RUSH: Grab sound bite number 21. Kirstjen Nielsen (she’s the director of Homeland Security) testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on immigration. She was in the meeting that Durbin claims Trump used that derogatory term to describe countries. She did really, really well today. I have three sound bites. But here’s one. This is an exchange with Patrick “Leaky” Leahy.

LEAHY: Did President Trump use this word — or a substantially similar word — to describe citizen countries?

NIELSEN: I did not hear that word used. No, sir.

LEAHY: I’m not… That’s not the question. Did he use anything similar to that describing certain countries?

NIELSEN: The conversation was very impassioned. I don’t dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language.

LEAHY: Was he —

NIELSEN: If I could. The concept and the context, I believe, in which this came up was the concept that the president would like to move to a merit-based system. He would like to no longer look at quotas for countries —

LEAHY: Did he use what would be considered vulgar language referring to certain countries?

NIELSEN: The president used tough language in general as did other congressmen in the room. Yes, sir.

RUSH: You see how pathetic this is? So Durbin creates this little firestorm. Now here come the Democrats circling the wagons to back it up. “Did he use the word? Did he use the word?” I thought there was no doubt he used the word! But she says she didn’t hear it. There’s also… Have you heard that Trump said, “Why can’t we bring in more people from places like Norway?” He mentioned something else in the same sentence that nobody is reporting, and I will share that with you in moments.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Have you heard Trump has gone after Dick Durbin now? He calls him “Little Dicky.” Little Dicky Durbin! Dicky Durbin tried to blow up the immigration deal. Dicky Durbin is outraged that he’s being disrespected in this manner. This is exactly why you should be standing up and applauding! This is the disruption that we all wanted. I want to go back. We got two more sound bites here with Kirstjen Nielsen. She’s the director of Homeland Security. She testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration.

And of course they wanted to talk to her because they wanted to find out what was said in that room. Durbin was there, but apparently his word’s not enough because they’re asking everybody else if they heard the word, too, and some people say, “I can’t specifically say I heard the word.” By the way, do you know why? Because apparently there were profanities being tossed around in that meeting from all people on all sides of the issue. See, this is one of my points.

We have these phony actors that are portraying news anchors on CNN faking like they’re about to be reduced to tears “(sniffle) over the fact that Trump called some poor countries a bunch of hellholes. (sobbing) I don’t know if I can go on!” It’s the phoniest display, as though they’ve never heard the word, as though they’ve never used the word! I get so sick of these people morally preening as though they are the essence of virtue and that they are spotlessly clean and that qualifies them to sit up on high, morally judging everybody else.

And yet when you turn the light of attention on them, they run like the cockroaches under the sink, and they start caterwauling, “You can’t do that! We’re journalists! You can’t investigate us! You can’t examine us. We’re journalists!” And they really think that. They’re above it. They have constitutional protection, so you can’t criticize them; you can’t investigate them. They can’t handle the heat that they throw out. I mean, they can’t even get close to handling the heat that they throw out.

So there were profanities all over the place, meaning all the people in the room were cursing, including the Democrats, and I wonder if that news is now being widely disseminated. I wonder if this will cause even more tears on CNN when they find out their beloved Democrats are also speaking that way. So here’s the second sound bite. Senator Leahy still not through with Kirstjen Nielsen.

LEAHY: We downgraded Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa, a country where, uh, we are trying to have some, uh, ability —

RUSH: Stop the tape. Are you running this at slow speed or can we speed this up? Are you running this at normal speed, Mike? (interruption) You can’t be! You sure you’re not fudging this and slowing it down just to make it…? (impression) “Huh when we downgrade Haiti, uhh, El Salvador, uhhh, Africa,” you telling me that you’re not doctoring that? All right. Well, here. Patience, folks, patience. Cue it back up to the top. Three, two, one.

LEAHY: — influence. He didn’t say it was because we needed more PhD students or skilled workers. He said he wanted more people from Norway. What does he mean when he says he wants more immigrants from Norway?

NIELSEN: I don’t believe he said that specifically.

LEAHY: Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?

NIELSEN: I’m… I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case.

RUSH: Now you see what’s going on there. But you know what’s not being reported? And I just learned this this morning. Trump said “Norway and Asia.” “Why can’t we get more people from Norway and Asia?” The Drive-Bys leave out the “Asia” so they can focus on, “Yeah, Trump’s a white supremacist. He only wanted people from Norway because they’re white.” Well, wait a minute. Asians aren’t. A lot of them aren’t. (interruption) How is what possible? Yeah.

I don’t know how this is possible. What you mean…? I do know how it’s possible. The Drive-By Media is not reporting it, and I guess the White House is responsible for getting this aspect out there. But Trump said Norway and Asia. But they leave out the Asia specifically wanting to focus on Trump supposedly being a white supremacist. Of course, all of this can be blown to smithereens. There’s the Reverend Jackson who gave Trump all kinds of awards in years gone by for all of the great things he has done for African-Americans.

In a trip to Haiti, Rand Paul — who is an eye doctor. Rand Paul restored the sight to 200 Hastings using money donated by Donald Trump to do it after one of the disasters there. (interruption) See, somebody just said, “Yeah, but he didn’t mean it.” That’s exactly how they do it. So a big time conservative donates $25 million to a New York Hospital and the nurses union said, “No, no, no. The hospital should reject this. He didn’t mean it. He’s just trying to cover for the fact that he’s a hateful bigot racist.” That’s what Kirstjen Nielsen says here.

“I don’t believe he said Norway specifically,” because there was “and Asia” tacked onto it. Which totally blows up the narrative that Trump wanted immigration from “white countries.” You know, there’s another allegation about Trump. Well, allegation, accusation, observation. People say that in the circle of advisers they want to be the last person Trump talks to because that’s what he remembers, and so on that day he had had a meeting with the prime minister of Norway, who had been singing the praises of the country.

So Trump throws out Norway because it’s the last frame of reference that he had before going into the meeting. But they want to chalk it up to white supremacy and just absurd stuff. Now, folks, for later in the program (’cause I can’t get to everything all at once), Shelby Steele, who we have cited several times on this program. He is an African-American intellectual thinker, a writer extraordinaire. He’s the Hoover Institute on the campus at Stanford. And he’s written a piece today that is fairly deep. But I’m gonna tell you what it means, what his point is.

His point is that… He’s making it as a legitimate point; it’s not a criticism. He said that black progress in America has largely happened as a result of protest, and he cites Dr. King and a number of other examples where black life, African-American life was marginally improved by virtue and by way of protest. It’s disguised way of also saying the Democrats have nothing to do with whatever advancements African-Americans have had, but his point is not that.

His point is that it no longer works, because in recent years, African-Americans have experienced so much freedom and so much opportunity that the charge of racism is not nearly as effective as it used to be. And what’s happening here in this incident with Trump and the Democrats and immigration is perhaps some evidence. They’re calling Trump a racist, and he’s not moving. He doesn’t care. He also cites the NFL protests. He said you talk about a bomb? All they ended up doing was damaging their own industry.

You can’t say that the black protests — kneeling during the anthem — succeeded in doing anything. It didn’t advance black life in America whatsoever. Now, on the other hand, if the objective was to damage the NFL, they were successful. I think the kneeling and the protests of the anthem, if the objective was to harm the NFL, there’s no question they have succeeded in doing that. But that’s only because the NFL is populated with a bunch of knee-jerk liberals who react in fear and fright with each of these kind of allegations.

And their knee-jerk reaction is, “Oh, okay! What do you want? What do you want? You want some money for your communities? Here it is!” But his point is that NFL fans saying, “Screw this!” and not attending and not watching on TV anymore is just one bit of evidence that black protest has run its course, that it’s not working. Black Lives Matter? What has it actually done to benefit anything? It hasn’t done anything.

Meanwhile, black unemployment is at an all-time low since statistics started in 1972. His point is that African-Americans are discovering more freedom than they’ve ever known what to do with, in terms of discrimination and bigotry, bias and so forth. There’s less of it now. And, of course, the more middle class upward mobility there is in African-American families, the less there will be a focus on protest as a means of improving one’s station in life.

And he’s pretty insistent here that this primary tactic that African-American activists have used is about at its end. Now, I expect some people are gonna disagree with this profoundly. But I’ll give you the details of this as the program unfolds. As I say, I can’t get everything done in the first segment of the first hour. There’s one more sound bite here — or no. Yeah, there is. One more bite here with Dicky Durban and Kirstjen Nielsen, director of Homeland Security.

And I want to squeeze this in before the break. Same place, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration, Dicky Durbin: “What do you remember the president saying about immigration from African countries to the United States? What do you remember him saying?”

NIELSEN: What I heard him saying is that he’d like to move away from a country-based quota system to a merit-based system. So it shouldn’t matter where you’re from; it should matter what you can contribute to the United States.

DURBIN: How did he characterize those countries in Africa?

NIELSEN: I don’t specifically remember a categorization of countries in Africa.

DURBIN: You said on Fox News that the president used strong language. What was that strong language?

NIELSEN: Let’s see. Strong language, there was, apologies. I don’t remember specific word. What I was struck with, frankly, as I’m sure you were as well was just the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone.

DURBIN: Did you hear me use profanity?

NIELSEN: No, sir. Neither did I.

DURBIN: Did you hear Senator Graham use profanity?

NIELSEN: I did hear tough language from Senator Graham, yes, sir. I remember specific cusswords being used by a variety of members.

RUSH: Now, for a guy who has been insisting for five days that Trump used a specific word, doesn’t that sound kind of mild to you? She’s basically saying that he’s not telling the truth. He’s asking (imitating Durbin), “Well, did you hear this? Did you hear that?” And then I think she gave up the ghost when she said there was so much profanity in the room, I couldn’t even keep track of it at all. How many of you had heard that?

All we’ve known for the past five days is that everybody in that meeting was clean and pure as the wind-driven snow except for President Trump, who was his usual reprobate, embarrassing self, using that word to describe poor countries all over the world. Now we find out there was so much profanity that the director of Homeland Security can’t tell you who said what!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Cory Booker — we have two sound bites here, number 25 and number 26 — Cory Booker claims that he cried when Dicky Durbin told him the word that Donald Trump used. This is a Judiciary Committee hearing this afternoon in Washington.

BOOKER: I hurt. When Dick Durbin called me, I had tears of rage when I heard about this experience in that meeting. And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues saying, “I’ve already answered that line of questions” when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because of what they’re worried about what happened in the White House. That is unacceptable to me.

RUSH: Are you kidding me? See, folks, this is perfect. This is my point. Millions of Americans are hurting because Trump used that word. Millions of Americans are unable to get through the day. They’re hurting. They’re in such pain. They’re hurting. It’s like when Durbin said chain migration makes African-Americans think only of chains and slaves, it’s horrible, and they can’t get through the day. They’re hurting, he almost cried, they’re hurting. And nobody would know this was said if Durbin hadn’t blabbed about it or made it up.

He’s hurting. (imitating Booker) “When Dick Durbin called me I had tears of rage when I heard about the experience in that meeting, when Trump used that term and basically told Durbin that he didn’t care what he wanted, the Congressional Black Caucasians, he didn’t care what they wanted. And for you –” he’s talking to the Homeland Security secretary who’s testifying, Kirstjen Nielsen “– for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss questions of my colleagues.”

The questions were about a word! We had an hour of Senate Democrats asking the Homeland Security secretary about a word, whether she heard a word in the meeting.