RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to expand on something here that I just saw President Trump say right before the end of the previous hour. He said that his plan now is to just let Obamacare fail. He’s not gonna own it. He’s just gonna let it fail. Which he’s been saying for months. He said, you know, the smart thing politically for him to do is to let it fail and let the Democrats absorb all the blame. Let Obama and the Democrats take the blame. Just let it fail. But Trump said — as a show of good faith — he was gonna work with people to try to replace it, to repeal and replace it rather than just to let it implode, let it fail.
He could mean it that he’s just going to sit by and let the thing fail, and that means old Mitch and the boys can go in there and fail to repeal it and that means Obamacare remains the law of the land. This is where it gets interesting. Obamacare is imploding. It is in the process of consuming itself. If Trump follows through and just says, “I’m gonna let it fail,” and we just sit by and watch premiums go up 45, 50% every year… As we watch insurance companies pull out of the exchanges, as we watch the subsidies end, as we watch the exchanges close, as nobody’s able to buy insurance…
You have the Trump opposition in the, quote, unquote, “elite club” known as the establishment.
What are they gonna do now? See, the objective in the original design of Obamacare was to fail. But it was supposed to fail with Hillary Clinton or another Democrat in the White House. And, at the moment of failure, it was then to be suggested almost as a brilliant spur-of-the-moment idea, “Hey, why don’t we just go single payer.” Or, “Hey, why don’t we just put everybody on Medicare? Hey, problem solved!” Because, at that time, that point in time, premiums would be out of reach, deductibles out of reach, insurance companies closing down and closing up shop, exchanges closing up shop. So it’d be eagerly demanded, even maybe by the public.
But now we’ve got Trump who doesn’t want to go single payer, and this the Democrats and the establishment know. So there are two options here, and it’s interesting to note that if you listen to the media and you listen to the Democrats, repealing Obamacare is the worst thing that could be done, but it isn’t. Staying with Obamacare and letting it implode is the absolute worst outcome here. Repealing it means you repeal it. You get rid of every Obamacare law, and that means you start over. But it also raises a question: At what point do you…? Where do you resume?
What do we fall back to?
Otherwise, it will be said that the insurance companies will once again be in charge of health care because they’re the ones that sell policies. And you can’t get coverage if you don’t have a policy, ’cause it’s so expensive, you can’t pay for it yourself. So that’s Trump’s ultimate… I don’t know if you call it “threat,” but that’s his negotiating position. “Okay. If we can’t vote to repeal this thing, I’m standing by and I’m letting it die. I’m letting it implode. I’m gonna let it fail, and it’s on the Democrats, and I’ll make sure everybody knows it’s on the Democrats.
I think she really does, actually. (interruption) Well, I don’t think they care if Pelosi starts imploding. That doesn’t matter. They’re out of party, doesn’t matter. They can shove her off to the side where nobody’s looking and run the show. If the Democrats were in charge, if she was the speaker and were imploding, that’d be problem. But now they can cover it. They can send her off to the home and nobody would know. Just run old Nancy Pelosi videotapes ripping into Bush and Trump and it’d work. But that’s off the topic. Obamacare in place where people can’t afford insurance and they can’t afford the deductible, they can’t afford to use their policy?
The law still says you have to buy it. Remember, the mandates are still there. The fines are still there. Everything’s still there if it isn’t repealed in its present downward spiral, which everybody agrees is happening. Just like everybody agrees the Russians affected the election (laughing), everybody agrees that Obamacare is spiraling out of control. I’m telling you, repealing it would be a much better outcome for people than just sitting with it while it evaporates, and that’s what Trump is threatening to do. Could be a negotiating position.
Could be the case. In any event, our last caller had a great attitude: What if Trump actually decides at some point when it comes to time to reconstitute American health care and they do it legislatively, to bring in some of these outside private sector people and just have ’em do it. Have ’em write legislation. It’s no different now than having it written on K Street. It’s not written in Congress. Most legislation isn’t. But an outright repeal is a political… I wouldn’t say must, but it’s certainly the Republicans have promised this so many times that they have to…
The other 10%’s being a senator. It shocked him. It was that blatant, that obvious. Why? Because getting reelected is the most important job every senator thinks he has. Probably to a degree this is true in the House, but he was speaking specifically of the Senate. And yet, if getting reelected is the most important thing, then a question occurs to me.
All of these promises and all of these votes to repeal Obamacare since 2010, now when they have the power to actually do it, they don’t do it, they can’t do it. After all these promises, after all these times being elected on the basis of that promise, and yet they obviously don’t fear the voters in their states nearly as much as they fear something else.
They are clearly willing to incur your wrath at reelection time. They would much rather do that than deal with whatever is gonna happen to them if they vote to repeal it. They’re afraid of somebody. They are concerned about somebody or something, but it isn’t you. Despite the most important thing in their lives, being reelected, that’s what you do. So who is it that they’re more afraid of than you? Who is it that they are the least interested in angering?
But it all circles around money, understandably. And there’s nothing new about that. I’m not claiming to have discovered anything earth-shattering here. But I just find it interesting. So on the table, Donald Trump: I’m gonna let it fail. I am going to let it fail. I am not gonna own this. This is an utter failure, utter disaster. I’ve tried. I worked with people. Obviously we don’t have enough Republicans who want to vote this way. We need more Republicans in 2018, but I’m gonna let it fail ’cause I am not owning this baby.
So failure, which is Obamacare, stays in place with all of its problems, expenses, failures versus repealing it. I’m telling you, the most painful choice here is leaving Obamacare in place.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Patty in is it New Berlin or New Berlin, Illinois?
CALLER: New Berlin.
RUSH: New Berlin. How you doing?
CALLER: I’m doing great. I get to talk to you. I had a comment, and then I would like to ask a question about what you just spoke on.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: You made the comment that half of the people in America have awakened and that’s why Donald Trump is in office. And I told Mr. Snerdley, I think you could wake up the rest by Skyping in a White House news conference and have them let you explain to America what you just told us about why Congress is doing what they’re doing.
RUSH: Well, you know, the problem with that is you’re supposed to ask questions when they let you Skype into a press conference for the daily —
CALLER: You could.
RUSH: Well, I could say, “Do you think this is right, Mr. Spicer,” and then launch into my five-minute explanation, which of course everybody’d be spellbound by.
CALLER: They would.
RUSH: If you want to see the media blow up, that would be fun. (laughing)
CALLER: It would be fun. And the mainstream media would all be there and maybe let them ask you a question or two. And what would they have to report on the news that night?
RUSH: Yeah, I see your point. I see the way you’re thinking on this. I don’t think they would ask me any questions, and I think when it came time to repeat it, I would be edited out of the daily briefing. But the live broadcast of it, that’s an intriguing thought. The problem with that is — and I’m not trying to be negative here — but the questions, whoever it is, reporters actually in the room or people Skyping in, they don’t get much more than 30 seconds, maybe with a follow-up.
CALLER: Maybe the president would let you have more.
CALLER: It’s a thought.
RUSH: It is a good idea. What is the other thing that you wanted to ask me about?
CALLER: Did you see Senator Lankford make the comment? I saw on the news today that he wanted to have all the senators who disagree on the health care plan get in a room and let ’em talk it out and see if they can’t agree on some things. And he said, but they won’t let us, and I don’t know why.
RUSH: Who is “they” won’t let us?
CALLER: Well, my guess is —
RUSH: McConnell?
CALLER: — McConnell —
CALLER: Yeah. But that’s what he said. You can see it. It was on television, so —
RUSH: Well, if it was on television, there’s no question it happened.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. But that’s what he said so —
RUSH: I missed — they won’t even let — (crosstalk)
CALLER: — gotta be these RINOs.
RUSH: Look, I know this sounds controversial. It shouldn’t, because it’s staring us in the face. I have a philosophy, folks, and it’s based on my own life. And on this one, I am projecting. I will admit it. I’m using my own life experiences to philosophize about things in general. It has to do with desire. You know, I got fired seven or eight times before I was 32. And of those seven or eight times, I got fired not for reasons of performance or incompetence; I got fired for personal, personality disagreement, whatever other reasons.
I was told I didn’t have what it took, that I don’t understand radio, should go into sales and all this. It was only my desire and love for what I wanted to do and what I was doing that kept me plugging away. I never at any time was motivated by an “I’ll show them” attitude. Never was I motivated by, “I’ll show them,” that wasn’t it. I just loved it. It was what I wanted to do. I was lucky to learn early in life what I wanted to do, and I knew how to define success, even though by the time I’m 33 I still hadn’t had any. I was just on the verge of it, and I’d been working since I was 16.
And I’ve learned from my experience that desire is 80% of achievement. That if you really, really want something, if you really, really, really want to do something, that the vast majority of achieving it is wanting it. I mean, really wanting it. Not a preference, and not, “Gee, I hope this.” I mean really wanting it. It is the desire that makes you do what you have to do to achieve.
I didn’t go to college. I got tired of it. I didn’t want to take ballroom dance taught by a former drill sergeant in the WACs. I didn’t like flunking speech, me, flunking speech. But I realized sometime later, okay, I don’t have a piece of paper that says I’ve been educated, so I’m gonna have to be able to demonstrate that I’m educated. So I began self-teaching. It was all related to desire. These people don’t want to repeal Obamacare. I’m telling you. It’s that obvious to me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, we have a sound bite. Our last caller, two callers ago, referenced Senator Lankford. Yes, James Lankford. I have it here. Senator James Lankford is a Republican from Oklahoma, and he was on Fox & Friends with Steve Doocy this morning who said, “The big question, Senator, is can the Republican Party — in its many factions in the U.S. Senate, can you — consolidate around any single idea and get that passed?
LANKFORD: Yes. I’m still optimistic that we can, and because we must. My focus for weeks has been let’s get all the people that disagree in one room —
DOOCY: Great.
LANKFORD: — and let’s hammer this out live in one moment. And for whatever reason, we’ve not been allowed to do that, to get all of the different factions in one room at one time. We’ve all been negotiating one at a time. If we can get everybody together at one time and finish this, I think we can get it done.
RUSH: So there it is. Somebody’s not the letting them all get together in one room, but when he says they’re “negotiating one at a time,” with who? With who? Who are you negotiating with? One at a time with who? The White House? McConnell? Schumer? Who? Chuck You is now saying that Democrats have been locked out on health care. Oh, boohoo, Chuck You! Who locked the Republicans out all during Obamacare’s passage? What a bunch of snakes. Democrats locked out on health care? This is Chuck You’s attempt to deflect the blame that’s gonna come if Obamacare is not repealed and just implodes. Chuck You is setting up (paraphrased), “We had nothing to do with it! The Republicans sat by and let it fail. We offered to help ’em; they didn’t want anything to do with us.”
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