RUSH: Now back to the phones. I appreciate your patience and indulgence. And to Staten Island next. This is Robert. Great to have you with us, sir, on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush? How’s everything? I just wanted to say, I wanted to make a comment. I’m a union construction worker in New York City, a proud conservative my whole life. And I’m just getting a little aggravated watching the news lately and here in New York, Nydia Velazquez. They’re wringing their hands. They’re crying about people not paying their mortgages and their bills. You know, talking about the federal workers.

You know, in my 33 years in the construction business, I’ve been laid off plenty of times. Nobody cares whether we’re paying our mortgage, our bills. We gotta take care of ourselves. We gotta go get jobs, do what we do, get back to work. When we get back to work, we don’t get back pay. It’s so phony and so irritating, that they’re on… I mean, really, who cares? I really don’t care, tell you the truth. In my opinion, it’s about maybe 1.5 million — too many — federal workers.

RUSH: Hang on. Oh, yeah. I can understand your frustration. Here you are; you live in the construction business. It’s volatile. Some years, a lot of work. Some years, it’s none. And there’s nobody worried when you don’t have any work and the media’s not worried about how you’re getting along. Do you realize…? I have seen GoFundMe pages set up and food banks for federal workers. Has anybody ever set up a GoFundMe page or a food bank for you when the construction business is on a down cycle?

CALLER: Not a one.

RUSH: Not a one. Not once, not ever.

CALLER: We don’t get back pay when we get back to work, either.

RUSH: And has the media ever run around doing sob stories asking people to feel sorry for you and to do something and to hate the president because you don’t have any work in construction?

CALLER: Never.

RUSH: See, I understand totally how you feel about this, because the federal workers even get back pay. You don’t get back pay!

CALLER: No, we don’t.

RUSH: So where are you on the shutdown and all that? Are you a Trump supporter and you want him — you want him to hang in on this?

CALLER: Obviously, I’m for anybody who’s against the establishment. I can’t stand them all. Both parties, they’re both phony. The establishment wants to keep their power and they don’t care who it is. That’s why illegal immigration hurts us in the construction industry the worst, ’cause they’re driving down our wages. The Republican elite don’t care because they’ve got cheap labor, and the Democrats got it because they got the votes. So who’s left holding the bag? We are.

RUSH: Well, you know, you talk about illegal immigration. How many construction workers…? Give me a guess. How many people do you know, maybe, in construction have lost their jobs forever because of illegal aliens and cheaper labor?

CALLER: Rush… (sigh) Rush, it’s sickening. It’s sickening. You go on some job sites, job sites New York. I was on a job site in Long Island City and the carpenters didn’t any speak English. They didn’t even speak it. I ask a question, and they tell me, “No habla ingles.” This is in the big Democratic stronghold of New York City. You know where they love the working man, they love the union man? They’re so full of it; so full of it. And the people that fall for it are even more sickening, that they fall for the line. It’s a bunch of crap. A bunch of crap. We’re left to our own; there’s nobody here for us.

RUSH: And at the end of all this they accuse you of white privilege to boot.

CALLER: Well, white privilege. Meanwhile, you’re in my union, be white, black, red, green, we get the same money, get the same pay, we get the same everything. There is no baloney white privilege. We bust our rear ends and we work hard for our money. And when we’re out of work, we do what do what we gotta do to take care of our families.

RUSH: I gotcha. Robert, thanks for the call. But I’m out of time. I’m glad you waited. I appreciate your patience.