{"id":268746,"date":"2018-03-23T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T20:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=268746"},"modified":"2018-03-26T16:33:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T20:33:01","slug":"cant-sign-budget-mr-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/23\/cant-sign-budget-mr-president\/","title":{"rendered":"This Budget Was Designed to End the Trump Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I do not know how the president can sign this budget. Wait \u2019til you hear — and you may have heard some of it. But wait \u2019til you hear what\u2019s in this budget. When you hear what\u2019s in this budget, it will become crystal clear what the purpose of this budget is. Think of this budget as a branch office of the Mueller investigation trying to throw Trump out of office.<\/p>\n

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it\u2019s Open Line Friday!<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, I\u2019m telling you, it\u2019s the deep state, I don\u2019t care where you go, it\u2019s the establishment trying to get rid of Donald Trump any which way they can. And there is no question — just wait \u2019til you hear it. You know what? I\u2019m gonna stop characterizing it and I\u2019m just gonna give you some stuff, and you will understand why I, practically alone yesterday, was suggesting that this thing be vetoed. And do you remember why I said it should be vetoed?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even before I had gotten time to get into the nuts and bolts of this it was patently obvious to me that this budget is designed to separate Trump voters from Trump. This budget is designed to make Trump voters think that Trump\u2019s presidency is irrelevant. This budget is designed to make Trump voters concluded, “You know what? There isn\u2019t gonna be a wall and there isn\u2019t gonna be anything serious on immigration and so having Trump be president is meaningless.”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what this budget is designed to make you think, but after it\u2019s signed into law. It\u2019s 2,200 pages. There is no way anybody could have read all of it and digested it in the limited time they had before the vote.<\/p>\n

Greetings, folks. Rush Limbaugh, Open Line Friday. Whatever you want to talk about is fine. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. And if you want to send an email, it\u2019s ElRushbo@eibnet.us.<\/p>\n

So the president is threatening to veto the omnibus budget deal over the lack of funding for the wall and the fact that the Democrats don\u2019t care about the DACA fix. Their baby — and they don\u2019t care about it. Mr. President, that\u2019s chump change compared to the other reasons why you should veto this thing.<\/p>\n

Now, the Drive-Bys and a number of people, “He can\u2019t veto, he can\u2019t veto it. Many members have already gone home and are traveling internationally on the beginning of their two week recess vacation.” Oh, that\u2019s why he can\u2019t veto it. Folks, this budget is a slap in the face. This budget is the Washington establishment, both parties, telling Donald Trump to go to hell, is what this budget is. And they\u2019re doing it with smiles on their faces.<\/p>\n

There was an appearance on the Fox Business Channel today by Dave Brat, Republican from Virginia. Grab audio sound bite No. 1. I want this to be the first kickoff point of the recitation of things in this budget. I\u2019m not gonna characterize \u2019em because you\u2019re gonna figure \u2019em out the moment you hear them, but here\u2019s Brat. He was tacking to Stuart Varney, who said, “Now, you\u2019re gonna say, yes, Mr. President, veto this thing because it\u2019s a beast. Is that right, sir?”<\/p>\n

\"\"BRAT: This is the premier issue he ran on, and he\u2019s getting nothing at the end of the year. And this is our big leverage moment, and the folks back home may not know, the Senate put in the last budget that they\u2019re not even gonna do a budget next year. So no chance for wall funding, no chance to get the Goodlatte bill in. The major immigration piece of legislation in the House that addresses the DACA, brings the kids out of the shadows, but in exchange for rational policy going forward that the president believes in. So, yeah, he ought to end this thing until he gets something of what he asked for as president when we have the House and the Senate. It\u2019s quite amazing.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The main thrust of this bite, people may not know, the Senate put in the last budget that they\u2019re not even gonna do a budget next year. So no chance for wall funding, no chance to get the Goodlatte bill in, Meaning this budget is gonna last a lot longer than the six months we\u2019re being told it\u2019s gonna last. But let\u2019s go through some of the details in the bill. Because, folks, I\u2019m gonna have to characterize here before I start reciting some of these things. It\u2019s so obvious what this is.<\/p>\n

This is the Washington establishment, and they\u2019re doing everything they can to destroy Donald Trump, to block his agenda using the budget as a means of doing so by making sure that none of his agenda is paid for and that efforts to implement that agenda are going to be blocked by virtue of things they have added into this budget. The Republican Party is not aligned with their elected president. They are not helping him advance his agenda. They are stonewalling it.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s time to stop thinking of the Congress as made up of Republicans and Democrats. This remains what it always has been, establishment versus outsider, ruling class versus Trump and his voters. And we\u2019ll have an exclamation point on that because I\u2019ve been holding on to something that I ran into in the past couple of days that just opens the floodgates on the Russian collusion side of all of this. And I\u2019ve been waiting for confirmation of what I have discovered, and I got some of it today so we\u2019re gonna be able to go with that, but all things in due time.<\/p>\n

This budget is an absolute disgrace. Apart from the absence of any dealing with the DACA kids, the immigration aspects of this budget are nothing more than a huge victory for the open borders people! A huge victory for the anti-enforcement of immigration law people. Nancy Pelosi was gloating on the floor of the House. She said to the president, “If you want to think you\u2019re getting a wall, you just think it and sign the bill.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I mean, they\u2019re openly challenging. They\u2019re openly mocking Trump. “Oh, you think you\u2019re gonna get a wall? Well, go ahead and sign the budget, see if you get it.” They think they\u2019ve got the guy. They think they have hoodwinked him. They think that they have tricked him into basically making the rest of his presidency irrelevant.<\/p>\n

The administration wanted an increase in the number of ICE agents. This budget rejects that request. Many of those agents were supposed to work on work site enforcement, meaning making sure that companies were not hiring illegals and hiding them and sheltering them.<\/p>\n

Those agents are not going to be hired. They\u2019re not paid for. The Democrats have made sure that American employees who profit off illegal immigration are gonna have less to worry about because there aren\u2019t going to be hardly any agents at all running around trying to find people, illegal aliens who\u2019ve been hired.<\/p>\n

“In addition, the amount of space for detention of apprehended illegal aliens has been reduced to less than what is currently being used,” meaning we\u2019re gonna face an overcrowded situation to the point it\u2019s gonna be of no use arresting illegal immigrants because there will be no place to hold them. There was a Trump administration “request for added space,” additional space, “especially important given the continued high levels of ‘unaccompanied\u2019 minors and family units still” pouring into the country.<\/p>\n

So essentially, the House “has voted to continue a policy of catch-and-release, where illegal aliens, as under Obama, are apprehended and then let go into the U.S.” That is not gonna change. There is no mechanism to detain additional numbers. In fact, the space has been reduced. Sanctuary cities? Measures that would have restricted money to sanctuary cities “were stricken from the budget bill.”<\/p>\n

Sanctuary cities will continue to thrive. Measures that would have taken money away from sanctuary cities were rejected, meaning the money from the budget in Washington will continue to be spent and allocated to support sanctuary cities. When you get to the aspect of the budget dealing with the actual border wall, the budget provides money for 33 miles of new fencing on the Texas border. You ready for this?<\/p>\n

This budget “specifies that none of [the budget and none of the construction] may resemble the wall prototypes that the Border Patrol has been testing for the past few months.” The budget put together by the Republicans in the House of Representatives specifically states that whatever limited funds are used on fencing for 33 miles in Texas cannot “resemble” anything to do with “the border wall prototypes” that Trump went out and looked at the other day.<\/p>\n

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In other words, the budget does everybody it can to erase the whole concept of a wall, paying for a wall, and anything that looks like those prototypes that Trump went out to visit. “The [budget] bill prohibits any kind of border barrier in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, a bird sanctuary on the Rio Grande in South Texas. A fence or wall wouldn\u2019t interfere with the birds, of course, since they could fly over it; the objections to building there have centered on the fact that it would restrict access to bird-watchers.<\/p>\n

“The bill provides funding … to the secretary of defense ‘to enhance the border security of nations adjacent to conflict areas including Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia…'” In other words, the United States budget is going to provide money to the secretary of defense to build walls and to enhance border security in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Tunisia, but not here. Not in the United States. And that\u2019s, folks, just a smidgen — this whole bill with the spending, the lack of anything done on DACA, which remains unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

We know that the Washington establishment wants open borders. We know that they want no end to illegal immigration, and this budget pretty much encourages an open-borders policy because it limits the ability of ICE to apprehend and detain illegals crossing the border. We\u2019re going to only build a 33-mile stretch of cheap little fencing that is not allowed to look anything like an actual prototype of a wall that Trump had commissioned to be designed and that he went out to look at in California.<\/p>\n

The overall spending itself is an abomination, with no recognition that there\u2019s any restraint whatsoever or any calamity could result from it. The Democrat Party is doing handstands. They are happy as they can be. The only reason for that is that they\u2019re getting everything they want because it appears to me that the opposition to Donald Trump is being defined by the Democrat agenda. Opposition to Donald Trump is being defined and implemented as the Democrat agenda, and that agenda is being paid for.<\/p>\n

That agenda is being aided and abetted by this budget. And with Dave Brat, Republican representative from Virginia, saying that there\u2019s a little sneaky provision snuck in this thing at the last moment claiming that this is it for a while… You know, Paul Ryan went out and said, “It\u2019s only six months! Come on, folks. Back off. Six months! It\u2019s the best deal we could have gotten. It\u2019s only six months. It\u2019s better than two weeks.”<\/p>\n

Grab sound bite No. 1, the first part of it anyway. Here\u2019s Dave Brat again on the Fox Business Network just this morning…<\/p>\n

BRAT: This is the premier issue he ran on, and he\u2019s getting nothing at the end of the year. And this is our big leverage moment, and the folks back home may not know, the Senate put in the last budget that they\u2019re not even gonna do a budget next year. So no chance for wall funding. No chance to get the Goodlatte bill in, the major immigration piece of legislation in the House that addresses the DACA, brings the kids out of the shadows, but in exchange for rational policy going forward that the president believes in. So, yeah, he ought to… He ought to end this thing until he gets something of what he asked for as president when we have the House and the Senate. It\u2019s quite amazing.<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s… I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s amazing how we\u2019ve gotten to this point. Now, I know that Paul Ryan felt a sense of panic earlier this week on Wednesday and had to race up to the White House. ‘Cause apparently Trump learned some things in it that he didn\u2019t like, and so Ryan had to race up there and assure Trump everything was okay. And he did. He raced up there and assured Trump that everything is okay. But all of this is why I suggested yesterday that this thing has to be vetoed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the only leverage the president has.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the only way.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ronald Reagan had the same circumstances. He didn\u2019t have 60 votes in the Senate, and Reagan did veto, and there were government shutdowns. But this… The best way to describe this is this is the Washington establishment basically dissolving the Trump agenda, just eating it up, just eliminating it. By not only not funding it, by funding other things in the budget that are going to directly assault the Trump agenda on many of the things that got him elected — immigration being No. 1. It looks like it is not realistic that Trump would actually veto this now, but that\u2019s the only choice he\u2019s got.<\/p>\n

Because, I\u2019ll tell you, the timing on this… Whatever happens, this is the last piece of significant legislation that\u2019s gonna happen before the midterms. So this is gonna be the thing that is the last big congressional action that will serve as informing American voters of what\u2019s been going on. This is designed to make Donald Trump look ineffective. It\u2019s designed to make it look like his presidency doesn\u2019t count for anything, that, “All the lies he told during the campaign, it turns out he can\u2019t deliver on.” It\u2019s really designed to make him look isolated, alone, and ineffective.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m serious, folks. This is an emergency and it is a tragedy. This budget is, in effect, the legislative division of the Mueller investigation, the purpose of which is to get rid of Donald Trump. The Washington establishment remains the Washington establishment. The Washington establishment remains… They\u2019re angrier than ever, by the way. They\u2019re angrier because they haven\u2019t been able to get rid of Trump up to now.<\/p>\n

\"\"They are livid, they are at their wits\u2019 end, and it\u2019s about to come crashing down on \u2019em on the Russian collusion side of this, on the corruption of DOJ and the FBI. That\u2019s about to come crashing down on them. I\u2019ll explain that in the next half hour. But what this is is nothing more than an attempt by the Washington establishment to neuter Donald Trump. If they can\u2019t get rid of him, then they\u2019re gonna make sure his presidency accomplishes none — from here on out — of any part of his agenda.<\/p>\n

This is the Washington establishment standing up and daring Trump to take them on. This budget not only doesn\u2019t fund his agenda. This budget makes it practically impossible for his agenda to be implemented, particularly on the primary thing that got him elected, which is dealing with the border and illegal immigration. Stop thinking of Congress as Republicans and Democrats. You\u2019ve got to think of that as one unified group of people, establishmentarians who are working in a coordinated way to thwart and nullify the election and agenda of the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s — folks, it\u2019s not just the immigration aspects of this, which — man, I\u2019m looking for the right words to describe this. I keep coming up with “screw job.” This is — the more you get into it and the more you learn, this was a purposeful sabotage of the Trump agenda, for a whole lot of reasons. Included among those reasons is you.<\/p>\n

If you are a Trump voter or anybody else, for that matter, concluding that Trump really can\u2019t get anything done, that we just can\u2019t have an outsider come in and reform the system and change it, it just isn\u2019t gonna happen, just isn\u2019t gonna work. They\u2019re trying to separate you from your support for Donald Trump on the basis that he just can\u2019t do it. It can\u2019t be done is what you are to conclude, and you\u2019re just supposed to give up and go away and let the establishment run things regardless what happens in elections.<\/p>\n

This is supposed to frustrate you and in the best-case scenario you\u2019re supposed to blame Trump for this, for being unable to follow through on his promises. Over the course of his campaign, his administration, Trump has targeted 19 actually pretty small federal agencies to be eliminated under the guise that this is a total waste of money and the things that they do are already done elsewhere in the budget and therefore they are redundant.<\/p>\n

The African Development Foundation, an independent agency that establishes targeted development programs in underserved parts of Africa is gonna get $30 million through September 30th, 2019. Trump wanted to eliminate it. Trump wanted to eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs AmeriCorps, Vista, and other volunteer programs. It\u2019s gonna get $1 billion, an increase of $34 million. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — this is something that Republican presidents have been promising, slash, threatening to eliminate and defund for as long as I\u2019ve been alive, including Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"Well, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partially funds PBS is gonna be fully funded, $445 million both this year and next. No change. You may as well realize that this is the federal government paying the radio equivalent of CNN to continue their daily bash of Donald Trump, which they couldn\u2019t do without your taxpayer dollars. They wouldn\u2019t exist without your taxes. CPB, PBS would not exist.<\/p>\n

Your tax dollars are being authorized and appropriated by a Republican-led House of Representatives to continue to pay for the public broadcast version of CNN. The Delta Regional Authority, a partnership that supports job creation and development in rural Mississippi and Alabama is gonna get a $10 million increase rather than being shut down.<\/p>\n

The Denali Commission created in 1998 to provide economic support throughout Alaska and in 2015 assigned to be a lead coordinating agency for relocating villages in rural Alaska, will see its budget doubled. It\u2019s getting $30 million. These are, by comparison, tiny amounts of money, but these are all things Trump wanted to axe as unnecessary and redundant. And in practically every case they\u2019re either being fully funded or being given increases.<\/p>\n

The National Endowment for the Arts, the budget traditionally aligns with that of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is going to get $152,849,000 while the National Endowment for the Humanities will only get $152,848,000, $1,000 less. So $300 million, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, a $7 million increase for each endowment.<\/p>\n

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which calls itself the nation\u2019s key nonpartisan policy forum for tackling global issues through independent research and policy dialogue will get $12 million. It\u2019s a think tank! It\u2019s a think tank which houses a bunch of people that study and scholar the Middle East and always end up blaming Israel. I didn\u2019t even know the government — I didn\u2019t know we paid for the Woodrow Wilson. I thought the left funded themselves on this.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just a partial list. These are all things that Trump had targeted and suggested we wouldn\u2019t miss them, they\u2019re being paid for, many of them in other areas of the budget. And each of these areas that Trump specifically targeted, each of them that he specifically targeted were singled out for similar levels of budgetary spending or increases. It\u2019s a slap in the face, appears to me.<\/p>\n

Here is Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky. He was on with Chatsworth Osborne Jr. last night on the Fox News Channel. Question: “We asked the people who wrote this, over a dozen Republicans, to come on our show here and talk about this budget.” And Chatsworth says, “Not a single Republican invited who wrote or participated in writing the budget would come on and talk about it.”<\/p>\n