RUSH: Sean in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Hi, Sean.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much for taking my call —
RUSH: My pleasure.
CALLER: — because I am irate, if you want to be honest. I am a blogger — I’m a political blogger — and I wrote over 200 blogs for this man, for President Trump, in favor of him, on what he campaigned on. And what I’m seeing these past couple weeks, you know, I voted for Team Bannon. I did not vote for the president’s daughter; I did not vote for Jared Kushner — two Democrats. (crosstalk)
CALLER: I knew hey would have his ear. I did not know they would have so much pull. Because, you know, it’s like just recently it came out that Kevin Hassett is coming on board. Well, he’s for outsourcing! Trump was supposed to be anti-immigration, anti-outsourcing. You know, he’s flip-flopped — within the past few days — on NATO. He was against it. Now he’s for it. You know, China controls the currency. You know, now, “No, America,” and it’s like, you know, and then this bombing in Syria.
You know, at first I was like, “You know what? Yes, I guess we had to do it.” But then, I’m hearing rumors that Ivanka saw the pictures of the babies and Ann Coulter made a great point. She said, “Republicans don’t do things for humanitarian reasons.” I mean, there are children dying everywhere! There are children being shot in Chicago! I mean, is Ivanka gonna say, “Hey, Daddy, go to Chicago and bomb Chicago because people are getting shot”? I mean — and I know that’s obviously a gross exaggeration, but it’s very upsetting.
I mean, I am talking to a man that’s a Kurdish fighter for Kurdistan, and I’m asking him about the gassing in Syria. You know what he said to me? And he’s fighting with our men against ISIS. He’s sending me videos of what’s going on on the battlefield. I mean, these guys don’t mess around. They’re killing ISIS. He hates ISIS; he hates Assad. He’d like America to come in and get rid of Assad, and I said something about the people that were gassed. He said, “I don’t care about them. They’re Arab pigs.”
And I’m thinking, “Then who are you?” It’s a mess over there, and it’s like, you know, it would be great in a perfect world to make a safe world and a better world for everyone, but, I mean, we spent $95 million — I think that’s the figure for the Tomahawk missiles — and what did we fisher? That we’re strong and we’re not gonna watch people suffer? People are suffering every day. That $95 million? Hey! Could have helped fund the failing Obamacare.
RUSH: I hear that.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: Loud and clear. What I was… Before you were halfway through, I was thinking of trying to play devil’s advocate with you on a couple of things, but you have covered the spectrum. You want me to play devil’s advocate on just a couple things and get your take on them?
CALLER: Yes. I would. I would love your take.
RUSH: Well, it’s not my take.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I just want to give you another way of looking at something and see you how react to it.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Let’s talk about NATO. I’ve mentioned this earlier today, so if you’ve heard it, folks, please beg your indulgence while I go through it here with Sean. During the campaign, you’re right. The president complained loudly that we were doing dumb things in NATO because most of the member states were not paying their fair share, that we were paying a way outside burden and we weren’t getting anything for it. And it was stupid and dumb, and if it didn’t change than NATO may as well just go away.
People hear that and say, “Right on, man! We don’t need to prop up these socialist democracies that won’t pay their fair share. Right on, Trump, you go!” Now, Trump says all this and he raises hell and then he starts calling them out for not paying their dues. Now, guess what? These nations… All of a sudden, we got a statement today from the NATO secretary general that all of these nations Trump called out are now stepping up and paying their “dues.” Meaning: They’re spending 2% of GDP on defense or they’re intending to. They’re allocating it.
And so in that sense Trump is now saying NATO’s okay because he made everybody play straight and contribute their fair share and essentially saved it. And he would tell you that his opener here during the campaign — ripping into NATO as something worthless and outmoded — was simply to get people to step up, pay their fair share. And he’s done that. And therefore this is a success, not a flip-flop. If somebody explained it to you that way, what would your reaction be?
CALLER: Then I would say, “He’s a great manipulator and he accomplished what no one else has been able to accomplish.” And, you know, I applaud him for that.
RUSH: Okay, let’s go to the ChiComs.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: You mentioned the Chinese and currency manipulation. You’re right! During the campaign he beat up China every day he beat ’em up on the currency manipulation, he beat ’em up on trade he beat ’em up on outsmarting our own negotiators. He said it wasn’t gonna go on any longer. Now all of a sudden, guess what happens? He has a meeting with the ChiCom leader at Mar-a-Lago, he has a phone call with the ChiCom leader, and ChiCom leader is now telling the North Koreans to stand down or the Chinese are gonna abandon ’em.
Now, no matter how you look at it, that has to be looked at the in certain ways as a success because I’ll guarantee you this, Sean, there is no way Barack Obama — I don’t know anybody else — would have made the Chinese, convinced the Chinese, to abandon their communist blood brother North Koreans. So, yeah. He can say, “I was threatening them! I told them what-for. I told them we’re not gonna screw around… If they keep manipulating the currency, we’re gonna get it back in the way we trade.
And now he’s converted this Xi Jinping leader in China into a… Well, it’s all apparent. I mean, the threat that they made to North Korea is real, and North Korea’s been out there launching missiles. They haven’t been aiming ’em right. But they’re threatening to do all kinds of things to us, and Trump threatened them. And the Chinese told the North Koreans, “He’s not bluffing. Do not think he’s bluffing.” The Chinese went to the North Koreans and said, “Do not look at this guy the way you looked at previous presidents. He intends to take you out if you keep this up.” Now, people would tell you this is a success in terms of foreign policy with the Chinese.
CALLER: Okay. No, I agree. Like I said, he’s done some good things. But it’s just… You know, it’s hard to —
RUSH: Let’s look at Syria. Let’s look at Syria. You made the point that we can’t go everywhere where there’s suffering, children suffering. We shouldn’t have Ivanka — because she sees pictures that make her cry — go to the president and him bomb the people responsible for it. The reason you have a serious complaint here is Trump’s tweets during the campaign. There were numerous tweets — and I’m sure you remember ’em — where he basically told Obama, “Don’t go into Syria. It’s a no-win. You can’t. You don’t even know if you’re gonna hit the right target. If you hit the wrong target, you got a bigger mess than ever.
“We need to spend that money in America, put America first, make America great. Don’t waste it in Syria.” And yet here he is launching 59 Tomahawks into Syria. But what is the message sent? Those 59 Tomahawks, while the ChiCom leader is having dinner with Trump in Mar-a-Lago, probably went a long way to convincing the ChiCom leader to tell the North Koreans, “Look, this guy is a madman. You can’t look at him as previous presidents! If he says he’s gonna take you out, he’s not bluffing. ” So these missiles that launch into Syria? It sends messages to Russia. It sends a message to the Norks and to the Chinese.
We’ve had eight years of passivity with Barack Obama where whatever anybody around the world wanted to do to America, we just huffed and puffed and did nothing. And with Donald Trump, you want to do something to America, there’s gonna be a price. And if you offend our sensibilities — and, say, it’s a wanton violation of human rights like gas attacks — we’re not gonna put up with it. And he says and does what he does. So the question is, as you…? Are these flip-flops and betrayals, or is it something else? And you’ve decided that they’re flip-flops and betrayals and you’re not happy about it. Would you like to plug your blog? Would you like to give us the name of your blog?
RUSH: GOPGirlBlog.blogspot.com. Okay.
CALLER: And I’m fair to the president. You know what? I will always call him on all of this, you know, good things. I mean, you know, I just saw that we’re deporting I think it’s 4,000 Somalis, and I posted that on Facebook. I mean, I will always tout things that I think are great. But, I mean, I do get concerned when I see globalists that may be able to persuade him to go in a direction that I don’t like him to go.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. We’ve been talking about today, and there’s no question that there is a battle among the staff in the White House. There are some neocons in there who are trying to… You know, they want war in the Middle East, and they’d love for Trump to do it. Your sensibilities in that in terms of being (sigh) concerned about it I think are accurate. But I don’t think we’re getting the whole story on that. I just had a story in the Washington Free Beacon about how the National Security Council… People are dumping on Jared Kushner today, Sean.
Somebody leaked to the Washington Free Beacon that Jared Kushner is try to take over the National Security Council. Not Bannon. Jared Kushner. Somebody is leaking against the president’s own son-in-law — and, by extension, his own daughter. Now, who would be doing this? Well, it has to be somebody at the National Security Council who doesn’t want Jared getting a foothold in there. Names? I won’t go there. Sean, look, I appreciate the call. I gotta go. Don’t be surprised if your server has been swamped and taken off line. That always happens. We mentioned a website here, and the volume takes it down for a while. But you’ll be back. It won’t be long. Give me that address one more time.
CALLER: GOPGirlBlog.blogspot.com.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And I’m anything but politically correct!
RUSH: Okay. I could tell that.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: And I like that, and we’ll also link to your blog at RushLimbaugh.com. As I say, we’ve shut you down now or soon will, but you’ll be back. Your opportunity is to maximize all of this attention. And I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to do that. Thanks for the call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I have a little question for you. I’m just throwing it out there, folks. It’s one of these questions just to ponder it. I’m not throwing it out there intending to make a point. If you have an immigration refugee policy, which Trump, he tried twice the travel ban, nobody from Syria ’til further notice, nobody from Syria, no refugees from Syria, right?
Okay, and then Assad starts gassing his own people, how do you refuse Syrian refugees after Assad gasses? Well, I’m just throwing it out. To some people it may not be a problem. “It’s not our job to save the world. I don’t care, we didn’t bomb them.” I’m just throwing it out there. No express purpose.
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