RUSH: You know this new Ben Rhodes book where Obama’s riding around a limousine in Peru after the election saying, “Gee, what if we were wrong?” Ben Rhodes actually wrote in this book quoting Obama, “I’ve got Trump set up well for the economy. I’ve got Trump set up…” Obama wouldn’t know this kind of economy if it slapped him in the ears! Wait a minute. Is that promoting violence? Are they gonna come after me for hate speech on that?
Greetings, my friends. Open Line Friday. Rush Limbaugh. When we get to the phones in a couple of hours — I’m just kidding — you can talk about whatever you want to talk about. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us. “I’ve got the economy set up well for Trump.” What an absolute… These people are stepping in it! Here comes Rhodes with his book on Obama and they think that they’re gonna (chuckling) set Trump up well for the…? ‘Cause you know what?
This book has been written over the course of many months and these people in the Obama world start out thinking Trump’s a disaster, things are gonna blow up, they’re gonna get rid of Trump. They write their books on that premise, and Trump is just… I mean, he’s setting things on fire here. The economy is on fire. Even the Drive-By Media. Look at this headline the New York Times: “We’ve Run Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are.” The New York Times. Obama: “I’ve set the economy up well for…” (laughing) I just love it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Now, the economy. Folks, this is stunning what is happening in our country. And it is doubly stunning to see how the media is doing everything it can to ignore it, but they are failing. The jobs numbers are so good — the unemployment number is so good — that they can’t ignore it. So what they’re doing… Trump today tweeted in advance of the jobs numbers coming out, and so the Drive-Bys and everybody on the left wants to put Trump in jail for this because this is supposedly against the law.
Members of the regime, members of the administration cannot do this. It is considered to be insider trading. For example, if you’re the president, you know that the job numbers are gonna be kick-ass, and you give a little heads-up warning before they’re released, it could be said that you are sending a signal to people to get in the market, start buying, because the numbers are gonna be good, and this is supposedly illegal or unethical — and it just isn’t done!
“It just isn’t done!”
That seems to be a never-ending refrain for everybody in the Washington establishment talking about Trump: “It just isn’t done! We just don’t do it this way.” So that’s all they’ve got is to suggest here that Trump has broken the law or has violated a sacrosanct convention. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot drown out or obliterate the news. The United States added 223,000 jobs in May, beating expectations. The so-called experts were forecasting in the high 180,000s. Jobs were added all across the employment sector.
Manufacturing added 18,000 jobs. Obama said these are jobs that are never coming back. Remember Obama was out at Carrier? Yeah, I think it was Carrier, maybe Caterpillar. We’ve got the sound bites. It’s coming up. Somebody stood up and asked about manufacturing jobs, and Obama said (impression), “Well, there’s a guy out there talking — and I don’t want to mention his name because I don’t want to promote him” i.e., Trump “who’s telling you these jobs are coming back.
“I’m here to tell you, they’re not! Somebody has gotta be honest with you, and that’s me, and they’re not comin’ back.” They’re coming back, and they are roaring back. You know what else? Retail jobs: 31,000 new retail jobs. Everybody’s out there talking about how retail is dying because of the internet. Well, 31,000 retail jobs. Construction grew by 25,000 new jobs. The mining sector — which both Obama and Hillary promised to put out of business.
There are 6,000 new jobs in the mining sector. The service sector of our economy, service providers: 171,000 new jobs in May. Unemployment, 3.8%. That’s the lowest since George W. Bush was in… Actually, it’s early 2000. Bush assumed office in early 2001, and he had– in the early days of his administration — a low unemployment rate. Then 9/11 happened, and bottom fell out. But that’s how far you have to go back. You have to go back 18, 19 years to find unemployment this low, 3.8%. I have to tell you, this is considered statistically full employment.
And what that means is that when you get 3.8% of the people unemployed, those are the people that maybe don’t want to work or unemployable because it’s not logical to think that everybody in America could have a job. Unless, of course, you work for Bernie Sanders, who wants to have the federal government hire everybody. Oh! And speaking of that. Donald Trump has cut the federal payroll by 24,000 jobs. That is another branch of draining the swamp that he is succeeding at.
Federal jobs, the federal payroll is down 24,000 jobs. I’m not kidding. Bernie Sanders is campaigning on the premise that everybody should be given a job — and when we run out of jobs in the private sector, we’re gonna have the government hires those who haven’t found a job elsewhere. It’s a nonstarter. It doesn’t have a prayer of working. Which is why the Democrats are gonna get behind it 100% because they believe that the American people have become a bunch of slothful deadbeats and will react favorably to anything being given to them.
And, sadly, there are a lot of Americans who have been conditioned just that way by our education system and the Democrat Party. Black unemployment has hit another record low. It’s at 5.9%. And, folks, for the first time ever, black unemployment is under 6%. Now, I was gonna come in mere and tell you that that news using satire and parody. And then I grabbed myself by the shoulders, and I shook myself, and I said, “Don’t do it, because there are people out there listening just waiting to take you out of context about race and run with it.”
So I’m just straight reporting. Black unemployment hits record low, 5.9%, first time ever under 6%. Now, what I was gonna say… I’ll go ahead and tell you what I was gonna say, ’cause I’ve noticed it. Conservatives everywhere are celebrating this. Conservatives everywhere are celebrating the low black unemployment rate! They’re happy as they can be about it! Conservative publications, right-leaning publications are trumpeting historic low numbers for black unemployment. But yet I thought conservatives didn’t like minorities.
Asian and Hispanic unemployment numbers are low too. Shouldn’t that make conservatives mad? I mean, this is what the left tells us. The left tells us conservatives… In California, Google has now used “Nazism” as one of the descriptions for Republicans. If you look up a Republican, a candidate or otherwise in California and you use Google and Wikipedia, you will find “Nazism” as one of the descriptions. Google has since apologized said, “Well, that’s — that’s… I don’t know how that got in there. We’ll, uh, make sure, uh, that’s removed. Uh, we don’t — don’t know how that got in there.”
Don’t know how to get in there? I think they know exactly how it got in there because that’s exactly what they think, which is the point here. Conservatives are celebrating all of this economic news, and especially the great employment news for African-Americans and other minorities. But conservatives celebrating good things happening to minorities? Why, that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative. Nah, the left’s narrative is we’re a bunch of racists and bigots and we don’t like this at all.
But I wasn’t gonna run the risk of parodying this because I know there are people out there just waiting to cut up what I just said and make it sound like that’s what I think. They’re doing it each and every day. But the point is we’re seeing a lot of excitement for historic improvements in minority unemployment numbers. The unemployment rate for men over 16 is 3.9%! Guess what it is for women, another group Republicans supposedly hate. It’s 3.6%.
I haven’t seen conservative men complaining about that, either. I haven’t seen any conservatives complaining about any of the good news on jobs for African-Americans, minorities, and women! Yet we’re sexist bigots, right? Ha-ha. Remember we were told Obama’s presidency was the most historic ever? I don’t think so. Not in the way they all intended and meant it to be. Folks, this is so solid, this is un… Well, I predicted it. We have the sound bite where I did so. But that’s not the point.
In any other climate, in any other atmosphere, this would be leading every cable newscast, and everybody would be happy about it, because this is restoring America’s wealth. Exactly one of the many things Trump said that he was gonna do. Make America rich again, “Make America Great Again.” You know the refrain. He talked endlessly of restoring America’s wealth, and here it is happening. This is the story of the decade. My friends, Barack Obama…
I’m not making this up. Barack Obama literally for eight years tried to tell people that our best days were behind us; that we had to get used to a new normal. You remember this. It was probably very likely that we were finished with the days where kids could routinely be expected to do better economically than their parents. And the reason for this, Obama said, was that all of this great economic history in this country was not all that deserved.
Our founding was unjust and immoral. We have stolen many of the resources you discussed we have from other nations and people around the world. It was time we were deemphasized as a world power, time we were cut down to size, time that we got a taste of what it’s like to live elsewhere in the world. Obama was to be the steward, and then Hillary was to be the stewardess and continue all of this. Along comes Donald Trump in 2015 and says, “There’s no way. There is no way.
“We’re gonna restore it. We’re gonna make America great again. We’re gonna make America rich again. We’re gonna put people back to work again. We’re gonna bring jobs home,” and all of this has happened in a year and a half. And this is more evidence that this economy has many things in place to help it continue to get stronger. It’s the story of the decade: How one guy came into the White House from outside the ruling class environs, enacted free-market, common-sense reforms, flipped the economy on its head in a year. This is not the president that all of these experts in the media and the establishment wanted or expected. They’re flabbergasted.
“We’ve Run Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are.”
New York Times.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Listen to this. Obama, Indiana, June 1st, PBS special, questions for Obama. “What about the jobs we’ve lost? Are they coming back, Mr. President?”
OBAMA: For those folks who’ve lost their job right now because a plant went down to Mexico, that isn’t gonna make you feel better. And so what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are comin’ in now because some of those jobs of the past are just not gonna come back. And when somebody says — like the person you just mentioned who I’m not gonna advertise for — that he’s gonna bring all these jobs back? Well, how exactly are y’gonna do that? What’re you gonna do? There’s no answer to it. He just says, “I’m gonna negotiate a better deal.” (stammering) Well, how…? What…? How exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he duh’n’t have’n answer.
RUSH: Yes, he does: Capitalism and the American people — 18,000 manufacturing jobs back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The date of this is June 1st, 2016. This is right in the middle of the campaign, and Trump’s talking about “Make America Great Again” and restoring America’s wealth and bringing back jobs we’ve lost in the manufacturing sector. And Obama goes out to Elkhart, Indiana, which is where Carrier — Carrier HVAC people — are, air-conditioning people, and he’s taping a PBS special (it might even been live) called, “Questions for President Obama.”
A Carrier employee, an African-American by the name of Eric Cottonham, had a question. He said, “My name is Eric Cottonham.” Oh, by the way, I said David Rhodes wrote the book where they’re reviewing it in the limo in Peru. It’s Ben Rhodes. David Rhodes is CBS News. Ben Rhodes is the guy who melted down on election night, where we had the audio from the HBO show. He was Obama’s national security guy. They’re brothers.
Washington just incestuous as you can get. I didn’t want to confuse people. So he said, “My name is Eric Cottonham, Mr. President. I’m representing a steelworkers union, Local 1999, and I’m trying to find out: What do we have left? All of our jobs are leaving Indianapolis. I see here that you are doing a lot of things but in Indianapolis there’s nothing for us. I mean, what’s next? What can we looked forward to in the future as jobs, employment, whatever, because all of our jobs have left or are in the process of leaving, sir.”
It’s an African-American asking Obama, “What about our jobs leaving?” Remember, now, Trump is on the campaign trail telling everybody he’s gonna bring ’em back. He’s gonna restore America’s wealth. He’s gonna bring these manufacturing jobs back because we’ve had stupid leadership and hasn’t known what it’s doing. Everybody is mocking Trump for this, saying, “You can’t do that! The global economy is what it is. And we’re gonna have to come up with new kinds of jobs.” Here is what Obama…
This guy desperately wants to be inspired. This is the thing that I want to point out. This guy, he’s asking this question of the most powerful man in the country and in the world. He wants to be inspired. “Our jobs are leaving.” Obama’s made everybody think he cares about them. Obama — with the aid of the media and the myth that liberals care about people — has everybody thinking that Obama was out looking out for them, and Obama couldn’t have cared less.
He doesn’t see anybody but himself wherever he looks. So this guy just wants some encouragement. He just wants some inspiration from the man he thinks has the power to deliver it. He wants to hear, “Don’t worry about it. We’re working on it — and if your job doesn’t come back, there’s gonna be all kinds of new opportunities as our economy expands and adapts.” But Obama can’t even offer that. All Obama can offer is pessimism and darkness. All Barack Obama can offer is: Our best days are behind us.
Here again is what he said…
(replaying of sound bite)
RUSH: He has an answer. He’s always had the answer. It’s called capitalism and faith in the American people! But more importantly, what this answer provides us is a window into the actual mind and thinking — and the vacancy there — of Barack Obama. (impression) “Well, how exactly you gonna do that? How you gonna bring jobs back, huh? How you gonna do that? What are you gonna do? There’s no answer to it!” What does this mean? It means Obama’s sitting in the White House every day as the American economy is downsizing, jobs are being lost, and Obama’s clueless!
He hasn’t the slightest idea what to do about it, doesn’t even think there is anything to be done about it. Why is that? Because Obama’s a leftist who does not understand free markets! He’s had one job in the private sector his whole life, and he considered himself to be a spy in this job and didn’t like it. He wrote about how much he hated it. It was during the Reagan administration, I believe. Doesn’t matter when it was. So we have a guy in the White House who doesn’t even believe in the mission of America, doesn’t believe in the possibilities of America, cannot inspire people.
Mr. Cottonham here just wants some encouragement. He wants some reassuredness. And Obama can’t even offer that. All Obama can do is say that the idea of saving your job, oh, it’s not possible. What are you gonna do? (impression) “Well, I’m gonna negotiate a better deal. How? H-h-how exactly gonna do it? Negotiate? What? Magic wand? What are you gonna do?” He’s clueless, folks. This has always been my argument Obama. He’s unqualified. I had no idea. He doesn’t understand capitalism. He doesn’t understand a growing economy, because he doesn’t actually support it.
He supports growing government. He supports government taking over — and all of them do. Hillary, whoever they nominate in 2020, Pelosi, Schumer. This is what I would love to be able to get through these young skulls full of mush all over college and high school who seem to think that there’s magic in socialism and communism because they think it’s fair and equitable and compassionate. And it is none of those things. So here we have a teachable moment.
We have a man who promised to do exactly what he’s doing: Bring jobs back, negotiate better trade deals, put America first, “Make America Great Again,” restore a bunch of jobs that had been lost with no effort to save them or bring them back by people who didn’t think it was possible anyway. Barack Obama and the whole of the Democrat Party — he’s not alone. Truth is, people like Obama like the private sector failing.
The truth is people like Obama, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi — take your pick of any Democrat running for office — they like you being unsatisfied. They like you feeling concerned. They like you not trusting capitalist institutions. They don’t mind at all — in a generic, subjective sense — when people lose their jobs, ’cause it just means that people will lose faith in capitalism and America and will turn to the only place remaining for any help, and that’s the government, where Obama and Pelosi and Schumer and Bernie Sanders and Hillary are.
These people exact more pain on people. It has always pained me to see how much harm and damage the left and the Democrats actually cause to happen to people while at the same time convincing those people that voting Democrat — supporting them — is the only thing they can do to save their lives or to save their health or what have you. When in fact, Barack Obama’s own words (impression), “What are you gonna do? Wave the magic wand? Negotiate better deals? With who? How you gonna do it?”
Well, we just had a year-and-a-half tutorial on how it’s done. And, by the way, President Trump has done a lot of this without a whole lot of support. He’s done this by putting his head down and marching forward and remaining true to his promises, passions, convictions. Not wavering, not taking “no” for an answer. He has done this against what many would say is an insurmountable tide. He’s done it at a rate of speed that anybody in Washington would tell you is not possible.
So now all they have is to say, “Well, this guy, he may be guilty of violating insider trading! You see this early morning tweet on the jobs numbers? This is unethical.” This is all they’ve got. By the way, Trump’s tweet was insignificant. It didn’t promise anything. It didn’t indicate anything. Just said he couldn’t wait for the numbers to come out, period. It said he was looking forward to the new jobs numbers. They’re trying to get on him for pardoning all these people because he’s sending a signal to, like, the Cohens of the world and the Manaforts and whoever else.
“You’re not supposed to pardon people until you’re about to leave office! This just isn’t done this way!” It could be one of the identifiers of the Trump administration: “It’s just not done this way!” You mean like reviving the economy, bringing back jobs, restoring America’s wealth and place in the world? Now, I have to tell you, there is nowhere you can go today anywhere in the Drive-By Media to get even 10% of what I just told you in the way I presented it.
They’re gonna ignore this.
They’ll report the numbers, but they’ll downplay them, and they’ll try to somehow suggest that the numbers, “Yeah, they’re real, but it’s insignificant jobs,” or “it’s…” The vast majority of the jobs, by the way, are full time, another thing Obama could not lay claim to. These are full-time jobs being created. In fact, “Costco Raising Hourly Wages for Over 130,000 Employees,” announced just yesterday. “On Thursday, Costco announced it would raise the hourly wage for 130,000 of its American employees.
“CEO Richard Galanti, while discussing the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings, said that starting wages for employees would be raised $1 an hour to $14.50 an hour while other hourly wages would be hiked 25 to 50 cents an hour.” None of this happened in the last eight years of Obama. None of it! If it had during Obama — and the left fully expected it. I think they expected this kind of thing to happen or hoped it would.
But when it didn’t, they weren’t disappointed. People losing faith in capitalism, people losing faith in America, people losing faith in America as founded is exactly on their agenda. If you lose faith in your country, if you lose faith in the economy, you lose faith in institutions, you’ve got nowhere else to turn. And right there the open arms of Fauxcahontas and Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (sigh) We are so lucky. We’re so blessed. We’re so fortunate to have exited that cycle we were in with Obama.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Would you like to hear Nancy Pelosi’s statement on the great job numbers today? Would you like to hear what people running against the Democrats are gonna be up against?
Pelosi: “May’s jobs report shows that strong employment means little to the families hit about soaring new costs under the Republicans’ watch. Republicans’ cruel, cynical health care sabotage campaign is spiking families’ premiums by double digits.” (laughing) It’s Obamacare! At any rate, this is what we’re supposed to be afraid of. “May’s jobs report shows strong employment numbers mean little to the families hit with soaring new costs…”
That’s all they’ve got. They’re gonna run against a good economy. They’re gonna try to win as associated friends of MS-13. They’re gonna try to win elections on the basis that they hope North Korea does get a nuclear weapon just to embarrass Donald Trump. And they want us to believe there’s a big blue wave coming behind this?
Who’s next? Edward in Atlanta. Open Line Friday. You’re next, sir. Hello.
CALLER: (garbled throughout) Hey, Rush. Good afternoon. Listen, I am not shocked or surprised by the numbers that’s kind of coming, and I think that not trying to knock Obama personally. But just think that they are two different sets of ideologies. Whereas his style more so let’s refer back to the government. You know, let’s create money out of thin air in order to infuse money into the system. Whereas Trump weighing it by, you know, deal with the taxes that allows money to come into the system that’s already in existence.
So when you look at the actual number with the jobs that’s concerned — when you look at the money that’s been collected — you roughly have to have just under about 33% is for consumption taxes. That means when people buy stuff. And you have social insurance. That’s up to about 26%. Then you got the individual taxes; that’s about 25%. So the more people that are working and more people that have jobs, then that affects everything. So we look at those who are given raises. That’s more for the consumption, that’s more money than correcting all these errors. So then when you look to see how we have collected the most money in the —
RUSH: This guy… Edward, I have to stop you, but you’re brilliant. This guy’s got it! He understands. He’s telling you here that Trump’s tax cuts and Trump’s understanding of how things work in the private sector is exactly why all of this is happening. And he’s right on the money.