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March 30, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
March 30, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2
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And greetings once again, thrill seekers, music lovers all across the fruited plan.
Time for the award-winning thrill packed, ever exciting.
Increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds Rush Limbaugh program here on the one and only Excellence and Broadcasting Network.
We are here today at the uh Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
There aren't any graduates.
There are no degrees because the learning never stops.
We are we are I'm just so happy to have these two guys in the studio with us today.
Joel Cerno, the creator and executive producer of 24, Howard Gordon, executive producer and the uh the head writer for the uh uh series this year.
Series is you've finished writing it, it's in the can.
How much how much left to shoot?
We have uh another month to shoot.
We're shooting uh episodes twenty-three and twenty-four starting next week.
So the big finale's next week.
It's fascinating.
I I've uh I uh got to go out and visit your your uh your set last year, and and uh uh y I watched in fact it was back there last summer, too, and you had the you had this season storyboarded, but you do not know from the day you start shooting it how it's gonna end, right?
No, we we're we're happy to know where we're we're gonna start.
That's that's good enough for us.
And you work three weeks ahead.
We work about three weeks ahead at a time.
It's very very much on um on the fly, and that's kind of what keeps it interesting for us.
No, kind of like your show.
Nothing scripted here.
Uh so a lot of one of the questions I always get from people, uh they watch your show and they'll see a president portrayed a certain way, or chief of staff or it's a character.
And I'm always asked, since they know that I am close buddies with you, are they are they ripping Bush here?
Are they do you guys bounce off current political events?
Are you sending messages subliminal or otherwise with your scripts?
Uh specifically we don't model anybody after any current uh politicians.
We do follow the the post-9-11 world and and we sort of our show has become part of that world.
So but in terms of specifically taking shots at anybody, we we have not done that.
And Greg It's and the current president bears a genetic resemblance to Nixon, and that's probably the that it begins and ends there.
Yeah, well, did you do it on purpose or just like the actor when he auditioned?
He's a fantastic actor.
No, had nothing to do with that.
I guess it does take talent to act like that big a wimp because I don't know anybody who actually is.
Yeah.
We do.
All right, well, where did this idea come from?
I mean, I know Joel uh uh you were you've been in television writing all your life, you worked on on on Miami Vice.
So where'd this idea come from?
And where did you meet Howard?
Uh the idea I originally had the idea of doing a show in real time.
Twenty most TV uh seasons are twenty-two episodes.
I thought, what if you do two more and make them one hour in a day, twenty-four hours uh twenty-four episode season?
Uh I called my partner one of my friends who I write with, Robert Cochran, and we originally bandied about the idea and thought, what if you do 24 hours in the day of a wedding and make it a romantic comedy?
And then we scrapped that idea.
We thought, you know, the whole concept of the the whole power of doing real time is make it a race against time.
Have the stakes be really high.
And uh so then we sort of came up with the idea of a counter-terrorist unit, etc.
etc.
Uh once the show got picked up for thirteen seasons for thirteen episodes, uh we needed to find a head writer and and a writing staff.
What year was this?
This was uh 2001.
And Howard pre-pre-nine eleven?
Pre-nine eleven.
And um Howard had been at the Fox Lot, he had done four years.
He was sort sort of the main writing engine behind the first four years of X-Files.
And you can't find a uh a better writer than than that.
And we uh met Howard and we just instantly uh had a great chemistry, so Bob uh Howard and myself became sort of the story engine that first season.
You you uh uh every season builds on the next, but they're not interconnected.
You can watch easons independently on DVD.
One of the things that I tell people it most amazes me is uh you're you're your show's five years old.
And about that time, writers wear out, energy just goes.
You've sapped your creativity.
You guys keep setting new plateaus, new expectations.
You elevate them for everybody else, and you meet and surpass the audience expect.
Everybody that I talk to has watched the DVDs thinks every season's better than the previous.
And nothing wrong with the previous.
It just keeps getting better.
How do you I mean how many people in the writing staff and how many hours a day are you doing this?
We're doing it kind of twenty-four-seven, whether we're actually at the office or not.
It's uh the the sh the story lives with all of us and we come in and uh well to answer your first point, we just want to keep ourselves interested in the in in the plot.
Otherwise we couldn't do this kind of work unless we were interested in writing it, and if we like what we're writing, we have to assume our audience is gonna like what they're watching.
And that's our that's our litmus test.
And uh we love the show.
We're having a great time.
And we just want to keep keep keep it going.
How about your budgets every year?
They give you more money to to produce it every year significantly to it increases.
I mean, uh there there are built increases for you know, we have about three hundred and fifty people working on the show and they all get incremental uh raises.
Um Howard is was nice enough to defer his salary for the first five years.
We're gonna have to have a big balloon payment next season.
There'll be a fun raise for the same thing.
I didn't mean that personally.
I mean uh the reason I ask is we were we were watching uh Monday night's episode yesterday afternoon, and uh uh it was loaded with uh things that cost a lot of money to produce.
Uh and you do you told me it took seven days to shoot Monday's episode with all of that stuff in it.
It's surprising.
It's in the realm of of a a budget for a normal hour television show.
It is not any more expensive than an hour and could be even less expensive than an hour of desperate housewives, for all we know.
I mean, it's really uh remarkable.
It's really a testament to our production uh crew, our pr our producer, and and uh it's it's it's very efficient and and pretty reasonable by TV standards.
Well, it's amazing because you have so many you have more plot twist in one episode than most seasons of a show have in their entire run.
And it's just it's just incredible.
Uh I got a couple people who want to answer some questions before the break.
Put your headphones on.
We'll go to uh Romeoville, Illinois, and Corey, you're talking to Joel Cerno.
Hello, this is Corey.
Yeah, I love the show, it's the best show I've ever seen on TV.
And uh very, we can't disagree.
I wanted to say that uh I want to ask why you guys uh we've been following the show for years and Michelle and Tony were a couple of my favorite characters.
Uh any particular reason why uh they were uh all of a sudden uh we were out of a picture?
Uh okay, I get it.
Yeah.
Why do you kill off all the stars?
Well, we don't the premise of the show is that we are fighting a war on terror.
And there are casualties in the war, and to make it feel real, we have to have people that we've actually cared about die or else it doesn't i i uh it wouldn't feel real.
It wouldn't feel w we we fundamentally see the show as part drama, part tragedy.
And uh we uh it breaks our hearts to lose some of these wonderful actors that we've had along the way.
Uh Xander Berkeley, who played George Mason the second season, Penny Johnson, who was uh uh Sherry Palmer, uh this year Edgar Tony.
I mean, these are wonderful actors and friends, but the story is uh the story is the story, and we have to service that and make it feel like something that uh i i is going to have an impact.
And they they all know when they sign on it can happen.
Absolutely.
It's not a s I mean they do they lobby you if they find they're gonna get written out, do they come lobby?
And if can they change you or my you're the head writer?
Can they talk you out of a I've been talked out of a a couple of deaths?
I have been.
And uh, will you tell us who you say it?
Well, I'll tell you most recently is uh Charles at first.
Well, Carlos Bernard, who played Tony has been dead on uh on the page three different three different times.
Is that right?
And uh and uh he come up and uh and we think about it and realize it wasn't time for his character to leave just yet.
So he's he's really had nine lives.
But most recently um uh Peter Weller.
Peter Weller was supposed to actually have been the one to die in the uh in the chair at CTU in episode thirteen.
And uh one day over a couple of cigars, he's I I've been told the cigar can bridge a gap, save a guy's life now.
It really can.
Cigars do save lives.
On 24.
Sheryl in Wheeling, West Virginia.
You're talking to Howard Gordon and Joel Cerno.
Hello, I love the show.
I'd like to know why you make Kim so hateful toward her father.
Ken, the daughter.
Um, Kim's relationship with her father's is is pretty complicated.
And uh I don't know if she's as hateful toward her father or as she is toward the writers, but uh she uh she finds herself in a position where she thinks of her father as a is a bad luck person in her life.
I mean, she probably blames the death of her mother on her dad.
Yeah.
Her dad uh you know, quote unquote died and didn't tell her about it for eighteen months and she had to mourn him.
So she's got lots of pent up issues, and we didn't want to make that a i a a facile, easy relationship, you know.
So she did come off somewhat uh I wouldn't call it petulant, but just sort of like she's holding a lot of anger toward it.
Yeah, she's a teenage girl.
Yeah.
I have let me let me try a uh a theory at this uh with them, uh Cheryl.
Um we're watching the show on Wednesday afternoon, and here we are in the middle of the syntax, it's about to release be the release of the natural gas pipeline, every all the hell's about to break loose.
And Jack pauses give a nice big wet kiss to Audrey.
And Joel looks at me and says, We've got to keep the women.
And I know that's you can cover all the demographics in this show.
You got romance in the middle of terrorism, but you you you I mean, it's a business, and you're trying to get all demographics, you want young people, so you got Kim in there acting like she does.
I mean, you ha that's what's I so amazing about this.
You have to factor all these things in business, it's your creative life, you're having fun doing it, but there are business requirements that you have to meet if you want to continue to grow the audience which you have.
Well, is that not brilliant or what of me to understand this?
Um way off.
You're way way off.
Let Howard explain the emotional underpinning of the show.
Yeah, I mean, you have to have somebody to you know to under Jack has got to have an emotional context.
He does.
We don't do this just a panditor of our audience of Rush.
How dare you say something like that?
I mean the stuff doesn't go on an offices, doesn't even make an out like that.
I've never seen that.
No, but it but it is true.
It is true.
I mean, uh if I didn't mean penis, I don't know I know you didn't mean we had demo but the truth is Jack has got uh he he's this flesh and blood person in our minds anyway, and uh and he uh and he and for him to go through all this action just blowing up a bunch of gas stations to save the rest of us is a lot less meaningful than if he has something to live for.
Right.
Why is he a person?
Why is he living on this earth?
And uh there you go.
These are serious guys, folks.
We have to take a profit center timeout.
We'll be back and continue in just a second.
Don't go away.
And we are back, Gail Rush Ball here on the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon from 24 are here.
We've got uh about eight or nine more minutes with them.
Back to the phones, Keith in Orlando, Florida.
Great to have you with us.
Hey Rush, it's a distinct pleasure and honor.
Um hey guys, I love the show, but I have two questions.
One, uh why is CTO so leaky?
You got more spies in there than you can count.
And two, uh why have you sort of given uh given a break to the Islamic terrorists this year?
Uh well the first question is why is CT so uh a little porous this year?
Oh so easy to infiltrate.
The bad guys seem to get in there with ease.
Howard, why is that?
Well, because this is actually an intelligence gathering bunker somewhere in LA.
It's a it's sort of a m it's a it's a moderate level of security.
It's only actually only a level two security facility.
If it were level three, it'd be a lot more difficult to get through.
Yeah.
But uh, you know, so I don't think it's that unusual.
The Pentagon leaks all day long to the New York Times.
The uh the State Department leaks all day to the Washington Post.
I mean, there's nothing's secure.
We can't secure the porch, we can't secure the Southern Border.
We can't secure CTU.
And you know what?
Even more importantly, if the if they if if CT were secure, we wouldn't have an episode.
There you go.
That's the answer.
That's the end.
Dave in Chicago, you're out with Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon of twenty-four.
Good afternoon, guys.
Listen, I love the show.
I wanted to ask real quick.
Whenever one of the major characters dies, the clock at the end is silent.
And I just think that's beautifully effective.
And I wanted to know who came up with that idea.
Uh that idea actually came uh to us from one of our editors at the end of uh I think it was the show in season three where Jack had to kill Ryan Chappelle in cold blood uh as as part of a part of a deal that he they were making with the head terrorists in that season, and it was such a powerful episode, and the show ended with Jack killing Chappelle, who was uh uh a federal uh federal worker.
Uh and the show went to black and he did not have the clink clink link at the end, and it was just so powerful we thought we would use it, and it it's sort of become a a staple of the show.
So like a signature, all right.
Kathy in Peoria, Illinois.
You're on with Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon of twenty-four.
Ditto's Rush and hi, everybody.
I wonder if President Logan going to grow a spine.
I'm surprised he can fit in a chair.
Thanks, Kathy, very much.
A great question.
Well, Howard, you should talk about that.
Is is Logan gonna grow is Logan going to grow a spine.
I I will tell you that uh you have not seen the full this is a tough one for him for they don't want to give anything away.
That is tough one.
Logan is uh uh uh an important part of the story this year.
Let me just say that there are about three or four episodes in every season where something really revelatory happens and and the whole story changes uh by 45 degrees.
But next week's episode, uh, which is next Monday night, which is our sixteenth episode of the season, is is one of those really vital episodes and will really uh sort of inform the whole Logan story of the season.
And uh as abo I I would say that he's not without a spine.
He's just uh I would just say watch next week, and then we'll let's have this conversation then.
All right.
Well let me ask you a question about the character, not the future.
Because a lot of people are curious about they you talk about you you have to have Jack uh uh have something to live for, so you have some reality.
Right.
And when it comes to character like Logan, uh I think a lot of viewers are curious how th they don't know presidents intimately, but they can't imagine ever having had a president that's actually that way.
We may have and don't know it.
Right.
Uh so where do you get in your creative juice the idea to make a character out of a president that is that well he was created kind of in some ways out of the rib of David Palmer.
I mean, David Palmer, who was this stolid, wonderfully morally grounded character, uh and we invented a president last year at the tail end of the year to inherit to rise through the tragedy of President Keeler's uh downed Air Force One situation.
Um we needed a president who wasn't up to the task.
So he was born out of that, out of that anti-palmer in a way.
Yeah, really.
So his but his character, as we we love the actor, loved the character, and we've gotten to know him a little bit better.
And to a certain degree, Greg Itsen, who played the character of Logan helped create this character.
I mean, he brought mannerisms and characteristics to his performance that we began to write to.
Great.
All right, here's Bill in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
You're on with Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon at twenty-four.
Hey Rush, mega Air Force dittoes to you.
Thank you, sir.
Guys, uh great show.
My question for you is is there uh plans uh to the rumor that there's a movie coming out that'll start off next season.
Uh that rumor is true.
We want to do a twenty-four movie.
We want to write it this year and shoot it after next season's uh uh production, which would be next summer to air the following summer after that, so that would be two thousand eight.
Um but you know it's uh we're we're in the very first steps of a long, long journey on this thing, and we have to uh basically uh prove it all along the way.
We have to write a great script that they're gonna want to make.
How are you gonna do a movie ninety minutes or two hours?
How are you gonna do the the the concept of twenty-four hours?
Well, the the thought for the movie is that the the whole movie would take place in a twenty-four hour period.
It wouldn't be a two-hour real-time period, it would be three segments of real time in the course of one day.
And this way it allows us to to travel more and not be grounded in Los Angeles.
We want to do a m much more international story for the movie.
Uh so you have a plot idea.
Oh, we do.
Oh, great, okay.
So this is farther along than uh that we knew.
Houston, Texas, and Greg, you're on with Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon.
Well, it's great to talk about one American show and another great American show.
Thank you.
Um I had a question.
Do y'all ever I mean, all the shows seem to be sequential in each season.
Do you all ever plan or have the idea to go and fill in between seasons, and this could be an opportunity to bring back, you know, favorite characters who have been killed off.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
Uh the twenty-four video game takes place between season two and season three.
Um we do some DVD extras where we do sort of between season story uh uh scenes.
They're not really story full storylines, but uh we had originally thought of going backwards at some one point and doing a season that took place ten years ago in Jack Bauer's life or five years ago, but uh that really didn't work out.
But uh the uh the the ancillary things there's you know we now have comic books, video games, and things like that that are there that are mining some of that territory.
Okay, guys, look, I know you have to run.
Uh I want to thank all of you who called for questions.
There were great questions.
Thanks so much for coming by here.
You uh you're you know you guys are in in your business, the entertainment business, you're making history with your format, with your writing, production values, and so forth.
And I don't know if you have time to reflect on it because you're too busy doing it.
So I wanted to uh pass on to you my thoughts on that and how great it is as somebody who uh is is I'm just marvel at creativity, and then the way you keep exceeding uh uh everybody's expectations is profound.
You've got a great show, and we're happy to have had you here.
Thank you for having us on Rush.
Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon from 24.
We'll make a brief time out, ladies and gentlemen, and be back and continue on the EIB network.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I have to I have to I have to send out a just a if I were any other boss, this would be a firing uh episode.
But those of you watching on the Ditto Cam, uh the the the but all the people that are here with uh with Joel and Howard from 24, uh Mary Lynn Raishkib is here who plays Chloe, and they all came in.
Yes.
Yes, yes, Mr. Snerdley's going, yes, yes, and they came in and they wanted a picture here, uh, as most everybody does when they're here of behind the golden EIB microphone.
And Brian, uh, I'm sure trying to protect everybody's privacy, killed the ditto cam feed.
Uh and I even widened it out, Brian, so that they could see everybody on the Yeah.
Well, what do you know what I'm gonna do in here, he says.
What in the world have you ever seen me do in here?
That we've So I'm sorry, folks.
I purposely I widened the uh the uh the range uh so that you could see everybody as Joel's wife is here and and uh Joel's a agent.
And uh yeah, we'll put I'll tell you we'll put a we got a bunch of people.
We'll uh we'll make it up to you, we'll put the picture on the website.
Uh Mary Madeline was here.
Uh she's she's uh with a flying to Arkansas to make a speech tonight.
So um uh that's right, Brian, you've saved yourself with that uh with that idea.
Put the put put the picture up.
All right.
Uh where were we?
Oh, yes.
Illegal immigration.
I want to I want to I want to t.
There is port news.
I'm just it's it's I'm coming to it.
But I I I I have to respond, you know, we the the nice guy from Palm Beach County, George, actually from Palm Beach, who is the the uh the agribusiness guy who who uh was making it clear uh what the divisions are on the Republican side when it comes to and he made the point that only illegals will pick his crops.
He he he tried to say that legals come in and are more qualified than illegals and so forth.
But the uh uh the the point uh about that is that he's asking he's I'm I'm sure I love the guy, but he's asking to be subsidized.
He's asking for taxpayers to subsidize his business by looking past the law so that he can hire people uh below uh you know for for a low wage or what have you.
I mean, George frankly, uh I know you're out there, and I know this is gonna make you mad, George.
I'm just you're a great call, and I gotta I gotta respond to it.
But but George is the kind of guy that was supposed to be fined under the Simpson Mazzoli Act back in 1986 for hiring illegals.
And that they and they promised that that would happen and so forth.
And and uh and it hasn't.
So I wanted to mention that.
And there are two other uh story.
Snerdley is asking me, what are you supposed to do?
Go out of business.
You know, I I I I uh do you hear yourself?
You hear do you actually hear yourself asking me these questions?
You you are saying, okay, the only option these people have to stay in business is to continue to allow illegal immigration.
That's that's that's essentially what you're saying.
I I'm just I if this keeps going the way it's going, uh the American people are gonna are gonna let themselves be known on this uh at the ballot box one way or the other.
Now, you know, the after the rallies last weekend, there's some people Out there feeling their oats.
In uh, let's see, up in Jupiter, right up the road here.
The stars and stripes have been replaced by the Mexican flag at Chasewood North.
I guess it's a junior high or a high school residents of no, no, no.
It's I guess a condo community.
Um and the residents of the condominium community off Central Boulevard in Jupiter puzzled as to who made the switch.
Yeah, I woke up Sunday morning, I looked up for my patio and I realized the American flag wasn't on the flagpole.
Said Sue Miller, a uh a Chasewood North board member.
What happened?
And what captured my attention were the colors.
At first I thought it was the Italian flag.
One of our residents said, no, it's the Mexican flag.
So I went to the flagpole to see if the American flag was maybe on the ground, but they took it and they cut the rope to get the American flag down to put the Mexican flag up.
I couple practical jokers, but the because everybody was going on on how many Mexican flags were seen at the protest.
And from uh from Houston from the Houston Chronicle.
Reagan high school principal, Robert Pambello was ordered to remove a Mexican flag Wednesday morning that he had hoisted below the U.S. and Texas flags that typically fly in front of his scruel, a symbol he agreed to fly to show support for his predominantly Hispanic student body.
At nearby Hamilton Middle School, child was asked to wipe off Mexican and U.S. flags painted on his face.
Hundreds of other students carried Mexican flags during walkouts on Wednesday.
Acts of protest that they vow to continue until Congress rejects legislation that would further restrict immigration immigration.
So there's a there's beginning to be an in your face uh attitude that's springing up with this now.
And this is this is it's gonna be interesting.
At some point, uh, as I have theorized recently, there will be a um uh a backlash.
Now, the ports deal.
New legislative this is amazing.
It's amazing because look at all that isn't being done to secure the border on illegal immigration.
Look at this silly bill that will have very little enforcement added to it.
This guest worker slash they don't want to call it amnesty bill.
New legislative proposals responding to the scandal, the scandal over a Dubai owned company's attempted takeover of major.
Who wrote this?
What?
I guess this is AP.
What a lead.
New legislative proposals responding to the scandal over a Dubai owned company's attempted takeover of major operations at some major U.S. This is totally wrong.
Which touched off a political fire storm are getting attention in Congress today.
Measures coming before committees in the House and the Senate aim to strengthen U.S. cargo security and port safety, and to bring the federal panel that approved the DP World Ports deal under tighter oversight by Congress.
The multi-agency panel called a committee on foreign investment in the United States would be required to investigate any proposed transaction that involved a foreign government or critical infrastructure of the country.
The president would be allowed to suspend or block a transaction if it's deemed a threaten or impair national security under the bill, which is expected to be approved by the Senate Banking Committee.
So we are still having conniptions over the port deal.
And we still have members of Congress running, and I'll tell you why they're doing it, because they think you're demanding it.
They think they're pandering once again.
They think that you are paying attention.
You're gonna love them and you're gonna appreciate them, and you're gonna understand that they are tough on terrorism, and they're not gonna let our ports be corrupted.
They're not gonna let our port security be overtaken by scandal plagued Arab-owned countries.
No, sir, Bob.
And yet, the same people are paying no such similar attention to the security of the southern border in the uh in regards to the emigration problem.
Now you figure it out.
I can tell you why all this is, but you figure it out.
Here's Tony in Ellsworth, Maine.
Tony, I'm glad you call.
Welcome to the program.
Rush, uh, one o'clock cigar deals to you.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate that.
I I agree with the the immigration that uh illegal immigration is definitely a problem, and we definitely need to secure the borders, but I I have to disagree with you on the uh guest worker program.
I think it would actually bring some order to a burgeoning problem in this country.
We have 11 million people that are supposedly 11 million people that are here illegally, and we have no tracking of them or anything.
I think this guest worker program would give us some control over those, and anybody that is not suitable, we can deport them.
When President Bush announced this several months ago, it was last year sometime, at first I had the reaction of, oh, you know, it's amnesty, but then...
And I thought about it more, and I said, you know, that's actually probably a brilliant plan, because then we can get rid of the people that are undesirable.
Well, here we go.
Guest worker program.
Guest workers.
Amnesty.
It's amnesty.
Okay, we'll call it guest work.
Are you disagreeing with me on this, Nertwee?
Okay, all right.
No, not this part.
Now, again, Tony, let me ask you a question about this.
We got the guest worker program, blah, blah, blah, and we're going to track them now.
They've got to show what's going to force them, what's going to motivate them, inspire them to actually show up and register.
What if they don't?
I really don't know the answer.
I mean, I think a lot of the people that come here, honestly, they want to work.
They want to better their lives.
And I think the majority of people that are here, you know, illegally, they want to do that because of the economic opportunities.
They want to be part of the, you know, the American dream.
uh like Mark Belling said yesterday it's actually easier for somebody to get here illegally than it is legally I and I think that you know like I said I don't disagree I think yeah that I mean but that's that's that's that that's the way it's supposed to be that's that's another absurdity but all of these do not add up to excuses for not doing anything about it.
They just they it's it's you can't justify it with any of the excuses that I have heard so far.
I think what I think actually what people are trying to do with this legislation is remove the word illegal.
If they could they'd legalize these people tonight to get rid of the issue.
But they come up with a typical bloated bureaucratic piece of legislation that requires for its enforcement the people who are the uh targets of this bill to actually do all the work you've got to show up you got to pay a fine you got to go to English class.
The question is, and if you want to track them and so forth and keep track of their movements and find out how they're doing, assimilating, if they are or not, if they don't show up, if they don't show up and register and pay the fine, I don't know what we're going to do to find them.
Because the argument we can't deport them, and I understand one of them, it's a large number.
But if we're not going to try to track them down now when they're already illegal, what in the world makes anybody think we're going to...
by the way the figure eleven million, twelve million, it is a guesstimate it's a total guesstimate.
I mean that's it there's some statistical projection behind it to to get to it but it's still a guesstimate.
So how we we're never gonna really know if they've all shown up or not we won't even know if uh 75 or 80% of them show up.
And if I my guess is a far fewer than that will and and then those that don't how are we going to know they even exist?
How are we going to know where they are?
What are we going to do to try to track them down?
This is all the enforcement side and I'm telling you the answer is zip zero nada.
You know folks I'm not trying to beat this in in a dead horse I'm really not but I I have I have these almost visceral reactions when I hear these argument well we have to understand them.
We must get to know them and uh they're poor and they so want to come here and improve their lives.
Okay.
Uh just because people want to come here what does it have to do with setting immigration policy we know people want to come here.
That's not the quick we don't have an immigration policy because we don't have problems getting people we know they want to come here I mean I you know everybody everybody'd like to you know have four cars or a giant big house well okay let's let's pass a law allowing yourself you just go move into somebody else's just go move into somebody else's house uh and and we'll let it happen is Because you want it.
You can come up with all kinds of analogies to this that illustrate the folly uh of it.
Uh you know, one of the things that is not being contemplated in this piece of legislation.
We all admit that we have an illegal immigration problem.
Regardless what you think about how to fix it.
Do we all agree, ladies and gentlemen, in class today that we have an immigration problem?
All right.
We want to solve it.
Part of the solution here is creating disincentives to it.
And there are no disincentives.
I mean, this piece of legislation is pretty much just the opposite.
This is an incentive to keep coming in illegally.
Now, disincentive would be punishing those who facilitate it, like businesses, which was the core enforcement mechanism in Simpson Mazzoli, and it went by the wayside.
Three employers corporations were fined when they told us they were gonna get they were gonna capture four million illegals this way.
They never do enforce this stuff.
You have to deny them driver's licenses.
You have to deny them in state tuition to uh colleges and so forth.
Um there are there are incentives to come here legally.
Uh no system wide punishment, free public school education, free medical care on the taxpayers' expense.
I mean, we're we're incentivizing this, not disincentivizing.
It's it's not complicated.
What's lacking here is simply will and leadership.
Nobody w This is tough to lead on because they see a lot of votes out there.
And even if if if they don't see votes in the illegals, and the Democrats do, they don't see votes in the illegals, they still are afraid of of upsetting the Hispanic community that's here legally, uh as as a voting block, which is larger than the African American.
I think aren't they they're larger than num number one minority uh uh in the country?
It's no accident that the swimmer Ted Kennedy is calling this the new civil rights movement.
You need Democrats and liberals look past, look back, look to the history, and try to recycle their great glory days rather than moving forward.
So it's no accident.
He's calling this illegal immigration bill he's got uh amnesty, whatever you want to call it, uh uh the guest workers, uh the new civil rights movement.
He's talking to the biggest minority in the country.
Here's Corey in uh in uh Watertown, South Dakota.
You're next on the program.
Um, an honor to be with you, sir today.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
Um, I just had a point I wanted to bring up to one of your earlier callers.
He said he couldn't stay in business without illegal immigrants.
Um to me, that sounds like the same argument that was used about 200 years ago uh just before the Civil War.
We can't we can't keep our economy going without slavery.
I mean, i i it's ridiculous.
This whole idea that you can't keep your business going without having somebody you can pay less than minimum wage and not give them a decent living is absolutely ridiculous.
It's indentured servitude.
That's all it sounds like it is to me.
No, no, no, no, no.
It's you know opportunity.
It's an opportunity, Corey, for people of the deprived places on the planet to come and experience and get their toes and feet wet, planting the seeds of their American dream.
That's how it's portrayed.
You're I'm I'm being cynical.
You're absolutely right.
But I'm but I'm I'm uh I'm being cynical with you uh just as as a way of agreeing with you.
Uh but the George from Palm Beach, and I know I'm making him mad out there, and I don't I'm not trying to do that, but it is a stretch to me when you say that your business can't operate without illegals.
I gotta take a quick time out, my friends.
We'll be back and continue.
Stay with us.
All right, folks.
Remember at the beginning of the program, I uh I issued a warning to the terrorists uh around the world that listen to this program on Armed Forces Radio and uh on the internet.
I know terrorists are tuning in here.
I told you, you beater be scared.
It's your time is up, dingy Harry, and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party say they're gonna capture Osama.
They've made it a promise, they've made it a pledge.
See, nobody's trying to do that now.
And so I'm sure the terrorists are quaking in their boots, their sandals out there and their caves, rat holes, wherever they are, because dingy Harry's coming after them.
Well, Ronald Brownstein in the LA Times has dissed the Democrats plan.
And when Ronald Brownstein disses the Democratic plan, you know that the whole mainstream press thinks the thing sucks.
This is gonna be funny to watch.
I'll have details when we can Palm Beach County screwed up another election, this time with 122 voters.
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