RUSH: From TheHill.com: “GOP Leaders to Give Trump Bitter Pill on Spending, Debt.” You know the big argument now is whether to increase the — here was the timeline. The timeline was that the debt limit needs to be increased again this fall, and the Democrats and media were running around predictably as they always do, saying that there’s gonna be a government shutdown if Trump and the Republicans don’t raise the debt limit. And then Hurricane Harvey hit, and then the Republicans said, “All right! All right! We can raise the debt limit because we need all of these billions of dollars for Hurricane Harvey relief.”

I think the number on Hurricane Harvey relief that’s been authorized is something like seven billion. And Paul Ryan was on TV today and said (paraphrasing), “It is silly, it is silly to suggest that we not raise the debt limit in the face of these hurricane recoveries. Why, these are our fellow citizens. Our fellow citizens are in dire straits. They’re in bad consequences. And it would be silly to talk about not raising the debt limit. We couldn’t provide much needed aid.”

So you can see how this is gonna play out. The debt ceiling is going to be raised because without it we wouldn’t be able to fund recovery efforts via FEMA and other agencies for Hurricane Harvey. And the headline: “GOP Leaders to Give Trump Bitter Pill on Spending, Debt — Republicans leaders are crafting a must-pass bill that will likely infuriate both conservatives and President Trump’s base.”

Nothing new about that, folks. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are expected to move legislation that will keep the government funded until December and raise the nation’s debt limit high enough to last beyond the 2018 midterm elections.” But guess what’s not being funded? Dawn, take a guess. In everything that’s gonna be paid for by raising the debt limit through the midterms, that’s through next November, what is not being funded here? The wall! Exactly! The wall is not being funded.

Now, I said to myself when I saw this, that can’t be possible, because back when the Republican leadership failed to fund the wall in April because of a fear the Democrats would shut down the government, the Republicans swore that they were gonna make sure the wall was funded in the September budget. Do you remember this? You may not, but don’t doubt me. It’s exactly what happened.

They said they couldn’t put the funding for the wall in in April ’cause government shutdown, couldn’t do it. But they promised. They kicked the can down the road, it would be in the budget in September. And now it’s not. Not only is it not gonna be in the budget, it’s not gonna be in any of the spending that’s gonna be authorized to go through the 2018 midterms.

In other words, the incumbent reelection enactment bill, federal spending debt limit raised and authorized through the 2018 midterms, but no funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Well, that’s okay, ’cause Mexico’s gonna pay for it anyway. Trump will find a way around it, ahem, ahem. The Art of the Deal.

“GOP leaders in the Senate will sweeten the deal by adding billions of dollars for Hurricane Harvey relief, but that won’t mollify the right on and off Capitol Hill,” it says here in The Hill. “Yet, this type of measure will attract bipartisan support and probably have enough backing to get to Trump’s desk later this month.” Now, this is a little bit of a feint here because they didn’t need the excuse of Hurricane Harvey. The usual suspects would have opposed funding the wall anyway, and they’re gonna do everything in their power to give amnesty to the DACA kids, who are not kids anymore, by the way.

The DACA kids are grown up, some of them have become hardened criminals. Did you know that? Like 30% of ’em? Story is coming up. “Senate leaders are assuming that Trump will sign the legislation into law instead of risk a government shutdown or a credit crisis. … ‘These are the president’s immediate priorities: pass disaster relief, prevent a default, fund the government. They are my immediate priorities as well,’ McConnell told colleagues on the Senate floor Tuesday. ‘We have to get all three of these things done, and we have to do it very quickly,’ he added.

Pass disaster relief, prevent the default, and fund the government. Bingo. Done. Raise debt limit, all done and accounted for, no money for the wall. Ann Coulter is having convulsions. They started last night when she heard this. It’s getting worse. Mitch, by the way, don’t forget the DACA amnesty, that’s gonna have to go in here too. Just kidding, folks. I’m not trying to ruin your day.

Let me tell you what’s gonna happen here. This is so obvious. I mean, even Algore watching hurricane news could figure this out. What if all of a sudden out of the blue Republicans and Democrats in Congress unite and come together, and they do so to save the DACA kids, illegal noncitizens, the children? You know they’re gonna do this. Trump announces the end of the DACA program, six-month delay, gives Congress a chance to do something about this legislatively.

Now, Trump is in trouble on this because his base believed he was gonna get rid of this on day one. This was a day-one promise, to end Obama’s DREAMer program, the DACA program, just end it, and he didn’t do it, and now he’s doing it with a six-month delay, and you can see this coming. For the first time in Trump’s administration, Republicans and Democrats are gonna come together, ’cause the Chamber of Commerce wants it to happen, and they’re going to pass legislation that amnetizes the DACA kids.

You watch. It’s going to happen. They will not be able to pass the repeal and replace of Obamacare. They will not be able to get to health care and tax reform because of the urgency of hurricane relief preventing a government default and continuing federal spending. Those are the three priorities Mitch McConnell says are his and are also Trump’s. So no money for the wall. My prediction Republicans and Democrats will unify faster than you’ve ever seen ’em unify to come up with a bill that grants amnesty to the DACA kids. What if they pass legislation that would not have passed under Obama to save the DACA kids from deportation?

Folks, this is not pretty, because the Trump voter base, millions of Americans expected Obamacare to be repealed and by now, tax reform to be on the table by now, meaning lower taxes. Not only is the repeal and replace Obamacare thing a stink bomb, there is no real tax reform on the table yet. But we’re gonna have the debt ceiling expanded. We’re gonna make sure the government doesn’t default. We’re gonna make sure the government spending goes on for the 2018 midterms. No funding for the wall, but we’re gonna have amnesty for the DACA kids.

The Trump base is the Trump base. And they’re just as devoted to their issues like any other segment of the American voting public. And they have had unwavering faith in Trump. So what he’s gonna be faced with, let me tell you what’s gonna happen. Trump has kicked this can down the road six months to the Congress. You know what they’re gonna do? My prediction. My prediction. They’re gonna pass piece of legislation that essentially grants amnesty and they’re gonna send it to him. And it’s gonna end up back in his lap on his desk.

You know that’s what’s gonna happen. How else can this happen? You know that the establishment wants to stick it to him. The establishment would love, would absolutely love for Trump to sign an amnesty immigration bill, even if it is for five years olds. If it’s only for five people, they would love for Trump to sign. That’s what they’re gonna trying to engineer here, mark my words.

Now, that’s not gonna come without a cost because the Republicans, God bless them, they never, no matter what happens, they’ve just refused to understand two things: They refuse to get how angry their voters are at them in general, and they refuse to understand that the Democrats and the media are not gonna love them after this. The Democrats and the media are not gonna respect them if they side with the Democrats and come up with a bill that amnetizes the DACA kids.

Republicans aren’t gonna get a single bit of credit, they’re not gonna get any love, but they think that they still can. And what’s gonna happen is that if all of this that I have predicted comes true, they’re gonna further erode the base. And that is a violation of the current political law number one: Do not make your base mad. Ask Jeff Flake. Ask Eric Cantor. Ask Hillary Clinton. Ask Paul Ryan. You don’t do it. And they’re in the process of doing it.

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RUSH: Chris in Columbus. I’m glad you called. How you doing, sir?

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. What I think is that if the GOP wants to do themselves a really big favor, this issue, I think, is easily 65-35 the public doesn’t want DACA. If they can get it on the 2018 midterm ballot, I think people are opposed to it enough that they could get a bigger turnout of GOP to show up at the ballot box. That would help ’em to gain seats because they’d have more GOP actually showing up, and that would vote down DACA and I really think that actually having Democrats push their base to try to show up to vote DACA would actually discourage some of their base from actually turning out, because there’s a lot of people who really don’t want DACA.

RUSH: Yeah, I know. I know. But what do you think the odds are of your idea happening, the Republicans in Congress voting it down?

CALLER: (laughing) Well, you mean the Congress voting it down?

RUSH: Isn’t that what you said?

CALLER: Well, I think Congress should put it on the ballot so get it out of their hands.

RUSH: Oh! Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. No, no, no, no, no, no.

CALLER: Right. The thing is that —

RUSH: That can’t happen. We don’t have a direct democracy here. We don’t have national referendums. That’s why we elect representatives. That’s what a representative republic is. So issues never go on federal ballots.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I mean, it can’t happen.

CALLER: Yeah. It would only be if we had a… (pause) Yeah. Okay. But that would be the only thing is if it was up to the voters —

RUSH: Chris?

CALLER: — if it was up to the people —

RUSH: Chris?

CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: Here’s the thing.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: The Republican Party knows! Doesn’t matter. The Republican Party knows. They know what their base voter’s opinion is on any amnesty! They know that Donald Trump got elected on the basis of his immigration policy! They know. It’s just they don’t care as much what you think as they do what the Chamber of Commerce wants, and other donors. They want the DACA kids in the country, and they want the DACA kids to be aware that they’re here because of the government, Republicans and Democrats.

They want amnetized illegal aliens, immigrants, to be aware that it’s government that has made their life in America possible. They know what their voters want. They’ve got no doubt about it. That’s why when they campaign they tell you what you want to hear. But there aren’t such things as national referenda, because we do not have a direct democracy. You’re probably right that if it were on the ballot, it would go down to a screeching, flaming defeat. But it isn’t.

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RUSH: Yesterday on this program we revisited my thoughts from February on DACA, the DREAMer kids, in which I said it might be useful to go ahead and let them stay in exchange, legislatively, for other important immigration news, including the wall and so forth. And I replayed that yesterday. It turns out that on a Fox News Channel Special Report with Bret Baier during the All-Star Panel, they got Charlie Hurt, Jonah Goldberg of National Review and Anna Palmer from Politico. They were talking about my take on Trump’s decision to end DACA. And Bret Baier got the discussion going this way.

BAIER: Here’s how Rush Limbaugh characterized this today on his radio show.

RUSH ARCHIVE: What Trump did today via Sessions, it’s almost along the same lines as pulling out of the Paris accords. It’s rocked ’em. They didn’t think it would ever happen. Trump is not this callous. Trump is not this cold-hearted. But Trump knows his base. And he knows the impact all of this has had on the American economy and American jobs and he’s following through on one of his most predominant campaign commitments.

RUSH: Now, all three panelists echoed a point that I made yesterday, that all of this is unheard of in Washington because Washington goes so slow. Here’s Charlie Hurt reacting.

HURT: Both of them kind of rolls a grenade with the pin pulled into Congress, because of course it is gonna be very difficult for Congress to do something about this, but that just goes show, this is a very low bar that we’re asking of them. Republicans are now in control and Republicans have come out today talking about how important it is to do something about this. My goodness, we all agree on this, then do something about it. It really does underscore, I think, you know, Donald Trump isn’t the one that did something wrong today. It’s Congress.

RUSH: See, the point is here that every one of these people think Trump dumping DACA over to Congress with a six-month time frame, it’s not gonna happen, they can’t move that fast, Congress can’t move that fast, they got too many other things on the agenda. They got the fall agenda. They’ve got Hurricane Harvey relief. They’re soon gonna have Hurricane Irma relief. And then they’ve got the debt ceiling they have to lift. They gotta fund the government. Then they gotta do the budget. They’re not gonna have time for this.

And the theory is that Trump knows this, and I’m just suggesting, what if they make time for this? Folks, not predicting it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if McConnell and Schumer in the Senate come together, “You know what? Let’s do this, Mitch. Let’s do this, Chuck. Let’s do it.” And then they get with Ryan, and they pass a bill that amnetizes the DACAers and they send that back to Trump. See Charlie Hurt and the rest of the panel do not think Washington moves that fast. Trump’s just outflanking them, and he’s making Congress look bad, not him. Here’s what Jonah Goldberg had to say.

GOLDBERG: I honestly don’t see how they can get all of it done. Congress does not do a very good of job of making good legislation when it has a lot of time on its hands. This is like a bad episode of MacGyver where they’ve gotta get the bomb diffused, and they’re 10 miles away from the bomb, and they only got five minutes to get there. I don’t know how this is gonna play itself out.

RUSH: And here’s the reporterette from The Politico, Anna Palmer.

PALMER: Congress rarely acts unless it has to. That has been kind of the way it has been working and operating for the last several years. So as much talk as we’re talking about DACA right now and DREAMers, I wouldn’t expect anything to get done until right at that six-month period where it’s kind of you either have to vote on something —

RUSH: Okay. That’s enough. So all three guests, “There’s no way. Congress doesn’t move fast enough. Six months is not nearly enough time.” So Trump is demonstrating that Congress can’t get anything done, he’s gonna have to do it himself. But traditionally that’s correct. What if they do decide to come together? ‘Cause they both want it. They both, Republicans and Democrats in Congress want to amnetize the DACAers. What if they do it and send that back to Trump? Nobody’s thinking about that. You wait.

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RUSH: Headline in the Washington Post: “Trump Is Testing the Loyalty of Media Boosters,” people in the media who support him, “By Fudging His Promise on DACA.” Have details coming up and lots more, my friends, on the fastest three hours in media. Don’t go anywhere.