RUSH: Here’s Bob in Coronado, California, as we head back to the phones. Hi, Bob.
CALLER: Hi. Today Obama changes any aspect of Obamacare by fiat. My question is, why can’t a Republican president, when elected in 2016, undo any aspects of the Affordable Care Act by fiat or executive order just as Obama’s doing it now? We could eliminate the IRS involvement with health care, could rescind union waivers, eliminate any useless bureaucracy, and just do it by fiat. I mean, it would give the libs a complete conniption.
RUSH: So you think two wrongs make a right?
CALLER: Well, I think the threat of doing it right now would be at least be a warning to the libs that, “Hey, you want to continue to do this? We can play the same game.”
RUSH: Well, you know, since you mention this, I wouldn’t be surprised if a Republican — and I don’t know who — seeking the presidency in 2016 doesn’t say something like this, doesn’t promise something like this. Now, whether the Republican Party would actually do it after getting elected, that’s a whole ‘nother matter. The cynic in me says that, depending on who the Republican is that would maybe get elected, they would be afraid to do that because the people like this stuff.
Whether they do or don’t, if a Republican president believes what the media says, then he might think he’d be slitting his own throat politically to take these days wonderful things away from people from Obama gave them. There’s another aspect, Bob. I want to remind you of something. This did not get a lot of attention when it was made public. Shortly before the Christmas break, Obama announced that he was going to continue to live in Washington when his term expires.
Most presidents go back to home. Now, Obama’s home is Hawaii, or Chicago. I fully expected Obama and Michelle to set up the Barack Obama Library of Social Justice at the University of Hawaii or something and go back there, and they may in fact do that. But Obama is going to stay in Washington. Can you guess why that might be?
CALLER: Only if he was gonna appoint himself to some lifetime position in health care. I don’t know.
RUSH: No. He is going to stay in Washington to make sure that what you just suggested doesn’t happen. He’s gonna stay in town to make sure that whatever he accomplishes is not unwound. Let me give you an example. The next Republican president — take your pick. I don’t know. Pick somebody. If the next Republican president says that we are going to start dismantling certain aspects of Obama, like you just said?
Obama is gonna call the media and he’s gonna go on TV as though he’s still president — and the media will treat him that way, by the way — and he will launch into this Republican president trying to harm people, hurt the American people, trying to unwind the great things Obama did. He’s going to stay there to make sure that whatever he’s done to remake this country is not changed, is not unwound.
He’s going to stay there, and the media is gonna cover him. I guarantee you, folks, even after he’s out of office, he is going to be treated by the media as though he’s still president — and this may be the case even with a Democrat president. Whatever the next president does, the media is gonna go to Obama every day. Look, folks, Barack Obama has already, along with Bill Clinton, blown up a number of time-honored traditions involving the presidency.
One of those is, when your time’s up, you go, and you don’t comment on your successor. Bill Clinton has blown that smithereens, and Algore’s blown it smithereens. George H. W. Bush hasn’t and George W. Bush hasn’t, and neither of them ever will. Ronald Reagan did not ever say a word about Bill Clinton and what he was doing. But I’m here to tell you that within days of the next president’s inauguration, Obama is going to be calling press conferences.
Wherever he’s hanging out, a think tank or whatever, the media’s gonna be there, and what Obama thinks of what the next administration’s doing is gonna be the news of the day. There’s no other reason to stay there. There’s not one other reason to stay in Washington — unless, I mean, it’s something financial, but it wouldn’t be. He can make whatever financial arrangements he wants and live anywhere. When I heard that he’s gonna stay there, I know that’s exactly why — and you better prepare universe for it.
You better prepare yourselves for the media continuing to treat him as though he is still president. He is going to be given the opportunity to pass judgment on everything the next president does daily if he wants to, and he will do it. Look, he’s not gonna just let these eight years be unwound if the Republicans happen to win. He’s not just gonna sit idly by and say, “Okay, you know, I had my eight years and somebody else is trying to have theirs.”
He’s gonna stay there and guard the investment. He’s gonna stay there and protect the investment. He’s going to stay there and make sure that whatever he’s done stays in place and intact — and this is gonna be a real challenge for the next president, particularly if it’s a Republican. It’s gonna be a real challenge. It’s gonna be unprecedented, the ex-president commenting every day on what you’re doing and trying to undermine you if you’re trying to take the country in a different direction from that which Obama took it.
Do not doubt me on this.
The next president, particularly if he is a Republican, is going to immediately be hated and reviled, A, for winning, and then, B, for governing. He is going to be a suspect every day. He’s gonna committing acts against the people every day. It’s not gonna change. If a Republican president gets elected, even if it’s a landslide, that’s just gonna make them go after him even more — and Obama will be leading the charge. Right there will be Jay Carney. Obama will still have his spokesman.
He’s gonna have a satellite administration in exile, in Washington. I guarantee you. Do not doubt me. I know these people. I know how he thinks. I know who these people are. I know that’s exactly why he’s gonna stay there. It’s precisely because of what you said. If a Republican president comes along and tries to get rid of all the executive orders that Obama did and executive actions and all of these different things he did with Obamacare — if somebody tries to dismantle that — there’s gonna be hell to pay.
You know as well as I do that if a Republican happens to win he’s gonna be hated anyway. Even if Obama did go to Hawaii, he’s going to be hated. And, in fact, even if Obama went back to Chicago or if he went to Hawaii he could still do the same thing by virtue of television. Imagine the press conference that we had today, imagine that’s a Republican press conference and he announced a new jobs program and a definite end to unemployment compensation based on economic growth and a tax cut. Within 30 minutes, certainly enough time to make the nightly news cycle, Obama is going to call a presser and he’s going to tell the people of the country what’s wrong with what the president intends to do, why it’s bad, how it’s gonna hurt people. The media’s gonna promote it. The media’s gonna trumpet it, and it’s gonna appear as though Obama really has never left.
Now, the one thing that it’s too soon to predict is the effectiveness of it, since it hasn’t happened before. Not to the degree that it’s going to happen. We don’t know what the American people’s reaction is gonna be. We don’t know if it’s gonna inspire a bunch of opposition and we don’t know what’s gonna happen between now and the time he does leave office. But I know that’s why he’s staying there. See, the thing that I don’t think people, particularly Republicans, don’t understand is, this is life and death to these people. Transforming this country, getting rid of capitalism, making it a socialist welfare state, they know they can’t do it in eight years.
Obama’s moving, no matter what you think, he’s moving much slower than his supporters want him to move. He’s moving much slower than he wants to move. It’s a massive bureaucracy. It’s a massive country. You have to make at least a pretense of doing all this in a democratic way. And so he’s having to go here at a deliberate pace, making remarkable progress, but it’s not nearly as fast his rabid supporters, his party and he would like it to be. After eight years they’re not just gonna go away and leave it to chance that this stuff stays rooted. This is life and death to them. This is why they live. This is why they exist.
He’s gonna be staying there to protect his legacy and to make sure it is never unwound. Unless he’s run out of town in shame. I mean anything can happen between now and then but, I mean, if we just have a normal unfolding of the second term — and believe me, if the Democrats win the House in November, there is no such thing as a lame duck second term. They’re gonna be able to do whatever they want, folks. Congress won’t even really be necessary. It’s gonna be a rubber stamp. The Democrats run the Senate; they run the House. Whatever Obama wants to do the Democrats in the House and Senate will rubber stamp it, it’ll happen.
The final two years, if they win the House, that’s where they start running at Indy 500 speed implementing the rest of their agenda. There will be no way to stop them. And after that, if that so angers people that the next Republican president wins in a landslide, Obama stays in town to guard what happened to make sure it doesn’t change, and he will have the media and every liberal think tank on his side. It will be — just as the Obama presidency is — an unprecedented post-presidency. Do not doubt me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Don’t forget, folks — and we’ve played you these sound bites back in the campaign of 2008 — Obama made it clear that one of his objectives was to overturn the Reagan revolution. Reagan and his minions. He hated it. He despised it. It’s what he’s doing. To whatever degree he succeeds, he’s just not gonna leave it to chance that it’s gonna stay intact. He’s gonna stay there and guard it, protect his revolution. And the role of the media, you know damn well, they’re gonna love it. It’s gonna be something that’s never happened before. They’re just gonna be like pigs in excrement, folks. They’re gonna be so happy.
The Republican president, whoever he is, if there is one, his election will be said illegitimate, just like Bush was in 2000. They’ll do everything they can to delegitimize the next president. And they’ll lie, and the lies will be promoted, amplified by the media, and I’m telling you, the media is just gonna eat it up. In fact, they’re gonna love Obama even more because this is gonna be an undisguised frontal assault on the Republicans, which is what the media and the left is most pleased by. We are their biggest enemy. They literally despise us. Anything that thwarts us and our ideas they celebrate. Obama will be a bigger hero in his post-presidency than he was in office, if what I expect to happen happens.