RUSH: Let me tell you something, folks. For all of you people that might be, oh, a little cynical about Senator Rubio… I understand that, by the way. I understand it. But Marco Rubio believes in this stuff. He wants to take it out. He wants to try to sell it. He wants to try to break up this monopoly the left has on their caricatures and cliches about conservatives, and he’s gotta be given credit for that. I just want to remind you, too: Even Reagan was fooled by the first amnesty bill.

Back in 1986, Ronald Reagan said it’s high time we regained control of our borders, and this bill will do it — and the bill would have, had it been enforced. There was border enforcement all over the ’86 reform bill. It just wasn’t enforced. That was essentially what I was asking Senator Rubio. “What do you do if you get the perfect bill? We’ve got a president who’s not enforcing existing immigration law. He says that he’s not gonna have border protection in his bill, which he’s announcing today.

“He even sued the state of Arizona for basically trying to enforce federal law!” But it’s better that somebody’s gonna try rather than saying, “Well, to hell with it. It’s over. It’s finished. We can’t beat these guys.” You know, he’s got the youthful exuberance that you need. He’s got the youthful attachment to possibilities, the youthful attachment to success. You don’t want somebody that’s jaundiced and the victim of so much cynicism that they’re defeatist in this thing.

It even fooled Reagan.

It’s like I say, we’re being whipsawed back and forth. Yesterday we had to get rid of our guns. Today we gotta grant amnesty. In every one of these things, who is the enemy of Obama? In every one of these things the Democrats want, who is it and what is it that stands in his way? Right now the rule of law is what stands in his way. And next is those who abide by it, the law-abiding citizens. They represent the problem to what Obama wants to do. We and you and others who are law-abiding citizens, we’re the ones Obama has to overcome.

I’ll put this in a football term. They’re running the no-huddle offense on us. We don’t even have time to catch our breath. They’re running play after play after play. We don’t even know what defense we’re gonna run. We don’t get new defensive personnel on the field. We can barely keep up. But we never even end up on offense. Now, the thing about Rubio and his interview here in the busy broadcast hour, the reason he was praiseworthy and the reason I was excited about it, is it is an issue that’s going to have to be dealt with at some point, and if Rubio can solve this in the way he set forth, it would be a good thing. I don’t know what the odds are.

I mean, the bill is amnesty, but if these border restrictions — I mean that’s the common denominator in every discussion about illegal immigration, is border security, and the reason it is, is that’s how you stop it. It has to be stopped. The border has to be secured. We just can’t go on like we have been with anybody and everybody who wants to get into the country doing so. There has to be border security. Now, if these guys can pull that off — you know, the question is how sincere are the Democrats on that? I don’t think they are at all. I know Obama isn’t. He’s gonna say in his speech today that he doesn’t care about it. Border security is not a requirement for the rest of his immigration bill.

So there’s no common ground here to find compromise. We’re not talking about compromise. Somebody’s gonna win and somebody’s gonna lose this. It’s like the Israelis and the Palestinians or anything else. But we don’t have anything in common. I mentioned that to Rubio. Obama is seeking political victories and we’re seeking compromise. And how’s that gonna end up? But if Rubio ever does succeed in spreading his message, folks, one of the things that, as far as we conservatives are concerned, is there isn’t any conservative leadership in Washington right now. There is no conservative leader in the blogs or in the conservative media, and in the elected ranks of the Republican Party there isn’t. And Rubio could fill that role. Or somebody like Ted Cruz. It’s something that does need to happen. And if it does, if it ever did happen, then it would change the complexion of this a little bit.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, so Obama’s playing his usual tricks. He’s giving his immigration speech, and just like the left says that the next Mary and Joseph might be in the current homeless population, guess what? The next chairman of intel might be among the illegals, or the next founder of Instagram might be in that population of illegals. We gotta change our immigration so that these people after they come here and get educated don’t leave. He’s mixing up legal immigrants versus illegal. Andy Grove was not an illegal immigrant. He came in with the B visa. Obama is drawing no distinction here between the illegal and the legal immigrants of this country. He’s trying to make the claim that the illegals are harboring the next great CEO, the next great Steve Jobs, the next great inventor and we can’t kick ’em out. And nobody’s talking about kicking ’em out. So he’s constructing his usual straw men, exactly as predicted.