RUSH: This is Bob in Coronado, California. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re next. How are you?

CALLER: Good. Thank you. Mr. Snerdley gave me permission to ask you two quick questions. One of them is regarding the GDP and other one is Marine Le Pen. Regarding the GDP number today that came in at 0.7%, the lowest first quarter in three years —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — I’ve been concerned that as Trump policies get initiated and may become successful, that… And this may be premature, but people may gently put their thumbs on the scales and tank the numbers somewhat so that the conclusion will be like, “Look, GDP actually went down. Trump’s policies aren’t working! We need to raise taxes, not lower taxes.”

RUSH: Well, let me help you with that one. In the first place… And I don’t mean to be… Don’t any of you out there get mad, be critical. I’m telling you: Trump’s policies haven’t been implemented yet, folks. We still have Obamacare. We still have not had any tax cuts. There hasn’t been one serious, major Trump policy. The one thing that has happened is there has been a significant drop in illegal immigrants trying to get into the country even before the wall is built. Just the idea that we’ve got a law-and-order president’s enough to really dial it back.

You might also think that deep state embeds would jimmy the numbers and maybe downplay it. I’m not necessarily sure of that. I think in this case, we’re still in the Obama economy, folks. In all senses… (By the way, don’t hang up on him. I’ve got one more question to ask him; he’s got one more to ask me.) We still have the reality that we still have Obamacare. There haven’t been any tax cuts yet. There hasn’t been any Trump legislation that’s been signed into law. There’s nothing of grand significance that’s happened yet.

Trump’s hundred days have been filled with yeoman effort. He’s done as much as he could do with executive orders in charting a new course or a new path. I think your concern is real. I think the Washington establishment does not want Trump to succeed at anything for the reasons I’ve stated. “He’s an outsider. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. We can’t let some upstart come in here and do things that show immediate improvement in the nation’s economy after we’ve been telling people last 30 years, ‘This is it!

“‘This is the best it gets and we gotta have a new normal.’ For Trump to come in and prove us wrong? We can’t allow that to happen.” Trump has a huge, huge wall of opposition that he is up against each and every day that’s trying to stop him, destroy him, what have you. So these first-quarter numbers, the media’s not even really making that big a deal of ’em, folks, ’cause it’s too soon. Trump hasn’t got enough of his fingerprints on things for these numbers to be related to much of what he’s done.

I think, in fact, that the trends are for greater employment. The trends right now are in line for economic revival, simply based on the hope that Trump succeeds. Look at Wall Street. Just on Trump’s inauguration and on the promises he was making about Obamacare and tax cuts, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ just went through the roof. Now it’s starting to slow down a bit because of a concern that some of it might not happen. What was your question about Marine Le Pen?

CALLER: Okay. Rush, I think what’s gonna happen is, I predict she’ll lose. And I think people are gonna say… I mean, I hope she doesn’t lose. But I think if and when she loses, you’re gonna hear this is basically a reflection on Trumpism. In other words, Trumpism is sort of losing its steam. I would just remind people that Great Britain is very much like us in the Rust Belt, as an analogy, and France is much like a college student or people in the faculty lounge. I mean, just because Brexit passes and then Le Pen loses, I think they’re two different things, and people will conflate them that this sort of anti-globalism is no longer a big deal because of what they did in France.

Anyway, Bob, thanks for the call.

Folks, I’m sure you’ve heard this story. If you haven’t, you will now. I wonder what you think of this. Reuters got a pretty lengthy exclusive interview with President Trump, and they have released elements of that interview in a series of stories. One of them is, “Exclusive: Trump Says He Thought Being President Would Be Easier Than His Old Life.” They quote the president as saying, “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”

They say he is isolated in the White House, that he’s frustrated that he cannot drive. By the way, do not pooh-pooh that, if you do. You know, driving is… I mean, you might chuckle at it, but driving is one of the most direct expressions of individual liberty and freedom: The ability to go out, buy your car, get in it, and go. There’s a reason leftists love mass transportation, trains, buses, light rail and other rotgut. The sooner they can get you out of their car, the better they would feel.

The more people they get in mass transit, ’cause they’re the ones then controlling where you go and when you get there. Believe me, when I moved to New York in 1988, I didn’t drive for eight years. I had to be driven everywhere, a whole bunch of reasons. And when I moved to Florida in 1997, the first thing I did was send my lawyer out to buy a car. I didn’t want the dealership to know it was me and didn’t want them following the guy home and all that.

I remember getting in that car and feeling like I was reborn, being able to go when I wanted to go without having to tell anybody, without having to have a phalanx of security people and tell ’em what time I wanted to go, have them, you know, advance an event to make sure of the best entrance, none of that. Just get in the car and go. Get in the car, if I want to make a call, pick up the phone. It was so exciting to get a cell phone built into the car system.

And not being able to drive for eight years — I mean, it wasn’t something I was conscious of every day all eight years and thinking that I was being denied something. It’s just when I had the chance to start driving, the excitement of getting my first new car in like 10 years. And then getting it and driving, I’m telling you. And Trump says he misses that, not being able to drive, and he can’t. He will not be able to — maybe a golf cart, but that’s it. And it’s a huge expression of independence, too, as well as freedom.

But are any of you bothered when you hear him say, “Gosh, this is much more work than I thought it was gonna be. This is much more work than my previous life.” Are any of you, for example, a little alarmed in the sense, “How could you think that this wasn’t gonna be a busy job? How could you think that this was –” Anybody have that kind of reaction? Or are any of you alarmed that this is apparently one of the reactions the president gave to Reuters?

Here’s some of the other Reuters headlines. “As Trump Nears Day 100, Some Stirrings of Discontent.” This is within his staff, and supposedly more and more people in Trump’s immediate orbit wish he would get off Twitter. “Some of his supporters fret that President Donald Trump is backing himself into a corner with promises that can’t be kept. Others lament he is not pulling America from international conflicts as he vowed — or say he should ‘get off of Twitter.’ Those grumbles are early warning signs for Trump as he marks his 100th day.”

Another Reuters story from the interview. “Exclusive: ‘If there’s a shutdown, there’s a shutdown,’ Trump says — President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of a potential government shutdown on Thursday, just two days shy of a deadline for Congress to reach a spending deal to avert temporary layoffs of federal workers.” There’s no severity, and there’s no temporary layoffs. This shutdown stuff, it long ago ceased to be related to any reality.

Then there’s this. New York Times: “Trump Tax Plan Would Shift Trillions From U.S. Coffers to the Richest.” Thank you, New York Times. Right on schedule. We have a Republican proposing a tax cut, and what’s gonna be the end result? The richer are gonna get richer. They don’t even have to write this. Go back to the archives, copy and paste, and up and running.

But my question is this. Headline: “Trump Tax Plan Would Shift Trillions From U.S. Coffers to the Richest.” How did that money? How’d those trillions get in those coffers? How is it that the federal government has trillions of dollars in its coffers that somehow are now gonna end up in the pockets of the rich? Where did those trillions that are now in the federal coffers come from? How did they get there?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The media’s got their little party on Saturday, and Trump is gonna be in Pennsylvania at a rally, and the media is saying, “Boy, what a juxtaposition that’s gonna be.” No, it isn’t, ’cause nobody’s gonna care about the media dinner. Nobody’s even gonna notice it!