Levin: ‘Imminent or Not,’ It Was Time to Put Iran Threat to an End — ‘Don’t You Think, America?’

During Sunday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” host Mark Levin offered a vociferous defense of the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran.

Levin argued there was ample evidence that Iran posed a threat, but added that, whether or not it was “imminent,” it was time to end the threat.

Partial transcript as follows:

I’m going to make the case to you based on the public record in just 20 minutes, why Iran is an existential threat, it is an imminent threat, preemptive action had to be taken by the President, by the Secretary of War, Secretary of State, the CIA director, that all those who are trying to throw obstacles in front of this war effort, which has gone spectacularly well, have a lot to answer for, whether it’s Joe Kent or Mark Warner, all the rest of them.

Let’s start here with the 9/11 Commission Report that was issued in 2004 and they found extensive evidence of a relationship between Iran and al- Qaeda, specifically regarding the travel of several hijackers, it highlighted a pattern of tactical cooperation and missed opportunities to track terrorists passing through Iranian territory.

More. What did they find?

The Commission found that at least eight of the 9/11 muscle hijackers traveled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. Iranian border guards reportedly followed instructions not to stamp the passports of al-Qaeda members. So this allowed the hijackers to enter and exit Iran without leaving a paper trail that could have alerted U.S. intelligence to their movements in and out of Afghanistan.

The report notes circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah officials tracked the travel of future hijackers into Iran in late 2000. It also detailed historical ties where Hezbollah provided explosive training to al- Qaeda operatives in the 1990s.

Now, following the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of al-Qaeda terrorists and their families, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family went to Iran, where they stayed for a period of time.

On Page 241 of the report, the Commission explicitly recommended further investigation into the links between Iran, Hezbollah, and the 9/11 plot, noting that Iran and Hezbollah sought to conceal any past evidence of cooperation after the attacks occurred.

The Commission framed these findings as part of a broader failure of imagination, failure of imagination and management. It pointed out that U.S. Intelligence failed to share information effectively across agencies, and that is why we created the Director of National Intelligence.

There was no comprehensive review of what the Intelligence Community knew about al-Qaeda’s regional support networks before the attacks. Now, there was a landmark case, Havlish versus Bin Laden, 2011 ruling. U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels found Iran and Hezbollah directly and materially aided al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.

The court’s decision was based on 276 findings of fact, including and concluding that the Iranian government and its proxies provided critical support to the 9/11 hijackers, so they had depositions. They had all kinds of evidence that they could gather after the report was out.

Iran provided training, travel documents, safe haven and financial resources to al-Qaeda members. This is as a result, these findings of the litigation. Iranian officials facilitated the transit of future hijackers through Iran to Afghanistan, ensuring their Saudi passports were not stamped.

The Court cited evidence that Iran used front companies to obtain flight simulators for training, and that senior Iranian officials, including Hezbollah’s Imad Mujahid (ph) met with al-Qaeda leaders to establish a terrorist alliance.

Testimony from Iranian intelligence defectors suggested Iranian officials had advanced notice and knowledge of the plot and what happened? Because Iran did not appear in court to defend itself, a judgment default was entered.

In 2012, Judge Daniels awarded over $7 billion in damages and interest to 47 victims and families represented in the case. Subsequent rulings in related cases have increased the total liability against Iran to tens of billions of dollars, and this decision was upheld by the Circuit Court.

How many have heard about this? Like none of us? Wow!

Now after the 1979 Revolution, Iran secretly worked to develop nuclear weapons, including an Iranian enrichment program and crafting a plan to make and test weapons. So they’ve been at this, as the President says, for 47 years.

We have been their number one enemy, not Israel, the United States of America. For 47 years, they’ve attacked us, hundreds of times, American citizens, American embassies, a Marine barracks, they haven’t attacked Israel. Frankly, that much they’ve attacked us year after year after year.

August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed secret underground nuclear facilities in Natanz in Iraq, meant for enriching uranium and producing heavy water. Respectively, Iran claimed that they were intending to play a role in civilian nuclear power, but our country questioned whether the oil and gas rich country needed facilities, alleging they were intended for nuclear weapons related work.

2002, when George W. Bush was president, September 2009 President Obama revealed that Iran had built another secret nuclear site, the Fordow site was buried deeper than a mountain that protected it from attack. Over and over, president after president, they were pushing the development of nuclear weapons.

By the summer of 2013, Iran had installed more than 18,000 of its first generation IR1 centrifuges and 1,300 more advanced centrifuges, mostly of the IR2M model across its enrichment sites. It had also amassed a stockpile of about 9,700 kilograms of uranium enrichment up to five percent of 370 kilograms enriched up to 20 percent, well beyond the amount that’s needed for medical use or energy.

According to the U.S. government, in 2016, this amount would yield enough weapons grade fissile material for a nuclear weapon with further enrichment within two or three months. Let me address in a footnote here. People say, oh yes, yes, everybody keeps warning they’re going to have a breakout in a week or two or three. Well, you know why they haven’t over the years? Because we and the Israelis have done as much as we can without a direct attack to stop them, to stop them — attacking their data, attacking their energy sources, attacking the centrifuges and so forth with cyber activity. That’s why.

The Israelis and we have been successful up to this point. But now, the point has gone beyond. Now, a number of actions were taken, as I said, by Israel and the United States to sabotage Iran’s nuclear development, slowing it, setting it back, but not enough to stop it.

So Obama enters into negotiations with the Iranian regime. Now, why did he do that? If Iran is not a threat, if they’re not getting nuclear weapons, why did he enter into negotiations? Because they were a grave threat even then. The agreement legitimized Iran as a nuclear threshold state. It was a disaster, as our President has said.

Once key restrictions on uranium enrichment expire in 10 or so years, under that agreement, Iran would be able to produce nuclear weapons if it chose to. What kind of an agreement is that? A lousy one.

The deal was fatally flawed as well. The inspection process was defective. They would have up to 24 days to relocate equipment and material. There were no anytime, anywhere inspections permitted; sanctions relief, giving Iran hundreds of billions of dollars over time for entering into that agreement — and it goes on and on and on.

That agreement was a suicide pact, and President Trump realized it. Right now, one of the President’s most ubiquitous and outspoken critics all over the media every Sunday and every other day has been Senator Mark Warner, former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, because he speaks with authority, don’t you know?

Well, in September 2015, “The Washington Post” reported that after weeks of indecision, very reluctantly, Warner said he ultimately decided that the Obama nuclear deal with Iran advances the goal of keeping Iran free of nuclear weapons, and that there is no better alternative. Well, number one, it didn’t do that. Number two, there was a better alternative to take them out so they deceived us, the American people, another piece in our time document.

Look at this peace in our time — that ensured that this enemy, hell bent on destroying us, you, Mr. And Mrs. America would get a nuclear weapon. What kind of a government makes a deal like that — an Obama government, a Democrat government.

Now in 2018, Warner joined other Democrats in urging against abandoning the agreement, because President Trump says, uh-uh. This isn’t going to stop them. We’re actually funding the production of a nuclear weapon, and they keep cheating and they keep lying.

So of course, they attacked Trump. President Trump campaigned on and stated repeatedly that he intended to end the Obama nuclear deal. He officially withdrew our country on May 8, 2018. It was in New Jersey at his club. I was there. I just happened to be there, honest to God.

He called me down, a number of people. He videotaped it. It was Sunday for a Monday release, and he cancelled the agreement, and he hand me the pen.

Great honor!

The President said it was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. He said it was defective at its core and decaying and rotten, and explained that it failed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon or address its ballistic missile program and support for regional terrorism.

The President said the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and would eventually lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. So, he put a maximum pressure campaign on Iran.

After he withdrew us from the deal, President Trump signed a presidential memorandum to immediately begin reimposing harsh economic sanctions on the Iranian regime that had been lifted by Obama. He stated that any future agreement would need to include permanent restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and then to its ballistic missile development and a halt to its “malign activities” across the region.

Meanwhile, Iran remained in the deal with the Europeans and the U.N., but it violated it repeatedly, as it always has and it always would.

Key violations — key violations of the nuclear deal the Iranians were still in, we got out of it, but the Europeans insisted on it, the U.N. IAEA, they insisted on it, and they were wrong, and Mark Warner was dead wrong, and Joe Kent is dead wrong. They’re all wrong.

Well, what did Iran do? Iran exceeded the 3.67 percent enrichment limit, enriching uranium to 20 percent and eventually 60 percent purity, which is close to the 90 percent required for weapons grade material. Once you hit 60, you can get to 90 in about two weeks.

Iran surpassed the 300 kilogram cap on enriched uranium hexafluoride. Iran installed and operated advanced centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, violating restrictions on the number and type of machines allowed. Iran began producing uranium metal which can be used as core for nuclear weapons.

Iran breached limits on its heavy water stockpile used in reactors. The IAEA part of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency found uranium particles at several undeclared sites in Iran, prompting findings of non- compliance with the agreement and the safeguards in the agreement.

Surprise, surprise!

Iran has restricted the inspectors from the IAEA access, suspended surveillance cameras, refused to fully explain the presence of undeclared nuclear material. In 2020, Iran announced it would no longer limit its uranium enrichment, effectively abandoned sanctions of the deal, and as of 2025-2026, the beginning, Iran continued to refuse to cap its enrichment activities, leading to the triggering of snapback sanctions by the European parties.

So, it is obvious where all this was going, isn’t it?

The IAEA expressed growing concern, stating it has lacked access to Iran’s nuclear inventories for over eight months, making it impossible to verify the location and status of highly enriched uranium. Wow!

Earlier this year, satellite imagery and intelligence reports identified several previously undisclosed or secret Iranian nuclear sites, and the findings follow significant U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in June that targeted major known facilities like Natanz and Fordow. You’re the President, and this is all coming in, and you’re looking at this.

And according to Joe Kent, that’s not a big deal. It’s okay. According to Mark Warner, nothing’s imminent. It’s all cool. What’s the problem? According to Bernie Sanders, well, according to Bernie Sanders, we’re the enemy, and the enemy is always the good guy.

But what about these newly identified secret sites? Well, we now know some of them. The rainbow site located in Semin Province. This facility covers nearly 2,500 acres. It has reportedly operated for over a decade under the guise of a chemical production company. Its primary suspected function is tritanium extraction, a process used to enhance the power of nuclear weapons.

What about the Min Zadai site? A secret underground site on the outskirts of Tehran, reportedly used for nuclear weapons research and development. Israeli forces claimed to have destroyed this facility in early March 2026, in the current war. But these were all secret.

The Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried tunnel complex approximately one mile south of the main Natanz enrichment plant. While its existence was known to some, it remained inaccessible to international inspectors. Recent reports indicate Iran has accelerated construction and fortification — not anymore — and potentially to house a new centrifuge assembly plant or for secure uranium storage.

You get the hint here? They were never going to stop. Even a pinpoint strike, never going to stop. Even when you wipe out their Air Force, not going to stop. Wipe out their Navy, their ground to air missiles given to them by the Russians, not going to stop, not going to stop.

About four weeks ago, on my national radio show heard by millions, by the way, and I say that not to brag. I say that because I assume that would include Democrats and members of the House and Senate, it is heard all over the world.

Well, for the likes of Warner and others, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff came on my program. He detailed his recent negotiations with the Iranian regime. And what did he reveal? He revealed the Iranian negotiators told him and Kushner directly they controlled 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium. They said that — he said they had no shame in admitting they had bypassed oversight protocols. Witkoff claimed, the Iranians asserted that uranium enrichment was an inalienable right. They had no intention of giving it up. It’s off the table.

What else did they say? They said they have enough material to make 10, excuse me, 11 nuclear weapons in 10 days. The Iranians said they will not give it up, not to a third party, not for civilian use. They’re going to keep it. They wouldn’t agree to turn it over to a third party.

Witkoff told me, it was clear Khamenei was calling the shots. The negotiators had no power. They wouldn’t even give us a written agreement, he said, to take back to the President. That was after the third meeting. It was clear they were delaying build the missiles.

According to Joe Kent, who was elected by nobody in his sort of dramatic resignation, embraced by the Democrats, the media and the neofascists, they were nowhere near — well, you know what? It sounded like an imminent threat to me. But imminent or not, it was time to put this to an end. Don’t you think, America?

I can’t wait for Democrat politicians and individuals who have a different agenda working in the administration to tell us when the time is right. The President has access to everything. The President is the commander-in- chief. The President has decided, and he decided rightly, it’s time to get behind him and stop listening to these miscreants and malcontents.

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