On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer are celebrating the fact that they are very close to a massive omnibus spending bill and only a handful of people know what’s in it since most members of the Senate have been kept out of the process. Each of them is trying to spend as much as they can before the new Congress takes over and they’re doing it without any input from any committees, let alone from the people they represent. Then, Sen. Mike Lee calls in to discuss McConnell’s bad idea of cutting deals with Schumer on huge spending bills without any debate from the rest of the Senate. Lee says that only 2-3 members of the House and the Senate actually know what’s in the bill. Later, Ronald Reagan ran in 1976 and was attacked for his intelligence and acting prowess despite being very well-read. Evan back then McConnell and the GOP establishment were against conservatives and said Reagan couldn’t win because he wasn’t a quality candidate, of course, he eventually won and was re-elected in a landslide. If Reagan hadn’t won, the Soviet Union wouldn’t have been destroyed, the economy wouldn’t have rebounded, and future Republicans were elected. Afterward, it’s clear that the January 6th Committee keeps going because they’ve come up empty-handed every time. While they claim to have 500 pages of threats against our ‘democracy’ it’s all circumstantial and pieced together to tell their story in the media. Not a shred of evidence that former President Trump asked the crowd to commit violence or overthrow the government.
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Rough transcript of Hour 1
Hour 1 Segment 1
America. It’s an exciting, exciting evening. The president has announced today that. But for food prices but for home heating prices. But for electricity prices. The economy’s doing well. So if you eat and you need to have some heat during the winter, that’s so good. Now, 7.1% inflation. President says his economic plan is working. It’s interesting. It’s the Fed with the interest rates going through the roof and the impact that’s having. But it’s not over. But that’s not what I want to start off with, really. Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what we do about this. I really don’t. Mitch McConnell is celebrating the fact that he and Chuck Schumer are close to a massive spending bill, an omnibus bill, I should call it an omnibus bill. Do you know what’s in it? I don’t know what’s in it. Does anyone know what’s in it? No. Other than a handful of senators and staffers. Any Republican senator who supports this is a fraud. Any Republican senator who supports this has no interest in representing the people that they claim to represent, particularly if they’re newly elected. What Mitch McConnell’s trying to do is get a deal done on a bill that will spend trillions of dollars. Before the Republican majority takes over in the House. Because he doesn’t want to have to confront real conservative fiscal. Members of the House of Representatives. There are so few now in the Senate. There’s Mike Lee, you know, Cruz, Rand Paul, Rubio. A handful, but not many. And what McConnell’s doing without any hearings, without any committee input, without any input from the American people is he’s trying to push this railroad this through. Whether he succeeds or not, we don’t know. But he says they’re very close. And you have absolutely no say in it because you have no idea what’s going on. None of us do. I don’t either. And they’ll get 24, 48 hours. It’ll be a fait accompli because all you need is a handful of Republicans to go along with the Marxists, and then it’s over. And of course, that’s why McConnell spent $9 million on Lisa murkowski in Alaska. And he can count on Romney. Collins The usual crowd and the pallbearers that stand behind him when he does these press conferences. So here’s McConnell today in front of a microphone with the pallbearers standing behind him. Cut six, go. And with regard to funding the government, I think we’re very close to getting. Listen to this guy that does he’s absolutely no reason why we couldn’t take the Senate. Is he our governor? Sounds like a homeless guy. Toronto Raincoat Cinema on the corner and God knows what you’ll get. Start over again, please. Cut six, Go. And with regard to funding the government, I think we’re very close to getting an omnibus appropriation bill that would be, I think, broadly appealing. He thinks broadly appealing because the other members, other than the pallbearers standing behind him, have no idea what the hell is in it. I can I got to be where I am. Maryland, We have our 40 yard line. It’s like Pelosi remember the late famous Nancy Pelosi? Remember her? The one that eats snails for dinner? Or is it breakfast anyway? Remember when she said we have to pass the Obamacare bill to find out what’s in it? But that’s pretty much what we’re talking about here. Go ahead. Defense number of the NDAA without having to pay a bonus above what President Biden asked for. For domestic priorities of the Democrats. Why would they accept that? Well, they over, according to our calculations, spent about $700 billion in the two reconciliation bills earlier this Congress on their domestic priorities. So the priority now is to get defense adequately funded. He’s so charismatic, Mr. Producer. He just draws in the public. He’s such a leader, such a statesman. No wonder he’s the longest serving Republican leader in the Senate in the history of the United States. He’s just bubbling over a positivity with intrigue, with rationality, with knowledge. But he’s not done, ladies and gentlemen. Now he’s going to go on the attack, the attack against Trump and the Tea Party. Cut seven. Go. We ended up having a candidate quality time. Anybody remember who mentioned that back in August? You look at Arizona, it must have been you, Mitch. Remember our friend. We don’t have good candidates right before election scrutiny. Oh. I’m the Nostradamus of the Senate. I told you they’re not good enough. That, of course, all the rhinos always going to be noticed. I have a note inside of you. The rhinos always win. Do they really? They get their asses kicked all the time. You may have heard of a couple running for president. One I think was named McCain, one I think was named Romney. Remember, those guys are our hero. Go ahead. New Hampshire in a challenging situation, Georgia as well. We did. By we I mean, the Senate leadership wanted intervened in two primaries in Alabama and Missouri. And I do think we in Ben car when it rained, we won. Yes. You can only win. I go to credit when we lose which the Florida conservatives they don’t have very good candidates. Now let’s stop for a minute. Look at some of these whole Republicans in the Senate who sell us out day in and day out. Are these good senators, let alone candidates. They’re a disgrace. Is this the best the Republican Party can do? So why would why would you vote for Republican senators when you have a so-called leader like this? He seems to think that if you support rhinos, they’re going to get elected. It’s not true. It’s not true. Why he was for Gerald Ford against Ronald Reagan. Alcohol rather than an organ such as a quarter carriage weren’t very good. Really? And look at the quality of his so-called leadership. Go ahead. Indeed. Relearned. One more time you have to have quality candidates. You know, you’re an arrogant S.O.B., You really are. And they were. Yeah. That Fetterman was a quality candidate. That Warnock was a quality candidate. That Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, those were quality candidates. Let me tell you the difference. The Democrats know how to fire up their base. The Democrats know how to get out the vote, and the Democrats, more importantly, know how to count the vote. Mitch McConnell’s been a quote unquote, Republican leader for 15 years, and he hasn’t learned any of it. That’s number one. Number two, the guy does not motivate anybody. He doesn’t have a legislative agenda to this moment. He didn’t have a legislative agenda during the campaign. He’s so awful. He’s so despised by Republicans. Number one on the list that he can’t even go into these states and campaign. Schumer does. They talk about Biden not campaigning for Democrats. McConnell campaigns for fewer Republicans than Biden did for Democrats. They talk about quality candidates. But where all the quality Republican Senator McConnell, Murkowski, Murkowski is a quality candidate. Seriously, who are the other quality candidates that McConnell put up? That loser in Colorado. There is a quality candidate. Where are the other quality candidates? This guy is not up to the battle. He’s not up to persuading the American people. He can barely speak. He’s not up to any of it. And he’s certainly not up to helping save the country. That he cannot do. So now he’s trashing the Tea Party. We went through this in 2010, 2012, he says. Christine O’Donnell. Sharron Angle. Sharron Angle almost won. Todd Akin. Todd Akin was never going anywhere. Richard Mourdock, he almost won. And they ran against tough, tough opponents. Sharron Angle ran against Harry Reid. That was a never going to be a shoo in. And Richard Mourdock in an extremely difficult race against a Democrat incumbent. And now we have registration trying to corner to all over again. Now I’m running. Yeah, I’m trying to meet them on the 40 yard line here. I’m trying to get the omnibus omnibus omnibus bill passed here. And Republicans in the House actually want to roll in their state. I’m working with Nancy. I’m working with Chuck LAMB, a grand old time. People want to see bipartisanship, but we can’t get bipartisanship. Hopefully next cycle of quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome. Now, here’s what this sleazeball knows, and I know it and now you know it. And I was the first to say it on my FOX show as well as behind this microphone. 23 Democrats are up in 2024 and ten Republicans. We should be able to mop the floor with them. That’s an enormously lopsided situation. So when he says, oh, quality candidates and will be able to make a difference, then he knows you know, I know that obviously the Republicans should be able to take a majority at that point. But McConnell wants to decide who the senators are from the other states because McConnell knows that in order to hold on to power, that’s what he needs. He wants to decide who the senators are from Alaska and from Arizona. Now, McConnell had his try. What was your name again? I ran twice. Mr. Producer in Arizona. I forget her name. mcSally Martha mcSally, nice enough person. She ran twice and she lost twice. That was McConnell’s candidate. That’s who McConnell pushed. That’s when McConnell convinced Governor Doocy to a point even though she’d already lost. And what is McConnell done in order to strengthen the voting system so the Democrats can keep cheating? Not a damn thing. Schumer’s out there with his his PAC trying to influence the the voting systems in every state. McConnell could care less. Well, that makes a difference. Name one conservative McConnell backed. When they first Rand Rand Paul, he did not back Rand Paul. Ted Cruz. He did not back Ted Cruz. Mike Lee He did not back Mike Lee. Mike Lee defeated his his Lieutenant Bennett. Who else? Nobody. He’d even back Rubio in Florida and go down the list of solid conservatives, not one of whom McConnell ever supported. Not one. So Mitch McConnell really wants the old country club. That’s what he wants. And he’s left of center. He is not a conservative, despite what National Review and the Wall Street Journal write, despite what the what the idiotic nerds write of both of those publications. Richard Murdock was not Todd Aiken. Sharron Angle was not Christine O’Donnell. But if McConnell had had his way, the most liberal Republican in the House of Representative by far would have been a senator. Would have been a senator. But that’s okay by McConnell because he’s a liberal, which is exactly why he’s now negotiating with the Democrats and trying to bypass the Republican majority in the House. And he has nothing but disrespect for the voter, nothing but disrespect. The fact is it may be a thin majority, but people did vote to put the Republicans in charge in foreign policy. So why is he now relying on Pelosi to get a spending deal done right now in the minority? You know, I should just kind of wonder a minority in the Senate got to meet him on the floor. This guy is a disgrace. He’s pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And he owns the Washington, DC media, all of it. Hook, line and sinker. They love him because he’s a fraud. I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 2
When’s the last time you saw McConnell on with me? Never. When’s the last time you saw McConnell on with HANNITY? Never, Tucker. Never. INGRAM Never. Because, you see, he does want to debate. In 2010 year, the Tea Party not only did the Republicans win 63 seats. They got six more Senate seats than they had in 2008, in 2010. Still not enough for majority. But the hole was very deep that the Republicans had created for themselves in the Bush years. We lost the whole Congress in 2006 when McConnell had his way, when the Bushes had their way, when they all had their way. And in 2010, the year he complains about the Republicans picked up six seats in the Senate, it was 51 to 47 in the Senate. And he’s whining that they didn’t take three or four or five more seats for a total of ten or 12, which is unheard of. And they won 63 seats in the House. And he’s whining about conservatives in the Tea Party.
Hour 1 Segment 3
I want you to listen to what a scoundrel and liar Mitch McConnell is. Prior to the 2010 election that he’s whining about today, and there’s not a single reporter there with enough intelligence or knowledge to confront him, which is why he’ll never come on this show. I’ve given up on it. I want you to understand that was the Tea Party here and many of you know this. You were active in the Democrats. The Democrats had 57 seats. The Republicans had 41. After 2010, the Democrats had 51 seats and the Republicans have 47. The Republicans picked up six seats. And 2.2 million more Republicans voted than Democrats. So the Republicans won 24 seats. The Democrats won 13. And Mitch McConnell was out there attacking individuals who cannot even defend himself. Sharron Angle was running against Harry Reid, had a very difficult race, came within five percentage points of beating her and has done nothing but trash her for the last ten years. Murdock, who was running in Indiana, was running against a very difficult candidate who’d been there for years and years and years and did a very good job. But it was an uphill race. So he trashes him. Because that’s what McConnell does. Meanwhile, mcSally loses twice this day, loses in Colorado. And if I had the time and the desire, I could go through all the entire list of all these so-called winnable Republicans who would win throughout the country. Right. Because we all know that one, it was 57 Democrats to 41 Republicans. We conservatives were in charge, weren’t we? No, we weren’t. Now, McConnell didn’t back Cruz. McConnell didn’t push back Rand Paul. McConnell didn’t back Rubio. And McConnell didn’t back Mike Lee. And I can go on and on and on. These are the superstars of the conservative movement. Meanwhile, he backs Murkowski. And in Delaware, he can trash O’Donnell all he wants. He backed a candidate who was the most left wing Republican imaginable for the U.S. Senate. 20 dead, and now he’s busy trying to. And by the way. And by the way, he’s backed other candidates like Mark Kirk in Illinois, defeated. Some of these races are very tough. They’re tough states for Republicans. They’re very tough. But McConnell wasn’t able to crack Arizona with mcSally twice. And so he attacks. He attacks masters. Pennsylvania’s a very, very tough state. So now he’s attacking us. Georgia. McConnell had both of his candidates running two years ago. You remember that, Mr. Producer? Both of his candidates ran and both of them lost. If we just had quality candidates, don’t you know? My good friend Michael is with us. He just won re-election. Mike Leigh, I want to ask you and I put you on the hot spot with this, but really an omnibus bill that that McConnell is negotiating with. Schumer, cutting out the vast majority of the Republican senators he supposedly leads, trying to get this done with him and Nancy Pelosi before the Republicans take over in the House in defiance of the last election. Is this not unbelievable? It’s like déja vu all over again. I’d call it unbelievable, but I’ve seen this movie before enough times to know what happens. As we approach Christmas, something terrible happens where the small handful of leaders in Congress get together and they write a spending bill in secret behind closed doors, very small, talking like four or five members of Congress. Right. And they hold on to it until the last minute, making sure that we have some artificially imposed spending deadline occurring mid-December as this week they set it at December 16th. Then they come along and mark my words, Mark, this will happen next. They’ll come along and move the spending deadline back a week to take it to the 23rd. You see, they want it as close to Christmas as they can get it so that they can capitalize on the fact that members of Congress are worried about a shutdown. They’re worried about their constituents who are worried about a shutdown, and they’re also worried about getting home so they can spend the holidays with their families. This is a coercive tool that they use in order to trick people into voting for legislation they haven’t seen, they haven’t read it has never seen the light of day. It’ll be two or 3000 pages long. It’ll spend 1.5, 1.6, $1.7 trillion, and it will not be subject to any kind of scrutiny or amendment. And this is how they do it. So that’s why I went to the floor today, along with a few of my colleagues, Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, Rick Scott from Florida, and Mike Braun from Indiana. And I offered up a bill. I’ve written a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded for a few weeks, keep it funded until after the new Congress comes in, allowing the Republican controlled House to leave its mark on this so that we don’t have to continue enacting the Pelosi Schumer Biden agenda. The Democrats objected to it, said, Well, we can’t have that because we’re negotiating now, since this wouldn’t have precluded that negotiation. But mark my words, what comes next is they’ll come to the floor and they’ll try to seek a short term spending bill to carry this out for another week, not because they want to avoid the threat of a shutdown, but because they want to enhance it. They want to increase it. They want to make it as scary as possible. And this is manipulative and they need to be called out on that. This is wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this. And the same Republicans who are supposed to be the stellar Republicans quality candidates. They vote for it every damn budget cycle. They do the same thing over and over again, don’t they, Senator? Some of them do. Some of them do. A lot of them do. But there are a growing number who have had enough with this and refuse to put up with it. And they push back and they say no. And, you know, the more people hear about the problems with it, the more they learn about the actual bill. They’re they’re less inclined to go along with it. And the more they stop and think about the fact that this is an invented time line, contrived deadline put in place for this very reason. The more people who figure that out, as they figure it out, the more people are opposing it. And they’re realizing that we do have a choice, you know, more since 1954. Control of the House has switched from one party to the other. Exactly. Five times. That’s not very often. And yet, in none of those times in modern history, none of those times has Congress come through and enacted a sweeping omnibus spending bill to fund the government with the outgoing party’s policy objectives in mind for the entirety of the balance of the fiscal year to follow. It doesn’t happen, and it shouldn’t happen here. That’s why this one is a little bit different. Even though it’s the same movie that we’ve seen over and over again. This one is even more inexcusable because we’ve got a Republican Congress coming in. We’ve added about $4 trillion to our debt just in the last two years alone. It’s causing sweeping rampant inflation. And all these guys can think about is how to pass another spending bill. But it’s too big, it’s too expensive that no one’s read, and that’s a problem. And then what comes behind this, Senator, the demand that that the debt limit be raised. So you have no input. The vast majority of senators, no input in the spending side. And then the guns held to your head and say we must raise the debt ceiling or the nation will go bankrupt. And the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution will be honored. First of all, this has nothing to do with the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution that’s applies to the states. That’s number one. Number two, in terms of shutting down the government, when Paul Ryan was an honorable and straight guy on this program, he said they never shut down the government. 83% of the government keeps trucking along. 17% is shut down. Social Security, Medicare, veterans assistance and a bunch of other stuff are specifically excluded by statute. They keep taking in $320 billion or more every single month. So they play this game again to scare the American people. So the politicians who had no say in the spending are now told they have to increase the debt ceiling. Do I have that about right? Yes. Yes, you have that. Exactly right. And we’re told every time we approach the debt ceiling, we don’t actually get to fight on this. We don’t actually get to even discuss this. We are compelled to just increase it by whatever. We decide or in some cases just suspend it entirely for a certain period of time. We have no choice but to do that because these decisions have already been made. When Congress has passed spending bills. And so, yeah, this is this is the decision that they will later claim precludes us from fighting on the debt ceiling. And by the way, Mark, we still have no absolute assurance, no way of knowing that they won’t throw in a debt ceiling increase or suspension in connection with this spending bill. Mm hmm. And, of course, with a massive bill like this, not only do our representatives in the Senate and then the House have no idea what’s going on right up to 24, 36, 48 hours beforehand. But we the people don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on. They have been subcommittees, committee hearings, appropriate press coverage. As of today, nothing’s been shared with you. Has it? No, nothing’s been shared with me. Nothing’s been shared with all but about, I don’t know, two or three members of the House and two or three members of the Senate. In fact, they will tell you they still don’t have a deal. And yet, magically, mysteriously, miraculously, they claim that they know almost to the moment when they will have an agreement and they’ll be able to pass it. Because they told us today, we think that by the 22nd of by the end of the day, on the 22nd of December, we will have a deal and we will then have it passed. I don’t know how they know that because they don’t even have a deal yet. They also say if we don’t have a deal by then, then we’ll pass a short term spending bill to take us into the next Congress. Well, if that’s a good idea, then why not do that now so that we can avoid scaring the American people to death and so that we can avoid coercing the people’s elected lawmakers into doing this? And you’re right, market the biggest prob the biggest disservice in all of this is that the American people are locked out of the process. They’re going to have to spend. They’re going to have to pay for this. They’re the ones who are stuck with the ever encroaching federal government and the rampant inflation that it’s causing with families in Utah paying $1,000 of every month for their basic monthly expenses compared to the day that Joe Biden took office. They’re the ones suffering through this and they don’t even get the chance to see it and talk to their lawmakers about how they feel about it before it’s time to vote. Mike Lee, let me just tell you this, too. It would be the same if the Republicans controlled the majority with the same leadership. You know how I know? Because that’s exactly what they did. Same practices, same process. Massive spending bills. That’s what they did. And that’s why I think guys like the senator from Indiana and others are saying, well, I can’t I can’t do this. That’s why Tom Coburn said enough. This system is a disaster. I got to get out of here. And he joined the convention of states moving. So we can’t fix this. It’s not going to get fixed. I want to thank you for fighting Mike Lee. Keep it up and we will continue to bring you on to discuss this, if you don’t mind. Oh, I’d love to mark it. Just remind your listeners they can’t do any of this without Republican votes. If we don’t give them at least ten Republican votes, along with all 50 Democrats, they can’t pass any of this. So people should communicate if they’ve got concerns, as you and I do, they should express that. And if they don’t want this to happen, they should insist on a on a continuing resolution, a short term spending bill that takes us into the new Congress, not just a week, but into the new Congress. That’s what we need. All right, Mike Lee. Have a wonderful Christmas, my brother. I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 4
I try to spend time on matters that affect your life. This affects your life because they take all kinds of things in these bills. They’re driving up the debt to unbelievable levels, utterly irresponsible. This generation of politicians in Washington, D.C., they’re going to destroy the future for your children and grandchildren and generations yet born. And they don’t give a damn. They just think they can print money and print money and print money and destroy our fossil fuel system, destroy our industries. And what’s the big deal? Federal deficit widened to a record $249 billion last month. That’s one month. One month. The federal government spent $501 billion last month, a $28 billion increase to a record high while tax revenue dropped. Yeah, Why? Gee, I wonder. I mean, we have over we have 31 and a half trillion dollars in debt. And now the interest on that is $900 Billion a year, almost $1,000,000,000,000. How the hell are we going to get out of this? By cutting deals with the Democrats to make sure other senators you know, this is the thing, You got a guy like McConnell, he goes up behind a microphone. He says, we didn’t have quality candidates while he with his Republicans are destroying this country along with the Democrats. They’re not taking them on. They’re not fighting for our priorities. And you heard Mike Lee. They have to have ten Republicans to get this over the finish line. And he knows he has ten Republicans. How he bought and paid for him, 20 raises all that money. Those are the good Republicans. Don’t you know the electable Republican? They’ll be right back.