RUSH: I think Pelosi and Schumer were walking in there expecting Trump’s surrender. You gotta examine their frame of mind, and I’m an expert in that. I’m an expert in the liberal frame of mind. I’m an expert in how liberals act and think. I’m an expert in their psychology, and I don’t have to treat a single one of them to be this expert. I have studied them more than they have studied themselves. They think they won the government back when they won the House in the midterm elections.

They think they won the power to get rid of Donald Trump via the judicial branch and the connections they have. So their agenda now is that it is just a matter of time. Trump is gone; they’re back running the show. They have, for all intents and purposes, by winning the House back. Democrats are now telling themselves that they have gotten control of Washington back after having lost it temporarily in 2016. “Trump is a lame duck. He’s not even really there.

“He’s not deserving of any respect. We’re gonna steamroller him. He has no idea what’s coming. He doesn’t know what he’s doing in the first place. He’s out of place. He should never been here! We won the House back, and so now we pretty much have a handle on everything.” So they walk up in the meeting today, and they expect Trump to be somewhat… Maybe “surrender” is a bit of a tough word. But they expected Trump to be accepting and malleable and hoping to try to mend fences.

Because in their world, that’s what happens. When you soundly defeat somebody — which they think they’ve done. They think they have soundly defeated Trump, and they think they have retaken Washington. The deep state now thinks they’re back in charge, ’cause all the rest of this — getting rid of Trump finally — is now just a fait accompli. It’s just a matter of the days on the calendar being marked off as we get closer and closer to that day when Trump is gone, and certainly not reelected.

So in their world when they vanquish somebody like this and particularly Republicans, they expect the Republican to be almost begging for forgiveness and acceptance and understanding. “Please don’t hold it against me that I tried to beat you. I’m willing to admit that you won and that I lost and now want to work together, cross the aisle, shake hands, cooperate,” blah, blah. They show up there expecting that kind of thing, because, folks, they have still not… None of them have.

They still have not endeavored to find out who Trump is, who he really is, beyond the stereotypes they’ve created of him and the cliches, and they certainly have no idea who his voters are. They just hold us all in contempt. So Trump blindsided ’em. He totally, totally blindsided ’em. A Democrat that’s been paying attention, that has even a modicum of respect, should have realized a meeting in the White House with the media and cameras in the room oftentimes ends up being televised.

That didn’t even cross their minds until it started happening, and then that’s too late to do anything about it. All Pelosi could do was mutter that it’s not… (muttering) “We — we — we need to get rid of the press. We shouldn’t be having these negotiations in the media.” Well, what? You just said, Nancy, that the House of Representatives now with you Democrats in charge it is gonna be transparent again! The Democrat control of things is never transparent.

Democrats and liberals, by definition, hide who they are and what they’re doing from public scrutiny. They do not permit it to happen. They lie about what they believe in, what they want to happen, what their agenda’s gonna be, and who they are. So Trump just totally maneuvered them and took them by total surprise and laid the land for them. (paraphrased) “It’s gonna be border security or there’s gonna be a shutdown and I’m gonna be the one to do it. I’ll happily do it. I’ll claim the credit for it.”

They didn’t know what to do because Trump framed all this in terms of border security. Now, border security is something the Democrats will say they support. But when it come time to actually do something that would promote it, you can’t find ’em. They don’t want there to be any changes in how people cross the border — by definition. They want amnesty for those that are already here illegally, and they don’t want any limits on people coming in other than the ones they impose for their own political reasons.

But nothing about what’s good for the country. Because, in their view, what’s good for them is what’s good for the country. Not the other way around. So it was fascinating to watch. And, you know, the media… Even when the Pelosi-Schumer press conference outside the White House was had, the media kept boring in on some things, and Schumer finally held up his hand and said, “Stop! Stop! No more.” Now, wait a minute.

The last time that happened, Trump said that to Jim Acosta. He got thrown out of the White House and so forth. I don’t see the media upset. I don’t see the media upset that somebody in the Democrat Party told them to stop their basic line of inquiry. So we’ll see where this goes. Again, just to review, there’s a military budget option where Trump could take some money from the massive military budget, $5 billion. Believe me, there’s $5 billion in it that he could take and have the wall built under the umbrella of national security.

Now Schumer and Pelosi are very much aware of this. So look for them to take steps to make sure Trump can’t do it by trying to earmark the expenditure of every dollar in the defense budget. But they don’t have that authority until January. They don’t run the House of Representatives and they’re not gonna run the Senate period. They don’t run the House. Pelosi’s not running anything right now. December 21st is the date of a potential government shutdown.

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RUSH: Didn’t we just have a week-long celebration of George H. W. Bush, and wasn’t he celebrated, at least by the Drive-By Media, for one specific thing? Let me see if anybody is picking up on what I’m suggesting. What do you think the one specific thing, Dawn, was that the media highlighted — nah — that’s an overall attitudinal thing. I’m thinking of a specific thing George H. W. Bush did that he was praised to the heavens for, and it was said we need more of it, we need to have much more of this to take us back to a time when our politics was friendly, noncombative, and where everybody got along.

What was it? When he broke his promise and raised taxes! George H. W. Bush was celebrated and praised to the hilt. We had a week of it for not keeping a campaign promise. Now, here comes Donald Trump, and he’s gonna put it all on the line to keep a campaign promise, build a wall, shut down the government, if necessary, and Washington thinks he’s crazy for doing it.

A lot of people are ripping into Trump for having this kind of commitment to his campaign promise, and he’s kept as many of them as he’s made. One of the most amazing aspects of the Trump presidency is how much of what he promised he has followed through on, including getting the wall built.

See how this works? George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush broke his campaign promise, “Read my lips: No new taxes,” raised taxes. One of the greatest presidents ever, we need more like him, the media said. Four full days of celebrating a president who broke his promise and did what the Democrats wanted to do. This proved bipartisanship. So there goes Trump’s chance to have a great, week-long funeral when he passes away.

Okay. We’re gonna start on the phones in Bloomington, Indiana. This is Mike. Great to have you with us, sir. Hi.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush? First off, I think you nailed it on the head. The president has nothing to lose. He should just go ahead and shut down the government. They’re gonna impeach him. They said it over and over again. So what does he have to lose? Really nothing. And the selection of the 21st, whoever put that in there, was pure genius because the entire government has been funded and paid by the 21st. So he’s got until the next Friday to get the government reopened. And they never saw it coming.

RUSH: I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the 21st. The reason the 21st is chosen is because it’s right up against Christmas, and we can’t shut down the government at Christmas. It would be mean and cruel to shut down the government at Christmas. That’s why they chose the 21st.

CALLER: Yeah, but everybody’s been paid. Everybody’s been paid. On the 14th the DOD and the DOE and associated are paid, and on the 21st everyone else is paid. The next payday isn’t ’til the following Friday.

RUSH: Oh, I see. The government employees and that kind of thing. In this case, the government shutdown is going to be affecting entitlement recipients. Even though it won’t, shutting down the government will mean at Christmastime all those that depend on uncle Santa Claus are going to be denied. There won’t be any trips down the chimney by U.S. government Uncle Sam Claus. Isn’t gonna happen because Donald Trump shut down — this is why these shutdown dates always border the Christmas holiday.

They’re intended to put pressure on Republicans not to follow through on shutting down the government. It’s Christmastime, shutting down the government, what are people gonna do? People will have no idea where to go to get anything if we shut down the government. That’s what they want attitudinally created. But I agree. Trump has got to get this done. He’s got to keep his supporters with him.

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RUSH: So Schumer shows up, along with Pelosi, and he says to Trump, “Elections have consequences, Mr. President.” He thought Trump would be back on his heels. He thought Trump would be nervous and defensive and hoping for mercy, and Trump said, “That’s right, Chuck. And that’s why the country’s doing so well. Elections have consequences. Country’s doing so well, Chuck, because I won. And I’m gonna keep doing what I was elected to do, Chuck.” Here’s Nancy Pelosi as we get this parade going.

PELOSI: We’re here to have a conversation in a careful way, so I don’t think we should have a debate in front of the press on this. But the fact is the House Republicans could bring up this bill if they had the votes immediately and set the tone for what you want.

THE PRESIDENT: If we thought we were gonna get it passed in the Senate, Nancy, we would do it immediately. We’d get it passed very easily in the House. We would get it – (interruption) Nancy, I’d have it passed in two seconds. It doesn’t matter, though, because we can’t get it passed in the Senate because we need 10 Democrat votes.

PELOSI: Well, let us have our conversation, and then we’ll meet with the press again.

RUSH: Pelosi realizes this meeting has started and the cameras are still in there, “No, no, no, we can’t do this. Let’s have our meeting, let’s have our conversation, meet with the press later.” And Trump’s pointing out, “Look. The deal you’re offering, I could get that in two seconds in the House. I don’t need you for that. I need 10 Democrats in the Senate and they’re not gonna help.” The Democrats are not interested in border security, was the theme. Trump continued.

THE PRESIDENT: Chuck, did you want to say something?

SCHUMER: Yeah. Here’s what I want to say. We have a lot of disagreements here. The Washington Post today gave you a whole lot of Pinocchio’s because they say you constantly misstate how much of the wall is built and how much is there. But that’s not the point here.

THE PRESIDENT: The Washington Post?

SCHUMER: We have a disagreement about the wall, whether it’s effective or — not on border security, but on the wall. We do not want to shut down the government. You were called 20 times to shut down the government. You say, “I want to shut down the government.” We don’t. We want to come to an agreement. If we can’t come to an agreement, we have solutions that will pass the House and Senate right now and will not shut down the government, and that’s what we’re urging you to do. Not threaten to shut down the government ’cause you — (interruption) let me just finish, ’cause you can’t get your way.

THE PRESIDENT: The last time you shut it down —

SCHUMER: Yeah. Let me say something, Mr. President. You just say, my way or we’ll shut down the government. We have a proposal that Democrats and Republicans will support to do a CR that will not shut down the government. We urge you to take it.

THE PRESIDENT: And if it’s not good border security, I won’t take it.

SCHUMER: It is very —

RUSH: That’s the bottom line. There is no border security in it. There is no wall. This is all about the wall. Trump has to do the wall. He’s got to get that done. If he can’t do it with a deal with these people he’s gonna take money from the defense budget and he’s gonna have it built through the aegis of national security. These got to do it. These people don’t want it to happen. They’re offering another continuing resolutions. What in the name of Sam Hill are we still doing with continuing resolutions?

When is somebody gonna insist that we actually have a budget? A budget with articulated spending and limits and allocations instead of these emergency continuing resolutions with the never-ending threat of a government shutdown every six months, every three months guaranteed to have one right before Christmas. And I love seeing Trump just stand up to ’em and say, “I’ll gladly shut it down, Chuck, and I’ll take the credit for it,” because the American people are sick and tired of us not resolving this issue. He’s right about that.

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RUSH: Okay, here’s the final bite. And remember, you know, Schumer and Pelosi, they go in there — this is really important to note. They go in there, and Pelosi starts preaching to Trump about how her House of Representatives is gonna be transparent, implying that the House of Representatives under Paul Ryan has not been transparent, but we Democrats, we’re gonna bring transparency back. And then what’s the first thing she wants to do? Kick the cameras out of the meeting with Trump.

And the reason she doesn’t want the cameras in there is so that she and Schumer can then go to the cameras and microphones outside the White House when the meeting is over and lie about what happened in there and create their own narrative and their own spin.

And Trump is supposedly so stupid and so dumb that he wouldn’t realize their trick strategy, blows it up on ’em by having the cameras stay in the room, the media continues to televise everything, and so they can’t spin it when they leave, although they did try. But here’s the final bite. This is Schumer. Remember, Trump is calling ’em out. He was yelling at Pelosi for a couple of minutes and Schumer was trying to get him to quiet down.

SCHUMER: Twenty times you have called for “I will shut down the government if I don’t get my wall.” None of us have said —

THE PRESIDENT: You want to know something?

SCHUMER: You’ve said it. You.

THE PRESIDENT: I’ll take it.

SCHUMER: Okay. Good.

THE PRESIDENT: You know what I’ll say? Yes, if we don’t get what we want one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through our military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.

SCHUMER: Okay, fair enough. We disagree. We disagree.

THE PRESIDENT: I am proud. And I’ll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not gonna blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down and I’m gonna shut it down for border security.

SCHUMER: We believe you.

RUSH: Now, again, this is really crucial because what the president did here, what Trump did was as best he could make it look like Pelosi and Schumer are not interested in border security. He kept throwing that up and claiming “I will shut down the government for border security.” He was trying to maneuver them into a circumstance where they were made to look like it wasn’t a concern to them. And it isn’t! Border security is not a concern, not the way you and I mean it. It’s not a concern to them. They don’t want the flow interrupted, and they certainly don’t want it reduced. They want the flow of illegal immigration to continue and expand.

And so Trump owning the shutdown, that’s a pretty bold maneuver itself, because supposedly nobody benefits from that. Why, that would be silly to shut down a government and to take credit for it. Why, we usually win by blaming the Republicans for it. And here’s Trump owning it. I guarantee you their heads were spinning in there.

And just one other minor little observation that doesn’t really mean anything, but I just noticed something here. I don’t even know if I’ve told this story. I’ve alluded to it, but I don’t know if I told details. This has to be seven or eight years ago now. I was summoned to a meeting with two senators and the founder of a well-known conservative news network. It was a dinner in New York to discuss the latest plans on the table at that time to deal with illegal immigration.

And the reason I was summoned is that I was told by the two Senators, “If you call it amnesty, you will kill it! And we wanted you to come here because what we’re proposing isn’t amnesty!” And I got the lowdown on how E-Verify was gonna work and this and that and the employer aspect of this was gonna be monitored and that whatever it was, it wasn’t amnesty. And they were trying to educate me on their plan so that I would see that it wasn’t amnesty so that I wouldn’t call it amnesty!

Well, one of the senators was Schumer. And everybody was nice. It was a very civil occasion. It was nothing combative. It was nothing insulting. But at one point Schumer got off topic, he started talking electoral politics and treating me as though I were a Republican consultant type guy, and he was using that kind of language and how the Democrats were gonna really score big, and he started talking about demographics versus districts and states and how this was gonna happen to make the Democrats win here.

And I put my hand up, “Senator, senator, hold on. I don’t look at this the way you do. All that stuff you’re talking about to me is irrelevant. I believe in ideas. I think all Americans will respond to good ideas. I don’t care if they’re black or white or Hispanic or anything. The way I go about reaching people is with ideas.”

And he threw his hands up, “Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.” I didn’t make any particular note of being fair enough, but I hear it here, and Trump is telling him what for and giving him his lowdown, “Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.” I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if that’s Schumer’s way of signaling, okay, conversation over, okay, we’re not gonna discuss it anymore or what have you.

Because everybody has ticks. Everybody has tells — and as a student of the voice and a professional practitioner of the voice and the use of words, those kinds of things I notice about people. And they are unique the way people use phrases, how often they use them and in what circumstance. You can discern intent by certain phraseology if it’s used routinely and regularly in certain circumstances. I haven’t formed any conclusions yet on Schumer, and it may be nothing at all here. I’m just pointing out here that I was massively disagreeing with him.

He was telling me how Democrats are gonna win everything and why because all of these demographic facts and figures and population shifts and the women vote — black women, white women, suburban women. I said, “Senator, I don’t look at it that way. I mean, I do a radio show and I’m not trying to trying to target niche audiences here and there. You know, getting votes is a much different thing than getting an audience,” I told him. He said, “Fair enough, fair enough,” and he stopped what he was talking about.

You know, there was a moment I was worried that I have let too much out of the bag in terms of how I do what I do, ’cause these people think that I do whatever I do and they’re dead wrong about how and why and why it works — and that’s fine. I’d rather keep them ignorant about it. Their arrogance is such they never admit to themselves that they don’t know how I do what I do or why, and I worried for a minute that I was maybe too informative.

Because once you tell people how you operate, you can arm them to oppose you. I don’t think it was the case, but I found it interesting that his view of the country was not really of people. It was of groups and skin color and as many different demographic delineations as he could make, versus my view of the country as just one giant sea of humanity and that we’re all human beings and we can all be reached with decent ideas, firm connections, and so forth. I found it fascinating in that regard — and I still did continue to call it “amnesty” afterwards ’cause it was.

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RUSH: Let me grab Joe here in Seneca, Pennsylvania. I’m glad you called, sir, and glad you waited. Hi! What’s happening? What’s shaking?

CALLER: Thank you for taking the call. Merry Christmas. I just wanted to make a comment about the Pelosi-Schumer meeting. I don’t understand how on both sides of our government they can’t understand that the people are gonna stand up against this and they’re gonna vote in 2020, and I feel they’re gonna vote both a lot of Republicans and Democrats out of office, I hope. Do you have any comments on how we might get that across to them?

RUSH: Uhhh, yeah. I don’t think they care, until four or five months of the election year, what you think when you get down to brass tacks. The last six months before an election, they’ll do everything they can to make you think they care and that they’re gonna listen to you, but they don’t care. You especially! (chuckles) Trump’s election is proof positive. The objective here is to ignore you! The objective here is to pretend that 2016 didn’t happen!

The objective here is to get rid of the winner and to overturn the results of 2016. They don’t listen to you. These people don’t look at the will of the people as being the directive for the nation. You’re to be tricked. You’re to be fooled. You are to be cajoled and so forth. But when the election’s over… They already think, by the way, that they’ve won the presidency in 2020. They’ve already got themselves convinced that everybody hates Trump and the Republicans.

They’re already thinking that way.