In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s greatest fear was nuclear war.
On Easter weekend 2026, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin’s greatest wish seemed to be nuclear war.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump appeared on the brink of giving Levin that wish, with the president writing of Iran, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
By Wednesday, it hadn’t happened—and Levin was fuming.
If this sounds crazy or barbaric, congratulations on having a moral compass. But it’s worth examining this neoconservative, war-eager mindset and how dismissing human life and leveling basic norms and standards, even in war, is integral to it.
On Mark Levin’s weekend Fox News show Life, Liberty and Levin, he appeared to insinuate that using nuclear weapons on Iran would be justified.
Levin read off death and casualty numbers from the Second World War, and did so with a specific message in mind to the president: “And the casualty numbers, as horrible as any casualty is, need some context.”
Levin’s “context” included noting that the Battle of the Bulge had “80,000 to 90,000-plus casualties, deaths and injuries and so forth,” and the Battle of Okinawa had “50,000-plus casualties, over 12,000, nearly 13,000 killed on that island…”
So what was his point? He said these numbers are “what convinced Truman that we would lose a million men if we didn’t drop the atomic bombs that we did.”
The neocon pundit concluded, “So this is a war or a peace mission to stop nuclear weapons that can blow away millions of Americans.”
“Every bit as important as World War II,” he insisted.
Levin seemed to suggest that dropping a nuclear weapon in Iran would be an act of “peace.”
Who would buy this rationale? Levin appeared to hope Trump would.
A noticeably disgusted Tucker Carlson played Levin’s video clip on Monday and responded, “Did you catch that? Did you make it through the whole clip? It’s not easy. It’s not easy.”
“But embedded in there, and that’s why we prefer a transcript over the actual audio, embedded in there is something you need to know,” Carlson said. “It’s an argument that is being test-driven.”
It certainly did seem like Levin was putting nuclear war in the president’s mind.
Carlson continued, “And since no one, to our knowledge, has pushed back against it, maybe in full operation now, it’s an argument for nuclear weapons against Iran.”
“That’s Mark Levin’s counsel to our sitting president, Donald Trump, right now,” Carlson added. “That the most humane thing you could do is to end this now with nuclear weapons.”
“That’s the case Mark Levin is making to the president who just last week recommended that all Americans watch Mark Levin’s show,” Carlson said. “Okay,” Tucker added. This is not like crazy dot-connecting here,” Carlson added. “This is one to one.”
Carlson and other observers believe that since Trump is such a fan of Fox News and Levin’s show in particular that the bloodthirsty host is constantly messaging to an audience of one.
To that point, after Levin’s episode aired is when Trump vowed civilizational destruction if Iran’s leaders did not open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM ET on Tuesday.
Right before that deadline, it was announced that the U.S. and Iran had reached a ceasefire deal. That deal didn’t last long, but the brief break in fighting sent Levin spiraling.
A visibly flustered Levin said on Fox News, “What about the people of Iran, what are we gonna just leave them there? There’s nothing that we can do and we’re gonna wash our hands over that? That, to me, is it’s morally, very difficult, very difficult to accept.”
For Levin, it’s morally “difficult” to accept that hostilities might be ending.
One of Levin’s earlier justifications for U.S.-led regime change in Iran was to supposedly save the lives of Iranians protesting their government, despite his more recent recommendation to drop nuclear bombs on them instead.
The independent journalist Megyn Kelly played some clips of a frustrated Levin during her interview with The American Conservative’s Executive Director Curt Mills, and said, “Mark Levin is unhappy, which makes me happy.”
“But he and Lindsey Graham are both, of course, they’re truly in love with President Trump right now,” she continued. “These original never Trumpers are very much in love with President Trump because he did this. But they’re having to really reconcile with it, Curt, because he’s not ending it the way they want. They don’t want it ended at all. They want it to keep going and going and going.”
She was talking about endless war—the kind of war Levin loves and Trump once vowed to stop.
Of Levin’s recent appearance on Hannity, Kelly said “Mark Levin was on Hannity last night. And honestly, you can see like near tears, like really trying to control his emotions over the fact that President Trump is trying to wrap this up now.”
Levin said, excitedly, “They’re not going to go away if there’s not regime change. And we’re going to have to figure out, and it’s not going to be easy, how to keep our foot on their throat.”
“And I pray this enemy drops dead,” Levin flailed. “How do you like that? I kind of like it.”
Kelly reacted, “You see him at the end where he’s blinking his eyes. He’s doing deep breathing.”
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The huffing and puffing has not stopped.
The week began with Mark Levin pushing for a spectacular, even nuclear escalation with Iran. This war remains a mess, but that definitely, and thankfully, did not happen.
This might have made Ronald Reagan happy. Mark Levin? Not so much.
