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Jan. 17, 2017 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:12
January 17, 2017, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, behind the golden EIB.
Microphone at 800-282-2882.
If you want to send an email, it's lrushbow at EIBnet.us.
That's a new email address, by the way.
And also a new website, Design.
It's much cleaner, much less cluttered.
We've moved the penile erection or extension ads way, way back to the...
No, we don't have any of those.
I'm just joking.
Anyway, folks, great to have you here.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882, as I said.
And we are happy to welcome to the program Brett Baer of Fox News, special report with Brett Baer, and just a marvelous new book out.
It's been out a week.
It's three days in January, Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission.
And it's not exclusively about this, but delves into great detail about the transition from Eisenhower to JFK, which was multifaceted, including it was a huge generational transition and shift.
And Brett, welcome to the program.
It's great to have you here.
Hey, Rush, thanks for having me.
Great to talk to you.
What is it, I mean, of all the things that you might have wanted to write a book about, what was it about Eisenhower and his transition to JFK?
What interested you about that?
Why did you choose that as something to write?
I mean, this is a detailed historical book.
The reviews on this book are just off the charts.
It's incredible.
Well, thank you.
We worked on it for about three and a half years.
And I first got there.
You and I are both golfers.
And Ike was a golfer.
And I found, I stayed at the Eisenhower cabin, happened to be invited down to Augusta.
And I was all excited to play, obviously, and the first time.
And I walked around there, and I said, I don't know enough about President Eisenhower.
I know General Eisenhower.
I just didn't know President Eisenhower.
And if I don't know it, and I cover Washington and politics, surely my generation and younger really doesn't.
So I went out to the library in Abilene, Kansas, which is, if you can get there, and if you haven't been there, you should go.
It's a spectacular place, the Eisenhower Library.
And I talked to the folks there, and they said all the books about Eisenhower, this transition has not really been focused on.
And that farewell address.
And I went to the library.
They pulled out a box and I put gloves on and they pulled out a folder and they gave me the actual address.
That's 56 years ago tonight that Eisenhower delivers the farewell address.
I'm holding it in my hands.
I see the scribble marks that Eisenhower made and the underlines and the capitalizing.
And I thought, this is the thing that will get me a narrative to breathe life into history and reintroduce President Eisenhower.
And that's where it all started.
Now, Eisenhower, he was the first Republican president in, what, five terms that had FDR before him and Harry Truman.
And his presidency for at least first four years of it was culture shock.
There are some similarities, interestingly, to Trump.
And in many ways, Eisenhower sounded like Trump does today in the sense, you know, Eisenhower warned of the imminent danger posed by the military-industrial complex.
And Trump is saying, get out of NATO.
Trump is suggesting that we're wasting way too much money here.
We need to reallocate resources.
And is that a correct assessment?
Yeah, obviously they're very different in demeanor.
But if you go deeper, there are clearly commonalities there.
The biggest one is both of them are outsiders.
Ike absolutely hated politics, especially the phoniness of it.
And he was determined to kind of be his own man, not beholden to party.
He was practical, not ideological.
And I think clearly that is the road Trump took.
He's not a politician to begin with.
He is more practical, and he's talked about getting things done.
And, you know, he could potentially break the gridlock in Washington because of the practicality of figuring out common ground.
Ike, in that farewell address, Rush, talked not only about the military-industrial complex, but about deficits and debt.
And we can't mortgage our children's future, he said in that speech.
He also talked about bipartisanship and trying to figure out a way to get things done that you can get done first and then argue about what you can't.
People, this answer that you have may surprise people, but it sounds like that Eisenhower dealt with obstruction and people that wanted to deny him success as a president.
So, you know, a lot of people's historical perspective begins with the day they were born, and they think that things are happening during their lives are worse than they've ever been, and they've never happened before in some instances.
And your book illustrates that there's nothing new happening here to maybe the degree of intensity, and there may be some personality differences.
But now, Eisenhower and the military-industrial complex warning, what always amazed me about that, and maybe you can help me understand it, he was of the military.
He was personified it, and here he is warning the nation about it.
He was a military man who craved peace.
And he realized as general who obviously defeated Hitler and came back as a hero of the war that there was this industry that had been created, obviously, to help supply World War II, but that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.
It was pumping money through lobbyists into lawmakers.
They were affecting policy.
Some government officials were leaving to go head up some of these companies, and then it was a cycle.
And he was concerned.
He wanted to call it the military-industrial congressional complex, but he was persuaded to take out congressional to be diplomatic.
And he was worried that this would be kind of a churning up of policy.
He said you had to have dissenting views on everything, and it couldn't be controlled by the money outside.
I mean, obviously, that's prophetic or prescient years, 56 years ago.
How seriously and helpful was he in his advice, if there was any, to JFK during this transition?
It was crucial.
This book starts with the meeting between President-elect Kennedy and President Eisenhower after Kennedy wins at the White House.
And by the way, it ends with the meeting between President-elect Trump and President Obama at the White House.
Those are the bookends of the chapters.
But in that meeting, Eisenhower, he was really doubtful about Kennedy.
He was mad that he was talking about a U.S. missile gap with the Soviets that Eisenhower knew wasn't there.
And he doubted that he had any experience.
But he met with them and he was impressed with them.
He just didn't like that he, Kennedy didn't like the apparatus Eisenhower had set up to debate operations or decisions.
So Kennedy comes in, he dismantles some of that and relies on a few advisors and his decision-making.
Cuba happens, the Bay of Pigs, and the first person he calls is former President Eisenhower.
Right.
And that's that iconic image on the front of the book.
You think that there are some parallels here between Eisenhower and Trump after having researched this.
What do you think Eisenhower would say to people about this particular transition?
What would he say about people who are declaring Trump illegitimate and refusing to go to the inauguration?
Well, he wouldn't like it.
Just reading and knowing all that I read, I mean, he knew about hurt feelings after elections.
Harry Truman really never recovered from Ike's victory and was barely speaking to him, really wasn't on Inauguration Day, 1953.
They pull up Eisenhower and Mamie in the car on Inauguration Day to go have the coffee in the White House before swearing in.
And the Eisenhowers stay in the car.
That's how chilly it was.
The Trumans stayed in the White House.
Now, really, this is important because people don't think that kind of partisanship has ever happened before.
People, again, whose historical perspective began the day they were born.
I guarantee you, Brett, there are people shocked to hear you say, Eisenhower, great statesman, probably able to put these kinds of silly little divisive things aside on the greatness of this state.
Stayed in the car rather than go in and have coffee with Truman.
And then both the Eisenhower Library and the Truman Library described the ride from the White House to the Capitol as silent, not a word.
Now, Truman and Bess leave the ceremony by themselves.
They go to the train station at Union Station, and they refuse Eisenhower's offer to fly them home.
And they take the train.
So I guess the bottom line is, I think Ike would remind Trump's adversaries that the peaceful transition of power is the hallmark of democracy.
And no matter who's elected, it's the whole point of our nation that we can have this vigorous debate.
But when the debate's over and the votes are counted, we become one nation.
And it's not about the campaign or the candidate or the man.
It's about the office.
So I bet that's how Eisenhower would weigh in.
Talking with Brett Baer of Fox News about his book, it's out a week now, three days in January, Dwight Eisenhower's final mission.
Permit me one departure here from the book.
You opened this door.
You've been covering Washington and studying Washington for much of your professional life.
Have you ever seen anything like this, what's going on today?
Never.
Never.
I mean, it's truly amazing.
Every day, Rush, I say to my staff, you know, watch out.
This is like drinking from a fire hose.
Because, you know, everything that's happening at this moment, think about where we are.
You know, from that escalator ride in June 2015 to our first debate in Ohio to throughout the primaries, through the general election, to the night even of election night when we all thought in the exit polls that Hillary Clinton was going to win.
And now this, and we are just days away from the 45th president putting his hand on the Lincoln Bible and his family Bible and taking the oath of office.
I've never seen anything like it.
And for an anchor who covers politics, it is amazing.
I couldn't do what you do.
I couldn't keep my opinion out of what I'm not with this kind of stuff going on.
I really admire you, and I'm not smoking you here.
I could not do it.
Watching the way the Democrats are behaving in this infantile, puerile manner with the help of the media trying to make it look like Trump.
Now, the approval polls, people regret voting for Trump.
Are you kidding me?
And you have to report this stuff with a straight face.
I mean, it's fun, and it's interesting.
But let me ask you this, because I know how I react to it.
Obama came into office blaming Fox News.
He's leaving office blaming Fox News.
You take what you do seriously.
You're not a partisan.
You're not part of a group of people trying to undermine anybody.
You're just reporting you specifically what you do.
How do you react to the president when he says these things over and over about you?
Well, I mean, I just have a personal view.
I mean, I interviewed him in 2010, right before the health care bill became law.
And despite asking every week since that time, I never got an exit interview or any interview with President Obama.
But I watched intently with Steve Croft's interview at 60 Minutes.
I think it was his 17th.
And President Obama answered that he was surprised by the partisanship.
And I was surprised by that answer because clearly his actions in office did not change that dynamic if he was surprised by it.
No.
And I think that that's fair to say, no matter your ideology, I think that that's fact.
One of the things Eisenhower did was he invited the opposition party in once a month at least, even more.
And he had drinks with them and he talked with them.
I'm not saying that that's the best blueprint, but he worked with Sam Rayburn in the House and Lyndon Johnson in the Senate and got things done, including the highway system that we currently are driving on.
And who knows?
Trump could do the same thing.
Let me just ask you, did Eisenhower ever say to the Democrat leadership in one of these joint meetings, I won, you lost?
We're doing it my way.
Because Obama did.
Did Eisenhower ever approach him that way?
In fact, he was adamant that you should not lead by hitting people over the head, and it was never personal in his mind.
A lot of his leadership style rush came from his time as general, and he dealt with huge egos like Bradley and Patton and MacArthur and then the allies, Montgomery and DeGaulle.
And he had to deal with those egos.
And his leadership style was humble, but he never did that.
He never hit him over the head.
Got Bret Baer from Fox News with us here for another segment, a brief obscene profit break, folks.
We will be right back with more after this.
Welcome back.
We have Brett Baer, Fox News with us.
Special report with Brett Baer and the lead anchor on election night special event coverage and his brand new book, which is a great book.
And the reviews on this book across the board unanimously stupendous.
Three days in January, Dwight Eisenhower's final mission.
Now, this next description I'm going to use about your book is used.
I think it's overused by people, particularly in the arts.
But your book to me is really important right now.
And I want to ask you why that is.
I mean, do you think your book's important?
And if you do, why?
Because I clearly do, but you're the subject, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.
Thank you.
I mean, I'm humbled by the reviews that it's getting.
And you know this better than anybody.
And I say this not to smoke your way, but I read Rush Revere books to my kids going to bed, Paul and Daniel, and they go to sleep and they learn something about history, right?
And they're nine and six.
And by the way, they love them.
I think that this breathes life into history.
We found oral histories from the Eisenhower Library and the Kennedy Library and the Truman Library.
Some of them had never been tapped, never been heard.
Some of them were Eisenhower himself talking about his reflections on this time.
We found documents and letters never released about this time.
And this book looks at these three days.
56 years ago tonight, the farewell address is delivered.
But it also looks at his life.
And I think that if people look back, it was always thought of a sleepy era, but it was really a decisive time.
He was somebody who won the World War from Hitler.
He was the first Cold War president.
But this threat of nuclear war was real, and it was constant.
And it was a dangerous time.
And I think that that transition can show us a lot about the transition that is happening right now.
It's a dangerous time.
Terrorism and the threat of war are present.
And there's many lessons that Eisenhower could convey to us today.
You know, you just said something that I think is profound because you're absolutely right.
People think back, people that have a historical basis and understand, a lot of people do.
Look back at the Eisenhower years and think that they were sleepy.
That's a great way to describe it, that not much happened, that Ike was out there.
You know, when he discovered that he couldn't shoot Congress like he can shoot the Germans, he went out and played golf all day.
And nothing really happened.
And of course, that's the exact opposite of what was not a sleepy time.
It was a boom time in America.
And the post-war period was exuberant, and America was growing by leaps and bounds.
And it was not sleepy.
I think that's an excellent way to characterize the mistakes people have made in assuming.
What similarities are there between Eisenhower and Trump?
Do you see any?
The differences?
Differences, similarities, what have you?
Well, there's a big difference.
I'm pretty positive that Ike would not be a fan of Twitter.
He thought less was more, and words matter from the Oval Office, especially.
So I would bet that he would not be a fan of that.
And, you know, he had a different demeanor.
The political scientist Fred Goldstein said that he had the hidden hand.
He was a bridge player, and he had the hidden hand of leadership.
In other words, he wouldn't let his cards show.
And it's interesting.
It's almost exactly the opposite.
I think Trump has a hidden hand, but it's a very showy hand.
Like, look at this thing over here, and maybe there's a lot happening behind the scenes while everybody's focused on this tweet.
We'll see how his leadership style goes.
He obviously has dissenting views that he's chosen for his nominees for cabinet that will enable him to have the ability that Eisenhower advised Kennedy to have, the dissenting views always presented to him.
One quick final question going away.
The transition period, the actual meetings between Eisenhower and JFK, any insight as to how useful for JFK they were, as opposed to, I don't know how useful Obama is being for Trump.
I don't think we fully know on the current day.
I think they have talked more than even they're talking about that they've talked.
So I think we'll get a readout over time about the current day.
But back then, so when Eisenhower leaves office and Kennedy in the first times goes into the Bay of Pigs and launches the operation, by the way, Eisenhower told him in the Oval Office three things.
One, make sure you have an exile government ready to go for Cuba.
Two, have somebody to take over for Castro.
And three, make sure you have air power.
Well, one didn't happen, two didn't happen, and then Kennedy called off the air power because he didn't want the world to know it was the U.S. for that mission.
The mission fails.
He then calls Eisenhower, flies him to Camp David, and that's the iconic image on the front where he turns to Eisenhower and says, you know, you never really know how tough this job is until you're in it.
And Eisenhower, walking up the path, says, Mr. President, with all due respect, I think I told you that three months ago.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, look, I don't know where you found the time to do this.
I know you're just busy as can be with your job and family and everything, but this is Yeoman's work here, and it's scholarly beyond people's expectations.
You really have hit a home run with this, and it's valuable, and it is important, and I'm not overselling it.
I wish you all the best with it, Brett.
Rush, I really appreciate you having me on.
Brett Baer of Fox News, who is the lead anchor, they're going to be anchoring, in fact, on Friday the inauguration of Trump, as we will be here as well.
And as well as he's the lead anchor for special report with Brett Baer.
Book again, three days in January, Dwight Eisenhower's final mission, and we are coming right back.
Sit tight.
Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Folks, remember in the opening segment of the program today, we talked about these opinion polls that are out that show only 40% of the American people approve of the Donald Trump transition, I guess.
40% approval rating right now.
And I made the point, isn't it interesting?
We have an electoral college near Landslide.
All of these people for a year and a half couldn't get enough Donald Trump.
Sold out rallies.
Of course, they were free to admit, but I mean, just overflowing satellite locations, people driving for hours, lining up for hours to get into Trump rallies, large and small towns all over America.
The enthusiasm was off the charts.
Everybody noticed it.
But now, before Trump's even sworn in, we are being led to believe that the very people that elected Trump have already soured on him.
And they're already disappointed.
And they're already having regrets and buyers' remorse.
And this, we've got two polls.
We have a CNN poll and we have an ABC News Washington Post poll.
Well, people have been digging into these polls today because they're fake news.
They're fake polls.
They are put together by people who have been responsible for all kinds of fake news about Trump throughout this campaign.
And here is the tale of the tape.
People who had studied the internals and have looked at the sample.
In the CNN poll, you know what sample?
What percentage of the sample was Republican?
24%.
In the ABC poll, the percentage of the sample that was Republican was 23%.
Now, let me ask you a question.
How is it that since 2010, the Democrats have lost over 1,000 electoral seats in Washington, all across the states, state capitals, mayors, city council, when you go that low, it's up over 1,500 seats.
How in the world has that happened?
How in the world have the Democrats practically been eliminated as a national party?
How do they control everything now if they're only 24% of the population in an opinion poll?
I mean, there was a poll last week about ideological preferences in this country.
36% of the American people identified as conservative, 24% liberal.
And that isn't new.
Conservatives, self-identified conservatives have outnumbered self-identified liberals for 20 years.
Different from Republican Democrat.
But it doesn't matter because there is no way that a poll that has 24% of the sample Republican means anything.
It is rigged.
It's fake.
The Democrats lost the presidency.
They lost it.
306 electoral votes to 230 some-odd electoral votes.
The Democrats lost the Senate.
The Democrats only control four governorships and state legislatures in the same state, only four out of 50.
Barack Obama and his agenda have been repudiated since 2010.
The one exception was when he was on the ballot in 2012, and that's an aberration.
But even in that election in the House and Senate, the Republicans won the House in 2010.
This is journalistic malpractice.
This is flat-out fakery.
24% Republican sample CNN, 23% Republican sample ABC.
And yet the Republicans are winning everything.
Here's another reason why the Democrats and the media and the opposition is so scared of Trump.
Headline, Washington Examiner.
Trump eyes 10% spending cuts, 20% cut of federal workers.
Huge.
Absolutely huge.
The federal government is so bloated and so out of proportion to the existence of everything else in this country.
And it needs to be pared down.
And here comes Trump.
10% spending cuts, 20% cut in the federal workforce.
Folks, they're scared to death out there.
Here's a story from the Washington Post.
Trump could cause the death of think tanks as we know them.
Josh Rogan, global opinions writer, Washington Post.
Now, This is a dicey area.
But think tanks are worried about this.
Conservative think tanks, liberal think tanks, they're worried about Trump.
For the longest time, the think tanks have been telling their donors, hey, look, we're your guardian.
We're the ones making sure what you believe becomes policy.
We're the ones with relationships, members of Congress.
We're the ones that are on point on policy.
We're the ones, and some of the media in both conservative and liberal spheres is the same.
And Trump's come along and blown that to smithereens.
And that's the reason why there's some never-Trumpers out there in both areas, left and right, in the think tank sphere.
I need to put this story in the stack for further detail tomorrow.
Walmart to create 10,000 U.S. jobs in nod to Trump.
Now, there's more to this than meets the eye, too.
I can share with you, because I've done it before, I have always been frustrated.
I grew up believing certain things.
One of the things I grew up believing, and I thought it was common sense, is that people who conduct business in the United States economy would naturally want as little government involved in their business as possible.
And they would want as low a corporate tax rate or small business tax rate as they could get.
And I have been repeatedly stunned to find out how many businesses can't wait to get in business with government.
And I slowly learned that it's actually easier to get business with government than to beat your competitors in the market.
If you can have a crony relationship with the president, a crony relationship with power brokers, House and Senate, it may help you do battle with your.
And then as liberalism invaded and its tentacles spread even deeper into our society, I began to wonder why it was, as deficits mounted up and as income stagnated, why didn't people instinctively know that getting government out and letting the free market work with as few regulations as necessary?
Why isn't that an automatic?
Why isn't that something that everybody goes to?
But look at what's going on here.
Walmart creating 10,000 U.S. jobs in nod to Trump.
Is it really Trump?
Is it, I guess what I'm asking, did Walmart never on their own think that taking action to build up the U.S. economy would benefit them?
Is it just that Trump is doing all these things, making, I don't know, threats, promises, however you want to look at it?
I've always thought that big business ended up being afraid of people like Obama and afraid of the Democrats because the Democrats would threaten to use government against them.
And so that's why they caved and went along with them.
Now, Trump's coming along and is well, it's not just Walmart.
General Motors has announced 10,000, no, same story.
General Motors is $1 billion fresh U.S. investment and creation of more than 1,000 new jobs.
But why does it take Trump getting elected to do this?
I know that the knee-jerk reaction: well, Trump's promising this if they take their business and make, I know all of that.
But, you know, Trump spent the last year and a half talking to Americans about a different version on growing the economy and bringing jobs back to America.
And his agenda, Trump's talks on the economy, they were clear.
They were simple ideas expressed by somebody who sounded very confident that he could do it, that he could rebuild America's manufacturing base.
He could rebuild and reignite the U.S. economy.
12 to 18 months, day after day after day, simple message.
And look what that year and a half is reaping now.
Want a Trump win, obviously.
And apparently, not only did voters listen to the message, so did business executives.
I mean, it's all good.
Don't misunderstand.
But why is what?
I guess what I'm asking is: why is what Trump was saying about the economy revolutionary?
Why was it so, my God, I can't believe he's saying that.
Why was it of that nature?
And the answer is that's how deeply we had descended into government-first socialism-type economics.
We had descended so deeply and so far into government being the center of the universe and government being the final arbiter, government picking winners and losers, that the idea that that wasn't going to happen was shocking.
When it ought to be everybody's instinctive opinion.
Get government out of things if you really want them to grow.
If you really want prosperity, if you really want liberty, if you really want freedom, get government and all these mindless regulations out of it.
Don't care what, health care, automobiles, energy, get them out of it.
Why is that so revolutionary?
And the answer to that is that's how deeply we had plunged into left-wing socialism in this country at all levels.
Back after this, folks.
Don't go.
Another alert here on the phone.
Mike Tomlin rips Antonio Brown.
Says Steelers will punish him swiftly for inconsiderate Facebook video.
That's all I know.
Give it a chance to look at the video or check into it.
But interesting.
Here's Mary in Beaverton, Oregon.
I'm glad you waited, Mary.
Great to have you on our program.
Hi.
Rush, thank you so much for taking my call.
I want to just briefly, as briefly as I can, go over two major points today.
Well, one is Obamacare.
The other is Donald Trump's tweeting habits.
First of all, on Obamacare Rush, I'm 53 years old.
I've been living the nightmare since its inception.
I'm on Obamacare.
I've had it shoved down my throat.
An Obamacare replacement is not rocket science, Rush.
It is not rocket science.
Very simply, you know, bullet point.
Be able to buy insurance across state lines, great.
Twitter reform, great.
That needs to happen.
Healthcare savings and counts needs to happen.
Tax deduction needs to happen.
It's a great point.
They're trying to make it sell.
Oh, it's really tough.
We've got to repeal it.
Then we have to replace it.
It's not.
Yeah, and Rush, wait a minute.
These last three points, Donald Trump and only Donald Trump can deal with these because he's not.
The only thing that's difficult about replacing at Rush is our politicians are working for the lobbyists, not the American people.
True.
So point number three.
And Donald Trump sent a major salvo yesterday across the bow to the pharmaceutical companies.
I have yet to see an industry rush where competition is not a good thing.
However, the pharmaceutical companies in the United States have no competition because the U.S. is the only major industrialized nation that does not have price controls on our pharmaceuticals.
Consequently, every American consumer ends up subsidizing the rest of the industrialized world.
If you have diabetes rush in the U.S., you are paying easily 40% minimum to upwards of 90% more for the identical medication from the identical manufacturer than our European counterparts.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I have to stop you there because we're out of time.
I'm going to assume you're going to support Trump's tweeting as the only way to do battle with a biased and corrupt drive-by media.
I happen to support you.
I hope he doesn't stop tweeting.
I hope he keeps tweeting.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
Practically every news network is leading with a story along the lines of this.
News alert, news alert.
At least 53 Democrats plan to skip inauguration as though that is the big news of the inauguration.
Let them skip it.
They're irrelevant anyway.
It doesn't matter if they air, if they're there.
It doesn't matter at all.
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