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Dec. 17, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:49
December 17, 2015, Thursday, Hour #2
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Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
And another excursion into broadcast excellence.
Signature performance daily by me, your highly trained broadcast specialist.
Engaged here in many things, including show prep for the rest of the media.
By the way, have sound by 23 standing by.
Okay, the the uh the dust up here between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio that started in the debate on Tuesday night.
And again, I not not to be repetitive, but I don't depending on how closely or not you have paid attention to this, um, the stakes here are really high, and that is why this is getting this this disagreement, this fight, this uh battle, if you will, is getting so much attention because there's so much at stake.
We're talking about here the potential nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States, and Marco Rubio looks like uh he is assuming the position, policy preference position number one of the Republican establishment, uh, if indeed Jeb Bush doesn't make it.
The Republican establishment, as you well know, not only dislikes and is frightened to death of Donald Trump, they intensely dislike Ted Cruz, and they are deeply afraid of Ted Cruz.
And so what is going on here is an effort to discredit Cruz and to expose Cruz as a liar on something that is the number one issue to most Republican voters, and that is immigration policy and specifically amnesty.
And the upshot of the Contraton that happened Tuesday night in the debate is that Rubio is attempting, did attempt, and is receiving the assistance of many in the media, is attempting to say that Ted Cruz has not told you the truth about his position on amnesty and immigration.
And that's in explaining this and deciphering it, ferreting it all out.
You can get pretty deep in the weeds here to the point that you will lose people.
I would lose you, even I, who am otherwise a magnet.
I could lose you if I took this as deeply as it has gotten.
One of the things that I like to pride myself on here is making the complex understandable.
So let me tell you where this is going to end.
As far as voters are concerned, because I think at the end of the day, nobody's going to go into the weeds.
The voters are not going to go into the weeds to understand what happens, even if they're led there.
This all revolves around the gang of eight.
Eight senators who were trying to come up with legislation that would solve our immigration problems.
A key member of the gang of eight was Senator Marco Rubio, newly arrived to the Senate, Hispanic, very much adored and appreciated by conservatives.
And so the Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate wanted Rubio in the gang of eight as a means of persuading conservatives that this wasn't amnesty.
We were going to grant legalization.
We weren't going to grant citizenship.
We weren't going to get them the right to vote yet.
But we have to do this.
And it was thought that that Rubio with his fresh conservative newness and arrival on the scene would bring recalcitrant Republican voters along.
It was a giant miscalculation, But nevertheless, they tried it.
Rubio's involvement in the gang of eight has been portrayed in one of two ways.
He was either young and impressionable and brought in and misled by the veteran deceit leaders Chuck Schumer and others on the committee, Dick Turban, or the other story is, as Schumer tells it.
What do you mean, Marco was on the back?
He was the architect of the Marco Rubio wrote the gang eight.
Mark Rubio was the guy who told us how to get it done.
Well, that's not going to go well with Republican voters.
And so during the process, during the entire process of the debate of the Gang of Eight bill and the attempt to get it passed and then sent up to Obama's desk, brought the involvement of Ted Cruz.
And the argument that Rubio and his supporters are putting forth is that Cruz, in the process of getting involved in a gang eight argument and debate, actually said that he was for it.
And is now trying to back out of it and say that he wasn't.
And it involves Cruz ostensibly inserting an amendment in the gang of eight bill that is called a poison pill.
Now poison pill, I know it may be self-explanatory, but there may be some who don't understand what a poison pill is.
A poison pill amendment is designed to kill the legislation by exposing, in this case, the proponents as being engaged in deceit and fraud.
In opening this discussion, let me remind you of something that I did because it's close to what Cruz did.
Back during the Gang of Eight, the intense period of argument, I on this program a number of times and very seriously, promised that I would support amnesty, not just the gang of eight bill, that I would sign up and I would support it and I would travel the country and try to convince people to support it and vote for it.
Comprehensive immigration reform, I'm right in there.
I will do whatever you need me to do to help the American people understand and accept amnesty with one proviso.
And that is that the newly amnized cannot vote for 25 years.
Because everybody knew that the whole purpose of the Gang of Eight bill was to essentially secure 20 million new Democrat voters.
That's what amnesty is all about.
The advocates of amnesty on the Democrat side, it's not compassion, it's not humanitarian, it's none of the things they claim it is.
It's not, these are poor people, and they've been working in the shadows in our country, and we've been profiting from them, and we're denying them the basic services and aspects of citizenship, and it's time for this to stop.
We owe it to these people to allow them to come out of the none of that is why the Democrat Party, Barack Obama, you name it, is in favor of amnesty.
They simply see a brand new bunch of registered Democrats.
Immigration policy is nothing more than a Democrat registration drive.
And in an attempt to illustrate that, I said, hey, I'll support amnesty if you will promise me that the newly amnetized cannot vote for 25 years.
It was an effort to illustrate what was really going on.
And I proved that that's what was going on by virtue of one fact.
Nobody took me up on my offer to join efforts to pass the legislation.
Not one person.
And believe me, folks, when I tell you, if I had not added that proviso, I would have been overwhelmed with phone calls from people in Washington eagerly accepting my offer.
I would have been all over the news.
Limbaugh changes mind, supports comprehensive immigration reform, it would have been all you would have seen in the news.
But I didn't get one call.
I didn't get one feeler.
I didn't get a single reaction to my proposal because I put a poison pill in it.
I'll gladly grant amnesty.
I'll support it, I'll promote it, I'll do whatever you need, but you have to put in the bill that they can't vote for 25 years.
And the point was they won't even be for it if that's the case.
The Democrat Party will never vote for amnesty if there's something in there that says they can't vote for 25 years.
Well, Ted Cruz, in the process of debating the gang of eight bill, essentially did something close to that in an attempt to expose it and in an attempt to kill it.
And it is that attempt that Cruz made that the Rubio and other forces are now claiming he's a hypocrite on because they are claiming that he really did privately and to certain groups say that he was in favor of legalization and citizenship.
And those are the two factors here that all of this is revolving around.
The gang of eight bill contained two key elements legalization of those in the shadows and the path to citizenship.
And the path to citizenship is where they can go register to vote.
And the key, the focus on defeating the bill was to show people that its real purpose was to provide immediate citizenship and the right to vote for however many illegal aliens are in the country.
And that number is anywhere from 12 to 20 million and maybe maybe more.
It was not just legalization.
It was not just granting them amnesty for violating the law being here illegally.
The gang of aid bill also contained a provision that put them on a path to citizenship.
And you know damn well, if that had passed, and if the path to citizenship required five-year wait, Chuck Schumer would have been to the cameras and microphones within two hours of the bill passing and signed by the president and said, This is unfair.
We've just granted them path to citizenship and they have to wait five years.
That's not fair.
We need to move this up.
They should be able to go register to vote tomorrow.
And that would have passed.
And so the effort to defeat the gang of eight bill was to expose to as many people as possible that the real purpose of the gang of eight was not legalization, but the path to citizenship.
And this is where Cruz enters the picture here.
Ted Cruz proposed a series of amendments in committee that were intended to make sure that the legislation did not end up being a path to citizenship.
And people involved in this didn't want to admit that that's what was going on here.
A lot of people who supported the Gang of Eight bill did not want to admit that it contained a path of citizenship.
Republicans and Democrats, I mean, it was total deceit here that was underway.
The proponents of the bill were trying to hide behind the fact that all it was was legalization, humanitarian, compassionate legalization.
They wanted to make sure nobody knew, or as very few people as possible knew that it contained path to citizens, because path to citizenship equals right to vote.
Now, one of the amendments that Ted Cruz proposed...
stripped out the path to citizenship portion of the bill, but it left the legalization part in.
And that has opened the door for opponents of Cruz to say, he voted for legalization.
And Cruz is saying, no, I didn't vote for legalization.
I put...
I did vote, but but I was voting to keep citizenship out of it.
I was voting, I put my amendment in to expose the path to citizenship.
And Fox News thinks that they have caught Cruz in a lie because they think that he's been caught saying that he was one thing in 2013 and another thing in the debate on Tuesday night.
Cruz's intention was to make sure the proponents of the Gang of Eight ended up voting against it.
Because there's no it was Cruz's, you know, the equivalent here, Ted Cruz's amendment was the equivalent of saying, hey, I'll support this, but they can't vote for 25 years.
It was an effort to get the proponents to vote against their own bill because it did not contain the fundamental number one requirement they wanted it to have path to citizenship and right to vote.
Now that the problem is that Ted Cruz now is being accused of revising his remarks, that he didn't intend to say what he said back then and did say that it's gotten this is where we get deep in the woods over.
Is Cruz really did he go out and tell people he's for legalization?
Oh my God, wait till Cruz's voters find out that he's been lying to them about that.
That's what they're trying to convince Cruz supporters of.
And the problem with that is that Cruz's amendment may have ended up as a poison pill, but it may not have started that way.
It it's it's dicey.
He was clear not just in proposing it, but in the appearance he made at Princeton talking about this, that he offered the amendment as a compromise because he wanted to see it pass.
See that the two stories of Cruz are that he actually offered this amendment to take out the citizenship plank because he wanted the Gang Eight bill to pass, so that he could say down the road that he had voted for and been a participant in a compromise piece of legislation,
that he had worked with people and had helped get something done, and so he was not presenting his amendment as a poison pill when he was talking to certain groups.
That is the opposite of a poison pill.
And he did this in an appearance at Princeton with a law professor who is a a close associate and and friend of his.
Cruz uh is actually in a in a QA that he had with a professor there named Robbie George.
Cruz, the amendment I introduced affected only citizenship.
It did not affect the underlying legalization of the Gang of Aid bill.
And Robbie George said, would your bill pass the House or would it be killed because it was proposing amnesty?
Cruz said, I believe if my amendment were adopted, the bill would pass.
My effort in introducing it was to find solution that reflected common ground fixed the problem.
So his original position was that he was actually trying to craft legislation that would pass that had removed the plank to citizenship, but they wanted to be able to say later down the road that he had participated in compromise legislation and so forth.
And that's where Rubio and Cruz opponents are trying to say, we got him.
He lied, he lied.
And if you're confused, hang in there.
Got to take a break, but it'll all be made clear in a moment.
Hang in.
Okay, so in a limited time remaining this segment because I went long.
I'm gonna give you the end result of this again, and then the next segment go back and pick up in order.
The bottom line is Ted Cruz has never voted for amnesty.
The proponents of the Gang of Eight bill have, including Rubio.
But Cruz did propose an amendment in 2013, which would have legalization.
And of course, what legalization meant then versus what people think it means today are two different things, probably.
But Ted Cruz never supported amnesty.
He wants to say now that his amendment was designed to kill the gang of eight bill.
But in 2013, he was telling people that he really wanted the bill to pass, that he wanted a reform package that he was instrumental in having passed, but that did not include amnesty.
It just included legalization.
And of course, the Democrats and nobody wanted anything but amnesty.
So the bottom line is the gang of eight bill failed, and people are attempting to make others believe that Ted Cruz secretly supported amnesty at one time and is lying about it.
And that didn't happen.
So that's what I would say if this conversation were over.
But to get there, I need to return to it, so hang on.
Ha.
How are you?
L. Rushbow, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
You know, another way to look at this is that powerful forces are trying to rewrite the history of the debate on the gang of eight bill.
Because the history of the gang of eight bill is not particularly helpful to.
And by the way, I like Marco Rubio.
I this is why I don't endorse folks in primaries.
This exact circumstance is why I do not endorse in primaries.
I don't want to get caught in something like this having to defend somebody on something that I didn't know was going to come up and may not be in my best interest.
So I'm defending nobody here.
I'm trying to cut through all of this noise and get to the essence of this for you.
Because it's all over the media, and it's clear that Trump and Cruz are under assault.
It's a primary.
This is normal.
This is what should and does happen.
And I am not angry at anybody.
I'm just trying to decipher this for you.
So that's what we do here.
We make the complex understandable.
And there are some people that would very much like to have you think that Ted Cruz was much more for amnesty or involved in it, because that would take some pressure off other people who actually were.
It was the Gang of Eight.
It wasn't the Gang of Ten or the Gang of Twelve.
It was the Gang of Eight because there were eight guys in it, and Cruz was not one of them.
Now, here again is what this is about.
They're trying to revise or rewrite the history of the debate.
Gang of eight bill, two planks in it.
One is path to citizenship, which means vote, and the other is legalization, which means amnesty.
They wanted both.
The proponents of the gang of wanted both.
Legalization, no criminals anymore, no more criminal distinction, and citizenship, which means you get to go down and register at the DMV tomorrow as a Democrat.
And Rubio was instrumental in supporting this, and that was not good for him with Republican voters.
He was freshly arrived in the Senate, and uh thought that he would be able to make his mark in a compromise way.
When all this came up, here's Ted Cruz over here.
This is 2013.
And Ted Cruz introduced his introduces an amendment to the Gang of Eight bill that removes this plank in it on the citizenship side, which which takes away the right to vote, but legalizes.
It's much like my gimmick here on the radio when I said, hey, I'll support it, but they can't vote for 25 years.
This is called a poison pill.
Now, Cruz, back in 2013, when talking about this one with a college professor at Yale and with other groups, made it clear that he was not introducing a poison pill, that he was serious about trying to participate in a compromise of comprehensive legislation that he thought down the road would probably stand him in pretty good stead, show that he could do this, remove the citizenship, so forth.
The fact that his amendment allowed legalization is where the critics of Cruz are zeroing in and saying he's being dishonest with you and everybody else because he was for legalization, and therefore he was secretly for amnesty and so forth.
And Cruz is saying no.
And depending on who you talk to, his amendment was a poison pill amendment.
You can't, in his defense, you can't write and insert a poison pill amendment and tell people that's what it is.
You'd be self-defeating.
So that's where this is.
Pro-Rubio supporters think Cruz has been caught in telling two versions of one story.
That he was in favor of legalization in favor of the gang of eight bill with an amendment versus his current position that he totally opposed it and wanted nothing to do with it because he wanted nothing to do with amnesty.
This all came up in the debate.
Ruby always lying in wait because I think the Rubio forces thought that they might have an opportunity, the subject came up, to illustrate what they think is Cruis hypocrisy.
And last night, Brett Baer on the Fox News Channel had had Cruz in and hit him with this two different versions of his position on the bill.
And the impression left was that maybe Cruz hasn't been really forthcoming with his voters here.
So what does Cruz do now?
That's that's the question that that uh he's got to decide and so forth.
I think we're already too deep in the weeds.
This is to me, this is not complicated.
The gang eight bill failed.
Ted Cruz ended up voting against it.
Ruby O was for it.
When all is said and done, the gang of eight bill was never supported by a majority of the American people, and it went down to defeat.
And Ted Cruz's record, you could go ahead and look at it all you want, but there's a lot of work that he put in in trying to defund amnesty and defeat the gang of eight bill.
And at the end of the day, it's going to be real simple.
And there's not going to be anything anybody can do about this.
You have the gang of eight bill, and over here we know who the people that supported it are, and over here we know who the people who didn't support it are.
And as far as Mr. and Mrs. Conservative voter in any Republican primary, that's what it's going to come down to for them.
All the rest of this is just people getting excited over details, which are interesting if this is what you're what you're into.
I don't know.
Cruz could um.
He could say, it's really going to boil down to how much he wants to say that his amendment was actually a poison pill designed to illustrate what the proponents are really trying to do.
And I have, I have no doubt.
When you when you propose an amendment that strips out the path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight Bill, you're clearly proposing an amendment that eliminates any possibility they can register to vote anytime soon.
But what do you what do you think people, when they hear the word legalization means?
A lot of people today, guarantee you, lay people who are not nearly into this like the professionals are, when they hear that Cruz voted for legalization, they're going to think he voted for amnesty.
That's what the anti-Cruz forces are relying on.
That his amendment did allow for legalization.
Aha, see, he was for amnesty.
He's out there all the time, he's for amnesty, and he's been lying to us.
That's what they want you Cruz supporters to believe.
So what is he to do?
I have no idea what he's going to do.
No idea I was going to handle this or whatsoever.
I could, you know, we all put ourselves in people's shoes and imagine what uh what we would do.
Um he could say something like that he could have explained himself better than he did in the heat of the moment in the in the debate, but let's not lose sight of what's really important here, and that is I have never and will never support amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in any reform legislation,
and I will never support granting them amnesty from their crime of being illegal and so forth, no matter what.
And I just didn't say this clearly enough in the debate the other night, because I too got caught up in the weeds out there.
All he's got to do in my I mean, if if I were in his shoes, to me this isn't complicated, but of course I'm not the one under assault here.
And I'm not the one being credited, but to me this is real simple.
What was the purpose of the gang of eight?
It was to register 20 million new Democrat voters.
The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass of dependent people who are ill-educated, poor, maybe don't even speak English well.
They can't survive without government assistance.
That's the Democrats, an ideal Democrat voter.
The more of them the better.
That's what amnesty is.
That's what their whole point is.
That's what the whole desire for this to pass.
And the Republican side, this is see Republicans did owe.
The Republicans are for amnesty, but for different reasons.
Their donors want the cheap labor, the Chamber of Commerce and all that.
And some Republicans want to support amnesty because they think Hispanics will love them and be more supportive, and they think people won't call them racist.
I mean, there's all kinds of different reasons that various politicians support amnesty.
The Democrats' reason is universal.
From Democrat to Democrat, doesn't matter which one you're talking to, they see whatever it is, 12 million, 20 million, brand new voters, 70, 80% of which are going to vote for them.
And that's all that matters.
As look, not to insert myself in this, but I'm telling you, I illustrated it.
And I know some of you probably said, well, you know, you're really fooling yourself on this.
Folks, let me just uh there's a I have I have been dragged, because when you're invited, but these people you don't you don't say no.
I've been to three different dinners with three different groups, minimum eight, over the years, trying to explain to me why I'm wrong on this comprehensive immigration legislation at various stages, that it isn't amnesty.
I have I have sat through three-hour dinners with speaker after speaker after speaker, trying to tell me how I have misunderstanding it.
I had one tell me, if you call it amnesty, it's dead, and it isn't amnesty.
There's a path to citizenship, yes, but it isn't amnesty.
I wish I could give you the names, but I promised beforehand to all these it was off record.
But it's people you see on TV, even today, last night in the debate, you've seen them.
I'm just telling you that when I said I will support and I paused.
When I said on this, just like back in 92 when I endorsed Clinton, for a half hour they believed it.
And so did all of you.
When I told them I would support amnesty, and then paused, I guarantee you that wow.
And then I said, as long as you assure me that the newly amnestized can't vote for 24, that I didn't hear from anybody.
My only point here is that one thing about this has never changed.
It isn't about compassion, it isn't about helping the poor, it isn't about saving people from war-torn regions of Central America and South America.
It isn't about us saving people escape from poverty, it's about empowering the Democrat Party.
That's all again.
That's why Rubio's got so much trouble with it.
People on the Republicans, I do not understand why he could be hoodwinked into helping a Democrats expand their voter base by anywhere from twelve to twenty million people.
So if you can bring Ted Cruz in this and say, well, you know what?
He was actually for it too in this one instance.
He had an amendment, and then you muddy the waters and you confuse people and take some of the pressure off.
But uh again, it's real simple.
The Democrat bill supported amnesty for 18, 12 million, whatever it is, million Americans, and the only purpose was for them to be registered as Democrats, and I was never gonna support that, no matter what you hear, no matter what you've read, I never did support it.
I don't support it, and I never will.
And that's should wrap it up as far as I'm concerned.
We'll see.
I got a phone call here coming up quick.
Just two more things very quickly.
Another reason, folks, why this Cruz and and Rubio thing has gotten so fascinating, so many people.
It isn't about policy.
It is about tactics.
Now the rewriting of the debate, the history of the debate, it's about tactics, campaign tactics.
There the the the policy dispute here is that's a dead end.
There's no way anybody's gonna ever be able to say that Ted Cruz was for amnesty at any point ever.
But tactically, can you make people think that he has been let that's what this is about.
And people who get all tied up in the tactics, and can somebody pull this off.
Like Clinton was so loved because he was so great at tactics and strategy.
Policy, that's out the window on this.
That's that's that's been decided.
Uh Dana Bash, CNN actually got this somewhat right, but I'm gonna delay her.
I gotta get to a phone call here because I haven't had one yet.
And we've got a way too long.
Big island of Hawaii.
This is Gerald.
It's great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi.
Well, aloha again, Roshwoe.
Thank you, sir.
How are you?
And uh Mahalo Louis Lower.
Yes, sir.
Letting me on your show and for your show.
Understand both.
Yeah, yeah, because they took you off the air on the radio here, and I tried to get you back home, but I didn't succeed.
Anyway, I've been listening to the But that's not true.
You we're not on the you're not on the show on the big island.
They took you off here.
Well, then they must something be wrong with the repeater.
Or either that or didn't move move to Honolulu.
Yes, they did.
But I can only get you on the Kona side.
I can't get you on the Hitos.
Well, there you got it.
Anyway, I've been listening to you since Pat Sajak, 1988, when you were on that show.
So we are in the big island.
Don't believe this, folks.
The Kona side, that's where I go with.
No, you're on the uh iPod or whatever it is.
24 7, I'll get you there.
Good.
Anyway, I'm the old rush, but as you put on your show last time.
I appreciate that.
I'm Geraldine right, uh Rushbo, but they think I'm uh here, but I got some gifts for you I want to give you.
You're always giving people stuff, but I want to talk about what I told snurdly I was going to talk about.
Well, wait, I'll tell you what, you know, Gerald, it's it's it's great that you're out there, but it's been a minute and a half here, and I still don't know why you called.
So um I I got uh let me move on.
Who is Patty in uh in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
Thank you.
So are you rushed?
Hi, how are you?
Good, sir.
Um, I'm so glad you took my call because this is really so important to me.
I am a really firm Senator Cruz fan, and I have to tell you why.
Okay.
I find him to be absolutely outstanding, truthful, trusted, passionate, courageous, strong, and dedicated to we the people, the Constitution, and the preservation of this country.
I think this voting man the history of this gentleman has been outstanding.
He has fought for legalization of people to come to this country through the line.
The gang of eight bill completely did not encompass those people.
He did strategic engineering to put this bill so that it would be defeated.
And this gentleman is taking a lot of heat for us.
In that bill, he himself has said there were tremendous provisions that were very, very bad.
In their bill also was the I squared.
And that actually also would triple the H1B visa.
They took caps on the Oh, I know the whole gang ape, it was it was atrocious.
So look, the point is, you're following all of this and the and the uh effort the last couple of days to impugn uh Senator Cruz on this.
You're not it's not working on you.
You're not having any doubts about him now.
Is that well, and actually, sir, I have to tell you, I like the truth.
I like the daylight being shined on an issue because it goes to show those who want to manipulate and alter an absolutely prestigious human being who actually can can we have the opportunity to elect an outstanding person credentials.
Okay, but one other thing, sir.
I'm out of time.
I'm sorry.
I shouldn't I should have gone to you first.
Anyway, I I literally got no time other than to point out that whatever is being attempted here is not working on her.
See, here's the thing, folks.
Even without the gang of eight, what the Congress just passed quadrupled the H1B visas without the gang eight bill.
Ah, it's just frustrating.
No, I blasted Trump for the same kind of Democrat tactics here that are being used on on crews.
We are consistent here, folks.
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