January 14th, 2025

On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, does the supposed hostage deal being pushed by the United States require Israel to release scores of terrorists? Reports say that there’s enormous pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to allegedly release multiple scores of Palestinian terrorists and convicted criminals in exchange for the hostages, even if it means the collapse of the Netanyahu conservative government. Hopefully, this is not true. Also, Pete Hegseth did extremely well during his confirmation hearing, but the Democrats dirtied themselves even though the Democrats, who have undermined our military repeatedly, posed as defenders of the military, they failed miserably. In fact, they essentially continued promoting wokeism and politics at the Pentagon and the allegations that were already pushed in and by the media, respecting Hegseth’s character, didn’t go anywhere. Hegseth conducted himself very well during the Democrat inquisition and there is no reason any Republican should vote against his confirmation. Some are questioning, what qualifies Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. What qualified Pete Buttigieg to run transportation? Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense and never served in the military. Sometimes you must rely on a person’s life experience. Finally, Sen Eric Schmitt calls in to discuss his role at the Hegseth hearings today. He explains that Hegseth will root out DEI at the Department of Defense, which is poison, it has no place in our military. Hegseth is the change agent President-Elect Trump wanted.

Photo by Sean Gallup

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 by CNN’s head count. It’s likely that Pete Hegseth will get confirmed as secretary of Defense. And it was a magnificent display of competence class. Some intelligence. Oh, not the Democrats. It was a magnificent display of stupidity, ignorance and a low IQ. No, I’m talking about Pete. He was fantastic in the usual low lives. Did were low lives do the others too? And working. I spent a lot of time on this because many of you actually work for a living and you weren’t able to hear much of this. I did watch it for my work for a living. There are other things going on that I want to hit quickly, but then I want to I want to circle back to that. Now, one of them is this. It’s not getting really any attention whatsoever. What you keep hearing, the media report is we’re close to a deal to return the hostages in Israel, that the Biden’s team and Trump’s team are working very, very hard on this. I’ll tell you what I’m hearing, and I’m very concerned about it. I’m reading and seeing reports that there’s enormous pressure. An Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to release multiple scores of Palestinian terrorists and convicted criminals in exchange for the hostages. Even if it means the collapse of the Netanyahu government. Now, I hope this isn’t true. I hope our team, the Trump team, isn’t pressuring for this. That is the release of terrorists. You know, here in the United States, we would not go for that, would we? No, we wouldn’t do it for a minute. I also just saw a report on Fox by three. Well, not just about 2 hours ago. That suggests at least some of this is true. And there’s an entire story in the Jerusalem Post. Heart versus head, the hostage deal on the cost of compassion analysis. They go on to say is or is agreement to the emerging a hostage deal, one that, if fully implemented, could secure the release of all 98 remaining captives? They don’t know if that’s the number. Nobody does. They’re just speculating. Both living and dead oak, dead captives, I guess they’re talking about as well, in exchange for thousands. You hear this man’s producer, thousands of Palestinian security prisoners, including convicted terrorist murderers serving life sentences. Marks a triumph of the heart over the head. The deal would also see Israel withdrawing to a buffer zone along Gaza’s perimeter, relinquishing control over key areas such as? Well, doesn’t matter. Allowing Gazans, civilians to return to northern Gaza, effectively bringing the war to an end. The war to the end with Hamas is never is never over. The balance between hard and had a debate over what should have priority and decision making has been debated centuries. Both approaches offer strengths and pitfalls. Living with a heart means placing empathy, intuition and moral values at the forefront, all of which foster solidarity and unity, writes this individual in the opinion piece. Those champing this argument recognize the real risks. But say it’s worth it anyway. Now. What about the future? He also writes. With the release of thousands of terrorists and criminals. Those opposed to the deal are not called individuals with hearts of stone. Rather, they’re looking beyond the now and the individual and judging the agreement based on whether it’s good in the long term for the collective. Their argument comes down to three core concerns. First, the deal to incentivize hostage taking. Hostage taking. Second, releasing thousands of Hamas terrorists, hundreds with blood on their hands will inevitably lead to more terrorism. On this. These these folks are backed up by the data. 1985 is released, 1150 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for three soldiers in what was known as the Jibril deal. Many of those released played a role in the first intifada two years later. And it goes on to how they. How they participate in other terrorist acts. The final concern is Hamas remains standing. Granted, as a military organization said, severely depleted with tens of thousands of terrorists killed and so forth. But it still retains control of Gaza’s civilian infrastructures left in place under the agreement. It’s only a matter of time, according to those opposed to this deal, before the terrorist organization regroups and rearm. That can’t be among those folks. Me among those folks. And so these these various articles and so forth and commentators in Israel are saying there’s enormous pressure on Netanyahu. To grab a deal like this. That’s apparently the what’s going on. And so. If the Biden and Trump folks are working closely together. I just hope it’s not our folks that are pressuring this. There’s thousands of terrorists who released. I just I can’t imagine that’s the case since we would never buy that. In our own case, we would never put up with that. So time will tell. But apparently it’s going to happen fairly soon, you know. The truth of the matter is that Biden wants a deal on the way out, and President Trump would like to get this resolved before he’s sworn in. So there is. That motivation. My understanding can. Potomac Town. TURNER Qatar is negotiating. In effect, for Hamas. Qatar as a terrorist regime. America. Qatar has spent enormous amounts of money in our country. Qatar has bought a lot of politicians in our country. Qatar has its hands in many developments and businesses in our country, and a lot of our wealthiest people in this country owe Qatar money. That’s right. And so you got to wonder about that. We’ll see how this plays out. But I wanted to bring this to your attention because all the reporting in the United States so far as we almost have a hostage to what they’re not saying is with thousands of terrorists and murderers and criminals released. And Hamas remains standing. And now you can see why some. In the coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu have said, well, we’re going to withdraw. And depending on how many withdraw, his government can fold. And Biden obviously doesn’t give a damn about that. We should. That is we American patriots. We should. So I wanted to bring that to your attention. Also, it turns out in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, about 100 fire trucks are. Are not functioning. They don’t have the parts they need and the repairs couldn’t be done. So this is a a government, basically the Los Angeles government and the California government generally, that is a disaster. Ideologically, practically, scientifically. A disaster. I see the media all worked up, starting with the Associated Press, that the flags will be flying at full match for the inauguration of President Trump. Rather than half man up her Jimmy Carter. Now, if they were flying half mast when he’s giving his inaugural address, the media would say, look at that. Isn’t that symbolic of a country dying. So the speaker’s ordered that all the flags will be flying in formation, and that’s good. They should be. As far as I’m concerned. You know, there’s a ton more going on in this country, but this hearing is illustrative of how the Democrats plan to try and destroy our nominees. And what a nominee needs to do to stand up to it and defend against it. And I want to also say that the Republicans on this committee were superb, and that would include Joni Ernst. Absolutely superb. Superb. I can’t play them all. This gentleman, Cramer, was wonderful, as were others. Our buddy Tom Cotton was outstanding. But they all were outstanding. And the Democrats look buffoonish. Gillibrand’s there defending women in the military. She won’t defend women in sports. She won’t defend the word women. She won’t do any of that. She won’t condemn. Transgender athletics. As destroying women’s sports so she doesn’t stand for women. She’s a jokester. And this Hirono whatever the hell. Her name from Hawaii. She’s a. She’s a court jester. She’s an idiot. Asking and answering your own questions. Just an obnoxious, disrespectful, pathetic buffoon. Thank you, Hawaii, for sending us. I hope not your best. And there were others on the Democrat side Tim Kaine looked like he had. Had a late night. Looked like he had a rough night. His hair was disheveled. He looked like Professor Raymond Corey. Nasty S.O.B.. He was nasty as hell. But this wife, the ex-wife, one of the young kids, seven years old, is in the audience. He didn’t care. He he was given his marching orders by by Schumer. He was Schumer’s point man, hit man. There were others. But he he was exceptional at his. Loathsome conduct and so forth. Just disgusting. So you’ll hear some of this when we return, by the way. Jack Reed, the. The former chairman, now the ranking Democrat on the committee, another lowlife. We’ll be right back.

Segment 2

Obviously, we’re not going to go through all five, six, 7 hours of the hearing, but we are going to take what I think are some of the better clips. And this is really quite educational for all of us. How you proceed? They counted him out. We never did, of course, back. We counted him in and we led the effort to fight prepared as we will for cash Patel and some of the others. But in part this is this is what he said. Cut one, Go. We undertook this responsibility with an obligation to the troops to do right by them for our war fighters. And what we came very evident to us from the beginning, there was a coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media against us. That was clear from moment one. And what we knew is that it wasn’t about me. Most of it was about President Donald Trump, who’s had to endure the very same thing for much longer amounts of time. And he endured it in credit incredibly strong ways. So we in some ways knew it was coming. We didn’t understand the depth of the dishonesty that would come with it. I saw from story after story in the media, left wing media, we saw anonymous source after anonymous source based on second or third hand accounts. And time and time again stories would come out and people would reach out to me and say, you know, I’ve I’ve spoken to this reporter about who you really are, and I was willing to go on the record. But they didn’t print my quote. They didn’t print any of my quotes or I’ve worked with you for ten years or I was your accountant or I was your chief operating officer or I was your board member or I was with you on a hundred different tour stops for Concerned Veterans for America. No one called me. No one asked about your conduct on the record or off the record. Instead, a small handful of anonymous sources were allowed to drive a smear campaign, an agenda about me, because our left wing media in America today, sadly, doesn’t care about the truth. All they were out to do, Mr. Chairman, was to destroy me. And why do they want to destroy me? Because I’m a change agent and a threat to them. Because Donald Trump was willing to choose me, to empower me to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is war fighting. So I’m willing to endure these attacks. But what I will do is stand up for the truth and for my reputation. False attacks, anonymous attacks, repeated ad nauseum, printed as naughty nauseum as facts we have provided to the committee. Mr. Chairman, and I know you’re going to share on the record statement after on the record statement from people who have served with me, worked with me at Fox News, Concerned Vets, Vets for Freedom, you name it. From the top of the chain to the bottom. Who will say I treat them with respect, with kindness, with dignity? That’s men. That’s women. That’s black. That’s white. That’s every background. I have prided myself as a leader of respecting people. Being professional. That is the balance of mine. I’m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged. Say by the grace of God. By Jesus and Jenny. I’m not a perfect person. But redemption is real. And God forged me in ways that I know I’m prepared for. And I’m honored by the people standing and sitting behind me. I look forward to leading this Pentagon on behalf of the war fighters. A question is with post made by one of my buddies about what qualifies PDX PDX. Let’s put all the personal stuff. What qualifies him? I mean, you have three and a half million people that are going to report that. Now, this is a very interesting question. How many people out there managed? Three and a half million people. Almost none. Go to the Department of Justice. They were about 120,000 people, including several thousand attorneys. How many people have managed? 120,000 people with several thousands of attorneys? Nobody. You can go through one bureaucracy after another and raise the same question. What qualified Pete Buttigieg to run the Transportation Department, which includes the FAA, the highways, and on and on and on? Nothing. What qualified? Robert Kennedy. To be appointed attorney general of the United States at the age of 34 by John Kennedy, when his only experience was pretty much as a legal adviser. On the Army McCarthy hearings to Joe McCarthy. Nothing qualified him. I want to get into this. What qualified? Merrick Garland, who’d been a judge before that, a U.S. attorney. Nobody is actually qualified to manage millions of people before they’ve managed millions of people.

Segment 3
Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense from 1989 to 93 and never served in the military. You’ve had others who served as secretaries of defense. Such as? Just looking here at the list of really so many lightweights. To be perfectly honest with you. But that’s the question. Look at the budget in three and a half million people. First of all, we’ve had people who’ve managed certainly nothing close to three and a half million people. But you’ve had people who’ve managed large corporations with a lot of people. Are they qualified? Well, it depends on the person, doesn’t it? Robert McNamara was secretary of defense from 61 to 68 at the height of the Vietnam War. He was a disaster. Absolute, unmitigated disaster. But he was considered part of the brain trust of the auto industry. So what? Sometimes you have to rely. When an individual’s experience. Life’s experience. This is particularly interesting when we live in this era of DIY diversity, equality. And what’s the other one? I don’t even know. Inclusion. Because. When you actually know the history di and understand the purpose a di it is the anti-marriage. In other words, you can marry Merit is very important, but that’s not the priority. And that’s why a lot of us argue forget about the. You want to go with qualifications. So what is what is a qualification to be secretary of defense is it is to be somebody who’s been in the military not at the lowest level, but at a sort of the commander level. But he hasn’t been a four star general. I mean, we’ve had those two, haven’t we? And they’ve been disasters. Millie was not exceptional. I’d say it was a disaster. Now, he wasn’t saying that. Matt Mattis As I’m thinking of Jim Mattis, Jim Mattis was a nothing. He was there for two years. Nothing. Esper was nothing. He wasn’t a general, but nothing. So the question for me is, do you have somebody smart enough to put smart people around them? To push a principled agenda. And, yes, his battle experience. I think that’s pretty damn good. When you pick somebody like a Buddha judge and put them over transportation, he doesn’t even have experience driving a bus. I mean, it’s that’s kind of weird. We can go even higher. What great qualifications. Excuse me, Did Joe Biden have to be commander in chief? He was a senator. Why are senators qualified to be president? I’m not asking you how they get elected. I got it. But why? Senator as a legislator, they’re not executives. Joe Biden hasn’t been an executive over 15 people. His staff at the Senate. I said an executive over 15 people at any time in his life until he became president of the United States. Does that mean he’s not qualified? Maybe. Maybe he’s not qualified. But the rap on Hegseth is just crap. Is a guy with the Harvard. This is a guy who. His real battle experience in two theaters. Two theaters. This is a guy who’s smart as hell, who’s written about what he would do to reform the Pentagon, which God knows needs reform. He’s laid it out. Mostly these other people hadn’t laid it out. So let’s say we pick somebody that has worked for somebody who’s managed three and a half million people at the Pentagon. Is that who we want? What does that mean? Experience managing three and a half million people? I don’t even know. I’m not even clear what that means. Basically, you’d have to pick a bureaucrat. Oh, we’d have to pick a general. You’d have to pick somebody who’s already there because there’s not another institution that has three and a half million people to manage. Right. What makes somebody qualified to be a senator? One of 100 people who votes on life and death issues every day. Well, they got elected. I didn’t ask that. I didn’t ask you how they became a senator. What makes them qualified? Well, the people decide. Well, exactly. The people voted for Trump and he decides who he wants to work for him, because in the end, it’s not exact it’s not the secretary of agriculture. It’s not any of them. It’s the president of the United States. He’s the chief executive. That’s why he’s called the chief executive. All the departments ultimately report to him. All the decisions ultimately are his. It’s one of the reasons I had a big Pramod Kamala Harris and a big problem with Biden before her. So it’s this isn’t paint by the numbers. Somebody who’s managed three and a half million people or a million people. Therefore, they have at least a certain set of qualifications. No, they don’t. It’s not only that mad you, let’s say there’s say, an corporation or entity with three and a half million people to manage in the private sector. That has nothing to do with the kind of experience you need in government. Zero. How do I know? I’ve been there for eight years as chief of staff to an attorney general. I was the deputy solicitor of the Interior Department. I don’t care if you come out of a law firm, you’re never really experienced in the way the government works. You’re just not. Now you don’t want to pick a complete schlub. A mental midget, A buffoon. We got that. You don’t want to do that. And you don’t want to pick somebody because of their genitalia or their race or their faith or anything like that. But Hegseth is more than qualified to sit in that position to take a look at what’s going on in the department, to delegate authority to people who he has faith in, who may be in the department already. I mean, that’s the whole nature of being a general or an admiral or commander in chief. So that’s my response now. More on Hegseth from Hegseth. Cut to go. The Department of Defense under Donald Trump will achieve peace through strength. And in pursuing these America first national security goals will remain patriotically apolitical and stridently constitutional. Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans. We are not Democrats. We are American warriors. Our standards will be high and they will be equal, not equitable. That’s a very different word. We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapons system. Every pilot’s fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying. And every general or flag officer is selected for leadership or promotion purely based on performance readiness and merit. Leaders at all levels will be held accountable and warfighting and lethality and the readiness of the troops and their families will be our only focus. There you go. Pretty good, I’d say. Now Jack Reed is the acting. Well, he’s the Democrat, the leading Democrat on the committee. Had three go written publicly that deny policy of distraction and have military personnel walking on eggshells. Do you believe that emails like that that are essentially threatening both are serving officer and the spouse and is claiming that they’ll lose their pension, will have a distraction and detract from the authority? Senator, you mentioned the forties and fifties, and you’re precisely right. The military was a forerunner in courageous racial integration in ways no other institutions were willing to do. I served with men and women of all backgrounds because of the courage of people during its most incredibly important days. However, the G.I. policies of today are not the same as what happened back then. They’re dividing troops inside formations, causing commanders to walk on eggshells, not putting meritocracy first. That’s the indictment that’s made by those serving right now. The United States military was the first major federal institution to be desegregated. The United States. It was resegregated under Woodrow Wilson. A so-called progressive Democrat. But it was the first major federal government institution to be desegregated, and it was desegregated by Taft. Howard Taft. The federal bureaucracy generally was desegregated by Taft and then Theodore Roosevelt. It was resegregated by Woodrow Wilson who required that. All applicants for a federal job provide photographs so they wouldn’t hire black people. Just giving you a little bit of history. Just giving you a little bit of history. And Woodrow Wilson’s administration was filled with bigots and racists. Defense Department, State Department unit at the post office. And so the battle. Was to be based on merit, not on color of their skin, not on physical features, Not on. Religious beliefs or anything of that sort. And now today, that apparently is controversial because of this DUI push. So we’ve come strangely full circle. And so on the one hand we we are you who’s qualified to do one, and on the other hand we argue, Well, what about the time? The answer should be merit, no discrimination ever. Period. Period. That’s Haig’s sets point. Now we have General Austin, who’s supposedly very, very qualified. He’s done a lousy job. At the Pentagon. The reason why Joni Ernst keeps talking about audits is because they’re blowing a lot of money. Not only that. They basically have undermined funding for the United States military by having flat budgets throughout high inflationary period, while the communist Chinese are are going to fall hog whole hog. And yet Austin, I guess, would be said to be experienced. Because he’s a top general. Who commanded troops. But he’s been a disaster. He just has been. Maybe it’s because of the commander in chief, Biden, whose orders he takes. Again, Jim Mattis was a highly decorated general. Was a disaster. Just terrible. Robert Gates. He was never a general concern. It would have been a very, very fine secretary of defense under Republican and Democrat administrations. And I can go down the list. We’ll be right back.

Segment 4
Pete Hegseth’s confirmation. Cut four go. The Wokeness comes not from the uniform rank Senator, but from the political class on day one. On January 20th, when President Trump is sworn in, he will issue a new set of lawful orders, and the leadership of our service will have an opportunity to follow those lawful orders or not. Those lawful orders will not be based on politics. They will be based on readiness, accountability, standards and lethality. That is the process by which leaders will be judged. And accountability is coming because everybody in this room knows if you’re a rifleman and you lose your rifle, they’re throwing the book at you. But if you’re a general who loses a war, you get a promotion. That’s not going to happen in Donald Trump’s Pentagon. There will be real standards for success. Everyone from the top, from the most senior general to the most lowly private will ensure that they’re treated fairly. Men and women inside that system. Mm hmm. It’s good. Cat five go as far as politics. Senator, I it has been the joy of my life to lead men and women in military outfits when you’re in combat or in training. There are a lot of conversations that happen and you start to realize that a lot of people you’re serving with share your political ideals or they don’t. You find out there’s Republicans, there’s Democrats, there’s libertarians, there’s independents, there’s vegetarians. Everything in between. None of that matters. It never mattered in how I led men and women, how I interacted with them, what missions we undertook. Politics has nothing to do with the battlefield, which is why President Trump has asked me to say, let’s make sure all of that comes out. This is about war fighting capability. Setting standards high and making sure we give our boys, our men and women, everything they need to be successful on the battlefield. So politics can play no part in that. And I look forward to infusing that as we always have inside our units. There you go. You know, I think of one of the least experienced politicians in American history. If he was the greatest president, he was the second greatest president. His name was Abraham Lincoln. He was elected to the House of Representatives and served one term. He got elected. Popular vote by a minority. The popular vote. He was almost an accidental president. He had no experience running an army. He had no experience running. Almost anything came out of a two man law office. That’s it. One of the greatest presidents, if not the greatest president in American history. I’ll be right back.