RUSH: These polling numbers? It’s time for the Republicans to man up and stop worrying about this apparent cliche that, no matter what happens, the Republicans are going to get blamed for the government shutdown, and because they don’t want to get blamed, they can’t do it. They can’t repeal Obamacare, they can’t do anything, ’cause it’s an unwritten rule in Washington:
“Whenever the government gets shut down, no matter who’s responsible for it, the Republicans get the blame,” and, as such, the Republicans take a giant weapon out of their arsenal of ammunition. It’s time to man up and start dealing with this thing. That’s what they were sent there to do. They were sent there to deal with these kind of lies and this obfuscation, these con games.
They were sent there to stop this.
They were not sent there to participate in it. They were not sent there to govern and participate and compromise and advance a little bit. They were sent there to stop it.
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RUSH: Okay, very quickly, we’re gonna get back to this and the whole business of the idea that the Republicans can’t really do anything about Obamacare because they can’t shut down the government. “No matter how the government gets shut down, the Republicans are going to get the blame.” That is something that the elitists in the Beltway say Republicans cannot recover from.
“So we can’t even entertain it. We can’t even go there.” I think people who say that are actually doing their own version of Gruber: “Gruber said what? Gruber said that people are stupid. The American people are stupid. Even though they’re stupid, we’ve gotta lie to ’em. We’re gonna rely on the stupidity of the American people.”
Okay, if you believe… If you are an inside-the-Beltway media or elected official elitist or honcho, and, if you don’t want to get anywhere near action — like a series of bills that would deny Obama the funding necessary either to implement amnesty, or elements of Obamacare, because that would be a government shutdown, and the Republicans will get blamed no matter what happens, and they’ll never recovered from it, and it’s horrible, and it’s messy — aren’t you essentially the same as Jonathan Gruber?
Aren’t you really saying the American people are too stupid to understand what’s really going on?
Aren’t you saying, “No, no! We can’t have a series of bills that will defund various steps of amnesty. Why, that would shut down the government, and then we’ll get blamed for it.” So you believe the American people are so stupid that even though they just elected you to stop this, when you take action to stop it they’re gonna get so mad at you for shutting down the government, that they’re never gonna elect you again, and the media is gonna have a field day with you?
Aren’t you kind of just like Jonathan Gruber? Aren’t you, in essence saying, “No, we can’t do what’s right because the American people are too stupid to see what we’re doing, and they will blame us, and we don’t want to get blamed”? It seems to me that a year ago in December there was a government shutdown, and Ted Cruz got blamed for it left and right.
And the last I saw, the Republicans just won a landslide election a little over a week ago. So where is it written that government shutdowns destroy Republican electoral efforts? Where is it written that defunding this part of Obamacare or that part of amnesty equals a government shutdown anyway? I think it’s time for people to realize — Republicans, especially — that the people who voted for ’em are not stupid.
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RUSH: Here’s Obama. This takes us to where we’re headed here in this segment. This is Sunday morning in Brisbane. This is the end of the G20 Summit, Obama at a press conference and CBS Correspondent Major Garrett said, “How much do you fear the government will shut down and to what degree does your anxiety about this or your team’s anxiety about this influence the timing of your decision on” amnesty.
OBAMA: I take Mitch McConnell at his word when he says that the government’s not gonna shut down. There’s no reason for it to shut down. Uh, we traveled down that path before. Uh, it was bad for the country.
RUSH: It was not.
OBAMA: It was, uh, bad for every elected official in the country —
RUSH: No, it wasn’t.
OBAMA: — and at the end of the day was resolved in the same way that it would have been resolved if we hadn’t shut the government down. So, uh, that’s not gonna be productive.
RUSH: That’s not even true.
Look, there was a government shutdown. I do this for a living, and I don’t even remember what it was about. That’s how big it was. Now Snerdley, who is a wonk, probably remembers. All I know is that Ted Cruz getting blamed for it everywhere. What was it over? (interruption) “Continuing resolution for funding.” Okay, so we shut down the government over the mechanism that we were gonna pay for the next series of months of government, the continuing resolution.
The Republicans have been trying to stop the Democrats and get ’em to do a budget as required by law, and they’ve been doing this continuing resolution stuff, which… (interruption) Well, I know. The typical sleigh ride guy at Jellystone got sidelined for a while, but he got his money back. They all do. The government workers that lost their jobs for a couple days got their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
It always ends up that way. The point is, there was a government shutdown, and there was no politician that got hurt. The last I looked, the Republicans won a landslide election last week or week half ago — and they were the guys blamed for the shutdown last January, am I right? (interruption) The Republicans were blamed for the shutdown last December, 2013, right? (interruption) Okay.
Single-handedly! Ted Cruz and the Republicans were tarred and feathered and blamed and everything was laid at their feet and it was a disaster, and what happened? The Republicans win a landslide election less than a year later. So where is it written that government shutdowns… Now, granted, in a government shutdown, the media is going to hate you. The media is gonna say mean things about you.
The media is gonna call you racist and sexist and bigoted and homophobic, and the media is gonna call you mean-spirited, and the media is gonna call you extremist, and the media is gonna say, “You don’t like the little guy,” and the media is gonna lie about you. But it didn’t hurt, did it? If the Republicans shutting down the government last year was political disaster, somebody explain the results of ten days ago for me.
But I know how the inside-the-Beltway thinks, and it is typified here and personified by Brit Hume of Fox News. This is yesterday on Fox News Sunday during the panel discussion. The host Chris Wallace was speaking with senior political analyst Brit Hume about immigration reform and the federal budget, and Chris Wallace said, “If Republicans somehow tie funding of the government to opposition to this executive action, is it a smart political move or is it another mistake?”
The question is: If the Republicans tried to stop Obama from doing amnesty by denying funding for this aspect of it and that aspect of it — you know, a bunch of different aspects of it — Wallace is asking Hume: Is that a smart political move or would that be another mistake? Meaning: Would it be dumb to deny the government money, or would it be good politics?
HUME: It’s a total blunder to try that. It is an iron rule in Washington exemplified many times that if the government shuts down, the Republicans get the blame. Not some of the blame, not most of the blame, all of the blame. And one would surmise that — that they may have learned that by now. Their leaders seem to have, but there are some within the House and Senate who still think that that kind of a brinksmanship might work. I doubt it.
RUSH: And then Karl Rove this morning on Fox & Friends was being interviewed by Elisabeth Hasselbeck — by the way, welcome back to her. She had a cancer scare out there. She’s been gone for a month, she’s back. She said, “Republicans are now weighing a government shutdown to put pressure against the president who seems to be ready to use executive actions as it relates to immigration. Is that a good move or not, Karl?”
ROVE: Actually it’s not Republicans, it’s a few Republicans. When we had the government shutdown last year, you may remember the poll in the immediate aftermath, 17% of the American people approved of it, 81% didn’t, and who’d they blame? I think it was like 59% blamed the Republicans. It took us a year to get back.
RUSH: Uh, what, uh, uhhh, you got back, though, right? And how’d you do that? It took a year to get back, but you got back. How did you get back? What happened? You got back because people wanted you to stop Obama. Now, on this shutdown business, I think, in the first place, this is not technically a government shutdown. Just telling Obama we’re not gonna give you the money for, say, a driver’s license for these people. We’re not gonna give you the money for Social Security cards for these people. We’re not gonna give you the money. How the hell is that a government shutdown, for crying out loud?
But even if it is, it seems to me — and I say this with all due respect. I am not a flamethrower here, and I’m not trying to pick a fight. I am just trying to serve this audience the best I can, and it seems to me that this fear that whenever anything happens, that the media can call a government shutdown and therefore we can’t do it ’cause the Republicans are gonna get blamed and don’t want that, aren’t you kind of being just like Jonathan Gruber in assuming the people are so stupid they won’t be able to figure out who’s really responsible for this?
Add to this the fact, if you want to talk polling data, whatever poll you want to cite, you’ve got 55 to 60% of the American people who disapprove of Obamacare and want it repealed. So if you take action to deny Obama funding to implement it and somebody calls that a government shutdown, how in the hell are the people gonna get mad at you for trying to stop the implementation of Obamacare when that’s what you were elected to do?
This inordinate fear that the Republicans are, no matter what happens, gonna get blamed for it seems to rely on the fact that the American people are so stupid that they will always believe what the media tells them and that they will never question it. If this is way you look at — why should the Republicans ever oppose anything? Because we know what the media is going to say about them.
The media is gonna call the Republicans names no matter what the Republicans do or say, and if our policy decisions are going to be rooted in trying to limit what the media says, aren’t we conceding defeat? And aren’t we at the same time pretty much saying that we are afraid that the American people are too stupid to see our actions for what they are, and that is, trying to save the country from the disasters of Obama’s policy implementations. And I would say the same thing about amnesty.
The majority of the American people, no matter where you look, no matter what poll, nobody’s in favor of it. Nobody wants executive amnesty. It’s not a majority position. Nothing Obama is doing is a majority position to support. So any action the Republicans might take after having won a landslide election, I mean, that has to be a factor here. They were just elected to stop this stuff, and so they take action to stop it, and the media accuses them of shutting down the government, and the American people are so stupid that right then and there they’re gonna regret that they voted for the Republicans.
And the Republicans are gonna be paying the price for, what, another year ’til the next election, another two years. How did the Republicans win this election if they got blamed for the shutdown last December? “Well, it took a year to get back.” Well, they got back. I don’t know. This is unnecessarily tying your own hands behind your back.
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RUSH: Okay. So the establishment, they say they will not shut down the government. What that means is, they’re not gonna deny Obama any funding to implement his various schemes, so what are they gonna do? It’s a serious question. I mean, they were elected to do something here. They were elected to stop this. Even if you think they were elected to do more than that, fine and dandy. I don’t want to get into an argument about that. But you can’t deny that part and parcel of the reason for this electoral win was to stop what is happening.
If they’re not going to use the power of the purse, and if they’re not going to use impeachment, then what are they going to do to stop it? That’s gonna get them in more trouble with voters than any so-called government shutdown. The worst thing they could do is ignore the mandate the voters gave ’em. That looks like what they’re aiming for.
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RUSH: This is Sally, Richmond, Virginia. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: I’m not well. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Good! I wanted to comment about your conversation about the Republicans and shutting down the government.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I actually think Ted Cruz and the Republicans that supported the government shutdown, caused the wake-up call and they were what caused people to pay attention and get engaged, and they drew people’s attention to the truth about Obamacare and what the negative impacts were gonna be. Not only on the economy, but the level of care that we were all gonna eventually experience, and the rising costs.
RUSH: That is an interesting take, because Ted Cruz did get the blame, right?
CALLER: He got the blame but he really should be getting the praise.
RUSH: Well, but wait. That’s what I’m saying. He did. The point is: Did Ted Cruz lose any popularity?
CALLER: He lost popularity outside of the Republican Party but also within the party.
RUSH: Well, no. I’m talk with the American people.
CALLER: No! No.
RUSH: No, he didn’t lose popularity. He might have been enemy number one inside the party, but in terms of the people? The voters didn’t take it out on Ted Cruz. That’s a good observation, interesting observation. Sally, I appreciate the call. Thank you very much.