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RUSH: Look, if you’re trying to follow this Rubio-Cruz thing, it long ago got so deep in the woods, it’s gotten so muddled here that you’re gonna be thankful for this program in not too long a time, because what we do here is make the complex understandable. I’m gonna wade deep into the muck and I’m gonna go in there in the weeds, I’m gonna grab the essentials, I’m gonna bring ’em out and I’m gonna tell you what it is all about, which is very simple.

Marco Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight trying to secure amnesty and wishes he wasn’t. Ted Cruz never was and they’re trying to make it out like he was. At the end of the day when people go vote, people are gonna remember, of the two, it was Marco Rubio that was a member of the Gang of Eight and Ted Cruz that wasn’t, and that’s as complicated or simple as it’s gonna end up being. But I’m gonna tell you how we get there, ’cause it’s fascinating. (laughing) I mean, it is fascinating to get deep into this. That’s the end result. I mean, that’s the bottom line. That’s what voters are gonna remember when this is all said and done.


But the process here has been fascinating to follow and to try to understand. I’ve needed some assistance myself, I will admit. Well, only because some people were saying and writing things that I couldn’t possibly comprehend. I needed to go to translators. You know, I’m not really deep into — you know, I can imitate, I can impersonate deep intellectualese, you know, the language they speak, but sometimes even I, happy to admit, I need help deciphering when it’s written. Anyway, we’ll get to that in mere moments.

In the meantime, while the all of that was going on and occupying a lot of attention, because what that Cruz-Rubio thing is really all about is the failure of Jeb Bush. And the establishment in the presidential campaign is doing everything they can to get Rubio and Cruz as the final two. They’re still of the belief that somehow, somewhere down the line, Trump’s not gonna be a factor, and they really want to set this up — Marco Rubio is essentially the heir to what was to have been the Jeb Bush campaign. That’s been occupying a lot of people’s attention.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, the dustup here between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio that started in the debate on Tuesday night. And again, not to be repetitive, but depending on how closely or not you have paid attention to this, the stakes here are really high. And that is why this disagreement, this fight, this battle — if you will — is getting so much attention, because there’s so much at stake. We’re talking about here the potential nomination of Republican Party for president of the United States, and Marco Rubio looks like he is assuming the position, policy preference position number one of the Republican establishment, if indeed Jeb Bush doesn’t make it.


The Republican establishment, as you well know, not only dislikes and is frightened to death of Donald Trump, they intensely dislike Ted Cruz, and they are deeply afraid of Ted Cruz. And so what is going on here is an effort to discredit Cruz and to expose Cruz as a liar on something that is the number one issue to most Republican voters, and that is immigration policy — and specifically, amnesty. And the upshot of the contretemps that happened Tuesday night in the debate is that Rubio is attempting…

He did attempt, and is receiving the assistance of many in the media. He is attempting to say that Ted Cruz has not told you the truth about his position on amnesty and immigration. In explaining this and deciphering it, ferreting it all out, you can get pretty deep in the weeds here to the point that you will lose people. I would lose you. Even I, who am otherwise a magnet. I could lose you if I took this as deeply as it has gotten. One of the things that I like to pride myself on here is making the complex understandable.

So let me tell you where this is going to end as far as voters are concerned, because I think at the end of the day nobody’s gonna go into the weeds. The voters are not gonna go into the weeds to understand what happens even if they’re led there. It isn’t going to matter. This all revolves around the Gang of Eight. Eight senators who were trying to come up with legislation that would solve our immigration problems. A key member of the Gang of Eight was Senator Marco Rubio, newly arrived to the Senate, Hispanic, very much adored and appreciated by conservatives.

So the Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate wanted Rubio in the Gang of Eight as a means of persuading conservatives that this wasn’t amnesty. “We weren’t going to grant legalization, we weren’t gonna grant citizenship, we weren’t gonna give them the right to vote (yet), but we have to do this.” And it was thought that Rubio — with his fresh, conservative newness and arrival on the scene — would bring recalcitrant Republican voters along. It was a giant miscalculation, but nevertheless they tried it.

Rubio’s involvement in the Gang of Eight has been portrayed in one of two ways. He was either young and impressionable and brought in and misled by the veteran deceit leaders (Chuck Schumer and others on the committee, Dick Durbin) or other story is, as Schumer tells it, “What do you mean, Marco Rubio was on the back bench? He was the architect of it! Marco Rubio wrote the Gang of Eight. Marco was the guy who told you how to get it done.” Well, that’s not gonna go well with Republican voters.


And so during the process, during the entire process of the debate of the Gang of Eight bill and the attempt to get it passed and then sent up to Obama’s desk, brought the involvement of Ted Cruz. And the argument that Rubio and his supporters are putting forth is that Cruz, in the process of getting involved in the Gang of Eight argument, the debate, actually said that he was for it and is now trying to back out of it and say that he wasn’t. And it involves Cruz ostensibly inserting an amendment in the Gang of Eight bill that is called “a poison pill.”

Now, “poison pill” may be self-explanatory, but there may be some who don’t understand what a poison pill is. And it’s not hard; it’s very simple. A poison pill amendment is designed to kill the legislation by exposing, in this case, the proponents as being engaged in deceit and fraud. In opening this discussion, let me remind you of something that I did, because it’s close to what Cruz did. Back during the Gang of Eight, the intense period of argument, I, on this program — a number of times and very seriously — promised that I would support amnesty.

Not just the Gang of Eight bill. I said that I would sign up and I would support it and I would travel the country and try to convince people to support it and vote for it. “Comprehensive immigration reform, I’m right in there! I will do whatever you need me to do to help the American people understand and accept amnesty … with one proviso. And that is that the newly amnetized cannot vote for 25 years.” Because everybody knew that the whole purpose of the Gang of Eight bill was to essentially secure 20 million new Democrat voters.

That’s what amnesty is all about what the advocates of amnesty to the Democrat side want.

It’s not compassion, it’s not humanitarian, it’s none of the things they claim it is. It’s not, “These are poor people and they’ve been working in the shadows in our country and we’ve been profiting from them and we’re denying them the basic services and aspects of citizenship, and it’s time for this to stop! We owe it to these people to allow them to come out of the shadows.” None of that is why the Democrat Party — Barack Obama, you name it — is in favor of amnesty. They simply see a brand-new bunch of registered Democrats.

Immigration policy is nothing more than a Democrat registration drive.

And in an attempt to illustrate that, I said, “Hey, I’ll support amnesty if you will promise me that the newly amnetized cannot vote for 25 years.” It was an effort to illustrate what was really going on, and I proved that that’s what was going on by virtue of one fact: Nobody took me up on my offer to join efforts to pass the legislation, not one person. And believe me, folks, when I tell you, if I had not added that proviso, I would have been overwhelmed with phone calls from people in Washington eagerly accepting my offer. I would have been all over the news, “Limbaugh Changes Mind, Supports Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” It would have been all you would have seen in the news.

But I didn’t get one call. I didn’t get one feeler. I didn’t get a single reaction to my proposal because I put a poison pill in it. I’ll gladly grant amnesty, I’ll support it, I’ll promote it, I’ll do whatever you need, but you have to put in the bill that they can’t vote for 25 years. And the point was, they won’t even be for it if that’s the case. The Democrat Party will never vote for amnesty if there’s something in there that says they can’t vote for 25 years.

Well, Ted Cruz, in the process of debating the Gang of Eight bill, essentially did something close to that, in an attempt to expose it and in an attempt to kill it. And it is that attempt that Cruz made that Rubio and other forces are now claiming he’s a hypocrite on because they’re claiming that he really did privately and to certain groups say that he was in favor of legalization and citizenship.

And those are the two factors here all of this is revolving around. The Gang of Eight bill contained two key elements: legalization of those in the shadows, and the path to citizenship, and the path to citizenship is where they can go register to vote. And the key, the focus on defeating the bill was to show people that its real purpose was to provide immediate citizenship and the right to vote for however many illegal aliens are in the country. And that number is anywhere from 12 to 20 million, and maybe more.

It was not just legalization. It was not just granting them amnesty for violating the law, being here illegally. The Gang of Eight bill also contained a provision that put them on a path to citizenship. And you know damn well, if that had passed, and if the path to citizenship required a five-year wait, Chuck Schumer would have been to the cameras and microphones within two hours of the bill passing and signed by the president and said, “This is unfair. We’ve just granted ’em a path to citizenship and they have to wait five years? That’s not fair. We need to move this up. They should be able to register to vote tomorrow.” And that would have passed. And so the effort to defeat the Gang of Eight bill was to expose to as many people as possible that the real purpose of the Gang of Eight was not legalization, but the path to citizenship.

And this is where Cruz enters the picture here. Ted Cruz proposed a series of amendments in committee that were intended to make sure that the legislation did not end up being a path to citizenship. And people involved in this didn’t want to admit that that’s what was going on here. A lot of people who supported the Gang of Eight bill did not want to admit that it contained a path to citizenship, Republicans and Democrats. I mean, it was total deceit here that was underway. The proponents of the bill were trying to hide behind the fact that all it was was legalization, humanitarian, compassionate legalization. They wanted to make sure nobody knew or as very few people as possible knew that it contained a path to citizenship, because a path to citizenship equals right to vote.

Now, one of the amendments that Ted Cruz proposed stripped out the path to citizenship portion of the bill, but it left the legalization part in. And that has opened the door for opponents of Cruz to say, “He voted for legalization.” And Cruz is saying, no, I didn’t vote for legalization. I did vote, but I was voting to keep citizenship out of it. I put my amendment in to expose the path to citizenship.

Fox News thinks that they have caught Cruz in a lie because they think that he’s been caught saying that he was one thing in 2013 and another thing in the debate on Tuesday night. Cruz’s intention was to make sure the proponents of the Gang of Eight ended up voting against it. Ted Cruz’s amendment was the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I’ll support this, but they can’t vote for 25 years.” It was an effort to get the proponents to vote against their own bill because it did not contain the fundamental number one requirement they wanted it to have, path to citizenship and right to vote.

Now, the problem is that Ted Cruz now is being accused of revising his remarks, that he didn’t intend to say what he said back then. This is where we get deep in the woods over, “Is Cruz really, did he go out and tell people he’s for legalization? Oh, my God, wait ’til Cruz’s voters find out that he’s been lying to ’em about that.” That’s what they’re trying to convince Cruz supporters of. The problem with that is that Cruz’s amendment may have ended up as a poison pill, but it may not have started that way. It’s dicey.

He was clear not just in proposing it, but in the appearance he made at Princeton talking about this, that he offered the amendment as a compromise because he wanted to see it pass. See, the two stories of Cruz are that he actually offered this amendment to take out the citizenship plank because he wanted the Gang of Eight bill to pass so that he could say down the road that he had voted for and been a participant in a compromise piece of legislation, that he had worked with people and had helped get something done, and so he was not presenting his amendment as a poison pill when he was talking to certain groups.

That is the opposite of a poison pill. He did this in an appearance at Princeton with a law professor who is a close associate and friend of his. Cruz was actually in a Q&A that he had with a professor there named Robbie George. Cruz: “The amendment I introduced affected only citizenship; it did not affect the underlying legalization in the Gang of Eight bill.” Robbie George said, “Would your bill pass the House, or would it be killed because it was proposing ‘amnestyÂ’?” Cruz said, “I believe that if my amendments were adopted, the bill would pass. My effort in introducing them was to find solution that reflected common ground and fixed the problem.”


So his original position was that he was actually trying to craft legislation that would pass that had removed the plank to citizenship, but that he wanted to be able to say later down the road that he had participated in compromise legislation and so forth. And that’s where Rubio and Cruz opponents are trying to say, “We got him. He lied. He lied.” And if you’re confused, hang in there. Gotta take a break, but it will all be made clear in a moment.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. So in the limited time remaining in this segment ’cause I went long, I’m gonna give you the end result of this again and in the next segment go back and pick up in order. The bottom line is Ted Cruz has never voted for amnesty. The proponents of the Gang of Eight bill have, including Rubio. But Cruz did propose an amendment in 2013 which would have authorized legalization. Of course, what legalization meant then versus what people think it means today are two different things, probably.

But Ted Cruz never supported amnesty. He wants to say now that his amendment was designed to kill the Gang of Eight bill, but in 2013 he was telling people that he really wanted the bill to pass, that he wanted a reform package that he was instrumental in having passed, but that did not include amnesty, it just included legalization. And of course the Democrats, nobody wanted anything but amnesty

So the bottom line is the Gang of Eight bill failed, and people are attempting to make others believe that Ted Cruz secretly supported amnesty at one time and is lying about it, and that didn’t happen. So that’s what I would say if this conversation were over. But to get there I need to return to it, so hang on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, another way to look at this is that powerful forces are trying to rewrite the history of the debate on the Gang of Eight bill. Because the history of the Gang of Eight bill is not particularly helpful to — and, by the way, I like Marco Rubio. This is why I don’t endorse, folks, in primaries. This exact circumstance is why I do not endorse in primaries. I don’t want to get caught in something like this — having to defend somebody on something that I didn’t know was gonna come up — and just be in my best interests.

So I’m defending nobody here. I’m trying to cut through all of this noise and get to the essence of this for you. Because it’s all over the media, and it’s clear that Trump and Cruz are under assault. It’s a primary. This is normal. This is what should and does happen, and I am not angry at anybody. I’m just trying to decipher this for you. That’s what we do here; we make the complex understandable. And there are some people that would very much like to have you think that Ted Cruz was much more for amnesty or involved in it, because that would take some pressure off other people who actually were.

It was the Gang of Eight.

It wasn’t the Gang of Ten or the Gang of 12.


It was the Gang of Eight, ’cause there were eight guys in it — and Cruz was not one of them. Now, here again is what this is about. They’re trying to revise or rewrite the history of the debate. The Gang of Eight bill had two planks in it. One is “path to citizenship,” which means vote, and the other is legalization, which means amnesty. They wanted both. The proponents of the Gang wanted both. Legalization — no criminals anymore, no more criminal distinction — and citizenship — which means you get to go down and register at the DMV tomorrow as a Democrat.

And Rubio was instrumental in supporting this, and that was not good for him with Republican voters. He was freshly arrived in the Senate and thought that he would be able to make his mark in a compromise way. When all this came up, here’s Ted Cruz over here. This is 2013. And Ted Cruz introduces an amendment to the Gang of Eight bill that removes this plank in it on the citizenship side, which takes away the right to vote, but legalizes them. It grants ’em legal status but they can’t vote. It’s much like my gimmick here on the radio where I said, “Hey, I’ll support it but they can’t vote for 25 years.”

This is called a poison pill.

Now, Cruz back in 2013 when talking about this with a college professor at Yale. And with other groups, made it clear that he was not introducing a poison pill, that he was serious about trying to participate in a compromise of comprehensive legislation that he thought (down the road) would probably stand him in pretty good stead, show that he could do this, remove the citizenship and so forth. The fact that his amendment allowed legalization is where the critics of Cruz are zeroing in, and saying:

“He’s being dishonest with you and everybody else because he was for legalization and therefore he was secretly for amnesty!” And Cruz is saying now — and depending on who you talk to — his amendment was a poison pill amendment. You can’t… In his defense, he can’t write and insert a poison pill amendment and tell people that’s what it is. That’d be self-defeating. So that’s where this is. Pro-Rubio supporters think Cruz has been caught in telling two versions of one story, that he was in favor of legalization, in favor of the Gang of Eight bill with an amendment.

Versus his current position that he totally opposed it, wanted nothing to do with it, because he wanted nothing to do with amnesty. This all came up in the debate. Rubio was lying in wait because I think the Rubio forces thought that they might have an opportunity when the subject came up to illustrate what they think is Cruz hypocrisy. And last night, Bret Baier on the Fox News Channel, had Cruz in and hit him with two different versions of his position on the bill. And the impression left was that maybe Cruz hasn’t been really forthcoming with his voters here.


So what does Cruz do now? That’s the question that he’s got to decide and so forth. I think we’re already too deep in the weeds. To me, this is not complicated. The Gang of Eight bill failed. Ted Cruz ended up voting against it; Rubio was for it. When all is said and done, the Gang of Eight bill was never supported by a majority of the American people, and it went down to defeat. And Ted Cruz’s record, go ahead and look at it all you want. But there’s a lot of work that he put in in trying to defund amnesty and defeat the Gang of Eight bill.

And at the end of the day, it’s gonna be real simple, and there’s not gonna be anything anybody can do about this. You had the Gang of Eight bill, and over here we know who the people that supported it are, and over here we know who the people who didn’t support it are. And as far as Mr. and Mrs. Conservative Voter in any Republican primary are concerned, that’s what it’s gonna come down to for them. All the rest of this is just people getting excited over details, which are interesting if this is what you’re into.

I don’t know. Cruz could say… It’s really gonna boil down to how much he wants to say that his amendment was actually a poisoned pill designed to illustrate what the proponents are really trying to do. I have no doubt, when you propose an amendment that strips out the path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight bill, you’re clearly proposing an amendment that eliminates any possibility they can register to vote any time soon. But what do you think people think when they hear the word “legalization”? A lot of people today…

I guarantee you, laypeople who are not nearly into this like the professionals are, when they hear that Cruz voted for “legalization,” they’re gonna think he voted for amnesty. That’s what the anti-Cruz forces are relying on. That his amendment did allow for legalization. “A-ha! See? He was for amnesty! He’s out there all the time and he’s for amnesty and he’s been lying to us!” That’s what they want you Cruz supporters to believe. So what is he to do? I have no idea what he’s gonna do, no idea how’s gonna handle this whatsoever. I can…

You know, we all put ourselves in people’s shoes and imagine what we would do. He could say something like, he could have explained himself better than he did in the heat of the moment in the debate, “But let’s not lose sight of what’s really important here, and that is I have never and will never support amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in any reform legislation, and I will never support granting them amnesty from their crime of being illegal,” and so forth. “No matter what, and I just didn’t say this clearly enough in the debate the other night ’cause I, too, got caught up in the weeds out there.”

All he’s gotta do… If I were in his shoes… To me, this isn’t complicated. But of course, I’m not the one under assault here, and I’m not the one being criticized. But to me, this very simple. What was the purpose of the Gang of Eight? It was to register 20 million new Democrat voters. The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass of dependent people who are ill-educated, poor, maybe don’t even speak English well. They can’t survive without government assistance. That’s the ideal Democrat voter. The more of them, the better.

That’s what amnesty is.

That’s what their whole point is.

That’s what the whole desire for this to pass.

And the Republican side? Republicans ditto. The Republicans are for amnesty but for different reasons. Their donors want the cheap labor, the Chamber of Commerce and all that, and some Republicans want to support amnesty ’cause they think Hispanics will love ’em and be more supportive, and they think people won’t call ’em racists. I mean, there’s all kinds of different reasons that various politicians support amnesty. The Democrats’ reason is universal. From Democrat to Democrat, it doesn’t matter which one you’re talking to, they see whatever it is, 12 million, 20 million brand-new voters — 70, 80% of which are gonna vote for them. And that’s all that matters.

Not to insert myself in this, but I’m telling you, I illustrated it.

And I know some of you are probably saying, “You’re really full of yourself on this.”


Folks, I have been dragged — ’cause when you’re invited by these people you don’t say no — I’ve been to three different dinners with three different groups, minimum eight, over the years, trying to explain to me why I’m wrong on this comprehensive immigration legislation at various stages, that it isn’t amnesty. I have sat through three hour dinners with Speaker after Speaker after Speaker trying to tell me how I am misunderstanding it. I had one tell me, if you call it amnesty, it’s dead, and it isn’t amnesty. There’s a path to citizenship, yes, but it isn’t amnesty.

I wish I could give you the names, but I promised beforehand to all these people it was off the record. But it’s people you see on TV, even today, last night, in the debate. You’ve seen ’em. I’m just telling you that when I said I will support amnesty, I paused. Just like back in ’92 when I endorsed Clinton, for a half hour they believed it. And so did all of you. When I told ’em I would support amnesty and then paused, I guarantee you, “Oh, wow, oh, oh, oh,” and then I said, “As long as you assure me that the newly amnetized can’t vote for 25 years,” then I didn’t hear from anybody.

My only point here is that one thing about this has never changed: It isn’t about compassion. It isn’t about helping the poor. It isn’t about saving people from war-torn regions of Central America and South America. It isn’t about saving people, escape from poverty. It’s about empowering the Democrat Party. That’s why Rubio’s got so much trouble with it. People on the Republican side do not understand why he could be hoodwinked into helping the Democrats expand their voter base by anywhere from 12 to 20 million people.

So if you can bring Ted Cruz in this and say, “Well, you know what, he was actually for it, too, in this one instance he had an amendment.” Then you muddy the waters and you confuse people and take some of the pressure off. But, again, it’s real simple. The Democrat bill supported amnesty for 18, 12 million, whatever it is million Americans. And the only purpose was for them to be registered as Democrats, and I was never gonna support that. No matter what you hear, no matter what you’ve read, I never did support it, I don’t support it, and I never will, and that should wrap it up, as far as I’m concerned.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Another reason, folks, why this Cruz and Rubio things has gotten so fascinating to so many people, it isn’t about policy. It is about tactics now, the rewriting of the debate, the history of the debate. It’s about tactics, campaign tactics. The policy dispute here is a dead end. There’s no way anybody’s gonna ever be able to say that Ted Cruz was for amnesty at any point ever. But tactically can you make people think that he has been — That’s what this is about.

And people who get all tied up in the tactics, can somebody pull this off? Like Clinton was so loved ’cause he was so great at tactics and strategy. Policy, that’s out the window on this. That’s been decided.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Patty in Naugatuck, Connecticut.

CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush.

RUSH: Hi. How are you?

CALLER: Good, sir. I’m so glad you took my call, because this is really so important to me. I am a really firm Senator Cruz fan, and I have to tell you why.

RUSH: Okay.


CALLER: I find him to be absolutely outstanding. Truthful, trusted, passionate, courageous, strong, and dedicated to we, the people, the Constitution, and the preservation of this country. I think the voting history of this gentleman has been outstanding. He has fought for legalization of people to come to this country through the line. The Gang of Eight bill completely did not encompass those people. He did strategic engineering to put this bill so that it would be defeated. And this gentleman is taking a lot of heat for us. In that bill, he himself has said there were tremendous provisions that were very, very bad. In that bill also was the I-Squared, and that actually also would triple the H-1B visas. They took caps off —

RUSH: Oh, I know, the whole Gang of Eight was atrocious. So look, the point is you’re following all of this, and the effort the last couple of days to impugn Senator Cruz on this, it’s not working on you, you’re not having any doubts about him now.

CALLER: Actually, sir, I have to tell you, I like the truth. I like the daylight being shined on an issue, because it goes to show those who want to manipulate and alter an absolutely prestigious human being, who actually we have the opportunity to elect an outstanding person —

RUSH: All right. Okay.

CALLER: — with credentials.

RUSH: All right, so —

CALLER: One other thing, sir —

RUSH: I’m out of time. I’m sorry. I should have gone to you first. Anyway, I literally got no time other than to point out that whatever is being attempted here is not working on her.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Just a couple things here to finally and with finalamente close the loop on this entire thing that’s happening here with Ted Cruz and Rubio. And I think one of the reasons why it is — and I’m wading into dangerous waters here — it’s about tactics. This whole thing between Rubio and Cruz is about tactics. It isn’t really about policy differences, and this is why it has a — oh, what’s the term? Some people are so ticked off about this. All I can do is read my e-mail and listen to people talk to me, and a lot of people are ticked off at Fox.

Well, it’s clear that the establishment representatives in the media and in the Republican Party in Washington don’t like Ted Cruz. They don’t like Trump, either. They wanted Jeb. That’s not looking good, so the conventional wisdom is that Rubio is the next choice. And the effort that was made on Fox last night to — gotta be very careful — not trick, but to expose Cruz maybe as a hypocrite on some things here has got people in a little bit of a tizzy.


I’m just telling you, folks, it’s a situation where the tactics are what is upsetting you. Nobody’s upset here over the policy differences. It’s really not complicated policy-wise. The Gang of Eight bill failed. It was designed to grant amnesty to 18, 12, 20 million illegal citizens. It failed. And it’s not good for any Republican who voted for it, not in a Republican primary. So tactics are being employed here to make it look like there were more than one Republican that actually was hoping it would pass, and that’s what this has all ended up being about. The tactics are the kind of tactics that Democrats use, and that’s why people in a Republican primary are so ticked off about this to the extent that they are. An attempt to rewrite the debating history of the Gang of Eight bill.

So there’s an attempt here to muddy the waters in order to confuse low-information voters, or maybe even people who are not low-information but not totally up to speed on this. Trying to make ’em think the Gang of Eight was about more than it was. Now, interestingly, let’s listen to CNN. Dana Bash this morning was on CNN with John Berman. This is on At This Hour. I think this is at 11 a.m., the 11 a.m. to 12 noon hour. The anchor said to the reporter, Dana Bash, said, “Dana, you’re the reporter that launched 1,000 campaign slashes. You asked the question two nights ago at the debate about immigration between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and this has set off a heated discussion within the Republican Party ranks. Every blogger, every radio host right now seems to be lining up and taking sides between Rubio and Ted Cruz on immigration.”


BASH: In typical kind of Marco Rubio style, he was obviously ready for that question, turned it around on Ted Cruz and brought up this kind of obscure amendment from back in 2013. It’s kind of amazing. It’s a hundred percent deflection, this amendment that Ted Cruz did propose which would have given legal status to undocumented immigrants was meant at the time as a poison pill. It was meant to try to kill the entire bipartisan legislation. But Cruz is having some trouble kind of squaring what he said at the time with what he is saying now. If you go back to the statements he made at the time, because he was trying to get that passed, he argued for it even though the dirty little secret was what he was arguing for was something that would have just mucked up the entire piece of legislation.

RUSH: So CNN — (laughing) — CNN managed to swerve into the truth there, and CNN today is attempting to solve the argument in favor of Ted Cruz. I just wanted to play that bite for you as a way of making a comparison to the way this is being treated. I don’t know how much attention you pay to intraparty things and how deeply you read and watch and listen, but she’s right. This has set off a huge in-the-weeds debate about this. But that’s it now, okay, so that’s pretty much what happened.

Her contention — I find this interesting — that she is going ahead and acknowledging that Cruz’s amendment from the get-go was a poison pill. And there are some on our side who say, wait, now, Ted Cruz might want you to think that now, but it wasn’t then, because he argued for it, and he was out saying that he really wanted the legislation to pass, because he wanted to be able to say, like now during a presidential race, that he was participant in reform legislation that passed. He thought that would look good on his resume and so forth. And the poison pill is a fallback position. But at least from the Cruz camp’s side they’ve got CNN saying, yeah, it was a poison pill from the get-go but the problem is that he made it look like he was really for it, but they’re accusing Rubio of deflecting — (laughing) That’s that.

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