{"id":250966,"date":"2017-10-16T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=250966"},"modified":"2017-10-17T16:13:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T20:13:18","slug":"trumps-week-of-overturning-obama-on-things-like-health-care-and-bergdahl-is-why-he-was-elected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2017\/10\/16\/trumps-week-of-overturning-obama-on-things-like-health-care-and-bergdahl-is-why-he-was-elected\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Week of Overturning Obama on Things Like Health Care and Bergdahl Is Why He Was Elected"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Trump continues… Last week… I mentioned this on Friday. And, you know, I didn\u2019t spend enough time on it. I mentioned it in the last half hour of the program. Trump\u2019s week last week was precisely why he was elected, and his week last week, not just in blowing up all of the Obama legacy — and the Drive-Bys are caterwauling about this. Obamacare, the subsidies to the insurance companies. The left is predictably outraged, claiming, “President Trump is going to kill people! People are going to die,” even though all that\u2019s happened here is that Trump has inserted the rule of law in this.<\/p>\n

\"\"Obama\u2019s executive action ordering federal government subsidies and paybacks to insurance companies for paying for premiums for poor people was unconstitutional. It is illegal. All Trump did was say so. He simply said (paraphrased), “It\u2019s unconstitutional, and I am issuing an executive order here that removes these subsidies,” and now we\u2019re back within the confines of the Constitution. You know what the key element of this is? The Democrats passed Obamacare knowing full well that it could not sustain itself as written. So Obama immediately began issuing executive orders that consisted of waivers for donors and other Democrats — fundraisers and bundlers.<\/p>\n

They were waived, they were given waivers from the stifling circumstances imposed by Obamacare, and the second thing, these subsidies that the insurance companies were offered, which… Both of these things Obama did were unconstitutional, but that is not the point. Well, it is the point. But the primary point is that the law as written could not sustain itself. The law as written doomed Obamacare financially, politically. It did not have legs. There was no solid foundation. So here came the waivers and here came the executive order authorizing subsidies to insurance companies.<\/p>\n

What Trump has done has taken Obamacare now back within the confines of the rule of law, whereby and wherein it will implode. My buddy Andy McCarthy had a great piece at National Review<\/a> Saturday pointing out, essentially, that this is how you kill Obamacare. You keep it within the confines of the law. A lawful enforcement and interpretation of Obamacare dooms it. It can\u2019t survive without Obama\u2019s executive actions and orders which set the law and the Constitution aside. So what Trump has actually done here… Now Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are running around screaming bloody murder that this is gonna be cold-hearted and mean-spirited to the poor and everything.<\/p>\n

(laughing) Over the insurance company bailouts. But, anyway, simply by making it legal — we don\u2019t need the Republicans to pass legislation; we don\u2019t need the Senate to pass legislation, House or Senate — the law itself will implode and crater simply because it\u2019s exemptions from the law have been eliminated. Isn\u2019t that fascinating? That\u2019s all it ever took. But Trump decided that he would try to work with the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats — Chuck and Nancy and Mitch and Paul — to see if they can come up with a compromise legislatively that would do all this. But they couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now, people are also caterwauling, “Trump can\u2019t do this! He can\u2019t do this! It\u2019s Obama\u2019s.” Yes, he can. He can dismantle everything Obama did by virtue of executive order. Obama… You know, people talk about how much popularity he had, how loved he was. Obama couldn\u2019t get, probably, 75% of his agenda, if it requires legislation. That\u2019s why so much was done with executive orders and executive action. But it wasn\u2019t just Obamacare. Trump has totally blown up the Obama legacy on climate change and environmentalism. He\u2019s blown up the Obama legacy on the Iran deal. In one week, folks!<\/p>\n

It was profound. It was exactly why Trump was elected, and we\u2019ve been bombarded all weekend with all the pundits complaining about it — Trump undoing Obama\u2019s legacy — because in their mind whatever Obama did, legal or not, was good and was supportive and should have never been challenged. And whatever Trump is doing is absolutely wrong and incorrect. By the way, I finally heard — and I can\u2019t remember who it is. But I felt so validated because I saw somebody… I really wish I could remember who it was. It might have been this morning; it might have been sometime last night.<\/p>\n

But somebody pointed out… It was Michael Goodwin (that\u2019s who it was) at the New York Post. He was on Fox & Friends today and was talking to Steve Doocy. He pointed out something that I have been saying for months now that we don\u2019t get news anymore, that what the media is is nothing other than the advancement of the Obama agenda, the protection of the Obama agenda, or the destruction of Trump. A combination of those things. But there isn\u2019t any news anymore. Goodwin made the point… Now, he was talking about it within the context of the only thing news media is doing is criticizing Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"They are not analyzing any Trump proposal, any Trump policy. They are not saying one thing good about anything Trump is doing, and, as such, there is no news anymore. Right on! There isn\u2019t any news, and there hasn\u2019t been any news, and it predates the way the media has been dealing with Trump. But I felt really validated by that. Now, there\u2019s one other thing here that Trump has “undone,” if you will. We\u2019ve had Obamacare, the Iran deal, climate change, a couple of other things — and now another aspect of Obama\u2019s legacy is being undone with Bowe Bergdahl pleading guilty to desertion. Now, I know some of you remember this.<\/p>\n

It seems like it was only yesterday that Susan Rice in the Obama Regime was hailing Bergdahl as a hero and attacking anybody who would dare question his record or complain about the lives lost trying to recover him or even complain about giving back to the Taliban 5 of their top leaders for a deserter. Obama had seen parents to the White House, and they were singing the praises — the Obama administration was singing the praises — of a military deserter. And Trump, while this was happening, was blasting Bergdahl, blasting Obama\u2019s comments about Bergdahl, who, once again, Trump is turning out to have been right from the start.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: By the way, speaking of late-night comedians, grab… What is this? Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel, number 12. Grab know grab number 11 and 12. I want to go back… Jimmy Kimmel has lost 30% of his audience ever since he started becoming the mouthpiece for Chuck You Schumer on health care, and that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened. Jimmy Kimmel, left to his own devices, doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about when it comes to public policy on anything. Be it Obamacare, be it tax reform, be it climate change, Jimmy Kimmel doesn\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a jokester. He had to get help, and he got it from Chuck Schumer\u2019s office. So when he goes on his program to start talking about the unfairness and the inequality of the American health care system, he got his numbers, he got his stats, he got his talking points from the office of Chuck Schumer. Pure and simple. Now he\u2019s become noted and he\u2019s being heralded in the Drive-By Media as the sensible voice against Trump and whatever he\u2019s doing to Obamacare. In the process, Jimmy Kimmel has become a smaller version of the NFL.<\/p>\n

He has lost 30% of his audience. Jimmy Kimmel says, “I don\u2019t care. I\u2019m not in this for numbers,” which is a crock. It\u2019s a total crock. Don\u2019t believe anybody in media who tells you that the ratings don\u2019t matter, either to them or to their network or to their bosses or to their advertising sales team. To say that is sophistry and it\u2019s a poor excuse. Jimmy Kimmel has lost 30% of his audience. It is assumed that the 30% he\u2019s lost is Republicans. Jimmy Kimmel says (paraphrased), “That\u2019s fine with me. I don\u2019t care. I would never have a conversation with those people anyway.”<\/p>\n

Now, if I\u2019m an old schooler when it comes to broadcasting, and one of the things that I grew up knowing instinctively and learning is that you\u2019re never proud losing audience. And your bosses are never gonna pat you on the back for it. Now, publicly, as partisan as our politics have become, that might be a public pose. But believe me: Where the bean counters live, this is not cool. If you\u2019re gonna have an audience where some of the people don\u2019t like you or dislike you, you\u2019ve gotta find a way to keep them watching or keep them listening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But to say you don\u2019t care and that you\u2019re not interested, because those people you couldn\u2019t talk to anyway? You may as well be admitting that whatever business you\u2019re in, it isn\u2019t a mass-appeal business. And when did late-night comedy become so niche? I want to remind you of something. Let\u2019s go back. This is last Wednesday. I made a point<\/a>. We had a caller who suggested that if you really want to damage these guys, then conservatives ought to stop watching, and that would teach \u2019em a lesson.<\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: Those audiences are tuning in for what those hosts are providing. The people that watch Real Time or that tune into these late-night shows have a certain expectation that they\u2019re gonna have their anger validated. Because I submit to you that left-wing comedy today is not funny. It\u2019s rooted in anger and rage — and, if I dare say, hatred. And they\u2019ve built their audiences on that basis. So you thinking, “Well, I\u2019m not gonna watch,” they\u2019re happy. It not gonna bother them at all. They wish you would watch so that they could offend you but the fact that they think they\u2019re hurting you by not watching? No.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, that them. But their bosses? That\u2019s an entirely different thing. Don\u2019t think for a moment that when the overnights come in, they\u2019re not comparing Kimmel to the CBS show and to the NBC show at the same time. They\u2019re comparing Kimmel to everything that\u2019s on, and they don\u2019t want to be in fourth place! No matter what they tell you, they don\u2019t want to be in fourth place. Now, in the news business, it\u2019s a little bit different.<\/p>\n

CNN\u2019s happy to be in the cellar if it means they got there being loyal to the cause. The cocktail invitations will continue and they\u2019ll get all kinds of awards, but they still won\u2019t have any audience. Now, given what you just were reminded what I said last week, here is Tracy Smith on CBS Sunday Morning interviewing Kimmel about his recent rants about Republican politicians and health care reform. The question: “It\u2019s a bit of a risk that you\u2019re talking about that stuff, Jimmy. You might lose the audience, don\u2019t you think?”<\/p>\n

KIMMEL: Three years ago, I was like equally liked by Republicans and Democrats, and then (snickering) the Republican numbers went way down like 30% or whatever — and, you know, as a talk show host, that\u2019s not ideal, but I — I would do it again in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n