RUSH: Senator McCain this afternoon was on Fox News Channel’s Happening Now. Jon Scott talked to him. He said, “Senator, you’re confident that with the Corker-Hoeven amendment, that this thing is gonna have the support in the Senate to pass. But what about the House, Senator? What are you thinking about its prospects over there?”

MCCAIN: This legislation already had enough votes — like 60 or 61 — but we need as many as possible. We’re gonna have to do a job of convincing a lot of people, and we’re gonna have to enlist the help of the business community that we supposedly represent, we Republicans. Because the business community is solidly behind this legislation because they know how badly it’s needed for America. We’re gonna have to enlist a lot of forces including our evangelical community who’s very supportive as well.

RUSH: Then why are you gonna have to recruit ’em? Why you have to “enlist” them if they already support it? By the way, “the help of the business community that we supposedly represent, we Republicans, ’cause the business community is solidly behind this.” Yeah, we know. “Because the business community knows how badly it’s needed for America.” Yeah, right. Yeah. We know. I want to cut to the chase on all of this, because frankly, all of this is a distraction. If they had the 60 votes, they’d be voting right now.

This business of outreach? They didn’t wait when they found the 60 votes for Obamacare, did they? When they had the 60 votes for Obama, they went in there to vote. If it was two o’clock in the morning, they were gonna go in there and pass the thing. Let’s cut to the chase. Here’s the fundamental point. This is why it doesn’t matter what Obama says, and it doesn’t matter what Senator McCain says, and it doesn’t matter what amendment is offered, and it doesn’t matter what Senator Rubio says.

The American people don’t want this, and they don’t want it for intelligent, wise, substantive reasons. The 1986 amnesty bill was called Simpson-Mazzoli. The 1986 law required Congress to secure the border, and it didn’t. In 1986, virtually everything being promised and assured now was promised and assured then, and it didn’t happen. That’s why we’re back here again doing this all over again, because what they promised and what they assured us about securing the border and closing it down didn’t happen.

There was a law in 2006, and we talked about this a bunch of points in time previously this week. A 2006 law requires Congress to build 700 miles of fences. They built 36 miles and they stopped. There have been amendments offered to finish the job. It’s already the law! It isn’t being enforced. So amendments have been offered in the past two weeks to finish the job of building the fence. The amendments have failed.

The American people are not stupid. The American people can see that Republicans and Democrats, that Washington, does not want to shut down illegal immigration. That’s really the nub of this. Senator Rubio — and I don’t mean to pick on him. All of them: McCain, Graham, Schumer. Any of them can say anything. They can offer any amendment. Corker-Hoeven, whatever.

But it is patently obvious by virtue of their actions and their votes (forget their words ’cause those don’t matter) that they don’t want to stop illegal immigration. And the purpose of this legislation is not to stop it. Washington simply doesn’t want to curtail the flow of illegal, undocumented Democrats crossing the border. We’ve had Democrats and Republicans in charge of Congress, and it never mattered which party was in charge when this issue came up.

It never mattered. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have secured the border. The idea that now that we have an amendment, the Hoeven-Corker amendment, it’s done? Now another amendment! We had a fence amendment or two. We’ve had any number of other amendments. Now we got the Hoeven-Corker amendment that’s gonna do that, but it won’t. It will not secure the border prior to eliminating the flow of illegal aliens across the border.

It will not do that prior to eliminating the illegal reference to aliens who are here in violation of laws. It’s just another way of doing the same thing. I heard what Corker just said (and you did, too). They don’t get their green card until all these new border agents are “in place.” He didn’t say, “They won’t get their green card until the border agents are making sure that no illegals get in the country.” The Cornyn amendment (voted down, tabled) would have required a 90% apprehension trigger.

We could not grant legal status, we couldn’t put them on pathway, we couldn’t give them green cards until 90% of the flow of illegals were stopped. That was defeated. Washington does not want to stop illegal immigration. That’s what all of this boils down to, and you know it and I know it, and that’s why there is no trust. That is the umbrella under which all of this is happening. A vast majority of the American people simply do not trust Washington to fix this problem.

A vast majority of the American people do not think Washington wants to fix the problem. In fact, it’s not a matter of opinion; it’s fact. Washington does not want to stem the flow of illegal citizens. If you don’t like the word, say, “They don’t want to stem the flow of people coming here against the law.” We simply do not trust Congress, we do not trust the president to do this. They’ve lost our trust. It’s that simple, folks.

Even now, even now, when we say, “Secure the border and then we can discuss the rest,” they say, “No,” and they vote down amendments that would do exactly that. They don’t want to secure the border. They’re offering amendments, and they’re making statements to make us think they want to secure the border. They offer amendments and they make statements to make us think that they hear us. But every time something with teeth is actually proposed — a fence, 90% trigger on apprehension, you name it — it goes down in flames.

So we don’t believe them.

One other point: Just because one member of Congress or 60 members of the Senate say that this will secure the border, we have a president, and we have courts, and all this is gonna have to be enforced and upheld by them — and we don’t trust them, either. They are not enforcing the law. They are not enforcing existing law; they’re not gonna enforce new law. That’s what we think, because they are not enforcing the law now. We do not trust them.

So members of Congress, members of the House can say and promise anything. We have a president and we have courts who don’t care what the law says. Has President Obama shown any evidence of fidelity to existing immigration law? The answer is no. The president could secure the border today. We have law on the books — we have laws, plural, on the books — that would secure the border. We have laws permitting certain behavior by Border Patrol agents and other technology to secure the border.

It could be done today.

They do not want to secure the border. They don’t want to stem the flow of people entering this country illegally. The Supreme Court? “Well, we can always count on them, Rush.” Well, the Supreme Court ruled that the president has discretion to ignore the law, and the states can’t do anything about it. Hello, Arizona. Why should we support the legalization and the importation of 46 million foreigners when Congress will not even first secure the border?

That once again tells us just to trust them. That border could be shut down today. It could be. If not fully, border security could be ratcheted up far more than it is today without any new law, just the enforcement of current law. The CBO projects 46 million foreigners in the next 20 years. The CBO says that even if this law is signed into law, the inflow of foreigners to the country illegally will be in the 75% of current level range.

It really isn’t any more complicated than this: Washington does not want to secure the border. They won’t even secure the border! They won’t support legislation that would really do that before the importation of 46 million foreigners. Don’t you think 46 million illegals is enough to satisfy whatever desire exists for them? Isn’t 46 million enough? Whatever Big Business wants ’em for, whatever the Democrats want them for, whatever the Republicans want them for, isn’t 46 million enough?

Couldn’t we say, couldn’t they say, “Okay, we’ll secure the border. We’ll do that, and then we’ll deal with the 46 million”? Is 46 million not enough? How many is enough? These are the same people who just jammed Obamacare down our throats. These are the same people. This is Washington. These are the same people who stole money from Social Security to pay for annual budgetary outlays. These are the same people that blew almost a trillion dollars on a so-called stimulus bill that was really nothing more than union money laundering for the Democrat Party.

It’s the same people.

It is the same promises.

It’s the same professed rationale.

And it’s the same manufactured crisis.

We don’t trust them! They don’t want to secure the border. The 1986 law was to ensure that we never ended up where we are. They promised us in 1986, “We do this, and this is the last time.” It doesn’t happen. The fence, 700 miles of fence, it’s the law; it must be built. Only 36 miles has been built. Two amendments offered to complete the fence, which is already the law, were defeated.

Now this Hoeven-Corker amendment says, Well, they don’t get a green card ’til we have these new border agents in place, and they don’t get a green card ’til the new exit visa technology’s in place. “In place” doesn’t mean anything. How’s it gonna be used? Is it going to be used? There just isn’t any evidence! You know, the minutia here of McCain, “Well, we got the 60 votes, 61. We got Big Business, we got the evangelicals, but we need to enlist their help in spreading the word.”

There’s no word to spread, because there isn’t any trust that undergirds the words.

It isn’t any more complicated than this.

Do you realize that if they want 46 million illegals, most people in this country would sign off on that if there were just a serious efforts to shut down the border and make it really the last time this happened? They don’t want to secure the border, and that’s why none of the rest of it matters to anybody and that’s why the details end up being ignored and that’s why the details end up being laughed at and it’s why certain people are losing respect because they aren’t trusted, and it’s a shame.

It’s not that we’re not smart enough to understand what’s going on. We know full well what’s going on. Republicans and Democrats both want open borders for their own political and financial reasons, and in order to get what they want, they’re going to have to somehow convince us that they mean to do something they have no intention of doing, and that is securing the border.