RUSH: So the president is having a meeting on the DACA kids, the DREAMer kids, and a meeting overall about immigration — and, in this meeting, he’s invited the Democrat leadership to come in there.  Senator Durbin is up there and any number of other Democrat leaders.

The press has been brought into the room where the meeting’s taking place, and Trump is talking to the press about the issues. Steny Hoyer is seated to Trump’s left, and Trump is conducting the meeting in front of the press, and he asked Dick Durbin (the senator from Illinois) and the Democrats, “Tell me what you want.  Tell me what your immigration deal is.”  So there are the cameras, and there are the Drive-Bys, and Durbin and the boys are having to tell Trump what they want with the cameras running!

Which means the Drive-Bys are not gonna be able to recharacterize what happened in there.  Trump is conducting the meeting, and he’s asking these Democrats, “Tell me what you want.”  He’s letting Durbin and Hoyer have the floor to talk on DACA. They’re getting their talking points out right in front of Trump.  (laughing) They’re having the meeting right in front of the press, the Drive-Bys!  Now, it’s not happening at the moment… It may be happening in a moment, but the video was just released and is just running now.

Trump’s sitting there nodding while Hoyer and Durbin tell him what they want.  Obama never did this!  Obama never had Republicans up for these meetings.  He never did it in full view of the media.  You know, Obama’s reaction to Republicans was, “Hey, I won; you lost.  Elections have consequences.”  But the Democrats, they need the DREAMers, and they need the illegals, because the Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass.

As people move upward economically and become more self-reliant and become more self-sufficient, they need the Democrat Party and the government less.  So the Democrats need a permanent underclass.  They need to constantly resupply people at the lowest of the economic scale.  That’s what illegal immigration’s value to the Democrats is.  You bring in a bunch of people who can’t speak the language, who thus can’t work, who can’t really function, and you get ’em on this program and that program, and you make them lifelong Democrats.  And that’s what the Democrats want.

By the way, let me tell you. Folks, this has been a point that I have made on immigration going back to 2000.  So this is 18th year — and it’s probably longer than that — that I have made this point, that the Democrats need a permanent underclass.  Well, guess what?  It has just been admitted to! The Democrats have just admitted that this is exactly what this is all about.  “LEAKED MEMO: DREAMers Are ‘Critical’ to Dem[ocrat]s ‘Future Electoral Success’ — The Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund…”

That’s the left-wing bunch that Podesta has run. ThinkProgress, Center for American Progress, this is the intellectual hothouse for the radical left agenda in America.  They were very instrumental with Obama. It was a lot of Obama’s people in it, still are.  Jennifer Palmieri is a former Clintonite, and she was one of the primary architects of Hillary Clinton’s defeat.  Now she is running the show over there.  “The Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund circulated a memo [yesterday] calling illegal immigrants brought here at a young age — so-called ‘DREAMers’ — a ‘critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.'”

Told ya! I’m not doing “See, I told you so.”  That’s not what I’m doing.  I hate people that do that.  That’s not what I’m doing.  But I’m reminding you.  They are admitting it.  Now, this memo was not supposed to leak.  It was not supposed to be made public.  It has been made public.  “The memo, co-authored by former Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri, was sent around to allies calling on Democrats to ‘refuse to offer any votes for Republican spending bills that do not offer a fix for DREAMers and instead appropriate funds to deport them.'”

If that’s what Trump does, then the Democrats are under orders here not to make any deal.  So what is Trump doing?  He’s making them say this in public with the Drive-By cameras rolling.  In other words, the Democrats are being told to refuse to even vote on any bill dealing with immigration or the budget that does not include amnesty for the DREAMers.  Just to put a bullet point on this: The Center for American Progress is the organization that really runs the Democrat National Committee.  It was founded, it was run for years by John Podesta.

It’s still run by Clintonistas and Obamaistas.  The Center for American Progress “memo says protecting DACA is not only a ‘moral imperative’ for Democrats, it also key to getting votes. ‘The fight to protect Dreamers is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success,’ reads Palmieri’s memo, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.” That’s Chatsworth Osborne Jr.’s bunch. You know, he had to take a leave of absence when he got his Fox News show.

“‘If Democrats…'” Reading from the memo: “‘If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond,’ reads the memo. ‘In short, the next few weeks will tell us a lot about the Democratic Party and its long-term electoral prospects.'” My friends, they have let the cat out of the bag.  Now, you and I, we always knew this.  But a lot of people didn’t.

You know, a lot of people — a lot of people — give the Democrat Party the benefit of the doubt on this compassion and caring and tolerance because the media presents Democrats as compassionate and tolerant and caring.  But they’re just a bunch of calculating creeps, and these people represent nothing more to them than winning elections.  And the memo has finally documented this.  I mean, I don’t know how many years I’ve said:

“If the illegal aliens streaming across the southern border were rock-ribbed Republicans, I can guarantee you that Dick Durbin and Steny Hoyer and Chuck You Schumer and Pelosi would be down on the border with mortar and bricks, and they would be building the wall! If the illegals crossing the border were pending voting Republican, the Democrats would have nothing to do with any of this legalization, would have nothing to do with amnesty, and they would be building the wall.”  Anyway, it’s clear now that the Democrats in Congress have gotten their marching orders from The Center for American Progress.

(chuckles) But the great thing is… Now, I don’t know what these Democrats are saying.  That’s the one thing that I’m not able to check.  What I can tell you is that I’ve never seen what I’m seeing here before.  The meeting is actually taking place…  This is not just a media scrum with everybody saying, “Hi” and then the media gets kicked out and then the meeting starts.  The meeting is taking place with the media and the cameras in the room, and Durbin and Hoyer are being forced to tell Trump what they want with the media in the room.

Now, Trump’s position is, “I’m not gonna do anything with you guys until you clear building the wall.  To heck with anything you want to do unless we get clearance to build the wall.”  Democrats don’t to want build a wall.  Now, there’s another story here, folks, that is relevant.  I don’t know if you’ve heard about this.  For those of you who are worried that Trump may be wavering on this — and I know some of you are.  The minute you hear Trump say he wants to meet with the Democrats on immigration (experience guided by intelligence) you get worried.

You get wary, “Oh, no. Is another Republican president gonna cave to ’em on amnesty?” There’s a Reuters story, and the headline is: “U.S. Moves Toward Expelling 200,000 Salvadorans — Some 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants allowed to live and work in the United States since 2001 will lose their right to remain in the country in 2019, officials said on Monday, marking the Trump administration’s latest move to tighten immigration enforcement. The United States will end the Salvadorans’ temporary protected status (TPS) on Sept. 9, 2019, giving them 18 months to leave or seek lawful residency.”

Now, what drove this? Well, temporary status was granted to people in El Salvador after two devastating earthquakes in El Salvador in 2001. And those two earthquakes left hundreds of thousands in the country homeless. So the United States, it was the George W. Bush administration, “Okay. We’ll grant you temporary status to come to the United States.”

Well, that temporary status was forgotten about. They were just here and that was that. Donald Trump said (imitating Trump), “Wait a minute, I heard they were temporary.” They said, “Right.” “Well, then they’re going back. The earthquakes were 17 years ago.” People said, “That’s right.” So Trump and his administration made the move end the temporary status after 17 years, what will add up to 18 and a half, for 200,000 Salvadorans.

“The decision to end TPS for Salvadorans is part of the administration’s broader push to tighten immigration laws and expel those living in the United States illegally.” This is happening right on the day before of this meeting that Trump is conducting in front of the media. So if you’re wary that Trump is gonna cave, I don’t see it.

He knows this is what got him elected. And not only that, he believes this. He understands this. Maybe he doesn’t understand it ideologically, who knows, but he understands that open borders and the never-ending parade of illegal immigrants does nothing to build the national economy or the American culture. It actually helps to erode both. And so the temporary status has been ended the day before he has the meeting with all these Democrats up there.

So we’ll have the have to wait and see what the actual details were of the meeting and what the Democrats said, what they advanced. But folks, you heard all during the campaign about Trump being The Art of the Deal negotiator, this brilliant, run-rings-around-’em negotiator. I’m just looking at Trump’s body language here as he’s conducting this meeting. He’s kind of sitting there with his arms crossed and folded across his chest, got a serious look on his face as he’s listening to what these Democrats have to say. But he’s forcing them on the record what they want in front of the media.

Senator Grassley has said, “We’re talking about everything, DACA to illegal immigration.” And he said, “Those who don’t vote to protect DACA kids will have to explain themselves.” So there’s-a-back-and-forth here on what to do about the DREAMer kids. But the Democrats want full-fledged amnesty on everything and threatening a government shutdown and all that. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. So Trump’s forcing the Democrats to tell people what they want, tell him what they want. And we’ll see what that is as time unfolds.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. I had a chance to listen to a little bit of this, and when I was able to turn on the audio, it was Senator Dianne Feinstein who asked Trump if she could speak. And Trump said, “Senator Feinstein, you’ve been wanting to say something here. What do you want to say?” And she said (paraphrasing), “Well, you know what? I want to get this done. And I think, President Trump, we need to do a clean DACA bill, but we’ve had problems in the House. We’ve been able to do this in the Senate; we have problems in the House. We need to do a clean DACA bill, because these kids are losing their status. We need a clean DACA bill, and then, and then we come back with comprehensive immigration reform.”

Now, what she means — and she even cited, we need to go back the way it was when Senator Kennedy was here. No, you don’t need to go back to when Senator Kennedy was here. But the Democrats, when you hear comprehensive immigration reform, what that means when it comes out of the mouth of a Democrat is amnesty for however many millions of illegal Americans and immigrants are in the country. And Dianne Feinstein just pushed for it. She wants a clean DACA bill so there won’t be a government shutdown and then come back and do a full-fledged comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Trump said, “Look, I think there’s a lot of smart people in this room. We might be able to get there.” Trump didn’t give away in the little that I saw what he thought of what Feinstein said or what he actually wants in this. I have been told that Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty is in the meeting and that Senator Grahamnesty told the attendees in the meeting that he is called Senator Grahamnesty by, quote, “right-wing radio.” So that was in the meeting. (laughing)

We’re rolling tape and we’re trying to put bites from this together because it’s extraordinary. I can’t recall this ever happening. Oh, they’re thinking about bringing earmarks back. Did earmarks come up? I saw something over the weekend that members of Congress are getting serious about reviving the whole earmark thing, bringing it back to life. Look, when you have a piece of legislation that’s got the word “comprehensive” in it, think kitchen sink.

Comprehensive immigration reform means specifically amnesty, but broadly it means, “We really want this.” And so if somebody wants to bring back earmarks, and there are enough people that say, “You know what? Earmarks is not worth killing the bill over. Go ahead and put ’em back in.” That’s how these pieces of legislation are used, to put the kitchen sink in there. A bunch of little things that individually are not worth stopping the entire thrust, the primary purpose of the legislation, in this case amnesty.

All kinds of things are gonna get thrown into this. And this is the only thing — I’m going to tell you right now, I’m gonna go on record right now, this is the only thing that Donald Trump could do to possibly derail himself. How many times have I told you since the campaign that there’s nothing the media can do to destroy Trump? They didn’t make Trump; they can’t destroy him. The only person that can break the bond of Trump supporters and Trump is Trump.

And if, with that big push in the campaign on the wall and everything that that meant and the clear representation from Trump the candidate there wasn’t gonna be any amnesty and we are not — he said people that are here illegally could come back but they’re gonna have to leave and get in line. He alluded to the possibility of them coming back or staying or what have you, but he made it clear that there isn’t gonna be this amnesty for whatever numbers of millions of illegals that are here. And if this comprehensive immigration reform, if they ever get to it — look, it’s still a pipe dream right now. Still dealing with DACA.

But I’m just telling you that if the Democrats are perceived to get what they want on immigration, that will be the first potential real damage to Trump, in terms of busting up his base. That’s what the Democrats and the media have been trying to do since day one, is separate Trump’s base from Trump. They can’t. Only Trump could do it. But I’m not making any predictions. I haven’t heard enough to this to know what’s going on in there. I just can tell you what is going on, and that by itself is extraordinary.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll tell you a little bit about more what’s going on.  You know, we might want to JIP this thing, ’cause our microphones are there. But stand by for that.  There’s a… I don’t know if the Democrats know that the media’s in there.  The Democrats are just going overboard on their love for the DACA kids.  Now, you might say, “Well, Rush, what’s wrong with that?”  Well, what’s wrong with that is that there’s a lot of people in this country — like in Chicago, where Oprah lived a lot of years — that are really in bad shape.

Yet the Democrats in this meeting, it’s all about the DACA kids.  They’re the only kids that exist!  The Democrats are engaged in a love fest for the DACA kids.  There’s another observation here.  We’ve got the Michael Wolff book, and among its many assertions is that Trump is senile and he’s in the early stages of dementia, that he has no attention span, that he’s deluded and delusional.  CNN and all the cable networks have just spent an hour televising Trump in total control of a meeting, with the Democrats in the meeting showing total deference and respect to Trump.

They’re not acting like they’re talking to an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  So this little televised meeting here is dispelling this idea that Trump is deranged and out of it and doesn’t know what he’s doing, is incompetent and unfit.  Dianne Feinstein… Let me define some terms here for you.  Dianne Feinstein said that they want “a clean DACA bill,” and what she means by a clean DACA bill is no funding for the wall and no end to chain migration.  That’s what she’s openly asking for in this meeting.

Remember, we’ve got the leaked memo from The Center for American Progress where Jennifer Palmieri writes that the entire value of the DREAMer kids, the DACA kids is as electoral opportunities — voters — for the Democrat Party!  So that has leaked.  “It’s not only just a moral imperative, it’s key to getting votes.” The Democrats’ reason for supporting the DACA kids is getting votes.  The memo has leaked.  Now, it’s only been published in The Daily Caller.  The Drive-By Media is not talking about this.  So Trump is listening to what these people are saying.

Right before the spot break ended, there was a… I couldn’t tell. I was looking at the back of this guy’s head, and I don’t know who it was, Republican or Democrat.  I’m assuming Democrat because he was trying to tell Trump the wall wouldn’t work.  He was saying (paraphrased exchange, “Look, I’ve talked to border agents, I’ve that worked to Border Patrol and asked them about the wall. They said the wall might delay people two hours.

“We don’t need to do the wall,” and Trump’s reply was, “Talk to Israel about that.  Israel has had to build a wall and it’s worked like a charm.” So the Democrats, with the cameras on are pushing for a clean DACA bill with no end to chain migration and no funding for the wall.  They’re asking for that, and then they want, after Trump agrees to that, if he does, comprehensive immigration reform to come after that.  Let’s JIP this a little so you can hear for yourself what’s going on.

THE PRESIDENT: … are also sixteen years old.  But I think to me a clean bill is a bill of DACA, we took care of them and we also take care of security.  That’s a very important.  And I think the Democrats want security too.  I mean, we started off with Steny saying we want security also.  Everybody wants security, and then we can go to comprehensive later on and maybe that is a longer subject and a bigger subject. I think we can get that done do but we’ll get that done at a later date.  Yes, ma’am, go ahead.

HIRONO:  Mr. President, I’m Senator Hirono from Hawaii —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know.

HIRONO: — the only immigrant serving in the United States Senate right now. I would like never better than for us to get to comprehensive immigration reform. But what I’m hearing around the table now is a commitment to revolving the DACA situation because there is a sense of urgency.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

HIRONO:  Now, you have put it out there that, uh… that you want $18 billion for a wall or else there will be no DACA.  Is that still your position?

THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.  I can build it for less, by the way.

HIRONO: But you want —

THE PRESIDENT: I must tell you, I’m looking at these prices.  Somebody said $42 billion.  This is like the aircraft carrier, started off at a billion and a half, and it’s now $18 billion.  No.  We can do it for less.  We can do a great job, we can do a great wall, but you need the wall.  And I’m now getting involved.  I like to build under budget, okay?  I like to go under budget ahead of schedule.  There’s no reason for seven years, also.  I heard the other day.  Please, don’t do that to me.

LAWMAKERS: (laughing)

THE PRESIDENT: Seven years to build the wall?

HIRONO: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: We can build the wall in one year and we could build it for much less money than what they’re talking about.  And any excess funds — and we’ll have a lot of it. Whether it’s a Wollman Rink or whether it’s any other project, I build under budget and I build ahead of schedule.  There’s no reason to ever mention seven years again, please.  I heard that; I said…

WOMAN: (unintelligible)

THE PRESIDENT: I wanted to come out with a major news conference, Tom, yesterday.  No. It can go up quickly, it can go up effectively, and we can fix a lot of the areas right now that are really satisfactory if we renovate those walls and those (unintelligible).

HIRONO: Can — can you tell us how many miles of wall you’re contemplating, whether it’s 17 million (sic) or that… or 13 million?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we’re doing a study on that right now.  But there are larges areas where you don’t need a wall because you have a mountain and you have a river. You have a violent river and you don’t need it.  Okay?

(crosstalk)

REPORTER:  — in the world, but seems to me not much of that would change here, in terms of your position, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  No, I think it’s changed.  I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with.  I am very much reliant on the people in this room.  I know most of the people on both sides.  I have a lot of respect for the people on both sides.  And my… What I approve is going to be very much reliant on what the people in this room come to me with.  I have great confidence in the people in this room. If they come to me with things that I’m not in love with I’m gonna do it because I respect them.  Thank you all very much.  Thank you.

RUSH:  Okay.  There you go.  So the meeting is pretty much concluding or getting close to it, at any rate, and you were able to hear a little bit, Trump defending the concept of the wall.  The Democrats are attacking it in this meeting and the meeting is being televised.  The meeting is being broadcast.  The Democrats are making it clear they care about the DREAMer kids and the DACA kids and that’s it, and they care about comprehensive immigration reform, and they don’t want a wall built.  You notice that…?

Some of you might be alarmed by this where Trump said, “Hey, I like everybody in this room and I can work with everybody in this room — and I know the people in this room can come up with the right thing to do.” Okay, so how does that get spun into something negative?  I don’t know what Trump’s strategy here with this is, but I do know that he’s usually two or three moves ahead of people in the whole process of negotiation.  He’s clearly trying to flatter them, not exclude them.  He is making it very difficult for them to leave this meeting and for them to say he was unsupportive, that he was not open to their ideas, that he didn’t listen to them.  They’re not gonna be able to say that.

They’re not gonna be able to say he was out of it. They’re not gonna be able to say that he didn’t know what was being discussed. Some in that room might try it. I mean, there’s some really left-wing radicals in that room, even though the cameras are rolling. Remember, the liberals get away with setting their own agenda and events, whether the cameras are there or not. They are not nearly held as accountable by the media as conservatives and Republicans are.

So even though we’ve heard how Trump treated them and we heard what he said to them, it wouldn’t surprise me if a number of them leave the meeting and insult him and talk about how dense he seemed and how distant and how “he didn’t know what we were talking about. He wasn’t even listening to us.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear some of that because if anybody in that room says it, the media has license to report it, and in the words of somebody else, thereby giving themselves a layer of distance as they continue their assaults on Trump. So we will see.

There are people I can tell you very worried on the pro-Trump side about this meeting. You’re shaking your head in there. Well, there are some. There are some Trump supporters who don’t like the way he did this meeting, and they don’t like the fact that he said he would do a DACA bill and then come back and do comprehensive. There are people that think Trump is getting rolled in this meeting and so forth. We’ll have to see. I am not of that frame of mind.

I think there is a keen brilliance in having this televised. We’ve never seen this, folks. This has not been done. Usually the media is ushered out of the room after five minutes or so where everybody claps and smiles and shakes hands and somebody says what they’re going to be talking about. The media is eventually sent packing. But they weren’t. The entire meeting took place under the watchful eye of Drive-By Media cameras.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m just gonna have some bullet point observations here on what I’ve seen, and please keep in mind that I don’t know nearly enough here to give you a comprehensive analysis of what has happened in this meeting. But the first thing, of course is the obvious observation of we’ve never seen it before. An actual meeting on a major piece of legislation between the president and congressional leaders, House and Senate, both parties. And went on and on and on.

Eventually Trump did try to kick the media out and get them out before the meeting ended, and they kept asking him questions about the wall. “Is there gonna be a wall? Is there gonna be a wall?” And Trump says there has to be a wall. There has to be a wall in any deal.

The other observation is that what happened in this meeting, we have never, in my memory of the past year of this administration, we saw total — what’s the word? — everybody in the room was getting along. There seemed to be a very civilized back and forth. President Trump was going around the room signaling out people. “I want to hear what you have to say about this,” if somebody hadn’t piped up. He said to Senator Feinstein, “What do you think about this? I want to hear what’s on your mind.”

So to the average viewer watching this, it looked like an amazing amount of cooperation. It looked like an amazing amount of civility. It looked like something totally unlike the way these kinds of things are reported. Now, some of that’s gonna make Trump supporters nervous. Trump supporters want the combative Trump. They want the Trump telling the other side how it’s gonna be. And when it comes to the wall, he did.

But the biggest element of this meeting that I think I saw in the time I had to watch it, which was not nearly all of it, he said it’s up to you, the people in this room, to put something together. Now, there are leaders from both parties and from both the House and Senate in this meeting. He said it’s up to you. He said, “I will sign whatever you send me.”

He did not say, “I’ll go through it and take a look at it and throw some things out if I don’t like ’em.” He said, “I will sign what you send me.” So what is that? Well, this is the issue that I believe got him elected. Now, many things are responsible for him being elected, but this is at the top of the heap of those reasons. This is the issue that a lot of people who didn’t particularly care for Trump held their nose and voted for him anyway, this issue.

So when he says, “I’ll sign whatever you people send me,” he said, “Up to you to put something together. I’ll sign whatever you send me.” What’s he doing there, folks? Let’s examine who runs the House? Republicans. Who runs the Senate? Republicans, by a vote, and maybe a tie, depending on the health of some of them. The Republicans have all of a sudden begun to work with Trump on his agenda.

So he says in a meeting open to the nation, a meeting being televised nationwide, a meeting that’s gonna be shown on cable news over and over and over, excerpts of it will, sound bites, video excerpts of the president appearing totally in command of the meeting, very cooperative, understanding, respectful of everybody in the room.
A picture of Trump unlike anything the Drive-Bys have reported, unlike anything being reported in the Wolff book, unlike anything in the Russian collusion story, unlike anything that some of the president’s own aides, like Steve Bannon, have said about Trump.

We had a completely different picture of Donald Trump than has been portrayed for months now in the Drive-By Media. And he says to these people, “It’s up to you to put together a bill. It’s up to you. I’ll sign whatever you send me.” So rather than me rushing in here and telling you what I think of that, which I will do at some point, I would love to know what you all think’s going on here. So we’ll try to get to some phone calls in the next hour if you want to weigh in on that.

But I imagine a lot of you were kind of quaking in your boots, “No, no, no, no, no, you can’t say that, you can’t say you’ll sign whatever they send. Those Democrats, they want amnesty for everybody and they don’t want any wall and they don’t want to end chain migration. If they send you that, you’ll sign it?”

He clearly doesn’t expect to be sent that. He told them every time he was asked, “There isn’t gonna be a deal without a wall. There isn’t gonna be a deal without chain migration ending.” But yet he says, “I’ll sign whatever you send me. I have confidence in the people in this room to come up with the solution to the problem. I’ll sign whatever you send me.” What do you think of that?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There’s one way of interpreting this that is good. There’s a number of ways of looking at this that are not so good. But the one thing that I saw the president do is distance himself from Congress. “Hey, it’s up to you people. You people come up with something, I’ll sign it.” He’s almost attempting to elevate himself above the sausage making. “You guys, whatever you do, you know, if it makes sense, I’ll sign it,” something. Well, no, he didn’t say that. He said whatever they come up with, he’ll sign.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We are at the moment continuing to discuss the open meeting the president had with lawmakers from both parties, from both houses of Congress on immigration reform.

It seems like we’re discussing what the Democrats want. It seems like we’re always discussing what they want. And that’s the first thing about this that makes me nervous. I always get nervous, I’m sure you do, too, and it’s instinctive, and it’s born of experience.

I got a note, for example, I got a note from somebody who loves Trump, just loves Trump. He said, “My gosh, they’re loving this on Fox Business, they’re loving it. They’re saying the president finally is looking cooperative and even the Democrats –” That’s the last thing. When I hear people in the media saying they love it, that’s when I start getting nervous. I’m sorry, that’s just when I start getting nervous. I don’t care if it’s Fox Business, Fox News, Fox whatever.

The next thing is, Trump went around the table asking the Democrats what they want. He wanted to hear from ’em, put ’em on record. I understand doing this with the cameras in the room. This means nobody can leave that room and tell something other than what happened. Well, they can try it. Nothing stops the Democrats from lying and nothing stops the media from helping them get away with it.

But there’s gonna be a cross-check here and it was clear that Trump was cooperative and he was open to anything they wanted. He let them make every request they wanted. And they hit him with a bull’s-eye. They said we want a clean DACA bill, which means no end to chain migration and no funding for the wall. And then we want to come back after that and we want to do comprehensive immigration reform.

And Trump said we could do that. He didn’t say we will do that. He said we could do that. Now, there has to be a reason they decided — I say “they,” Trump — there has to be a reason it was decided to conduct this meeting in front of the cameras. Why do you think, Mr. Snerdley? Hm-hm. Well, yeah, okay. There’s a third thing. Reasons for doing this. It’s not been done before. Trump has not done it. And no other president has actually had the meeting on something as big as this legislation would be in front of the media.

And what if the reason for this was the Wolff book? What if the reason for doing this was to kind of prove the Wolff book wrong? What if the reason for doing this, one of the reasons, was to provide direct evidence that so many assertions in the Wolff book are wrong? Okay. Obviously think that’s one of the reasons. You think it’s good or bad? You think it’s good. I could make the case it’s being defensive. It’s being defensive.

The media is out there it trashing you and so you say, “Okay, what can I do to stop the media trashing me?” Well, what you have to do to stop the media trashing you is start doing what the media wants. Is what the media wants what we want? No. Speaking for myself. I don’t want an America that the media does. Okay. So one possible reason, to diffuse and deflect and to render irrelevant the Wolff book. That’s not gonna happen, number one.

I don’t care how much Trump gives them. I don’t care how much respect Trump shows them. I don’t care how much of what they want Trump gives them, they’re not going to stop trying to get rid of him. They are still going to try to impeach him no matter what he does. And I’m on record saying this for as long as I’ve been saying this. There isn’t anything any Republican can do to buy them off. There isn’t anything any Republican can do to make them supportive and friendly. Nothing.

Okay. So the next reason to do it, put the Democrats on the record. The cameras are there and they’re rolling, and the microphones are on. And so the Democrats are on record now, anybody in America can find out what they really care about. Well, what I saw them say is no different than they’ve ever been saying about this. They want amnesty. They want no wall. They want the DREAMers forgiven. They don’t want anything to happen to chain migration.

They tried to talk Trump out of the wall. And if anybody thinks that’s gonna hurt them, hurt them with who? Trump supporters? Trump supporters already oppose the Democrats. You know, Trump’s saying I hope we can come up with an answer for DACA. I’m hoping that we can come to an agreement. He said, “I’ll sign whatever you send me. We’ve got some really smart people in this room who care, and I think that you all can come to an agreement.” So now Republicans are kind of asking Trump, “Well, tell us what you’ll sign.” The Republicans don’t want to be sent out of there with the message “I’ll sign what you send me.” The Republicans want to know what that is. And Trump didn’t specify it. At least he hasn’t in terms of what I’ve been able to see.

It was open-ended. “I’ll sign whatever you send me.” Some people could say that sounds like he’s passing the buck. “I’ll sign whatever you send me”? I hope it’s not what we think it is, ’cause that’s a mistake. You can’t trust Congress to do the right thing here. They’re Democrats. What they want differs from what he wants, at least according to his campaign rhetoric.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, time is gonna dwindle away here and rather than wait for things to bounce off of, I want to give you my thought on what happened here today with Trump and this meeting, and I’m gonna go out on a limb.  And a lot of you are gonna have a bit of a problem with this, but I really don’t think this meeting was about immigration today.  I don’t think that’s what this was.  I think the meeting about immigration was the thing, not immigration. I think this was a calculated move.

It was a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed rebuttal to this stupid Wolff book.  The pictures tell the tale.  Trump is in the room dominating it, controlling it.  He is cooperative.  He is open.  He’s tolerant.  He’s understanding.  He’s in total command of over 45 minutes of televised meeting on immigration.  He is totally informed on the issues.  He’s going back and forth with the Democrats on whatever mundane aspect of it they bring up.  He is in total command of his position on this.

He was firm, and he didn’t waver, and he did it while being very amiable.  It was not accidental that seated on Trump’s right was Dick Durbin and on his left was Steny Hoyer, two prominent Democrats from the Senate and the House.  They were captured by the cameras paying total, rapt attention to Trump when he spoke, and they looked totally respectful.  So after you watch this, how would you react to anything in the Wolff book characterizing Trump as just the opposite of this?  And this was the purpose of this today.

It was not about immigration.

It was to counter the Wolff book.  It was to get rid of it, it was to toss it aside, it was to rebut it.  It was to nuke it.  It was to dispel it.  It was to render it meaningless and to have it seen for what it is: A pack of lies.  Now, some people might say, “Gee, I don’t think that was good reason to do this.  You don’t want to be defensive about it.”  Well, I’m sure at the White House they’ll tell you this wasn’t a defensive move, that this was them on offense.

But somebody up there figured out, “Look, people are believing this crap in the Wolff book, and we’re gonna have to counter it,” and so the way they countered it was by doing something unprecedented: Televising an actual meeting on a serious piece of legislation. And, by the way, strip it all away, and it shows Trump eager to get a deal.  It shows Trump eagerly cooperating with everybody.

It doesn’t show Trump beating some people upside the head and telling them to shut up, it doesn’t show Trump being domineering and uncompromising.  It doesn’t show Trump as aloof or unattached or unaware.  It does all of the opposite, and that’s what the meeting was.  But I’m still gonna ask if any of you are concerned about that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll tell you what else. I think Trump trapped the Democrats. There’s no way the Democrats knew the media was gonna be in the meeting, no way. The Democrats did not have any idea that the meeting was to show off Trump at work. And that’s exactly what this meeting did. And the Democrats are trapped in there. Once it starts, there’s — you can see Durbin and Hoyer, I noticed a couple times they’re looking a little nervous. They realized what happened to them.

Trump’s in there nice as he can be, respectful, in total command, running the show, respectful, open to any idea, nowhere near deranged, unattached, uninterested, none of this boorish behavior that’s described, no senility and all that. And so Trump traps the Democrats and the media into showing him in total command. I mean, you look at it from that perspective, the thing is absolutely brilliant. They had no idea, they got sucked in, and they have been used.

Even Gloria Borger, grab sound bite 31 real quick. Gloria Borger, who is like anybody else in that town, wants Trump gone as soon as she can make it happen, said this on CNN.

BORGER: Can we just take a step back, first of all, and remark upon what we just watched. I mean, this wasn’t just cameras in the courtroom. This was cameras in the jury room during the deliberations. I have covered Washington for a very long time, and I have not seen anything like this. And I think the president deserves credit for this, because what we got to watch was people actually — and I turned to Dan at some point, and I said, “Is this real?”

RUSH: They were cooperating. They were getting along. They were crossing the aisle. They were civil. It was everything people say Washington isn’t anymore because of Trump. And the Democrats couldn’t dare leave. All they could do (imitating Trump), “Senator Feinstein, I want to hear what you think.”

“I want DACA, I want a clean DACA bill. I don’t want any end of chain migration, we’ll do comprehensive later.” Meanwhile, our caller, don’t forget, “You know, my kids have dreams, too, and I don’t hear the Democrats talking about dreams for my kids or anybody in this country anymore. The Democrats only seem to be concerned about dreams of people that might someday vote for ’em.”

You watch, folks. The Democrats, when they figure this out, are gonna be fit to be tied when they figure out what happened to them today. You talk about master negotiator pulling the Rug out from under a bunch of people that thought they were on the way to the 25th Amendment. He-he-he-he-he.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Just look at it this way, folks, if you’re nervous. What happened today really had nothing to do with immigration. He didn’t say anything today that he can’t walk back. He didn’t say anything today that he’s gonna have to walk back, either. It’s all good. In fact, it’s better than that. Wait till you see the Democrats when they figure out what just happened to them.