RUSH: First up, a poll is out today. It’s a Politico Morning Consult poll. “President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border isn’t worth shutting down the federal government,” according to this poll. “Sixty-one percent of registered voters say funding a wall along the nation’s southern border is ‘not important enough to prompt a shutdown.’ A plurality of those polled say fighting for increased funding for defense and homeland security would be worth risking a shutdown,” but not to build a wall.
“In an interesting twist, voters continue to show signs that they are warming to Obamacare.” Wow. This gets even better. Why, people that voted for Trump do not go away, want to shut down the government to pay for the wall, and people that wanted Trump are really now starting to like Obamacare. Hot damn. What a handy twist that interesting twist is. Isn’t it just amazing the way the Drive-Bys’ polls always support the media agenda?
It says here that: “Voters are exactly split on whether the fight over cost-sharing payments to health insurance companies would be worth shutting government over.” In other words, you people, you don’t want the government shut down at all except maybe, maybe if we need funding for the Department of Defense or Homeland Security, but for the wall and for immigration, don’t bother us, we don’t want a government shutdown over that. And so the people that lost the election last November are now continuing to run Washington, D.C.
The threat of a government shutdown has caused the Republicans and Trump, as of now, to delay the funding for the wall until the fiscal year 2017-18 budget year, which will happen in September. I made mention of the fact yesterday that this has the potential of bothering some Trump supporters. We even took a couple calls yesterday from people and I asked them if the timing of the wall matters or just the fact that it will get built sometime is enough to placate you. Now, this is not nearly enough callers to make any kind of scientific statement, but every caller we took on this yesterday said delaying the wall is not what I want. The more you delay it, the greater the chance it isn’t gonna happen.
MUNIZ: While President Trump prepares to unveil his tax overhaul plan, it’s being overshadowed by his push for a border wall. However, he’s backing off some. Still, he says that wall is going up. That stiff reply to a question came just a short time after radio host Rush Limbaugh hit the airwaves yesterday. Limbaugh is a big fan of Trump and told listeners that the president should not back down from the wall. It appears Trump’s comments were an answer to his concerns.
RUSH: I don’t think that’s the case, but the Drive-Bys, this is what they want to believe. They want to believe that somebody like me on the radio could express difficulty, problems with the wall not going up now, the funding not being requested now, in lieu of a government shutdown. And they want you to believe that Trump is in the White House, and somebody said, “You know what, Limbaugh just said you better not do this.”
So Trump then goes to the nearest microphone and camera, “Don’t worry, don’t worry, that wall’s going up, I’m here to tell you.” I don’t think that’s how it happens. They want you to think it happens that way because they want you to think that Trump doesn’t have a mind of his own. He’s either doing what Steve Bannon tells him to do or he’s either doing what Jared Kushner tells him to do or he’s then doing what Gary Cohn tells him to do, and then sometimes he might do what Ivanka tells him to do. They want you to believe he doesn’t have a mind of his own, that he actually believes the last thing somebody tells him. I don’t think that’s how it happened. Here is just a short review of what I said yesterday.
RUSH: Because they always have. And, you know, the wall, as far as I’m concerned, the funding for the wall, it’s $1 billion in a trillion-dollar budget. And that makes it an insignificant amount of money budget-wise, but then the politics of this is an entirely different thing. Trump was sent to Washington to drain the swamp. If the Democrat Party, as losers, can continue to thwart the winners with this never-ending threat of a government shutdown and that the Republicans are gonna get blamed for it, to me it’s time to change that. It’s time to blow up that whole narrative. It’s time to take it on.
Government shutdowns do not actually become what the term implies. Two-thirds of the government cannot shut down. We’re only talking about the third of government that’s discretionary spending, and even at that, nobody loses their jobs, and nobody loses their Thanksgiving turkey. The whole thing has resulted from the Republican Party thinking they bought the farm back in 1995.
This fear of budget shutdowns, for those of you new to the program, you can trace it back to the 1995 budget deal. Newt Gingrich was speaker, Bill Clinton was the president. The Republicans controlled the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. The Republicans were insistent on balancing the budget. Their Contract with America specified that this was one of their 10 goals and objectives and promises, and they were well on their way to doing this.
The Democrats oppose any reduction in government spending. The Democrats oppose any reduction in the size of government at all, and instead they want government growing constantly as large as possible, as quickly as possible. In the budget battle of 1995, the Democrats came up with an allegation that Republicans wanted to cut the school lunch program. This was said as Republicans starving kids. It literally became a narrative. It was in the news every day Republicans want to starve kids.
And then the Democrats began a letter writing program. If you’re new to the program, don’t doubt me on this. Eight- and nine-, 10-, 12-year-olds from New Orleans began to send letters to President Clinton and to Newt Gingrich, “Please don’t cut my lunch! I can’t learn when I’m hungry! It’s already tough enough to get food. If you take my lunch away, I may not be able to learn.”
And of course that was all it took. We couldn’t shut down the government ’cause the Democrats said, “If you cut the school lunch budget, we’re gonna shut the government.” And a government shutdown nevertheless ensued for a couple of days. And the media has been going to town since. “Republicans shut down the government. Republicans hate government. Republicans hate welfare. Republicans hate compassion. Republicans want you to get sick and die. Republicans want your kids to starve.”
And instead of Republicans standing up and saying that’s absurd and asinine, Republicans acknowledge that people think it and start behaving trying to change their minds. After that budget shutdown the Republicans were not hurt in the next midterm elections. The Republicans did quite well. Shutting down the government, in an electoral assessment, did not hurt them at all.
But to this day they blame the 1995 government shutdown for the end of Newt’s speakership and the beginning of the demise of the GOP majority in the House. It was absolutely untrue. And it’s a holdover until today, and the Democrats, whether they’re the minority or the majority, every budget, “Republicans want to shut down the government.” The Republicans have even proposed — I gotta take a break — that the Democrats didn’t agree to.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So I just got a very caustic email. “Mr. Limbaugh, you’re missing the point. I don’t care if there’s a wall as long as illegal immigration is stopped. And right now it’s down between 75 and 90%, and it’s happening without a wall. I don’t care about symbols; I care about results. And if we’re getting rid of immigration to this degree without a wall and without having to spend a billion dollars, I’m all fine with it. Donald Trump forever!” Okay. (laughing)
What about…? Do you people not care about this bogus government shutdown garbage? You know, back… Let me tell you something. Back in 2013 Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio, Republican, suggested the End Government Shutdowns Act. This is how… Republicans are like beaten dogs. You walk up to ’em and they duck their heads thinking you’re gonna hit ’em. So the End Government Shutdowns Act introduced by Senator Portman, the bill, you know what this would have done?
The bill would simply continue funding at the previous year’s spending rate until a new continuing resolution is passed. You like? Well, the Democrats shot it down. The Democrats don’t want to get rid of the weapon they have by threatening a government shutdown and knowing the Republicans are gonna get blamed for it. “I don’t care about a wall! I don’t care! I care about results. Immigration is down. Donald Trump forever! Yes!” says the email.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dan, Victorville, California. I’m glad you called, sir, and glad you waited. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thank you for everything you do, including your Rush Revere books. Got the first one for my daughter and teaching her how to read with that, and she loves it. Thank you again for everything.
RUSH: Thank you. That is great. I really appreciate that.
RUSH: There are repercussions, but it’s up to Congress. There are several — the judiciary has its own mechanism, but it’s never, ever used. It’s a very tight fraternity. There are mechanisms for impeaching judges, censoring judges. They’ve been used. But there’s no political will to do so, so while the mechanism is there, if the political will is — it’s kind of like impeachment. The possibility of impeachment’s always there, but impeachment’s a political thing, not legal, despite how it’s structured. And it’s not gonna happen unless there’s a political will for it, and by that I mean political will among the people. And right now I don’t know that we have a sufficiently educated public to get mad at this judge.
Look, most people, Dan, do not know what really happened here. They think that Trump tried an end run awn the Constitution and this brave, heroic judge stopped him, ’cause that’s the way it’s been reported. Trump wanted to steal money. He wanted take money from sanctuary cities. He wanted to harm people of color. He wanted to really harm cities that didn’t vote for him, but this judge was a hero and said, “You’re a tyrant, Trump, and you can’t do it, (raspberry) you.” And they applaud the judge.
And so the Republican Congress, which is like a groundhog afraid of its shadow when a government shutdown is talked about, is gonna take action against the judge, that could turn me hysterical too. Appreciate the call though. I like the way you think. It’s a good question. And there is a mechanism, but without a political will, the political will to use it.
Mr. Snerdley, what’s wrong with mansions? (interruption) Nothing when they’re yours? So why does this babe, this twit — right, twit? — why does this twit on CNN have a problem with them? I don’t think that’s it. I’m sure she doesn’t have one — well, I’m not. She was a New York Times reporter? I didn’t see that. I didn’t get her name. It was right before the show started.
But the question nevertheless is, you notice how she’s saying, “We’re all buying McMansions. Too many of us are buying McMansions through home mortgage, and that of course is not good.” What business is it of hers who lives in whatever house? What blank-blank business is it of hers?
Tom in Greenwich, Connecticut. Great to have you, sir. How you doing?
CALLER: Hey, Rush, good to speak you. It’s about the eighth or ninth time I’ve gotten through, so I feel like a veteran.
RUSH: Well, welcome back.
CALLER: I’d like to make a point which you touched on a little bit before about sanctuary cities and the funding that the judge cut off. And I’d like to use an example that we know Barack Obama did and it was called Michelle Obama’s school lunch program. The town I lived in about four or five years ago, you know, they complied with Michelle Obama’s program. The kids didn’t eat it. They nicknamed it the North Korean menu.
RUSH: The kids actually starved. Michelle Obama starved kids. They’re eating out of vending machines. They’re going AWOL from school to go to a fast food place to get nutrition because she’s making ’em eat fried kale and stuff.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, North Korea. I think was bark roots, centipedes, bugs. So, you know, basically the point I’m making is, the town finally realized, saying, hey, you know what? We’re gonna have to eat that million and a half, $2 million that was part of the program and, you know, they put it into the town budget to let the kids have a lunch so that they wouldn’t go off campus or whatever. So, you know, there’s a precedent there, and I don’t understand why President Trump doesn’t just say, go to Mnuchin, you are not releasing funds to those cities. I don’t care —
RUSH: He can. He can. He can do all that. The judge did not tell him he can’t do it. That’s why — don’t make me have to go through this again, please. The judge did not say Trump can’t do anything. The judge wanted the media to report that the judge denied Trump. But Trump didn’t say he was gonna do anything other than follow existing law. The judge could find nothing wrong with that, other than to say Trump is lying about it, based on what he said during the campaign. Trump obviously wants to do more than what the law says, even though Trump has never done it, never said he wants to do it, the executive order doesn’t go beyond the law.
That’s why I’m trying to tell people what really happened here. This is pure, pure politics on the part of the judge! The law is still the law. If Trump wants to send Jeff Sessions to San Francisco, if he calls him in and says, “Beauregard, I want you to head out there and I want you to tell these people they got 30 days to shape up, I want you to quote them Title 8 U.S. Code section 1373. They’ve got 30 days, and if they don’t, then by virtue of this law, we’re going to defund them. Go out and tell ’em.”
Trump can still do that. The judge didn’t say he can’t. The judge made up things Trump is supposedly doing that Trump isn’t doing. And the judge is making up an impact of doing this that has not happened yet. Preenactment anxiety. The judge is telling us that citizens of San Francisco and Santa Clara might get nervous if they are faced with the possibility of losing federal money, and Trump can’t do that, preenactment anxiety, that’s enough to stop Trump.
This whole thing is such a bastardization. Nobody has told Trump that he can’t defund sanctuary cities, because the judge did not rule that law unconstitutional. This was a pure exercise in nothing more but a refusal to acknowledge the authority vested in Donald Trump as president. This was nothing more than yet another judge essentially saying, “You don’t have the power to do anything because I don’t acknowledge you as president and I don’t acknowledge your oath of office because you’re not sane and you’re not of sound mind to actually tell the truth when you take the oath of office.”
The judge didn’t say this. This is what’s in these people’s minds. This is how they’re justifying to themselves their actions. The Russians stole the election, whatever they tell themselves, Trump is not legitimate, he is not the authority. And these judges are telling themselves and the media they are saving America, they are saving the Constitution, they are saving the people this country from this tyrant. They are fencing in this tyrant, they’re making sure that Trump cannot be who he really is, and the media’s applauding this. It’s outrageous here, folks, what this is. Anyway, I’m fully prepared to keep explaining this, as long as it takes.
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