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Feb. 23, 2017 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:46
February 23, 2017, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Okay, have sound bites.
Let's see what it's 20 and 21 standing by.
Greetings, my friends.
Welcome back.
Great to have you.
El Rushbow behind the Golden EIB microphone.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have the telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address El Rushbo and EIBnet.us.
I think it's important to keep in mind something that's one.
By the way, I am not assuming the role of apologist here.
I don't want anybody mischaracterizing what I'm doing here with what I'm going to say next.
I think what we should all try and remember is that Trump is about blowing up Washington as it exists.
He's about upsetting the way it's always been done, including timelines, including the order in which things are done, and even how.
I think one of the reasons that Trump won the election is precisely because he represented everything but what happens in Washington and how it happens.
He was sent there, and make no mistake about this, he was sent there with an agenda, with a mandate to go to Washington as an outsider and blow it up, clean it up, straighten it up, however you want to characterize it.
And I was just during the top of the hour break.
I was watching a little bit of Priebus and Bannon.
By the way, Priebus is still alive.
They're on the stage at CPAC.
And Bannon, you know, Matt Schlapp is asking him questions.
What are the three most noteworthy things you think Trump has done?
And Bannon's third thing that he mentioned was that we are going to destroy the administrative state, meaning the deep state, meaning this unelected bureaucracy that just churns out regulations and rules.
They're not elected.
None of what they do is sanctioned by statutory law.
They just issue regulations on how you can live your life with your backyard if it's environmental, or they issue regulations on things you have to do if you want to start a business.
Things are never passed in Congress.
And he said that one of the primary objectives we've got, in addition to reestablishing our national sovereignty and restoring America's economic might and so forth, and he referred to it as economic nationalism, is blowing up the administrative state.
None of this can happen inside the first month.
Well, not none of it.
It all can't happen in the first month.
And in fact, you can't even make your first move on all of it in one month.
Now, if you look at what's happening in Washington and say on Capitol Hill, you know, the Democrats are filibustering everything.
Trump still does not have every cabinet member approved.
It's going to happen.
They can't stop it forever, but they are doing what they can to stop Trump as best they can with the parliamentary rules that they've got.
And again, this is not apologizing or even excusing, but I don't think Trump is operating on what you would call Washington time.
And by that, I mean, we're talking tax cuts, and we're comparing when Reagan got his done.
Reagan's first wave of tax cuts were signed into law in August of his first year.
And people are saying, well, if Trump doesn't get it done by then, it's over because then the next year comes and that becomes a campaign year and we've got people running for reelection and they want to make voters mad.
I think Trump is not looking at things in the standard, ordinary, everyday world of politics.
That's what he's about, is blowing that up.
And I mean this euphemistically.
I don't doubt if Trump said that he's going to have a tax cut plan, he's going to have a tax cut plan and he's going to announce it.
And if he has a plan to replace Obamacare, it's going to happen.
And he's going to do it no matter what the Republicans in Congress are doing.
He's going to get it and he's not going to defer to them.
But he's going to do it on his time.
He's going to do it in combination with everything else that he's doing.
And so far, everything Trump said that he was going to do, he's done.
And it's been a remarkable amount of things that have taken place in just the first month.
Do you think any other Republican would have rolled back these so-called regulations on transgender bathrooms?
Do you think any other Republican would have actually said it's law and order again in America and ICE and Border Patrol enforce the law?
You think any other Republican would have done that?
Okay, maybe Cruz, maybe Cruz, true.
But I mean, there's nobody on Capitol Hill that would have done it.
My point is that there are amazing achievements that have already happened and they continue to happen and they're happening within an atmosphere of it appearing that everybody's opposed to Trump and everybody isn't.
Vast majority of people are still in favor of Trump, are applauding Trump and eagerly awaiting Trump to do even more.
But the media is creating this narrative, if you will, and this picture, this series of pictures, this overall image that Trump is stalled, that everybody's opposing him, that his agenda is backlogged.
And guess what?
They are attributing this to all of the protesters that are out there.
Trump is being stopped by.
None of this is true.
The media is lying.
They're reporting things that aren't true.
They're reporting circumstances, situations, and facts that are not true.
And while all of that's happening, Trump just keeps chugging down the tracks, doing things that he said he was going to do.
And you can tell how successful he's being because the left and the media are still running around acting like they're in an unhinged panic.
They want you to believe that Trump has been stalled and derailed, but they're not acting that way.
They're not celebrating anything.
They are continuing to present themselves and everybody else as this core opposition and making it look like Trump can't get anything done, but he is.
And I think this speech that he's got to a joint session of Congress next Tuesday holds a lot of potential.
But the bottom line is this.
Here's another thing that I think of.
This is the primary way that I think Donald Trump differs from virtually everybody else in politics.
After studying this for as many years as I have, I am convinced, inalterably convinced, that the vast majority of Washington politicians are indeed prisoners to media.
I think, particularly on the Republican side, the media has had the power to derail Republican agendas, stop Republican initiatives, and freeze Republican behavior.
I have concluded that the media is the number one obstacle because of the success they have.
The people in Washington, media is every bit as big a part of the establishment as anybody else is.
Everybody in Washington, politics, you want to be loved, you want to be liked, you want good press.
And I think people tailor what they say and what they do in accordance with how they are reported on.
There are exceptions to this, of course.
And I think this is one of the ways that the Republicans have been stalled over so many years is simply with the onslaught, never-ending, blanket, negative media coverage.
And I don't think anything like that is going to stop Donald Trump.
I don't think he's intimidated by it.
I don't think he's derailed by it.
I don't think that he is in any way affected by it.
He's going to do what he thinks needs to be done, whether we agree with some of it or not.
He's going to do it.
And whatever the media is caterwauling about is not going to stop him.
They have grown used to being able.
As I've discussed all week, there's a blueprint for taking out Republican politicians.
There's a playbook on it.
There's a way you can do it.
And the media succeeds more often than not.
If they want to stop a Republican career dead in its tracks, they can do it.
If they want to paralyze a Republican, if they want to derail a Republican agenda or agenda item, they have been able to do it over the years.
I don't think any of this works on Trump.
And I think this is one of the things really frustrating the media is because when they're unable to control what happens in Washington, that's when they get panicked about their own lack of influence.
And then they ratchet up the unhinged behavior, which is where we are right now.
That's what we are essentially living and seeing now.
But I don't think Trump is in any way like yours.
Now, we all know Trump as a human who loves to be loved.
And I think Trump probably thought and hoped there'd be a little bit more national unity already by now than there is.
But the fact that there isn't isn't going to stop him.
And I'll tell you this.
I don't think Donald Trump is ever going to blame himself because he's not going to stop attempting to do what he was elected to do.
He's not a politician.
He doesn't live and die by the same techniques that politicians do.
He doesn't get up with the same mindset of politicians.
And when we're studying politics and watching Washington, which is politics, it's hard to remember that Trump is not of that world.
We assume that anybody entering it is going to become of that world and be sucked in by it and maybe even corrupted by it.
But I think the thing to keep in mind with Trump is that's not what is happening and probably will not.
He's just a different animal, a different ball of wax.
And he's in his office at the White House or wherever he is, and he's plotting and calculating and strategizing and moving things forward.
And outside that bubble is all the usual garbage that goes on in Washington that has in the past affected elected officials, been able to stop them, put the brakes on, what have you.
Not with Trump.
So there's no Trump time.
So even if tax cuts don't happen by April, not saying that they don't want them to.
But I don't think Trump's doing things by virtue of the timetable, per se.
I'm sure he wants to do as much as he can as soon as he can, but he doesn't have a timetable that says, well, if I don't get it done by such and such a time, I have to give up on it and move to something else.
I don't think that's the case.
But we'll see.
It won't be long before we find out all of this, whether any of my opining here is relevant or not.
I think I'm pretty much on the money.
Brief time out.
We will continue.
More of your phone calls when we get back.
Now, I heard Reince Priebus answer a question from Matt Schlapp.
Matt Schlapp is a guy running CPAC, the American Conservative Union.
He asked him if he thought that the opposition to Trump would simmer down over time.
And he said he thought it would, which is, I think, a natural thing for Chief of Staff and former chairman of the Republican National Committee to say as a party man.
I don't think that at all.
I think it's going to continue this way.
I don't think the press is going to slow down ever.
I don't think the press can ever peacefully coexist with Trump.
I don't think it's going to stay like it is or get worse.
The real question to me is, can the left and all of this bought and paid for opposition maintain itself?
Because that's what the press feeds off of.
The left and their bought and paid for opposition, such as showing up at town halls or just showing up in the streets on random days in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia to make it look like they're just generally angry.
That's what allows the media to join the fray of anti-Trumpism.
And if that stuff ever, if they run out of money, if they figure it's money being wasted, if they run out of energy, or if they're exposed for the frauds they are, then the media would have to carry this anti-Trumpism more on their own shoulders.
And I think they will.
I think everybody involved in this on both sides probably thinks this is ballgame for who's going to win in what kind of country we're going to have.
So it's it, I don't, I would love for Priebus to be right about this.
I just don't think that's going to be the case.
Here's Joni or Tony.
Let me put my glass on.
Joni in Hannah, Indiana.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
How are you?
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Glad first-time caller.
Glad to be on.
Thank you.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, I'm an intersex individual, but I'm a conservative, very conservative.
Let's see.
What is an intersex individual?
I was born in both.
I was born.
It used to be called hermaphrodite.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah, my birth certificate has no gender on it.
I see.
Gotcha.
Oh, okay, yeah.
I guess the first thing I need to say is the Democratic Party has always been segregated and they're always willing.
They're just doing a little bit differently now than they did before the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1957, I believe, under Eisenhower, the Democrats blocked the first Civil Rights Amendment.
In the 60s, once they figured out they were on the losing end, they co-opted it.
Johnson got it pushed through, and then they put a landmine in it called Affirmative Action.
Am I correct?
Well, friend, they call it Great Society and then the War on Poverty, and they needed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required a greater percentage of Republican senators voting for it to pass than Democrats.
But you're right.
Democrats were the segregationists back then.
57 through 64.
There's no question.
I mean, they were the governor standing in the doors, not letting African Americans in the universities.
The Lester Maddoxes, the George Wallacees, that, yeah, you're right.
Okay, well, that's what they're trying to do now with transgender issues because that's all they know how to do.
Divide and conquer.
You know, they made a big stretch by trying to use Title IX in the field to do it.
And the only thing that was going to do was instill fear on both sides because that's what they live and breathe, fear.
So here, let me, since you bring this up, here's what actually happened.
In May of 2016, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education together issued a letter.
It's all it was, was a letter.
And it expanded the scope of Title IX, and it required that federally funded schools, which is virtually every school from kindergarten to college, treat a student's chosen gender identity as their sex.
It was just a letter, but it carried with it a force mandate because they put it into Title IX, which meant it had ramifications way beyond bathrooms.
Right.
And that was a stretch even trying to put it under Title IX.
You know, we can argue whether or not transgenderism is choice or not.
And to be honest, I'm afraid that the left is turning it into a fad, and they're going to end up with the same results that Dr. Money had the other way, you know, his theory of nurture over nature, which caused a lot of people who end up as adults committing suicide.
That is a major concern of mine.
Right.
You know, I mean, horrific damage has been done.
You know, over the years, they've tried everything to deal with gender dysphoria.
You know, tell the child, no, no, no, no, and the child still grows up.
You know, and the real question is why?
The real question, really, why do Democrats care about this?
I mean, you put it, what is the political win-win here?
What's the political benefit of coming in and using Title IX to open up bathrooms to anybody and everybody who claims to have a conflicted gender identity?
Why in the world?
Well, we're not talking about enough people here to sway any election.
Not a local election, not a state election, not a national.
So what's going on?
What is this?
And the truth is that it goes way beyond bathrooms, folks.
The whole point, and because it was not, they put it on Title IX because this then had ramifications on such things as free speech.
You start condemning this, they can get you for that.
And then they were altering science.
All of a sudden, they declared that just with a letter, that transgenderism was a scientific confirmation of something, which makes it harder and harder to oppose politically.
And then they used it to go into religious liberty and expanding the size of government.
These are the people always say keep the government out of our bedrooms.
And now the same people put the government in the public bathrooms.
It was about amassing power.
By the way, something needs to be said on the Trump administration rescinding this bathroom silliness.
It would not have happened without Jeff Sessions.
Know who fought it?
Betsy DeVos, who is the new education, because remember, this was done, combination of Department of Justice and Department of Education.
They jointly signed the letter that went out to everybody that mandated that bathrooms become open to any transgender that wants to use whichever bathroom they want.
Okay.
So Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education, fought this.
And she told Trump that she was not comfortable doing this.
She was nervous here.
Jeff Sessions made it happen.
Jeff Sessions, I don't know if he overrode her or if he persuaded her.
But when it came to Trump, Trump listened to Jeff Sessions on this, and that's why this happened.
And Jeff Sessions, as the Attorney General, is huge.
Ongoing is going to be huge.
Just one example of Trump's fantastic cabinet.
Now, at CPAC today, there were some governors that spoke.
Doug Docey of Arizona, Sam Brownback of Texas, Scott Walker, Wisconsin, and Matt Bevan of Kentucky.
And they had a message.
What did I say?
I listened, Kent.
I didn't say Texas.
I know Brownback's in Kansas.
Did I say Texas?
Oh, for crying out loud.
I didn't say Texas.
Texas is not even on this page.
All right.
Doug Docey from Alaska, Sam Brownback from Texas, Scott Walker from New York, and Matt Bevan of Hawaii.
Those governors.
Anyway, you know what their message was?
They said, you people here at conservatism at CPAC, get off your chairs and get out there.
You can't just rely on the fact that we got a Republican in the White House and Republicans running Congress.
Have you seen what the left is doing?
You have got to get out there and maintain every bit the energy you had during the campaign.
That's what they said.
Here's Brownback, governor of Texas.
I know it's Kansas.
I'm just having a game here with Mr. Snerdley.
He said, you have got to match the energy on the left with the energy from the right.
We got to push.
We got to push aggressively.
There's a lot of motivation out there.
We've got to match it side to side.
Scott Walker said the same thing.
It says a unique opportunity in time to have transformational change.
We can't just be satisfied with saying we have a Republican in the White House, Republican majorities in Washington and the States.
The thing is, this is not what conservatives do.
Republicans do.
They don't go to the protest march.
They've got jobs.
And we don't hire protesters.
The left does.
Reminder on that coming up.
Let's go back to the grooveyard of forgotten soundbites.
October 17th, 2016, the Project Veritas website, founder James O'Keefe released a secret video entitled Rigging the Election, which investigated Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC inciting violence at Trump's campaign rallies.
We have two soundbites here.
In this secret video, Democracy Partners founder and partner Bob Kramer, who again, the husband of Democrat Congresswoman Jan Schaikowski.
This guy Kramer visited the White House during Obama's eight years, 300 and some odd times.
52 or 53 of those times, this guy Kramer met personally with Obama.
You were going to hear this guy brag and admit how he hires and pays people to show up and disrupt Trump rallies.
And you're going to hear him say, who hired him to do this?
We have an unidentified female Project Veritas journalist.
They pulled a sting on these guys.
They walked in, they convinced them that they were legitimate news organizations seeking to do a profile on the great work that the group did.
And here is what it sounded like.
Hillary is aware of all the work that you guys do, I hope.
The campaign is fully educated.
And then they tell Hillary what's going on.
Well, I mean, Hillary knows shit.
Yeah.
I'm not suggesting we wait around.
We need to start this right away.
Okay.
Every one of these trucks.
Okay.
Of course, of course.
The campaign's fully in on it.
And then they tell Hillary, like, what's going on?
Kramer says, well, I mean, Hillary knows through the chain of command what's going on.
I'm not suggesting we wait around.
We need to start this stuff right away, meaning hiring people and disrupting Trump rallies.
We don't wait for them to call us, but we tell them what we're doing.
They're hiring us.
Here is the next soundbite here that adds a little bit more to this.
In the end, it was the candidate Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground.
So, by God, we will get ducks on the ground.
Don't repeat that statement.
In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president, who wanted ducks on the ground.
So, by God, we'll get ducks on the ground.
Don't repeat that to anybody.
He admitted that the Hillary Clinton campaign was hiring him to go hire protesters.
It was in the same video.
He admitted that he pays them $1,500 a day.
And shortly after these videos, these tapes were released, he resigned.
He resigned from this group.
He was disgraced because the jig was up.
What they did was to go to Trump rallies and pretend to be Trump supporters.
They were wearing Trump supporter t-shirts, and they started beating up on people.
They started raising hell.
In Chicago, they prevented a Trump rally.
Trump called it off because of how bad it was reputed to be.
It was all the Hillary Clinton people.
And I maintain to you that it's still happening.
We know that it's happening now from an Obama group called Organizing for Action.
They are the ones doing what Kramer did.
And many of the people showing up at Republican town halls are paid Democrat protesters.
Many of the people in the streets in the airports, when Trump announced the travel ban, did you ever stop to think how it can be?
Trump announces a travel ban, and within minutes, there are thousands of people at JFK and LAX.
We found out that those people had been hired in November, shortly after the election, and they were put on call.
They were just waiting to get the action order.
Somebody was waiting to find out when Trump did anything that these people thought it was worthy of mobilizing, and that was the travel ban.
Trump authorizes the travel ban.
These people got the phone call, they flooded the airports, and they're now flooding Republican town halls.
Now, don't misunderstand.
I'm not saying every damn one of them, because there's some Republicans in there that are unhappy that Republicans are moving so slow.
But much of this is illegitimate.
Much of this is not organic.
Much of this is people holding pre-made, manufactured, fill-in-the-blank signs.
And if you take them aside and start talking to them, they can't tell you one issue that they're there about.
All they can do is cite things like, Trump's a fascism, infascism, infascism, Trump's a fascist, Trump's this, Trump's a racist, Trump's a B. That's all they can do.
They don't know why they're there other than to cause trouble.
The Obama organization organizing for action, 250 offices across the country, planning, funding, fundraising.
It's a new version of Organizing for America, which was the same group that Obama used to do this kind of thing while he was president.
Quick time out.
We have much more.
When we get back, don't go away, folks.
Here's Mark in Manhattan.
Mark, I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Yes.
Hi, Rush.
I just wanted to point out that when the court ruled against the executive order, they cited the tech companies as injured parties because they couldn't bring in their H-1B visa people.
And I just want to point out that as a newly minted Ph.D., the real...
Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute.
Hold on.
Are you talking about the travel ban?
Yes, exactly.
You're talking about the Seattle judge and then the Ninth Circuit Court.
Okay, okay.
And I think they did mention that tech companies couldn't bring in foreign employees.
And, you know, the real injured, they're taking these H-1B visa people.
That's exactly right.
That is the biggest crock.
It's the biggest phony.
Besides, it's nothing to do with the law.
Exactly.
Those courts have still not ruled on the law, which they couldn't because the law is crystal clear.
Trump has the power by proclamation to do what he did.
They use such nefarious things.
Well, you know what?
The president said that he wanted to ban all Muslims during the campaign.
That's what the Seattle judge said.
So we have to take that into account.
No, you don't take that into account.
But your point about the H-1B visas is exactly right.
These tech companies whining and moaning, we can't get our employees in.
Well, all you're doing with them is replacing Americans, and you're paying the H-1B people half or less what you're paying the Americans.
Right, and the H-1C visit people can't look for another job.
And I'm an unemployed THC myself.
Well, that's what, and at Disney, the employees had to train their H-1B replacements.
Yeah, that's a strawdog argument.
That was just, our poor tech companies can't get our really high-qualified foreign workers in.
Well, then you won't be able to fire an American in the process.
How about that?
But let me tell you, there's something else going on out there.
Like this story, I have it right here.
Why Trump's immigration crackdown could sink U.S. home prices.
And I just got another, an email.
Immigration policies are destroying the Arizona economy.
This is all a crock, folks.
This is all BS.
This is the drive-bys in the left trying to make you think that what Trump is doing is damaging the economy by getting rid of legitimate, hardworking people, blah, blah, blah.
This is first being enforced on criminals.
Criminal illegals.
It's being enforced on criminals, those who have been convicted, who might be convicted, who might be charged, who have been charged.
That's who's being deported first.
But you be on the lookout for this.
Trump's immigration policy is destroying the Arizona economy.
They're destroying home prices.
It's all a crock, as much in the media today is.
Open line Friday tomorrow, my friends.
And we will see you then back.
And remember, Friday, you can call and talk about anything you want.
It doesn't have to be all of this stuff.
So have at it.
Thanks for being with us today.
As always, it is always appreciated.
And I look forward to the next day eagerly, every day.
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