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Looks Like Trump Is Caving on Funding the Wall

by Rush Limbaugh - Apr 25,2017




RUSH: I’m not happy to have to pass this on. I’m very, very troubled to have to pass this on. And I want to say at the outset that I hope my interpretation is wrong, and I hope this is not the case. But it looks like, from here, right here, right now, it looks like President Trump is caving on his demand for a measly $1 billion in the budget for his wall on the border with Mexico.

The Democrats are threatening a government shutdown. It’s the same old same old, and I was hoping that Trump would throw this shutdown thing right back in their face and have everybody realize they’re the ones engineering these shutdowns that nobody would notice anyway unless a big hullabaloo was made about it. The Democrats seem to have successfully used this stupid, silly threat of a government shutdown to get their way. What Trump is saying is if we need to get this done, then I’ll delay the spending on the wall until September. And it’s just a measly billion dollars.

But the problem here, folks, is one of politics. If this happens, if Trump does cave — and I use the word “cave” guardedly. Trump, I’m sure, does not ever think he caves on anything. But outward appearances are what they are. And the bottom line is that, if he is willing to withdraw a demand of his for a measly billion dollars for the wall because the Democrats are threatening a shutdown, then the Democrats will have just learned that this threat works on Trump, too, not just all the other Republicans.

We know that the threat of a government shutdown, once it’s even whispered in the Drive-By Media, paralyzes the Republican Party. And then they spring into action trying to assure everybody that we’re not gonna shut down the government. And whatever the Democrats need, the Democrats, the losers in the last election, whatever they need, whatever they need is what we’re gonna do if we have to avoid a government shut down, because the media’s gonna blame us even though we’re not responsible for it and the country is gonna hate this and we can’t afford this. And so we can’t have a government shutdown.

And not having a shutdown has been the single focus of Republican policy for I don’t know how many years now. And it has translated into the Democrats being able to deny Republicans most of what they want and Democrats to get what they want. You know, once they get away with it, they’re gonna keep trying. And if they get away with it once, they’re just going to keep using it.

The key here is the filibuster again, the 60-vote thing, as it was Supreme Court nominations. If they want to nuke the filibuster in this sense, and certain elements of the budget, you can use reconciliation because the budget, by law, has to be done on a date certain, and so it is exempt from the 60-vote rule in some instances, but not all. But I’d like to see somebody take this on and reverse this and so that if the government gets shut down, that the Democrats get blamed for it.

I know, I know, you’re saying, “But Rush, the media will never blame the Democrats.” That’s okay. We’re here. We can blame the Democrats. The country’s ready to blame the Democrats, for crying out loud, look at the election results. The country blamed Obama. The country blamed Democrats. That’s why Trump was elected. But look, we have until Friday for this to play out. This is only Tuesday. So we’ll bide our time and be patient on this.

But I’ll tell you what, along these lines, have you seen the latest Pew Research Center People in the Press? “More Americans Now Prefer a Bigger Government With More Services to a Smaller One With Fewer Services.” And it has been trending this way for quite a while. In fact, many in the conservative movement have said, “Look, we’ve lost the battle over small versus big government. And so what we need to do is announce that we understand that people want a large government taking care of goods and services. What we need to do is position ourselves as the smartest people to run it. We understand that the people want an active, engaged executive.” That’s the phrase from the intellectual conservative side of Washington, D.C.

“Fifty-seven percent say that government should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of Americans, a 20-year high.” So if you put this poll together, these results with this government shutdown story, you could draw the conclusion, “Well, the American people want a big government, they want an active government, and they don’t want it shut down. Because when the government gets shut down, then they don’t get to solve problems or meet the needs of Americans.” (interruption) Well, no, it doesn’t totally depress me, because I’m, again, with a poll, it’s the Drive-By Media, it still is the Drive-By Media and the questions and the respondents and the people that were found. But you can’t cherry-pick polls that you believe and don’t believe based on the outcome. It’s tempting to do that, but so many of the polls we get seem to be conflicting.

Now, let’s take this answer. Fifty-seven percent say government should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of Americans. Now, the way the Democrats would interpret that is the government needs to be bigger, to provide welfare and income and services and yada yada yada. Some people who answered this question might actually have meant that the government better get busy and close the border. The government better get busy and handle immigration. The government better get busy and fix Obamacare.

Let’s face it: More and more people do think that the government is where solutions to problems exist. It just depends on your ideology as to what problems you want solved. The real argument here is what is the best mechanism for a large nation to create economic growth which then translates into rising standards of living? And a big government is not how you do that. A large government is not the mechanism to create personal wealth and increase standards of living. It just isn’t. The free market is the mechanism for that.

Nowhere in the world where you have a central command authority government is there a rising middle class with standards of living on the uptick, the rising tide lifting all boats. There is not a place in the world where government central activity brings that about. In fact, large government retards all of that. The free market is simply the finest way. I mean, it’s inarguable. But then you have within that argument, you have realities that people can use to shoot the argument full of holes.

Okay, if the free market’s the best way then how come the gap between the haves and have-nots is getting bigger? And if the free market is the way, how come all of these jobs haven’t been present for 15 years and how can standards of living haven’t risen? Well, because we don’t have a free market when you get down to it. And we haven’t had a pure free market. But we’ve had encroaching and creeping government. The tentacles of government are woven deep into our society, from regulations that prohibit this behavior and that behavior to the tax code.

The free market theory, free market economic reality has not been disapproved by virtue of American circumstances today. What has been proven is that a growing government with ever-increasing power — I mean, why are people ticked off? Why were people ticked off before the election? You can take any number of examples. But they all boil back down to economics, stagnant incomes, open borders. You name it. The culture was being rotted from within.

I mean, there’s nothing here to recommend Big Government. And yet people in the PEW survey, 57%, that’s a high, it’s a 20-year high. And I think one of the reasons for it is that people think there is no other way to solve it. That there needs to be command-and-control authority such as presidents using executive power to fix things that are wrong. So we’ll see how this continues to play out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’ll see how this all shapes out.  This is Tuesday and this looming deadline is on Friday.  And I’m telling you it is a golden opportunity for President Trump to nix all of this.  It’s a golden opportunity for Trump to giant foot stomp these people and end this crap of a perennial, never-ending government shutdown paralyzing anything sensible being done with our budget and our economy, wipe it out.

The Democrat Party’s in the process of being wiped out now, wipe out this premise that the government shutdown shuts down life.  Show people that life goes on and everybody prospers fine if the government shut down for a couple days.  It’s never totally shut down anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Detroit, Tim. You’re next. Great to have you on the EIB Network. How you doing, sir?

CALLER: I’m doing fine, Rush. Thank you. I’ve been listening to you for 20 years in my truck. I want to thank you for the entertainment and education. Donald Trump, my son, I took him — my son, Max, to Sterling Heights to two rallies. My son also worked the phones for Donald. One of his main topics was building the wall and stopping this illegal immigration. I believe he will be making a grave mistake if he compromises on this.

RUSH: Now, wait. He’s not compromising on the wall. He’s saying he’ll delay funding until September so as to avoid a government shutdown. Does it matter to you when he does the wall?

CALLER: Yes. It absolutely does. Because, Rush, you know it’s never gonna be a good time to do this. I’ve been listening to politics all my life.

RUSH: Yep. Yep.

CALLER: It’s the same thing with kick this can down the road.

RUSH: Exactly. Every delay is a further nail in the coffin!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Ray in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hey, Ray, glad you called. How you doing, sir?

CALLER: Rush, thanks for taking my call. Appreciate it.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: Hey, I go back to the Rush listening room. So been a longtime listener. Listen, I wanted to go back for a moment on this moving target on the wall with Trump.

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.

CALLER: And you have said from the very beginning that the only people that could truly separate Trump — could bring him down was Trump. Trump is the only one that could separate his followers from him. My fear is that if he begins this process, this potentially could become the beginning of the end. What I would say to the president, if he’s listening now, which is, “Mr. President, be the man we elected you to be. We will be with you. We will not leave you. We will stay with you. But hang in there and be the one we allowed you to be. Drain that swamp. Don’t become part of the process.”

RUSH: Okay. So you’re reacting to the news that he might delay funding for the wall ’til September to avoid a government shutdown. You wish he wouldn’t delay it. Do you want him to just do it like he said he was gonna do it?

CALLER: I want him to be what we elected him to be, which is to shed light on what needs to be fixed.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I want him to stand up, not be afraid of any of the ramifications that may come his way.

RUSH: I’ll tell you, Trump is a parvenu, and that is a factor here. I think he thinks he’s doing what you want.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I gotta bunch of emails during the break. “You just called Trump something I don’t — what did you call Trump?” And it was going into the break. I called him a parvenu. And he is. He’s a huge parvenu. (interruption) What? What is it? Oh. I’m sorry, I thought everybody knew. A parvenu is somebody that comes out of nowhere, nobody ever heard ’em or at least totally unexpectedly ends up with a lot of power, a lot of wealth, or becomes a celebrity.

But the key to one being a parvenu is it’s a person of obscure origin, meaning not part of the establishment, did not come from an area, place, or family where one would expect such results. I could theoretically be accused of being a parvenu, in the sense you talk about obscure, nobody knew who I was. When this program started, I’ve been through all that, don’t need to repeat it again, but that’s the word that I used to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s John, Polk City, Florida.  Welcome, sir.

CALLER:  Thanks Rush.  Nice to speak with you, sir.  I have three things.  Number one, our president promised repeal and replace Obamacare.  Hasn’t happened.  Number two.  Tax reform, they’re messing with him.  And number one, build the wall.  Every time he spoke, build a wall.  I’m afraid he’s starting to dip his foot into the swamp.  And, boy, I just don’t want to see that happen.  My mother always told me, be famous or infamous.  And he can be infamous by standing by his guns for that money, that million — or billion dollars and —

RUSH:  Are you a Trump voter?

CALLER:  I sure am.

RUSH:  Are you really starting to get concerned here?

CALLER:  Well, I will if he doesn’t goes forward with this billion dollars, absolutely.

RUSH:  So let me ask you this — time is going — on the wall, you don’t want him to wait ’til September; you want it done now, government shut down, you don’t care about that, you want him to do this?

CALLER:  Yes, because be famous or infamous.  Can you imagine on his 100th day, the Democrats shut the government down.  It will never be forgotten.

RUSH:  I think it’d be great. That would not scare me. But anyway, I’m out of time.  We’ll have to conclude that discussion tomorrow. We’ll see you next time.

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