RUSH: All right. Will somebody explain something to me? Somebody explain to me how we have, apparently, for years and years and years been trying to get a criminal justice or prison reform bill, and it happened with bipartisan support, 87 votes in the Senate. Now it goes over to the House where it’s gonna pass. It’s not a big issue as far as the general public is concerned. Some special interests have made a big deal about it. It happens. It didn’t take much effort to get it passed. It didn’t take much debate whatsoever.

It’s an important issue to some people, Jared Kushner and others. He’s got a personal attachment to it. His father was unfairly imprisoned, he believes, and a lot of people that… I mean, it’s not a worthless piece of legislation. How in the hell does this get passed with no controversy, no opposition, no problem? I mean, Washington came together to pass this thing in like 10 minutes. Meanwhile, $5 billion, a measly $5 billion — when compared to the size of the federal budget for border security — is an impossibility. Somebody needs to explain to me how this happened.

I know you people are looking to me to explain it to you, and don’t worry. I’m being rhetorical here. I have an explanation for this. But it’s just… It’s the kind of thing that just rubs me raw, it sends people into orbit because something that substantial on somebody’s primary watch list, some issue that it’s not having a national clamor to get this done, an issue that primarily benefits 187,000 people and whoever their political sponsors are just sails through.

The point is it can be done on something the American public is not even really aware of, not clamoring for, and doesn’t know when it’s happened. There’s some news stories: “Senate Easily Passed Trump-Backed Criminal Justice Reform Bill.” There are 87 votes in the Senate for it, and yet things the American people have expressed for decades that they want, have voted over and over and over again to say that they want, have sent somebody to Washington from outside the political system to get done, and there’s no hope.

There’s not a shining chance that this is gonna get done. And they gloat and they applaud and they celebrate in Washington over this. Some of this stuff is just so frustrating and maddening and defies any kind of common sense explanation. This is swamp behavior at its best. This is the greatest illustration of how much of a game all of this actually is. We’re made to think that it’s cutthroat and real. And, meanwhile, it’s just all a game, how this stuff happens, in Congress, in the House, in the Senate in Washington.

It looks like a lot of people’s worst fears may be realized and that the president is getting ready to cave on getting any money for the wall in the current budget. In fact, TheHill.com — the Capitol Hill newspaper — is claiming, quote, “Trump’s Concession Paves the Way for Lawmakers to Reach a Compromise and End This Congress,” meaning the Republican-controlled Congress, “Without a Partial Government Shutdown.” That’s been the objective, to end this Congress without a shutdown? That’s how we’re gonna define success?

It’s not how we define success. It is apparently how inside-the-Beltway defines success, (impression) “Oh, look what we did. We avoided another government shutdown! The Republicans are bowing down. “Hosanna! Hosanna! We’re saved again. We’re not gonna get blamed for a government shutdown.” Meanwhile, the border remains wide open and the Democrats are gonna be controlling the House in just a few weeks. They’re now gloating and telling the president, “You can’t get any money from anywhere else in the budget.

“We’re not gonna let you. We’re gonna make sure that you can’t build this wall. There isn’t gonna be a wall. We don’t want there to be a wall,” and apparently there’s no way. Even though we can allocate whatever money we need for criminal justice reform or Planned Parenthood or whatever the hell else liberal clause is clamoring for your tax dollars, any amount of money, need even $1.6 billion. That’s been pulled off in this deal to save a shutdown.

Not a penny above and beyond what’s already allocated is gonna be spent on securing the border of this country which is wide open still. “But we’ve gotta compromise on no government shutdown, Mr. Limbaugh. It’s a good Christmas. It’s a great day for Washington.” This is textbook. It’s a textbook example of what the Drive-By Media calls compromise. Trump gets nothing and the Democrats get everything, including control of the House in a few short weeks.

In fact, I just alluded to this, Trump’s gonna get less than nothing because this compromise strips out the $1.6 billion for the wall that the Senate Appropriations Committee had already approved weeks ago. That’s gone too. Not only, is there not gonna be five billion, there isn’t gonna be $1.6 billion that was already allocated. So it’s an even better compromise in the minds of the Drive-By Media and the denizens of the swamp. Not a penny. Forget wall. Think border security.

I still maintain that a wall is symbolic. I know a lot of people believe that the wall was actually gonna be built, and I was one of the people hoping and supporting to be built, but even without the wall, there is still the need for border security. The wall was a representative of that. There isn’t going to be a penny additional for that. Yet while we are in debt to the tune now $21 trillion we are spending money left and right on things that are in direct contravention to what the purpose of spending on the wall would be!

Now, the stock market. The way this game is played, the stock market dive… TheHill.com and the Drive-By Media are even blaming the stock market’s nosedive on Trump’s threat to shut down the government, on Trump’s wall, on trying to do something about immigration! Which is pure caca. What’s driving down the stock market is the Federal Reserve promising to raise interest rates to slow down this out of control economy, which, if you read the news, is gonna be into recession in the next three weeks; so what in the hell are we doing raising interest rates?

What we’re doing is trying to bring down the Trump administration. What they’re doing is trying to bring down the Trump administer. If they have to crash the market… Not crash it. If they have cause the market to go down, if they have to slow down the economy, it doesn’t matter. If they have to do criminal justice reform and fund Planned Parenthood and all of this stuff and not spend an additional penny on border security, then that’s what the hell is gonna be done.

Everything that happens, magically there’s a left-wing response to it. At a federal court, any amount of progress whatsoever is met immediately with left-wing opposition. They stand up and say, “Nope, you can’t do it,” and find a federal judge somewhere to say, “Nope, can’t do that, not gonna do that.” Everything gets shut down. Everything gets stopped. Except what needs to be shut down and what needs to be stopped. So it’s clear that the left, the Democrats, the Drive-By Media now turning to turn Trump’s pledge on the wall into George H. W. Bush’s “Read my lips: No new taxes.”

This is exactly what the objective has been. Trump commits to a wall; it’s part of his campaign 2016. We’ve known from the get-go they were never gonna support a wall. Everybody that’s in favor of a wall has known there wasn’t gonna be any support for it. I mentioned yesterday there’s not anybody in Washington outside of a couple members of Congress euphemistically. But I’m talking about the entire Washington establishment, the swamp, they don’t want the wall. They don’t want any part of it. They don’t want any limits on illegal immigration.

That’s why Trump was elected to bulldoze through all of that. You want to add insult to injury? The United States has pledged $10.6 billion, twice as much as has been asked for for the wall. A $10.6 billion aid package (Are you ready for it?) to Central America and southern Mexico. And you know what the theory is? The theory is that if we provide aid money to these war-torn, poverty stricken areas we can build ’em up and their people won’t want to leave.

We’ve been hearing that since 1992. That was the purpose of NAFTA. NAFTA was gonna build up all these Central American southern hemisphere hellholes. It was going to build ’em up, have roaring economies down there and their people wouldn’t want to leave. How did that work out? How many times have we given whatever amount of money to all of these hellholes in Central and South America for the express purpose we’re told of building up their economies so their people won’t want to leave, and they just continue to leave in even larger numbers and now joining caravans of thousands.

Which, by the way, have not gotten in and the caravans are starting to disband, but the caravan crowd is now demanding reparations, $50,000 per participant to leave. The caravan has wrecked Tijuana, Mexico. They haven’t found a way to get in, but that’s just short of a miracle. The Associated Press has the story today. “U.S. Pledges $10.6 Billion Aid for Central America, Southern Mexico.” You heard that right.

“The United States pledged $5.8 billion in aid and investment Tuesday for strengthening government and economic development in Central America, and another $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico. The U.S. aid aims to promote better security conditions and job opportunities as part of a regional plan to allow Central Americans and Mexicans to remain in their countries and not have to emigrate.” Don’t make me laugh. We’re taking ’em one way or the other.

They either get across the border illegally, become wards of the state, or we pay them before they get here ostensibly to make sure they don’t come, and they come anyway! And we all know that the money spent on these governments in southern Mexico and Central America never reaches the people of these countries anyway. Otherwise, they might stay if their countries were expanding their economies and opportunity, if their economies were taking off, maybe they would stay. But the money never seeks to work!

It didn’t work with NAFTA! This doesn’t work! It never has. Giving money to people don’t have it doesn’t work! It doesn’t work in welfare. It doesn’t work in wealthy families who do nothing but give money away. When it isn’t earned, there is no pride in it, there’s no association, there’s no achievement related to it. All there is, you get a little bit and people start asking for more, they come to expect it, they start thinking you’ve got it all, I don’t have enough, I want more, and they keep asking and we keep giving! It’s human nature.

You give people things they haven’t earned and they don’t appreciate it. They don’t thank you. They just expect more. Generosity is never understood. People don’t take the time to be appreciative. They just continue the expectations. And then these people are fueled with further anger because while we are being generous with them they’re told what rotgut schemers we are. We’re told what we are. They’re told what racists we are and what bigots we are. We give them all the money, we keep their countries afloat, and somehow we still end up being the bad guys.

The American media, the Democrat Party are happy to promulgate that message and blame it all on the Republicans! Now, bear in mind that this $10.6 billion in aid is more than twice as much as what President Trump wants for this year’s funding for the wall. We’re gonna have nothing to show for this $10.6 billion except a bunch of people being able to run around say, “Look how much we care. Look how compassionate we are. Look at what we’re willing to do for border security.

“We’re willing to give money to countries so their economies can shine so their people will not leave.” How many decades has this been a philosophy and a policy, and how many decades of failure do you need to know that it isn’t gonna work? And so the objective really isn’t to give $10.6 billion to these areas of Central America so that their people prosper. There’s another reason for it. And the reason is selfish. “Look what they did. Look how much we care. We really care about poor people. We’re giving money away.

We believe in human rights and civil rights and so forth,” and their circumstances never improve and they still join migrant caravans and other modes of transportation to get here even after supposedly receiving money like this. Let me remind you in 2015, Obama gave $750 million to the so-called northern triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, $750 million. That money was supposed to improve security there, it was supposed to tackle gang violence, it was supposed to end poverty. You can’t give money to poor people and have it end poverty!

Have we not proven that in 200 years? Have we not proven that in however many years human beings have walked the earth? It’s human nature. You cannot give money away and create prosperity. It just doesn’t work! It has to be earned. It has to be real. It has to be associated with some kind of achievement and productivity. Otherwise it’s just charity! And what charity has ever gotten enough money that it can say “mission accomplished, we’re shutting down”? Not a single one of them!

Not a single charity has ever said, “Thank you, we’ve got plenty more than we need. We’re shutting. Mission accomplished.” There’s never an end. You can call it charity. You can call it welfare. You call it foreign aid. You can call it foreign policy. You can call it whatever it is. But it will not solve what it’s attempted to solve. And until people who are trying to get into this country legally and illegally are willing to come here and become part of the American landscape and culture and join the rest of us in doing what’s necessary to maintain America’s relevance and economic growth rather than become sponges, they shouldn’t get in.

But because we have a political party which needs a-never-ending supply of that kind of person, incapable of work and unwilling to, incapable of learning English and not caring to, that’s the future of America if the Democrat Party ends up dominate and running it, because that’s the kind of voters that they need to continue to win. Let’s be honest. The world is filled with people who qualify as permanent underclass. And the Democrat Party appears more than willing to have as many of ’em as they can get into our country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The Associated Press says that this money doesn’t require congressional approval. I’m talking about the $10.6 billion going down is to Central America. It doesn’t need congressional approval. Unlike Trump’s signature to protect, stem illegal immigration, that somehow needs his signature. The $5 billion for the wall, he needs to sign a deal for that. But we can somehow transfer $10.6 billion to southern Mexico and Central America, and it doesn’t require congressional approval.

Also it’s gonna be procured from some other existing part of the budget, and yet Trump cannot do that. You can’t go get from his own executive branch $5 billion laying around unused in some stupid budget area and use it to build the wall, but the Congress can somehow reallocate $10.6 billion without Trump needing to sign anything to send foreign aid or with of down to Central America and southern Mexico?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There’s something about this that doesn’t connect, folks. This is so out of character for Donald Trump. I don’t know… (sigh) It can’t be that he thinks everybody is so busy with Christmas they’re not gonna notice that the wall funding… Folks, it’s not just dying here. The Democrats are doing a death dance over it. It’s not just dying. It’s gone forever! They are pronouncing this DOA.

They’re puffing up and bragging and getting all arrogant about this, that it’s over forever ’cause once they get control of the House, Trump is done getting anything done and all that’s gonna happen is he’s gonna be investigated. Now, meanwhile, this $10.8 billion (I’m not kidding, $10.8 billion) in aid, in welfare, in charity to southern Mexico and Central America? After Obama gave similar amounts of money during his eight years — all for the express purpose of building these places up so that they have economies down there where people will not have to leave to come here.

It never happens, and that $10.6 billion doesn’t have to be part of this budget deal. Why that money’s just gonna be found somewhere. It doesn’t need Trump’s signature, which means Trump can’t stop it. But $5 billion — a paltry $5 billion — compared to a federal budget that’s approaching $3 trillion, can’t be found anywhere. Chuck and Nancy are out there saying that Trump is not gonna be allowed to go get it from any other cabinet department or anywhere else in the executive branch. They’re gonna make sure he can’t do it.

It’s just out of character for Trump to be appearing to cave on this. I can’t believe that that’s what is happening and that he thinks it’s not gonna be noticed. But I tell you, the back-and-forth, the juxtaposition of $10.8 billion — and we’re just hearing about this today! Oh, by the way, America, $10.8 billion,” and everybody is celebrating and acting like this is some kind of grand thing that we’re doing. “Oh, by the way, while we’re punting on $5 billion for the wall and telling all of you to support to essentially go to hell, you know what we’re doing?

“We’re sending $10.8 billion in aid down to Central America and southern Mexico — and guess what? It doesn’t have to be allocated! It doesn’t to have to be appropriated. It doesn’t have to be part of this budget deal. Whether the government shuts down or not, we’re gonna send the money down there.” Really? Whether the government shuts down or not, that money is gone, and the Republicans… Trump’s not alone in this! The Republicans can’t find a way to get a measly $5 billion for the wall in a $5 trillion budget?

Just to put $5 billion in perspective, it is less than what the government spends on food stamps each and every month. That’s $5.9 billion! Not to mention the untold billions that illegal aliens cost us every year! That $5 billion is a rounding error, if that, in the federal budget! Meanwhile, we have this criminal justice reform bill that passed seemingly without any debate. There was one senator who had opposition to it. His name was Tom Cotton, and he was pretty much buried. He had some support but not much. They got 87 votes in the Senate for this. It just sails through.

The American people don’t even know it’s happening, and to the extent that they do, they don’t care. It’s not at the top of the anybody’s list except some people in Washington where it was apparently at the top of the list. They’re out there celebrating this. It’s gonna affect 187,000 plus some change people in prison. It’s gonna let ’em out early. It’s gonna give ’em house arrest. Some of it’s legit. I mean, there’s some people in prison that shouldn’t be. Sentencing was excessive. I’m not suggesting it’s not necessary.

But mind-boggling there’s something like this that nobody cares about (maybe that’s the answer) sails right through. We all know why. Prison reform is… Both parties are looking at the opportunity to tell minorities how much they care, how sensitive we are. “Look at what we’ve done! Everybody thinks the vast majority of the prison population is minority, and so look what we’re doing! We are being compassionate. We are being understanding, and we are not racist, and we understand that we have an unfair judicial system.”

Yeah, just ask Michael Flynn. Yeah, just ask James Comey. Just ask McCabe. Unfair legal system? We’ve got a two-tiered judicial system! Hillary Clinton and Democrats innocent and not even charged. Republicans? Guilty for breathing — and if there’s a charge, that’s it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Meanwhile, over here, $5 billion, a rounding error in the federal budget, is enough for the Democrats to say, “Shut down the government. We’re not gonna let this happen.” ‘Cause it isn’t about the $5 billion. It’s about choking off the continuing supply of prospective Democrat voters, a permanent underclass.

For that reason — since it’s not about the $5 billion and since it’s not about the budget and it doesn’t bust the budget and it doesn’t do anything — I think the president ought to veto this. This is why he got elected. This is why people stick with him. This is why his support base has not abandoned him during this full-frontal effort of the Democrats and the media to destroy him. They’ve hung with him because of this. This issue predated Trump.

The American people have been telling Washington for 25 years they don’t want this, and the American people have continued to triumph. Washington continues to try to thwart the will of the people on this. Finally, the people elected somebody who actually said he meant what he was talking about regarding this, and they have stuck with him. The president should veto this thing, tell ’em he’s not signing it and leave for Mar-a-Lago today. He’s not supposed to leave until the 21st. Somebody in the White House tell him I’ll meet him on the first tee tomorrow.

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RUSH: Savannah, Georgia, next. This is Larry. I’m glad you called, sir.

CALLER: Yes, sir. Thank you. I’ve been praying while on hold so I don’t sound too stupid, but I’m not nervous. I’m just shaking with rage, Rush. I appreciate everything Trump’s done, but I’ve had it. You wanted to know when people were gonna start peeling away from him? It’s not so much that I’m peeling away from him. I’m peeling away from the Republican Party. They’re cowards. They’ve been spineless the whole time he’s been in office. They could be on TV just as loud as the Democrats — and I don’t blame him, you know? He’s done his best. I appreciate everything the man has done. I still love him, but I can’t take it no more. I — I just… I don’t know what to say. Ever since Sessions recused himself, I got a bad feeling right then. But I —

RUSH: Look, I know your frustration. Everything Trump does is met with some liberal Democrat… He cannot hear me.

CALLER: Yes, I can, sir.

RUSH: Everything Trump does, some liberal judge stands up and stops him. Every move forward, there’s always somebody on the left, somehow, some way can stop it, can shut it down. I understand your frustration here, and the thing that you said that really resonates is that Trump, no matter what is happening here, is still all alone. He’s got no help from the Republican Party on this. When it comes to government shutdowns, they cower in fear like I’ve never seen cowards fear.

They just fold like crazy at the very thought, at the very intimation of a government shutdown. And when it comes to the idea of a wall or border security, they’re lip service. There’s never anything actually done to shore it up. And the interview that I did with him — I played it last hour — back on August 1st, I was talking there about how hard this is and that people don’t know, and he does not make excuses, by the way.

CALLER: I know. I don’t know what they’re afraid of, but I’ve got one crummy idea left. We never protest anything. The damn liberals protest every little old thing. I would love to see a massive — and I mean a massive — millions of people go to Washington this spring with just one thing: Pass immigration reform and build a wall. I mean, shut that damn city down with so many people, they would have to cover it.

RUSH: Well, I hate to remind you of this, but there have been these things. Not about immigration per se, but there were. During the Obama presidency, I think the second term, there were at least two of these where 25,000 or 30,000 people showed up. I don’t remember what the reasons were. I think Glenn Beck did one, and a lot of people showed up.

The media just covers it and makes fun of it, and they find people in the crowd that they think are hayseeds and hicks, and they go talk to them and so forth. They’re not threatened by it, they’re not intimidated, because the media doesn’t treat those people as genuine Americans. They’re screwball right-wingers and so forth. Look, I understand your frustration on it. It’s just my whole life it’s not been what conservatives are known for, protesting.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kathy in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hello, sir. Merry Christmas. Navy flight crew dittos to you. I’ve been a listener since 1988, so I can say, “Thank you for your hard work.”

RUSH: I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

CALLER: This is bucket list Merry Christmas. I think Trump is brilliant. We’ve handed him the worst group of you RINOs on the planet. He could not fight this battle right now ’cause Pelosi was right. “You don’t have the votes. Your RINOs aren’t helping you,” and he’s right. If they put this off ’til February, it’s to Schumer and Pelosi and Trump in the room, and our RINOs… He got Ryan to quit. He got 45 RINOs to walk away. He has to drain our swamp before he can drain the Democrat media swamp.

He was given… John McCain was my skipper. Look at that thumbs down. Killed it! He promised for eight years, Ryan has promised us for eight years, and they’re gone — and I think he’s brilliant. I know he’s gonna take heat, but how many times have we been told, “Trump is done. This is it! We’re gonna leave,” and he has gotten rid of all these RINOs, and we’re looking at ’em different. I hate my senator, Rubio — and, you know, that isn’t Trump’s wall. That’s our wall, and every time they beat Trump they hit 64 million Americans in the face. Because the media are such liars, no one gets that. But they pound us in the face every time they lay a finger on Donald Trump.

RUSH: I want to go back to something you said at the beginning. I might have misunderstood you — and if I did, it’s my fault, not yours. Did you say something that it’s smart to wait until Pelosi and Schumer are in charge? ‘Cause Schumer won’t be. He’s in the Senate. But what did you say about waiting ’til next year about Pelosi and Schumer and it was smart to do? Is there a what you said?

CALLER: Well, our RINOs are Democrats. So he was fighting our own party, and you can’t beat ’em up like you’re gonna be able to beat Pelosi and Schumer up. I mean, it was a no-win. Forty of them didn’t even bother to come back. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in pensions we’re paying them, and they didn’t even show up for the vote. So we have Democrat lites on RINOs or Democrat lites.

RUSH: You know, speaking of that, do you know why so many Republicans were said not to be there this time, at this time of year? Because since they’ve been defeated, they’ve lost their housing. They don’t have any place to live and many of them were sleeping in anywhere offices and they’ve lost their offices! So they had no choice but than to go home. This is what the media said. And we’re talking about a lot of Republicans, not just the 45 who retired. Look, I understand — and your thinking on this is good. It’s interesting.

That a long process, Trump’s gotta get rid of the opposition to him in his own party first, and he’s succeeding in doing it. But everything has consequences, Kathy. The consequence of getting rid of the RINOs is that Pelosi now runs the House of Representatives, and so now there’s gonna be nothing but total paralysis in the House of Representatives. It’s gonna be not guilty but investigations. The New York state attorney general just announced that she is going to investigate every aspect of Donald Trump’s life, every aspect.

They succeeded. They succeeded in getting the Trump Family Foundation shut down. Meanwhile, the Clinton Family Foundation is up and running, still doing pay-to-play. There was so much illegally about the Clinton Foundation and not one effort to pursue it, not one serious effort to investigate it. The Trump Family Foundation with assets of $1.3 million after having given away 19 or 20 million, they’re basically shutting it down. The Trump family says, “Well, that’s okay because it lost our primary focus. We’ve branched out into other ways of doing foundation work.”

But, I mean, they target it and shut it down. This new attorney general replacing Schneiderman has basically announced that her job from now for the next two years is nothing but vetting every day of Donald Trump’s life, going back 20 years, 30 years, however long it takes. We’re talking here about $5 billion — and, Kathy, while I appreciate your thinking that Trump’s gotta drain the swamp, time is running out here. You can’t say for four years, “Well, I gotta do this and this and this and this and this before I can accomplish this.”

At some point, people’s patience gonna wear out, and I don’t know how many Trump supporters are looking at this precisely the way you are, meaning Trump’s got to drain the Republican swamp before he drains the entire swamp. He doesn’t have limitless time to do this. He has been able to achieve other things in his agenda. He’s had remarkable success given all of the efforts to stop him. But this? This wall? Like I told you yesterday, there’s nobody in that town that’s for it. Look, there are two or three Republicans in the Freedom Caucus like Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows. I don’t mean to leave them out.

But when talk about the entirety of the Washington establishment, there is nobody that wants that wall, and there isn’t anybody that wants border security. They’re all talking about it, but they don’t want to go there. They don’t want to actually do anything on it. There isn’t time to drain the swamp! We’re talking $5 billion. We’re not talking about trying to get $1.5 trillion to build a state-of-the-art wall from border to border, coast to coast. It’s $5 billion, while at the same time $10.6 billion is being sent to southern Mexico and some beleaguered nations in Central America.

I guess I could be easily misunderstood on this. I’m not throwing Trump overboard and I’m not abandoning anything here, but I’m asking questions. I mean, it’s been widely known for I don’t know how long that government shutdowns are how Democrats paralyze Republicans into not doing what they have been elected to do and what they promised to do during campaigns. Let me go to the audio sound bites and kind of demonstrate this. Up first from this morning on Capitol Hill is Mitch McConnell, audio sound bite No. 3.

MCCONNELL: It seems like political spite for the president may be winning out over sensible policy. Even sensible policies that are more modest — more modest — than border security allocations which many Democrats themselves have supported in the very recent past. But faced with this intransigence, with Democrats’ failure to take our borders seriously, Republicans will continue to fulfill our duty to govern. That’s why we’ll soon take up a simple measure that will continue government funding into February so we can continue this vital debate until the new Congress has convened.

RUSH: Okay. So it’s a simple question: How many times do we watch the same movie? (impression) “We’ll get ’em after Christmas. Republicans are gonna do our duty! We’re gonna keep the government open. Nobody should have any fear that your precious government will cease operations and that you have to die. Don’t worry! Your Republicans will keep your government open — and we’re gonna get ’em in the spring. We’re gonna get ’em after the Fourth of July. We’ll get ’em! We’ll get ’em right after the next election.”

One year from now, we’ll be right back here with another end of the bill emergency funding measure and only the Democrats are gonna be running the Ways and Means Committee and they’re gonna be throwing everything in the sink into it and the Republicans are gonna say, “Well, we lost the election. There’s not much we can do to stop ’em. We can’t have a government shutdown,” and over in the Senate where the Republicans run it, “We’re gonna do our duty!

“We’re gonna keep government open and voting, and we fulfill our commitment to do our duty. We will take up a measure to fund the government — your government that you love and adore and need — for the next few weeks. So we can continue this vital debate where we cave every time in the new Congress.” How many times gonna watch the movie? How many times are we gonna pay for the ticket to watch the movie? Here’s Chuck You Schumer this morning at one of his press conferences also up on Capitol Hill.

SCHUMER: Let me be very clear. The administration cannot reprogram funds appropriated by Congress for the full wall without our assent. To do so would violate Congress’ Article 1 powers. They cannot do it on their own, and the House and Senate will not approve a wall from reprogrammed funds or anything else. It won’t happen.

RUSH: (impression) “Except if we want to send $10 billion down to Central America, southern Mexico, and if we find that money somewhere in the executive branch… Oh, wait. We don’t have to allocate that, it’s already been acted like, but we can do what we’re telling Trump he can’t do — and by God, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna send that money there so they build up their economies so they don’t have to come here in the first place. ” Chris Van Hollen. He’s now a Democrat senator, used to be one of Pelosi’s No. 1 lieutenants in the House of Representatives. He was on with Neil Cavuto last night on the Fox News Channel.

Cavuto said, “You know, he might look at a number of other things, including maybe reallocating money from defense department to the wall construction project. Would you be against that?”

HOLLEN: The president does not have this unlimited authority just to, uh, use the defense department about that as a slush fund, uh, for the Department of Homeland Security and the wall. So, uh, that’s not gonna work. Uh, we’ve had bipartisan agreements down here on Capitol Hill on the most effective way, uh, to achieve border security, and, uh, I hope that the president will listen to, uh, what a bipartisan group of members of Congress, uh, has come up with.

RUSH: Yeah, and what’s that? What is this bipartisan group and what have they come up with? Zilch, zero, nada. So now here are the Democrats telling Trump what he can’t do. He’s got his Department of Justice telling him what you can’t do. He’s got the FBI out there mocking him and telling him what he can’t do. He’s got Chuck You Schumer telling him what you can’t do and he’s got Mitch McConnell telling everybody what he won’t do!

(impression) “Because we do our duty keep the government that you know and love and need up and running.” And here’s a Republican. Grab No. 7, John Thune. He’s from South Dakota. He was on with Cavuto last night. Question: “Are you of the mind-set that reallocating money from another department like the defense department is a wise strategy,” money to build the wall, “or would that be rejected out of hand?” Republican senator here.

THUNE: I’m not a big fan of moving money. I think Defense ought to be building airplanes and ships and all the things that we need to do to defend the country.

RUSH: There you go. John Thune, Republican senator, South Dakota.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. Let’s stick with the audio sound bites and get back to your phone calls here in just a second. Grab No. 8. This is Mr. Newt today on Fox & Friends with Steve Doocy who said “Mr. Speaker, it looks like the Democrats are gonna win on this. There will be no money for the president and his wall this time.”

MR. NEWT: They may win for two weeks. But again, I think the president’s probably trying to get past the Christmas season. I’ve always thought having been through shutdowns when I was speaker, I don’t think shutting the government down on Christmas Eve is a particularly big win for anybody. It’s a pain in the neck for the hundreds of thousands of families that are affected directly by it. The president has not given up. I don’t know that he minds dragging it out for a while. … a series of two-week agreements. I suspect he believed that every week that he’s talking about security for Americans and they’re posturing against protecting the border, I think he thinks he’s probably winning in the long run.

RUSH: All right. So let me translate this for you. “We got a two-week deal here just to get us through the Christmas and the new year seen, the holidays here, and then we gotta come back here and do it again in January. Now, at some point the Democrats are gonna be running the House like on January 3rd or 4th, whenever it is that they’re sworn in. So the thinking is here that the president will keep talking about border security. He doesn’t want to shut down government why Christmas season, Christmas Eve. It’s too tough to people affected by it. But it’s only two weeks!

“We’ve gotta go through this again. After Christmas it’s a different ball game, and that’s when Trump can play hardball and threaten not to sign it right when the Democrats are taking over the House, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the more president talks about border security — the more he talks about the wall, the more he talks about the need for it and the more the Democrats oppose it — then the better the issue continues to be for Trump.”

That’s what Mr. Newt is saying. I’m sure some of you will have thoughts on that, and there is a case to be made for that. It’s not give as though this deal will fund the government for the next year. It’s just a short period of time and the thing’s gotta find be done again. That’s what McConnell was referring to. “We’re doing our duty to keep the precious government everybody loves up and running and then we’ll come back here and we’ll do it again with the president,” whatever. Now, on Fox & Friends they played a sound of me talking about this today. It began with Ainsley Earhardt.

EARHARDT: Rush Limbaugh was saying that nobody in Washington wants this Trump wall. The president likes to negotiate, and maybe this was a way for him to compromise, say, “If I give you a little bit of this, you’ll soften on it maybe you’ll give me more money.” But the thing is, most Republicans are saying Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are not gonna budge on this; they’re not gonna give him anything. Rush Limbaugh also said this. Listen…

RUSH ARCHIVE: [T]he White House could back down from its demand for $5 billion in border wall funding in this year-end spending bill. If that’s true, it means the Democrats can get pretty much what they want and block anything they don’t want simply by promising to shut down the government, because that’s what’s on the table. … The ironic thing about this is that polling data is finally starting to show (even in the AP) that government shutdowns have lost their impact in terms of benefiting the Democrats. There have been so many of ’em, there have been so many threats, and nothing happens. … This is all smoke and mirrors and made up.

RUSH: My point there is it’s like the Republicans were constantly accused of wanting to deny Social Security to seniors. Seniors couldn’t take the chance of that so they always voted Democrat. Democrats kept saying in every election for 20 years, “Republicans want to take away your home! They want to take away your Social Security,” and yet it never happened. Nothing ever happened to Social Security. So after a while voters began to tune Democrats out on this.

Now, the polling data from AP suggests that we’re at the beginning of that same phenomena happening on government shutdowns. There have been some, and no calamity ever happens. People don’t die. People continue to get their checks. Yeah, you might lose the sleigh ride concession at Jellystone Park for a while, but for the most part nothing happens to anybody. Hell, folks, they shut the government down with a half-inch of snow in that town!

So we’ve got the Newt Gingrich theory. We have another caller theory that Trump has got to get rid of his opposition in the Republican Party before he can drain the entire swamp; everybody should be patient here. Look, I don’t think the president’s caving on the idea here, folks. Don’t anybody misunderstand me. I don’t think the president is essentially saying, “Forget the wall. Can’t do it. Never gonna do it.” That’s not what’s going on here. But you elected the fight as well, and a lot of people are beginning to get a little uneasy here at the apparent lack of any of that on this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have a tweet here from Mark Meadows who is one of the two members of the Republican Congress with Jim Jordan and maybe others who are dead set in favor of finding the money to fund the building of the wall. Congressman Meadows is from North Carolina. His tweet says, “Punting to February 8th on the continuing resolution not only gives Democrats a Christmas present, it offers them a Valentine’s Day gift. Democrats will win, the wall will not be built, and Congress will once again have punted when we should have been taking a stand.

“The time to fight is now. Zero excuse.” Note no mention of President Trump there. He’s throwing this all off on Republicans in Congress, where it… I call your attention back to the sound bite on August 1st of this year I played with President Trump in which he — and he wasn’t complaining. He was educating. He was talking about funding of the wall and how difficult it is. Because, folks, I’m telling you, I’m not exaggerating on this.

There isn’t anybody in that town that wants it, for any number of reasons. But the primary reason why is that there’s nobody in that town that thinks illegal immigration is a problem! It’s not a crisis. What’s happening as a result of it is no big deal. That’s their attitude, and the reason for that is they don’t get affected by it. They’re insulated. They don’t live on the border. They don’t vacation at the border. They don’t even go to the border.

Now, of course, the problems are not even contained at the border. They’re all over. But the point is they are not… These people in Washington are not confronted with the consequences of their beliefs on any of this. They don’t think it’s a crisis. They don’t think it’s an emergency. They don’t think America is in any peril whatsoever. And they think that those of us who do their are just knee-jerk reactionaries who don’t know what we’re talking about and really can’t be listened to.