RUSH: Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. El Rushbo illustrating one of the most important, paramount teachable moments in the history of the EIB Network.

Here’s Jim Acosta at CNN. By the way, Jim Acosta, after having been humiliated by Stephen Miller, after having been exposed as an idiot, as an uneducated, maleducated putz, has continued to tweet the last 24 hours total error-filled disinformation about the Statue of Liberty and how Trump’s immigration policy is basically an attack on the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty has nothing to do with immigration, folks. It had nothing to do with immigration. The Emma Lazarus poem did not appear on the pedestal for years and years and years after the Statue of Liberty was deployed in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty does not point to the United States. The Statue of Liberty points outward, away from the United States. It is a beacon of liberty and freedom for the rest of the world. It has nothing to do with immigration.

But that Emma Lazarus poem has been taught as U.S. immigration policy: “Give me your tired, give me your thirsty, give me your hungry, give me your poor, give me your transgendered,” throw that in there. Give me everybody who’s a victim of the evil in the world and the United States will take them. That’s not immigration policy. That’s not what the poem was meant to do.

The poem and the Statue of Liberty are two separate entities. They were not created together, never intended to be deployed together. It is one of the most egregious examples of disinformation that is being taught throughout the American education system today. And one of the primary victims of this miseducation is Jim Acosta, who is a reporter at CNN. He got first crack at Stephen Miller yesterday.

ACOSTA: What the President’s proposing here does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration. The Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It doesn’t say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer. Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country, if — if you’re telling them, “You have to speak English”? Can’t people learn how to speak English when they get here?

RUSH: Now, there may be some bias in here and there may be some devotion to the liberal jeopardy, but folks, there’s abject — I’m trying to look for the polite word. It’s ignorance, abject ignorance here. Mr. Acosta, stupidity, it’s a qualitative thing. I’m talking about how little he knows, combined with the smug arrogance that he knows more than anybody.

Those two things are some of the most irritating personality quirks I ever run into. People that don’t know diddly-squat who think they’re experts. And this guy is the champion of this. In his mind, the Statue of Liberty, the Emma Lazarus poem, that’s immigration policy, right there. It doesn’t say anything about computer science, Miller. It doesn’t say anything about speaking English, Miller. Aren’t you turning immigration policy upside down? Immigration is not an entitlement, Acosta. Anyway, here’s how Miller dealt with it in the first phase.

MILLER: Right now it’s a requirement that to be naturalized, you have to speak English. So the notion that speaking English wouldn’t be a part of immigration systems would be, actually, very ahistorical. Secondly, the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty enlightening the world. It’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to was added later. It’s not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty. But more fundamentally…

ACOSTA: Stephen, I’m sorry…

MILLER: No, here, here…

ACOSTA: …that sounds like, that sounds like…

MILLER: Jim, let me ask you a question.

ACOSTA: …that sounds like some national park revisionism.

MILLER: No. What I’m asking you is… (laughter)

ACOSTA: The Statue, the Statue of Liberty…

MILLER: Jim.

ACOSTA: …has always been…

MILLER: Jim, let me ask you a question.

Acosta: … a beacon of hope to the world.

RUSH: Beacon of hope to the world. National Park revisionism. So Miller points out the truth of the statue of Statue of Liberty and the truth of the Emma Lazarus poem, which I have for you coming up. I took the time back in 2010 to explain it, July 1st. It takes a couple and a half minutes, and I’m gonna get to it. But here you have National Park revisionism? He’s accusing Miller of believing a conspiracy to rewrite the meaning of the Statue of Liberty and the Emma Lazarus poem. That is stupidity. That’s ignorance.

This is classic. This is why we’re stymied, this is why we’re paralyzed, this is why it’s impossible to make progress. We have members of Congress who may also be this stupid, members of the Senate who may also be this ignorant. Who simply don’t know the truth and facts about things. Who may look at immigration as an entitlement rather than an actual policy that’s been created for the benefit of the United States of America and its people. I’m gonna get my bit from 2010 in before this hour ends. July 1st, 2010, this program.

RUSH ARCHIVE: The Emma Lazarus poem, “Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, huddled masses,” blah, blah, blah, does not and never has appeared on the Statue of Liberty. It was a poem written in a contest to raise money to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. It was not even put on display inside the exhibit, inside the pedestal until years later. “The New Colossus” is the title of it. It was written in 1883. In 1903, 20 years later, it was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty. You don’t go to the Statue of Liberty, wander around outside and see “The New Colossus” as part of the design on the outside of the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty was never meant to be a symbol of immigration. It was meant to be a symbol of liberty and freedom. The Statue of Liberty as designed and constructed had nothing to do with what Emma Lazarus wrote, and it’s another distortion of the left to suggest that this country was founded for the express purpose of taking anybody, anywhere, any planet, any country, who wanted to come into the country, under the guise that they were poor, they were huddled, they were hungry, they were thirsty.

It was not about immigration at all. It was about liberty. We don’t call it the Statue of Immigration. We call it the Statue of Liberty. It was dedicated October 28th, 1886. It is a monument commemorating the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Nothing to do with immigration. It commemorated the Declaration of Independence. The French did it. So profound did everyone in the world think the Declaration was, and in fact Abraham Lincoln often gave it more weight than the Constitution itself in terms of its deep meaning. Lady Liberty is stepping forward. She is meant to be carrying the torch of liberty from the United States to the rest of the world. The torch is not to light the way to the United States. It is to light the way to liberty to the rest of the world. Lady Liberty is carrying the light of liberty to the rest of the world. It is not a beacon for immigrants to get to this country because they’re tired, they’re poor, they’re huddled, hungry, or thirsty

RUSH: And yet how many of you don’t know that? How many of you have been taught the fallacious aspects of this like you were taught a bunch of BS about Thanksgiving? And because of the degree of ignorance in citadels of learning, we’re paralyzed. We can’t mauve forward. An immigration policy that’s the most sensible thing that’s come down the pike in 30 years is now racist and bigoted, and it won’t pass the Congress.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Little Jimmy Acosta Googled all night looking for evidence the Statue of Liberty is related to our immigration policy. And of course he’s able to find some because there’s idiocy everywhere and Google happens to return idiocy first on practically every search result. Doesn’t make it right.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That Emma Lazarus poem, “Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, your thirsty, your transgendered…” Give me your whatever. The only reason that that poem was put up was to raise money for the pedestal. The Statue of Liberty did not come with a pedestal. The French left off the dock, if you will, in common Millennial terms. You have an iPhone dock, an iPad? They gave us the statue. They gave us the phone, but no charging dock. So we had to build the dock, and the poem was to raise money for the pedestal. (chuckling)

It was a contest, for crying out loud! It was not immigration policy. It never has been immigration policy. The left converted it to that because it satisfied their needs. But the poem, if you read the whole thing — which I’m not gonna do here — it’s only partially about accepting people into the country. It’s mostly about how we are a beacon of freedom, which is all the Statue of Liberty was intended to be. It had nothing to do with immigration!

From the moment it was designed to the moment it was sculpted to the moment it was shipped and delivered, it had nothing to do with immigration. It has, today, nothing to do with immigration policy. And yet here’s an entire — an entire — United States White House press corps and probably everybody else in the media who is totally ignorant of it. And how about the idea that the media now sees fit to conduct debates with briefers in the Trump press briefing room? The press has become — this is not news — a bunch of activists.

So, as I’ve told you, there isn’t any news. They’re not looking for news. These people are looking to destroy anything other than their agenda. But aside from the politics of this, folks, in the real world this ignorance — or if you don’t want to accept that it’s ignorance, this bias. Whatever you want to call it, it is paralyzing us. I cannot make this point too much. I can’t pound it too often. It is paralyzing us. This legislation probably doesn’t stand a chance.

It doesn’t stand a chance in Congress because there’s so much ignorance — and there has been so much misinformation and disinformation — that it’s gonna be very easy to characterize this as a discriminating, mean-spirited piece of legislation, when in fact it is the exact opposite! It is to benefit the United States of America. It is to benefit the people that we decide to let in and become citizens, and that is totally up to us. It isn’t an entitlement program. It’s not about benefits to anybody. It’s about how you earn the ability to come to and stay in the United States.

It is the antithesis of an entitlement.

But I fear it doesn’t have a prayer. This little debate in the White House press corps yesterday is enough to scare off your typical member of Congress who would rather not take the time — as I have here — to explain how false and erroneous this argument is. Rather than stand up for the bill, rather than stand up for the legislation — and because Trump has his fingerprints on it, that’s another reason. “We can’t let it happen! We can’t have Trump have a success! Oh, no way.” So something profoundly decent? Very, very progressive in terms of improving things?

Very, very good? Very, very substantial? It doesn’t stand a prayer because way too many people in our country are unable to accept, discern, and process common sense. And again, this arrogant smugness that accompanies this stupidity or ignorance is beyond frustrating. Now, to wrap this up (’cause there are other things plus your phone calls), I have just two more sound bites here of Jim Acosta and Steve Miller. Now, the media was saying, “This Acosta is great! He really took it to Miller. He showed Miller what he’s really all about. He exposed Miller as a fraud.”

Anybody with an open mind and a modicum of understand understands that Jim Acosta of CNN was yet again profoundly embarrassed. But he doesn’t have the sense to know how exposed he was yesterday as an illiterate. He’s running around puffing himself up on Twitter and trying to find Google searches that back up his belief that Statue of Liberty is immigration policy! That poem, the Emma Lazarus poem, was it appended to the Constitution? No. It was appended to the statue — and you can’t even see it unless you go inside.

It’s not even on the outside of the statue. There’s no way an arriving immigrant said, “Hey, I’m one of the hungry! I’m one of the thirsty! Hey, I’m one of the people that’s talking about,” ’cause that’s not what it’s about. You went through Ellis Island, right, when you wanted to come? That was one of the…? (chuckles) Well, never mind. A couple sound bites. I don’t… (interruption) Well, I just wondered something. “Are you thirsty?” I wonder if that’s one of the questions they were asked.

“Are you transgendered? Are you a victim? Are you a victim of wherever you come from?” Of course not. “Do you sleep with pigs? Do you hang around with pigs? What kind of person are you? “We’re looking for the dregs of society to let into our country, here.” It’s not what happened, and yet that’s what people want us to believe. That’s the kind of thing that determined whether or not somebody got into this country. (interruption) Wipe that expression… (interruption)

That express… (interruption) Snerdley thinks I’ve stepped over a line here. I haven’t stepped over any kind of a line here. I’m trying to illustrate. I keep going! I keep going until I think I have hit gold in the art of persuasion. (laughing) I saw how they reacted to Miller. Well, here’s more of that. We’ve just got two of these sound bites. It’s Stephen Miller and Jim Acosta again with the ongoing debate over the immigration bill.

MILLER: In 1970 when we let in 300,000 a year, was that violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land?

ACOSTA: (silence)

MILLER: In the 1990s, when it was half a million a year, was it violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land?

ACOSTA: (confused pause) Was it violating —

MILLER: When it was 700,000 a year…?

ACOSTA: Was it violating the Statue of Liberty —

MILLER: No, tell me what years. Tell me what years Jim Acosta’s definition of the Statue of Liberty poem law of the land? So you’re saying a million a year is the Statue of Liberty number; 900,000 violates it; 800,000 violates it?

ACOSTA: Y-y-you’re sort of bringing a “press one for English” —

MILLER: Jim?

ACOSTA: — philosophy here to immigration, and that’s never —

MILLER: Jim?

ACOSTA: — been what — what the United States has been about, Stephen. That’s just the basics.

MILLER: But you’re also… Your statement’s also shockingly ahistorical in another respect, too, which, if you look at the history of immigration, it’s actually ebbed and flowed. We’ve had periods of very large waves followed by periods of less immigration and more immigration.

RUSH: This idiot, Acosta, doesn’t even realize that he’s being mocked and humiliated. “The Statue of Liberty the law of the land? What is the Statue of Liberty law of the land? Is it 900,000? What’s the Statue of Liberty law of the land? Is it 700,000? What is it, Jim? Were we violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land when…?” “No. No, Stephen. We’re simply talking about how the United States has been a beacon, Stephen.” “Well, what’s the limit here? What’s the Statue of Liberty law of the land limit?” Acosta didn’t get it! So Acosta, desperate to get the last word in…

ACOSTA: The whole notion of, “Well, they could learn… You know, they have to learn English before they get to the United States.” Are we just gonna bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?

MILLER: I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It’s absolutely… It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind —

ACOSTA: (sputtering)

MILLER: No, this is an amazing —

ACOSTA: (sputtering)

MILLER: This is an amazing moment. This is an amazing moment. That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world.

ACOSTA: (sputtering) I — I — I —

MILLER: Jim, that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant, and foolish things you ever said.

RUSH: (laughing) That’s why casual observers think that Stephen Miller wiped the floor with Acosta. But Acosta still didn’t know what had happened to him there. He still didn’t know! At the moment Miller’s going through all of that, Acosta thinks that Miller is the idiot, that Miller is the impolite, brusque and rude Trumpist. Acosta doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about.

In Acosta’s world the only people that speak English are other white people and they’re in Great Britain and Australia, and outside of that nobody else speaks English. And so Miller and Trump don’t want anybody but Brits and Australians to be admitted into the country. “Is that what you’re saying, Stephen?” And Miller is shocked at the limited worldview, which he called cosmopolitan. (laughing)

Acosta hasn’t the slightest idea what has happened here. He didn’t realize until I’m sure he started reading reviews of this and saw that many people thought the floor had been wiped with him that he started getting defensive and searching on Google for evidence that the Statue of Liberty is, in fact, immigration policy.