{"id":241069,"date":"2017-07-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=241069"},"modified":"2017-07-19T16:13:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T20:13:09","slug":"the-establishment-doesnt-want-to-implement-the-trump-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2017\/07\/18\/the-establishment-doesnt-want-to-implement-the-trump-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"The Establishment Doesn\u2019t Want to Implement the Trump Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: So I\u2019m sitting at home last night minding my own business, not bothering anybody. In fact, the only thing bothering anybody was the cat bothering me, mad at me that I was gone for three days. You can tell when the cat gets mad at you. Anyway, about the time the news broke that the Senate had failed at their repeal Obamacare vote, I started getting a slew of email messages from people that totally dumbfounded me.<\/p>\n

I started getting email: “This is great! This is great! Now they\u2019re gonna vote to repeal it and have a two-year period of time to replace it. That\u2019s gonna carry us through the 2018 midterms, and Obamacare premiums are gonna continue to skyrocket and people are gonna blame Obama and we\u2019re gonna win everything again in 2018.”<\/p>\n

\"\"And I look at this, and I said, “What planet are these people on?” And then I start asking, “What am I missing?” Because I kept getting these emails. I must have gotten five of these emails from people. “This is great, we\u2019re finally gonna vote to repeal it and that\u2019s gonna take us through the 2018 election cycle with no Obamacare in place. And that means it\u2019s gonna continue to implode and the Democrats gonna get the blame.” And I was caught by one thing in every one of these emails that literally dumbfounded me.<\/p>\n

I wrote \u2019em all back. I said, “Would you please share with me the evidence that you have that they\u2019re going to vote to repeal it? Why in the world do you think that\u2019s automatic?” “Well,” they wrote back, “it\u2019s easy to repeal it when you don\u2019t have to couple it with a replacement bill.” I said, “Is there evidence for this?” And then I started converting them. And I could see in succeeding emails that their optimism started fading. Which, look, I hate being the guy that does that, but I really was shocked that that was the original reaction people had to the bill failing in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t blame \u2019em for wanting to see the opportunity, and clearly there is an opportunity there. What I don\u2019t see — and I addressed this yesterday — the reason we are here, folks, the reason we\u2019re talking about this is that it is abundantly clear, it\u2019s just a matter of whether or not you wanted to admit it to yourself or not, it is abundantly clear that the career Republicans in Washington don\u2019t want to touch Obamacare. They don\u2019t want to repeal it. And they don\u2019t want to do tax reform. And they don\u2019t want to build a wall. They don\u2019t want to do any of the Trump agenda. The Democrats, the Republicans, it doesn\u2019t matter what the party divisions are, because we\u2019re really not talking about that.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about the elite club known as the establishment. There just has never been — look, I don\u2019t like doing See, I Told You So\u2019s, because it sounds snarky and arrogant, and I don\u2019t ever want to come across that way, but how in the world has this not been seen for what it is? Since the moment Donald Trump was elected you could see that the establishment began to circle the wagons and there was no way this guy was gonna be allowed to triumph on anything. There was no way that this establishment was going to permit an outsider to come in and clean house and show how Washington can work and blow their cover for the last how many decades.<\/p>\n

Now, don\u2019t misunderstand; I am not saying it can\u2019t be done. I\u2019m saying they weren\u2019t going to help this along. They were not going to contribute. They were not gonna make this easy for Trump. It has never been about Trump unifying the Republican Party in order to beat the Democrats, and that\u2019s been the mistake. That\u2019s not the fight here. The fight is not Republican versus Democrat. The fight is Donald Trump and his cadre and you, the Trump base, versus the Washington establishment. It has always been that and nothing more.<\/p>\n

And, frankly, I think one of the problems has been that there aren\u2019t enough people in the Trump White House who understand that that\u2019s the way the table\u2019s set. I think there\u2019s a lot of career people in there who think the fight is the traditional fight between parties, and taken on that basis, that all plays out, and that\u2019s not at all what has been going on here. We\u2019re in the midst of a silent coup. These people are trying to take this president out, and everybody understands that. So why, in that circumstance, do you think that the same people trying to destroy Donald Trump are gonna help him get rid of Obamacare, are gonna help him reform the tax code?<\/p>\n

\"\"They\u2019re not. They are going to have to be defeated, not worked with. There isn\u2019t any cooperation. Folks, this is so abundantly clear, it\u2019s frustrating. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate seven times passed legislation to repeal Obamacare, and on a number of those occasions, the bills were actually sent to Obama where he vetoed them. The point is, it was not difficult to get enough votes to pass that legislation, because they were safe. They knew that it would never happen.<\/p>\n

So they were able to make these show votes to convince voters that they were really oriented toward this direction getting rid of Obamacare knowing all the while it would never happen, they\u2019d never have to deal it \u2019cause O was never gonna sign it. Now, for the last six months they can\u2019t even agree to legislation that they have previously authored and passed seven times. It\u2019s not hard to see what is going on here.<\/p>\n

You have to understand something: Everything in Washington from the Republicans — the only exemption here is conservatives, genuine conservatives in Washington. And by that I don\u2019t mean everybody who claims to be a conservative. With the exemption of genuine conservatives in Washington, everything in that town is seen through the eyes of the left. And if you don\u2019t understand that, and you\u2019re in Washington, you\u2019re never going to be on the same battlefield that these people are on.<\/p>\n

When people say, “Well, the Republicans are afraid of to do X \u2019cause of what the media\u2019s gonna say about it,” they are seeing the world through the eyes of the left. They\u2019re not seeing it through their own eyes using their own ideology and their own beliefs and principles. They\u2019re looking at everything through the eyes of the left.<\/p>\n

When the media reports stories and makes it sound like everybody in America agrees with their point, that\u2019s what I mean when I say everything is seen through the eyes of the left. The sad thing is that includes most — not all — most Republicans.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I want to take you back, just to illustrate this point, to December 16th. I could quote myself, I could read what I said, but I want you to actually hear me say it from all the way back in the middle of December, 2016.<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: President Trump has been running around, “We\u2019re gonna repeal Obamacare. We\u2019re gonna replace it.” The Republicans have said, “We\u2019re gonna repeal and replace it.” People believe that Trump is gonna do that, but that\u2019s only the beginning. Repealing it is one thing, but then there\u2019s that word “replace,” and that\u2019s where all of the potential danger resides. Repeal and replace. Now, as the free market advocate I am, what do you mean “replace”? Just get rid of this monstrosity.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Just get rid of it. That\u2019s what you voted for. You voted to get rid of it. There is nobody that voted for Donald Trump that also meant for the federal government to run one-fifth of the U.S. economy or sixth, depending on how you do your math.<\/p>\n

The federal government can\u2019t even regulate the building of buildings! The federal government can\u2019t do anything! You would never hire them to do anything. You wouldn\u2019t hire them to build your house — you wouldn\u2019t — and yet here we are thinking the American people want the government to run their health care? There is no way. Liberal Democrats do \u2019cause they\u2019re socialists, and they think it\u2019s fairness and equality. And it is. It\u2019s everybody\u2019s equally miserable!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s everybody\u2019s mired equally in failure! There isn\u2019t a single sentence, there isn\u2019t a single bit of evidence, there isn\u2019t a single example of socialism working anywhere in the world — and by “working,” I mean meeting its promises. The people that elected Trump say, “Get rid of it!” But, folks, I\u2019ve got the sound bites coming up. The Republicans are saying, “I — I — I don\u2019t want to get rid of it. Too many governors and too many people have come to enjoy and expect the benefits.” The benefits! The benefits of Obamacare! The benefits. What are the benefits of Obamacare?<\/p>\n

\"\"And then over here you have the CBO score which says if there\u2019s no Obamacare, 32 million Americans lose their health insurance. That means 32 million Americans die! Just a full-fledged bottle of crap is what this is. There aren\u2019t gonna be 32 million Americans die if we repeal Obamacare. The American economy is gonna improve. The American free market — which is where miracles happen — is gonna come in and finally salvage health care and make it sensible and affordable and efficient, like the market always does. But we don\u2019t trust the market!<\/p>\n

Yes, we trust the government, a government filled with people that never been in this kind of world or experience and don\u2019t know it. Obama\u2019s never had a single day of employment in the health care industry, yet he has all the answers. Obama maybe worked a week at a law firm where he considered himself to be a spy. It\u2019s so abundantly clear to me that Trump is not going to get any assistance on his agenda. He\u2019s going to have to bludgeon (politically, of course) opposition into defeat.<\/p>\n

This brings into focus the role of public opinion. I had another person send me a text today, as opposed to an email, and the question was, “When will the public wake up? When will the public wake up and realize what\u2019s going on, and what will be the result?” I had to write back, and I had to be honest. “The public waking up won\u2019t matter. The GOP public in the counties that elected Trump already did wake up, and they caused Trump to win. But do you think they\u2019re having any influence on the outcome of events?”<\/p>\n

The only thing the public right now has any influence over is the outcome of elections. That\u2019s what they can get past the Russian influence. (I\u2019m just teasing. I\u2019m just stirring the excrement out there.) I\u2019m serious! The public, public opinion? Yep, when it comes to elections, that matters. But that\u2019s when it stops. You think these people in the establishment are paying a scant bit of attention to what the public thinks? They\u2019re not. They hold the public in contempt. In their view, the public doesn\u2019t know enough to know the right thing.<\/p>\n

The public doesn\u2019t know enough to have good judgment. The public doesn\u2019t know anything, and they\u2019re not unified, and the public doesn\u2019t have enough money to outspend the lobbyists and donors inside Washington who do have the money to influence the outcome of events. Yet all of this could be overcome. I know I\u2019m painting a picture here that sounds pessimistic, but the fact that Trump won the election proves this can be overcome. But you gotta know who the enemy is. You gotta know where to take the battle and fight (chuckles) and I\u2019m sorry, investing in the Republican leadership to carry your water? (laughing) Who ever thought that would work?<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: How do I know this? Because I play golf<\/a>. I am fully familiar with the psychology of elite membership clubs, and I\u2019m telling you I understand exactly what\u2019s going on with the establishment here in Washington, D.C. Folks, you don\u2019t have to be an expert in it. This is just common sense. Understand something. Washington, D.C. is the wealthiest town in the world. More money is collected there, spent there, allocated there. More money than anywhere in the world. That makes it the most powerful city in the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The people that live there, the people that make their careers there have as their objective to get their hands on as much of that money — your tax dollars and whatever the government earns selling arms and weapons and so forth and whatever else. The objective is to get as much of that money as they can for themselves and their clients. It\u2019s not to defend and protect the Constitution. It\u2019s not Civics 101. It\u2019s not about separation of powers. It\u2019s about pursuit of money. It\u2019s natural human emotion, behavior, tendencies. Membership in this club is very, very, very small, and it\u2019s very, very controlled.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not gonna permit just anybody that wants to to get in that club and join the pursuit of that money or determine how it\u2019s spent or determine how it\u2019s allocated, and that\u2019s exactly who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump would never be admitted to this group. Donald Trump… If he applied for membership in the, quote, unquote, “establishment,” Trump would never be admitted, if there were such things as admissions and applications. And yet he\u2019s found himself in the most powerful position in it. This has been met with tremendous resentment, anger, fear, loathing, hatred.<\/p>\n

Particularly when what Trump said on the campaign trail was a clear signal that his intention was to drain the place<\/a>. Well, the people that have enjoyed exclusive membership in this elite club known as the establishment are just not gonna sit there and let some outsider come in and blow it all up, and that\u2019s what you\u2019ve seen for the past seven or eight months. You have seen it, whether it\u2019s Obama intelligence people embedded in the deep state, whether it\u2019s Obama administration officials unmasking Trump people, whether it\u2019s the media.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Whoever and everybody that has been involved in the undermining and the sabotaging of Donald Trump has been doing so on the basis of protecting the elite membership of the establishment in Washington, D.C. Membership includes media. Membership includes elected officials, but not all of them. Not every elected official is a member of the establishment. Some of them are conservatives, and they\u2019re not permitted. They live there and they work there, but they\u2019re not in the establishment. Everybody in the media is for the most part. There are a few exceptions there too. Think tank-ery, you name it.<\/p>\n

The whole town is built around the existence of this establishment. Harvard and Yale are feeder colleges to educate future members of this establishment. Law schools and journalism schools ditto. The idea of an outsider — particularly one that the elite considers a pig — coming in here and winning and overturning it? There is just no way, folks. They\u2019re sure not gonna permit it. Republicans, Democrats, whatever. So while they put on a show of the argument being Republican versus Democrat, the president versus Democrats, that\u2019s not what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

This is the elite membership of the establishment unifying to get rid of Donald Trump and make sure that nothing of his announced agenda happens. No wall, no tax reform, no immigration reform of substance, and certainly no repealing of Obamacare. Not all members of the establishment are equally powerful. There are those who run it. You don\u2019t know who they are. They don\u2019t seek office. They\u2019re not officeholders. They are the chess players, the puppeteers.<\/p>\n

These are the people who assign roles. These are the people who determine how much money from the pile goes where, how much they get, and they then have the power (because of their ability to disburse the money), who gets it and therefore who remains loyal to the power and the elite club known as the establishment. They\u2019re all aligned and unified now to deny Donald Trump — and if they can, to sabotage his presidency. They don\u2019t care about impeachment. Just paralyze him. This has been from day one.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

\"\"RUSH: I want to go to the audio sound bites. Mike Lee is one of the Republicans who announced you can\u2019t vote for the thing, along with three others. There are four senators now that are not gonna vote for it. That means it\u2019s 48 for and 52 opposed. Mike Lee is one of them. He was on Fox this morning. The anchor Jon Scott said, “Okay, it\u2019s my understanding Trump was meeting with some of your fellow Republican senators in the White House having dinner trying to push forward with support for the Senate bill, and then you and Senator Jerry Moran came out with your opposition essentially blew up the chance for passage. Why do it? Why announce your opposition to this?”<\/p>\n

LEE: I\u2019ve been studying this bill — which was first released to us on Thursday — over the weekend. What I concluded over the weekend is this bill doesn\u2019t do enough to comply with the promise Republicans have been making for the last seven years. Every Republican who\u2019s campaigned for any federal office who has campaigned on the promise of repealing Obamacare. Obamacare has made health care affordable and inaccessible. We\u2019ve gotta undo it. It\u2019s what we promised for seven years. Now we have to do it. This bill didn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This bill didn\u2019t repeal Obamacare — and it didn\u2019t. It doesn\u2019t repeal Obamacare. At best, this bill would lower premiums somewhat for a certain period of time. But even that is not for certain. But there clearly is no repeal here, and Mike Lee doesn\u2019t want to put his name to it and be a hypocrite and have to go back home and explain why he spent all these years campaigning for repealing Obamacare and ultimately voted to maintain it. Jon Scott then said, “Mitch McConnell has said he\u2019s gonna call for a vote that simply repeals Obamacare like the one that passed the Senate in 2015. Would you vote for that?”<\/p>\n

LEE: I will vote for any bill to repeal Obamacare. What we do matters, and this is what I have been calling for for months, is that I would love to be able to repeal Obamacare. We bring up a bill that does that and only that, let\u2019s see if we can get that passed. I think it\u2019s an important step forward and then we can decide what comes next after that\u2019s passed. It would surprise me if we were not able to do that. That would be a sad reflection on our party given that it\u2019s what we have campaigned on for the last seven years. And it\u2019s what we ought to do first.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Bingo! Why didn\u2019t they do it first and why can\u2019t they do it now? The answers here are not complicated. And he\u2019s right, the Republicans campaigned on it. You know, you would have to conclude some things here. Let\u2019s take some things that we know. The Republicans in the House and Senate have campaigned year in and year out since 2010 promising to repeal Obamacare. And from 2010 to 2017 they passed five, six, seven different repeal Obamacare bills, and they sent them up to the White House where they were vetoed.<\/p>\n

\"\"So they\u2019ve done it. They campaigned saying they were gonna do it, and they did it. Now when they run the show, they can\u2019t do it. For some reason now, “Well, we can\u2019t take the benefits away from the governors and some people, no, we can\u2019t — it\u2019s too entrenched and entitled, we can\u2019t do it. It\u2019s been the law of the land for too many years. We just can\u2019t take it away.” What do they think\u2019s gonna happen to them when it\u2019s reelection time? What are they thinking?<\/p>\n

In the real world, they would be scared to death to be such hypocrites. To openly pass legislation that repeals it, knowing it isn\u2019t gonna happen, and in the campaign promising to do it for real if they get control of the House and Senate. Then they don\u2019t, and they then go out for reelection, what do they expect is going to happen? Do they think the public\u2019s gonna forget? Do they think voters are not gonna mind? Do they think voters are gonna understand why they couldn\u2019t do it?<\/p>\n

My point, something matters more to them than what they\u2019re going to face during reelection. They are willing to incur the wrath of the voters by failing to repeal it after promising to do so. They would rather incur the wrath of voters than to face whatever else it is that greets them if they do it. They\u2019re afraid to do it. They\u2019re afraid to repeal it. Why? Afraid of what? Who are they afraid of? What in the world has them more frightened than facing you on the reelection campaign trail? You answer that question, we answer that question, and we will know a lot more than we know now.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: We go to Fort Worth. It\u2019s Elizabeth. Welcome to the program. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It\u2019s good to talk with you. I wanted to agree with you but take your point one further. You\u2019re talking about the animosity between all the Republicans or the ivy elitists versus Trump. Now, actually they\u2019re mirroring how they really feel about their constituents. It\u2019s just being displaced on Trump. And I think that the voters\u2019 memories are so intuitive; that\u2019s what brought us Trump. They do remember.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I know. That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And the best way to ensure this health care be the best that it is — you\u2019ve stated this before, but it\u2019s worthy to state it a second time — is to make them be put on the exact same plan. Repeal it and then rally the base and make them be on the exact same plan we are.<\/p>\n

RUSH: One of the things that was accomplished here is they did exempt themselves from whatever they were gonna pass. They did. Last week, they exempted themselves from whatever ended up being the health care law of the land.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And that\u2019s the anger. You see? When we hear about that, we get even more angry, and it only makes Trump more formidable. Unfortunately, the people in Washington have been so acclimated to their own lifestyle, they fail to know what the temperature is outside.<\/p>\n

RUSH: They don\u2019t care. It\u2019s more than they don\u2019t know. When they find out what it is, they mock it, they make fun of it, or they ignore it. They don\u2019t care. This is the thing. The elite establishment does not have its roots in the Constitution. It doesn\u2019t have its roots in the American founding or in the separation of powers or any of the rule of law, none of that, none of the things that really are the glue that hold the country together. That\u2019s not who they are. They are purposely, they are expressly established to be immune from all of those constraints. That\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

\"\"CALLER: (unintelligible) — to in a way that the ivy greed group has been trained for takeovers rather than take-throughs? And Trump\u2019s business acumen has been into establishing business to take business from one point to another, from start to finish, start to success. This group of people, like you said, they don\u2019t care, but they\u2019ve been trained for takeovers. The sad part is with their none constitutionality thought is that it\u2019s all predicated on the very voters that put them in.<\/p>\n

We saw this when Boehner and all of the others got in because of Obama, and he was made House speaker. He should have been on his knees instead of crying in gratitude, he should have been on his knees humbled enough to the very Republican voters, because they\u2019re not the ones that voted him in. He got in because we voted against Obama. And that turnover in 2010 wasn\u2019t a reflection of Republican accolades. It was Democrat offsets.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lived in Kentucky for 12 years. I\u2019ve lived in Arizona. I\u2019ve been under McCain. I\u2019ve been under McConnell. I\u2019ve been in Florida. And it\u2019s the same thing. But you asked a very important question. You said, what\u2019s the answer to this? They\u2019re not afraid of the answer. They\u2019re afraid of the questions. Quite frankly, they\u2019re not smart enough to put something together. They\u2019re really not. We\u2019d be in a better position to hand this over to Walmart and have it become Walmed, you know, or Home Depot or Target —<\/p>\n