, your kid a firefighter, you’re going to send your kid into a burning building, you’re going to say, I mean, that’s not the point of a military. To project your own personal life on top of the military, you have a standing professional military. And should we get to a draft, then everybody’s family will be affected by that, but until then, an all volunteer army, the overwhelming majority of Americans are not. OK, and what about this argument that we could be causing nuclear war, we’re not causing anything. We didn’t invade anybody. We didn’t threaten anybody. We’ve been extremely passive. Very passive. And the provocations, if any, that occurred here is a result of the passivity of the president who’s in the Oval Office right now. The way he surrendered to the Afghans, that is the Taliban, I should say. And the way he is surrendering and providing the Islama Nazi regime in Tehran with everything they want. Look, even before this election, I said that our enemies are rooting for Biden. Now they’re rooting for him more than ever. More than ever. We’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 4
Next hour, I want to jump in to the Supreme Court issue, but let me start now. You’re lauded as a historic pick because you’re the first black woman ever nominated to serve in the United States Supreme Court. Right. You’re asked by another woman. A senator from Tennessee. Marsha Blackburn, the defined woman. And you say you’re not a biologist. Are you a biologist, Mr. Producer? You’re a biologist, Mr. Call screener. I’m not a biologist, but I can define a woman. It’s not particularly complicated. Yes, most little kids can if they haven’t been brainwashed yet. So. What exactly? Is the problem here, the problem here is that this is an extremely radical nominee. With a very nice personality. And she knows how to define a woman, but she also knows if she defines a woman the old fashioned way. Like a biologist, as a matter of fact. Or like a third grader. She’ll come under attack from the LGBTQ plus community. And she wants to be able to rule on these cases, which clearly will come to the Supreme Court. As virtually every culture issue does. Because the court has nationalized that area of public life. And has taken it over and done great damage to it. So the first. Black woman or African-American woman nominated to serve on the Supreme Court will not define. We’re told this is historic. She’s a black woman, but she cannot define woman. Well, if she can’t define woman and woman, doesn’t mean woman in a power to use words like rather than she hit or birthing person. Then what’s so historic? If we cannot recognize that she is, in fact, the first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. And we cannot define woman. Then what’s so historic, I’m confused. But there’s no need to be it’s utterly illogical and they do this. They do this, why? Because they’re pushing a perversion, they’re pushing a lie, they’re pushing an immorality, that’s why. And they’re embracing it. And she doesn’t want to show. That she is, in fact, as radical as everybody really knows she is, particularly her supporters. Let me tell you something about little Dick Durbin, the chairman of this committee. Little Dick is acting like he’s Napoleon, he’s cutting off legitimate areas of inquiry based on what? Ketanji Brown Jackson has actually written and actually said and actually ruled. And this is a no no. Ladies and gentlemen, you can accuse a Kavanagh who I’ve never liked, but you can accuse him of gang rape. You can go back to his. His high school yearbook looking for pictures. Ask him about beer. Ask him about his sex life. Go on and on and on, trying to destroy the man and you can do it at the last second. Because you have media support, but if you ask Judge Brown, Jackson, can you define woman, apparently you’re a racist and you’re blowing a dog whistle more when I return.