RUSH: We had a couple of press conferences today from Sean Spicer, who’s the new White House press secretary and the vice president, Mike Pence, and it was really refreshing to hear some normal, mature adults answering questions from the media and explaining things in a way that didn’t cause suspicion or anger. It was just decent. It was not dishonest, it was not misleading, it was just… It was refreshing. I’m gonna give you a couple of examples. Here is Pence, and… Oh, by the way, Trump in Washington is going to stay at his hotel.

It’s called Trump International. He’s gonna stay there. In fact, he walked in there earlier, got a standing O from the employees! That made the media mad. They thought the employees shouldn’t show that kind of respect for the owner when he comes in. That’s just not right. Now, the press can bow down and kiss the feet of Obama when he walks in the pressroom, and that’s fine. But the people that work for Trump, they’re not supposed to lose their composure like that, by giving him a standing ovation.

And now they’re upset that Trump is staying in his other than hotel. You know why? Because it’s said to be a conflict of interest, that Trump, as the president-elect, soon to be president, staying at his own hotel, is free advertising. And he is benefiting from his powerful position by choosing to stay at his own hotel. The media raised these questions today in the press conference. “Don’t you think the president is a little bit unseemly here. I mean, there’s clearly a conflict of interest, being seen walking into his own hotel and staying there. I mean…” What’s he supposed to do, go over to the Harry Reid suite at the Ritz-Carlton? It’s unbelievable.

Anyway, here’s Pence, just one sound bite just to show you what mature adults who inspire confidence sound like.

PENCE: I’m especially pleased, and I know the president-elect is especially pleased, that we’re wrapping up this transition on schedule and under budget.

CROWD: (chuckling)

PENCE: We will actually return some 20% of taxpayer funding back to the U.S. Treasury, and that is just exactly in keeping with the president-elect’s expectations going forward. He is a businessman that knows how to sharpen his pencil.

RUSH: Speaking of that, folks, there is a story in TheHill.com today that is just over-the-top amazing. Here’s the headline: “Trump Team Prepares Dramatic Cuts.” Now, we’ve seen stories prior to today that mention ballpark figures, like Trump’s gonna cut 10% here, 20% there. This story details it, TheHill.com. It starts this way: “Donald Trump is ready to take an axe to government spending.” This is just… This is throwing gasoline on the fire that’s already burning. This may be throwing cherry bombs on the fire that is the Democrat Party and the media.

I mean, Trump’s already assaulted their sensibilities by winning but now he’s actually gonna do what he said he was gonna do? Oh, no. “Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned. The changes they propose are dramatic.” Here’s what TheHill.com is reporting might come under Trump’s budget knife:

“The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.” Let me tell you something. The Department of Justice alone you could get rid of half of it. You wouldn’t believe the obscure, oddball, interagency departments that they have. You have the civil rights division. You have the one-armed amputees on 4th Street civil rights division. You have the voting rights civil rights division.

You’ve got so many of these creepy little divisions in the Department of Justice that nobody knows they’re all there. There’s all kinds of stuff that could be cut. There is redundancy after redundancy, and there’s unnecessity after unnecessity. And they’ve identified it. And over him at Commerce… Do you know what 80% of the Commerce Department is? I have told you before. How many of you remember? The Commerce Department is about what it says: Commerce. Commerce is what? Well, that’s economic activity between entities.

Eighty percent… Are you ready? I read this in a… I can’t recall the place I read it, but I’ve seen a number of different places. Eighty percent of the Commerce Department is the National Weather Service and everything the National Weather Service does. You’ve got all satellites up there, you have the weather forecast, you have the fraud that exists with global warming. Some of that is located in the Commerce Department. Some of the fraud with global warming is over at NASA as well. But basically the Commerce Department is the National Weather Service, and 20% of it is not.

The point being there’s room to cut there, and the Department of Energy? You could get rid of it! You could get rid of it. The Department of Energy has become the headquarters for climate change activism in the United States government no matter who the president has been. Here’s more from TheHill.com story on Trump’s dramatic budget cuts. “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.” (choking)

Folks, wait ’til the people involved in those two find. Jeez! It’s like painting that rainbow flag monochrome. Oh, no! This is gonna be… I don’t want to around if this happens. “Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending,” Ae you ready for this? “By $10.5 trillion over 10 years.” The national debt is $20 trillion, and Trump says he’s gonna cut half of it in over 10 years. How many of you have heard, “Well, you can’t cut the budget”? I’ve heard this from think tanks, I’ve heard it from conservatives, I’ve heard it from liberals, I’ve heard it from the media.

I’ve heard, “You can’t cut the budget! There isn’t enough discretionary spending.” I’m sure you’ve heard this: “60%, 70% of the budget is entitlements,” meaning government giving, meaning Santa Claus. “I mean, you can’t cut Santa Claus! You’ve got 60, 65% of the budget untouchable. Sorry, no way to cut it,” and everybody’s just accepted it. “Whoa, yeah! Can’t cut Social Security. Yep, can’t cut Medicare. Yep, can’t cut SSI. Yep, can’t cut” what the hell ever else is out there under the umbrella of entitlements and whatever. “Can’t cut that!”

Everybody just says, “Yeah, can’t cut that.” He most certainly can. The debt is $20 trillion, and $10 trillion of it added in the last eight years. It’s beyond anybody’s ability to comprehend how much money this is. And the idea that all of it is being legitimately spent and that we still don’t have enough, a $20 trillion national debt means we’ve spent $20 trillion that we don’t have in addition to what we have spent. And now people come and say, “No, no, no! We need even more, and we certainly can’t cut.”

It’s one of the big myths that has been spread for decades out of Washington, across the hinterlands, you can’t cut the federal budget, and it’s been said for so long that people have just accepted it. “The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the … Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.” Uh-oh. You heard that? Heritage Foundation? Think tank? Conservatism? These are the guys telling Trump where to cut the budget? Oh no.

Do you realize most think tanks have been sort of marginalized precisely because of the Trump campaign and because of the Trump election, and yet the Heritage Foundation is still front and center and right in the center of the mix. And, by the way, Heritage for decades has been working on legitimate budget cuts. It’s not something they put together overnight for the last six months. It’s something that’s been ready to go for anybody brave enough in Washington to give it a whirl. We’ll see if Trump is that guy.

TheHill.com and the Democrats are clearly worried that Trump is the guy that’s going to try to seriously reduce the size of government. Do you realize how many people are gonna hope he fails here? Ho-ho-ho-ho! (chuckling) Can you say half of the conservative movement, all of liberalism and the entire Washington establishment will be right in there hoping to hell Trump fails, within unless the way he does it is hews very closely to conservative doctrine. If he does that and reduces, then I take back what I say about half the conservative movement.

Because Trump is viewed as a “populist,” and conservatives don’t like populists. Conservatives think populism is a dangerous substitute for conservatism, it really isn’t, and Trump say populist within, they claim. Conservatism, one of the foundational aspects of it is shrinking government, reducing government, getting government out of people’s way, but there hasn’t been much success of it. There hadn’t been any success to speak of. We’ve had the sequester and there’ve been a couple of marginally successful efforts.

But nobody’s tried anything like this. Conservatives have been advocating it for years. If Trump… And TheHill.com, I guarantee you the left is gonna convinced he’s gonna try it. And they’re worried about they can’t stop it, folks, they don’t have the votes to stop anything. This piece in The Politico that I mentioned earlier, “Democrats in the Wilderness,” I can’t wait to share this with you ’cause it gets right to the nub of it. They can’t stop anything. That’s why they have to have CNN do stories on what if Trump doesn’t make it to the inauguration? What if something happens?

That’s why they’re encouraging all their protests. Same with John Lewis. You know, this pathetic crowd of little kids, childish adults standing on supposed principle. The Democrats wouldn’t know principle if it was staring them in the face and they’re claiming because of principle they can’t go to the inauguration. You know what they’re scared to death of? You know what every Democrat is most afraid of today and tomorrow going forward? That Trump is going to succeed. Half of the Republican Party probably fit into that camp of being frightened, too, because the Washington establishment has been telling us it’s the best that can be done.

“This is it. We’re the best and brightest and we’ve talked to the people at Davos, and we’ve talked to the people at the climate change meeting. This is it! We’ve talked to the ChiComs. This is it. This is the best we can do. Well, you’d have to start cutting entitlements. You’d have to really take money away from people. You’d increase starvation! No, this is the best we can do.” If Trump comes along and is successful at this, it’s going to blow all kinds of conventionally accepted wisdom through the roof, and that’s what John Lewis knows. And once Trump is successful — and, by the way, it’s not just John Lewis.

The Reverend Jackson and Reverend Sharpton and all of these others of that ilk, the worst thing that could happen is what they fear is on the cusp of happening, and that is Trump succeeding makes them irrelevant. It makes everything they have told all of on their voters all these years meaningless and irrelevant. A lot of people have a lot at stake in maintaining the status quo of mediocrity and failure while telling everybody they’re working hard to fix things and never do. Somebody coming along and really fixing things, or dramatically improving things, that poses a great threat. Dangerous times, as I’ve been telling you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Tom in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as we head back to the phones here the EIB Network. Great to have you.

Oh, by the way, folks, there’s a rumor going on that Antonio Brown was at it Trump luncheon and that’s why there’s video of it. He’s not there. He was practicing today with the Steelers, getting ready for the Patriots on Sunday night.

RUSH: Here’s Tom in Grand Rapids. Great to have you, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call. Love the show.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Old school mega dittos.

RUSH: It’s great to have you, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Thank you. Anyway, I wanted to get to my point about the economic plan of the Republicans. If I had Kelly O’Conway’s (sic) ear or Trump I would base my spending model on what Clinton did compared to debt and overall government spending to the growth of the economy. That would really throw the Democrats a tizzy.

RUSH: You just reminded me of something else. I’ve got a whole other thing here, some journalism professor participated in a podcast at one of my tech blogs with advice for the media on how to do journalism during Trump. Wait ’til you hear some of this stuff! And what reminded me, is this guy basically says the media should never ever again talk to Kellyanne Conway because all she does is spin for Trump. She’s not worth it. She shouldn’t be given the time. Now, about your theory — I’m not ignoring your theory — you think that the Bill Clinton era featured a balanced budget, some robust economic activity, and the Trump people ought to go back and replicate that.

The balanced budget during the Clinton years… I don’t know if you’re meaning they should replicate what Clinton did, ’cause Clinton didn’t do anything. Clinton was living off the Reagan boom, and it was Newt Gingrich in the House — well, Republicans that won the House for the first time in 40 years in the ’94 election. They balanced the budget. I think Trump, based on what I have seen, has much more in store than just balancing the budget. I think he’s got serious ideas on cutting it and reducing it. They can do better.