Democratic strategist and pollster Mark Penn told Mark Levin on FOX News Channel’s “Life, Liberty & Levin” that a Democrat supporting immigration reform or a crime bill couldn’t win a presidential primary. “The Democratic Party right now, when you look at its poll ratings, is really amongst the lowest ratings that it’s ever gotten, and so it tends to be burrowing deeper and deeper into a hole that is really being led and by those on the left and the moderate voices has been all but silenced, really, as you point out, Fetterman is a strong and rational voice, and he’s just one,” Penn said on Sunday’s show.

MARK LEVIN: We’re here with Mark Penn, former Clinton advisor and pollster, “Wall Street Journal” opinion columnist, good guy. I would describe you, Mark Penn as a moderate Democrat. Bill Clinton, moderate Democrat; John Kennedy, moderate Democrat; Harry Truman, moderate Democrat. I don’t see a lot of moderate Democrats today on the public scene. I see John Fetterman and maybe a handful of others. What I see increasingly like in New York City, our biggest city, are these radical extremists, Marxists like Bernie Sanders, Islamists like Mamdani. I am very concerned as a conservative Republican for the welfare and future of the Democratic Party as an American citizen, because if it is taken over by these kooks and extremists, and it seems to be, in my view, and I want you to tell me if I’m right or wrong, we’ve got a massive problem on our hands. So how do you respond to this? MARK PENN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: I respond, it is a massive problem. I think you take a look at what’s going on in New York, look at what’s going on in Minnesota, what has been going on in California, and elements of that, and Oregon. I mean, I think your typical person would be stunned. Federal officers aren’t supported. Appointments are made of people who don’t believe in private property whatsoever. Judgments are made against the police without any real investigation. The Democratic Party right now, when you look at its poll ratings, is really amongst the lowest ratings that it’s ever gotten, and so it tends to be burrowing deeper and deeper into a hole that is really being led and by those on the left and the moderate voices has been all but silenced, really, as you point out, Fetterman is a strong and rational voice, and he’s just one. LEVIN: You’re a lifelong Democrat. You worked with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton pushed sort of this modern, moderate Democrat agenda. I look at this as somebody who has witnessed this for decades myself, and this is almost like an alien force that that is devouring and enveloping the Democratic Party and people like Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, they wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a nomination by this party for president, would they? PENN: Well, I think if someone stood up for the Democratic nomination and said, we are going to balance the budget, we’re going to do welfare reform, we’re going to do immigration reform, we are going to do a crime bill, and if somebody took all those positions, which were the core positions, and then on top of that, you know, tried to make peace in the Mideast, and concluded, really, that Arafat was never going to make peace — if someone took all of those positions right now, which were the positions — remember, Bill Clinton had a 74 percent or so job approval at the end of his term, and on top of that, had an expansionary pro-growth, pro-business economic policy. That’s right, that would all seem pretty rational, but it wouldn’t get you anywhere in a Democratic primary today. LEVIN: So what has happened here? I think immigration has had a huge role in this. The lack of assimilation in our cultural institutions have had a huge role. We literally have people pouring into the country who hate the country, who are attempting to overthrow it from within. You talk about Mamdani. He runs as a socialist. He’s a Marxist. He’s out there with the most radical Islamist rhetoric, and so forth and so on. He muscles through the primary system in New York because they changed it to benefit him, because people were asleep at the wheel. Then he wins in a multi-party race, the general election. He gets what — 51 to 52 percent of the vote, but that’s all he needs to have a hundred percent of the power, right? PENN: Well, and it gets a lot of people who are used to voting Democrat, and they’re used to voting Democrat because Democrats stood as FDR for economic reform, as Lyndon Johnson for reform of Civil Rights. And a lot of those voters continue to pull the Democratic line, not really understanding that the Democrat of today is pretty far removed from the Democrats of yesterday. And so I’ve always observed that this is a bit of a cycle; however, the left grows and grows within the Democratic party until the Democratic Party falls over and collapses, and then the center comes back and reasserts itself, and then the party itself gets a new life that lasts until the cycle repeats itself. I don’t know if you see that over at the Republican Party as well. I think the primary systems here that we have in this country need fundamental reform. You take an average Democratic primary, 25 percent turnout. People want everyone to vote, but they’re not making them vote in the primaries. So the primaries are pulling these parties into the extremes and giving extraordinary power to people who never really should be governing at all. LEVIN: I’d say two things to you. Number one, I would say that this is different from my perspective, because the Marxist-Islamist play for keeps. They get in power, and they’re not going to give it up very easily, and they will change the election systems if they need to, and even the populations in their particular districts. That’s my view. This is a different entity we’re dealing with now. And number two, trust me when I tell you, the woke Reich is something that’s on my radar and I’m dealing with as aggressively as I can. And I’m not the only one now. There’s many of us who see this and are dealing with it as well. The difference is, this is a sort of a cabal element that we’re dealing with. My concern here for the Democratic Party, and I want the Democratic Party to get back to its basics. It’s healthy for our country. We shouldn’t have elections, Americans versus extremists and radicals and that sort of thing. And my point to you is, it’s devouring the Democratic Party. We’ll continue this when we come back. You have some interesting new polling information, too. We’ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEVIN: Welcome back, America. Mark Penn, you know many of these revolutions, the most aggressive around the world, whether it was Lenin or Mao or Castro and so forth. They’re not led by the majority. They’re led by a minority that’s organized where the rest of the people are either asleep at the wheel or they acquiesce to it, and then they finally say what happened? Which is what you’re kind of describing in New York. But you also have numbers that demonstrate that the American people are not with these extremists and these radicals, whether it’s the Marxist Islamist left or the woke neofascist right. Give us some examples. PENN: Well, there’s some real lessons in the world now. You know, I worked in Venezuela for many years when it was fully democratic, when they had universal voting, they had two major parties, and the parties, you know, AD and COPEI, much like Democrats and Republicans, and then just one time, one time, the socialists won. Well after the socialists won, what happened? Well, previously there had been only one term allowed. Well, that rule went out. Then the courts went out. Then the military went out. Then the whole thing was taken over, and then democracy, private property and prosperity and individual freedom was gone, just like that. And most people right now, we did — we just got a poll back. We haven’t released it yet, but 55 percent support taking Maduro out, well over 60 percent support trying him, but interestingly, most people said there is a lesson to be learned about what happened in Venezuela. And then you see what’s happening in New York at the same time that Mamdani is brought in as mayor. The protests are outside synagogues saying that they support Hamas. At that very same time, the Iran regime is under the maximum amount of pressure, and people are saying, they’ve had it with this kind of government. They’ve had it with an Islamic fundamentalist regime which has no personal freedom. So the irony that it’s growing in America while it’s falling in Tehran is really incredible. LEVIN: And how do you explain that? Is it the weakness of the establishment Democrats? Is it the media? Is it the well-organized, funded, in many cases, foreign funded elements that have come into this country not to assimilate, but to conquer? How do you explain it? That or something else? PENN: Well, because it’s easy to be a TikTok socialist, and it’s not that easy to be one in reality, and have to face the reality of repression, of loss of freedom, of loss of private property, of all of these elements, right? Whereas on TikTok, it all looks beautiful. And the same thing with being, you know, Islamic fundamentalism or radical Islamic fundamentalism. Sure, it looks great on TikTok. But what is it in reality? What kind of repression is being faced, whether you’re in Afghanistan or in Iran or living in Gaza under Hamas? The reality of it is really quite different from what college students in America have now been taught, and that’s fundamental in terms of the kind of reform and change that’s going to happen here, and the kind of growing up we’re going to have to see in our electorate so that we get back to really electing responsible, experienced public servants who can and will do the job. LEVIN: Those are all great points. And there’s another one I would add. There’s a lot of tears to this. People don’t read anymore. I noticed there’s a lot of people who believe the world begins today with their ideology, with their ideas. And this is, of course, is a Marxist mindset, but it has spread throughout, I think, the younger generation. So if you mentioned things like Aristotle and Locke and Machiavelli, or even mentioned the Founding Fathers, their eyes glaze over. They dismiss it. The world begins today, baby. It’s today. All right, I want to thank you, Mark Penn, hang in there. We’re behind you. We’re going to keep fighting with you, and God bless you, my friend. PENN: Thank you, Mark.

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