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Trump Tells It to the Judges

by Rush Limbaugh - Feb 8,2017




RUSH: I want to get to the Ninth Circus here, the oral arguments yesterday, because the judge panel could rule at any moment, even if it’s like 9:34 out there now. Everybody expects them to move quickly here. Trump today went and spoke to law enforcement officers and sheriffs. He was standing there — I watched it — and he read aloud Title VIII, Chapter 12 of the U.S. Code, which is the law involved here, which is the statute that permits his executive order. And this is it:

“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation — and for such period as he shall deem necessary — suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

And Trump said (paraphrased), “It’s not just me. It’s for Obama. It’s for Ronaldus Magnus. It was done for the security of our nation, the security of our citizens. It has nothing to do with religion.” So a helpful reminder that Obama initiated a six-month ban on anybody from Iraq coming into this country, and nobody had a problem with it. So, then, Trump said that he listened to oral arguments about the legal challenges to his executive order, because the Ninth Circus made them available for audio streaming.

And he said, “When you read something so perfectly written, so clear to anybody, the courts seem to be so political. It would be so great for our court system to just read a statement and do what’s right.” Let me just tell you about this. (interruption) “In a sterile world” is exactly right. Let me read this to you again. There’s nothing ambivalent here. There’s nothing that is in any way confusing or that would provide any out from legal opposition. “Whenever the president…” By the way, this is a law passed and debated in Congress.

It was legislation signed into law by the president at the time. “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation — and for such period as he shall deem necessary — suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” There’s no wiggle room there. There’s no alternate interpretation. (chuckles)

There’s no reading between the lines to find out what they really meant here. It is as crystal clear as can be. This is why Judge Robart in the state of Washington did not use the law in issuing a temporary stay of the executive order. He couldn’t! He had to go off on tangents and use other things, such as it’s a religious ban, or it’s unfair, or it’s bigoted. And remember Judge Robart is not a Republican. He’s a Republican-appointed judge, but he is a left-wing judicial activist actually chosen by Patty Murray, the senator.

Now, here’s the legal theory on which opponents to Trump are trying to have this thing thrown out. The theory is that this statute cannot override constitutional rights, that no president is able to issue an executive order that overrides any person’s constitutional rights. Now, common sense says: “That should have nothing to do with this, because we’re talking about aliens! We’re talking about people outside the country who want to come in. They are not citizens. Therefore, citizenship is not being denied. Citizenship is not being trampled.”

Because we are talking about aliens and immigrants, refugees and all that outside the United States, who have no constitutional rights. However, there is a little gray here because some of the aliens affected by the Trump executive order have been in the United States before. They left, and they were prevented from getting back in by the issuance of the executive order. But they had been here before, and some of them have some degree of legal status here. But it isn’t citizenship that they have, the people we’re talking about and the people that Trump wanted to restrict from coming in.

Now, the left is arguing that this little bit of gray area gives them a measure of constitutional rights, gives these aliens who have been in the country before but who then left and wanted to come back and now can’t get in because of the order… Well, the left says, “They had quasi-constitutional rights. They had a measure of them, ’cause they’ve been here.” As an example of this, the police cannot enter the home of an alien criminal suspect without a warrant, even though the alien is not a citizen. There are still constitutional rights that do descend to a criminal alien suspect.

The Fourth Amendment applies to them just as it does to citizens. This has been so ruled by the courts. Now, whatever the merit of this argument, the fact remains that the rights of aliens who have some legal status in our country cannot outweigh the security of American citizens from foreign threats. In other words, this should not matter. The leftist argument is, “Wait a minute. You are denying somebody’s constitutional rights because they have been here before. Some of these aliens that wanted to come in and were prevented had been here before.

“They had lived here. They may not have had citizenship, but they had been effectively quasi-citizens by virtue of the way they lived and the way they were treated.” And the answer to that is: “Doesn’t matter. A, they’re not citizens. But, B, we cannot allow that small subset group of people to supersede national security!” The left says, “Damn right! Yes, we can. Screw you!” We’re gonna do anything we can to stop this president. We’re gonna do everything we can to stop Trump, and we’ll go any legal avenue open to us.”

But again their argument I think is specious and Swiss cheese because the rights of the aliens we’re talking about do not have citizenship. They’ve got some legal status, but they don’t have citizenship. You can’t allow deference to them to outweigh the security of American citizens from foreign threats. This is a matter the Constitution delegates to the political branches, not the judicial. The Constitution doesn’t give the judiciary a role here in national security, and they cannot assume it. So the president, whoever it is — in this case, Trump — has a very high degree of constitutional authority to repel foreign threats. And Congress, which has the authority to determine the qualifications an alien must meet to enter our country, has delegated sweeping authority to the president in the statute that I just quoted.

He has total say-so, by proclamation. He can suspend entry into this country by aliens, illegal immigrants, anybody, at a time he thinks we are under threat, and he can determine how long that ban is. Congress has given the president that sweeping authority. I sent this to a legal friend of mine to make sure that my interpretation was correct, and I highlighted the word “he,” “he shall deem necessary,” “he may deem appropriate.” That’s in reference to the president.

And the fact that the word “he” and singular and the reference to the president is in a statute that was passed by the Congress indicates Congress wanted the security decision made by the president alone. That’s why I said there’s no ambiguity here, and there’s no ambivalence. The power vested in the president here is total and complete, by Congress. They wanted the security decisions made by the president alone, not the president under the supervision of the federal courts.

Nowhere in this statute is there any reference to the judiciary at all. There’s no reference to the judiciary having review, that the judiciary must sign off on whatever the president does. That’s why what Judge Robart did is totally wrong! As a matter of law, Judge Robart was way outside his legal purview in issuing the stay.

And he did it because he’s a leftist hack doing the bidding of the side he agrees with. His ruling, if you go look at it, he didn’t address the law at all because he can’t. He cannot stay Trump’s executive order on matters of the law, and that’s why Trump is out tweeting how unfortunate all this is that politics — by the way, it’s not politics; it’s liberalism. It’s liberalism.

Now, Trump’s saying politics, I know why he’s saying that. Calling it the courts getting political is probably a little bit more effective in persuading people to your side than attacking liberals because it just is. Because people instinctively know the courts shouldn’t be politicized, you know, civics 101, courts should not be politicized, and people think that they aren’t and shouldn’t be. So I understand Trump using the word “politics” instead of “liberal.” But they’re a bunch of left-wing hacks, and two more of them on the Ninth Circuit three-judge panel.

Now, see, this doesn’t end here because the problem — Andy McCarthy wrote about this — let’s assume here that the Ninth Circuit upholds Judge Robart, Trump loses, and one of two things can happen there. The government can ask for the entire Ninth Circus to hear it. That’s called en banc. This a three-judge panel that can ask for all — I think it’s actually 19. There are many more judges at the Ninth Circuit, but some of them are long gone and they’re just there in name only. A lawyer being of counsel to a firm, name’s on the door, but doesn’t do any work. I think it’s actually 19 judges or thereabouts. And hardly ever is that granted. Appellate courts generally side with what their three-judge panels do.

So if they request en banc and it’s denied, it’s hello Supreme Court, where the assumption is that it’ll go 4-4 ’cause there are eight justices, and that would send the case back to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that Trump lost, and that would be the end of it.

McCarthy writes: Wait a minute. It’s a mistake to assume this gonna go 4-4 because Anthony Kennedy, we can’t count on him on this, because Anthony Kennedy in couple of other cases has made it very clear he doesn’t like the judiciary being subordinated in these kinds of cases. He doesn’t like the fact the judiciary could just be swept aside. He doesn’t like the fact judiciary is told to stay out of matters like this.

The point is, it’s not a slam dunk that the Supreme Court would go 4-4, and it could go 5-4, either way, you just don’t know. There ought not be any debate. This is what’s wrong with the judicial system. This is where we are because of liberal hacks who are judges, because the law on this is just crystal clear; there is no alternative view of this. And now the left is saying to the judges during oral argument, “Yeah, did you hear what the president said during his campaign? He said he wanted to ban all Muslims, all the time.”

That’s not relevant. Objection! Relevance! Throw it out. You can’t start talking about — a responsible judge would shut down any lawyer who made that argument before he finished the sentence. We’re talking about the law. These left-wing liberal judge hacks are now telling us what they think was in the president’s mind and whether it’s moral or not, according to their political beliefs. It’s just bad.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, now, let me make another point here, folks. I want you to buckle in for this. You think Donald Trump is president; he is. You think he won the election; he did. Ever since Judge Robart stayed the executive order that Trump issued putting a temporary ban on all entry to the U.S. from people from those seven states and Syria, get this, the Washington Examiner: “Since President Trump’s immigration restrictions on seven nations were sidelined by a federal judge last weekend, the State Department,” which effectively Trump runs now, “has rushed in 100 Syrians, according to a report.”

The State Department of Donald Trump, clearly with a lot of Clinton and Obama holdovers in there, 100 Syrians. Syria was a nation mentioned in this list, and their ban was ongoing. It was not to be lifted in 90 days; it was permanent for however long. And the State Department has just looked at Trump and basically gone (raspberry) you, because in just two days, the State Department has rushed in 100 Syrians.

“From February 5 to February 7, 15 Syrian refugees were sent to New York, 10 to Virginia, 9 to Texas, and the rest to 11 other states, according to State Department numbers posted by Refugee Resettlement Watch.” Here’s the kicker. “Those let into the United States were vetted by the United Nations,” not us, all because a leftist hack judge stayed Trump’s executive order.

Does anybody have any doubt what the left is trying to do here? This is a willful, purposeful attempt to corrupt and undermine this country. One hundred Syrian refugees. Now, some of them may be perfectly fine. That’s not the point. The United Nations vetting them? That’s supposed to make it okay? This is the Trump State Department.

Daily Caller: “New Poll Shows Most Americans Support President Trump’s Immigration Ban.” It’s an Investor’s Business Daily poll. The public that voted for him is still with him. That’s that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to get back to wrap up here on the Ninth Circus oral arguments and the way the left is approaching securing a temporary stay on Donald Trump’s executive order designed to protect the United States from bad actors getting into the country. They are harping the lawyers, the judges. The two liberal hacks on the Ninth Circuit panel yesterday are harping on this fact that it’s the a religious ban. “The president can’t ban people’s religion! There’s no religious test,” and here’s what they’re relying on for this.

This so-called no-religious-test clause in the Constitution. You talk about bastardization and distortion? Article 6, Section 3 of the Constitution says, quote, “But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” That’s it. That simply and only means that religion cannot be considered for holding public office. Nobody is disqualified from running for office or winning and holding office because of their religion. It has nothing to do with immigration!

I’m sorry if I sound a little exorcised here today, folks, but this stuff, there just some days it gets to me. I mean, really infuriates me. And last night into today is one of those periods of time. When I hear judges — appellate judges — questioning about a religious ban, these people ought to be the people who are experts on the Constitution. And the problem is, these people who actively seek to undermine it because they don’t think it applies any longer. “It’s an old, decrepit document. It has nothing to do with the current way of life in the world today,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But that’s not the way to interpret. It’s the law! We have religious tests applied to illegal immigrants and aliens and refugees every day. It is standard. It is part of the process that we involve ourselves in when determining who gets into this country, and here are these judges trying to say that Article 6, Section 3 means there’s no religious test for anybody doing anything in the United States of America. They want it to be able to be considered to decide anything else: Who can be admitted; who can’t be. Now, the Trump executive order is not a religious ban.

I’ve had emails. “How do you know it’s not a religious ban? You keep sitting there saying it’s not a religious ban, but look at the countries.” Yeah? Well, let me tell you something: If it were a religious ban, then the ban would have been on people from every country where there are Muslims! The fact of the matter is 85% of the Muslim world was untouched by the Trump executive order! So you tell me, you arrogant, cocksure liberals, how the hell is that a religious ban? If it were a religious ban, it would not have left out the 85% of the Muslim world.

But there we had two judges on the Ninth Circuit Panel Persisting and pretending it’s a religious ban, pretending that it would be illegal and unconstitutional because it’s a religious ban, and it’s not. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was probably the first to cite that law back when Trump was being attacked in December 2015 for suggesting that the Syrian refugee program be suspended. So there is no religious test, and these judges trying to take Article 6, Section 3 and expand that — which is merely a statement that we cannot have a religious test for anybody holding office — I think is outrageous.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, what I’m trying to say here, people asking me about this executive order and the courts. What we have here is a clear violation of the separation of powers. There is a statue passed by Congress, the elected representatives of the peoples, that vests total authority and power in the president of the United States to determine who and who does not get into the country, by proclamation of the president and for however long he deems necessary to secure the borders and the safety of the United States, national security.

And we have a judge in the state of Washington who told the president, “I don’t like that you’re doing it, so I’m gonna say that you have to stop.” The judge does not have the constitutional authority. This statute, it is clearly constitutional. It’s not been challenged. And because this judge stayed the executive order, now we have a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is hearing the appeal by the federal government on the judge in Washington.

If this stands, this is the judiciary taking power from the executive, which it is not entitled to have. Where does this stop? What other executive branch powers can a rogue judge, who is a leftist hack, just forestall by virtue of having another leftist hack ask for a stay of execution on whatever presidential act is being disagreed with. And if a bunch of liberal judges can literally co-opt a president and steal executive power with no redress, that cannot stand.

And that’s all that’s going on here. This is nothing more than a bunch of political hacks who are wearing robes and are called judges, telling a president he can’t do what he has the clear legal authority to do because they disagree with him. And the frightening thing is that this could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

There are enough liberal hacks on the Supreme Court who could rule that the president doesn’t have this authority because we don’t agree with him. Not because it’s illegal, not because it’s unconstitutional, but we don’t like it, we don’t like what he’s doing so we’re gonna stop it.

Well, where does that end? The real question is, what’s the redress for this? And we will discuss that in due course, should that become necessary. I can’t tell you how the Ninth Circuit — well, the odds are the Ninth Circuit’s gonna uphold the judge in Seattle. You’ve got two liberal hacks on this three-judge panel that are of the same stripe as Judge Robart, who is a liberal hack in Seattle.

Wonder why they chose see that for this? A district court judge telling a president of the United States he can’t do what the judge disagrees with? To me this is serious stuff. I’ve been asking every legal authority I know how can you be so patient with this. To me, it’s almost a constitutional crisis. I may be the only one who sees it that way. ‘Cause I think the academics get involved in all this, you know, it’s just a fascinating intellectual exercise. To me it’s the real world. To me it’s the left taking over a branch of government and trying to stop what they lost during a campaign.

And I think back to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats talking about what a threat to our democracy Donald Trump would be if he failed to accept the results of the election if he lost. Where are people asking that about Judge Robart? Where are people asking that about the Ninth Circuit, depending on how they rule, where are people asking that about the Democrat Party? Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump poses a threat to our democracy if he refuses to accept the results of the election. This is when Hillary thought she was gonna win in a landslide. Well, now, who’s refusing to accept the results of the election? The entire Democrat hate group.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: President Trump just met with the CEO of Intel. Intel announced that they’re gonna invest $7 billion in a factory in Arizona, and they’re gonna employ 3,000 people. We’re getting news like this every day. We’re getting good economic news like this every day.

I was watching CNN during the break, and they’re just wringing their hands over what Trump was saying about the judges on the Ninth Circus and they got some guy, “Trump said was disgraceful the way these judges — it wasn’t disgraceful, it was full of grace. These justices were arguing the cases, this was democracy on parade, and the president is thinking this is not subject to judicial review, this is horrible, this is horrible, this is very damaging to our wonderful and graceful democracy,” and blah, blah, blah. This is not judicial review going on; this is political hackery going on.

Straight up political hackery is going on, not judicial review. The judge in Washington was wrong in staying executive order. The law doesn’t matter to these people, obviously, they so politicized everything that — I mean, if I weren’t careful, folks, I’d go off on a rant here that even the Republican FCC might have problems with. Just joking about that, but I mean these people tick me off like you cannot believe, and I’m exercising more restraint than even I knew I had.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Dennis in Colorado Springs, I really appreciate your patience in holding on. How are you doing, sir?

CALLER: I’m doing well. I feel like I’ve won the phone lottery today and actually getting to talk to you is such an honor.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I appreciate it.

CALLER: Great. I have a computer question at the end of this, but first I wanted to ask you, given that President Trump has showed such undue deference to the courts that when the Ninth Circus finally upholds Robart, what would prevent President Trump from reissuing executive orders, seven of them, one at a time, banning entry from each particular country. Then, with each court challenge, he can then just simply exercise his singular authority in separation of powers and then simply bypass the courts until the constitutionality of the first executive order is decided?

RUSH: You know, that’s a good question. I know that there is redress for this. If this goes all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court stays this and if Trump is not permitted this executive order, I don’t know the specifics, but there have to be other ways of doing this and getting it done, which he’s committed to.

CALLER: Yeah, I’m kind of thinking getting it done in the meantime, so that we’re not leaving ourselves open for 90 —

RUSH: That’s what I’m saying, I just don’t know if it’s seven brand-new executive orders or if it’s one brand-new one, but no matter what he does, we now know what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna find a hack judge like this guy in Seattle, and they’re gonna go before the hack judge, and the hack judge is not gonna use the law, he’s gonna use politics and his dislike for Trump being president and stop it. At some point this is gonna have to get resolved. These people have to get slapped down. You have a computer question. Time’s dwindling. What’s the computer question?

CALLER: Okay. I have an older MacBook Pro, and it’s doing me fine, but I’m wondering when Apple’s gonna stop upgrading it like they stopped upgrading my iPhone, and I’m going to be left without, you know, protection to the back door hackers and all that?

RUSH: How old is your MacBook Pro?

CALLER: Real old. It’s like a 4. Really old.

RUSH: But what year?

CALLER: Oh. Gee, I don’t know. I kind of inherited it from my wife. It’s gotta be at least 10 years old.

RUSH: Well, I think you’re already there, because something that old you probably cannot put the latest operating system on it.

CALLER: Right. They stopped upgrades.

RUSH: They probably have stopped issuing security upgrades to the machine, so your time to upgrade is now.

CALLER: Would that be the same thing with the notebook, the Mac Pro notebook?

RUSH: You mean the 12-inch thing?

CALLER: Yeah. I have an older MacBook Pro that I think is going to be timed out as well, but my iPhone I’ve already given up on trying to update that.

RUSH: Wait a minute. I thought you were talking about the MacBook Pro. You’re talking about the iPhone?

CALLER: Right. No, both. Both. I have a MacBook Pro that’s older. It’s a 2011.

RUSH: I’m out of it time, darn it. I’m sorry. I’ve gotta go.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, it turns out I answered the guy’s question even though I didn’t think I had. You know what? I’m right even when I think I’m wrong. I get it done even when I think I haven’t gotten it done. I answered the guy’s question. Satisfactorily, too. His computer will still work.

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