'Life, Liberty & Levin' on Marxism in America, critical race theory infiltrating military

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Mark Levin: Marxism is here now and in your face

Life, Liberty & Levin' host says the Democrat Party is home to these 'ideological' views

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," June 27, 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. We have Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

But before we get to our guests, let me lay the foundation. We talk a lot about critical race theory. We talk almost not at all about something called Lat/Crit, which is Latino critical race theory.

We talk almost not at all about critical gender theory. We talk almost not at all about the movement behind climate change, so-called the Green New Deal.

Well, in this book that I've written "American Marxism," we talk about all of them and more, because they intersect. That's a word I didn't invent, intersectionality. That's a word one of the critical race theoreticians in a law school in California invented. They all intersect and what's the common denominator, the white dominant American society must go.

That is, it must be destroyed from within one way or another.

All the progress that's been made economically is not progress at all. All the race relations progress that we've made, well, that's not progress at all, either. And I want to talk about this briefly before I bring the guests on.

I'm watching now on MSNBC, Joy Reid and others, who are lying through their teeth about what's taking place with critical race theory. They either don't comprehend what it means, or they're purposely misleading the public.

Critical race theory is not about learning the history of America. It's not about learning slavery and segregation. It's not about learning about neo- Nazis and the Klan. It's about a Marxist movement invented by Marxists -- Herbert Marcuse, Derrick Bell, and many, many others, and it attracts the Marxists like Black Lives Matter founders, two of three who have already said that they are Marxists, and that's not a coincidence, because this was hatched by professors as a way to attack the society from a Marxist perspective.

So when Joy Reid goes on MSNBC and asks one of the professors involved in leading this movement, you know, some people are actually saying this as a Marxist-base movement. And I've been saying it now, really, for some time. And that Professor never said, no, it's not, because she can't.

You want to know why? I read what she wrote. And she's written a lot. In fact, I've read what Herbert Marcuse wrote, and he wrote a lot. And I read what Derrick Bell wrote, and he wrote a lot, and they all say it, they can't deny it, but they want to embrace it.

Now, the problem is this. This ideology, again, isn't about teaching history. It's about teaching lies. It's about teaching racism. It was considered a kook fringe movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Now, the United States military is promoting it. Now, every Federal department and agency is promoting it, thanks to Joe Biden.

Now, almost every school district is promoting it, thanks to these administrators and School Board members, and of course, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. And we're going to continue to talk about this on this program, and I hope you will preorder a copy of "American Marxism" because it lays it out, but it lays out more than that.

Have you ever heard of Lat/Crit? L-A-T/C-R-I-T. This is a Latino/Chicano movement that pulls in the critical theory and critical race theory ideas. And what's the bottom line with this? The bottom line is Americans, you're the interlopers. You're the illegal aliens.

In fact, the entire existence of the United States of America is the result of imperialism and colonialism by white Protestant Europeans who came into this continent and imposed their will and created this country, that the real natives, indigenous peoples of this area are south of the border, and so they have every right to come to this country. They're not illegal aliens. You're an illegal alien.

And so they do not accept or recognize the sovereignty of the United States because there is no United States. There is no United States. Now, this is also being taught in our colleges and universities in addition to critical race theory, and that's what they mean by intersectionality.

So, we have all these victims, all the oppressed by the existing civil society that's doing all the oppressing. And so everybody has a chip on their shoulder, everybody has a reason to want to overthrow and overturn the existing society.

And so that's the notion that there are two Americas -- North America, South America, and they argue even there, there's really one America and the indigenous peoples, of course, are the people who are coming into this country, not the people who are in the country.

By the way, as a footnote, that's an interesting argument from these radical Marxists because when it comes to the Middle East, they forgot about who the indigenous people are. They are the Jewish people. Oh, they've only been there for a thousand years, you see, but apparently, they live on occupied territory.

All right, but that's not all.

So, you have critical race theory, you have Lat/Crit. What else do you have? You have what I call critical gender theory. Now, what's that? Well, that's why Facebook says there's 58 varieties of genderism and things you do with your gender. Okay?

There's not this binary thing where we call a male and a female, a male has this and a female has that. No, no, no. And why is that part of this so- called spawned Marxist movement out of Marxism? Many of its leaders and many of its scholars, how do I know it? I've read it, it's in the book.

They believe that this whole idea of a man and a woman and biological genitalia that's been imposed by a social contract early on in the history of this country by the same people who enslaved blacks, the same people who took over territories that belong to Latinos and Chicanos and these people are trying to impose their morals and their religious beliefs on society, and who are they to do that? Who the hell are they to do that?

And so this is this movement, particularly the, the trans-movement, as they call it, I suppose, that rejects it. And so you have Facebook pushing 58 different varieties and others pushing four different varieties. And now when you get on an airline, you can male, female, other, whatever that means. And you can see this being pushed by the Department of Education. Again, it's being pushed in our schools -- transgenderism.

If somebody is transgendering and they're of proper age, nobody cares. Nobody says don't do whatever, people may have their opinion, if you're going to make it public. It doesn't belong in elementary schools. One of the entities that's pushing it among students is the United Nations, as you'll see again in "American Marxism," the book, and they have a whole teaching plan that's being used now.

Have you checked about this transgenderism movement? Not the people who are transgender, a movement. Have you checked it in your elementary schools lately? Many of you may not know this, but it's there, and it is not getting the attention that it deserves.

Critical race theory, Lat/Crit, transgenderism? What else?

The war on capitalism. You can't be a good Marxist without attacking capitalism.

Now, they don't call themselves Marxist, well, some of the honest ones do in their writings, in their scholarships, in their public pronouncements, but the rest of them pretend to know, it's no big deal. You saw Obama the other day, when it came to critical race theory. He does one of his laughs and he says, well, what is this? It's not a big deal. He knows better than anybody else, it is a big deal.

So the war on capitalism, you see the Marxists or Bernie Sanders likes to lie about himself, democratic socialists, they hate capitalism, because capitalism does what? It proves Marxism wrong. I'll give you a perfect example.

Would you rather be a factory worker, an assembly line worker at General Motors or a factory worker, an assembly line worker in Russia, or under the old Soviet communist system, or in Mao's China, or in North Korea? In other words, there is no great proletariat, the masses who are going to rise up and overthrow societies. They don't. It's really a relatively small group of people, most of them college educated who are trying to take over the society and impose their will as they are in this country.

The great proletariat in America never rose up. It's called the middle class.

We have the greatest so-called middle class with the greatest wealth, the greatest access to material goods than ever before in world history. Now they attack that. Oh, you Americans. You're five percent of the population of the world or three percent of the population in the world and you use 25 percent of the resources.

See, they turn on a dime. First, that was -- it's a repressive economic system that doesn't provide for most people. Now, it is an economic system of opulence and grotesque abundance that steals from the rest of the world, the third world and underdeveloped nations, while people are engorging themselves here in the United States. Get it? It's whatever works.

So, all these forces and more. These are spawned from the notion of Marxism. It's not a passing fad. It's not liberalism. It's not, oh, there's the old Democratic Party. No, no, no. This is here. This is now. It's in your face.

Your kids are being taught this. This is resonating throughout our culture. Corporations are embracing this. Media platforms, of course, are promoting it. The Democratic Party is the home of all these ideological views.

And so that's why again, I wrote this book, "American Marxism." It comes out July 13th. I hope you'll preorder your copies. And I must tell you, this book, as I speak to you now has 150,000 pre-ordered copies. Nobody has ever seen anything like this, and we need to have more, because we need to build a resistance movement, like we did with the Tea Party, the Reagan Revolution, the Trump Revolution -- all these efforts to protect the society.

They keep our country, not because we're white, but because we're Yanks, red blooded Americans. And what does the other side offer? Oh, yes. What does the enemy offer? Marxism? Neo Marxism? Well, what does that mean?

Well, tell me. Where on the face of the Earth has Marxism worked? Where on the face of the Earth has Marxism not resulted in the slaughtering of tens of millions of people? The imprisonment of tens of millions of people? The silencing of hundreds of millions of people? Is that really what we want in the greatest nation on the face of the Earth?

Well, we've got to call it what it is. It's an American brand of Marxism. That's what it is.

This isn't hyperbole. This isn't a Republican conspiracy effort, as they say on MSNBC and CNN. The Republican Party is not even in a battle, they have nothing to do with this. They are people from the bottom up, parents who see what's going on in their classrooms, and we need more; not just parents who see what's going on in the classrooms, but everybody -- everybody put our differences aside, whatever they may be, political or otherwise.

Put our disputations aside, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

If we love our country, we want freedom. We want opportunity for our kids and our grandkids, then we need to galvanize, we need to rally, and I mean peacefully. We need to do what great Americans do -- save our republic and save our society. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back, America.

Senator Tom Cotton, welcome. Thank you for being here. I have a question for you, Senator. You look at history, you look at the -- you look at Athens, you look at the Roman Empire. They became weak from within, and then of course their enemy struck and they collapsed.

We're only about 250 years old. We're much younger than Athens and Rome. I see Communist China is on the rise. They have the intention of being the most powerful country in the face of the Earth. They are spending a fortune on their military. They are extremely aggressive geopolitically.

And then I see in our own country, we're really not providing enough resources to the United States military. We are actually seeing some elements within our media and the Democratic Party who are really propagandists for the Communist Chinese.

Then I watch our top brass during a hearing earlier this week, embracing critical race theory, and I don't believe they even understand what critical race theory is. It's a Marxist-based theory, there's simply no doubt about that. The founders of critical race theory or critical theory, they come out of this Franklin School in Berlin. They were communists. They were professors, and they brag about it.

So, I'm just wondering, I feel like we're getting weaker from within and I'm not talking about the rank and file military. I'm talking about our leadership. While the Communist Chinese are getting increasingly aggressive, I'm concerned about it. Do I have reason to be concerned?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Mark, I think we always have reason to be concerned about the future of America.

Ronald Reagan, liked to say the future was never more than one generation away from extinction. As you cite, we are only 250 years old compared to some of the great Republics and Empires of human history. I want to make sure that we thrive for another 250 years and more. That's one reason why I'm so concerned about making sure that our military is adequately funded, which the Biden budget does not do.

It cuts it in, in real terms after the Biden inflation, but even if in just straight up dollars, it's so far below what they're giving to say welfare programs or other social spending programs. That's why I'm worried about adding another $4 trillion to our debt coming out of a once in a century pandemic, adding public debt to the point where we're not going to even be able to pay the debt off if interest rates go back to normal.

These are very big, consequential matters.

Now, we have in the American people a great resource to defend our country, to keep it prosperous and free, but we need to have confidence in them, and I don't think enough Democrats and our leaders in Washington have that confidence in them. That's one reason why I've been speaking out for instance, in a hearing with Secretary Lloyd Austin a couple of weeks ago, trying to pin him down on the fact that no military shouldn't be teaching critical race theory, and they certainly shouldn't be using it in training sessions with frontline privates and sergeants and lieutenants. They should focus on tactics and operational excellence.

The military needs to focus on real wars, not culture wars.

LEVIN: And you know, it's interesting, Senator, the military was really the first to integrate when it comes to the Federal government. It's always been ahead of the curve when it comes to race and when it comes to treating military personnel as individuals.

I mean, every institution has its imperfections and even its huge problems throughout history, but I'm saying as people came to grips with racism, the military was among the first institutions to come to grips with it.

Now, you served in the military. Extraordinarily brave soldier, as you were. Did you find rampant white supremacy in the military when you were serving there?

COTTON: No, not at all, Mark, and you're right that the military was one of the first major institutions in American society to integrate in the 1940s, right alongside Major League Baseball with Jackie Robinson and those who came after him, and it's been a place for the last 70 years where Americans, of all backgrounds, of all races, whether they're rich or poor, no matter who their parents are, can join and be judged solely on the content of their character, not all those other factors. Just on how you perform whether you're in basic training or Officer Candidate School or out in the frontlines in combat.

You know, they had a saying when I was in the military talking about the ramp of a Bradley fighting vehicle. When the ramp drops, the BS stops. Because once that ramp drops and you deploy from your fighting vehicle to start fighting the enemy, there's no more time for talk or for boasting, or anything else than judging everyone based solely on their performance and their skill and their bravery

And all of the soldiers with whom I served, they did not see each other as from the north or the south, black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, they saw each other as a battle buddy, a comrade in arms, who they were fighting alongside, and they were willing to lay down their life to save another life. That's what we should want every one of our troopers to see when they look to their left and the right and their front and rear.

That's why it's so corrosive to try to indoctrinate our troops in the front line as I've heard from some of these whistleblower complaints to my office, with the notions of critical race theory that somehow some races are inherently oppressive or privileged or other races are inherently victimized or oppressed.

The military again, does not need to fight culture wars, it needs to focus on fighting real wars.

LEVIN: And Senator, last time I checked, we've had the military in Afghanistan. We've had the military in Iraq. We've had the military in the continent of Africa. We've had the military in Southeast Asia. Most of these places last time I checked are not majority white.

And the fact of the matter is, there is a fable, there is a fiction, there is a big lie that's being told about this country and about the United States military and what we are about and what we do. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Four more bodies pulled today from the rubble at the ocean-side condo building that collapsed in Surfside, Florida. The number of death officially now stands at nine. But after almost four full days of search and rescue efforts, 152 people remain missing.

The U.S. launching airstrikes at the Iraq-Syria border. That's according to the Department of Defense. The airstrikes targeted facilities used by Iran- backed militia groups. Two of the locations were in Syria and one in Iraq.

And record breaking temperatures continue to plague the Pacific Northwest. Temperatures are expected to reach 112 degrees in Portland today, and 111 degrees at the Seattle Tacoma International Airport tomorrow.

The heat wave is now also moving east into Idaho.

I'm Jon Scott. Now back to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

LEVIN: Welcome back, Senator Tom Cotton. Violence in this country is through the roof. Murder and not just murder, and not just gun crimes, it is through the roof. And the President of the United States gave a speech the other day, which was almost incomprehensible and he was addressing issues that in my view will have absolutely nothing to do with reducing violence in this country.

But he is obsessed as is his party, as are their surrogates, with attacking various parts of the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment. What say you?

COTTON: Mark, it was an astonishing speech by Joe Biden last week in which he tried to grapple with the crime wave that is crashing across this country. As the President said, murders increased in the single highest rate in any year they have on record last year, and they've continued to increase in 2021, and it's not just murder. It's serious and violent crimes of all sorts.

Yet, Joe Biden's answer was basically surrender. He said that crime goes up in the summertime, so we should expect crime to continue to rise over the next three months, as if he was trying to apologize in advance for what he knows is going to be a dangerous summer.

I guess, Joe Biden's crime policy is, well, I hope you don't get shot when you go into a restaurant with your husband or wife this summer.

And then he turned and started talking about gun control, about taking away guns from law-abiding citizens, about harassing law-abiding responsible gun store owners. Again, this is mostly focused, Mark, on rifles.

Rifles are responsible for an infinitesimal number of the crimes committed in this country every year. You are more likely to be murdered by a blunt object, like a hammer, or a skillet, or someone's fists than your rifle.

The crime wave that we see in this country is almost entirely the result of handguns. You've probably seen those videos. I've seen them, your viewers have probably seen them as well. People are shooting each other in cities with handguns, not with rifles. Yet, Joe Biden is going to turn a blind eye to the crime wave that the Democratic Party's policies had caused and he is going to take away your rifles, but defend yourself from that crime wave in your home.

Look, it's no mystery what causes this crime wave. Now, the Democrats like to say, oh, it was the pandemic and people are lonely and isolated and unemployed. Mark, the pandemic is over. And other countries face the pandemic as well. They didn't see a huge spike in murders and assaults and other crimes.

I can tell you exactly why we have this crime wave. First, it's because Democrats and unfortunately, some Republicans have been letting serious criminals out of jail. Second, is because radical prosecutors and governors refusing to send serious criminals to prison in the first place. And third, Democrats for more than a year now have been attacking the police, calling for defunding the police or abolishing the police, discouraging them from vigorously doing jobs to keep communities safe.

You add those factors together, and it's not a surprise that we're seeing a Biden crime wave all across this country.

LEVIN: And I think it's important you put it that way. And even last year when President Trump sent Federal law enforcement to Portland to protect a Federal Courthouse, Nancy Pelosi and James Clyburn called them storm troopers.

And so they have a movement within their party, which is so radical, and so out of touch that they have caused enormous damage to this country. And I'll say this, Senator, Joe Biden is a coward. He won't tackle those people. He won't tackle that movement.

It is the radical elements of that movement. It's an anti-Semitic group of people. It is an anti-American group of people, Tlaib, Omar, AOC, your colleague, Bernie Sanders, among others. It's just like the military. We will spend $6 trillion, but the military won't get one new plug nickel out of the $6 trillion that's being spent. So, I'm concerned.

We undermine our police at home, we undermine our military overseas. Is that the Biden presidency?

COTTON: Yes, I think Biden is afraid of his far left. That's one reason why you've seen the first six months of the Biden administration focus on things like eliminating legal protections for police officer from being sued by the very criminals that they're trying to protect the rest of us from, or trying to spend $6 trillion and raise taxes on every American either directly or indirectly.

But with this question of crime in particular, this is a far different Joe Biden than you saw in the 1990s. You know, he used to try to take credit for the 1994 Crime Bill. Now, he since apologized for that since it's fallen out of fashion in his own party. But where was he last summer as you say, when rioters and anarchists were attacking the Portland courthouse? Where was he in Seattle when you literally had secessionists seize several blocks of downtown Seattle and claim that they were part of some autonomous zone?

And Seattle's clueless Mayor declared it a Summer of Love, until I guess, the break-ins and the assaults and the batteries began. And I think four people were shot and two people were murdered. All those victims were black, by the way, do the clueless liberals who run Seattle think those black lives mattered?

Where were they trying to protect their own citizens? Where was Joe Biden last summer calling for an end to all of this? The answer is, he was scared of his far left flank.

Remember, his Vice President actually encouraged people last summer to contribute to a fund to bail these rioters and looters out of jail. This is just the mainstream opinion of the Democratic Party these days, and that's why you're going to see, as Joe Biden said, unfortunately, increased crime in the months ahead because they are not tough enough to stand up to criminals.

LEVIN: It's really shocking how this administration tears at the fabric of the nation as it has. But thank goodness, there's somebody like you and others who are up there standing up to it.

Senator Tom Cotton, I want to thank you for your service before you were a senator, and as a senator. God bless you, sir.

COTTON: Thank you, Mark.

LEVIN: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back, America. We're here with the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. First of all, Governor, let me just say how the nation mourns, what took place in Surfside, the collapse of that condominium building, really quite horrific. Doesn't this really demonstrate why we should be behind our police force, our firefighters, our emergency personnel, because in the end, it's not about race. It's not about gender. It's not about all of these ideological movements that are afoot on the left, and with the Democratic Party. It's about red blooded Americans helping each other.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Well. That's right, Mark. I mean, when you have something that's such a tragedy, where you have a building, a condominium complex, partially collapsed in the middle of the night, these people were called upon the scene and they were on the scene within minutes and they didn't know whether the building was going to collapse further. They were able to shepherd a lot of people to safety. They were able to save a lot of people's lives.

And so when you're in those really tragic situations, when people's lives are on the line, those people that wear the uniform, they put their lives on the line in order to protect us. And so we need to support them and all their efforts.

LEVIN: They sure deserve a lot more respect than they normally get. Governor, you have created something that's very, very interesting as a Governor, I don't think we really seen it, certainly not on the conservative Republican constitutional aside. And that is this -- you're not going to operate just within a small box. You're going to protect your state, the liberties of the citizens of Florida, their Federal and state constitutional rights, and the sovereignty of your state against a President and an administration that has abandoned traditional customary institutional governance.

And I think you are plowing new ground in this regard, whether it is the border, whether it is the virus, critical race theory, and on and on and on. Is this what you're intending to do to show other governors how to fight back? Or what is your thinking actually?

DESANTIS: Well, Mark, you just have so many threats to freedom nowadays, and what we're doing is we've essentially Katy bar the door to protect Floridians and to protect their freedoms and opportunities. And you see it in a number of different ways.

Obviously, we were the leading state fighting against coronavirus lockdowns. We had kids in school in person for the entire school year. I believe had Florida not done that, you would not see the other states to have followed. Canada, for example, still locked down, and I think that's what a lot of these bureaucrats wanted to see in the United States and we made sure that we led in a different direction.

You also look at things going against the Biden administration's policies, they shut down our cruise industry with the C.D.C. They didn't have authority to do that. All these experts said oh, you just have to do whatever the C.D.C. says. We sued the C.D.C. in Florida and we won in Federal District Court, and now, the cruise lines are going to be able to resume sailing this summer.

You talk about things like critical race theory. As soon as we started to see that percolate throughout the country, I immediately said, we're teaching the Constitution, we're going to teach American Civics and American History and we don't have room for ideologies like critical race theory that are based on false premises. And so we banned critical race theory in our K through 12 schools. We were able to do that very quickly.

And you know what, people are happy that we're doing that, because most parents do not want their kids indoctrinated with a lot of these ideologies.

LEVIN: But I think you have triggered a movement of sorts that a lot of constitutional concerns hadn't really noodled over and should have, which is, you know, the left uses state authority to bring cases against corporations in order to advance an agenda. The famous case of E.P.A. versus -- Massachusetts versus E.P.A., where Massachusetts got standing to change our environmental laws, and bring us so-called climate change laws, and so forth and so on.

But it strikes me as you're looking for opportunities through the normal course of governance, to extend what we view as liberty, to extend what we view as republicanism small R, and it's something that is beginning to catch on with some of the other governors. Do you talk to other Republican governors about this sort of thing?

DESANTIS: Oh, we do. But I think a lot of it, Mark is, you know, I lead, I tell people what I believe, and I tell them what I'm going to do, and then I do it. And I think what happens is, when you're doing the right thing when people see that you're fighting for them, particularly in an era where we have so many problems throughout our country, and we have so few people who have really been willing to stand up, when you do that, people do respond.

And I tell you, I get correspondence into my office, obviously, from a lot of Floridians, I get it from all over the country of people saying that what Florida is doing is giving them inspiration. And so, I think that a lot of it is organic. I think folks are responding to leadership that is directed at preserving their freedoms, and that's what we've tried to do in Florida across a whole range of issues.

I do think we've had other states that have also done a good job and have done similar things, and that's really how you build, I think, a really strong movement for liberty.

LEVIN: Why won't Joe Biden manage the border? Why won't Joe Biden enforce Federal immigration laws? Why won't Joe Biden put in place policies that have an orderly way for people to apply to come into the United States?

Why is the border wide open with all the mayhem and anarchy and all the horror that's going on down there? What is Joe Biden's motive here?

DESANTIS: Well, I think it is intentional, Mark, and I'm not sure how much Biden is engaged in this. But certainly a lot of the people that have the sway in the White House on a day-to-day basis, I believe on an ideological basis, they believe in open borders.

Now, the public is strongly against what's going on there. So, I think they are taking a toll -- it is taking a toll on them politically. But they knew by undoing Donald Trump's policies, which were succeeding, that this would happen, it has happened and they really show a disregard for all the problems that emanate as a result of this, the people that are trafficked, all the drugs pouring across the border, increasing lawlessness.

So, it's got to the point where Texas is doing it on their own. Arizona, they asked other states for help. So, Florida has stepped up. And we're going to send folks to help stem the tide of what's going on down at the southern border.

But it's a clear failure of leadership, but I do believe that this is an intentional policy rooted in an open borders ideology.

LEVIN: I think you're quite right. How could it not be an intentional policy, right? Purposely reversing executive orders, purposely reversing rules, forcing the head of the Border Patrol to resign? Things of that sort? I mean, none of this is coincidental, or by accident, that's for certain.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Governor DeSantis, Joe Biden gave a speech the other day about -- or at least, it was supposed to be about crime. What it was about was gun control, and I'm thinking to myself, nothing he said will curb crime. He wants to go after law-abiding gun dealers. He wants to go against law- abiding gun owners, same thing.

He doesn't address what's going on in our inner cities. He doesn't address Soros-funded prosecutors who refuse to prosecute. He doesn't address Obama- like liberal judges who let people off easily, phony bail reform where people come in the front door and out the back door. All during the riots of the summer, he was all but silent while his Vice President was assisting so-called bail reform and rioters getting out of jail. He is not really going to address the high rise in crime in any effective way, is he, Governor?

DESANTIS: No, I think what he is doing is he's using that as a pretext to try to infringe upon people's Second Amendment rights, and he has been a longtime opponent of the Second Amendment. He even suggested the other day that owning guns is futile because the government can just nuke you or use an F-15 to come.

I mean, it was really incredible to hear that and really jarring that a President of the United States would be saying that. But Mark, you hit it on the head. Why do you see crime going up in parts? Because you do have prosecutors in these places that yes, are funded by Soros to get elected, where they just won't prosecute a lot of crimes.

And so you have people that are committing crimes all the time, and they're not ever held to account. You also do have judges who are more liberal and put people back on the streets. You have policies against the bail, where people are just set out without even having to post bail that causes more people to reoffend and then the anti-police sentiment and attacks on law enforcement. And yes, part of it is cutting money from law enforcement.

But I think even probably as important is just the anti-law enforcement sentiment that really shows the people that wear the uniform, they don't have support to go in into high crime areas and really stick their neck on the line because they're not going to have the support.

So, you have all those things that are snowballing, and then we have some parts of the country where there are really stiff increases in crime, and there's a lot of people, Mark, who are used to having relatively low crime rates over the past couple decades, you've seen a lot of policies go back in the other direction. Now, you're seeing some of the results of that. And I think it has been catastrophic.

But Biden is not going to address any of that. All he is going to talk about is taking people's guns. Obviously, that wouldn't work. It's not good policy. But it certainly wouldn't work because some of the highest crime areas in the United States have some of the strictest gun control laws in place.

LEVIN: And of course, their response is, while the areas around them don't have strict gun control laws, so guns can come in. And I think to myself, okay, we won't even secure the border from preventing MS-13 coming in, from guns coming in, from drugs coming in. Those are your policies.

Then we have criminals going out the back door in all of these communities. Those are your policies. How about that contribution to crime?

Here's the thing, Governor, I look at the border. I look at the massive spending and redistribution of wealth, the explosion of the welfare state. I look at the massive crime increase. I look at him really gutting the military, because we're not covering the cost of the military while Communist China is on the rise.

I look in the Middle East where he actually wants to arm the Iranian regime after all the progress that's been made there, and turns Israel really into an adversary. I look how he kowtows to Communist China and to Putin. I can't see anything positive coming out of this administration. What do you see?

DESANTIS: Well, Mark, you know, I think that if you had been asleep for the last nine months, and someone woke you up, and they didn't tell you who was President, but they told you all the policies that were being pursued, you would think that Bernie Sanders had been elected President.

I mean, this is a candidate Joe Biden, who basically said he was going to be a uniter, he was going to be a centrist. And that was a fraud on the American people, because he has basically been hijacked into going with a very left-wing agenda. It's a more left-wing agenda than even his predecessor, Barack Obama's agenda and he is pursuing that.

And obviously, the people around him, I think, are really pushing him to pursue that, and the effect to the country, as you suggest, has already been proven to be negative. And I think some of these problems are going to mount more and more as we go forward. So, it is a failure of leadership. These are not policies that are popular with the American people. These are not, in many respects, policies he was promising to implement. And so, we've got a lot of problems on our hands as a result of it.

LEVIN: And do you think the people will feel that they are motivated enough now to go to the polls during the midterm elections? I mean, you're up for re-election, a number of people are for re-election in Virginia and some other states and then and the House and part of the Senate is up, do you think this will manifest itself in some kind of an electoral outcome?

DESANTIS: I do think so, Mark. I think people are really getting fired up not just with Biden, that's part of it. But some of the stuff that's happening locally with some of the coronavirus lockdowns, locking kids out of school, trying to get critical race theory into a lot of these classrooms, which we do see school districts doing that. A lot of parents are very upset about it.

So, I think there's a whole bunch of things that are brewing out there, and I think there's going to be people on our side who are going to be willing to walk over hot coals barefoot to be able to vote in the midterm elections and not just for races like mine as Governor, but up and down the ballot for Congress and for U.S. Senate.

LEVIN: I think you're quite right. I think this could be an overwhelming electoral victory for the Republicans, certainly not the Democrats. Time will tell.

Governor DeSantis, thank you for all you do and thank you for coming on. God bless you, sir.

DESANTIS: God bless you, Mark.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back, America. "American Marxism," my new book that will be out soon. I want to read you something.

Thomas Paine, you're familiar with him, December 19, 1776, the American Crisis. Here's a paragraph that's really read from that pamphlet, "I call not upon a few but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter when nothing but hope and virtue could survive that the city and the country, alarmed that one common danger came forth to meet and to repulse it."

And I point out, "On the night of December 25, 1776, Washington order Paine's words read to those exhausted troops before the Battle of Trenton," which of course they went on to win. "Paine's pamphlet not only energized Washington's men, but quickly spread throughout the colonies, rousing and galvanizing the people."

"Our challenge today, (America) is just as crucial and urgent and in many ways more complicated. We did not ask for this confrontation, but it is here. And in truth like the early days of the Revolutionary War, we are losing. Unfortunately most of the country has been caught flat-footed and remains unengaged."

"What must be understood is that the various Marxist associated movements are constantly agitating, pressuring, threatening, overtaking, and even rioting to accomplish their ends for which there is no effective or sustained counter pressure or agitation -- that is no pushback. That must change today."

This is a call for action. And then in "American Marxism," we proceed.

This is a cause for action. The silent majority shall be silent no longer.

See you next time on LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

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