RUSH: The media is full of BS fake news today. You probably heard there’s a COVID relief bill. Have you heard that, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) COVID relief bill. (interruption) Did you know about that, Brian? It’s a $900 billion COVID relief bill. But that’s not what this is. This is things don’t change. Congress did not pass a massive COVID relief bill.

They passed a massive giveaway to questionable socialist nations and sketchy Democrat Party constituencies. Georgia, part of the old Soviet Union, got millions of dollars for something that’s not even specified. Vietnam got $169 million. Egypt got $1.3 billion. Pakistan (or, as Obama says, Pok-ee-stahn) got millions of dollars for something to do with gender. I don’t know.

Are they in favor or opposed to it? Whatever, they got millions of dollars for it. Sri Lanka got $15 million to fix a boat. Not kidding: $15 million to repair a boat. Ukraine. Our old friends in Ukraine: $453 million. I guess that is so they can keep paying Hunter Biden and his dad. Why? $453 million to Ukraine. What this is, is classic income redistribution or money laundering.

Ukraine. It could well be. But guess what, folks? Restaurants and bars? Places where people meet and congregate, the hardest hit of our small businesses? I mean, this division of our economy is being wiped out — almost purposefully in blue states. Restaurants got nothing in the $900 billion COVID relief bill. But you know what? Chuck Schumer got relief, he got money for comedy clubs.

Do you know why? Jerry Seinfeld lobbied him. (interruption) You hadn’t heard that? Well, what are you reading? Jerry Seinfeld basically lobbied Chuck You Schumer. “Hey, the comedy clubs are being really hit hard here.” So, Schumer threw in some money. I don’t know how much it is, but it’s a little bit of a tap. But the point is that the hardest hit of all of our small businesses in a COVID relief bill got zilch, zero, nada.

That’s restaurants and bars. The Kennedy Center for the arts and whatever else, $40 million. Meanwhile, Americans, $600 each. Now, if the COVID relief bill consisted only of giving each American $600 and they left it at that, then the cost of the COVID relief bill would have been $198 billion. But the COVID relief bill — which is 5,000 pages and which members of Congress didn’t read, which they never do read (nothing’s changed) — is $900 billion.

So $600 for every American would equal a $198 billion bill, yet this bill is more than $900 billion. Do the math. We’ve given away $700 billion to corrupt cronies, corrupt countries that are allies of the Democrat Party. It needs to be vetoed. Trump needs to veto it. I don’t know if he will. I don’t believe he will. But it needs to be vetoed. Now, the bill is being touted — and I can’t wait to get into this.

The bill is being touted as a major, major achievement in attacking climate change. I kid you not. They are bragging about how this bill is going to do so much for climate change. It’ll take me a little while to explain all this. I’ve got all the time in the world; I think you do too. Here’s this gender programs in Pakistan. “$15 million for democracy programs, $10 million for gender programs in Pakistan.”

Sri Lanka: “up to $15 million for the refurbishing of a high-endurance cutter.” It’s a patrol boat: $15 million to fix a boat, Mr. Snerdley — there it is — in Sri Lanka. “$505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama to address key factors that contribute to the migration of unaccompanied, undocumented minors to the U.S.”

$505 million to these Central American countries to, quote, “address key factors that contribute to the migration.” So we’re gonna spend $505 million to study to find out why unaccompanied, undocumented minors come to the United States. We can tell ’em that today. I’ll do that for a hundred mill. I’ll cut ’em a break. I will tell ’em why undocumented, unaccompanied minors migrate to the United States for $100 million, not 505.

Let’s see here. What else. Yeah, there’s $453 million for assistance for Ukraine. There’s a tax break for racehorse owners. I wonder how that ended up in the bill? Meanwhile, you and I, we get 600 bucks. Oh, and they extended unemployment benefits for a few weeks and so forth. But see? Nothing changes when the establishment asserts control.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One other thing in this bill. “Family members…” I kid you not on this. “Family members of illegal aliens are now able to get stimulus checks under this new bill. It’s retroactive, so they can also get the previous $1,200 given out” way back when. This is a tweet from Ryan Fournier at 10 a.m. this morning. “Family members of illegal aliens are now able to get stimulus checks…”

You know, let me reread that with proper emphasis on proper words. “Family members of illegal aliens,” it says here. “”Family members of illegal aliens are now able to get stimulus checks under this new bill. It’s retroactive, so they can also get the previous $1,200 given out.” So they’re gonna get $1800, the families of illegal aliens.

It seems that in every piece of legislation that comes down the pike that involves government grants to individuals, it seems like illegal aliens end up being at the top of the priority list, which should not surprise people who have been paying attention to me and people like me for the recent years. Now, back to the climate change aspect of the bill.

I like John Barrasso, folks. He’s the Republican senator from Wyoming. But this… He said, “Republicans and Democrats are working together to protect the environment through innovation.” That’s his comment on the COVID relief bill. “This historic agreement includes three separate pieces of legislation that will significantly reduce greenhouse gases.”

Meaning we’re gonna capture and store carbon dioxide produced by power and manufacturing plants. Why, this is the way Democrats talk! “We’re gonna authorize a 15-year reduction of hydrofluorocarbons that are used in everything from cars to air-conditioners that are considered a major driver of global warming and are being targeted worldwide,” and we have a Republican senator touting this in a COVID relief bill.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We got David in St. Louis. Welcome, sir. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. How are you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Just fine. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Good. That’s good.

RUSH: How are you doing, David? How is it going with you?

CALLER: I’m just a little upset with… There’s not one politician, not one on either side of the aisle that’s willing to say what you did today. You know, the president should have a news conference where he goes up there and tells everybody about the ridiculous amount of money being spent everywhere besides our country.

RUSH: Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute, now. I hear you on this. But we are now, because of COVID and all the spending… (Snort!) We’re $30 trillion or on the way there, $30 trillion in debt. It doesn’t matter anymore to these people. It literally doesn’t. There are no limits. It’s like debt is irrelevant. It isn’t a problem. We haven’t seen the economy crash from debt in our lifetimes, so why would it crash now?

So there are no guardrails. There’s no red light on spending. Whatever they need. So $900 billion? Now, they know that you’re sensitive to it. But the reason that they won’t tell you this is they may not know. (chuckles) They haven’t read it. It’s 5,000 pages, 5,000 pages to give every American 600 bucks. That’s not what the bill does — and look, folks, I’m not one of these budget hawks anymore because of what I just told you.

The idea that there is some kind of limit on federal spending for the sake of the economy, for choking off the private sector’s access to capital, these people — and you have to admit that it started this year. The Trump administration. There was literally no limit on the spending. COVID-19 came along, and we weren’t going to be hassled.

We’re not gonna have our hands tied by any budget limits. We had to do what we had to do to deal with this, and we got Operation Warp Speed, and we now have two vaccines out there. We also have bailed out the American people throughout the year. Not sufficiently, but we’ve done it. We’ve bailed out certain businesses, certain business sectors and so forth.

But the point is, we’re 30 trillion in debt. I remember when the Tea Party formed in 2010 because they were upset at the amount of spending in Obamacare, which was less (at least on paper) than a trillion. Look, I’m not trying to be a harbinger or a messenger of negativism. This is just the way it is. Let me read you a tweet from somebody. I’m not gonna tell you who the tweet is but I want to ask you if you agree with the sentiment here.

Are you ready? Here comes the tweet. “This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.” Who wrote it? (interruption) That’s exactly right.

Mr. Snerdley correctly identified the author of this tweet as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Do you agree with the sentiment? (interruption) You do. So you agree with AOC 100%? (interruption) It’s hard not to, I’ll admit. Hard not to. So that’s the answer, David. This is exactly it. Welcome to the end of the Trump experiment. That’s what this means.

This is the establishment going back to doing things they love, the way they love. This is exactly why Trump was elected. I think this is exactly why Trump was reelected. But he’s had it taken from him, stolen. I will always believe that, no matter how difficult it becomes to prove. They’re celebrating this. The establishment is celebrating this.

The Republican establishment is celebrating this accomplishment as somehow a great attack on climate change. It’s a COVID-19 relief bill! It should cost no more than $198 billion if the objective is to give every American $600, which, frankly, if we’re gonna start giving money away to deal with COVID, is this enough? Now, we might start saying, “Well, the budget, Mr. Limbaugh.

“We gotta be very careful here about budgets. Can’t break the budget.” Oh, now it’s a little late for being concerned about that, not as we approach $30 trillion. There’s terminology in this bill like “promoting technologies and creating jobs.” The technologies involve “carbon capture, emission reduction, replacements for the hydrofluorocarbons used as coolants in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems.”

As Jazz Shaw as Hot Air writes in a post about this, “You see, that’s how they like to describe such ‘initiatives’ to put a pleasant spin on them. A better translation of those passages would be to say that taxpayer money will be shoveled into ‘green energy’ and carbon reduction companies who will ostensibly be working to achieve those goals while (just coincidentally) making a ton of money for a small number of people.”

This big… This is the prelude to the Green New Deal, and it’s in the COVID relief package, and we’ve got Republicans out there singing its praises. There’s a great deal more than just climate change jammed into this thing too. Nobody in Congress or media had a chance to read it before it was passed, and that is an answer to guy in St. Louis.

His question: Why am I the only one telling you what’s in it? Because they didn’t read this before. They couldn’t have. They were given two hours. It’s 5,000 pages. Come on. Not even their clerks or their legislative assistants could have read it. I mean, there’s money for invasive species mitigation, water management on a Tibetan plateau, gender programs in Pakistan and piles of money for India, Tibet, and other nations.

Dig in if you want, but don’t doubt me. It is all in there. But it has turned into a climate change bill. That is the primary sales point and how they’re getting around, excusing it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know what? We actually do the news on this program. There is journalism taking place on this program. Now, I myself would have to say that I am a reporter in the sense that I report what I learn that’s going on out there that you may not know otherwise.

Evidence of that in our first busy broadcast hour today was some of the elements of the COVID relief bill. We have a $900 billion piece of legislation called the COVID relief bill in which every American is to be given $600. Now, if that’s all the bill contained, it would cost $198 billion. So let’s round that up to $200 billion. But it doesn’t cost $200 billion. It costs $900 billion.

So if the COVID relief bill has basically 10% of its money for the American citizen, what the heck else is in this bill? And that’s what we reported. That’s what we demonstrated. And it is for the usual, senseless, funny, oddball, weirdo things that end up in every piece of legislation that happens to be timed right before a possible government shutdown every December.

It’s loaded with pork. It’s loaded with giveaways to friendly socialist nations. There’s far more money in this bill for other countries. There’s $15 million in this bill to fix a boat, folks, a military boat in Sri Lanka. I’m not kidding. One boat, 15 mill to fix it, to repair it. So in that sense we report. There’s probably more actual journalism happening on this program than you’ll notice at the Drive-By Media.

Pick your network.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s a quote from Rand Paul or a sound bite from Rand Paul who was upset about the COVID bill. This was on the Senate floor yesterday.

PAUL: If money really grew on trees, why not give more free money? Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not a thousand dollars? Why not $2,000? Maybe these new free-money Republicans should join the everybody-gets-a-guaranteed-income caucus. Why not 20,000 a year for everybody? Why not 30,000? To so-called conservatives who are quick to identify the socialism of the Democrats, if you vote for this spending monstrosity, you’re no better.

RUSH: He’s exactly right, folks. I have used the same argument on the minimum wage. Minimum wage advocates come out there say, “We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We need to raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour,” and I have told you that you’ll finally hit a number, if you keep going… If you raise it to these advocates, if you suggest, “No, that’s not enough; we need to spend more,” you’ll eventually reach a point where they will say, “No, that’s too much.”

Well, you used to be able to do that. For example, you have your minimum wage increase advocate and you’re talking to him. “We need to raise the minimum wage to 20 bucks,” and you say, “That’s not enough. Twenty bucks? Why not $30 an hour?” “Okay, I’ll go for that! Thirty bucks an hour.” “Fine and dandy. Wait, let’s not stop there. How about $50 an hour?”

“Well, that may be a bit much.” “Why? Why is $50 too much and 30 bucks is fine?” You’ll eventually learn that they have no basis for making their claim or their demand for 30 or 20 or 18. It’s nothing more than a political football that they kick around, and they use it to point out how mean-spirited and unconcerned minimum wage opponents are. “They don’t care about people!”

Rand Paul is exactly right. If we’re gonna give every American $600, why not give every American 30,000? “Well, can’t do that. It’d be too much.” Why? We’ve got the guaranteed national income bunch out there that’s proposing something similar. Why is it too much? He’s exactly right about this. Why not 30,000? Why not 20,000? Instead you’re gonna get $600, which would cost $198 billion. But the bill spends $900 billion.

There’s $700 billion in this bill that you are not getting.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to share with you what Tulsi Gabbard has posted. In fact, a couple things from Tulsi Gabbard. Grab audio sound bite number 5. This is Tulsi Gabbard last night on her Twitter page. She’s a member of Congress from Hawaii, and she posted a video explaining why she voted against the COVID relief bill.

GABBARD: There is no way that anybody in Congress had the opportunity or the time to go through and read this bill to know exactly what was in it. I’ve been here long enough to see how provisions are snuck into these bills. Here’s what’s left for you. You get 600 bucks. I’ll tell you, in Hawaii, that in most cases won’t even cover 25% of your rent. It is an insult and a slap in the face to every single American in this country who is struggling because of this COVID pandemic.

$600 is a slap in the face to every American struggling due to the pandemic. You deserve better.

I voted against the 5,593-page spending bill that gave billions to corporate interests, the military industrial complex & other countries, leaving crumbs for you who need help most. pic.twitter.com/82F1HYF43T

— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) December 22, 2020

RUSH: Frankly, that encapsulates my sentiments on this. “Six hundred bucks, when we’re spending $900 billion?” and some would say it’s well into the trillions if you factor everything in here. Six hundred bucks? And this is Pelosi using her power. This stuff could have happened before the election. I mean, there’s so much to say about this. This stuff could have happened before the election. She withheld it.

Now Tulsi Gabbard says 600 bucks in Hawaii won’t even cover 25% of the average person’s rent there, and she makes a valid point. So the Democrats don’t care about you. The idea that they do and Republicans don’t, continues to be one of these frustrating things. There’s something else that Tulsi Gabbard has posted. Listen to this: “For months, the CDC has been telling us that the elderly are the most vulnerable.

“But now they are recommending that 100 million so-called essential workers, which means healthy people working in everything from liquor stores to telephone companies can get the vaccine before our grandparents can. That members of Congress, like me, we can get the vaccine before at-risk seniors.” Now, why do you think this is? Mr. Snerdley, would you…?

Well, he’s not listening. He’s screening calls. Let me ask: Why do you think that seasoned citizens in nursing homes or otherwise, wherever, would not be high on the list for vaccines? Now, you might want to say, “Well, if you look at Obamacare, they said that they’re not gonna be productive. There’s no reason to spend a lot of money on keeping them alive because their days of productivity are behind them.”

That’s what Obamacare said.

That’s why people came along and considered them “death panels.”

Sarah Palin called them death panels, said there were death panels in Obamacare, and there were. But I don’t think that’s the explanation here. But the vaccine… While it does have some relationship to productivity, being able to work, most seasoned citizens, it is thought, are conservative. Most of them vote Republican. I’m just the throwing it out. I don’t even know that that’s necessarily true, but I know that a lot of people believe it to be.

Here’s Bob. Bob in Coronado, California. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I want to do some very simple math on the radio which you often cautioned about. You started to do it about an hour ago, and that is basically with this COVID relief package of $900 billion, if you let me round our population 300 million people and divide that into $900 billion, that comes out exactly to $3,000 per person, $12,000 per a family of four. And if I was Trump, I would veto this bill.

I would say, “Look, pick a number” and say “we want it. I would rather give $3,000 to all these people which covers five times more than $600 covers, and I’m not gonna sign this bill,” and Trump would become the most popular president of both parties instantly. No money to Pakistan for gender studies. No money to the Sudan. None of the other BS stuff that’s in this bill. Your thoughts?

RUSH: I think it’s interesting that you’d up this to $3,000 per person if the whole thing were devoted to the American people and you round the population to 300 million and you figure that each one would get $3,000. That would be fascinating, envisioning Trump making the speech. Where I disagree, is I don’t think that he would become the instant hero of the Democrats.

I think the hatred of Trump is so ingrained that there’s nothing he can do to turn Democrats (other than the ones he’s already converted) into supporters of his. I think it be great if it happens. But I think that they’ve been so successful in manipulating the emotions of the Democrats to just hate the hell out of Donald Trump that even if he did that, I don’t think that would be the end result. But even if…

I don’t think that should be the reason he shouldn’t do it, either. It’d be a great point to make, it would wake people up, whether they end up supporting him or not. And, of course, it’s a little late to support him ’cause the election’s in the rearview mirror now. But if you tell people that if the COVID relief bill were actually aimed at the American people, each American would $3,000, but instead you’re getting 600, that would be powerful.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Christie in Springfield, Missouri, you’re next. Hello.

CALLER: Merry Christmas, Rush Limbaugh. You’re a true American patriot, sir.

RUSH: Well, thank you very much.

CALLER: What an honor, and I just have to say — real quick — let’s add one other accomplishment to President Trump’s endless list, and that is his stand for life. He will be blessed for that. The main reason I called, Rush, was to say I agree with the gentleman that called earlier. I don’t want this $600. They can keep it. It is an insult, a slap in the face to give all that money to other nations. I don’t want the money, and I would urge the president, “Please, sir, don’t sign this bill.”

RUSH: Yeah. I mean, if there was ever something that begged to be vetoed, it’s this.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: No question about it.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: I have this list. You know, it’s been two hours since I ran through that list, and there may be people listening right now that don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. No fault of theirs, other than that they weren’t listening here when I did it. We could blame them for that. But I also could go through the list again after the break here coming up at the bottom of the hour. It might be wise to do that. Because you hear what I said about Pelosi? In 2018, she called a $1,000 tax bonus peanuts, called it crumbs? Now says the $600 coronavirus benefit is truly great. I mean, she knows.

CALLER: And she can keep her money.

RUSH: Well, I understand the sentiment. I know a lot of people probably do. Even if there wasn’t this money going elsewhere, 600 bucks? If we’re gonna start giving money away, that’s an insult.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, let me very quickly run through some of the additional spending on this COVID relief bill. And actually, my friends, the spending in this bill is actually much worse. Because this bill, which is 5,500-some-odd pages is not just a “COVID relief bill.” The $900 billion COVID relief bill was just tacked on to the year-end $1.4 trillion appropriations bill.

That keeps the government from shutting down, don’t you know? We always go through this every January. So there was a threat of a government shutdown. So we have a $1.4 trillion appropriations bill to keep the government running. You add the $900 billion COVID relief bill, and what do we have? Well, that’s like $2.3 trillion, and that’s even pretending that the $900 billion is all for COVID relief.

And it isn’t! It’s an absolute boondoggle, and it’s typical. The point that I made at the beginning of the program going through this is welcome to returning to the way things used to be. This is exactly the way things used to be before Trump was elected. It’s right out there in the open. It starts with this: “Family members of illegal aliens are now able to get stimulus checks under this new bill.

“It’s retroactive, so they can also get the previous $1,200 given out.” So family members of illegal aliens are able to get stimulus checks of 600 bucks plus the previously allocated $1,200. That’s $1,800 for them, family members of illegal aliens. There is billions of dollars going to foreign aid: $169 million to Vietnam; “unspecified amounts to continue support for nonprofits for higher education in Kabul, Afghan;” $198 million to Bangladesh; $130 million to Nepal “for development and democracy programs.”

Pakistan, $15 million “for democracy programs,” and $10 million for “gender programs.” This is in the COVID relief bill that gets you $600. Sri Lanka (are you ready for this?) “up to $15 million for the refurbishing of a high-endurance boat,” a type of patrol boat, a cutter. I kid you not. Sri Lanka is getting $15 million to repair one of their patrol boats.

There’s $505 million to the Central American superpower, “Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama to address key factors that contribute to the migration of unaccompanied, undocumented minors to the U.S.” Are you kidding me, $505 million to “address,” what’s that? “key factors that contribute to migration”…? So $505 million to these nations in Central America to stop it?

Ha! “…to address key factors that contribute to the migration of un…” Maybe it’s to increase it. The Democrats think we need to increase the numbers of illegals… $505 million. There’s $461 million to Colombia “for programs related to counter narcotics and human rights,” $505 million to the “Caribbean Basin Security Initiative.” I just… “Tax breaks for racehorse owners.”

It’s the way things used to be just four short years ago.