RUSH: Rubio. I spent some time looking at his announcement, and he’s changed his big story. He’s changed a key element of his big story. Not the details, but the emphasis. When he tells the story of his father coming from Cuba, being very poor, working hard, raising them right, a story he told at the Republican convention, he has always focused that story and aimed that story at potential entrepreneurs and small businessmen. He’s told that story with them in mind, meaning he’s told his story aiming to inspire small business people, future entrepreneurs.

In this announcement speech on Monday night, he actually changed the focus. Same story, but he aimed it at blue-collar workers, the so-called Reagan Democrats of yore, white middle class voters that the Obama campaign acknowledged abandoning as far back as 2011. Byron York has a story that was a couple days ago. I didn’t see it ’til last night, and it revives Rubio’s role in the Gang of Eight, which is what got him in trouble with the Tea Party. The Gang of Eight was gonna go ahead and pass a comprehensive immigration bill, which everybody was wary was just gonna be the Republican version joining with some Democrat senators of amnesty.

What Byron York dragged out, something that, if I had known it, I’ve forgotten it, and so I’m not sure I ever did know it. But Rubio, at the time, the Gang of Eight bill, when he was part of it, when it was being debated, he made a prescient prediction. He was spot-on with the prediction, which was in part an explanation for why he was participating in the Gang of Eight. Let me sum it up before we go to break and we’ll come back and get into more detail as the topic comes up later in the program, but it’s this.

Rubio said that if Obama does executive amnesty and grants amnesty to 10 million or 15 million or eight million or 20 million, whatever it is, whatever the number, if there is an executive amnesty granted to millions and millions of illegals, he said he could not envision a new Republican president being elected and rescinding it. He said (paraphrasing), “Of all the things that you can see down the road in the future, can anybody think that whoever the next Republican president is would alienate, as one of his first acts, as one of his first orders of business as a new president, the rescinding of the executive order granting amnesty and thus citizenship to 10, 15, maybe 20 million people, and deport them?”

He said there’s no way, I don’t care who the next Republican president is, is gonna do that. And, lo and behold, his prediction turns out to have been right on the money, at least up to the present time. Because there’s Obama on the verge of executive amnesty and he’s waiting and waiting and waiting, and he’s gonna wait as long as he can. Rubio was saying the Gang of Eight bill was their effort to get out in front of it, make sure Obama didn’t get away with doing it on the executive amnesty side, and to get Republicans in the game, and you know how it went. It didn’t fly with the Tea Party.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to something I mentioned in the opening monologue of the program today about Senator Rubio, and it’s based on something I found reported by Byron York in the Washington Examiner a couple of days ago that I was unaware of. That’s why this stood out to me, is that I was unaware of this. It’s very, very rare that I am unaware of something, particularly something that was of this magnitude and importance regarding Senator Rubio and his time with the Gang of Eight.

Now, if you’ll recall, Rubio was a part of the Gang of Eight, Democrat and Republican Senators, who were attempting to fashion a bill that would get ahead of Obama and essentially grant amnesty to a certain number of illegals. It is that participation in the Gang of Eight by Senator Rubio that has soured so many Tea Party voters on him, and in fact has done more than sour them. He may have a tough time getting them back, because of that.

The illegal immigration issue and amnesty is seminal. There’s so many issues that you say the future of the country is tied into, but this one really is. Not only is the future of the country as we know it tied into this, but so is the entire concept of a two-party country. I’m convinced, and I’m jumping ahead. Byron York had an anecdote about Rubio in his story in the Washington Examiner. Let just read it to you here.

“In 2013, as he worked feverishly to pass the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., admitted to having one big worry. If it didn’t pass, Rubio — one of the bill’s primary authors — said he feared President Obama would simply use executive authority to give legal status to millions of currently illegal immigrants.” I’m gonna read to you Rubio’s prediction. And this again goes back to 2013, and this is before Obama has even begun to allude to executive amnesty. That’s why I can’t believe I missed this. Or if I did miss it, I can’t believe that it didn’t register.

In 2013, Senator Rubio said — and he was being interviewed by Byron York — quote, “Here’s my big worry. I fear that if this thing fails,” meaning the Gang of Eight bill, “I fear that if this thing fails, the president will basically say to anyone in the US who has been here more than three years, who has not committed a serious crime. … He’ll say, ‘We’ll do for you what we did for the DREAM kids.’ And the problem with that will be you will have 10 million people legalized in the United States by executive order. So that when there is a new president, if it is a conservative, a Republican, one of the first decisions they will have to make is whether to yank that status from those people and deport them. I cannot imagine a scenario where a future president is going to take away the status they’re going to get. I believe it’s what [Obama] will do. Maybe not all 10 million, but he’ll do it for six million.”

That prediction — again, some of you may have heard it and remembered it, and I’m sorry if you’re out there saying, “Where were you, Rush, everybody knows this.” It skipped past me. I was not aware of this until last night. I don’t mind admitting it. Hey, I can’t know everything. But the point is, even before — and I’m not offering this as a justification for Rubio and his Gang of Eight. That’s not my point here. I’m not trying to talk any you Tea Party people out of whatever you think. Don’t misunderstand.

I do think, however, it’s fascinating that this quote from 2013 gives insight as to why Rubio was doing the Gang of Eight thing. A lot of people have assumed that he got snookered, that he fell prey to the advances, say, of Chuck-U Schumer and some of the other Democrats and Republican establishment senator types. And that his last name is Hispanic. And that he might have been participating in Hispanic outreach for himself. And basically didn’t follow through on some campaign promises. And just got snookered by the power and seductiveness of the establishment.

And this quote gives us some doubt about that. Well, it enables me to have some doubt. I don’t know about you. I won’t presume to put thoughts — or to know your thoughts. But if Rubio is sitting there thinking Obama — and remember, now, in 2013, Obama hasn’t even begun to whisper about executive amnesty. He’s on the verge of it, but he hasn’t yet begun. Rubio says if the Gang of Eight bill fails, then Obama is just gonna grant amnesty to 10 million, six million, or what have you, and we’re cooked. Because at that point, if the next president is a Republican in 2016, how does he take that away and survive?

Let’s say Obama grants amnesty to six million or 10 million people, and with that eventually sooner than later, full citizenship. The next president’s a Republican, first thing he does, “Not putting up with that,” and yanks that status and by law then will have to deport them. And Rubio’s feeling is there isn’t a Republican that’s running or will run that will do that. No president would ever yank that kind of status away from people, particularly people who’d been in the country a long time.

So he was trying to head that off with the Gang of Eight bill, which was its own version of amnesty but would take a little bit longer theoretically as we know. It wouldn’t have. With Chuck-U Schumer involved, the amnesty would have been immediate. The bottom line here, it doesn’t really matter because the Democrats are gonna have amnesty no matter what. Whether they did the Gang of Eight bill or the executive action, they’re gonna get it no matter what. And Rubio is still essentially being punished for signing on to one of the ways that the Democrats are gonna make it happen, rather than standing up and fighting it, which he is now doing.

So now here he is starting out his 2016 campaign, and the big question that he has surrounding him out there is whether voters are gonna blame him or exempt him from his role in the Gang of Eight. “None of the freshman GOP senators running for president — Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz — can point to great legislative achievements. But Rubio made by far the strongest effort — a year-long attempt to write and pass all-encompassing immigration reform. His Gang of Eight bill cleared the Democratic-controlled Senate with a bipartisan majority — all the Democrats plus 14 Republicans — only to die a slow death in the Republican House.

“Now, Rubio freely admits his approach to immigration reform simply could not work. There were all sorts of things many Republicans found objectionable in the Gang of Eight bill, but just one proved to be an absolutely insurmountable obstacle. The obstacle was this: The Gang of Eight would have given millions of illegal immigrants legal status before the measure’s tough enforcement provisions were in place and running.”

One more, part of the Gang of Eight bill which, frankly, none of us ever believed, was the promise to secure the border. Now, we’ve always heard that, and we’ve seen always rejected it because we know that they know that’s what we want to hear. So any effort, bipartisan or Republican or Democrat, effort to get amnesty, they always promise us that the first thing they’re gonna do is secure the border. They promised in ’86 they were gonna do that. And they never do. The border remains effectively wide open.

Anyway, the whole point of this is just to remark on Rubio’s prescience, his forecastability, if you will, because it’s a hundred percent spot on. Exactly what he predicted has happened. Obama is going to do this. And I think that the way things are headed, Obama’s gonna wait and wait and wait to do this. He’s only got just a little over a year and a half left. What if he grants amnesty at the same time he grants pardons? Last day in office? Or the last week? What if the polling data makes it look like in November 2016 that whoever the Republican is is gonna win? What do you think’s gonna happen? Obama’s gonna grant amnesty to as many millions as he can and force whoever the next Republican president is to live with it. And that’s what they want.

Now, let’s say Mrs. Clinton is leading in the polling leading up to the 2016 election, let’s say she wins. He still does it, sets her up, then she comes in be with one of the four tent poles of her campaign, at least as far as she’s explaining now, is campaign finance reform, which is a laugh, I know. She is stating that she wants to raise $2.5 billion dollars for her campaign. Romney and Obama combined in 2012 spent $2.1 billion. Hillary wants to raise almost a half million dollars more than they spent combined. And then whoever the Republican nominee is gonna be out there trying to raise as much as he can.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s Bob in Duluth, Minnesota. Bob, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. Hi, Maha Rushie. A comment, and if time permits, a quick question.

RUSH: Sure.

CALLER: With regard to your analysis Tuesday of Marco Rubio’s speech on Monday.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: It seems that one of the big takeaways was his assertion that the past does not hold the key to the future in terms of eradicating a myriad of problems facing the country. And his exact words were, “Yesterday’s gone,” I believe, he said, “Yesterday’s gone. Hillary Clinton is yesterday.”

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Big applause line. Now, later the same day on Hannity and Levin and perhaps in the original speech, I didn’t hear all of it, he continually evoked Reagan and the Reagan eighties, which last time I checked is in the past. His inference being clear, if we’re gonna go effectively into the future, we need to utilize the Reagan eighties. Well, didn’t he somewhat invalidate his own thesis in the process? I mean, you know, we’re either gonna use the past for the future or we’re not. It seems like there’s a contradiction there. What say you?

RUSH: I don’t think it’s a contradiction. I think Reagan, when he cites Reagan, he’s talking philosophy, he’s talking issues. He’s talking conservatism as philosophy and theory. When he talks about Hillary being yesterday, she’s actually old. You know, she’s been there, we’ve been there, done that. Nobody’s ever tried to resuscitate Ronald Reagan and have him run again. Mrs. Clinton’s been there, done that. He’s just trying to characterize her as yesterday’s news. We know what she is. We know who she is. We know what she stands for. We know that it doesn’t work. What Reagan did worked, we need more of it. The era of Hillary is over, is what he was saying.

CALLER: Well, can I ask you a quick question then, kind of ties in with that?

RUSH: Sure, since I set myself up like a softball for you. What’s the question?

CALLER: If the 2016 presidential election comes down to ’70-style liberal Hillary Clinton —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — versus full-throated eighties Reagan-era conservative, let’s say in a person of Scott Walker —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — and the seventies liberal trumps the eighties Reagan full-throated conservative and wins, will you admit you’re wrong about full-throated conservatism always winning? ‘Cause I don’t think it hardly wins at all. More, the eighties are gone just like the Ditka eighties are gone in football. That’s my theory, and if that happens and the seventies-style liberal beats the full-throated evocative Reagan conservative —

RUSH: Look at what you have to do. You’re having to construct a fantasy and then you’re asking me to accept your fantasy so that I can then be forced into admitting I’m wrong. I am never wrong. Do not doubt me.

I don’t believe in “if.” “If” is for children. Get real. Stop dreaming. That’s the problem with you people. Fantasy life 101, fantasy here, fantasy there. You’re proving my point! You live for the defeat of conservatism. That’s all that matters. The country could go to hell in a hand-basket, just as long as conservatism is defeated and, as a bonus, Rush Limbaugh is proven wrong, which has never happened, and it isn’t going to happen in the next couple years. Nice try, Bob. Always appreciate it.