On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, Sen Lindsey Graham would have been amused yet pleased by the packed tributes from those who once labeled him a warmonger. He was a peace monger who stood firmly with America’s allies. He knew Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan are forces for good against Iran, Russia, and Communist China. Graham was straightforward, his word was his bond. You may not have agreed with everything he said, but he was a man of principle. He will be missed. Later, the Iranian regime needs to be eliminated. The Iranian people want liberation and are being slaughtered for speaking out – the focus should be arming them, rooting out the IRGC, and applying aggressive military leadership rather than endless bombing or infrastructure destruction alone. Meanwhile, Zelensky and the Ukrainians are winning the war against Putin and Russia. The administration and public opinion are turning in favor of Ukraine because the Ukrainians are demonstrating that they will not be defeated and Russia’s casualties are truly horrendous, threatening Putin’s hold on power. The Ukrainians are attacking Russia’s oil infrastructure to great effect. And it is making a huge difference in the trajectory of the war there. The U.S. appears to be avoiding Iran’s oil infrastructure. We need to rethink this if we seek an actual victory. We are not going to achieve an actual victory at the negotiation table, certainly not a lasting victory. Finally, Alan Dershowitz calls and breaks down Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax. Mamdani’s practice of compiling and releasing lists of second-home owners is typical socialist behavior. Mamdani is a vicious, bigoted antisemite whose insistence that every other country may be a Muslim state while denying Israel’s right to exist. The Democratic party is the most dangerous in modern American history and Mamdani the most dangerous mayor.
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Lindsey Graham eulogized as an ‘American original’ with global reach
Photo by Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine
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Rough transcription of Hour 1
Segment 1
Hello, America. Mark Levin here. Our number 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. I watched part of the ceremonies honoring Lindsey Graham at the National Cathedral and before that at the Capitol. Very, very touching. The tributes were beautiful. And as I’ve told you before, I got to know Lindsey Graham, I’d say the last three, three and a half years of very, very well. He would call me sometimes at two in the morning. I would text him sometimes at six in the morning. Five in the morning. You had a wonderful staff as well. And why, you might ask. First of all, as for today. It pains me greatly that I was not there. It pains me greatly that I was not there Monday night for a special, limited event, a dinner. But as some of you know or have read through the through the lines here, I have an older brother who’s quite ill. And he is in Florida. And I don’t get down to Florida as much as I want to. Even though I’m here often. And so this week and last week I’ve been here, including with the grandchildren, our daughter as well. So I could not leave. And I need to be by his side from time to time. That said, I think Lindsey. We’ll be very impressed with what he’s saying. You know, when I endorsed Lindsay for the Senate. I said to him off the air before he came on the air, Is it going to help you or hurt you? He said, Mark it, South Carolina. It’s going to help me. But he. He sort of confided in me that a lot of conservatives were not out there endorsing him. And if you look at conservatives on TV and radio, a lot of them did not. I came to really admire this man. The respect, this man. We had many things in common. The three in particular, Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. You see, ladies and gentlemen. I believe in good versus evil. And I believe Israel’s good, Ukraine is good and Taiwan is good. I believe the IslamoNazis are bad. I believe Russia is bad and I believe Communist China and JI are bad. It’s not too complicated to me. And these are our allies. And I’m not going to get into every particular but. We would spend a lot of time, significant time. Talking about how. How to persuade this person or that person or whatever to move in a particular. Direction away from isolationism, appeasement, pacifism. And so forth. And we would talk about a number of people, the World War II. We’ve talk about certain senators and congressmen that I’m not going to share. Even certain hosts. As friends. Not intended to be public about it, but. We would look at the whole horizon of events and individuals. And we would discuss those things. Uh. I brought them on the program. About an hour before the. About an hour before the. Polls closed in South Carolina. I have always felt that to be very effective. And he was always excited to come on. He didn’t come on that often because they don’t ask a lot of politicians to come on that often. But he was always excited. And so when he came on, I guess, a month before the election. I talked to him and I said on the N.S.A., I’m going to Deutsche. Is that going to hurt? He said, Absolutely not. So they actually used it, or he did in a number of his speeches. And. It was a great honor. It’s a great honor. So he will be missed. But I posted that he be quite amused. I think. By the pack house at the National Cathedral. And what was said about him? I think he’d be kind of amused. That he. But he was in the rotunda today. I think he’d be pleased, very pleased. Very happy about it. But amused. Because a lot of those giving him accolades today certainly weren’t giving him accolades three weeks ago. Well, they kept labeling him a warmonger. He was never a warmonger. He believed in standing up for our allies and standing up against evil. I call that a peace monger. The peace monger. Of course, we had our disagreements early on when he was a congressman. He was sitting on the House Judiciary Committees a long time ago. But I was on the air with you folks. One of the counts against Clinton he successfully had. Pulled from the impeachment list. And that was when Clinton lied during his deposition in front of federal Judge Susan Wright. And I say that was actually the strongest count against Clinton. And you may recall the landmark legal foundation that I and our group. Then we filed a letter. With Judge Wright laying out the case. For contempt of court. Criminal contempt of court by Clinton. And she would later use that letter without. But our referencing. Yep, I use the sites and the other arguments we made. I made him. Arthur Ferguson. Peter Hutchison. Mike O’Neill. Matt Forays. And she held him in civil contempt. That was a result of that letter. But I said, you know, that was bad. So the first time I bumped into him and I don’t go to Capitol Hill, I’m often, in fact, probably in the last 25 years. And Kenema one man, five times, maybe four different events. And he said, You’re Mark Lewis. And I said, Yes, I am. And he said, Well, I know you’re upset with me on that one. And I said, Well, I am, because I was the strongest cow we have. He said, You might have been right. We disagreed on the Gang of Eight, where he was working with McCain and actually Rubio and others. And I was being lobbied very, very heavily by Rubio. And I talked to him very much these days. Don’t know why. I just don’t I do my own thing. And he does his thing. Had tremendous respect for him, though. Tremendous. But Lindsay started reaching out more and more the last several years, and I did reciprocated. And we had a little text group with two other senators, and I will pull that and two senators who are very solid who you would know. And so the four of us would text. Daily, I would say, Mr. Producer. The four of us would tax daily. Really? Things we thought were important, so forth related to Iran and Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, that whole area of the world, as well as Ukraine and Russia, which we all agreed on. Taiwan and China were not that big of issues over the last three years. But that’s who we were and that’s what we believed. And it really shouldn’t come to any surprise. He used to he used to say, you know, Mark, you you have these views because you’re an old Reaganite. I said, That’s probably true. I remember when we met at the Presidents Club in New Jersey, we were on a small dinner. My wife was there as well. And we had a strong discussion about Nader, and I gave my positions on Nader, and Lindsay kept urging me on, I’ll keep down and keep tight, said, okay, well, I’m just giving my opinion. Things of that sort. So I. I’m sorry I missed these events, but, you know, it’s okay. You got to do what you got to do. We’ll be right back.
Segment 2
I will tell you that the friendship between the president, Lindsey Graham, is real, very real. And they adored each other. There’s no question about it. They adored each other. You know me, I’m kind of a loner, to be perfectly honest, because I don’t go to all these dinners and social events. I don’t go to the golf stuff and so forth. If I do stuff, it’s by myself with my wife or with the rest of the family and so forth. That’s just the way I am. Me personally. That’s the way I am. Others in TV and radio like to be seen. They like to be in the social sets. They like to go to Mar-A-Lago or to New Jersey. I don’t mind going. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s just that I don’t live for it. Enjoy it when I’m there. But that’s. That’s just not what I do every day. I’m perfectly happy in my own skin. In my own environment, doing my own thing. And. But others are much more, you know, outgoing and in that way and so forth. I like meeting people. The diners at restaurants. Cusco or wherever I am. People are very, very nice to me and I try to be as nice as I can back. Or surprise them. Every now and then I’ll buy their meal or whatever. They won’t know and I leave and so forth. I don’t even know their reaction. But that’s just that’s just me. That’s just me. Again, some people have to be seen. They want to be seen. They want to be around again. I understand that. It’s just not me. It’s not. You can ask Mr. Producer. It’s not me. Is it, Rich? It’s not what I do. Not in the least. So you won’t see me in one of these social columns or whatever they call them, gossip columns and so forth. Nothing to gossip about. I say to my wife, you know, I’m kind of a loner and I’m boring. She says, Why do you say that? You’re not a loner and you’re not boring. Well. I think, compared to many of these other people and so forth and so on. It’s probably the case, but it’s okay. It’s perfectly okay. But they were they had gotten very, very close. They were close and. I think Lindsay reached out a lot to the president and he wanted to. You know, there were certain things he believed in quite strongly, and he knew he needed the president’s support and he needed to provide the president with support. Very honorable, very straightforward guy. His word was his bond. You know, you get a lot of politicians where that’s not the case. Packer get a lot of people in this business where it’s not the case. But it ought to be the case. Now people have talked about. All kinds of rumors they’ve created about him, none of which are true. None of which are true. You know, there’s some people who are just so committed to their their work and what they do and what they believe in and so forth and so on. That’s all they do. And that was Lindsey Graham as well as his family. And I don’t I didn’t know his family, his family members. I don’t think most of the people talking to them or about them now knew about them either. But you can see from his sister, he seems like a very, very nice lady. And his niece, which he said today, was very beautiful. His import is the center of the family. And, you know, he was a great patriot. Lindsay was a veteran. Active duty and. I believe he was in the guard for several decades to. And he was very proud of that. And he did that when he was a young man after his parents passed away. So quite, quite remarkable. I really feel he deserved these accolades or certainly many of them while he was alive. And the sad fact is he’s getting them posthumously. I feel that way about a number of people, actually. But certainly about him. Because some of the things that were said about him when he was alive were not fair. We’re a fairly brutal. Irresponsible. And. And just just inappropriate. Now politicians have to deal with this. Other people, public figures of all kinds have to do with this. But again, I think he would be he’s probably up there smiling down on us right now about it. Probably thinking, well, that guy, you know, that guy was pretty hard on me. It’s good to hear him say these things now. Better late than never, you know? I think I can hear him saying that right now. But the main thing about Lindsey Graham, the takeaway is this. He understood good versus evil. He understood that the United States was the most important power for good on the face of the planet. That we are the only force. The only force that could stand up to communist China, her fascistic Russia, the Islamist Nazis in the Middle East. And he didn’t want wars with all of them. They wanted wars and, you know, engagement with us. And he said we should beat them before they beat us. And I’ll be right back.
Segment 3
All right. Let’s see how much this we actually want to do there. A little bit of it. All right, let’s try one. President Trump on Fox and Friends, he likes that program one go. But I have some Republicans said, well, why don’t we hit them harder? So, you know, at some point I have you have a lot of competing factions. You have a group, by the way. I’m one of them. But I don’t know. I want to destroy them. I want to eliminate it. Yes. So, you know, it’s like, ladies and gentlemen, a few months ago, I said, you and I, we’re going to lead the charge against the Democratic Socialists of America. We’re going to expose them. And we do. Well, we’re going to lead the charge against American Marxism. Remember we said that a few years ago, and we do. And people have to eventually catch up with us because this isn’t complicated stuff. When you have an Islamist regime in Iran, the once nuclear weapons. And the idea that we’re going to keep them in a box somehow, some way, which is really impossible given their ideology. Yes, some people want to hit them harder. Some people want them eliminated, including arming the people who are there and unleashing the Israelis and the Mossad, working with the CIA that we use all the instrumentalities we have righteously and nobly. For the very reason we attacked them in the first place to finish them off. So you can count me among those Republicans. So let’s start from the top again. Go. But I have some Republicans as well. Why don’t we hit them harder? So, you know, at some point I have you have a lot of competing factions. You have a group of people that wanted to be obliterated in the truest sense of the word. And you have a group that says this is actually a good time to make a deal for them. If they don’t make a deal, then I go back and I finish the job. But that’s going to take them forever to rebuild already. It’ll take many years to ever rebuild. And I go back and finish up the job, as some people would like with the bridges, with the very easy. I could take out most of their bridges in less than an hour. Less than an hour. But, you know, it takes them ten years to build a bridge. Bridges takes the longest and power plants is back. And I can knock out the power plants within one day. All of their power plants would be gone. And I let them know that, you know, with negotiations, I said, look, people want me to do that. I think I get almost the same thing out of it is doing it. But the problem is you’ll never be able to. You know, I think about 91 million people without power, without bridges. The problem is the people there want liberation. They want their freedom. And so when we were fighting World War Two, we weren’t thinking about how long it might take to rebuild that sort of thing. And some of the Cold War and these other things, these are things that you you try to do after after you’ve won. And they’re difficult. But the truth of the matter is the vast majority of the people there want this regime obliterated. They’re being slaughtered. When they speak out, people are being hanged as we speak. And this is their position. And I don’t think we need to blow out all their bridges and power sources and so forth and so on. I think what we need to do is arm the people, go after the IRGC. Pull them out by the roots. And I think we need to find a couple more generals in there who are more patterned like where the kind of generals Lincoln had to find a grant type or a Sherman type and apply them to the situation with a different mindset. That’s that’s where I’m coming from. So it’s not just a matter of bombing them harder and harder. It’s a matter of bombing the right things and and taking this regime out. I mean, the truth is it was much harder to defeat the Soviet Union, and that is the Iranian regime. And there’s a lot of things we can learn from what took place in the past. Go ahead. It’s a very, very delicate balance. So I think we have a very strong position right now. They know I’m going to do that. If they don’t make a deal, the bridges are going to be gone literally in less than I would say in 2 hours. Most of the British let me just say this. I was at a diner with a lot of friends who are all Trump supporters yesterday morning. Older folks. And again, all Trump guys, all of them, all veterans. And they were very troubled by all this. By this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. This is what they were telling me. Again, I want to hear what people have to say. And this is what they were telling me. They were saying, look, we’re a little confused. One day we’re going to blow him off the face of the earth. If they don’t listen to us the next day where we back off, they want to negotiate. The next day, we’re going to blow them off the face here. The next day, they want to negotiate back and forth and back and forth. And they’re saying, let’s finish the job. And finish the job means. To go in there for two or three or four weeks and finish the job and get those people armed up and overthrow that regime. I’m just saying this is where the public is. The public that I deal with so much like. Let’s open to the callers, Mr. Producer, Mr. Call screener. What do you folks think? I did this last month and all of you to a person said, let’s finish this thing. And the other thing, we talked about the midterm elections. I just don’t think this helps us with the midterm elections. We’re going to blow them off the face of the earth, but they want to negotiate and back and forth. I don’t. That’s just my personal opinion. Go ahead. Guns and the power plant in one day. Hmm. Well. I don’t know that we need to take out all the power plants and bridges. By now, I think we’re able to. To better target what needs to be targeted. That’s certainly my guess. What about the Strait of Hormuz? There’s some stuff in the media. I have no way of knowing if it’s true that Iran would have some significant control over that. Just remember that memorandum of understanding, which I thought was terrible, absolutely terrible. Made my opinions known. Came under attack for it. I don’t know why I have been proven right that this regime is not going on or on or anything. I mean, I don’t know what more evidence we need. I’ve got to stay right here, right now. You know what they’ve done, Mr. Producer? They fired two missiles at our. Base in Jordan. Which were intercepted. Okay. Is that okay? I don’t think it’s okay. Do you think it’s okay? Go ahead. We have a blockade up there right now and only ships that we want to get through. Get through. Iran doesn’t control the strait. We control the strait. Now. They can drop a couple of mines in there and screw things up. So we control the state. Our navy is incredible. Not one ship has gotten to Iran during any time when we had the blockade. So we had the blockade. We had the confines of Israel. I set the blockade back, but they didn’t take it away. The ships were like, ships are not getting through now. Then I had to bring it back. But no, this is done with the admiral. He’s great. This is all done with the admiral. He’s great. Guys, get a raise, engage the president. And we write that the no merchant ships are getting through right now, maybe three or four days when you need about 100. The only ones that get through are the ones that we want to go through. They’re the only ships that get through. And we have a blockade that’s so powerful that nobody can get through. They tried three or four of them tried over the last week, but, you know, we opened the blockade because we had the confines of a deal. So we did it and then we put it back because they broke the deal. They break the deal. We cannot have them break deals anymore. Yeah, well, they’re breaking them left and right. Is that the problem, Rich? I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what else to say about this, but. It will continue as it continues, I suppose. And we shall see. I just feel when you start something like this, you get to finish it that this is not a regime. This is not a normal regime. This is a regime that’s built on an ideology that you and I have discussed now for months and years, actually. And survival is the key. And they believe they had stronger and stronger and stronger as we think we diminish them more and more and more. If they’re still around, they think they’ve just gotten stronger and stronger and stronger and it’s God’s will. That’s how they think. That’s their belief. And so they figure. If they survive. And by survive, I don’t mean Khomeini per se or anything like that. If the regime survives in one form or another, the. The Iranian Republican Guard Corps. The IRGC. Then they believe they are defeating us. And they also believe that we don’t have the will. That time is on their side. And when you listen to their media and you listen to the Democrats, you know, listen to the isolationists, the woke right. Neo fascist. They certainly would provide the impression to the enemy that time is on their side and not ours. And depending on what. Happens in the midterm elections. If we win, great. I’m all for that. And we’re going to fight like hell. But if we don’t? Well, then time is on their side, isn’t it? They also know that we have cyclical elections and in two and a half years we’ll have a presidential election. And they’ll be rooting for the isolationists. They’ll be rooting for the Democrats. And so they don’t believe we will have the will to, quote unquote, contain them, to quote unquote, enforce any deal. And they’re certainly not of the mind. They don’t feel obliged to adhere to any deal because we’re enemy number one. You and me, we are enemy number one to this regime. And so, again, the survivability, they view that. As a as a direct. You know, action by God to empower them. To defeat us. That’s how they view it. And. They’re surviving. And tonight they just fired missiles at our base in Jordan. We had to take them out. And so they’re very cocky. They remain cocky. I’ll be right back.
Segment 4
Have you noticed, Mr. Producer, a change in attitude towards Zelensky in Ukraine since Zelensky in Ukraine? I think winning this war now. And on this program I have. Supported Ukraine and Zelensky from day one. You know, we should gather some of that, Mr. Producer, just to prove the point and for maybe tomorrow and just to demonstrate. I don’t just shoot from the hip. I think things through another. The good guys are in, the bad guys are. I understand when a people in a nation of their back against the wall that the most. You know, brilliant. The most motivated. They’re at their best in terms of taking on an enemy like this. And Putin may not survive a year or two or three. He’s trying to raise another 500,000 troops, as we explained yesterday. But the Ukrainians there, their ability to develop these drones and they’re hitting deep inside Russia and they’re targeting all their oil production facilities. And this should be a lesson for us. Let me repeat. Ukraine is attacking Russia’s oil facilities. And this is damaging Russia’s ability very, very badly. And turning the people, many of the people against Putin as well. So it is very important to understand. And I think it’s very important that we do something similar. When it comes to Iran, because it has it has real effect. So the question is, what do you folks think we should be doing here? I mean, when I go to the diner and I ask people and so forth and so on, I. It’s almost unanimous. Let’s get this job over with. Let’s get this job over with. Let’s go to Steve Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, the great ABC. Go ahead, my friend. Go ahead, Mark. Good day, sir. Good to talk to you. All right, we go in and finish the job, but we can do it from the air, supporting our, I believe, supporting our allies, Israel, who will go in on the ground. They will say, because they’ve been over there for years, they know that Iran’s been their biggest enemy. They I believe they do know where the bad guys are in the Iranian defense forces. They can snuff them out of the holes. We’re up in the sky and we can use the the air technology to get them if need be and the Israelis can get the guns to the good guys. President Trump seems to be concerned, afraid about three things civilian casualties on the Iranian side, two casualties on our side, and destroying the Iranian infrastructure. We can’t this is got to be a World War two mentality. And it’s not a world war, it’s a conflict. But this is how it needs to be. Look, you got to do what you got to do, is your point. I think a victory. And and right now we just talked about what are the Ukrainians doing? They’re taking out. They’re oil. That’s what they’re doing. They’re taking out Russia’s oil. And that people are going to start turning on them. And the economy is going to collapse. The economy collapsed. What happened? She can’t pay your army. You can’t pay your Iranian. In the case of Iran, your Iranian Republican Guard. In other words, good things happen from our perspective. Bad things happen from their perspective. But we could actually learn something a little bit, I think, from Zelinski and the Ukrainians and how they’re fighting the Russians right now. And they’re fighting the Russians right now by taking out their oil production. That’s what they’re doing. All right, my friend. We’re going to take other calls after the top of the hour. We have a full board. So the question is, what should we be doing now on Iran? I asked this question last month. I feel like it’s the same question, but the same issue and the same issue being what? Why are we going to keep hitting the gas pedal and then tapping the brake, hitting the gas pedal, tapping the brake? We’re going to rely on their word. We’re going to come up with a great agreement. Somehow. They’re going to honor it. Somehow. We’re going to we’re going to keep them compartmentalized. Where do you come down on this? We’ll be right back.
