By the way, ladies and gentlemen, an observation slash question about journalism.
We learned today that in March and April, jobs applications were revised downward.
49,000.
In other words, we lost more jobs in March and April by a number of 49,000 than we were told.
49,000 jobs lost that we weren't told about until today, in March and April.
Yet during these two months, from every media outlet there is, all we heard was, evidence is we're heading in the right direction, right?
Whatever the unemployment news was, the sub-headline was heading in the right direction.
Now they revised the job numbers down.
How in the world can these people look at themselves in the mirror?
We haven't been headed in the right direction since Obama took the oath of office.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open live Friday.
Great to have you with us, my friends.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
And I promise, I commit phone calls.
We're going to get to them in this half hour.
And when we get there, whatever you want to talk about, it's fine.
That's not the way it is Monday through Thursday.
You have to talk about what I care about Monday through Thursday.
Today, all yours.
You want to send an email, address El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
I don't want to give away this movie for greater glory.
I don't have much of it left to finish.
It was just, it was tough because the closed captioning was in Spanish, and I was rewinding at times to hear some of the dialogue because it's important.
But basically what this movie is, it's the Andy Garcia movie, and it's the story of Mexico 1917 through the 20s.
The president, Plutarco Calles, in the 20s, the president ordered every Catholic church shut down.
He made mass illegal, and he set out on a campaign to murder priests.
And the movie is about three different freedom fighters, and one of the freedom fighters, Andy Garcia.
But he doesn't start out that way.
Andy Garcia shows up early in the movie, and he's unattached to the whole thing.
He's looking at it from a bit of a distance.
He then tries to make some money off of all this.
And in that process, he gets caught up in the movement.
He becomes a strident opponent of religious persecution.
But it's eerie that the people that produced this movie and made it could not possibly have known at the time that they started this project that when their movie came out, there would be a parallel to the Obama administration's war on the Catholic Church in America in 2012.
Now, don't anybody misunderstand here.
What happened in Mexico is not what's happening here in terms of the violence.
But the effort to run roughshod over religious freedom as a part of Obamacare is a close parallel.
And for that reason, the movie has a connection.
Even if there was no connection, it's still, It's a moving flick, and it is about what people do, the honor and character, devotion to beliefs of people who are committed to their God.
It's just moving as it could be, and it's so unexpected.
When's the last movie you saw, mainstream Hollywood movie, that was pro-Catholic or pro-Christianity, did not talk about priests and the abuse of altar boys?
When was the last time you saw anything like that reflected in the mainstream entertainment press or movies about religion?
Christy, Passion to Christ is about it, right?
And look what that's my point.
It's my point.
So I think the story I read yesterday about Andy Garcia and his role in the movie, it was asked, are you afraid what this role might do to the rest of your career?
And he said, no, no, I believed in the role.
You know, he's Cuban, a fervent anti-communist, not a big pal of Fidel like Sean Penn and some of the others.
Here is Charlie Rose.
Last night on PBS, this is PBS show.
He's guest New York's magazine national editor John Heilaman.
And they're talking about the presidential race.
This is the question that I told you about right before the top of the hour.
Basically, Charlie Rose says, why do Republicans want to beat Obama so bad?
What is it about the president that seems to make them so passionate to defeat him?
That is kind of like a PhD dissertation style question.
There is a part of the Republican Party, the conservative, far conservative aspect of it, that have hated the president with a really raw intensity since the day he walked into office.
Certainly the birther thing seems to be, at least to me, partly driven by racial animus.
This notion of Obama as a socialist, that he is Chicago school Saul Alinsky.
There's all these associations that a lot of the right have with various kinds of left-wing bogeys.
You know, that if you look at the way the president's governed, in my opinion, you know, he's clearly been left of center, but not socialist by any means.
Oh, no, no, of course not.
Not socialist, but just taking over one-sixth of the economy, government-run healthcare.
No way.
How could anybody think the guy's a social?
Mr. Heilman, he says he's one.
And I'm sorry, but the Saul Alinsky stuff is real.
Why do conservatives want to beat Hillary as badly as they want to beat Obama?
Is it because she's black?
Well, she's not black.
Her husband was the first black president, but she was not the first black first lady.
No, it's because she's a woman, right?
It can't possibly be.
What kind of question is why, Charlie?
Would you ever ask Hyland, why do you Democrats want to beat George Bush so bad?
The question would never even occur.
These guys are still so enamored of Obama.
Feel sorry for the guy now.
I'm convinced the drive-bys feel total sympathy, feel so sorry for the guy.
You know, it's bad enough to be born black in this country and then to be elected president and have everybody gunning for it.
It's so bad.
It's like slavery is still out there.
Mr. Heileman, it really isn't complicated.
We simply reject the man's ideas.
And after three and a half years, our question is, why don't you?
What in the world is it about what's going on that you want more of?
And I could ask that of any drive-by journalist.
Tell me, what more of this do you want?
You live here, too.
You don't have an exemption card.
What does anybody want more of this?
No, no, I know.
I know all the people on food stamps.
I'm not talking about them.
It's obvious what they want.
I want more food stamps.
Yeah, but somebody has to pay for that.
Somebody has to produce for that.
And that's all being wiped out.
Bill Plant, CBS this morning, during a discussion on the economy with Charlie Rose.
Charlie Rose turns to Bill Plant and says, let's turn to the Obama campaign.
How do they see it?
How do they see these job numbers, Bill?
Are they confident at the White House?
I don't think that they're ever going to say that they can win by four to five points.
They think they can win, but they have said all along it is razor close.
And they know that they have to win over a very small percentage of independents.
They know that the economy is their enemy and that's Romney's campaign issue.
So they have to appeal to their base and get them out.
Now, stop and think of that.
The Obama White House knows the economy is their enemy.
Now, you could interpret that in any number of ways.
One way I would interpret it is, yeah, Obama has been waging war on the economy for three and a half years.
You're damn right it's his enemy.
But I don't think that's how Bill Plant means it, because I don't think Bill Plant has any concept of Obama's economic policies being destructive.
These guys are deluding themselves.
They think Obama's still trying to work and get the deficit down.
They really do.
Don't laugh at me.
They think Obama's working hard to reduce the deficit, even though there hasn't been one shred of entitlement reform proposed.
There hasn't been one responsible budget submitted.
There hasn't been one piece of legislation aimed at reducing debt.
That's what they think he's doing.
They think he's working hard and is going to work even harder to get that debt down in the second term.
And he's working to create jobs.
They are deluding themselves because they think that's what all politicians do.
Try to make the economy better, get re-elected.
And I've never seen a bunch of blinder bats than the current National White House Washington Press Corps.
You can argue what it is that's blinding them, but nevertheless, they are.
But this says here, well, you know, they have to win over a very small percentage of independents.
Somebody explain to me what Obama is doing to appeal to independents.
Just one thing.
What is it?
What's he doing to appeal to independent?
Is it the Keystone Pipeline that he's blocking?
Is it the drilling moratorium for oil?
Is it runaway unemployment?
Is it plunging economic growth?
What is it?
Is it bankrupting solar and wind energy companies?
Is it investing in a non-existent business?
Is it crony capitalism?
What is it that Obama's doing that is appealing to the independents?
The only war that Obama's winning is the war on the economy.
It's probably the only war that he feels strongly about.
Well, these guys are going, Obama's, they're going wrong.
Obama's not a politician.
He's an activist.
We have an agenda-oriented activist and a celebrity.
He's a celebrity of the United States and he's an activist.
He is not even a politician.
Politicians do not simply blow off members of their own party this way, causing other members to blow him off.
Before we go to the break and get to your phone calls, grab soundbites one and two.
I want to take you back.
May 25th, I said the following right here.
Common care, however, defines Barack Obama.
It's the cornerstone of the forthcoming Obama presidential library.
It's his place in history, and it is where he gets to transform this country.
He's out there saying America has never worked.
He means capitalism has never worked.
And it's healthcare.
It is Obamacare fully implemented that gives him the slam dunk opportunity to finally, in his mind, remake this country, transform it into what it should have always been.
But it, in their minds, is hanging in the balance.
They are not confident about that.
This was his victory over America, folks.
Obamacare was the victory over America.
Obama at war with the America that was founded.
Osawatomi, Kansas, he said this year, it's not working.
It's never worked.
America, capitalism, and Obamacare, that was the death knell.
His victory over America, his victory over free markets, his victory over the Constitution.
He has received countless toasts, tributes, congratulatory notes since that abysmal law was shoved down our throats.
Obamacare's passage was nirvana for Obama.
Now the campaign's frozen.
The regime is consumed with planning how to handle the next event, and that's the court decision on Obamacare.
Bloomberg broke this story, and it shows that I was right about this.
They're looking to run on Obamacare again.
This is the story.
This is Hans Nichols, White House reporter, talking about an Obama fundraiser.
This is according to three Democratic activists, and that is the president at these fundraisers.
When he's asked about it, says that he may have to return to health care in his second term if the Supreme Court rules against all or part of the Affordable Care Act.
This is significant because that's so at odds with the president's public posture on what the court is going to do, and that is utter confidence.
When the president is asked about it, he does repeat that, that he thinks the law is on his side, but then he gives the but the what happens if the court rules against him?
That's not something he does in public.
These fundraisers tell us the president games out potential scenarios on what might happen in term two, the political challenges, the policy challenges.
All right, so what's he doing?
Is he just simply fundraising?
He's trying to scare these people.
You know what?
They may overturn it.
I'm going to need a second term to redo it.
Or is he sending a message that he knows it's going down and trying to prepare them for it?
Either way, going to need a second term to redo it.
There's smart money on both sides of this.
It's impossible to know.
But there are people who think, as close as he is to Kagan, Sotomayor, that one of them at least might have told him how that first vote went or how it's shaping up.
There's a lot of people saying, if you're really confident that you're going to be upheld, why even bring this up?
Why even present the, particularly to donors, why show a lack of confidence to donors?
And the point about him not doing in public is, well, you wouldn't do it in public.
You would not express a lack of confidence in public or people whose votes you need, but people whose money you need, maybe you do.
So it's just added to all the intrigue about this.
All right, folks, your phone calls are coming up as soon as we get back from this, so hang tight.
No, no, no.
I think Obama is telling the truth to the donors.
I think one of the things that you do with your donors, you give them the inside dope.
That's what you do.
You tell your fat cat donors the inside info, and that's what they're paying for.
35 grand plus a cheap dinner.
That's what they're paying for.
You give them the inside.
You tell them things you don't say to public.
So I think fat cat donors, when he says, we might need to redo it, I think indication he might know something.
He's out in Minnesota right now, one of his six fundraisers today, very near Wisconsin, blaming Congress for the lack of jobs.
Congress hasn't done enough.
And he said, we can't come out of this overnight.
It's going to take long overnight for crying out loud.
You've told us for the past two years that we have come out of it.
For the past two years, Mr. President, you've told us we are on the rebound.
Now it's Congress's fault.
Here's Kathy in Montrose, Colorado, as we start on the phone's open line Friday.
I'm glad you called.
Great to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
Hey, your depression today is worrying me, so I wanted to call and tell you about my personal toothbrush tea story and brighten your day.
Well, give it a shot.
So here's what happened.
Our youngest daughter graduating high school.
We're all a strict conservative family.
We decided we were going to have your toothby tea as her graduation party because we have some flaming liberal family members.
We knew it would just drive them crazy.
So we order it, a couple of cases.
Number one, you tricked us because we thought we could just hold off not have any until the party, but we got one out, tried it, had to order more because we couldn't stop drinking it.
The trick is how good it is, and the original order wasn't enough.
That's right.
Absolutely.
So we had to order a bunch more cases.
So anyway, my daughter says, I've got to take this tea to my American government's class.
My teacher's going to love it.
This about two weeks before graduation, she takes it.
It is a hit.
Her classmates say, we're not coming to your party unless you serve the tea.
So she said, done deal.
So here we have your tea in this big cooler at our party.
And our family's just scowling.
They're looking at it, turning their nose up.
Each one slowly goes over and starts drinking it.
By the end of the party, everybody's got a 2FIT.
Even the poor liberal teachers.
I have to stop you because of time, but I love the story.
I can't thank you enough.
And I hear a lot of times, this is people buy the tea to give it to liberals.
Sometimes they hide the label and so forth just to screw with the liberals, and they all end up loving it, and they hate that they love it.
I tell you, folks, the Democrats are losing it.
They're starting to lose it.
There's a story here from thehill.com.
Chris Van Holland, he's from Maryland, and he's a ranking member of the House Democrat leadership.
Slammed Jeb Bush today.
Jeb Bush.
Jeb Bush out there criticizing Obama's economic policies.
And Van Holland says, why don't you criticize your brother?
Your brother's the reason we're in this mess.
Your brother, go back and take a look at unemployment before your brother left office.
700,000 jobs.
That was after Obama's election, Mr. Van Holland.
These people are losing it, folks.
They're literally losing it.
Chris Van Holland, the top Democrat, the House Budget Committee, said hundreds of thousands of Americans were losing their gigs in the months before Bush left office in 2009, said that Bush's policies tipped to scales toward the wealthy in Wall Street.
He said, I've searched the record, and as far as I can tell, during that eight-year period, you didn't challenge your brother's administration handling of the economy at all.
Yeah, Van Holland's right about this, and we have talked about it.
We have chronicled it.
You can track massive layoffs to November and December of 2008 and January of 2009, and they coincide with Obama's election.
Those numbers don't get big before Bush leaves office.
They get big after Obama wins election, but before he's inaugurated.
But these people are so fixed.
We're now three years in, three and a half years in.
The Democrats have long taken credit for this.
David Fluff has said Obama owns the economy.
Obama has said he owns the economy.
A bunch of Democrats, Biden has said in the past 18 months, two years, that the economy is all Obama's.
But common sense-wise, we're three and a half years now into the Obama administration.
And the idea that any of this is lingering from George W. Bush is absurd.
But they're cracking up now.
They are lashing out.
They're getting venomous because they've locked themselves into a corner by blaming Bush and by not talking about anything positive because they've got nothing positive to talk about.
Now they're just flailing away wildly.
And they're looking like absolute jerks.
And they're sounding like jerks.
I mean, even Democrat websites today, even the MSNBCs and the CNNs, they're not blaming Bush today.
They are.
They are so low when they look up, they see the gutter.
That's how depressed they are.
They're not happy.
They're not excited.
They're not trying to blame this on Bush.
I mean, by the end of the day, I think they'll get their act together and resume the program.
But when these job numbers hit today, these left-wing media people were absolutely depressed as they could be.
They know what this means.
They've been hoping to be able to carry forward a lie, a deceit, that there's nothing, there's not one shred of good news.
Bush has been off the radar for three years.
Bush has not been out there by design.
And these guys want to try to continue to make him a target.
I'm telling you right now, it is going to fall flat.
Bush, long gone.
Bush, not in public.
Bush's picture, Bush's face is not out there.
Bush isn't tied to any of this.
This is all Obama.
This is all the Democrat Party.
Stenny Hoyer, grabbed me Soundbite 6 this morning on CNBC.
Squawkbox, Becky Quick to Stenny Hoyer, another ranking member of the House Democrat leadership.
Why haven't we grown faster?
What's the problem?
Under George Bush's economic program that was adopted eight years later, what happened?
We lost 4 million jobs in the last year of his administration.
This administration inherited the deepest recession anybody at this table and most of our viewers have experienced.
It was a financial meltdown, which are the longest recoveries after those kinds of meltdowns.
Did you hear her say there are no argument?
No argument.
So they're locked into this.
You know, I got a suggestion, Stenny Hoyer, Chris Van Holland, all the rest of you.
Why don't you just cut to the chase?
Just blame George Washington.
He started it all.
He's the first president.
Blame it on him.
Or if you want, blame it on Lincoln.
Or go back and blame it on Nixon.
What a bunch of gutless wonders.
Pure gutless wonders.
Sit around, blame Bush as though you haven't done.
Yet all these three years, all of you Democrats have tried to claim whatever imaginary credit you wanted to try to make up for all the wonderful things that were happening in this country.
One jobs report, and all of a sudden all's lost.
One jobs report, and all of a sudden, George Bush rears his head, poisoning the Democrat Party well once again.
But then there's another problem because other Democrats are off the reservation on this in their own way.
First, it was Corey Booker who said that Obama's attacks on Romney and Bain Capital he didn't like.
They were nauseating.
This kind of politics he doesn't like.
Then Fast Eddie Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, echoed Corey Booker, ripping into Obama for attacking Romney and Bain.
Then Lanny Davis, Mr. Bill Clinton defender, goes on TV and totally rips Obama for the campaign of blaming Romney and Bain Capital.
And the latest, Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, the latest is now Bill Clinton.
And you may not have heard this because it was on CNN last night on Piers Morgan, and nobody is watching CNN.
But we have the soundbite.
There was a fill-in host for Piers Morgan.
You know who the fill-in host was?
Harvey Weinstein.
You know who Harvey Weinstein is?
You don't know who Harvey Weinstein is.
Miramax, former Miramax chief, now runs the Weinstein Company.
You'd know his movies.
Huge, huge Hollywood mogul.
He's made his share of very good ones.
But this, Weinstein is one of these huge, slavish Bill Clinton supporters.
When Clinton's portrait was unveiled in the White House, Weinstein was there in the front row.
And that's how tight they are.
So Harvey Weinstein, well, I'm not aware of ever having made a media appearance as a guest, is guest hosting the old Larry King show on CNN last night.
And he's got, as his guest, Bill Clinton.
And here came the question from Harvey Weinstein.
Romney keeps talking about his experience at Bain Capital, producing jobs.
Do you think Romney can produce jobs that Obama can't?
I think he had a good business career.
If you go in and you try to save a failing company, and you and I have friends here who invest in companies, you can invest in a company, run up the debt, loot it, sell all the assets, and force all the people to lose their retirement and fire them.
Or you can go into a company, have cutbacks, try to make it more productive with the purpose of saving it.
When you try, like anything else you try, you don't always succeed.
I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say this is bad work.
This is good work.
There's no question that getting up and going to the office and basically performing the essential functions of the office, a man who's been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold.
Oh, yes.
So Bill Clinton describes Mitt Romney, been governor's sterling business career, crosses the qualification threshold.
Yes, Mr. Weinstein, I think he can produce jobs that Obama can't.
That's how he answered the question.
Harvey Weinstein's question was, can Romney produce jobs that Obama can't?
The translation is, look, he's been in business.
Does that make him more qualified than Obama?
Clinton said, yeah, it does.
That's basically what Clinton was saying.
Hey, you know, there's two kinds of private equity guys.
And I think it's good work.
It's good work.
There's no question getting up and going to office and basically performing the essential functions of the office.
A man who's been governor had a sterling business career crossed the qualification threshold, Harvey.
I think, yeah, I think Romney's a great guy.
Bain Capital, great.
You and I both know these private equity guys.
Hell, I'm living off of them, Harvey.
I fly around on those private equity guys' jets.
Back in the old days, Four My Heart Gave Out on me, I was out chasing women with them.
I love these private equity guys.
They got two, three jets.
I can give you names.
I mean, I don't give you names here, but I mean, I've been all over the world with them.
You know, when I have to go over to Bangkok, get a little speech.
How do you think I get there, Harvey?
I don't get there on Obama's plane.
I get there always private equity guys, and they don't charge me anything for it.
And then we all go out and party.
Now, I don't think Romney is a big party animal and all that, but I mean, he's made a lot of money in private equity, and he's saved a bunch of companies.
He got his qualified.
I think, yeah, I think he's okay.
I think he's perfectly qualified, Harvey.
That's Bill Clinton.
So Romney grabs somebody 24.
Romney, this afternoon on CNBC, was asked about this.
You believe that these attacks on you are unfair?
Why have you not more publicly embraced your past in private equity?
Which is a weird question because Romney has been actively defending his private equity days.
He hasn't been running from it.
But anyway, here is Romney's answer.
You don't have number 24?
And what Romney said was, well, I don't have one second.
Let me just tell what Romney said.
Romney said, well, I'm happy to embrace my past in private equity.
I'm very proud of my record.
I'm proud of the work that I've had both as the governor of Massachusetts and as well as the leader of the Olympics.
And certainly at Bain Capital, an enterprise I helped found.
And I think Bain Capital has a good and solid record.
I was happy to see President Clinton made a similar statement today, called my record superb.
I certainly believe it's a record that shows I understand how the economy works.
So you've got Clinton out there praising Romney's qualifications, performing the essential functions of the office, been governor's sterling business career.
Yes, he can create jobs.
He's done it.
Romney thanks him for it.
Meanwhile, Obama's out in Minnesota as close as he can get to Wisconsin without being there, blaming Congress and Bush for no jobs after being in charge for three and a half years.
So you add Clinton to Duval Patrick, to Harvey Wanting to Fast Eddie Rindell, Corey Booker, and Lanny Davis.
And there have been others.
I just can't think of them off the top of my head.
But there are other Democrats who've come out and defended private equity because they know they couldn't.
These Democrats that have served in office or on K-Street couldn't get along without the private equity guys.
The private equity guys are at the top of the list in membership and exclusive golf clubs.
I mean, these are the guys that make the world go round for politicians.
Private equity is what makes the world go round in the private sector for politicians.
And for Obama to be out there ripping it and it's primary thrust of his campaign, and it's all being thrown back in his face like a giant pie.
So after all this, Clinton, after this, is going to go to Wisconsin to campaign against Scott Walker, which you'd have to say is campaigning for Obama.
Soundbite eight.
Do you have soundbite eight ready to go?
This is Clinton last night with Harvey Weinstein.
And after this answer that you just heard, Weinstein says, well, the race between Obama and Romney, Romney, how close do you think it really is going to be?
I still think the president will win by five or six points.
But closer than that today.
Because of the condition of the economy.
Still, people feel uncertain.
You know, when you've got a lot of people getting up in the morning, looking in the mirror, starting the day thinking they failed, that's a problem.
They think Obama's failed.
I'm going to give you a wild theory.
It's not a theory, by the way, that you haven't heard.
You've heard me chat about this in circuitous ways on previous occasions.
Snurdley just asked me, do you think Romney set a trap for these?
Do you think Romney, because for the longest time, the theme in the media was, boy, is Romney?
He's not going to have a defense in this Bain stuff.
Once Obama lets loose, that's it.
How's Romney going to defend himself?
And all of a sudden, the Bain assault hits, and who is it defending Romney but a bunch of Democrats?
And the question was, you think Romney knew that these Democrats like private equity?
He knows them, and that they're not going to sit there and just let private equity go down the tubes.
I said, well, it's possible, but I think there's something else going on here.
We basically, folks, with what Bill Clinton just said, we basically heard Bill Clinton endorse Romney.
That's what you just heard.
When you strip it away, Bill Clinton just endorsed Romney.
And he covered his bases with the next, well, I think Obama is going to win by five or six points.
I mean, people still getting up and they look at it in the mirror and they start today thinking of failing.
That's not an endorsement of Obama.
What I think is happening, this economic disaster is real.
It's not an academic exercise that's happening over there somewhere that doesn't affect anybody.
It's not a bunch of people theorizing in the faculty lounge.
This is real.
There is genuine economic destruction taking place that is directly tied to the policies of Barack Obama.
Now, what party does he belong to?
Democrat Party.
We still live in the real world.
And I'm telling you, the Democrat Party has people in it that are scared to death over how in the world they are going to recover from this.
The heck with Obama.
He's a passing politician.
He gets re-elected or he doesn't, but he's gone someday.
But the Democrat Party goes on.
And it is as indicted in this as Obama is.
And I've often speculated or asked, are there any adults left in this party who have any sense at all what's happening to them here?
Nothing in the last three and a half years that's happened is how you build a party, folks.
There's no party building going on in the polling data, and these people live and die by it.
The numbers of people that self-identify as conservatives and Republicans is overwhelmingly atop Democrats who self-identify as Democrats.
I think when you've got all these Democrats, elected and otherwise, coming out to defend private equity and, in a sense, defend Romney here, it is because the Democrat Party is being taken down the tubes along with Obama.
And my gosh, if we had a Republican in office and this was, how would we feel?
We'd feel like the end of our party was here.
How do we ever convince people we know what we're doing and vote for us again?
Because we're not going to give the store away to buy votes.
So, how are we going to do it?
They have got to be asking themselves that question.
I mean, adult-ranking Democrats.
There aren't very many of them, by the way, but there are enough, and I think that's what's going on.
I should add, Stenny Hoyer is also saying Bill Clinton was correct when he defended Romney's work at Maine.
Steny Hoyer just today said that Clinton was correct.