On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, a three-judge panel issued a 160-page order blocking Texas’s new congressional redistricting plan, alleging it was unlawfully based on race rather than partisanship. In a scathing 104-page dissent, Judge Jerry Smith accused majority judges Jeffrey Vincent Brown and David Guaderrama of “pernicious judicial misbehavior” by denying him adequate time to review and respond, calling it the most outrageous judicial conduct he had encountered in 37 years. Smith argued the redistricting was driven by partisan gain, not racial animus, dismantling the majority’s claims as deceptive, misleading, and factually erroneous. Hans von Spakovsky calls in to discuss this decision. Later, six Democratic members of Congress urged the U.S. military and national security personnel to reject and defy ‘illegal orders’ from President Trump as commander-in-chief, which is an attempt to undermine the government, and overthrow the elected president. Trump has not issued unconstitutional or illegal orders and complies with court rulings. Their actions are disgusting and frightening. Also, Stephen A Smith calls in and addresses Michelle Obama saying men aren’t ready to have a woman president. He also criticizes Democrats for the 43-day government shutdown over Obamacare subsidies, highlighting unfulfilled promises on costs and doctor retention. Afterward, Sean Hannity calls in to discuss law and order on the streets of America. Finally, Gabe Kaminsky calls in and exposes Nick Fuentes’ nonprofit (tax exempt) America First Foundation group which is revamping for the 2026 midterm elections to “infiltrate politics” by evaluating candidates, guiding voter decisions, and mapping the “patronage networks” of the “Israel First lobby.”
Daily Signal
Texas Redistricting: The Most Scathing Denunciation of a Court Decision I’ve Ever Read
Jewish Insider
Mamdani: Nefesh B’Nefesh event at New York synagogue promotes ‘violation of international law’
NY Post
Stephen A Smith slams Michelle Obama’s claim that America isn’t ready for a female president
The Free Press
Nick Fuentes’ Plan to ‘Infiltrate Politics’ and Subvert the GOP
Photo by Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman
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. I decided, ladies and gentlemen, to look at what is a crucially consequential decision if it is not reversed in Texas involving those those ten seats that Governor Abbott and the legislature created and in the attack. By this three judge panel, the appellate panel, two judges voting that it was unconstitutional. One judge in a credible dissent over 100 pages long absolutely rejected it. And I want to read you what our friends, Hans von Spakovsky, had to say about it. He’s a great guy at the Heritage Foundation, a long time friend. And. Years ago, he worked in the Civil Rights Division handling voting rights cases. Said on Tuesday, the media was filled with stories that a three judge panel had voted 2 to 1. The issue, a 160 page order blocking the Texas legislature’s new congressional redistricting plan. The order claimed the redistricting was unlawfully based on race as opposed to partisanship, a claim at odds with what we saw happen in the partisan political fight within the state legislature, which included a walkout by Democratic legislators. What wasn’t attached to the order was the dissenting opinion by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith. Now, this man is a 37 year veteran of the federal judiciary. Greatly respected for his legal argument. In other words, he is a towering. Scholar. Incredibly smart. He’s an originalist. He sticks to the Constitution. He at 104 page dissent. It came out a day later. It marks the most scathing denunciation, right. That I’ve ever read of another judge. Now, why would a dissent come out a day later? You’re about to find out. In this case, the judge being denounced is Judge Jeffrey Vinson. Brown. Brown, who wrote the majority decision along with Judge David Guerra Rama, who joined the opinion in his dissent. Smith accused Brown and Guatemala of, quote, pernicious judicial misbehavior, unquote. And deliberately not providing Judge Smith with, quote, any reasonable opportunity to review Brown’s opinion and respond before it was issued. I’ve never heard of this before. So these two collaborated. Collaborated. To circumvent the third judge because they didn’t want that judge. They had the time to reply to their majority opinion. They were going to just ram it through. I have never, ever, in all the years I’ve been practicing law ever seen anything like this. Judge Smith calls it the most outrageous conduct by a judge. And he’s talking about this judge, Jeffrey Vinson Brown. The most outrageous behavior by a judge that I’ve ever encountered in a case in which I’ve been involved. He’s been on there 40 years, almost. He spends four pages going through the timing involved and says that any pretense of judicial restraint, good faith or trust by these two judges is gone. Smith then starts off the substance of his dissenting opinion by acknowledging an undeniable fact. Quote, The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom. The obvious losers are the people of Texas and the rule of law. Wow. Now, remember who this man is. He’s not just a federal judge. He’s a towering figure. Judge Jerry Smith proceeds to totally dismantle the majority’s decision and its unsubstantiated claim that race, not politics, was the driving factor in the redistricting throughout. He repeats the phrase I dissent more than a dozen times. Smith even includes two pages of a non-exhaustive list of misleading, deceptive or false statements. Judge Brown put forward a very serious charge against a sitting judge. Smith says the list would be considerably longer. But for the press of time, remember, he has to issue his opinion the next day. He said there’s no lack of fodder. You know, there’s no lack of evidence that this guy is a complete rogue. Judge, It is. The judge. He’s condemning Judge Brown. Judge Smith apologizes for his dissent being disjointed, but says refining it was not possible because Brown and good drama, quote, have not allowed it, unquote. Again, remember what they did? They issued their opinion without telling this judge. And so he had a quickly right as dissent the next day. Thus his dissent far from a literary masterpiece. But if it were a Nobel Prize for fiction, Judge Brown’s opinion would be a prime candidate. He writes. Now, Judge Smith says Brown’s opinion is so deceptive and so lacking in facts or law that Brown could have saved himself and their readers a lot of time and effort by merely stating the following. I just don’t like what the legislature did here. It was unnecessary and it seems unfair to disadvantaged voters. I need to step in and make sure wiser heads prevail over the nakedly partisan and racially questionable actions of the zealous lawmakers. He’s mocking the judge. I’m using my considerable clout as a federal district judge to put a stop to bad policy judgments. After all, I get paid to do what I think is right. Judge Brown’s actions are. Judge Smith wrote in his dissent the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that he has ever witnessed during his lengthy judicial career of nearly 40 years. Brown’s actions are, Smith wrote, the most blatant exercise, according to Smith. The main question before the three judge panel was, quote, Whether the Texas legislature did its mid-decade congressional redistricting to gain political advantage or instead, because the main goal of the Texas Republican legislators is to slash the voting rights of persons of color. Smith likened the approach of the lawyers and witnesses in this case to that of the Department of Justice, lawyers from the Civil Rights Division to the prior Texas redistricting cases. He said it was obvious from the start the DOJ attorneys viewed state officials and the legislative majority and their staffs as a bunch of backwoods hayseed bigots who bemoaned the abolition of the poll tax and pined for the days of literacy tests and lynching. And the DOJ lawyers saw themselves as an expeditionary landing party, arriving here just in time to rescue the state from oppression he’s talking about decades ago. And he’s saying this case is no different. What’s taken place here is an abomination. And Hans writes, Having worked in the Civil Rights Division, I can assure you that this observation is absolutely 100% correct. While acknowledging that the Justice Department was not present in the case, Smith said that the same attitudes about Texas Republican legislators have been reflected in the testimony of multiple experts and witnesses presented by these plaintiffs and occasionally by their talented counsel in the statements of the parties. But the obvious reason for the Texas redistricting, Smith wrote, was partisan gain, not racism. The majority, he wrote, commits grave error in concluding that the Texas legislature is more bigoted than political. And Judge Smith methodically points out all the gray areas Brown and Guerra Rama made in evaluating the evidence in the case over what the legislators did and how and why the new districts were drawn and the way they were. Those areas are too numerous to list. And remember, this poor judge had to do this in a 24 hour period. Judge Smith’s conclusion, the majority committed grave error is the key legal standard for overturning a preliminary order. Texas has already filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States. Smith says the evidence in the case, as well as outside events like the victory lap in Houston to celebrate May, California Governor Gavin Newsom tell you all you need to know this is about partisan politics, plain and simple. Regardless of one’s political slant, he wrote, it’s obvious what Texas is trying to do in 2025. Obvious to everyone, that is, except the two judges who joined the majority opinion. The Republicans national margin in the House of Representatives is so slim that squeezing out a majority might even depend day to day on whether some seats are vacant because of deaths or resignations. The new plan in Texas was to make more seats winnable for Republicans by moving some Democrat incumbents from their districts and rendering their tricks unwinnable by Democrats. Smith described the plaintiffs theory, the one ultimately adopted by this rogue Judge Brown, as both perverse and bizarre. They claim that if politics was the reason for redistricting, then the Republicans would not have drawn five new seats, but instead would have drawn six, seven or eight additional seats. And that the reason they didn’t is that the real reason for the redistricting was racial animus. The absurdity of that notion, he said, speaks for itself. Schmidt concludes his dissent by citing the unfairness the majority is imposing on Texas voters, he says, who are having a map implemented by their duly elected legislature overturned by a self-aggrandizing, results oriented court. Man, he’s ripping the skin off these two bastards. He tells the Supreme Court that Brown’s order, replete with legal and factual error, accompanied by naked procedural abuse abuse, demands reversal by the Supreme Court. And with this decision, Smith writes, Darkness descends on the rule of law. These two judges led by this guy Brown. They basically camouflage their opinions. In the law. And yes, Brown was appointed by Trump. There’s a lot of judges appointed by a lot of Republican presidents who flip once they’re on the court. And this guy is absolutely obviously has flip. Absolutely. As flip. Does it matter who appointed him? It doesn’t tell you anything about him. What a disgrace. Absolute disgrace. Now, let’s see if the California system is upheld or not. Which is a true outrage of the worst kind. Texas, you might say, did the same thing. No, they did. They’d even come close to doing what California did. Or Massachusetts, where there’s not a single Republican district. How does that work? How is that constitutional? And we could go on and on by. Why would she why would we, the courts, destroy themselves when they conduct themselves this way? And forever remember who this guy is. Judge Jeffrey Brown. A fake, a phony. A fraud. A cook lawyer dressed up as a judge. I’ll be right back.
Segment 2
By the way, we have two tremendous Life, Liberty and Levin programs this weekend. I hope you’re all sending your DVRs because I know there’s other programming or you might be out, but these are really fantastic programs. Saturday night, 8 p.m. Eastern. We have Miranda Devine, where we’re going to go through even more thoroughly. The failure of exposing the information related to the assassination attempt on President Trump. And on Sunday, we have Joe Concha. We have other guests, too. I mean, it’s just these are two fabulous shows. You’re not going to want to miss them, folks. So the president, United States, he says, you know, these people, they’ve committed acts of sedition and that’s punishable by death. And. Does the president want to kill these senators and congressmen who put out that video and. And of course, they don’t finish the sentence And did what? We’re trying to enlist the military, ladies and gentlemen, in insurrection. I’ve never seen a more disgusting video in my life. Political video. Here’s Chuck Schumer trying to make an issue out of it that poor dumb bastard cut three ago. Earlier today, Donald Trump shared a post on Truth social calling for Democratic members of Congress to be hanged. He also posted a message that said Seditious behavior punishable by death. Let’s be crystal clear. The president of the United States is calling for the execution of the Lord, dumbass, to here know what to do. Sounds like he’s having a breakdown. He believes he’s getting the shakes. He’s davening more than usual. And he is a he is a dead politician walking in the sense that I don’t think he can win again. I’m not sure AOC is the one either. Don’t get me wrong, because she’s dumb as a doorknob in any statewide campaign who become clear that she’s platitudinous, she’s a slogan here. It’s the usual claptrap that they get out of the Communist Manifesto. And that’s about it, like mad dummy. But statewide. Looks like Madame Army’s promises may not hold up. Just as a practical matter, people are saying, Where’s he going to get the money for free transportation? Funny, they didn’t really talk about much of that during the course of the election. You need $700 million to begin with. What was it? Billions of dollars to begin with. And the state’s not going to cough that up. So where is he going to get it? Then he says his whole, you know, plan for a really a not a Disneyland filled with homes, but, you know, a chameleon filled with homes. Looks like that’s a problem now. Where are you going to get all the land from to build these things? Hmm. Practical things really do trip up these crackpot ideologues, doesn’t it? And now, of course, the police commissioner is going to hang on. That’s to her discredit her, great discredit if she becomes nothing but a puppet for him and a mouthpiece for him. And come January, hundreds of police officers are eligible to leave. Then what are they going to do? They’re going to fill those slots. So, you know, reality is going to kick in where the sun doesn’t shine. I’ll be right back.
Segment 3
Well that’s a pleasure to have our friend Hans von Spakovsky. We just read your your piece on the dissent by Judge Smith with respect to Judge Brown in plain English. Hans, what took place here was an absolute judicial power grab and a disgrace, was it not? Yeah, it was. Look, Jerry Smith, who wrote the dissent, as you know, he’s a well-respected member of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, and he writes an opinion that just dismantles the majority opinion of the two judges. And I’ve never seen an opinion like this because he talks about the pernicious judicial misbehavior of Judge Brown. And in fact, the majority opinion, as you saw, is so is so misleading that at the end of the his decision and the dissent, Smith includes a two page list of all of the what he calls misleading, deceptive and false statements that Judge Brown put in the majority opinion. And he says he can go on further, but he doesn’t have time. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that’s exactly what he said. He said it’s a non-exhaustive list. And, you know, part of what happened here, I mean, he spends the first part of the opinion talking about how Brown rushed this majority opinion through, He believes intentionally to prevent Smith from being able to review it properly, to write the dissent. And I got to tell you, and I’m sure you agree that I think the Supreme Court justices are going to pay a lot of attention to this dissent, particularly the accusations of misbehavior by Judge Brown. And people need to understand that Judge Sherry Smith was often a considered nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States. That’s how much respect he has, certainly in the higher ranks of the judiciary. No, no, no, That’s that’s correct. And it’s also interesting, I didn’t have time to get into this topic because, you know, op ed can’t be that long. But he also spends pages going through the fact that all the challenges and the challengers in this case, all of the the lawyers involved, they’re all they were all getting paid by who George Soros and these liberal organizations to basically litigate this and even says in their designee that George Soros is happy and Newsome is happy as a result of the decision here. Right. Right. Right. And look, you don’t have to understand the law to realize, look, we all saw we all saw the news. We saw what was going on in Texas. It was very clear and this is the point Smith makes throughout his 100 page opinion. We all saw the redistricting they put in place was for one reason to gain a partisan advantage for Republicans. And yet you’re allowed to do perfectly you what you’re allowed to do. It was perfectly constitutional. And yet Jerry Brown, it is other the other judge in this case claim that, oh, no, no, no, politics wasn’t the driving factor. Race was the driving factor. They wanted to slash the rights of persons of color in in the state which. Like I said, it defies common sense and a clearly defined defies the actual evidence in the case. You know, our poor Supreme Court is getting more and more of these you know, these kinds of appeals, expedited appeals, emergency appeals, because of what’s gone on with these lower courts, isn’t it? Yeah, they are. In fact, it’s so bad that sometimes I’ll just say this, like last month, I and another one of my colleagues, because they started a new column, we’re going to try to do it every month called the Dishonorable Conduct Awards that we’re going to give to these federal judges who, when they issue decisions, clearly are and blatantly are violating the Constitution and federal law. Mm hmm. It’s really it’s really sad because I remember the days when we used to have federal judges that did the right thing, even though it went against their political beliefs before they put on the black robe, even though they were appointed by this one or that one. And it is utterly unreliable now, isn’t it? These courts. They are. Is it? It is. And part of the reason is a large part of the reason is that, I mean, it’s not limited to Biden appointees and Obama appointees, but those two presidents nominated and unfortunately got confirmed to the federal bench. The most left wing ideologues to have ever become federal judges in our entire history. And that’s one of the reasons we’re getting so many bad decisions. There are others. But this guy Brown this this guy Brown is a Trump guy. And I was explaining to the audience, sometimes these guys flip. They sit on the bench long enough. That’s right. And this is this is what happened to them. Yeah, that’s right. And in fact, he issued a very bad decision just last year in another redistricting case out of Galveston County, Texas. And in fact, Jerry Smith in his dissent talks about that other bad decision that this Judge Brown issued in that case. People need to know they all work in the same courthouse, their chambers. They got to go through the same front and back door and everything. So it’s not easy from a personal perspective to have to do what Judge Smith did with Brown, is it? No, it is. And you we almost never see this kind of a tone in a in an opinion. And that in itself tells you how bad the misbehavior was of Judge Brown. Yeah. I mean, to cut out your colleague so he doesn’t have time to act. In all my years of practicing law and reading cases, I’ve never even seen this before. Have you ever seen a case where this has happened before? No. And in fact, Jerry Smith makes that make that point in his dissenting opinion. He’s been he’s been a judge for 37 years, and he says he’s never, ever had anything like this happen to him. Uh huh. Well, maybe there needs to be filings against that judge, Judge Brown, about what he did. But, you know, then I fear that whole process is another problem in terms of holding judges accountable and so forth. But do you think the Supreme Court will reverse this? I think so. Smith’s case was I did look at this opinion. It was brutal, absolutely brutal and overwhelming. I thought, you know, I thought so, too. And I’m hopeful that the Supreme Court will issue a stay of the injunction that was issued by Brown. Mm hmm. And they got to move on it because here we are. People are getting ready to run for office. Yeah. All right, Hans. Well done, as usual. We appreciate it. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for having me. All right. He’s a good man, Hans von Spakovsky. As I said, he came out of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department to handle a lot of voting rights cases. This is where this is his wheelhouse. And he does that over at Heritage, too. And he does a great job. As a matter of fact. All right. Let’s circle back to Chuck Schumer’s very upset of what Donald Trump had to say, of course. Carolyn Levin at the White House today, cut one, please go. And this morning, President Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior. Let me say they their behavior was seditious, if that’s not seditious. Yeah, you got January six. They talk about insurrections and sedition and so forth. So now we have six elected members of Congress in the Senate, in the House, all Democrats urging the military to reject the commander in chief, to undermine, to undermine our system of government. Really in the most horrendous way that has never been done before. And the question always is. The president said this. The president said that. Really? Well, what about what these members said? It is seditious behavior. It is. And if the military adhered to it, it would be insurrection. So what is it that they’re calling for? They’re calling for the overthrow of the elected president of the United States. He hasn’t promoted anything that’s unconstitutional or illegal. And if a court says it is and some of these judges are horrendous, like this clown in Chicago now, you saw this idiot in Texas, but he complies with them. He complies with them. Go ahead. This morning, President Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior punishable by death. Just to be clear, does the president want to execute members of Congress? No. Let’s be clear about what the president is responding to, because many in this room want to talk about the president’s response, but not what brought the president to responding in this way. Exactly. You have sitting members of the United States Congress who conspired together to orchestrate a video message to members of the United States military, to active duty service members, to members of the national security apparatus, encouraging them to defy the president’s lawful orders, the sanctity of. Our military rests on the chain of command. And if that chain of command is broken, it can lead to people getting killed. It can lead to chaos. And that’s what these members of Congress who swore an oath to do, abide by the Constitution, are essentially encouraging. We have 1.3 active duty service members in this country. And if they hear this radical message from sitting members of Congress, that could inspire chaos and it could incite violence and it certainly could disrupt the chain of command. These three members of Congress, I will also add, knew exactly what they were doing. You look at Elissa Slotkin. She’s a former member of the CIA. Mark Kelly was a captain in the US Navy, Maggie Goodlander, who was a naval officer. And notably, she was also she is also the wife of Joe Biden’s national security former adviser Jake Sullivan. And so these members knew what they were doing. They were leading into their credentials as former members of our military, as veterans, as former members of the national security apparatus to signal to people right there. That is a fascinating point. That’s very important that one of these people. Is the wife of Jake Sullivan, the former head of the National Security Council for Biden. I mean, this is unbelievable, don’t you think? Unbelievable. They going to trash Trump? What for? What? They’re calling them out. He said. Killed them, they said. He didn’t say kill them. But all that said, what did these people do? To cause such a response. I mean, this is an attack. On the core function of our republic, these six members, and one of them is the wife of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. Under Joe Biden. Go ahead. In chief, Donald Trump, that you can defy him and you can betray your oath of office. That is a very, very dangerous mashup message and it perhaps is punishable by law. I’m not a lawyer. I’ll leave that to the Department of Justice and the Department of Law to decide. Hmm. There you go. Shouldn’t they at least have their military related pensions? Revoked. Should they least have their some kind of a status placed on them, some kind of a scarlet letter? I mean, count me as something ought to be done. Obviously, I’m not saying hang them. These people are stupid. The media are stupid. Trump’s essentially condemning them for what they did and he damn well should. He’s the commander in chief. He’s in charge of the military. And then you’ve got these these people telling the military to defy the president because he’s giving out unconstitutional, illegal orders and everybody scratching their head that has two brain cells to rub together and say, what are they talking about? Which one are they? There aren’t any really frightening. This cannot become the norm. We got a lot of things going on that Jew hatred, the Christianity hatred, the Hitler loving all this. This cannot become the norm. Veterans elected to the Senate and House who put their party ahead of country, party ahead of their service and urged the military to essentially sabotage and undermine. And the elected president is their commander in chief. Yeah, It’s just. It’s just disgusting. We’ll be right back.
Segment 4
Karoline Leavitt wasn’t done. She is superb, absolutely superb. Cut two go. The president and the vice president, for that matter, has accused the other side of encouraging political violence. Isn’t that exactly what the president is doing? Why aren’t they condemning the video and the six Democrat members? It’s just incredible to me how corrupt and the cronyism in the media. It’s disgusting. Go ahead. There’s a Congress should be killed. Why aren’t you talking about what these members of Congress are doing to encourage it, incite violence? They are literally saying to 1.3 million active duty service members not to defy, to defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders. Every single one refuse an illegal order and notice and notice how they interrupter. No, they were talking about illegal orders, but they haven’t presented any, have they? I mean, he hasn’t even used the Insurrection Act, as other presidents have to put down, you know, the Democrat Party militia in the streets, preventing us from enforcing our immigration deportation laws. But just listen to this media. It’s so outrageously ideological. You have to wonder how the Democrats ever lose. Seriously, how do they ever lose? They control the media. They control academia. They control the culture. How do these people ever lose? Go ahead. They’re suggesting, Nancy, that the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander in chief and through this command chain of command, through the secretary of war is lawful. And the courts have proven that this administration has an unparalleled record at the Supreme Court because we are following the laws. We don’t defy court orders. We do things by the books. And to suggest and encourage that active duty service members defy the chain of command is a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do. And they should be held accountable. And that’s what the president wants to see. Mm hmm. And then you have this complete nutjob, Chris Murphy. Listen to this dump. Oops. Caught myself cut for go. President of the United States just called for Democratic members of Congress to be executed. This is not normal. We cannot allow this to feel normal. This, as far as I know, he’s never you know, it’s not normal, you pal. In no way are you normal every damn day, ten times a day. You’re on radio, you’re on TV, and now you’re putting out your video messages. You hate this country. You really do. Your power hungry thug, your say anything and do anything. You’re a demagogue. You’re propaganda. You’re the worst of the worst. Really? I have to scrape you off the bottom of my sneaker. I’ll be right back.
