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Feb. 23, 2017 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:49
February 23, 2017, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, this one had to be a tough one for CNN to report.
They've got some polling data on uh what people think of the economy out there.
Just saw it up there.
61% of Americans report feeling very good about the economy.
37% no.
And by the way, I think we're back.
You know, when when when Obama was president and he was providing stewardship over a flagging economy, it was the first time in my life that the state of the economy had no impact on presidential approval numbers.
Now, I think it did on the on the election.
I think the the static state of the economy definitely was one of the factors that hurt Hillary.
But all during Obama's eight years, whatever the economic circumstances were, it didn't show up in polling data.
And I get it's the racial component, and nobody will ever to be able to convince me differently.
But I now think we're back to normal in this thing.
And I think once you know you've got we got Trump in the Oval Office now, and how the economy is perceived is going to be very, very important to him in terms of giving him insurance on the rest of his agenda and getting approval numbers overall on job performance and this kind of thing.
So I think we're back to uh state of normal there.
Greetings, folks, how are you?
It's great to have you once and again here at the EIB network, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB.
Microphone, the telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882 and the email address, ill rushbow at eIB netus.
No, now now the inside politics Trump approval rating at 38%.
Does that jibe with what people think about the economy?
Inside politics, Trump approval rating 38%.
They're just reveling in that.
Anyway, my friends, I'm leading off here with something that just hit right before the program began on politico.
It is a story about John Boehner, and the headline is Republicans will not repeal and replace Obamacare.
John Boehner, former Speaker of the House.
He predicted today that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is not going to happen.
He was at uh let's see, it was an Orlando Healthcare Conference, and he said the idea that a repeal and replace plan would blitz through Congress is just happy talk.
Instead, he said changes to Obama's legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.
He said congressional Republicans are gonna fix Obamacare.
I shouldn't call it repeal and replace, because that's not going to happen.
Baylor's comments came as Republican lawmakers across the country facing angry constituents at town halls, worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without what Republicans are pro look.
I don't deny that they're Republicans showing up at these town halls.
By the way, don't anybody misunderstand me here.
And I don't deny that some of them are angry, but they're not angry that the Republicans might repeal Obamacare if they're angry at anything.
It's that they haven't yet.
But look at the way this is written here at the politico.
Baylor's comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents in town halls, worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement.
Now, Trump said in recent days he's going to release a plan by mid-March on how the administration plans to move forward on a repeal and replace plan.
Today Boehner said the talk in November about lightning fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.
He says, I started laughing.
Republicans never ever agree on health care.
Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act is going to remain.
It's going to be there.
That's John Boehner predicting.
He knows.
You would have to say, wouldn't you, Mr. Snurdly, that uh that Boehner knows the Republican House Well, there's a little derisive reaction from the official program observer.
Uh so is what's Boehner doing here?
Is he giving them cover?
Is is he Is he giving because we know the donors don't want it repealed?
And we know the donors don't want a whole lot of things that Trump wants.
Republican.
Now wait a second.
I don't doubt that he's projecting his own, however, you want to characterize it, but what I'm saying is, I mean, he is, even though he resigned, and even though he uh he ended his term in in the degree of controversy, um he's still a former speaker, and as the former speaker, he it automatically possesses a certain amount of uh gravitas or weight about the position.
So if Boehner's out there at a health care conference assuring people by virtue of what he admitted is a prediction that it isn't going to change, doesn't that give some Republicans in the House cover for not doing anything?
Well, Boehner says we're not going to replace it.
So I'm not saying, let me rephrase this again.
I'm not saying legitimately give them cover.
I'm saying does it give them an excuse?
Because you know some of them don't want to mess with it.
Some of them don't want to get anywhere near it.
Because in their view, it's an entitlement, and we never take those away.
And I tell you what I want to do here, folks, because the protesters that are showing up at these town halls are again being mischaracterized, and they are being misdefined.
It turns out that in fact much of what's going on here is actually brought to us by an Obama organization, organizing for action, and they even have a training manual that gives suggestions and ideas to protesters on how to behave,
where to sit in a town hall, don't bunch together, in other words, spread out so that cameras make it look like most of the audience is protesters.
Pick your spots.
Uh they've even got a uh a name for this, indivisible or invisible, I forget which.
It's I'll get to it here in just a second.
Oh, one other thing before I speak of Obamacare, there's another thing, tax cuts that a lot of people are starting to scratch their heads on, as in where is it?
I mean, there are no excuses.
Republicans of the White House, they have the House, they have the Senate.
The Democrats cannot stop the Republicans with votes.
They cannot stop them.
The Senate, the 60 vote thing, but they can't stop this.
During an interview with Fox Business Network, Maria Barcherromo, the new Treasury Secretary, Stephen Manuchin, said that the Obama, sorry, the Trump administration is focused on an aggressive timeline to produce a tax reform plan by August.
Now, wait a minute.
There's nothing aggressive about a tax reform plan being produced by August.
I'd like to remind you that Rinoldus Magnus signed the first phase of his massive tax cuts in August of 1981.
Eight and a half, nine months after being sworn in, Reagan signed his first wave of tax reform.
The Treasury Secretary said with Maria Barcherobo that they're focused on an aggressive timeline to produce a plan by August.
Well, okay, you produce a plan by August.
That's during the congressional recess, is it not?
Okay, so there's a congressional recess in August, and then they come back, and we all know they don't do much in the fall because, well, there's no election, but there will be, you know, going on.
This is a Labor Day break, and then there's the opening day of the NFL break, and then there's the first Thursday night of the NFL break.
Uh, and and then there's the Halloween break, uh, and the Thanksgiving break, then the Christmas break, and then the uh December got to get a budget done on the fly uh break and this kind of stuff.
So when are they gonna do this?
If the plan, is this what he means?
If it's If it's only the plan that shows up in August.
I mean, that's how I'm reading.
Minuchin said the administration's focused on an aggressive timeline to produce a tax reform plan by August.
Also from the Los Angeles Times among Republicans, Trump is more popular than congressional leaders amid strain between the Trump administration and the Republican controlled Congress.
The White House holds the high ground, a new survey says.
Among Republicans, Trump has greater popularity than the party's congressional leaders, asked specifically who they would trust if the two sides disagreed.
Most Republicans chose Trump over their party's leadership.
Now, this from the Pew Center for people in the press, the Pew Research Center.
As for Democrats, they are strongly in an oppositional mood, asked if they were worried that Democrats in Congress would go too far in opposing Trump or not go far enough.
More than 70% Democrats said they feared that the Democrats wouldn't go far enough in trying to stop Trump.
Only 20% said they worried that the party would go too far.
I don't think the Democrats have anything to fear here.
I don't think there are any restraints on these people at all.
I mean, they're already calling for impeachment.
They're already officially calling for impeachment.
One of the guys running for chairman of the Democrat National Committee, Keith Ellison, is already making the case for impeachment.
So I don't think the drive-bys are ever going to say that the Democrats have overreached.
That simply wouldn't be possible.
So it's early, and these are the things that are still shaking out, falling out.
The American conservative union, Donald Trump's cabinet is the most conservative in modern history.
President Trump picked the most conservative cabinet in modern history, surpassing the team, hand picked by former President Reagan.
This according to the American Conservative Union, these are the people that are putting on the uh the CPAC conference, which starts today and goes through Saturday.
The chairman of the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlap says the uh Washington tells the Washington examiner that Trump cabinet has a 91.52 conservative rating.
Reagan's had a 63.43.
Now, how are the never Trumpers going to deal with that?
No, seriously.
Trump is appointed a more conservative cabinet than even Reagan, according to the American Conservative Union.
Trump has already this business of getting rid of the federal ruling on transgenders using bathrooms and sending it back to the states.
That's exactly what conservatism would do with this issue.
And more detail on that as the program unfolds, because this what Obama did with this and the way he did it by the transgender bathroom law, it had much more to do than just bathrooms.
It was another one of these hideous things.
And it wasn't even done with an executive order, it wasn't even done with a piece of legislation.
He just sent letters out to school districts.
He sent letters out to the states.
He said, you are going to comply, or else it was just a letter demanding that anybody who wanted to use a bathroom of their choice, as long as they said they were transgender, you have to stand aside to let them.
And he put it under Title IX, which has been bastardized as well.
I mean, the way to look at that, Donald Trump just took a step to restore order to America's educational system.
Right.
Barack Obama improperly And very frequently usurped the power and the proper role of state and local school boards with his transgender bathroom directive, which was nothing more than a letter.
It's state and local taxes that pay for schools.
School boards are in charge of and maintain schools.
Like if you wanted, I could read you the role of school boards according to the Center for Public Education.
I won't, I won't bother with that, but what Obama did was bring chaos.
What Obama, and purposely so, because the Democrats at Obama were all about up-ending traditional American culture in any way they could.
It was part of transforming America away from the country as founded.
Certain laws would be unenforced, law enforcement would be neutered, separation of power would be consolidated, federalism ignored, and of course Obama governed against the will of the people.
And Trump's restoring order to all of this with his immigration requirements now.
Just, you know, all this is...
All Trump has done regarding immigration is simply go back to the 1965 immigration law that the Democrats demanded back then.
That was the law that Senator Kennedy demanded.
I'm going to remind you, we suspended all immigration in this country from 1921 to 1965.
And we did that so that all of the immigrants prior to 1921 could assimilate and become Americans.
Takes time.
And the Democrats began to get worried, constituencies and all, and they moved to reopen immigration in 1965, and we got a bill.
And those are the laws.
They've been updated, obviously, since 1965, but it's essentially that piece of legislation that's simply being reinforced now.
That the Democrats are having kittens about.
Much more detail on all of this as the program unfolds right before your very eyes and ears.
We continue in just a moment.
Trump had a meeting this morning at the White House with a slew of manufacturing CEOs.
I think it's still going on.
If it's not, it went on for hours.
Trump loves these meetings.
He gets a lot done at these meetings.
And in the part that was televised, you know who Jeff Immelt is?
He's the CEO of GE, who really, really, really, really, really got close in there and tight with Obama.
So at the beginning of the meeting, when the cameras are allowed in, Trump made Jeff Immelt describe the time he saw Trump hit a hole in one.
You tell him, Jeff, you tell him.
Trump in a Hall of One, you were in a group, you saw it, you saw you tell him how it happened.
And Trump said that before he hit the ball, he said, I'm the best golfer of all the rich people, and he swung into Hall of One.
Now I can attest to you that this kind of thing happens.
When you play golf with Trump, you hear about how great the golf course is and how it's better than anybody else's golf course, no matter what you're talking about.
Gusta, Pebble Beach, it doesn't matter.
Whatever Trump course you're playing on is better than Trump hits the ball 300 yards.
After he hits the drive, he turns you tell him, you tell him you saw it.
You tell him Trump's strong.
You tell him Trump can hit the ball 300 yards.
He said, by the way, you're pretty strong too.
I can't believe you hit the ball as far as you do.
On the first hole, Trump chipped in from 75 yards out.
You tell him you saw it.
I said, You got something in the ball.
It's your golf course.
If you got a magnet in that ball, and there's a magnet.
How dare you accuse.
No, that's a legitimate shot.
You tell him you saw it.
The whole round is that way.
Then he sees somebody he knows on another fairway.
It turns out, excuse me, the CEO of Macy's happened to be on a parallel fairway.
So Trump sees the guy, says, Okay, come over here, come over here.
And he introduces me to the CEO of Macy's.
And the CEO of Macy's walks away, goes back to his group.
Trump, you ever need a couple mil quick advertising?
Call a guy, he'll help you out.
Whatever you just tell him I told you to call.
And then at the end of the round, there's some guy walking around, and he says, see that guy, see, that's the richest man in Italy.
And he calls the guy over.
Introduces the richest man in Italy, then takes me out, show the guy's car to me.
I mean, it did for 18 holes.
It just never ends.
My point is I can believe the story.
Well, no, this when I played golf with us years ago, long before this current iteration of Trump, I'm just telling you the story where he makes ML tell the group that he saw Trump hit a hole of one.
I totally believe that it happened.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Democrats are searching for a new chairman of the Democrat National Committee.
I have been listening and watching and observing.
And I'm developing some ideas.
Democrats want to win again, obviously.
And I want to offer my admittedly free advice on what they should do if they want to.
Don't get frightened.
Don't get frightened.
I'll detail it.
We get back.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have Rushlin Ball the fastest three hours and the fastest week in media.
800-282-2882.
All right, the Democrats are, I think, giving us a preview, uh, a forerunner, if you will, of their agenda.
They're telling us what they're for, they're telling us what they're against.
They're very passionate about all of this.
And I think this needs to be memorialized.
In other words, I think we now see Democrats defining themselves.
Oh, before I forget this, Snerdley told me today that in his review of the news, he saw the word regulation replaced with protections a bunch of times, and he thanked me for pointing because he would have never noticed it had I not pointed it out yesterday.
Keep a sharp eye.
You know, government regulations here, the left is changing and the media is playing along.
The vernacular here, all regulations are now going to be called protections.
So that when Trump revises any or reduces or ends some regulations, they're going to be out there saying Trump is taking away your protections.
Trump is ending your protections.
And it's designed to panic low information dependence on uh on government for most of what they have.
So these little things that they do that they consistently do that become part of the daily narrative, and you don't even notice it.
And this is why I am pointing it out to you here at the onset of this new policy the left has implemented, and the media is all on board.
I predict that you're even going to find some government bureaucrats using the term protections when they're talking about regulations.
When they do, you are going to know that they are Democrat or liberal bureaucrats, and that they are held over from previous Democrat presidencies such as Clinton or Obama.
This this comes from the thinking that you get from guys like George Lackoff rhymes with.
This is the since they can't openly discuss their issues, since they can't be honest.
This is how they attempt to fool people and trick people into believing that liberal Democrats support things that they actually don't.
Now, again, I want to review from yesterday that I think one of the great things that's happening with all of this panic on the left is that they are unwittingly now exposing who they are.
They are not able to hide behind camouflage because they're in such a state of panic.
They thought they were going to win this thing in a landslide, even up to 9 p.m. on election night.
And they find themselves in the arena of ideas now, where they never purposely go, because they they can't win in the arena of ideas, because the American people, when they know that liberalism is what they're being pitched, they reject it.
A majority of Americans reject liberalism hands down, which is why the liberals always camouflage themselves and talk in terms that that believes their true ideological Identity.
And that's what I'm trying to assist them here.
I think the Democrats should take what they're doing now and make it their platform from 2018.
I think they should run on this rabid anger that their constituents are exhibiting.
I think it ought to be a major campaign plank.
The Democrat Party should openly fight for transgender bathrooms.
The Democrat Party, they should be honest.
They're being flushed out, so the Democrat Party should be running campaign commercials now that's that perfectly illustrate their support for anybody claiming to have a confused gender identity, to be able to go into whatever bathroom they want wherever your kids are in the name of fairness and tolerance.
They should just openly come out and admit that they support this.
They should then openly admit and campaign on the notion of higher taxes.
They should make it clear that they want to neuter and nationalize the police and penalize them.
They should campaign on continued, unaffordable, state-run health care.
They should by all means, I mean, since they're opposed to what Trump is doing here on immigration, the Democrats ought to go out and let everybody know that they're open borders.
Just, I mean, if this is what you're doing to stop Trump, don't you think you Democrats need to do this in your campaigns?
You're showing up at town halls, you're showing up on cable TV, and you're making it clear what you're for.
You are for open borders.
You are for transgenders being able to use whatever bathroom they want.
You are for high taxes.
You are for an expanding federal government.
You want people to be angry all the time.
That's how you get what you want in politics.
You need to come out and make it clear that you are for the continuation of unaffordable, unavailable health insurance and health care.
And don't forget sanctuary cities.
You Democrats need to make it unequivocally clear that you support and will expand sanctuary cities.
I say this because that's what you're doing by virtue of these protests every day.
This is what you're already making it clear you stand for.
And anybody who is opposed to any of this is your enemy.
So I think why don't you try it for once?
Why don't you try just running your congressional campaigns in 2018 on this platform?
Exactly what you're protesting.
Raise all the hell that you want.
The more the better.
Just continue running against the will of the people because that's what you're doing.
You're running against the will of the people.
You're protesting against the will of the people.
Truth be known, that's what they're actually protesting.
They think they're protesting Trump.
You know what they're protesting is you.
Who they really hate is you, you who voted for Trump.
That's who they're really angry at.
All of this has led them to the control of five states.
They are not even a national party.
Of course I want them to continue this.
Stay angry, stay loud, continue to get in our faces, continue to promise to restore a massive regulatory state, which is what really fascism is.
The issues that I'm talking about are front and center because President Trump has put them there.
We are in the arena of ideas.
Finally, the Democrats are putting their ideas out there.
People are once again able to see Democrats and liberals in their natural state.
They're able to see and hear what they're actually for.
This is so huge.
Do you know how many years it's been the Democrats have gotten away with camouflaging who they are and hiding behind the notion that they're the ones that are compassionate and tolerant and open?
And now look.
Look at what hatred does to you.
Hatred doesn't deliver anything positive.
Hatred doesn't expose anything positive.
And these people are bittered And they're consumed with hatred, and it is on display.
And it's happening in the arena of ideas.
We have you leftists and you people in the media.
We finally have you just where we want you.
Out in the open, being entirely honest about who you are, how much you hate, how delusioned and deranged you really are, and how much you really oppose America.
It's on full display now.
I think you should memorialize it and actually consist create a campaign with planks that actually consist of all of these things that you're protesting.
This is home field advantage for Republicans.
Well, it's home field advantage for Trump.
You know, where the Republicans are going to end up falling down on all this is still an open question.
Now, a couple of sound bites before we go to the break.
We have attempted to, and this, you know what, I better wait on this, because this is actually more just a couple of sound bites.
It's about the nature of the protests and who these people are and why they're there.
And the media, of course, is trying to portray all these protesters as primarily Republicans, angry at their own constituents for taking away health care.
It's Republicans that are showing up.
It's Republicans.
There's some Democrats too, but it's majority Republicans angry at the Republicans for taking away Obamacare.
That's what the media want you to believe.
I told you that Obama was not going to go away.
I told you that Obama was going to continue to portray himself as a player and that he would do anything he could to protect the unraveling of his ministry.
The only thing I was wrong about is how he would do it.
I fully expected Obama to be on TV by now.
Being interviewed by friends at CNN or wherever, and openly criticizing Trump and rallying.
It's not how he's doing it.
He's doing it with his community organizing groups.
Details.
Your phone calls are coming up after this.
Okay, now to immigration.
Department of Homeland Security to expedite deportation proceedings by not using judges.
This is in the Daily Caller today with immigration courts reaching a record backlog last year.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly ordered Monday this week, an illegal immigrants who may have been in the U.S. for less than two years should be allowed to be deported without a court hearing.
He said it's in the national interest to detain and expeditiously remove from the U.S. aliens apprehended at the border, who have been re ordered removed after consideration and denial of their claims for relief or protection and not go through judges.
Now, see, this is the loophole that the Obama administration discovered and publicized and which caused the flood of unaccompanied minors from countries not contingent to the U.S. That's countries other than Mexico like Ilta, but or places such as that.
And it's it's high time something was done about this loophole, which raises the question why hasn't the Republican controlled Congress closed it?
The loophole is an existing immigration law allows an immigration officer to order the removal of an illegal immigrant without a court hearing unless the illegal immigrant is an unaccompanied child or is applying for asylum.
That was the loophole.
I remember talking about this when we were flooded with these kids via the train rides from all parts of Central America.
That's what's been shut down here.
Simply by an act of the Department of Homeland Security.
It could have been done at any time.
But I you can't, you really can't erase or ignore the racial component when asking, why didn't the Republicans stop this?
They just were not going to.
And it's it's it's clear.
Uh Town Hall, this is Katie Pavlich.
This also is from uh, let's see, this is uh it's a couple days ago.
This is February 21st.
Trump administration strips funding for illegal aliens and reallocates the money to victims of their crimes.
I don't know how many people heard about this, but this is huge.
Speaking from the White House briefing room on Tuesday, Sean Spicer announced the development of a new immigration and customs enforcement office, focused on helping victims of crimes committed by illegals.
The office will also assist family members of victims and is part of President Trump's recent executive action to bolster enforcement of immigration laws already on the books.
John Kelly immediately ordered the director of ICE to reallocate any and all resources currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens to this new office.
And so that money is being reallocated to the families and victims of illegals who have committed crimes against them.
This could have been done at any time.
Well, Obama would have stepped in and tried to stop it.
Look, that's another thing.
I don't want to be too hard here on the Republicans.
What I'm trying to point out is that what Trump is doing could have been done.
Thank you.
You might say, well, it does require some courage to do it, and it does but well, he's got some courage because he's got a mandate because he was elected on premises just like this.
But the fact is he's doing it.
He is implementing the things he said he was going to implement.
And one of the things he spent a lot of time on was how the victims of crime committed by illegals are just ignored.
And much like no pressure was ever brought to bear on sanctuary cities.
And from Investors Business Daily, Democrats attacked Trump for enforcing their own immigration law.
This is what I meant earlier when I said that the deportation rules that the President announced this week, and the Department of Homeland Security announced, they've been greeted with the expected outrage from the usual suspects.
But since Wynne is enforcing the law a crime, in this case, what's being enforced is the 1965 immigration and nationality act, which was approved by 52 Democrats in the Senate and 202 Democrats in the House in a Democrat-controlled Congress was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat.
Now, it hasn't stopped today's Democrats from bellyaching and whining and moaning that the memo enforce it's a six-page memo.
What why do you need six pages to simply say the law of the United States from this day forward is the law of the United States?
The law of the United States from this day forward shall be enforced as the law.
It took six pages to say that.
Today's Democrats are bellyaching, caterwalling about the memo as obscene and unamerican when it is actually Democrat legislation from 1965.
That is being enforced.
That's how far off the reservation all of this has gotten.
This isn't even, when you get down to it, this is not even really new restrictions yet.
This is just phase one enforcing existing law.
Border patrol agents are energized, they're enthused, they're finally no longer called rogue when they go out and do their jobs.
And this is causing all kinds of crazy protests at these Republican town halls as well.
Now, what I'm going to go back and do in the next hour, we're going to go back and we're going to listen to the Project Veritas audio of Robert Kramer, husband of Democrat Congresswoman Jan Chikowski admitting that the Hillary Clinton campaign hired him to hire people to cause disruptions at Trump campaign rallies.
Just to reinforce the evidence that this is what's happening now as well.
You know, on this business of protections becoming a new word for regulations.
If the left wants to do that, and they're gonna do it, here's the right way to characterize it.
It is President Trump who is restoring protections.
President Trump restoring protections for women and girls in bathrooms and to schools.
It is President Trump doing the protecting.
It is President Trump issuing the protections.
Just take their own terminology and throw it back at them.
Washington Post has hired John Podesta as a columnist.
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