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Life, Liberty & Levin 8/31/25 | BREAKING FOX NEWSAugust 31, 2025
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00:00Hello America, I'm Mark Levin. This is Liberty and Levin's Sunday special edition. I'm the guest.
00:17My dear friend Sean Hannity is going to interview me for my new book on power. Sean, how are you, man?
00:22Great one. How are we?
00:23It's good to see you.
00:24How are you?
00:25God bless us.
00:25By the way, thank you for having me. This is interesting, right? Because I have been a guest on your show and I get to interview you. This is the book. So I'm power. And like you're eight, nine, ten, New York, number one New York Times sellers. This may be one of the most powerful.
00:45Well, thank you.
01:15They want power. It's all about power. But there's negative power you write about and there's positive power. Let's have a broad overview.
01:25It's interesting you point them out because everyone are Marxists and or Islamists. And Marxism is incompatible with Americanism.
01:36The Declaration of Independence is really the greatest, most concise document. Positive power. Why?
01:44Those of us who believe in representative government and Republicanism, in Americanism, we understand that the sovereign is God. And on earth, his children are the sovereign. We the people, not the government, not the ruling class.
02:02And when you read the Declaration of Independence, it basically explains this. It talks about unalienable rights, universal truths and so forth. Where do they come from? Well, they come from mankind.
02:14Endowed by our creator. Endowed by our creator. God is mentioned or referenced seven times in the Declaration of Independence. This is why the people you mentioned never mention the Declaration. Or if they read it, they take it out of the Declaration.
02:27And so the Declaration, this is why the Declaration. They reject individual liberty. They never talk about it. They reject unalienable rights. They never talk about it. And so the battle we have in this country, as you so well explained about these people and us,
02:56is a fight over power.
03:00And a fight over power
03:01is a fight over liberty and rights.
03:04And so I got to thinking
03:07it's a fight over liberty and rights.
03:11And so I got to thinking
03:12we talk about liberty all the time.
03:14We talk about rights all the time.
03:16Which is fine.
03:17But if we don't win the debate over power
03:19then we don't have liberty
03:21and we don't have rights.
03:23So it doesn't matter.
03:24I was not as articulate
03:25when i wrote deliver us from evil defeating terrorism despotism and liberalism and people
03:32would say well why are you accusing us of being with them because if you don't defeat the underlying
03:39political philosophy that is what you end up getting stuck with i want to i want to go to
03:45a bigger broader overview earliest civilizations to modern republics of the west power has been
03:54used to liberate and oppress to reward or exploit build or destroy this is what you write in your
04:01book this this book goes deep and hard into the philosophical underpinnings of of this battle
04:08that we're discussing what's exactly right um let's take a look at islamism not muslim not the muslim
04:17faith generally islamism the jihadis radical islamists the radicals uh they have a lot in
04:23common with marxism why is that they reject the enlightenment what's the enlightenment
04:30positive power is america is americanism it is the fusion of faith the judeo-christian principles
04:38and the enlightenment lock montesquieu others who taught us how to apply these principles these
04:46beliefs at an earthly level in forming a society a civil society a government that represents and
04:52nurtures the civil society most ancient societies that was not the case they were more primitive
04:58more barbarian islamism today is that it's in the seventh century never went through the reformation
05:05doesn't embrace the enlightenment but neither do the marxists they reject the enlightenment they reject
05:12divided power which is very crucial to a free society power checking power you talked about those
05:19reprobates you talk about mamdani what do they talk about all the time power and government they just
05:27don't articulate that way so the war is against us the individual the sovereign we the people for
05:34instance mandami talks about taking over the means of production from whom from us from the guy that makes
05:41the pizza from the guy that makes the steel from the guy that makes whatever he makes it doesn't matter
05:45he's talking about eliminating the private housing market well what does that mean government controls
05:50housing government controls the means of production he talks about affordability do you know a single
05:56marxist society that's affordable their shelves are empty what he really means when he's talking about
06:01that is an attack on capitalism why what is capitalism in a couple of words capitalism is the
06:08manifestation of your liberty your voluntary actions they talk about getting rid of billionaires
06:15why do we care if there's billionaires or not the average person in america lives better than any king
06:21or queen lived a hundred years ago they have more access to food different types of food transportation
06:26automobiles flights air conditioning heating so forth and so on affordability
06:31he'll talk about affordability because why because those who believe in negative power the centralization of power
06:40they know humans are imperfect we know that we know that our institutions are imperfect
06:45so they take the imperfections and they try to exploit them and they try to use those imperfections
06:51to seize power from the individual so mandami is really running against the individual
06:56he's running against freedom and my concern is that we don't know how to engage these people
07:02and we need to engage them so if there's a billionaire over here he doesn't affect me i can still do
07:07whatever i want to do i can still get the food that i want to get i can still get the home i want to get
07:12and for all i know he's a good billionaire who creates a hundred thousand jobs so why does it even
07:17matter to me why because i wrote in um in my book american marxism at length about oppression and oppressed
07:26right the oppressors and the oppressed this is critical to the bernie sanders and the rest
07:31they create this conflict ideology it's constant conflict ideology so who is supposed to step in there
07:39and make sure that these conflicts are resolved the government and why do they step in to make sure
07:45these conflicts are resolved because they want to pick the winners and losers so i go into the book
07:52about how this power affects modern days how it affects the economy how it affects free speech
08:01speech and language and rights and all aspects of human society it's it's a good broad overview and i
08:08want to get dig down a little bit deeper into what you're saying in this book because it's very
08:13profound i could sum it up with one statement that you made the character of the government we choose
08:19we always say elections matter maybe that's a little cliche during election years elections matter of
08:24course they matter i mean kamala harris would have won you you and i both would have had a stroke but
08:30the country would have suffered look at the decision she would have made more open borders she would have
08:36taxpayer-funded sex change operations for illegals and and convicts and you know we're going to have
08:43feminine products and great school boys bathrooms and taxpayer-funded college education etc but what
08:50you say the way you say it is the character of the government the people will either flourish or you say
08:58they will suffer we do suffer those elections do matter the elections matter and what the negative power
09:06crowd has done which is basically i call the democrat party exercises soft negative power unlike you know
09:14the genocidal regimes but they borrow the ideology of the hard negative power crowd the marx's
09:21and and uh hegel's and others i won't get into the weeds but the point is this
09:26it is a relentless assault on our constitution what i call it is the
09:30deconstitutionalization of our society and to put it in two words what they represent is authoritarian
09:38democracy your example the vote if kamala harris had won she wrote
09:47if kamala harris had won she would have won the vote but she's authoritarian that's the ideology and so
09:55voting does not ensure liberty democracy does not ensure liberty the proper application of power
10:03ensures liberty so authoritarian democracy again is what this mandami is really running on
10:10an all-powerful government it's what the democrats believe in the government should control everything
10:15the government should call health care housing you name it the government steps in and handles it
10:21authoritarianism there's nothing uh about the people and sovereignty at all about that so you have
10:27a relative handful of people any permanent government making decisions so but you go through the motions
10:33so you vote you go through the motions so you have an electoral college but the trajectory is towards
10:40centralized government massive bureaucracy taxation redistribution of wealth and there's no limit because
10:46they don't give us a blueprint of where they want to take us because there's no limit on the amount
10:51of power they want to accumulate i i actually took notes because you said it so succinctly at different
10:58times during the books and i would extrapolate out different things that you're communicating because
11:02i really want the viewers at home to fully understand the philosophical underpinnings and you rightly talk
11:10about this goes back you know from civilizations and you go deep into the founding our our founders our
11:17framers our declaration our constitution but also the philosophical underpinnings and the great
11:23philosophers that were behind a lot of this it's very educational for anybody you're going to love this
11:28book but i'm just going to say what you say on power it determines your personal fate the fate of your
11:34community the fate of your nation power matters in every aspect of one's life the american revolution is
11:41important and an obvious example of power properly pursued and exercised and then you go and history
11:50is replete with examples of tyrants grabbing power all in the name of liberty we're having the america is
12:00is having this debate in real time that's why i say rip from the headlines this is a real debate new green deal
12:09mom donnie kamala harris you know joe biden open borders you know cradle to grave wound to the tomb
12:17to each according to their need from each according to their ability all this comes to my mind as i'm
12:22reading this book and i have a chapter on language for positive power language is important we learn
12:29we share knowledge we try to persuade we can keep our government in check it's the communal the people
12:37communicating with each other freely new ideas different ideas maybe a minority idea becomes
12:43a majority idea free speech is critical but for negative power the people of which you speak they
12:48want conformity they want uh they want true believers they want compliance because they don't believe in
12:57individual liberty they don't believe in individual pursuits which is why they're constantly attacking
13:02capitalism or billionaires or millionaires or anybody else they don't like so even though we engage
13:09this ideology at a surface level what i'm saying in this book is we need to engage it at a more
13:16fundamental level and explain to people that fundamentally we believe in liberation of the
13:24individual we believe in the pursuit of the individual the government that was set up by our framers
13:30is exquisite the world has never seen anything like it and what is it that the other side's peddling
13:37ancient primitive barbaric ideology that claims that a relative handful of people that somehow god has
13:46anointed them to make all these decisions for us what we eat where we eat what we drive and then they
13:54pretend that they have the power that god has over the climate over the weather over all these things
14:00and language is key but for them language is thought control let's look at wokeism which i mentioned in
14:06the book what's that all about controlling thought controlling language pushing us more in their
14:13trajectory you'll destroy somebody's career you'll destroy their life you'll give them a scarlet letter
14:20word control new words you must learn and use old words you must redefine i can't keep up with all the
14:27letters and words and nobody can i can't who can keep up with it but the whole goal is to control thought
14:34and to prevent free thinking independent thinking which is why you and i support which is what makes
14:41society so strong so language control is thought control they're into language control that's what
14:46wokeism is all about and uh they're into controlling economic parameters for people they're into
14:53controlling you and me so i always say go back to the declaration what is the declaration of independence
15:01we know what it is thomas jefferson and others told us he wrote the first draft
15:05it's the fusion of the judeo-christian principles and belief systems with the enlightenment
15:11the enlightenment is the earthly application we are the sovereign now what the other side
15:17tries to do and the other side is evil they try to pretend that they represent us that they support
15:24the people that they're doing things for the people a hundred million people have been slaughtered
15:30in the name of the people under marxism the people's republic is neither for the people
15:37nor a republic so what i do in my trapped on language i say is we really need to pierce this
15:43we really need to address this we need to take our language back and we need to unravel the propaganda
15:48that they use you go back to the last century you're right over a hundred million people slaughtered
15:55in the name of some ism i don't care if it's mao or stalin or hitler or mussolini or you know go through
16:02tojo in japan um that's a hundred million human souls i the way i often say it and it's more
16:10simplistic i think you go a lot deeper and this is what what why these books are important because
16:16when you're on radio and tv you can't really get as deep but you know socialism whatever form name
16:24manifestation it's taken on statism marxism you've written extensively about all of it
16:29it always ends the same way it starts out with all the lofty promises everything's going to be free
16:35free free okay it always ends the same way unfulfilled promises more poverty in the end and then you have
16:41to calculate how much freedom you gave up in the name of false security the way you put it in the book
16:47you said negative power that is exercised by force or other less obvious coercive means and among its
16:56purposes is to limit individual identity sovereignty and liberty then you take it another step further
17:04you talk about in its most aggressive form when exercised by a faction cabal government autocratic
17:12authoritarian for example or communist regime and i took notes on this because it really stood out to me
17:17its purpose is to devour and control society and not serve it the antithesis really of freedom
17:29let me put it this way
17:33your unalienable rights your individual liberty come before government
17:37but liberty without rights means nothing it's an ambiguity rights without the proper application
17:49of power mean nothing they're just words i have a chapter on here in liberty and i go through what
17:56aristotle said about liberty what john stuart mill said about liberty what the founder said about liberty
18:02and it's interesting at no point do they really have a good definition of liberty they basically
18:06define liberty by defining what it's not and defining its parameters and this is why it's important to
18:13understand and the point that you're underscoring here the french revolution occurred about the same time
18:19as the american revolution the french revolution was about destroying their society the american revolution was
18:27about embracing our society but representative government representative government this soft negative power
18:38this revolution on the left that's taking place the bernie sanders type it's about destroying the society
18:45it's not about nurturing our society it is a war on society so society is the the foundational
18:53level from which everything expands government and so forth and so on their war is on the society the islamist war
19:02is on society so what they're trying to do is destroy the very basis for the american experiment which i was
19:09talking about this fusion of faith and fusion of the enlightenment they reject the enlightenment the enlightenment
19:18among other things it's about is understood by montesquieu and others was power needs to check power that's
19:24why we have separation of powers in our constitution montesquieu was the most widely read philosopher
19:30during our constitutional period he cited in the federalist papers
19:34why is he important he wrote the spirit of laws a very big book but i'm saying what he says in there
19:39crucially is man has a dark side man has a good side government needs to watch for the dark side
19:46and so you need to have divided powers and he was the first one who are sort of articulated the
19:52judiciary the legislature and the executive others did too but he broke it down our framers grabbed that
19:59and said yes so they wanted to create a government that had power to function
20:05but that wouldn't devour the society and the individual bernie sanders and the others they reject all
20:11this they want to create a government that does devour the individual
20:15that devours private property rights there's a side point what's private property
20:20private property is the manifestation of your intellectual and physical labor
20:28the reason your home is your castle is because you earned it it's because you spent what limited
20:34time you have on earth in a job or in a business accumulating enough wealth to acquire property
20:42it's your possession it's part of your circle of liberty as the tocqueville would talk about
20:47that should not be molested by government and this guy running for mayor i use him as a foil
20:53because he's not particularly bright he's got the phrases set uh he's got no knowledge and experience
20:58beyond you know sloganeering which is what the left does a lot of sloganeering but what he's saying and what
21:05he's doing is i'm going to steal your liberty i'm going to steal what you have created yourself through
21:14your labor when you get up in the morning and come home at night or you work at night and you
21:18you go home in the morning i'm going to take that from you and i'm going to give it to other people
21:23who i think should get it so what i'm saying is as deeply philosophical as this is your earlier point
21:30also it applies exactly to what's taking place today because this battle is an ongoing battle let me
21:36ask a question there are more people there are far fewer millionaires and millionaires than there are
21:45working classes you know my background working class background 20 years of my life 10 years in
21:51restaurants 10 years in construction is why is the message that you you put me in office you empower
22:00me i'm going to take their money as though it's ill-gotten gains of some kind and i'm going to give it to
22:07you now in that sense they're consolidating power in a way that ultimately leads to disappointment more
22:16poverty and total control they are the powerful ones in the end that's where the power comes from
22:23that's appealing mark to many many americans that's what their new green deal is isn't it
22:28it's very appealing as a matter of fact uh he's one of the great austrian economists who's i say in
22:34the book he makes the point that we in america we all talk and sound like marxists now that's marxism
22:41as i've written extensively about it's the oppressor and the oppressed so what the marxists do
22:48is they they try and attract support by defining people and putting them in the category of the oppressed
22:56and who's oppressing them the capitalists the billionaires the republicans uh you know you can
23:03go down the list so this is their propaganda and so what is my responsibility your responsibility as
23:10a public person's and so forth is to break it down it's to break it down these people if they cared about
23:17everybody at that level who aren't billionaires and millionaires they have a funny way of showing it
23:22they want to take their health care away from them and control it they want to take their grocery
23:26stores away from them and control it they want to take their homes away from them and control it they
23:31run up their debt they create inflation for them they tax the hell out of them the borders are wide open
23:37illegal aliens are coming in streets aren't safe crime is is rampant in these democrat cities that's how
23:44they view the average person that's what they do to the average person live i'm molly line in new york
23:49a federal judge is blocking the trump administration from sending unaccompanied migrant children to
23:56guatemala the ruling came as planes carrying those children were preparing to take off from texas
24:02one flight was reportedly turned around after the judge's order the u.s government argues it is
24:08reuniting guatemalan children with their parents but the children's attorneys warn they're being sent into
24:14potentially dangerous situations eastern pakistan is facing its worst flooding in history affecting
24:20about two million people months of heavy rain and landslides have killed nearly 850 people
24:27meantime in nearby afghanistan a 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least nine people today it
24:34happened along the country's border with pakistan a second quake struck about 20 minutes later
24:40dozens are hurt now back to life liberty and as i'm reading this book he said fundamentally the constitution
24:53constrains the power of the power hungry and therefore it's the constitution that's the target
25:01what have we witnessed as as donald trump duly elected massive electoral win all seven swing states wins
25:09the popular vote what over five six hundred instances where they try to use the courts they go judge
25:17shopping and you know men and black men in black he wrote a book many years ago it was a bestseller also
25:24and use the courts to to accomplish that which they can never get done electorally or legislatively
25:30what they do is they project their ideology onto us onto donald trump he's an authoritarian he doesn't
25:37follow he's followed every single court decision that's ever been issued uh he follows the constitution
25:44he looks the constitution he looks at federalism this power belongs in the states
25:49uh we're running up the debt i need to be able to cut the government cuts out some of these departments
25:54education belongs to the communities and so what the the negative power crowd does is they try and turn
26:02that around and that's part of their of their propaganda effort that is they never want to really say
26:10exactly where they're going but they're more than happy to trash and smear and attack their opponents
26:17you see this with the marxists you see with the islamists you see with the modern day democrats
26:22in terms of the constitution they're very schizophrenic they don't like the constitution
26:27because as i said earlier the constitution is incompatible with their ideology all the
26:33centralization of power all this control taking from individuals the constitution created a limited
26:38government separation of powers and then the tenth amendment throws the authority to the states as
26:43the states have the authority in the ninth amendment it says we the individuals have the authority
26:48they hate the constitution of the united states they are relentlessly trying to undermine it and attack it
26:54this is why a few years ago they were saying the people who wrote it were slaveholders were white
26:58and today they wave it around like like they actually believe in it the key to understanding
27:05these people is to understand that they're pathological liars is to understand that they're
27:11propagandists is to understand that they're sloganeers that they use easy to understand thoughts that they
27:17have to create this oppressor oppressed conflict society they don't want unity they want disunity you
27:26know you said in the book about what you're saying now that they use the tactics of propaganda
27:33censorship centralized authority to strip individuals of autonomy what you're really arguing if we're
27:42to it's hard to on the one hand this is a very very deep and profound book but it's also a book that
27:50has a very simple message go back to what you said here they use the tactics of propaganda censorship
27:57centralized authority to strip individuals of autonomy is that another way of saying mark they don't
28:03believe in freedom that they don't believe in freedom they believe in their freedom
28:08and i get into this in the liberty chapter they use freedom to destroy freedom this is a puzzle
28:15that mankind has never really been able to figure out you have a free society and yet very evil people
28:23are able to use that freedom to destroy it and you see a lot of that in our country today
28:28they claim to stand for free speech when we have people who support hamas in the streets doing damage
28:33and violence that's not what's meant by free speech free speech is when we the people the united states
28:40citizen we the sovereign the illegal immigrants not part of the sovereign we the citizens
28:47we need to communicate with each other we need to share information with each other
28:51we need to be able to question our government we need we need to be able to share knowledge and so
28:56forth and so on who are the people who keep fighting this the biden administration didn't want any
29:01discussions about vaccines or they don't want discussions about anything they want conformity
29:07and so you cannot have true free speech you cannot have true interaction honest debates let's let's
29:17look at what they run on they say that donald trump wants to destroy social security medicare medicaid
29:21now how many times has he said don't touch social security medicare and medicaid we're removing illegal
29:27aliens and people who shouldn't be on there when you use speech that way which they do you're poisoning
29:35the body politic you're undermining republicanism because the people aren't really able to make
29:41decisions unless they're really paying attention based on the facts based on the information and so like
29:48good totalitarian propaganda that's what they exercise so he wants to take away your social
29:57security he wants to do this now you make another very important point which is
30:02some people want to get the freebies and they're going to vote for the freebies don't take mine
30:07don't take my house don't tell me where to buy food don't tell me what kind of car to buy
30:12but you can tell sean anything you want if it's going to benefit me this is a problem and there's no
30:17doubt about it and they play into it because there is a certain percentage whatever it is
30:23of human beings who have a mindset that they want the government to step in and take from
30:29mr america over here and give it to miss mrs america over here and i think the way we attack that
30:36is to explain that in the end what does redistribution of wealth destroy
30:42wealth because people aren't going to create wealth to have a redistributed people are creating wealth
30:47to benefit from it and so if you're redistributing wealth the people who create wealth the people
30:53who are successful the people run businesses the people who work hard 12 hours a day
30:57they're not going to do it so redistribution of wealth is the destruction
31:16all right
31:35fully
31:40Oh
32:05Oh
32:10I'm not going to do anything
32:12Yes, I'm not going to do anything
32:15After I cut the water, what do you want to do?
32:19You're going to go where?
32:21Yes, I'm going to go
32:27It's not going to do anything
32:29I cut the water with the kim
32:32It's very big
32:35in
33:05I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
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