RUSH: Now, get this story. This is classic. This is just classic. It is from TheHill.com. The headline alone... Now, keep in mind everything we have learned today and everything we know is going on. We’re now gonna start flying refugees. We’re gonna go to Honduras, and we’re gonna clear kids down there to be refugees, and we’re gonna fly them back to America.
And if that goes well, we’re gonna do the same thing in Guatemala and El Salvador. We’re gonna cut out the middlemen, the coyotes. We’re gonna eliminate the trip they have to make through Mexico. We’ve got open borders everywhere, untold number of young people and adults accompanying them or whatever, are just pouring into this country left and right in the tens of thousands.
We know this is happening, and this headline appears at TheHill.com: “House Republicans Fear Backlash From Punting Border Bill to the Fall.” Yeah, see who’s in trouble here? (laughs) You got it: The Republicans! The Republicans are in trouble because of all this. “House Republicans,” it says here, “are growing anxious about leaving town for the August recess without passing a border bill,” i.e., comprehensive immigration reform.
“Ahead of a pivotal conference meeting Friday morning, rank-and-file lawmakers are openly fretting about the questions they would face from constituents if they break from legislative work without taking action to address the surge of child migrants into the United States.” This is pretty hilarious, especially coming as it does from the same media outlet… Don’t forget who this is.
This is TheHill.com, and it was only 13 days ago, July 12th, they ran a story headlined: “Immigration Reform Fizzles as Campaign Issue for Democrats.” Ah, you remember, don’t you? You remember because I made a big deal out of that, because we’ve been hearing for years and years and years that unless the Republicans adopt the Democrat comprehensive immigration reform amnesty position, they’re never gonna win the White House again.
Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, they so want the Republicans to win the White House! They so want the Republicans to do the right thing, and they’re worried. So we had this headline for all these years. We had this story for all these years that Republicans better get on board, and a bunch of Republicans would say the same thing. Jeb Bush would say, “If they don’t get on board, we’re not gonna exist as a party.”
Any number of Republicans were saying the same thing, and the Chamber of Commerce said, “If the Republicans don’t sign on for amnesty, they’re done,” and then this story came 13 days ago that the whole immigration reform story has “fizzled” as a campaign issue for Democrats. Remember how aghast I was? How can something that has been conventional wisdom for years fizzle, three months before an election to boot?
How can that happen?
The only way it can happen is if it was never true in the first place, meaning this whole folderol that the only chance the Republicans have to ever win the White House again is amnesty was a bunch of crap from the get-go that they bought into and the Chamber of Commerce bought into, because I guess they wanted to believe it. I guess their consultants had polling data that showed, “Hey, the Hispanics hate your guts!
“The only way to make the Hispanics not hate your guts is to sign on for amnesty, and I’m the consultant to tell you how to do it,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway they were buying into it. It was the law of the land, practically. It was so simple. It was just, “If the Republicans don’t sign onto this, if they don’t get on the right side, then it’s history for them.” And then, 13 days ago, “Immigration Reform Fizzles as Campaign Issue for Democrats.”
How the hell does something go away that fast? And the reason it has gone away was because of this massive onslaught we’re facing at the border because people were able to see, “My God, this is what it means!” So now, 13 days after the headline, “Immigration Reform Fizzles as Campaign Issue for Democrats,” we get, “House Republicans Fear Backlash From Punting Border Bill to the Fall.” (interruption) I know.
The latest polling data shows that 51% — and it’s more than this — 51% want to deport all of these kids that are arriving. If 51% are admitting it, it’s much higher than that. This is something you lie to a pollster about, the reverse Wilder Effect. Nobody wants to throw the kids back there, but if 51% are saying they prefer that, it’s gotta be higher.
Anyway, so all of a sudden this whole mess is reported to be a Republican problem, ’cause if they don’t pass a bill to stop it, why, there’s gonna be hell to pay. Their constituents, the Tea Party voters, the Republican Party base, they’re gonna be so mad these Republicans didn’t do something about it, there’s gonna be hell to pay. And The Hill is hoping and praying that Republican base voters will get so mad at Republicans for not doing anything about this that they’ll not vote for ’em and vote Democrat. It’s stupid! The Republicans know that any bill they pass isn’t gonna go through the Senate and Obama’s not gonna sign it.
The media would love to get the Republicans on record as coming out against the children. That’s what they’re trying to do here. “House Republicans Fear Backlash.” Maybe a couple do, and those two or three have become 435 or whatever the number of ’em is in there. This is ridiculous. “Many [Republicans] argue that if they fail to pass a bill, even one that is a total nonstarter with Democrats, theyÂ’ll give President Obama five weeks of open airtime to pound them as do-nothing obstructionists.
Oh. So Obama is waiting for the Republicans to come up with legislation that will stop this inflow that he will sign, and if they don’t, Obama is gonna pound the Republicans for obstructionism? Go right ahead. Try that. It ain’t gonna work. But try it. I would love to see him try it. So here we have a classic example of attempted media manipulation and even taunting. Now they’re taunting the Republicans and trying to shift this. It’s not a Republican responsibility. They’re shifting it to an issue that’s now an albatross around the Republicans’ neck because they aren’t doing anything about it. Republicans have much more trouble with their base than this particular instance. And they can’t assuage it with anything here. This is just classic, classic media bullying, almost.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, what The Hill is actually trying to do, in addition to everything else, they’re trying to force the Republicans to okay that $3.7 billion Obama wants to supposedly handle, in a humanitarian way, the arrival of the children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Obama wants $3.7 billion, and the Republicans are recalcitrant. So the media is trying to force the Republicans into voting. That will equate dealing with the issue. And the Hill does not report that only $25 million of that gonna is gonna be spent before the end of the year. Out of $3.7 billion, only $25 million of it has been authorized before the end of the fiscal year, which is October 1st. The rest of that money, the vast majority of the $3.7 billion — it’s a slush fund.
Obama’s asking for a slush fund. The Republicans know it’s a slush fund. Everybody knows it’s a slush fund. We don’t need $3.7 billion new dollars to spend to hang around at the border. We’ve got more money than we know what to do with in that regard. This is a slush fund for Democrat reelection efforts, is all it is, and the Republicans are being bullied and pressured into giving it to Obama under the guise that if they don’t, then they don’t care about the children. And it’s hoped that Republican base voters will take it out on Republicans.