Updated

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," October 17, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin, and this is LIFE LIBERTY & LEVIN. We have two great guests tonight -- Brent Bozell, where we're going to discuss the corrupt media at some level, particularly with respect to school boards, and so forth. And the great Charles Payne, our money man to talk about what Congress wants to do to you, your bank accounts and your wealth, which is basically take a lot of it.

But before we do, you know, I'm going to discuss a subject I'm not supposed to discuss -- the 2020 election, and I'm going to discuss some conspiracies that took place in the 2020 election, not with voting machines, not even with ballot counting, just conspiracies that took place -- dark money, billionaires, the Democratic Party, corporatists, and others. And if we don't address this, the next election for president in 2024 is going to wind up the same way.

Now, first, there was a piece in "Time" Magazine some time ago, last February, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election." Saved it for whom? Well, the Democrats and Joe Biden.

So to lay the foundation here, it says in part, "Trump said on December 2nd, within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted."

Well, he wasn't wrong about that, ladies and gentlemen. Later in the piece, it says, "Their work" -- whose work? Left-wing groups, corporatists, Democratic Party operatives and of course, the media. "Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states that change voting systems and laws, helped secure a hundreds of millions of public and private funding. They fended off voter suppression lawsuits," their word, "Recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time."

"They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and use data driven strategies to fight viral smears." You can see how partisan it is. I'm reading this to you so you can recall what was done.

"They executed national public awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump's conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction."

Conspiracy theories? This whole articles about a conspiracy theory.

"After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. The untold story of the election is that thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and of course, former Obama administration official who recruited Republicans (aka never Trumpers) and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program." That's number one.

Number two, "The New York Post."

"Mark Zuckerberg spent $419 million on nonprofits ahead of the 2020 election and got out the Democratic vote."

"During the 2020 election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars to turn out likely key Democratic voters. But this wasn't traditional political spending, he funded a targeted private takeover government election operations by normally nonpartisan, but demonstrably ideological nonprofit organization."

"Analysis conducted by our team ("New York Post") says demonstrates this money significantly increased Joe Biden's vote margin in key swing states, in places like Georgia where Biden won by 12,000 votes, and Arizona where he won by 10,000. The spending likely put him over the top."

"This unprecedented merger of public election offices where private resources and personnel is an acute threat to our Republic, and should be the focus of electoral reform efforts moving forward."

Now, how did he do this? "The Center for Technology and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research passed a staggering $419.5 million of Zuckerberg's money into local government election offices and it came with strings attached. Every CTCL and CEIR grant spelled out in grant detail the conditions under which the grant money was to be used."

"Big CTCL and CEIR money had nothing to do with traditional campaign financing, lobbying, or other expenses that are related to increasingly expensive modern elections. It had to do with financing the infiltration of election offices at the city and county level by left-wing activists and using those offices as a platform to implement preferred administrative practices, voting methods, and data sharing agreements, as well as to launch intensive outreach campaigns in areas heavy with Democratic voters."

"For instance, CTCL/CEIR funded self-described vote navigators in Wisconsin to assist voters potentially at their front doors to answer questions, assist in ballot curing, and witness absentee ballots signatures. A temporary staffing agency affiliated with Stacey Abrams, called Happy Faces, counting the votes amid the election night chaos in Fulton County, Georgia."

"CTCL demanded the promotion of universal mail-in voting through suspending election laws, extending deadlines that favored mail in over in-person voting, greatly expanding opportunities for quote 'ballot curing' unquote, expensive bulk mailings and other lavish 'community outreach' quote- unquote, programs that were directed by private activists."

"CTCL drove the proliferation on unmonitored private drop boxes which created major chain of custody issues and opportunities for novel forms of mail-in ballot electioneering, allowed for the submission of numerous questionable post-Election Day ballots, and created opportunities for illegal ballot harvesting."

"CTCL greatly increased funding for temporary staffing and poll workers, which supported the infiltration of election offices by paid Democratic Party activists coordinated through a complex web of left-leaning nonprofit organizations, social media platforms and social media election influencers."

"Funding and managing elections has always been a government function, not a private one. And for good reason. Private organizations are not subject to the rules for public employees and institutions. They are not required to hold public hearings, cannot be monitored via open records requests, and other mechanisms of administrative and financial transparency, are not subject to the normal checks and balances of the governmental process and are not accountable to the voters if the public disapproves of their actions."

"The practical effect of these massive privately manipulated election office funding disparities was to create a shadow election system with a built-in structural bias that systematically favored Democratic voters over Republican voters. The massive influx of funds essentially created a high powered concierge like get out the vote effort for Biden that took place inside the election system rather than attempting to influence it from the outside."

William Doyle PhD, and he is an election and research expert.

But there is more over a Breitbart: "Top Democrat lawyer uses dark money network to fund progressive lawsuits." Remember all the lawsuits brought between 2016 and 2020 to change the rules in the states to accommodate the Democrats.

"Top Democrat attorney Mark Elias has been using a dark money network to fund lawsuits geared toward advocating progressive causes from fighting voter ID laws to enshrining universal mail-in voting, according to a watchdog group Americans for Public Trust. Elias who previously helped push the Russia collusion hoax after serving as Hillary Clinton's top campaign lawyer recently parted ways from Perkins Coie law firm to start the Elias Law Group, a firm dedicated to advancing the Democratic Party's agenda."

But he worked within the Perkins Coie law firm during the lead up and during the last election.

"Prior to the formation of his new firm, Elias formed extensive ties with a dark money network headed by Arabella Advisors, a company that manages several nonprofits, Hopewell Fund, the 1630 Fund, the New Venture Fund and the Woodward Fund."

"According to FOX News, in July 2020, Elias created the Democracy Docket Legal Fund, which was a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund."

So you have this mothership, the Arabella Advisors Fund, then you have the second tier funds with the connections like this, and money moves between the funds and they are setup, why? Because legally, depending on what fund spends the money, it can't get transparency.

"Wealthy Democratic donors use these funds to pour cash and the dozens of initiatives that fall under Arabella's umbrella. According to the network's most recent tax forms, the four funds combined to haul in $715 million in cash from secret donors in 2019 alone. That cash for the most part went to fund lawsuits to try and promote the Democratic Party, position the Democratic Party, defeat the Republican Party, and specifically Donald Trump."

"The group also pushes money to outside organizations that do not fall under its auspices. In addition to the Democracy Docket LLC, Attorney Elias created the Democracy Docket Action Fund to raise money for voting rights lawsuits. 'The New York Times' reported last year, according to an Act Blue donation page (another left wing fund), the Action Fund is a project of the North Fund, which also boasts connections to the Arabella Advisors."

So all these funds are set up -- all these funds are set up so multibillionaires and millionaires can pour their money into these organizations. There is no transparency, which is why they call it dark funds. So, we, the American people have no idea what's taking place. And these funds were set up by Democrats, by the Democratic Party. These funds were used by this guy, Mark Elias, to bring lawsuits, lawsuits brought all over the country in all 50 states, hundreds of lawsuits, targeting the election laws to make it easier not for people to vote, but for the Democratic Party to enshrine the voting systems that they wanted.

That's what that's all about.

And in Pennsylvania alone, two serious Federal constitutional cases were brought in connection with Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, to challenge what had been done in Pennsylvania and the rogue Supreme Court there, which changed the voting system in the last days of the election, against the will of the Republican state legislature that violates the Federal Constitution, state legislatures determine election procedures for appointing electors under Article II Section 1 Clause 2.

Why am I bringing this all up?

Because Donald Trump has a point. You may not agree with every point, and depending on the state, there may be evidence, there may not be evidence. But the idea that we can't talk about what took place in the last election, so the Democrats can now lay the foundation in the 2024 election to do the same thing and double what they're doing is unacceptable.

Dark money, front groups, hundreds of millions of dollars raised, changing the voting systems to accommodate the Democratic Party and the Democrat nominee and can affect of course, Senate races and House races, too, this is something that needs to be investigated.

Now, it is not going to be investigated by Biden and his administration, they've benefited from it. It's not going to be investigated by the rogue Attorney General because he supports everything that's being done.

And apparently it's not going to be investigated by the Democrat House and the Democrat Senate. The House is on January 6th on a phony insurrection.

Ladies and gentlemen, our election system is in fact under attack, and it is under attack by very, very wealthy people in combination with radical left-wing Democratic Party organizations. There is no getting around it. There is no question about it.

Dark money, all this money flowing into the coffers, organizations that don't have to report who is giving what to whom? A combination of the corporatists and the left-wing groups, and it goes on and on and on. And they are there today and they are plotting right now.

And of course, you're not allowed to talk about this because the media has said this is all conspiracy stuff, and the media has said, well, if 66 lawsuits were brought in, and you couldn't win a single one. This has nothing to do with bringing lawsuits. This has everything to do with changing the voting system so we have a corrupt, fraudulent voting system.

And you, RINOs out there and you Bushies out there and you Cheneyites out there and you never Trumpers out there, you've contributed to this. You've contributed to this.

Nobody is trying to reverse anything. We want the light shed on what took place, and we want to make sure it never happens again.

So while you're chasing shiny objects set up by the Democratic Party, while you're chasing issues that are not going to affect the next election, but are attacking Trump even while he is a private citizen, this is going on, ladies and gentlemen under the radar and in the shadows.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back, America. Brent Bozell is the founder, President Media Research Center. And by the way, the author of a brand new book that's coming out in December, "Stops Along the Way." It's a fantastic book. I've read it already, and we'll talk more about that later.

Brent Bozell, the Loudoun County School District is the ground zero for the war against parents and taxpayers, the teachers unions, the educational bureaucracy, school boards, and the Biden administration through the Justice Department, and the American media corrupt as it is, seems to be taking the side of the totalitarians against the people. What do you know about this?

BRENT BOZELL, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER: Well, it's a story of -- to cover-up -- and they are equally horrific. One, a cover up the radical left of their policies and the consequences. And the second one, the media aiding and abetting in this cover-up.

Let me walk you through this, Mark, if I can.

We've seen for the last two to three years this raging debate about transgender bathrooms. The overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to this, but then the radical left said they wanted to insert it in the public school system where boys could go into girls' bathrooms, and just say that they're transgender.

Now, the overwhelming majority of parents against this had three things going for them. One, morality. This is immoral, B, Biology, this is not biological, but C., commonsense, because everyone said on our side that this was going to lead to a rape. And when it did, we were going to be horrified.

Now, the media, in turn attacked the pro-family movement everywhere we went and they just -- they said to America, these are carnival barking troglodytes. They said this has never happened before. Everything they're saying is just carnival barking, you have to ignore them. This is the way of a woke world, of a new world that we're introducing. That's your backdrop.

January 12th, a newly elected Democrat school board in Loudoun County announces that they're going to have a new policy allowing transgender children to go into the public school bathrooms with girls. It is going to happen in the next semester.

Well, it doesn't wait until the next semester, May 28th, a boy puts on a dress, goes into the girls' bathroom, gets a 14-year-old ninth grade, a little child and rapes her. Not only rapes her, Mark. The father doesn't talk about this, but we have to talk about this.

He sodomizes her. In the police report, it is not just sodomy, it is forced fellatio that he makes this girl -- poor girl -- go through.

The parents are contacted. The father is contacted and told that there is some incident that he needs to come into. He isn't told anything about this. Only when he arrives does he learn that his little girl has been raped. He goes ballistic in there, start yelling. He is escorted out of the school by the security guards.

Now what does the school do in talking to the parents about this and letting the parents know about a rape? Nothing. Nothing is told to the parents.

Instead, a notice goes to the parents about the father and what the father had done. It's an unbelievable cover-up of the consequences of what the school board had thrust down the throats of the parents in Loudoun County.

What's the media coverage of the rape? Nothing.

What's the media coverage of the cover-up of the rape to the parents in Loudoun County? Nothing.

Go further. June 22nd. There's a hearing now to expand this policy, not to stop it, but to expand it to allow quote-unquote, "gender expression." This means anybody can go into the girls' room, don't have to even say you're transgender, just want to express yourself, i.e. wear a skirt.

They actually push this new policy knowing that a rape had occurred. The father attends this. The father tries to speak out. He is muzzled by not just the school board that denies this, but also this transgender army that is brought into the school board hearing.

A tussle breaks out with the police. You've seen the footage and he has tackled, he is arrested, and he is sent to jail.

Now, the media know all this stuff is going on. Where are the media asking the question, what happened? Does this man's daughter -- has she been raped in this school? Why isn't anyone talking about this? Why is the school board denying this?

No media coverage.

October 6th. That same boy is arrested again, in another school, this time in a classroom with a sexual charge against another girl. What's the media coverage? Mark, no media coverage of this.

On Tuesday, "The Daily Wire" comes out with an expose. They connect all the dots in a massive story, telling the story the media didn't want you to know. And for God's sakes, the school board didn't want parents to know about the cover-up. What's the media coverage of this explosive story? Nothing on the networks. Not ABC, NBC, CBS -- those 24-hour news network like MSNBC and CNN, only FOX and "The Washington Times" and "The Washington Post."

But wait a minute, it wasn't just "The Washington Post." It was the washingtonpost.com, the paper didn't even report it, the paper that covers this and then when they did the dot-com, they didn't talk about the rape, it was about the father.

On Wednesday, that the school board comes out with its report. It just washes its hand on the thing. It says, we knew about it and the school says, within minutes, we alerted the police.

So we know they alerted the police to a crime. We know they covered it up. We know the parents were never told and we know the media deliberately participated in this cover up.

LEVIN: You know, I'd say that is unbelievable, Brent, but these days, the media are so corrupt, and so in the back pocket with the American Marxists movement, it's unbelievable.

When we come back, I want to pursue with you what the Attorney General of the United States and the Biden administration want to do to our school systems, our school boards, targeting our parents and taxpayers.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JON SCOTT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Welcome to "FOX News Live." I'm Jon Scott in New York.

Former President Bill Clinton is back home in suburban New York after spending six days at a Southern California Hospital earlier today. He walked out from the University of California Irvine Medical Center with wife, Hillary, thanking doctors and nurses as he left. He was hospitalized for a non-COVID related infection that spread to his bloodstream. He is expected to finish his course of antibiotics from home.

Haitian Police now blaming a notorious gang for kidnapping a group of 17 missionaries that includes 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian. Five children also part of that group snatched from a bus. It happened as they were returning from building an orphanage near the country's capital of Port-au- Prince. The group is part of the Ohio based Christian Aid Ministries.

I'm Jon Scott. We take you back now to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

LEVIN: Welcome back, America. Brent Bozell, the Biden administration has done something I've never seen in my life and as a Chief of Staff to an Attorney General, it never would have crossed our minds.

They have decided to criminalize public protest and input at school board meetings, to federalize public input and protest at school board meetings. It violates the First Amendment, and of course, the Federal government has no nexus to this, but we now know, thanks to a letter that was sent to the Inspector General of the D.O.J. that the Biden administration at the White House conspired with the Attorney General's Office to unleash Federal law enforcement against parents and taxpayers who, quote-unquote "threaten or harass" school board members or teachers, and there is going to be a domestic terrorism hotline that people can call, I guess, so the F.B.I. can show up at your doorstep and ask you questions. What do you make of that?

BOZELL: I'm frightened. I'm frightened. Let's look at what should be the consequences of this horrific story. Number one, every person involved who knew about this should either resign or be removed. That means the principal, that means all the administrative staff that knew about this, that means every single teacher who knew about this, that means the school board itself.

Second, I hope that parents sue the crap out of the school board for what happened, and I think they will.

Third, every Democrat who participated in this should be exposed. This is the Democratic Party at work. This was a Democratic school board.

And then finally, the media need to be denounced for the cover up of this horrific story, but what is the actual consequence of this? It is stunning to me, Mark, that the parents are on trial for this, and the fact that the father is on trial, and then our Federal government has sided with those people who are covering up this policy and our Federal government is putting that poor dad on trial, is putting every parent who is horrified by this on trial.

You dare not speak out about this policy that resulted in the rape, the sodomizing, the forced fellatio of this poor darling, 14-year-old girl.

LEVIN: And then we have a Democrat running for Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, who says parents really have no say in what goes on in the classrooms. Can you imagine that? We pay for the classrooms. The teachers, we pay their salaries, we elect the school boards, and we have no say.

So the knuckleheads in charge of the school boards, the teachers unions, all these people are in charge of our children and we have no say. This is -- you're correct. This is the position of the Democratic Party.

Terry McAuliffe is a quintessential Democrat, is he not?

BOZELL: Think about when George Allen ran for Governor with the famous "macaca" moment. There were 56 stories in "The Washington Post" about "macaca," about the mistake that George Allen made. What is more important, saying "macaca" or supporting a school board that has this policy saying that parents have no right to object to that kind of a policy.

What's more important, and yet, where was "The Washington Post" on this. An online local news story that just ignores it and on we go. That's a cover- up.

This should be "The Washington Post," the media, they should be going right to Terry McAuliffe, and say how do you feel now? How do you feel now, Mr. McAuliffe, that you support it, and you continue, and you've doubled down on a policy that says parents have no right to participate in the decisions about their own children in school?

Now, what do you say, Mr. McAuliffe?

LEVIN: I'll tell you what they're going to say, they will endorse him for Governor when the time comes, as they always do, the Democrats, and what do you make of a line of Democrats going to campaign for McAuliffe given these facts? Given this situation, Barack Obama, shouldn't he be asked? Jill Biden, shouldn't she be asked? Joe Biden, shouldn't he be asked? Stacey Abrams, shouldn't she be asked?

Should they all be asked about this policy and what took place in the school district?

BOZELL: America, listen to the silence. That's all I can say. Listen to the silence. Joe Biden will speak out about anything, any conservative did anywhere. Joe Biden, who has also supported these policy, where is the President of the United States on this story? The President should be speaking out.

Where is Kamala Harris? You know, she is putting golf or something. Where is she?

Where is the Attorney General of the United States? Where's the investigation, Mark? Where's the Federal government saying, we're going to investigate this? After all, it is a Federal school system. Where are they on these things?

They've got to get involved. The Federal government has a responsibility. The state government has a responsibility. The police have a responsibility. As far as I know, the only people who give a damn are the police.

LEVIN: Brent Bozell, thank you so much for all you do. The Media Research Center and its various entities. Your book, "Stops along the Way" coming out in December is a terrific book. I encourage people to go to amazon.com. They can pre-buy it right now.

The book is "Stops along the Way."

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. We're with Charles Payne, as you know, FOX Business Network, "Making Money with Charles Payne," who is really quite the genius when it comes to economics and finances as far as I'm concerned.

Charles, you know, I lived through the 1970s. We had horrendous inflation. I don't remember supply chain problems. I don't remember our government saying that we should kind of stop using fossil fuels. I don't remember our government doing a lot of things that seemed counterintuitive to me. But everything seems to be caving in all at once. What do you make of this?

CHARLES PAYNE, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK HOST, "MAKING MONEY WITH CHARLES PAYNE": And that's a great point. You also don't remember our government actually asking OPEC to produce more oil. When we obviously back then, we didn't have the ability to do it, and while we are currently at war with our own oil producers.

So, we've seen it so many things over the years. We've seen it -- great American jobs, we've seen it with manufacturing. We've given it all the way for corporate profits, and I'm hoping that at the end of these last two years that someone will sit down with a gigantic calculator and figure out, you know what, for all the extra money that we had to pay for things, for all the pain and misery that we had waiting at the docks for supply -- for supplies, emergency supplies, they are coming from China over the last two years.

You know, to wait for things that we took for granted, all these things that we used to produce in our lifetime, maybe a cost benefit analysis, not just the cost in terms of dollars and cents, but in comfort, and the ability to sleep at night, the anxieties that so many households and families are going through now, add all of that up and maybe we made a gigantic mistake in the 1970s, all the way through current times by giving away what made us great in the first place -- self-sufficiency, the ability to create products, to come up with this imagination, to invent things, and maybe start to keep it here at home.

And of course, that's just one component of what you're talking about right now. But the supply chain partner, I think that's really critical. I think this is a wake-up call, Mark. Why have we done this? Why did we allow this to happen? To save a few pennies?

I mean, we send raw materials in China that we get sometimes, and then they will it into something like a plastic bucket, and send it back, and we think that's great.

And you know, listen, I know a lot of conservative economists who still believe that's the best way to go. A lot of liberal economists believe that's the best way to go. But I think if you look at the pain and agony from everything we're enduring now, to the opioid crisis, to where our stature is in this world now being challenged by China, it's been a huge mistake.

LEVIN: You know, Charles Payne, my radio show the other day, I had a number of truckers call me and many of these were independent operators. And they say they're frozen out from a lot of these docks. That a lot of the truckers want to go and help move a lot of these -- move a lot of the freight that's coming off these freighters and so forth.

But in California, in particular, there are rules that favor the Teamsters, the 24/7 now that the President says we're going to have people working 24/7. Well, we didn't have people working 24/7 before because again of the rules. All over the world, they've been working 24/7. We have truck drivers under Federal law, 18 wheelers, they can only drive 11 hours a day, and so forth. And they tell me, well, I can drive 14 hours a day easy.

So some of this supply chain issue is self-inflicted.

PAYNE: Yes, there is no doubt about that. And that, you know, I've covered the plight of truckers, American truckers for a couple of decades now. A lot of this ironically goes back to the Obama administration, these new rules on truckers, and they always say it's ostensibly to keep them safe, but it hurts their ability to earn a living.

And it's so interesting, you talk about the Teamsters, and just how wedded this administration is and certain states are to unions. Just a couple days ago, the Biden administration, a hundred Democrats asked the Biden administration to set aside an extra $4,500.00 for people who want to buy electric vehicles made only by union shops.

So again, we're talking about, okay, so that's not Tesla. That's not any of the innovative companies that are coming up. That's not entrepreneurship, and it is really absolutely amazing. These are self-inflicted wounds.

The biggest self-inflicted wound, of course, if we're going to talk about that would be the war on fossil fuels, and if you want to talk about the epicenter of the crisis in this country, it's the high cost of gasoline that's hurting everything, and that began the day after the election.

Crude oil prices went straight through the roof because President Biden says I'm declaring war. Well, guess what, when you declare war, you limit supply. Demand doesn't go down, supply goes down. And what's gone up as a consequence has been the price, and it is the most debilitating tax on average Americans, particularly poor households.

LEVIN: We were energy independent, to your point, right up to the end of the Trump administration. And now, as you point out, he is begging OPEC to provide us with more oil. Apparently, Biden had a phone call with energy executives asking them to cut costs, to cut prices.

We have half as many rigs in service today as we did at the end of the Trump administration. And of course, you're not allowed to drill now in ANWR. You're not allowed to drill on other Federal lands, and then they wonder why the price of fuel is going through the roof.

They've embraced this Green New Deal. They've embraced the climate change de-growth movement, and then they wonder why we don't have the fuel.

And you were talking about, you are hoping in two years, people will reverse policy. Look at it today.

PAYNE: Yes.

LEVIN: Their policies have screwed up the country already. I can't think of a single pro-growth, pro free-enterprise policy coming out of this administration, can you?

PAYNE: No, and that's the main point. We often have these conversations in terms of economics. It's not really about economics. I tell everyone this. Yes, they frame it that way, but it's not about economics. It's about power. It's about control. It's about ideology. And they try to frame it within the framework of economics. It has nothing to do with that, and that's why we're bearing the economic brunt of it right now.

LEVIN: Very well put. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. Charles Payne, I don't know, $2 trillion, $5.5 trillion -- whatever the Democrats are trying to figure out to come up with this bill, this phony human infrastructure bill. What are they doing here? They just want to massively expand the welfare state, centralize the economy, and they'll come up with a number later. Isn't that what they're doing?

PAYNE: That's about what they're doing. And even the three -- so called $3.5 trillion, when you really look at it, it is $5.5 trillion. But when you start talking trillions, it's crazy anyway, right? It just -- it really almost doesn't matter.

They start with these higher numbers, and Bernie Sanders will say $6 trillion, and when they get $2 trillion, they'll complain in front of the camera and pop champagne when the cameras are off.

Here's the thing. It dovetails back with the notion of changing who we are.

President Biden just recently reiterated that the $1.9 trillion, so-called Rescue Plan that was put through reconciliation, he said, that fundamentally changed America. That's what he is trying to do here.

Now part of that is a new welfare program. Every child you have, you get paid by the Federal government. The more children you have, the more you make, there's a point where you get disincentivize to even go to work.

Now, ironically, it is sort of under earned tax income credit, right? So in the past, we would say, hey, have you tried to work? You're not making enough money. We try to fill in that gap. We want people to get into the labor force, climb the ladder of success. That's the way the government nudges you.

That's not even how this plan works. You don't have to work, never have to work, never have any intentions on working. You don't have to go to school, trade school, any kind of school. You just have to have children and we will take care of you.

And listen, some people might think that's good. Some people might actually believe that's a positive. I don't think so. I think you're taking away from innate gifts that people are born with. I think God gives us all talents. I think it's great that we have a country where we can nurture those talents.

Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, means forging a sort of individual piece of steel yourself. It means getting over hurdles. You know, I know, this is a sort of romanticism that goes back to FDR and the Four Freedoms, right? The one that always threw me off was the freedom from fear that you know, like we should wake up every day and not have to worry about anything that our government should take care of all of our needs and necessities.

We could not have become the greatest country in the world if we had ever gone that way.

LEVIN: And also, Charles, what amazes me is, you look at the President and the Vice President. You look at the Speaker of the House, and you look at the Democrat leader in the Senate. Between the four of them, they don't have one hour of private sector experience. They don't have one hour of work in a cash register at a 7-Eleven, being on the assembly line, being in the private sector.

Schumer came out of law school, he ran for office. Nancy Pelosi has spent her entire career in politics. Joe Biden got out of law school, he runs for the City Council, then he runs for the Senate. Kamala Harris, pretty much the same route.

Not one of them has any experience in the private sector. So, when I hear them talking about what we need to do to fundamentally alter the economy, it gets back to your original point. This is about ideology. This is about a belief system.

This has nothing to do with economics, which is why it undermines our economic system.

PAYNE: Absolutely. And it also suggests that we can't grow anymore. That where we've come so far in this world, that's it. And now it's time to divvy up the spoils. Essentially, that's what it boils down to. They've lost faith in Americans, not our system, per se, but in Americans to do more.

So what they're going to do now is say, okay, we've generated X amount of money. You know, whether you look at incomes or private wealth, we're going to find a way to catalogue all of it starting with $600.00 transactions all the way up to, I guess, there may be some trillionaires out there because I heard the President said at one day, and then we're going to crunch all the numbers and then find a way to distribute it fairly.

And, you know, listen, it may sound great to certain people, but I do believe in our inner soul. For most Americans, the ethnos of America is let me do it myself. Move out the way, make it easier for me, and let me do it myself. I can get it done.

LEVIN: Plus, look at human experience. You have modern human experience. Where has this ever worked? Nowhere.

PAYNE: Nowhere.

LEVIN: Nowhere. The greatest country in the face of the Earth, the wealthiest country. The country with the smallest wage gaps is the United States of America, where you pointed out people could make it no matter what their background is. That's not the case with most of these countries.

Most of these countries that embrace Marxism, socialism, or autocracy are centrally planned economies are very poor. They're very destitute, and they're very dark.

I want to thank you very much, Charles Payne. I appreciate you very much. Good luck to you, my friend.

PAYNE: Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back, America. You know when I wrote this book, "American Marxism," I didn't know what to think. When I finished it, I handed it to my wife, Julie, and I said, "What do you think?" She says, "It's a fantastic book. It's going to do very well." And I said, "I'm not so sure."

Well, we are at 1.1 million sales now. And I'm going to tell you why this gives me hope, not for me personally, but because you are now engaged, you are pushing back, you're showing up local meetings, you're paying attention, laser focused on what's going on nationally.

The Democrats are running scared, the American Marxists are running scared, and when they run scared, what do they do? They turn to their police tactics more and more and more, such as with our school boards, and so forth.

But you have reason to be positive. You have reason for hope.

We are organizing. We are under the radar in many respects. They don't notice us. But there are millions of you who've had enough. And not just Republicans, Independents, Democrats, red-blooded Americans. You're sick and tired of the open border, you see what's going on there.

You're sick and tired of what's happening to our economic system with prices going through the roof. That was unnecessary. That started with this President.

You're sick and tired of what you see in terms of race relations, again, critical race theory. You're tired of the traditional family coming under attack with all kinds of genderism arguments and positions and so forth.

You're tired of it all.

You love this country. You love your lifestyle. You want your kids and your grades kids to grow up just as free as you are, and I think we're coalescing. We're pushing back and we choose liberty. We choose liberty.

I'll see you next time on LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

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