RUSH: Congressman Darrell Issa from California. Congressman, welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
ISSA: Rush, thanks for the opportunity to clarify what a half hour of an interview turns into when it turns into one bullet line by an author.
RUSH: Let me tell you what it says. The whole story is about you guys wanting to shut down government and how that won’t work. It’s all about how Republicans really, in private, realize they’re going to have to compromise with Obama and you get quoted: ‘It’s pretty clear the American people expect us to use the existing gridlock to create compromise to advance their agenda that way. They want us to come together with the administration after we agree to disagree.’ That’s what they quote you as saying.
ISSA: Well, certainly to me, we’re going to have to fund our military, we’re going to have to make sure that we have an active role in overseeing this president in so many ways that he has, up until now, just ignored. He’s told his own party, don’t look, and he’s told my party that we have no right to see. So it’s going to be acrimonious, there’s no question, but it’s also going to be an opportunity to get this country in the right direction again. You know, when we ran the table, having the House, the Senate, the White House, we still didn’t achieve our Republican principles to a level that I’m satisfied with, and I don’t expect this president to be a born-again Republican, but I certainly would like him to recognize that he’s been running us into ruin.
RUSH: Well, do you expect him to do that? Do you expect the president to come to you and say, ‘Okay, you know, you guys won and I lost and I guess the American people are rejecting me. I guess I’m going to have to work with you.’ Do you expect him to do that?
ISSA: No. I expect him to take a little while to figure out that the Presidential Records Act means they can no longer use Google to do politicking inside the White House in violation of the law. They can no longer ignore the Hatch Act violations they’ve been doing. They can no longer do Sestak, Romanoff type deals with federal taxpayers’ dollars. I expect those changes to happen. And, you know, there will be a certain degree of gridlock as the president adjusts to the fact that he has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times. He has ignored the very laws that he said were so vital when he was a senator. And, you know, he’s going to have to come back a different direction. Now, at the end of the day John Boehner is going to have to figure out how we have a budget and appropriations. In my case, I head the committee that’s all about making sure that the administration obeys the law, that waste, fraud, and abuse not be tolerated, which obviously is not the case now, but that’s the change that’s going to happen from my position. I’m looking forward to it.
RUSH: Let me explain to you why people were calling your office all upset. The people that are going to secure the Republican victory look at Barack Obama as somebody who’s destroying their country. Not somebody to be compromised with, somebody who needs to be stopped. They know that you’re not going to have the ability to get him to agree with your legislation. You’re not going to be able to override his vetoes. But the idea that you’re gonna end up working with him is anathema. People want this man stopped. That’s why this profound turnout is going to happen. The idea that, you know, work with him on a budget, we want him defeated, and nobody expects him to move in your direction. We expect him to try to get around you with executive orders, to try to ignore you to further his agenda, however he has to, to continue doing what he’s doing to the country and that’s basically restructuring it and destroying the private sector, destroying the job-creating sector, and people are gonna elect you in droves and record numbers to stop that.
ISSA: Well, and we’re going to stop it. First we stop Nancy Pelosi from being Speaker, which allows us to say nothing shall come to the House floor unless in fact it has Republican principles behind it, but even more so, you hit the nail on the head, this president’s gonna try to use executive orders, he’s gonna extend past it. My committee’s number one responsibility is to make sure that the administration obeys its laws. Government oversight is going to be vigorous, I’m gonna increase the number of committees, and we’re go — subcommittees, and we’re going to make sure that this administration starts playing by the rules. We’re also gonna take on some of the things that have probably legitimately been dragging on since the last administration. You know, when we went after Sestak, we had people from the Bush administration tell us, ‘Well, that’s always happened.’ Well, it’s not going to happen on my watch when we get the majority. It’s gotta stop. American taxpayer dollars — and I realize there’s nondiscretionary problems, but the discretionary dollars are being used to corrupt America’s basic direction and values. So that is what we’re going to do. There’s going to be no compromise on moving to Republican principles. There’s certainly going to be no compromise on how the House is run. We’ve had four years of Nancy Pelosi having only closed rules and no debate, and John Boehner has promised open debate. But I’ll tell you —
RUSH: Wait, congressman, congressman, the people don’t care about how the House runs. They don’t care about open debate. They care about stopping Obama and the Democrats! They care about saving the country! They don’t care if Obama goes to jail! They don’t care if Axelrod goes to jail. They want them stopped. They want them to have no power. They’re not saying, ‘Let’s talk about how to do it in a way where we both get what we want.’ They want Obama stopped. They want to save their country. They don’t care what Boehner is going to do with the rules of the House. They don’t care how they’re gonna get even with Pelosi. They don’t care that Pelosi isn’t going to be there. It’s Obama and the Democrats in toto stopped. It’s not more complicated than that.
ISSA: And, Rush, we will stop them. We haven’t had the power to stop them. But we will stop them. And the fact is we’ve gotta be different than we were the last time. When I led the charge against TARP I was threatened six ways from Sunday because it was the Bush administration that wanted that large amount of walking-around money —
RUSH: Right.
ISSA: — based on things they said they were going to do they didn’t do. So it’s not just stopping Obama, which is critical. It’s stopping a Washington that in some cases was wrong-minded before Obama got there.
RUSH: Well, okay.
ISSA: So we’ve got a bigger job than that.
RUSH: Exactly right. You could phrase it a bunch of different ways, but it’s very fundamental and simple. What the American people see the Democrats doing and, in fact, all of the ruling class of Washington doing is taking away their opportunity for fiscal responsibility, economic prosperity, and turning that over to the government. They want that stopped and that’s what they think electing Republicans will accomplish. I’m glad you called. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this. Sadly out of time. Congressman Darrell Issa, California.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Thanks again to Congressman Issa for calling to explain or clarify this point about compromise. Let me try to explain this a different way ’cause it was very telling when Congressman Issa said, (paraphrasing) ‘Oh, no, we’re gonna change the way things are done. Boehner is going to open up the House. We’re going to have the right rules in the House. Whereas Pelosi hasn’t allowed debate to shut us out, we’re gonna allow –‘ we don’t want debate. We wouldn’t mind if we shut the Democrats out like they’ve shut us out. We’re going to have to stop ’em. This is serious. We’re talking about the United States of America, not Washington, the political process, and how things happen there. We’re talking about the country. We’d be fine if there wasn’t any debate. We win, you lose, we’re changing things. That’s the debate. It’s over with. We got nothing to debate you with. You’re wrong, pure and simple. I don’t want to hear how you only want to destroy the country in ten years instead of 25. I don’t want to hear this. We will have won.
The Tea Party sees that the government is metastasizing. They see that it’s gonna kill the country. They want it stopped and then reversed. They don’t want to hear about ways to slow down and rules changes and all this kind of stuff. It’s really not all that complicated: stop ’em. I know a lot of people say, ‘We can’t stop ’em, Rush.’ Elected Republicans will say, ‘We’re not going to have the power because Obama will be able to override our veto.’ We all understand that. But you have to start trying. This is about 2012 and beyond. This is about validating why you were elected in the first place. The effort has got to be made to stop this. We are not and don’t want to become a socialist country. Keep educating, keep explaining why you won, let us know you know why you won, and how you’re gonna keep doing things to secure victory in 2012 and 2014, 2016, and beyond, because that’s what it’s going to take.