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Life, Liberty & Levin 10/11/25 FULL END SHOW | ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS Tᖇᑌᗰᑭ October 11,2025
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00:00Hello America, I'm Mark Levin, and this is Life, Liberty, and Levin Saturday.
00:17Welcome two great guests.
00:19We have Yehiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States,
00:23and Ron Johnson, great senator from Wisconsin.
00:26But before we go to our guests.
00:30With the pending release of the Israeli hostages, I think it's time for a celebration.
00:36And I want to spend a little bit of time explaining how we got to this point.
00:41Our incredible president, the courageous Israeli prime minister,
00:44and what is truly history in the making in front of your eyes.
00:48But I also want to add some sober understanding, reflection, and caution.
00:52For the forces of terrorism, and there are many that operate under different names and in the darkness,
00:58they've not agreed to abandon their 7th century ideology, their bloodlust,
01:04their hate for our country, Israel, and the West, and their goal of total annihilation and control.
01:11To begin with, there should never have been any hostages in the first place.
01:16There should never have been an October 7 in the first place.
01:19There should never have been a 9-11.
01:22Whether Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, the Palestinian Authority,
01:28Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, and scores of other jihadist terrorist organizations,
01:34and even states, they all remain.
01:38Their mission remains.
01:39They've not agreed to abandon their fundamentalist ideology or terrorism.
01:43Nor can we expect this agreement or any agreement to accomplish that.
01:47We will not be defunding our nation's anti-terrorism programs.
01:52We will not be defunding our counterterrorism activities.
01:56We will not be eliminating our special forces, forward military bases, intelligence operations,
02:01and all the rest of our national security and domestic security infrastructure.
02:07Because we know what will happen if we do.
02:10The same can be said of Israel, and even most of the Arab countries.
02:14This is the reality.
02:16Our commander-in-chief clearly knows this.
02:20But let me also be clear that our president, like no president before him,
02:25has done something that is as close to a miracle as we've seen in our lifetimes.
02:30He brought all the Arab and Muslim nations together.
02:33And let me tell you something.
02:34That's not that easy.
02:36They don't always speak with one voice and are often at each other's throats.
02:40As well as, of course, Israel brought them to the table, worked out an agreement for the release of the hostages.
02:47The beginning of the end, we hope, at least for now, of what I call the Battle of Gaza.
02:53This was only possible because, in significant part, President Trump reversed Biden's anti-Israel policies,
03:02reversed Biden's arms embargo against Israel, reversed Biden's appeasement of and capitulation to the Iranian regime,
03:09regime, which Biden was propping up and whose military he was directly and indirectly funding.
03:17And because the president, President Trump, made public statement after public statement,
03:22making clear that there was no daylight between the United States and Israel.
03:27President Trump backed Israel 100 percent.
03:32The Arab and Muslim states, they saw this.
03:35They saw our president state repeatedly and strongly that Iran would not get nuclear weapons,
03:41that the hostages must be released.
03:44He stated again and again, do not forget October 7.
03:50He used our military to attack the Houthis in Yemen.
03:53He used our missiles to help defend Israel from attacks by Iran.
03:58President Trump was and is a rock.
04:01Even more, the president rejected the efforts by the quizlings, the leftists who lead these European countries and elsewhere,
04:09who kept demanding premature ceasefires, who were undermining Israel's efforts to defend itself from the enemies surrounding them,
04:17culminating in their failed efforts at the U.N. to reward the Palestinian terrorists with their own country,
04:26which would have been carved out of Israel's holiest land, Judea and Samaria, the birthplace of Judaism.
04:32The president said no, no, and hell no.
04:37At the same time, the president has built or improved diplomatic and economic relations with several key Arab and Muslim states.
04:46These states, which only understand power and military might, as they are all brutal dictatorships of one form or another,
04:56saw that the president was no Joe Biden.
05:00He was and is a leader, a world leader.
05:04They realized that the president was not going to equivocate.
05:07He was the best friend Israel ever had.
05:10And he was not going to sell out Israel or buckle to domestic and media pressure.
05:14He meant what he said.
05:16And even more, he would act as he said he would act.
05:20So he offered the Arab and Muslim countries diplomatic and economic opportunities to improve their own countries
05:28and their own security as well as ours.
05:32Again, only President Trump had this foresight.
05:35There was no better evidence in the president's resolve than when he ordered our bombers to take out the nuclear sites in Iran.
05:43Despite the opposition in the Democrat Party, despite the opposition in the media,
05:48despite the opposition from the Neanderthal Israel-hating isolationists in our own country,
05:54external pressures from, again, these quizlings in Europe, the UN and the rest.
05:58The president, a leader, he said, these nuclear sites cannot stand as our commander-in-chief in defense of our country,
06:08in defense of the rest of the world.
06:10Those sites had to be obliterated.
06:13And that's what he did.
06:15And the entire world saw it.
06:18And they saw that despite past American presidents talking about eliminating Iran's nuclear threat,
06:23others appeasing Iran, others funding Iran, he was the only leader who meant it and did it.
06:30The president went to the United Nations, where he excoriated the American-hating, Israel-hating, Jew-hating UN.
06:37He called them out to their collective faces.
06:40He defended Western values.
06:41He condemned their anti-Semitism.
06:43He lectured them about their failures to pursue peace throughout the world.
06:47He made clear who was who and what was what.
06:50It was a tour de force.
06:53Never before was a speech of its kind delivered to every leader of every country on the planet.
07:01And I've said repeatedly, Donald Trump is a historic and iconic leader.
07:05His opponents in our country, including the Democrats and the media and others,
07:10will be nothing but footnotes to history, to the extent they're even noticed.
07:15It will be in the most negative and dismissive way.
07:18But I'm not done.
07:19Listen, there's more.
07:20The Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the greatest Prime Minister in the history of Israel.
07:28Ironically, this is why he, too, comes under withering attack from establishment and left-wing elements in his own country.
07:36Israel has been praised, albeit even still reluctantly and timidly, for what would be nothing less than appeasement and indeed surrender,
07:55camouflaged as realistic and extraordinary statesmanship.
07:58Israel's been through that time and time again with feckless leaders.
08:04But like our president, the Prime Minister is a lion, smart and courageous.
08:10He, like our president, has to overcome the enemy within, often funded by outside dark forces and the terrorists who surrounded his country,
08:20many of whom have funded and given aid and support from the very Arab and Muslim countries who we now praise.
08:28I don't believe the nation of Israel would have survived, certainly not as it now stands, without Netanyahu as Israel's Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief.
08:37October 7th was supposed to be, and indeed was, the first attack in what was to be a multi-front, all-out war to destroy Israel,
08:49led by Iran and its Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis proxies.
08:54It was, again, an all-out military plan to attack Israel from the south, the north, and the east.
09:02Hezbollah with a 180,000 mid- and long-range missiles, the Houthis with ballistic missiles, and Iran with 3,000 ballistic missiles,
09:12and Russian ground-to-air defense systems, all aligned against a tiny country the size of New Jersey with 9 million citizens.
09:22And on top of that, they had to fight in Gaza, Hamas, door-to-door, street-to-street, urban warfare, as we had to fight in Iraq.
09:36The toll on their IDF soldiers was high, especially since Israel did not decide to obliterate Gaza, which they could do, even right now.
09:47Obliterate Gaza, as we rightly obliterated city after city in World War II.
09:55Simultaneously, Israel had to prevent an all-out invasion from Lebanon by Hezbollah,
09:59and the launching of tens of thousands of their missiles on its civilian populations.
10:04And Israel knew that it had to deal militarily, directly with Iran, who was behind it all, if it was going to win the war.
10:11The battle of Gaza, the battle of Lebanon, the battle of Yemen, and the battle of Iran.
10:18Netanyahu's domestic political enemies, who had sought to topple his government, his hostile media, the rogue prosecutors,
10:26were trying to destroy him, even in the middle of a war for his nation's very survival.
10:32Nonetheless, the Iranian regime was defeated by the IDF in 12 days.
10:37And our president took the historic step, again, despite the opposition from within one hour,
10:44to take out their nuclear sites, which is what he did.
10:48Much of its leadership in Iran was decapitated by Israeli intelligence.
10:53Hezbollah has been defeated.
10:55All of its leadership was taken out by one of the most brilliant military operations ever,
11:01with exploding beepers and iPhones, pinpoint military operations.
11:05Hamas is today, surrounded by the IDF, ready to be eliminated by the Israelis.
11:13The Houthis fire missiles from time to time, but they don't represent an existential threat to Israel.
11:19I'm sure the Israelis will deal with them in due course, as it has with its other enemies.
11:26In recent history, the world has seen great alliances and friendships that have done great things.
11:33Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher,
11:39and today, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
11:42As before, there were press outlets and politicians who tried to come between the great alliances and the great friendships.
11:50We see this today, with the relentless and constant, planted, anonymous stories in Western media
11:58about the relationship between our president and Israel's prime minister.
12:03But these libels will not last the test of time.
12:08They will not last the test of time, and they failed in their purpose.
12:13And so it is that we celebrate what has been achieved here in phase one of the Trump peace plan.
12:21It is truly remarkable.
12:23And I have to say personally, I'm among the luckiest people on this planet
12:28to call our president and Israel's prime minister my dear friends.
12:34What an honor.
12:36What a true honor.
12:36I also caution that World War II did not end war, but it was a tremendous victory for humanity.
12:46The collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of hundreds of millions of people from behind the Iron Curtain
12:52did not end the threat of Russia or the necessity of NATO and nuclear weapons.
12:57And this great and historic achievement we celebrate today, including the soon-to-be release of these hostages.
13:06Some have been murdered, tortured, starved, sexually abused by these subhuman monsters, throwbacks to the 7th century,
13:16these barbarians, these primitives in the war between civilization and the 7th century.
13:23The fact is, their release, when it happens, should be widely celebrated, period.
13:34But evil is not extinguished.
13:37The jihadists are plotting as I speak, plotting attacks on Israel, plotting attacks on the United States, plotting attacks in Europe.
13:46This is who they are.
13:48This is their ideology.
13:49They are a death cult, a blood cult.
13:51They are the enemy behind 9-11.
13:55They are the enemy behind October 7th.
13:59We even see it in our own streets.
14:02The Marxists and the Islamists.
14:04The violence.
14:06How they want to overthrow the United States.
14:08They call us an empire.
14:10How they back Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
14:13Vile, poisonous, violent mobs in our own country.
14:19In our own country.
14:20And they're in the Middle East.
14:22I said they're in Europe.
14:24They're in Africa.
14:26They're in Africa now, slaughtering black Christians.
14:29They're in Syria, where they've slaughtered half a million Muslims who don't agree with them.
14:35They're in Yemen now, where they've slaughtered a quarter of a million Muslims.
14:39You will hear nothing about this, anywhere, except from me.
14:44And we must never let down our guard.
14:48The border is secure.
14:49The military buildup.
14:51We need to make sure domestic law enforcement is as strong as possible.
14:54Our alliances are as strong as possible.
14:56Or we will pay a terrible price again.
15:00Like we did on 9-11.
15:03Remember again, this is a 7th century primitive death cult with an ideology that dates back thousands of years.
15:11They can't be negotiated with.
15:15They can't be appeased.
15:17They can't be bought off.
15:20What, you're going to give them a country?
15:22They don't want a country.
15:24They want all the countries.
15:25They are a patient enemy that must never be underestimated.
15:32Phase two in the Trump peace plan, as it's being worked out, will be critical.
15:38What happens to Hamas?
15:40Where does that leadership go?
15:41Will they continue to be protected by Qatar?
15:45What about the prison release?
15:47Who exactly is being released?
15:50An awful lot of terrorists and criminals.
15:52Well, we shall see.
15:56But let me be clear.
15:58Our great president is aware of this and much more.
16:02Which is why he fights this enemy at home and abroad.
16:07I'll be right back.
16:11Welcome back to America.
16:13We're here with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yahil Leiter.
16:18Now, Yahil, we've become good friends.
16:21You're a very good man.
16:23And before we get started, I want people to understand that for you, these issues with Hamas and Gaza and terrorism and all the rest, these are not theoretical issues.
16:35And you're not just a senior official in the Israeli government.
16:40This is very personal for you, as it is for many of the people who make these decisions about life and death in Israel.
16:49You had an elder son.
16:52He was the commander of a unit.
16:54Beautiful son.
16:56Six grandkids who you were very, very close to.
16:59Just give us a little bit of story so the American people have some context here.
17:06Well, thank you, Mark.
17:07It's good to be with you.
17:08I appreciate your kind introduction.
17:10And certainly the mention of my son, Moshe, who was my oldest of eight children.
17:13And led the forces, actually, into Gaza on the first day of the war.
17:18He fought for 13 days.
17:20And that afternoon, that Friday afternoon, he walked into a booby-trapped tunnel that Hamas had set for him and his commandos that were with him.
17:30And he lost his life in the massive explosion, together with three of his soldiers and five of his soldiers that were on the other side of the wall in this booby-trapped shaft, lost their legs.
17:44It's personal, yes.
17:46But, look, I miss him.
17:48I miss him desperately.
17:50He was also my best friend.
17:52But I'm very proud of him.
17:54I'm very proud of his friends.
17:55I'm very proud of what he represented.
17:59And that's a young generation of lions and lionesses who rose to defend the state of Israel and to ensure that our people have safety and security.
18:11They gave their lives for the future of the Jewish people.
18:15And in doing so, they wrote themselves into the annals of Jewish history along with the greatest Maccabees that we've had throughout the generations.
18:25So I miss him, but I'm very proud.
18:27And I will find consolation now in the implementation of President Trump's plan when our hostages come home.
18:36And with every embrace that I will see between the mothers and fathers and their sons who have been held in dungeons now for two years, when they embrace, I'll be embracing my son in heaven as well.
18:49And I will be somehow, to some degree, find consolation in that.
18:57I think because of the horrendous media propaganda, almost in a monopolistic type of propaganda, people don't understand, including in America.
19:07This, in Gaza, this in Gaza has been door to door, street to street.
19:12You've been alerting citizens there to get out, which also, in effect, alerts the enemy because they see the same thing.
19:20And you, your son, other Israelis have actually put their lives on the line in order to fight this war against these barbaric terrorists in a way that is actually very humane.
19:38That is, you could blow these cities off the face of the earth.
19:42You could take them all down and everybody in them.
19:44We had to do that in World War II, one city after another and so forth.
19:47But you folks have restrained yourselves from doing that, and yet you are attacked as if you haven't.
19:53What do you make of that?
19:54Well, libeling Jews is an old story.
19:59It goes back to the beginning of time when Abraham said that God makes man, man doesn't make God.
20:06He was ostracized for that.
20:10And ever since, there's been libels against the Jewish people.
20:13And now that we have a state, it's very easy to libel us as a people, as a nation.
20:19You know, it's interesting, Mark.
20:20I hear a lot from our critics, you know, you had so much support on October 8th.
20:27Why did you blow it?
20:28And I say to them, you know, it's easy to love dead Jews.
20:33When we were massacred, when we were weak, when 1,200 of our people were butchered, when women were murdered as they were being raped, when babies were decapitated, there was so much sympathy out there.
20:46But when Israel flexed its muscles and showed its power and the determination that President, excuse me, the Prime Minister Netanyahu represented when he said, we will not finish this until Hamas is defeated.
21:01And now, in the context of President Trump's plan, we have what is, in effect, a victory over Hamas and a defeat of Hamas.
21:09Because not only are they returning our hostages, you know, in this ghoulish situation, they were actually holding on to dead bodies.
21:19I mean, these are not barbarians at the gate.
21:21These are barbarians who came through the gates and took people who they murdered, actually, and are holding the bodies hostage, along with the living hostages.
21:33We're also getting victory in the sense that in the plan, in the second phase of the plan, Hamas will be disarmed.
21:42And that's the only way it's going to work, if Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is completely de-radicalized and de-militarized.
21:51That's the only way that we're going to be able to see peace.
21:55Israel cannot once again, I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been so clear on this, we can no longer have jihadis at our borders.
22:03No other state in the world would tolerate what we tolerated up until October 6th and what we went through on October 7th.
22:10And you're absolutely right. Any other country in the world, had they experienced October 7th, would have taken out the bombers and completely obliterated the enemy right across the border.
22:19We didn't do that. We sent in our troops who went from house to house.
22:22We, at the same time that we were rooting out the Hamas terrorists, at the very same time we were flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid, over 2 million tons.
22:32There are only 2 million people in Gaza and they received 2 million tons of humanitarian aid.
22:37And at the same time, we're being libeled and we're being told that we're starving.
22:41We never starved any population. We fought as we were feeding them.
22:46We were feeding them as we were fighting Hamas that embedded itself in these civilians.
22:51You know, the great authority on urban warfare, John Spencer, who teaches at West Point, has said that there's never been a situation like this.
23:00There's no army has had to face 450 miles of terror tunnels under civilian populations.
23:07We've done it. We've done it. And now we've reached the point where we're going to be victorious over Hamas.
23:12You fed the citizens of the enemy. You've been accused of starving them.
23:16You have fought urban warfare in a way that's never been fought to try and reduce casualties.
23:21You're accused of committing genocide.
23:22And then they say you have a PR problem.
23:25No, I think the people reporting on this, they have a morality problem.
23:34This is a Fox News alert. I'm Jackie Abanez in New York.
23:37The ceasefire in Gaza continues to hold as anticipation builds for Hamas to release all remaining Israeli hostages.
23:45That's expected to begin sometime Monday morning ahead of a noon deadline.
23:49Hamas is still holding 48 hostages right now.
23:53About 20 are still believed to be alive.
23:56This marks the first phase of President Trump's 20-point peace plan agreed to this week.
24:01It includes releasing all hostages and Israeli military pullback, humanitarian aid, and freeing Palestinian prisoners.
24:08Meantime, thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza.
24:13While in Tel Aviv, families rally as they await the return of their loved ones.
24:17President Trump will visit Israel Monday to celebrate the ceasefire, meet with hostage families, and address the Knesset.
24:25He'll then travel to Egypt for signing ceremony with other world leaders.
24:29I'm Jackie Abanez. Now back to Life, Liberty, and Levin.
24:33Welcome back, America.
24:39You know, a couple things I noticed, Mr. Ambassador, is it's bizarre.
24:46The Prime Minister Netanyahu comes under attack despite the fact that he has tried desperately to get the hostages out.
24:55More so, he comes under attack than Hamas.
24:57And not only that, and then the Western media, and that would include also the left-wing media in Israel and in our country, in Europe.
25:05They keep trying to create this divide between the President and the Prime Minister.
25:09I know both men.
25:11There is no such divide.
25:12Can you comment on both of those?
25:15Well, it's really quite fascinating.
25:17I've done a number of interviews, and sometimes there's somebody on right before me who talks about the daylight between the Prime Minister and the President,
25:26or somebody talks about the President is furious at the Prime Minister.
25:30That just happened, you know, last week after the Prime Minister visited for the fourth time,
25:34the only foreign leader in the world that's visited the White House four times.
25:38So, you know, somebody, a very respectable newspaper, said that this came as a result,
25:46this plan, this agreement came as a result of the President being furious and putting pressure on the Prime Minister.
25:52And I pointed out that I was there.
25:55I sat next to the Prime Minister at the lunch.
25:58I sat next to the Prime Minister in the Oval Office.
26:00And I can tell you that there was no fury, and there was no anger.
26:04There was partnership, and it was a very collegial and friendly meeting.
26:12No fury.
26:14Look, this is something that President Trump has embraced.
26:19The Prime Minister's position, his tremendous respect for the Prime Minister,
26:22who has been really at it for almost 15 years.
26:26And the Prime Minister set out from the very beginning.
26:28He said, look, we have to achieve a number of goals.
26:31Number one, we have to get our hostages out.
26:34Number two, we've got to defeat Hamas.
26:37They can no longer bear arms.
26:39And number three, we've got to reach a situation where Gaza is completely demilitarized,
26:43and it can only be done by a foreign consortium of countries that will come in there
26:52and actually create this de-radicalized, demilitarized Gaza
26:58and be responsible for its reconstitution rebuilding.
27:00So right now, this agency that the President has taken the responsibility to head,
27:07I mean, this is a tremendous move on the President's part.
27:10He's willing to be the chairman of this peace board that's actually going to rebuild Gaza.
27:16It's kind of amazing.
27:17I'm listening to the President in the Oval.
27:19He's talking about all the projects that he's built around the world,
27:22and he was talking about how rebuilding Gaza is going to be probably his biggest challenge.
27:28But he's taken this responsibility, I think, that indicates to the Arab states.
27:32The only pressure that the President placed on anybody wasn't on Netanyahu.
27:35It was on Turkey and Qatar and Egypt, which he said,
27:39look, you've got to read Hamas, the riot act.
27:42I've had it.
27:42That's basically what the President told him.
27:44And you're hosting them, and it's enough.
27:47If you're hosting them, then they've got to listen to you.
27:50And you've got to tell them that they're going to release the hostages and go into this peace deal.
27:54And if you don't, you've got to throw them out.
27:57And that pressure is basically what brought Hamas to the table and to agree to release our hostages
28:03and get into this process whereby they will be disarmed and Gaza will be completely demilitarized.
28:10That's our President, man.
28:11That's the President.
28:12And I know he's just something else, as is your Prime Minister.
28:17They're absolutely two great men.
28:18And, you know, people need to understand, allies may have their differences.
28:22That doesn't mean they're not allies.
28:24I mean, whether it's FDR and Churchill or whether it's Reagan and Thatcher, it's the same thing.
28:29You know, during the four months that led up to operations Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer,
28:35I was constantly amused.
28:37I'd come out of meetings in the White House, and I'd hear a journalist report that there was daylight
28:44and they weren't moving forward and there's anger.
28:47And, you know, I said to my colleagues, I said, just let it go because it's part of the operation.
28:55Everybody will think that nothing's going to happen in Iran because there's daylight between the President and the Prime Minister.
29:01And at the end of the day, the level of cooperation between those two men and between our two countries
29:06was unprecedented in our obliterating the Iran nuclear threat.
29:12Never before has there been this level of cooperation between our armies and our intel community
29:18and pulling off that operation.
29:20We cleared the skies of Iran in three days.
29:23What the Russians have not accomplished in three years in Ukraine, we accomplished in three days.
29:28The President saw that and he sent in those B-2s.
29:31It was a tremendous level of cooperation that we've never seen before.
29:37And that's really where we stand in terms of the relations between our two countries.
29:41Well, I want to thank you all.
29:42It's a very, very bright day, not just in America and in Israel, but around the world.
29:48And thank you for all that you do, Mr. Ambassador, as well.
29:51God bless you, my friend.
29:52Thank you, Mark.
29:53God bless you.
29:58Welcome back, America.
30:03We're here with our good friend, Senator Ron Johnson, one of the solid conservatives in the Senate.
30:07Senator Jack Smith tracked private communications calls of nearly a dozen GOP senators during January 6th probe,
30:15FBI says.
30:16First of all, if we didn't win the election, you wouldn't even know about this.
30:21Secondly, you're an elected United States senator.
30:23You're part of an equal branch of government.
30:27The FBI is not even in the Constitution.
30:30It's created by Congress.
30:31It's in the Justice Department, which is also created by Congress as part of the executive branch.
30:37What do you make of the fact that a so-called special counsel brought in here from The Hague,
30:41and interfering with our election, going after Trump, trying to take him out before the election,
30:47was also involved in monitoring your calls, Lindsey Graham's calls, Marsha Blackburn's calls,
30:53Josh Hawley's calls, Cynthia Loomis' calls, Bill Haggerty's calls, Dan Sullivan's calls,
30:59Tom Tommerville's calls, and a half a dozen members of the House of Representatives.
31:03That can't stand, can it?
31:04Well, Mark, it is an outrageous breach in violation of the separation of powers.
31:10There's no doubt about that.
31:12You know I've been investigating the FBI and Department of Justice,
31:15you know, the partisanship, the corruption, the weaponization of those agencies under President Obama
31:20and President Biden.
31:21So when I heard this last Friday, sadly, it didn't surprise me, not in the slightest.
31:27It should outrage every American, though.
31:32The list of senators whose records they scooped up is puzzling.
31:38We do not know why they did it.
31:41They don't, we didn't, we don't know what the predicate is.
31:44We don't know who approved it.
31:46We don't know how many people were aware of this.
31:49I think it's interesting to put together the timeline.
31:51August 2022, they raided Mar-a-Lago.
31:55Then they appointed Jack Smith.
31:58Then Jack Smith, in August of 2023, announced indictments against President Trump.
32:04This violation of separation of powers occurred in September of 2023.
32:10And here's a real interesting point.
32:11About a month later, Lisa Monaco, the Deputy Attorney General,
32:16changed the procedure for doing just this, collecting information on members of Congress.
32:21Now, I don't have any evidence of this, but I would infer from that that maybe at some point in time,
32:27she became aware of this egregious violation of the separation of powers
32:32and tried to cover her tracks or cover the Biden administration's tracks.
32:35But those are the kinds of questions that need to be asked.
32:39Those are the kinds of questions that need to be answered.
32:42I am absolutely dedicated to getting to the bottom of this.
32:45And let me finish on this note.
32:46Yeah, I've been investigating and doing these investigations for over 10 years.
32:51I've heard a lot of my colleagues call for a special counsel or for criminal investigations.
32:56Maybe at some point in time, that should not be the first step,
32:59because my experience with special counsels or formal criminal investigations,
33:04everybody clams up.
33:05Congress has no access to information for documents or witnesses.
33:10So what first must occur is a rigorous internal investigation.
33:15And that's what Senator Grassley was talking about.
33:17Give the FBI, Department of Justice, time to do an internal investigation,
33:21find out the documents, identify the people that then get turned over to Congress
33:27for review of the documents, for depositions and hearings with those individuals,
33:32and finally for release and exposure to the American public.
33:35But above and beyond all, the American public has to understand everything that happened here,
33:41all the gory details.
33:43It can't be locked up in a criminal investigation or special counsel,
33:46which is exactly what happened with John Durham.
33:48What has happened time and time again with these criminal investigations.
33:51So again, I want to get to the bottom of this,
33:53but that starts with a rigorous internal investigation
33:56with the documents coming to Congress for our own oversight
34:00and for the release of the American public.
34:02I've got to tell you something, Senator.
34:03I worked in the Reagan administration eight years.
34:05I spent a lot of time at the Department of Justice as an associate deputy attorney general,
34:11as chief of staff to the attorney general.
34:14There is no way in hell that Jack Smith did this
34:18without the knowledge of the attorney general and or the deputy attorney general.
34:22If you're going to monitor United States senators,
34:25if you're going to go to the phone companies to get records,
34:27there is no way that Merrick Garland didn't know about it
34:31or Monaco didn't know about it,
34:33the hierarchy didn't know about it,
34:35and my guess is maybe White House counsel knew about it too.
34:39So I think this has to be part of your investigation.
34:43I want to pursue this when we return.
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