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June 12, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:39
June 12, 2014, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Right here we are, folks.
Told you we'd be back and we're back.
Twenty-one hours ago I told you to be here and you're here.
Great to have you here.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program, the most listened to radio talk show in the country, the most talked about radio talk show in the country.
I even get credit for things I didn't do.
I even get blame for things I didn't do.
You'll hear about it all in the audio sound bites coming up.
Oh, yes, sir Rebob.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800 282-2882.
And the email address, and we check them is L Rushbo at EIB net.com.
New York Times has a story today that the president is refusing to send any military aid to help the Iraqis.
They're being overrun there by Al-Qaeda terrorists, the Al Qaeda branch in Iraq.
And uh Nouri Al-Maliki, do you know that he's still alive and still running things?
Nuri al-Maliki has been begging us to send in some air support.
You know, just fly some of our fighter jets over and drop some bombs on the Iraqi uh Al Qaeda insurgents.
But our president is refusing even that.
Nuri al-Maliki is not asking for any troops, he's not asking for any re-entry of boots on the ground.
He just wants two or three fighter jets.
He'd accept even a couple of warthogs to flight.
He's not even asking for F-15s.
And he says that he's Obama's refusal to do that.
He says that he is not going to let the U.S. get involved again in Iraq.
Why do you think that is?
Any flash in the pan guesses.
The wars are over.
All of the wars are over.
There is no Al Qaeda.
We defeated terrorists once we killed bin Lud.
But that's not the answer.
That's not the reason why he's not.
Let's go back.
Let me go back to me.
On this program two and a half years ago, almost three years ago, October 24th, 2011.
Now all of a sudden, we're gonna get out of Iraq.
At the end of the year, this is a campaign move, pure and simple, that runs the risk of saddling the Democrat Party with the ultimate loss of Iraq.
Because we're not gonna have any troops there.
And I guarantee you, on a scale, seesaw, whatever they have balanced it out, and Obama says, I have to get my base.
If I have any chance of being re-elected, I gotta get the base back in love with me.
And that means pulling out of Iraq, regardless what happens.
Now don't frown at me, snurdly.
I know you think it's over the top to say, but it's not at all.
Obama's base, the Michael Moore crowd would love it if we got shellacted.
They would love it.
If we end up quote unquote losing in Iraq, it'd be a repudiation of Bush.
They could say, see, we never should have gone there in the first place.
It didn't make any difference.
Damn straight.
Even after 4,500 American soldiers did damn straight.
We're not dealing with a rational bunch of people on the left.
We're dealing with people who have an abject hatred for this country.
Who believe this country needs to be taken down a peg or two or three?
Who believe we shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place, and we need to pay a price for going in there.
And what would that be?
Worldwide humiliation.
And Obama would benefit from it from the base.
So essentially, ladies and gentlemen, two and a half years ago I predicted this.
I mean, I didn't predict the exact event.
I didn't know that the Iraqis.
If I thought about it, we could have all probably figured out that uh once we pulled out of there, this was going to happen.
We just didn't know exactly when.
And that once we pulled out of there, we could probably predict that the Iraqis had asked us to do something to help them.
But what was easily predictable was that Obama would say no.
And the New York Times story today uh is um Yes, Iraq said to seek U.S. strikes on militants.
As the threat from Sunni militants in Western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.
Highlight pronouncing all these names.
Nouri al-Maliki.
Secretly asked the regime to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremists staging areas according to Iraqi and American officials.
But Iraq's appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed for the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that Obama has insisted was over when the U.S. withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
Now I would probably, no, no, no, no, probably.
I would understand if uh a whole significant swath of the United States didn't want to get any more involved in Iraq.
You know, we shouldn't have gone.
A lot of people think of the first shouldn't have gone in the first place.
The mission didn't have a chance, and we're never going to democratize the place unless we stayed forever, and we don't want to relive this, so don't go back.
I'm a probably a lot of Americans would uh fall into that camp.
But that's not why the White House is rejecting these overtures.
I think the reason is obvious, and I said it back in 2011.
I think this administration wants both Iraq and Afghanistan to fail as stable democracies.
And if you doubt that, would you give me I'm open to changing my mind about this.
Just give me any evidence to the contrary.
And don't cite Afghanistan because everything we're doing in Afghanistan is designed to prop up the Taliban.
Why we just gave them five of their apparently biggest and most important freedom fighters, just released them.
We're restocking the Taliban.
Obama thinks they're a legitimate entity.
They're not an enemy that needs to be defeated.
So you see, you have to understand liberals, folks.
And it takes courage to understand liberals.
Well, maybe not to understand, but it takes courage to admit that you understand.
Liberals.
And if you understand liberals, you understand that everything is viewed through the prism of politics.
So Nouri Al-Maliki asking for air support to beat back Al-Rocki uh Al-Qaeda insurgents is immediately calculated as a political move.
And that by Obama and everybody on the left.
It's not about human rights.
It's not about saving the women and children.
It's not about saving a war-torn country.
And sadly, it's not about standing up for U.S. policy.
Whether George Bush was your enemy or not politically, he was a former president, and it was the policy of this country to save Iraq and potentially establish a democratic beachhead.
There's a long shot, but that was the policy of the country.
And in no way does Obama share that at all.
So it's not about maintaining American consistency.
It's not about showing allies we can be counted on.
It's not about helping people in need.
It's about advancing a democratic agenda.
And this is where it takes courage to admit this, and particularly say so publicly on a microphone, broadcasting to tens of millions of people like I'm doing right now.
The simple fact of the matter is the ultimate objective, Obama and the Democrats and the whole anti-war crowd, code Pink Moveon.org, uh, you name it, is to prove for the rest of time That everything Bush did was a mistake and was for nothing.
It's to continue the public perception that Bush was rotten and horrible, incompetent, dangerous, inconsiderate, unfeeling, uncaring.
Nori Al Maliki asking for American air support in Iraq gives Obama another political opportunity to blame Bush.
And that is an opportunity they just can't pass up.
It's too juicy.
The opportunity here to secure defeat in Iraq, have it overrun by Al Qaeda, buck up Taliban people in Afghanistan, essentially get out of there and hand that company over to them.
What have you done?
You have proven in your mind for the rest of time that George Bush's wars were all for nothing.
You have proven that George Bush was a dirty rotten president.
You've proven that Bush had no business going anywhere.
You have proven that we lost lives unnecessarily.
You have advanced your own political agenda, and at the same time, you are hopefully, in their view, exciting your base.
As I say the Michael Moore crowd, which just loves to see the American military fail.
Because they consider the American military an agent of evil in the world.
The GOP has always been considered the party best at foreign policy, something a Democrats don't like.
This is an opportunity to take a hit at that.
In other words, it's a political opportunity.
Afghanistan falling.
That's a political gold mine.
That is a grand slam home run.
And if you want to doubt me, go right ahead, but just ask yourself how often does Barack Obama blame George W. Bush for everything that is, has been, or will go wrong in this country.
He does it still to this day.
The effort to say or to illustrate, we can't trust these Republicans with foreign policy.
They go into these parts of the world and they do it for personal reasons and they fail and they keep people killed.
And it's horrible.
Now also remember all the other countries that sent soldiers to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, who went along with us because of at the time our power, if you will, and our moral authority.
That is another thing here that can be chopped down.
Our moral authority.
The U.S. can't be trusted.
Abandons allies.
Goes places.
It's hopeless.
Republican presidents.
Incompetent.
Get us involved in ill-conceived and horribly executed foreign wars.
You fill in the blanks.
This is a golden opportunity.
And I predicted it back in 2011.
So when I saw the New York Times story, Iraq said to seek U.S. strikes in militants and on militants and in the regime.
Well, we'd love to, but we really not.
No surprise here.
Let's go back, in fact, uh December 14th, 2011.
This Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Obama addressing the troops there.
We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people.
We're building a new partnership between our nations.
And we are ending a war, not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home.
This is an extraordinary achievement.
Nearly nine years in the making.
Now you're saying, okay, Rush, what is he doing now?
He's taking credit for it.
At the time, everything is done with a political calculation.
So we're getting out of Iraq.
The place is stable.
There was a short period of time Where it appeared to end up, aside from the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, a successful enterprise.
And right there, December 14, 2011, Obama taking credit for it.
Now, nobody's going to remember that.
Now Al Maliki is asking for air support.
Al Qaeda is overrunning parts of the country, and it's just a political gold mine for the regime.
Here's Major Garrett, CBS this morning, and his report about this, the Islamist insurgents taking over cities in Iraq.
There is deep concern in the White House about the swift moving and brutal advance of these Al Qaeda-inspired insurgents across Iraq.
But there is no new policy to counter that insurgency.
And there won't be.
But there's deep concern.
See, well, we care.
Well, that's not our problem anymore.
We shouldn't have been there in the first place.
It's not something that we'll ever do again with the Democrats in charge with Obama in charge.
It's a total mistake to go in there.
Bush should have never gone in there.
Uh ditto Afghanistan, and that, my friends, is all you need to know about that.
We'll be right back set time.
Yesterday, you might remember me mentioning that sometime before the program started, the official program observer, Mr. Bosnerdly, strode into the studio smiling ear to ear, saying, oh, I guess that's the end of immigration reform.
And I said, Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
If you think the Eric Cantor defeat is the end of immigration reform in the Republican Party, you are misreading the situation.
I said, they are going behind closed doors.
They're gonna get angry, they're gonna get ticked off.
They're not gonna be scared, they're going to be mad about what it happened.
Well, let's see.
Just got a couple of audio sound bites here.
John Boehner.
On Capitol Hill weekly press conference during the QA, Luke Russert.
Asked Boehner, a lot of people are saying immigration reform is dead because your conference will not move out of fear.
What happened to Mr. Cantor?
Is immigration reform dead?
Let me just first debunk the first thing.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
Secondly, the issue with immigration reform has not changed.
The president continues to ignore laws that he signed into law, violating his oath of office.
Let me just first debunk the first thing.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
That was a lot of people are saying immigration reform's dead because your conference will not move out of fear.
But he said, no, no, no, we're not afraid.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
So he's saying, we're not afraid.
And then he said the issue with immigration reform has not changed.
The president continues to ignore laws that he signed into law, violating his oath of office, and that's going to continue because nobody's going to stop it.
Oh, let me run an idea by you.
I was reading the uh the power line guy, Stephen Hayward.
He has put forth what he thinks is a very real possibility.
After the 2014 elections this November, Barack Obama will issue a blanket pardon for every one, every single illegal immigrant in the country.
Using the pardon power he has in the Constitution, Hayward points out there are no limits on it, that he could do this, and Hayward says in his prediction,
that one of the reasons Obama would do it, not the only, one of the reasons would be to goad the Republicans into finally getting serious about trying to impeach him and actually do it.
Because the Democrat theory is that if they can go the Republicans into into doing that, then they will lose Forever the race for the White House, and especially in 2016.
The thinking is if the Republicans move to impeach the first African American president that this country will react in outrage, they already are predisposed to thinking the Republicans are not an extremist, and that will prove it, trying to impeach the first black president, and that will unite the Democrat base, and there is no way the Republicans can win.
It's a prediction.
It's just a prediction.
He sees not Hayward's not saying it's in the cards, but he does say he thinks that every reporter talking to any Democrat from now until November needs to ask that question.
If the president issues a blanket pardon as a means of securing amnesty for all of these illegals, would you support it?
He thinks every Democrat needs to have needs to be put on record answering that question.
Now you take a break.
Hold your thoughts, your reactions, whatever, be right back.
Have you forgotten Jimmy Carter did a blanket pardon of all Vietnam era draft dodgers?
Do you recall that?
Some of you not old enough to remember that, but he did.
And it's look, this is just a prediction.
Stephen Hayward at Howard Line, I read it uh last night.
And the the the the again, the thinking is that the Democrats believe, they would love for the Republicans to try to impeach Obama.
They think that that alone would end the Republican Party.
They really do.
Do not doubt that.
They're way off in that.
They they the Democrats do not understand, and I mean this, they do not understand that we have political.
They don't understand that they're a minority.
In the terms, circumstances of how people live their lives, they do not understand that.
They they live under this false impression that they are and have taken over a majority of the thinking and behavior in in this country.
So they they they believe, uh, even with Obama's approval numbers down, they believe that he is still loved and respected.
People may be down on him right now because the economy's bad, but at the end of the day, the Republicans impeach Obama and the people of this country will rise up in righteous indignation at the Republicans.
How dare you?
We elected that man.
This is the first African American president.
How dare you?
In truth, it would be the exact opposite.
If Barack Obama ever issued a blanket pardon for every illegal immigrant, it would result in the biggest landslide defeat of the Democrat Party there has ever been in this country.
Because in addition to whoever, or in addition to those being pardoned, you're going to have a bunch of real hardened criminals.
You're going to have rapists, murderers, purse snatchers who have committed crimes in addition to being here illegally.
So if this were to actually happen, and obviously it's a long shot, I think the end result would be blanket disaster for the Democrat Party.
But I also think that Hayward might be mistaken here because we had a soundbite on the program yesterday from Brit Hume at Fox News who said that immigration reform has nothing to do with pardoning the illegals.
He said that's what amnesty is.
He said look it up in the dictionary.
He said I'm surprised as many people use the word and don't know what it means.
It is a blanket pardon.
And that's not what immigration reform is.
So somebody needs to tell Hayward that he might want to withdraw or rein in, in some fashion, his prediction here.
Since they're saying in the establishment that amnesty isn't what's on the table here.
A blanket pardon would be amnesty.
And Brit Hume clearly said that nobody's suggesting that illegal aliens would be pardoned.
Now, actually, they are.
That's the whole point.
Again, just to summarize.
This is the divide.
This is the great I don't know, mystery.
This is what you and I can't figure out about the Republicans, that they do not see that immigration reform is nothing more than a Democrat Party voter registration drive.
But somehow they've got themselves believing, and they're listening to Democrats.
They're listening to the media.
The media is telling them these things, and they're believing it that they'll never gonna win unless they do amnesty and get the support of the Hispanic votes.
And Hispanic voters only care about one thing: Amnesty.
Hispanic voters only care about one thing: immigration reform.
And if the Republicans don't do it, they're never gonna win because they're never gonna get the Hispanic votes.
And they appear to believe that.
Just like they believe that every election is won by winning the independents.
That remains one of the greatest tricks ever perpetrated on a political party in my book.
The old saw, and this is the Republican consultants that tell all these candidates this.
Hey, I'm the guy that can put you over the top because I'm the guy who can run the ad campaign is gonna get you a majority of the independent votes.
Take for granted your base is going to vote for you.
Ask Romney about that in 2012.
Take for granted the Democrat base is going to vote for them.
So you got 80% of the vote already committed, no matter what you do, 20% undecided, independent, moderate.
That's where elections are won.
This is what Republicans believe, and so what do they do?
They run a campaign aimed at 20% of the country.
And they run a campaign aimed at 20% of the country that's got nothing to do with standing up for who they really are and what they really believe.
Conservatism, free markets, all of that never enters the campaign.
Because it is thought the independents are not interested in that.
It's one of the greatest tricks it's ever been perpetrated.
Democrats seem to get away with the with trick after trick.
And this immigration reform is perhaps the biggest one.
Because all it is is a Democrat voter registration drive.
Here is the second John Boehner soundbite.
I and remember, we're playing these because I predicted yesterday that the Republican leadership is not going to be scared over what happened to Eric Cantor going to be mad.
Uh Nancy Cortis, the CBS congressional correspondent, then asked Boehner on Iraq.
Do you think the U.S. should be launching airstrikes?
And if not, what should the U.S. do?
It's not like we haven't seen over the last five or six months of these terrorists moving in, taking control of Western Iraq.
Now they've taken control of Mosul.
They're a hundred miles from Baghdad.
And what's the president doing?
Take him a nap.
He's mad.
Well, at least he's mad at Obama.
So that's that's uh that's that.
So uh a couple more sound bites before the break, then we'll get to your phone calls.
I mentioned mere moments ago that even when I don't say anything, I get credit for it.
Even when I don't do anything, I get credit for it.
Or even when I don't say anything or do anything, I get blamed for it.
It happens.
CBS.
Oh, sorry, NBC Today Show today.
Kelly O'Donnell reporting on Dave Bratt.
Primary victory over Eric Cantor, talking about what Bratt did yesterday.
Bratt was not at his own headquarters and kept a very low profile Wednesday.
Rush Limbaugh spoke up for him.
Dave Bratt is not a wacko.
He's not a kook.
He's an economics professor.
The aides who ran Bratt's campaign say they are suddenly swamped with calls and requests.
So it is I, El Rushbo speaking up for Brad.
It is I, El Rushbo.
Doing the heavy lifting for Brad.
And yes, the next one.
This is yesterday in Boston, uh, on on the uh on the radio, and there's some guy from the Cook Political Report, National Editor Amy Walter, uh, about about this loss, and uh she was asked, what what about crossover voters?
I'm reading here that they didn't come out in such numbers.
If he went into the most democratic precincts in his district, the turnout was really pretty abysmal.
Where Eric Hunter lost was in heavily Republican areas of the district.
He lost among Republicans.
And I think one thing we have to remember, too, is uh the the amount of national attention that was being brought to bear in this race, folks like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham really encouraging folks to turn out.
So you had that added momentum the weekend before the election.
Now, you know, it'd be easy for me to play this and let it go and then let it slide, but folks, you know, if those of you who listen here regularly every day, you know, and this is typical, by the way, low information inside the beltway, political reporter, blissfully unaware.
I do not get involved in primaries.
I have had that policy since day one.
Well, it might have taken a couple of years, but it I've had that policy for 23 years.
I do not get involved in primaries.
And how many of you have called me over the years angry at me for that, wishing I would get involved?
Rush, we're gonna have to get involved, and now it's getting down a nutcrack in time here, which it's it's too crucial.
We gotta get the conservative.
And I don't get involved in the primary, and I didn't get involved in this one.
And can I tell you another reason why?
Yes, I can, because it's my program, it's my mouth, and I'm in charge of both.
There's another reason why I don't get involved in primaries.
If you have looked at any media, either in print or on the air, about the Bratt victory, what are you hearing?
You're hearing that Bratt had nothing to do with it.
You are hearing that a whole bunch of conservatives in talk radio are responsible for Bratt's victory.
Now, I don't deny that a whole lot of people spoke up for him.
But what what is the what is the real message here?
What is the underlying premise of reporting so when's the last time when Obama wins, do they credit the media for it?
They know they credit Obama, they credit the campaign, they credit the consultants, they credit the voters.
When a guy like Brat wins, it can't be because he was any good.
And it can't be that Republican voters were able to make up their own minds.
No, no, no, because you people are mind-numbed robots who can't and don't do anything until you're told.
It is a subtle continuation of the of the idea that you are brainless and mindless, and you sit out there in your stupidity waiting for marching orders.
And that's another reason why I don't do primaries, because I I do not want to give the left, the Democrats and the media that ammo.
And and this is this is not to be critical of any people that do this can do it any way they want.
That's fine.
Free market have at it.
My only point is don't ignore Brad.
He was the candidate.
He's the guy who got the votes.
People showed up and voted for him.
I don't deny that there were education efforts taking place, let people know.
But I think people were mad at Eric Cantor no matter what.
I think there are a whole lot of Republicans people are mad at, no matter what.
I think Eric Cantor was in trouble no matter what, because of substance, because of ideas.
Ideas matter.
Ideas and substance have consequences.
And Eric Cantor just learned them.
So another reason, just to just to restate this, that I stay out of primaries is I don't want to give the the left the ammo to suggest that any result is illegitimate, which is what they're trying to do.
By pointing out that the voters only did what they did because they were told to do it by powerful people in talk radio.
What is it that diminishes the candidate?
It diminishes the voters, and it perpetuates this idea that you and everybody else that chooses conservatism in the media is really an idiot.
Unable to make up your own mind.
Incapable of thinking yourself.
Whereas when Obama wins, did they credit?
Say, Chuck Todd, did they credit?
Talk about what a great job the New York Times did for the guy.
No way.
He got all the credit.
Yeah, I did, but Obama got all the credit.
And his campaign consultants got all the credit.
And David Fluff got all the credit.
They didn't waste any time and and and they didn't say that Democrat voters were dumb idiots that had to be guided into voting for Obama.
They left it up to everybody to conclude that people independently brilliantly made up their minds about Obama.
And I resent this.
I can't tell you how much.
It's been going on for as long as I've been doing this program.
It's just another reason why I don't get involved in primaries, because I don't want to take I I I don't want to have anything happen here actually take away from whoever wins these things.
And there are other reasons too.
I mean, as I've mentioned before.
My success is not determined by who wins elections.
Ratings, all that that's another thing.
Even conservative media people out there say, well, these rabid talk radio people, they're the rob them in the Republican Party, because all they want to care about is their ratings.
And so they're getting people all worked up about immigration, and people all scared, and that's why Brett won, because talk radio is still reactionary.
You got people like John Padoritz and other so-called conservative media leveling that charge.
Saying that all we're interested in here is ratings.
These people don't have the slightest idea, if that's what they think, how ratings are achieved.
But I'll just remind you again, been saying this for 25 years.
My success is not determined by who wins elections.
And if it were, I wouldn't be here still, would I?
Okay, Kurt in Falls Church, Virginia, is where we're starting on the phones.
Thank you, sir, for calling.
It's wonderful to have you with us on the program.
Hello, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
Uh I just want to point out a problem with your pardon theory.
Uh it's not mine.
It's not mine.
It's not okay, Mr. Hayward, that's a power line.
Stephen Hayward, yep, power line.
Uh the theory is you can be pardoned for prior actions.
And you can't be punished for them.
But assuming that you're still in the United States and you still don't have a legal right to be here, you're immediately as guilty after the pardon as you are before the pardon.
I don't think so.
You do it doesn't give you a status to stay in the United States.
Uh well, Mr. Hayward thinks it does.
I mean, and by the way, I've run the, I've run the you're the first guy who said he can't do it.
I've run it by a lot of people.
Yeah, there's no constitutional prohibition against something like that because you can.
If they were not in the United States and you pardoned them and they didn't come back illegally, they would be free.
But assuming they're still in the United States and they're still here illegally, uh they're immediately.
If you happen after the You but you can you can pard somebody for all future.
Actually, I don't think that's true.
I don't think you can immunize somebody.
Well, even if you can't by ver by pardoning the fact that they are here illegally, the next day they don't start being illegal all over again.
It's been pardoned.
You're thinking they can only be pardoned up to that day.
Right?
Right.
You can be pardoned up to that day, but if you don't have a legal right to be in inside the United States, you're not a citizen.
Well, then how did how did Bill Clinton pardon Mark Rich and then say, and by the way, you can never come back to this country.
Well, what he said is uh Mark Rich is pardoned for these acts which have happened before.
Right.
If you violate the law after you've been pardoned, you're not immune.
You're you're uh subject again for the uh acts that occurred after the pardon.
Okay.
Well, look, I will uh as as we say, take this under advisement, and I'll I'll I'm gonna call some people say that smart Alec Caller who said that everybody talking about this doesn't know what they're talking about.
I've just no, no.
Kurt, I'm just kidding.
That the real answer to you is With this bunch, who cares what the Constitution says?
Well, yes.
I mean, that's the bottom line.
And uh I was just kidding, you're not a crackpot caller.
So actually, very I've just I've just, you know, just for the call.
Appreciate it.
We'll be back here.
He's not a crackpot.
I didn't mean that.
I was just by the way, uh, the draft dodgers at Jimmy Carter Pardon, they were still draft dodgers when they came back from Canada, and they weren't reprosecuted when they got back here.
And they were still draft dodgers.
But they had been pardoned from it.
And it did hurt Carter's reelection.
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