RUSH: Have you heard about the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal today? Well, let me tell you about this. The new White House counsel apparently has been consulting with Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, negotiating with them on Trump judicial nominees for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals! It is pretty safe to say Trump may not know this is going on!

He’s a got a new White House counsel, and this White House counsel has been working with Kamala Harris and Feinstein, two senators from California, to the choose nominees that Trump would choose to be on the Ninth Circuit that meet their approval! What the hell! We run the Senate. We have 53 senators! The reason Trump ran — in addition to not doing amnesty and shutting down the border, building a wall and all that — was the courts! What in the name of Sam Hill is going on when somebody has to…?

Feinstein!

Feinstein is the one that when Amy Coney Barrett was up for nomination… She is on the short list for the next Supreme Court opening whenever that is and wherever it is. She was engaged in confirmation hearings for her current slot on the court that she currently sits on, and Dianne Feinstein’s looking at her and says (paraphrased), “The dogma is thick with you,” meaning, “You’re really a big Catholic.” Feinstein’s not Catholic. “The dogma is thick with you.” So we’ve got a little bit of an indication how Feinstein is gonna approach Amy Coney Barrett if she’s nominated for the Supreme Court.

Well, why in the name of Sam Hill is somebody in the Trump administration negotiating with the people that lost in the Senate elections? Now, occasionally this happens. It does happen, but it’s a throwback to years gone by when there was at least the pretense of bipartisanship, cooperation, comity, and all that. But not during these hyperpartisan days where there’s no overlap of anything in common. You start negotiating with Feinstein and Kamala Harris and then senators from New York are gonna be the next ones that call you and demand to negotiate.

And then if you don’t negotiate with senators from New York, then senators from some other liberal state will be calling the White House, “Why won’t you negotiate with us? Why would you…?” They don’t get a say in this! That’s the whole point of winning the presidency! They don’t get a say in who judicial nominees are, and this is the Ninth Circuit! We’re trying to go deliberalize the Ninth Circuit as much as we can, and we’re giving Feinstein and Kamal Harris a say? Why are we doing this? What is the point? Does it not reside in, “We must show them that we’re able to cross the aisle.

“We must show them that we’re able to work together. We must show America that we’re not the racist, sexist, bigots they think.” This stupid, defensive premise that we accept that they say we are all these horrible things, so we must then try to prove that we’re not. It’s been tried for 30 years. It doesn’t work. They have to be beaten, not compromised with and not cooperated with. Not now, not today, not in this day and age, not when they are hell-bent for destroying this country as founded.

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RUSH: But I tell you, this negotiating with Feinstein and Kamala Harris? And she’s got her own mess today. She’s now walking back her pledge to get rid of private health insurance companies. She’s walked it back because a bunch of private health insurance companies raised hell. They started getting mad.

So she’s caved already, and CNN reported that she caved, and she got mad that they reported it that way. So CNN has retracted the story that she caved, because she told CNN to retract it. But she did! She’s already caved to the big moneyed interests less than 24 hours after making her grand proposal at a CNN town hall in Iowa on Monday night to eliminate private health insurance. They complain; she caves. CNN reports it; she gets hold of CNN, “You pull that story! I didn’t cave.” CNN dutifully pulls the story.

CNN is not a news network anymore.

They are an adjunct to the FBI and the DOJ when they happen to just be there when Roger Stone is raided at 6.a.m. Now they do this town hall with Kamala Harris and when she doesn’t like the results, she goes to CNN and tells them to change the way they report it, and they dutifully do. She’s not gonna like this. We got the audio. Don Lemon actually hosted the discussion last night on CNN whether Kamala Harris is dark enough. You know, there’s a difference between being “black” and being an “African-American.”

That’s what Don Lemon says. There’s a big difference. We had this argument with Obama, and I got blamed for this. We created a parody out of it, “Barack the ‘Magic Negro'” based on a column in the LA Times. There were civil rights activists all back in 2007, 2008 debating whether Obama was “really” African-American, whether he was “really” black, whether he was… “Does he have slave blood?” they asked. “Was he down for the struggle?

“Because, you know, he’s Kenyan,” and so there was in debate on whether he’s black enough. Now they’re having it all over again with Kamala Harris. (interruption) Yeah, I should play “Barack the ‘Magic Negro.'” There’s some people who may not have heard that in a while. “A Bad Judges Deal — The White House may make concessions to Feinstein and Harris. President Trump’s best achievement has arguably been judicial selection.

“From the Supreme Court to the appellate circuits to district-court nominees, he is remaking the federal courts. So more than a few eyes widened this month when the White House omitted three names from the list of 50 judges Mr. Trump sent back up to the Senate. … The three missing names were Californians nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Two other Ninth Circuit nominees, Eric Miller of Washington and Bridget Bade of Arizona, were renominated.

“But Daniel Collins, Kenneth Lee and Patrick Bumatay were withheld because,” the Journal says, “we’re told the White House is negotiating with California Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. Ms. Feinstein and the White House counsel’s office have been pen pals on this for some time. In a November letter to new White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Ms. Feinstein and Ms. Harris requested ‘that the White House work with us to reach an agreement on a consensus package of nominees.’

“The Democrats want to pick one name from the White House list, one from their own” list of acceptable judges, “and a third consensus nominee,” somebody that the White House and Dianne Feinstein both agree on. Well, that means two of the three are gonna be judges that Feinstein agrees on. The Journal says, “Why Mr. Cipollone or the president would agree to this or any other deal with these senators is a mystery. The hope…” Here’s the thing: “The hope seems to be that a White House concession would somehow produce less resistance to Mr. Trump’s nominees” such as down the way to the Supreme Court.

This is exactly how we lose! We give them what they want with the appearance that we’re being nice, we’re being cooperative, we’re crossing the aisle, we’re being bipartisan. See? So then when we want the Supreme Court justice we want, you’re supposed to stand down and let us have it. And it never works that way, do they? They always stand up and try to destroy our nominees, not just defeat ’em! How many years is it gonna take for our side to learn this is not how we win, survive, thrive? And it’s certainly not how we make them lose.

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RUSH: I swear. I don’t know who in the White House could be thinking this way. This Wall Street Journal story dumps this off on the new White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. But how in the world…? (sigh) Kamala Harris is running for the Democrat presidential nomination. Why in the world are we gonna give her veto rights over a Trump-selected judge for the Ninth Circuit? Ditto Dianne Feinstein. She not running for president, but none of this makes any sense.

It looks like political weakness. It looks like defensiveness. It looks like we have once again got to prove that we’re not the ogres and the heathens that they say we are. Screw that! I am so done with trying to prove a bunch of garbage to people that’s lies in the first place! How do you prove a negative? You know the old argument. But to accept the premise keeps us constantly on the defensive and keeps us constantly thinking that we’re inferior, at least acting like we think that!

This is absurd.

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RUSH: We’re gonna start Richard in Poughkeepsie, New York. Welcome, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Oh, thank you, Rush. Mega dittos to you and God bless you for what you’re doing out here.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

CALLER: Listen. My question is, I love President Trump. I voted for him, very proud of it, glad about what he’s doing. I just don’t understand why it seems like his advisers or some of his cabinet members all seem to be deep state people. I mean, look at this counsel you talked about that’s negotiating with Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein about Ninth Circuit judge appointees. That’s retarded. What is he doing?

RUSH: Well, in this instance it actually is not known whether the president’s aware of this. Now, I don’t offer that as a defense of it. I know what your question is. I’ve shared with you and everybody from the beginning, even in the Trump campaign, I have been really puzzled by some of the staffing choices, and I’ve made no bones about it. But it’s none of my business. I mean, it’s not my regime or administration. But the way I’ve answered this to people, let’s take you, Richard. Now, you’re not Trump.

But Trump’s in the construction business, the real estate business, and one day he gets elected president. Do you think Donald Trump personally knows everybody he needs to be a cabinet secretary? Do you think he knows enough people intimately well to know their qualifications, to know their capabilities to fill every cabinet post? Do you think he knows enough lawyers to pick out the exact ones to be White House counsel, various other legal jobs in the administration?

My point is that he’s got to get advice from people he trusts because there’s not a’one of us… The last president that may have known enough… George H. W. Bush probably knew enough people to put his whole cabinet filled with people he loved and trusted, and maybe Clinton because his whole life has been at, you know, Ivy League schools and people like that. But Trump certainly is not. As an outsider, he’s the definition of it. So I think he may be getting some bad advice. I think a lot of people are purposely trying to trick Trump.

I think they’re lying to him about their loyalty. They get in there and they try to sabotage and undermine. I don’t doubt any of that. So his circle of advisers on this and whose advice he takes on staffing? It’s gotta be driving him nuts, some of these people that he’s had to let go, some of these people that didn’t work out. When you get into chief of staff, national security director? You had some people trying to undermine him at some of the highest jobs in his administration. And you’re right. The deep state… That’s everybody in Washington who’s not Trump and not personally known by Trump. Everybody in that town’s a deep stater. When it comes to Trump, they all oppose him.

CALLER: It’s truly a shame.

RUSH: And then you could have some true believers. I don’t know this guy, this new White House counsel. I don’t know this guy. He could literally be a swamp Republican who fully accepts that they hate us and that we’ve gotta do everything we can to prove to them that we’re not worthy of their hate, that they’re wrong. So the traditional Republican way is (whispering), “Let’s show them we will cooperate. Let’s show them that we are open-minded. Let’s show them that we’re not closed-minded bigots. So we’ll work with Feinstein.”

And what they think is gonna happen is that Feinstein is gonna have a new revelation. “My God, these Republicans are not that bad,” and then immediately start working with them. Where is the evidence that this ever happens? But there are Republicans who despite the evidence in front of their face… Just like these people that think socialism has only failed because the right people haven’t done it, we’ve got Republicans who think the only reason we haven’t made the Democrats and the media like us is because we haven’t gone about it the right way.

This is why I go crazy when I’m encountered by people that do not understand the left, particularly people that deal with them every day for their whole lives. So time will tell on this, whether Trump knew about it or not. You can’t know everything. That’s the point here. The federal government, the West Wing itself, you’ve got to have people you trust. You’ve gotta be able to delegate things. You can’t do it all yourself. Nobody can. Not even Martin Sheen in The West Wing could do everything himself.

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RUSH: Let me ask, can anybody cite a time…? Do you remember a time when the Democrats ever engaged in horse trading to get their judicial nominees when there was a Democrat president in the White House? Do you think they ever called Mitch McConnell, “Hey, Mitch! We want to consult with you on judges.” Do you think it ever happened? Do you think Mitch McConnell would ever demand it? That’s the thing. Mitch McConnell would never demand to be consulted on Democrat nominees. Our attitude…

I was thinking about this just last night. I don’t know why. Our attitude when we lose the presidency and the Democrats — Clinton or Obama — start picking judges… You go to any Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee and they’re gonna vote for the guy, barring some revelation that he’s an axe murderer. Our people, our Republican senators will say… I’ve heard Lindsey Graham say it. I’ve heard McConnell say it. They all say, “Well, the president won the election, and he gets his choice. That’s how our system works.”

No! It doesn’t work that way when the Democrats lose the presidency! We don’t get our choices. Go talk to Brett Kavanaugh about that. But we play it that way. We make a big deal of saying, “Well, the president won the election. The Democrats, they get their nominees.” That’s… We say that thinking that these hate-filled Democrat base voters are going to say, “You know what? Those Republicans aren’t that bad, maybe. Maybe they aren’t these racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes.”

That’s why they do it. And this is the kind of thing thinking we get out of the Never Trumpers. This is how the Never Trumpers operate, precisely so the people in the media on the left will respect them and not think of the Never Trumper conservative intellectuals as being a member of the talk radio elite. So we never oppose. “They win the election, they get to do whatever they want. That’s our system,” and they lose the election and it is though that didn’t happen.

When we win the presidency, their objective is to obstruct everything, which is what politics is! I don’t blame them for that! That’s the whole point! It’s a fight for power. It’s ongoing. It never ends. It’s just that our side demurs and never engages in it, particularly when we lose. But even when we win! I’ll never forget when we had the Senate by one vote and one of our senators decided to become an independent so that there would be a balance of power to show people that we were not…

It was the Jim Jeffords era. I think it’s no more complicated than we just don’t have people who know how to win. We have people afraid of success, afraid of winning because of the responsibility that it might entail. Or maybe other nefarious reasons as well. But I just don’t remember Democrats ever asking Republicans to consult in the selection of judges.

Now, we do have our moments. Obama picked Merrick Garland in his last year of his presidency, and Mitch McConnell told him to go pound sand. But that was only because of the Biden Rule. The Democrats had established that presidents don’t get to nominate Supreme Court picks in the last year of their presidency ’cause an election is upcoming, the American people might not approve and so forth. That was a Democrat rule that put that in motion.