RUSH: We’ll start in Naples, Florida, with Benji. Great to have you, Benji. What’s up?

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I think I’ve underestimated Mr. Trump on his veto or his non-veto of this omnibus bill. I think he’s putting it off ’til it expires, 1st of October. He’s gonna freeze up the government and that’s gonna be our October Surprise.

RUSH: What makes you think this?

CALLER: Uhhh, because he has not let any of us down yet. This is really the only time I can think that he’s let us down, and I don’t think he would do that. I don’t think Mr. Trump would cave. I think he’s planning this and I think that he’s gonna put the screws to the Democrats and say, you know, “This is what you got,” to us, American people, “Now vote ’em out and give me something to work with.”

RUSH: Okay, well, that could well be, but let me ask you this: How does this happen? How does something like this get presented to the White House — to anybody — with only a couple of days to find out what’s in it, making it practically impossible? It’s 2,200 pages! How does this happen?

CALLER: I’ve been asking myself that for as long as I can remember listening to you. They do this every time.

RUSH: Exactly. They do it every time. So at what point are we gonna start learning?

CALLER: That’s why I think he’s holding off until then, then he can say, you know, “You’ve got the vote! Vote ’em out. Get the swamp out of there.” Because if he did it right now, we’d all forget by the time the election happened.

RUSH: Wait a minute. You think that he purposefully allowed himself to appear sandbagged here so as to set the Democrats up for teaching ’em a real lesson in October?

CALLER: Yes, and that’s why he said, “I will not do this again. I will not sign a bill like this again,” ’cause they’re gonna give him another one when this one expires at the end of the fiscal year.

RUSH: Well, why…? If he’s fooling ’em here, if he’s setting ’em up for a gigantic embarrassment, why telegraph that by telling them, “I’m not doing this again”?

CALLER: Because then he can say, “I told you I wasn’t gonna do this again.”

RUSH: What did he do that you don’t like? What do you think is the problem?

CALLER: Well, he sold us all down the river. I mean, you know, $1.3 trillion? This is ridiculous. No wall that we voted for. You know, the Dems are still gonna be pushing for amnesty. It’s the same old, same old: Pork, pork, pork. Running up the deficit. We’re all tired of. That’s why we voted for him.

RUSH: Yeah, but… Granted, true. But Democrats are not the problem. The Republicans run the House and Senate! The Democrats are not the problem. We know who they are. We know exactly what they’re gonna do. We know what they want — and they got it. But the Republicans are the ones that run the show, not the Democrats.

CALLER: Well, they kind of run the show. They don’t have enough of a majority in the Senate with the way the rules are. I think he’s also giving them a little bit of time to change those rules.

RUSH: Okay. Well, look, don’t misunderstand me here. I fully get and understand your sentiment here that Trump hasn’t changed, that this should not be considered Trump selling out or giving up or what have you. I’m totally simpatico with that. I just took the occasion of your comments to try to ascertain the reasons for your thinking. So I’m glad you put up with it, ’cause my interrogations are known sometimes to be brutal.

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RUSH: What would you say if I were to tell you that this thing that Trump signed on Friday…? After mentioning that he might veto it, he actually signed the bill at the 1 p.m. or whatever it was appearance in the Diplomatic Reception Room. What if I were to tell you that an omnibus spending bill is not a budget and therefore does not contain the same restrictive restrictions that a budget has? Do you know what I’m talking about?

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RUSH: Josiah in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, next. Great to have you. How are you doing?

CALLER: I’m doing fine. It’s an honor to talk to you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Anyway, the reason I’m calling is last Friday, you know, I heard some people at the end of the broadcast — you know, after Trump signed the bill — say, you know, that he was sounding a little discouraged, a little depressed and kind of down because of what he had done. And I’m not here to say, you know, he should or shouldn’t have done that. That’s not the point.

RUSH: Let me… Hang on just a second. Can you hang on just a second, Josiah? I need to ask Mr. Snerdley a question. How many of those calls on Friday do you think were seminar? Were they all legitimate…? (interruption) None? (interruption) Not one you think was seminar? (interruption) I know, but you don’t think any of them were programed Democrats calling to say, “That’s it! I knew this was gonna happen. Trump’s blown it.” You don’t think…? (interruption) Not a single seminar caller got past you? (interruption) Okay. So there you have it, Josiah. The call screener and Official Program Observer believes every call on Friday was legit, just to throw that in your hopper.

CALLER: Yeah. Okay. Well, what Trump did I’m not really talking about that, but whether you believe we lost a fight or lost the engagement or battle or not with what Trump did. If people get depressed — if you get downhearted and start thinking, you know, “We lost; what’s the point?” — you’re letting the Democrats, you’re letting the left win another battle. Now more than ever we need to be fighting harder. We are at a point now where the last election we pushed the Democrats back. Instead of us reacting all the time, it’s the Democrats reacting. You know, essentially what we’re doing is we’re fighting a war. And in a war, you don’t react. You don’t fight defensively, you fight offensively — and for the first time, we’ve been seeing ourselves fight offensively, where —

RUSH: Let me tell you what I think really upset people on Friday. Remember we carried that entire… We carried the nuts and bolts, the meat and potatoes of that whatever it was. It wasn’t a press conference, but it was a signing ceremony. People heard it, and Trump was not who he was. Trump was not energetic. He was not upbeat. He was just not… He was not Trump. He was low-key, saying things like “I’m never gonna do this again,” and I don’t think people were so much angry at Trump as disappointed.

The real anger remains aimed at Republicans on Capitol Hill. They’re the ones that did this. The Republicans run the House and they run the Senate. Now, the House Republicans will tell you they tried to do a budget with 12 different elements in it which compromises the entire budget — 12 different appropriations bills — and the Senate didn’t. The Senate doesn’t do budgets anymore. The Senate does an omnibus, continuing resolutions and so forth. But nevertheless, it seems like the Republicans in Congress are still not on the same page with their president.

And that’s what has people ticked off. And the disappointment is that it was such an opportunity to blow this up and not have this happen again. And I just think people were wishing that Trump would have opposed this or refused to sign it. Vetoed it. Just to arrest this kind of behavior. Because the end result of Friday was, in many people’s view, the swamp got what the swamp wanted, and Trump had to swallow a bitter pill — and that’s not what people thought Trump was going to do when he got there.

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RUSH: Here’s Alex in Northbrook, Florida. Glad you waited. You’re up next. It’s your turn.

CALLER: Hello, Rush.

RUSH: Hey!

CALLER: It’s a pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you. Great to have you here.

CALLER: (haltingly) Well, I do not believe that President Trump has abandoned his base yet. (pause) From what he did with the omnibus bill on Friday, I believe that President Trump has… (pause) He has… (pause) He’s on a roll.

RUSH: Do you have your radio on? Do you have your radio turned on by any chance?

CALLER: No.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: President Trump is… He’s pretty much been on a roll since, like, last week, right? If you asked anybody last week, they would have told you that they love Trump, what he was doing. He was making promises left and right. It doesn’t make any sense that Trump would abandon his base now. I believe that —

RUSH: Well, wait. Who is saying that Trump abandoned his base?

CALLER: Well, your callers from last week on Friday.

RUSH: I know but were they saying he’d abandoned the base or just screwed up? I don’t think anybody felt that Trump abandoned them — in other words, reneged on his intentions or promises. I just… I think that they thought something else, either Trump got snookered or he didn’t realize what was happening. It’s all because…

If he wouldn’t have floated that he was gonna veto this thing five hours before signing it… You know, that is what… When that happened, that’s when everybody started saying, “Okay, do it!” Up ’til that time, there hadn’t been any thought that he would veto it. In fact, nobody knew what was in this thing until two days before it was gonna be voted on or signed, and it’s 2200 pages. That’s why people thought that the fix was in.

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RUSH: Here’s Monica in Ashland, Oregon. Great to have you. How are you?

CALLER: I’m fine, and I just wanted to thank you very much for being where you are for three hours of my day. You’re calming for my soul. I have a couple of issues on the omnibus. My first one was: What a slap and a kick in the gut from McConnell, Ryan, and their Republican cronies. They slapped every one of us Trump voters, letting us know, “Ha-ha! We’re not giving this to you.”

RUSH: Trump too. Trump too. Don’t leave him out. They slapped him, too.

CALLER: Oh, well, I’m not there yet. The reason Trump, I’m sure, was so down — and I think it might have been why you and I were so down and didn’t know what to say. His word means a lot to him. His word is everything, and he promised us things. Nobody knows what went on behind the scene. He threatened to veto. Who knows who got a hold of him, McConnell or Ryan. Maybe he would have lost the whole bill or part of the military budget.

RUSH: Actually, you know, that’s a good point. What is going around — and I’m unable to independently verify it. I can’t tell you for sure. But what was going around was the secretary of defense told Trump in no uncertain terms he’s out if this thing got vetoed and all this defense spending fell by the wayside. I don’t think that’s it. I think there was a lot of pressure on Trump, and I think the way the Republicans did this… Now, no matter how you phrase this, it’s gonna result in Trump not looking his best.

But nobody knew what was in this until after it was voted on!

We didn’t know what was… We knew an omnibus was coming. We knew it’d be a continuing resolution. We knew this; we knew that. The details, we had no concept ’cause it’s 2,200 pages and they don’t release it in enough time for even the people voting on it to read the whole thing. So we find out that there was essentially a cabal of people that work on K Street (that’s the way you define special interests and lobbyists) who were hell-bent on making sure that Trump did not get spending authority to enact anything to do with immigration.

That’s what this thing was all about, and some of the pique at Trump I’m sure was for not knowing this soon enough and early enough to head it off at the pass, because I think — and I’m way out of school here, folks, ’cause I can’t back this up with knowledge. So like everybody else, I’m just speculating. But I don’t see… (sigh) This is so hard to say, I just… I don’t see the Republican leadership working with the guy to help advance his agenda on much. They got tax cuts. But on Obamacare and the initial immigration wall stuff?

It’s a battle for Trump every step of the way, and he knows it. And I think the thing you have to conclude is that he’s eventually going to get his way on these things, and this may be part of the setup for the next one that comes down the pike. It just ought not be this hard, after going through all of the difficulties and winning — and that, I think, is really what strikes people the most. I really appreciate the call, Monica. Thanks very much.