RUSH: I have to tell you, I was kind of blown away watching Obama today. He was on time for the most part. He was scheduled to show up at 10:30 and make comments regarding the closing (finally) of Club Gitmo, where we have a thriving licensed merchandise business, by the way. One of the first things Obama did, to refresh your memories — I mean, it was the first week that he was in office. He’s up there reading all these executive orders and making announcements about their intentions.

And he’s got some guy up there named Greg Craig who was a Washington lawyer who had been involved in sending Elian Gonzalez back home to the communists, from Florida. And Obama’s going through these things he is gonna do and his executive orders, and he had to stop in the middle of it, say, “What are we doing here, Greg? What’s going on here, Craig?” And Greg gets kind of embarrassed because he wrote it for Obama to say, and Obama didn’t quite understand it. But they ended up talking about how they’re gonna close Gitmo.

They’re gonna close Guantanamo Bay. “It’s where we’re keeping the terrorists. It’s rotten, it’s horrible, it’s where waterboarding went on, it’s a recruitment plus for the terrorists.” We have this prison there and he’s been promising to close for seven years. So he goes out there today to announce that he’s gonna close it, and really I was stunned watching this. For one thing the issue, as far as Obama goes, is seven years old now. There hasn’t been any sense of urgency about this in seven years, not like this, today.

And yet there he was portraying this — closing the prison at Gitmo — as one of the most pressing, urgent, important, “We can’t delay any longer,” things that we face today. He went on about how hard he has been working for seven years to close this. He said that our allies call him every day demanding answers, wanting to know when we are gonna close Gitmo. Because Gitmo, according to Obama and our allies, is the number one terrorist recruitment tool in the world — which, of course, cannot possibly be true.

Well, okay, I’ll be glad to demonstrate that. What is Guantanamo Bay? It’s a prison in Cuba. Who’s there? Battlefield-captured terrorists. Right now there are 107 of them there. All these allies… Obama says all of our allies are calling him every day demanding to know what we’re gonna do, when we’re gonna close it. None of them want any of the prisoners, however. Obama said that. So what are we gonna do with ’em?

What do you think we’re gonna do?

We’re gonna transfer them here, folks!

We’re not letting ’em out of prison. We’re changing the prison. We’re gonna move them from Guantanamo to Supermax facilities in the United States. Now, if Guantanamo is the number one terrorist recruitment tool in the world, guess what’s gonna happen? Our Supermax prisons are going to become the number one terrorist recruitment, because they’re still gonna be in prison! This is… Well, A, it was insulting to my intelligence, but it was absurd to boot.

Because we know what the number one terrorist recruitment tool is. It’s Islamic supremacy, Islamic superiority, Islamic ideology, the imams, the mosques. That’s where the recruitment happens. Are you kidding me that Guantanamo Bay is the number one terrorist recruitment tool in the world? That’s no different than Obama saying, “The United States defending itself and protecting itself is the number one terrorist recruitment tool in the world.”

So essentially Obama just insults the United States again and basically claims that our very existence is putting us at risk because our very existence is angering young Islamic men and inspiring them to jihad. When anybody with half a brain knows that’s not the case. What is inspiring them to Islamic Jihad is their mothers, their fathers, the imams, the mosques, and Islamic supremacy as it is taught. To be consistent, if Guantanamo Bay was making the United States an even bigger target, we would release them.

No matter whether another country would accept them or not, we would release them. And then we would not be as big a target, right? Because then we would be nice people and we would be understanding and we would no longer be holding Islamic terrorists prisoners. But we’re not gonna release ’em. We’re just gonna move ’em. So we’re really to believe here that a facility, a brick-and-mortar facility, maybe a couple palm trees, but you get the drift, in Cuba, is what is really putting us at risk from further terrorist attacks?

I thought it was Apple. I thought it was iPhones. Now we’re finding out it was Club Gitmo. Okay. So we’re gonna move them to American prisons here in America, continental United States, where Obama says don’t worry, they’ll never get out. We’re gonna put ’em in Supermax, never been an escape, isn’t gonna happen. That’s not what we’re worried about. There hasn’t been an escape from Gitmo, either. That’s not the thing. The attempted escape becomes the problem. What happens if you have a terror cell that decides it wants to attack one of these Supermax prisons under the premise of trying to get one of these or two of these prisoners out? It’s still increasing the risk for people that work at our prisons and people who live near them in any other number of ways.

This move doesn’t make any sense, to close Gitmo under these premises. It’s ridiculous that a brick-and-mortar facility with some palm trees and a beach happens to be the number one terror recruit. That telegraphs to the world what a bunch of rotten, mean people America has. And so in order to eliminate and get rid of that threat we’re gonna move ’em to American prisons where they’re supposed to then go, “Okay, we are happy now. You have closed Guantanamo Bay and put them in Supermax in Colorado. We love you now.” Is that how this works? It’s crazy. But that’s what Obama said he’s gonna do.

Once again, if you strip it all away, what Obama said was that it’s the very existence of the US, our laws and our enforcement of our laws that really ticks ’em off out there, really angers them and makes us a bigger target. If we just stopped enforcing our laws, if we just stopped imprisoning captured terrorists, why, they would respect us more, they would love us more and maybe attack us less. Here, listen for yourself, Obama. Two sound bites here from this morning at the White House, number one.

OBAMA: When it becomes clear that something is not working as intended, when it does not advance our security, we have to change course. For many years it’s been clear that the detention facility —

RUSH: Wait a second. Cue that back up. What evidence is there that these prisoners being in prison is not enhancing or advancing our security? It most certainly is. The people in the prison are not free to go out and conduct attacks. I’m so glad this is about over, but this just reminds me what absolute horror these last seven years have been, dealing with this kind of — I don’t care what the issue is. I don’t care if it’s health care, we get this kind of nonsense BS, lies that insult everybody’s intelligence. Mr. Trump, if you really want a guy that’s not telling the truth about things, focus on this guy. This guy is leading the pack. This guy and the Clintons. They’re making pikers out of anybody else you happen to think is lying out there. Okay, play this thing again from the top.

OBAMA: When it becomes clear that something is not working as intended, when it does not advance our security, we have to change course. For many years it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security.

RUSH: How so?

OBAMA: It undermines it.

RUSH: How?

OBAMA: Keeping this facility open is contrary to our values.

RUSH: Whoa, come on.

OBAMA: It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law.

RUSH: What an absolute crock. That’s the biggest most gigantic filled crock I have encountered from this guy a long time. He’s essentially saying, “For many years it’s been clear that the prison does not advance our national security.” Our prison undermines it. Keeping the prison open is contrary to our values. What freaking values is he now besmirching? This is the constant go-to for Obama. “It’s not reflecting our values.” I don’t think his values are mine, folks, not too many of ’em. But clearly keeping Islamic terrorists in prison undermines our standing in the world? You notice it’s always about that? It goes back to 2008, the Iraq war, Obama’s campaign making the world love us again. And now it’s been open for seven years under his auspices.

Once again, the Limbaugh Theorem on display. Obama acting like somebody else has kept it open. Somebody else is making this country at great risk. Somebody else is denying our values. Somebody else is making us look really bad around the world. He’s gonna come in, save the day, and close the place down, even though for seven years, with all these reasons hanging over his head, every day he couldn’t be bothered to close it. But now that he’s leaving and he even said (imitating Obama), “You know, Biden and I are leaving so we don’t even have to be political about it anymore. We can do the right thing.” Well, that’s a tantamount admission that the reason he didn’t shut it down is because of politics. Get this. Get this next bite. We have time here.

OBAMA: I have been working for seven years now to get this thing closed.

RUSH: Right. That’s enough. Stop the tape and go to a break. “I’ve been working for seven years to get this thing closed.” As though somebody’s been out there stopping him. As though somebody, these dark forces, powerful forces standing in his way. He’s the president of the United States for crying out loud. It’s the same reaction I have when I listen to Hillary or Bernie talk about the economy or health care. Who the hell has been in charge?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look at me. I’m gonna tell you what this is really all about. What Obama wants, before we can move these people they have to have a trial. And, by the way, all these calls that he’s getting from our allies asking about Gitmo, what they’re really asking is will we take their refugees. That’s what they’re really asking. They want to get rid of their rabble. They’re asking if we’ll take them at Club Gitmo. They’re not asking Obama when he’s gonna shut it down so America’s values are restored. What a crock.

What this is about is giving many of these incarcerated terrorist bad guys trials, as though they are citizens. Obama knows plenty of radical left-wing lawyers that cannot wait to defend these guys, paid for by the United States Government. You remember how Obama and Eric Holder, they wanted to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for a trial and there was such an outrage. He still wants that. You might be saying, “What does he want to put ’em on trial for?”

Well, folks, some people may not yet have learned this or may not yet have gotten to the point where they can accept it, but Obama disagrees profoundly with everything we did in Iraq and the War on Terror. He disagrees with everything about it. He doesn’t like that we are at war with Islam, and he wants these terrorists to be able to testify to what rotten treatment they got. He wants these people in American courts shouting their grievances of the United States to the world. He wants trials for many of these people before he moves them to American prisons.

And the reason he wants trials is he wants to give them a voice, and in the process of conducting their defense, they bring witnesses, they testify maybe themselves to their mistreatment, to how horrible the United States has been in their native countries, to their families and their friends or whatever, brace yourselves. ‘Cause that’s the desire here. This is about making the United States face, in front of the world, the horror and the terror it has brought to otherwise innocent and harmless people around the world. Make no mistake that that is part and parcel of what is desired here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, don’t misunderstand. Obama can’t close Gitmo on his own, and that’s what this thing was all about today. The dark forces standing in Obama’s way of closing Club Gitmo has been a bipartisan Congress, which has voted time after time in bipartisan majorities to not fund, to not pay for moving these terrorists. So, once again, Obama wants to go out and use illegal executive orders to bypass as much as he can — with public pressure — and that’s why all this malarkey about, “It’s not true to our values. It’s putting us at greater risk.” It just condescendingly insulting.

Here’s the second Obama sound bite, by the way. Here it is, number 30. … Obama says, “I’ve been working for seven years now to get this thing closed. As President, I have spent countless hours dealing with this. I do not exaggerate about that. Our closest allies raise it with me continually.” That’s the bit about them calling him and raising it. He wants us to think that they want it closed. If they’re calling him, it’s because they want us to accept their refugees at Gitmo. They don’t want it closed. They want to send us their dregs and everything else.

Obama’s trying to twist it around and say, “Oh, no. No. They want us to close Club Gitmo, and it’s making everybody look bad.” When he says he’s spent seven years trying to close it, he’s implying dark forces — Congress, bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans — have refused to pay for it. They do not want these prisoners here, and they do not want them to have trials. There are some Democrats that want any part of this. Obama does. He wants them here so he can have trials.

His plan is to put ’em in Supermax prisons here, which still has them in prison, which still is “not our values,” which still makes the prison a target for potential attacks trying to effect an escape. I mean, what’s the difference if they’re in prison here or there? It seems like we’re safer if they’re in prison in Cuba. It’s the closest thing we’ll ever have to Alcatraz here. This is all so damn convoluted. I’m telling you what this is. He wants these trials. He wanted the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial.

He wanted it in public. He wants it on television. He wants these people telling the world how rotten they’ve been treated by the United States, how awful they’ve been treated. They want these people to recount all of the horrors they have experienced at the hands of the US military. And who knows whatever else. I’m here to tell you that Obama resents the heck out of the entire War on Terror and its premise. He won’t even identify it. He will not even say Islamic terror. You can’t even say “terrorism.”

You can’t say “jihad,” none of this stuff. Now, I do. Just since I mentioned this, grab what on my sheet’s number 31. It’s the sound bite from 2009, January 22, 2009. That means it’s the day after Obama’s been inaugurated here. And when he first brings up the whole notion of closing Club Gitmo, and he’s got this famed Washington lawyer Greg Craig with him there in the Oval Office, and Obama has signed the executive order calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay within one year.

OBAMA: In order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo, uh, and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and interests of justice, I hereby order. And we then we will then, uh, provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than, uh, one year from now. We will be… Uhhh…. Ummm…. Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we’re going to dispose of the detainees? Is that it, eh, uh, what we’re doing?

CRAIG: We’ll set up a process!

OBAMA: We will be, uh, setting up a process whereby this is going to be taking place.

RUSH: So here’s on you young Boy Wonder president here announcing he’s gonna close Club Gitmo. No thought has been given to what the hell we’re gonna do with them. So in the middle of announcing of the executive order, he has to turn to the guy that actually wrote it, Greg Craig — who’s the guy who got Elian Gonzalez out of that house in Florida and sent back down to the communists in Cuba. “Uh, Greg, uh, is there a separate order here for what we’re gonna do with the terrorists? Uh, dispose of the detainees?” Craig says, “We’re gonna set up a process!”

“Oh, oh! Yeah, right. Yeah. We’ll be setting up process whereby this is gonna be take place.” So he just ran out there. It’s the first thing he wanted to do was satisfy these radical left-wing lunatics that had elected him, who thought that his election was all about closing Guantanamo ’cause of this silly notion about “our values” or what have you, and it looked like he’d not even seen these. It looked like these had been prewritten for him, and he was sent out there to read them. “What are we doing next, Greg? What are we doing next?”

Anyway, to the phones we go. This is Lena in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Yes. Good afternoon.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: I have a question.

RUSH: What is that?

CALLER: So this morning Obama gave his little speech, and then in March he’s gonna go visit Cuba.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Is it possible that he’s going to just hand over the naval base over to Cuba and can he do so unilaterally without Congress’ approval?

RUSH: No.

CALLER: No?

RUSH: No. No. He can’t do it.

CALLER: Wow. He’s done so many things he “can’t do.”

RUSH: Look, with this guy, there have to be caveats, I know. The law says that he cannot randomly, indiscriminately, not only hand bases over to people. He can’t close ’em on his own. We had a separate base closure commission of former government officials who, since they’re not in office, the flak they get won’t affect ’em. Our current elected officials don’t want their fingerprints on anything like that.

So we set up blue ribbon panels to close bases, and we’ve been doing that for (sigh)… Well, at least 15 years. But, no, he can’t just hand it over to Castro. Castro’s… By the way, it’s a good question you’re asking, because Castro just despises the fact that we have a presence there. He just despises that there is still a naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Now, your real question is, “If he could, would he?” And you can probably answer that yourself, Lena.

CALLER: If he could, he would.

RUSH: If he could, he would.

CALLER: He would have done it already.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Well, he doesn’t want to go over there empty-handed. That’s why I thought about this.

RUSH: Well, he doesn’t need to give ’em Guantanamo in order to… No. He’s already given them the gift of recognition. He’s just propped up this communist Regime when they were about to implode. He just propped ’em up. He’s given them life.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: He’s not going to Cuba empty-handed. He’s not gonna come back empty-handed, either. Anyway, I’m not gonna begrudge him going Cuba. I’d like to go to Cuba. But I… (interruption) No, I’d be… I’m too famous. I couldn’t go. You can’t do those kind of things. (interruption) What do you mean, they don’t know me there? You have no idea. In your dreams they don’t know me there. They most assuredly do know me in Cuba. They’ve got a couple five-star hotels in Havana. Well, international five star. Well, look, they do have a couple of really… (interruption)

For Cuba, 10 star, yeah. Worldwide. They’ve got a couple from… I’m reporting what I’ve been told by people who have been there. It’s not very many. I mean, most people are still walking around with their hands out hoping that the Castros will give ’em a rice cooker. The general population over there is still poor. (interruption) A day trip to Cuba? Yeah. But I can’t get in there and get out. No, no. Americans still do not have the blanket freedom. You still have to get a certain kind of visas to get in there. Not much has really changed yet on that. There have to be specific reasons. You’d have to get a journalist visa.

They wouldn’t give me one, I don’t think. I wouldn’t want to go on a journalist visa anyway. It’s a little bit easier to get there, but it’s not just, “If you want to go, go.” Although, I did read recently a bunch of airlines are expanding the number of flights from the United States to Cuba. It’s gonna be an incredible number of, what is it, daily or weekly flights, whenever they get it up and running. But when I say I’m too famous, I couldn’t go there and not be noticed and followed around and inspected, you know, documented, and with news reported back what I did. I just couldn’t do it. I’m too famous for this.

And Dawn says, “They don’t know you in Cuba.”

Ha-ha-ha!

If you only knew, folks.

If you only knew.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, I just want to reiterate again, ’cause I kind of threw this out there, I mentioned it in passing, do you see where the FBI, the Department of Justice has said, “Oh, by the way, after we got into this terrorist phone, after Apple left us in, we have 12 other phones here that we need help getting into.” And they’re not related to terrorism. Other crimes not related to terrorism. Not terrorist possessed phones. Just 12 other phones. “Oh, by the way, we want Apple to get us in these phones, too.” It’s not going to stop.

From the New York Times on November 15th last year, 2015. Just a few months ago. “The latest defense bill out of the House even explicitly forbids the closing of Guantanamo Bay.” As recently as November. That’s what Obama’s fired up about. So who knows what he’s gonna do when he’s down there, or even before.