RUSH: Okay. Let’s see what happened here. We got back three hostages. We didn’t have to send any pallets worth of money in the middle of the night. We didn’t have to give up three top North Korean terrorists in order to get back these hostages. No wonder the media’s so upset about this, because everywhere you look Obama is being made to look a fool! And the Drive-Bys just can’t stand it, folks!
I’ve got an article here in The Stack. It’s an AP story that almost reads like a parody for the amount of snark it contains. AP basically says that Trump put the physical and mental health of these freed hostages at risk by trotting them out in front of the media for a photo-op! (laughing) Oh, my goodness.
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That is all psychological when you take that stuff. When you got it, you gotta get it. You gotta get it, you gotta live through it, you gotta deal with it. I’m trying to ward it off. At any rate, let’s look at all of the Obama things that have been rolled back. At the top of the list, of course, is the Iran deal. But here’s some things that haven’t gotten a lot of mention. Fuel-emissions standards. This was a huge deal promoting climate change.
The Obama administration had really ratcheted up the fuel emissions standards that auto manufacturers were going to have to meet. Those have been rolled back. Net neutrality, which is government control of the internet. The individual mandate and Obamacare, DACA, the Paris climate accords, travel to Cuba, the transgender troop ban. The Keystone pipeline’s been approved. The Clean Water Act — Obama’s clean power thing — was blown to smithereens. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been blown to smithereens.
I mean, it’s incredible, the Obama legacy that Trump has already canceled or overturned. And there’s a reason why he was able to do it. And I will tell you: If things don’t change, if the next president is a Democrat, he’s gonna be able to reverse everything Trump has done. If all of this is just done by executive action or executive order, then the next executive can cancel it or add to it, what have you. Let’s just keep going on the list.
One month from today, Trump will meet with Little Rocket Man in Singapore to discuss the denuclearization of North Korea. The three hostages are returned home. Pompeo had his second secret trip. The New York Times… I’ll tell you how pathetic it’s getting. The New York Times runs a story — and don’t buy that they didn’t know where he was. They knew he was on the way to visit Rocket Man, Little Rocket Man to get the hostages.
The New York Times runs a story with the headline: “On the Day Trump Cancels Iran Deal, His Secretary of State Is Nowhere to Be Seen, Thousands of Miles Away,” trying to create the impression that Pompeo is a nonfactor. It’s so pathetic! These are now turning into spitballs against battleships, these pathetic little media attempts to dent and stop Trump. It’s becoming laughably pathetic. The New York Times knew where Pompeo was, and they knew where he was going.
They also know that Trump was canceling the Iran deal and didn’t need Pompeo standing next to him. You know, maybe they didn’t know exactly at the time where Pompeo was going. How this Pompeo get over there twice and back and nobody know when everything else leaks? Five ISIS leaders have been captured. Israel is responding to attacks, leveling this Iranian stuff in Syria. You heard about that? We are destroying Iranian installations in Syria.
There is polling from CNN that suggests that the Democrats have, for all intents and purposes, lost any advantage in the generic ballot, which suggests that there isn’t any blue wave; there probably never was. The primary elections on Tuesday ended up being very positive for the Republicans, including turnout in Ohio. The first woman to head the CIA has been nominated by Donald Trump. She had her confirmation hearings begin yesterday.
And of course… Let me ask you a question. A little reminder. Who was it that voted for John Brennan, who was Obama’s CIA director — and is probably, I think, the head honcho leading the opposition to Trump here. I think he’s leading the deep state operation to get rid of Trump. (interruption) Wait just a second. Let me go through the whole thing here. Don’t answer it yet. Who voted “yes” for John Brennan at his CIA confirmation to be the director?
And it has to be noted here that John Brennan was Gina Haspel’s higher up, had the same record on the issues of torture that she has. He was there. He was all in favor of enhanced interrogation. Who was the senator who voted then for Obama’s appointment to be director of the CIA, John Brennan? Who is the one senator now getting all sanctimonious about torture and so forth, suggesting he cannot recommend voting for Gina Haspel?
It’s none other than John McCain. John McCain voted for Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, who’s got the same profile as Gina Haspel. Gina Haspel was a subordinate to Brennan but McCain now says that he can’t in good conscience support her because… I mean, he’s all in favor of a woman being nominated. He’s all in favor of the great, groundbreaking things. But then her being around at the time of waterboarding and so forth?
He just can’t see voting for her. But he had no problem voting for John Brennan. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. My friends, you are listening to the Mac Daddy of them all. That’s me. Last night, CNN International. They got a program called Newsroom. This is the CNN that gets beamed around the world. The cohost of this program is a guy named John Vause (rhymes with “gauze”), and he had on a former Los Angeles city councilwoman, Wendy Greuel.
They were talking about me. They didn’t like my reaction to Trump canceling Obama’s Iran deal yesterday. They’re talking about me and my reaction to all of it.
RUSH ARCHIVE: We actually have pulled out of this deal, and it’s big. And I’ll tell you, folks: I felt proud. I honestly feel proud. … This was a pure, clean break, and the application of strong sanctions. So where are we with the Obama legacy? The Paris climate deal? Dead, done. We’re out. The Iran nuclear deal, part of the Obama legacy? Dead, done. We’re out.
VAUSE: So Wendy, if Obama did it that’s enough for many on the right to undo it, it seems.
RUSH: Hey, Wendy, let me tell you something. Being able to do this is accomplishment, because Obama was so ruinous. Obama was doing great damage to this country, and being able to reverse it and stop it is a great achievement. But let me tell you, Wendy and Mr. Gauze. Let me tell you why it was even possible. You want to blame me as the Mac Daddy. You want to get mad at me for celebrating this.
But the only reason this was possible is because your hero wasn’t able to make any of this happen constitutionally. He wasn’t able to get enough votes in the Senate to make the Iran deal a treaty! So it was never anything. The Iranians never even signed it, Wendy, did you know that? The Iranians have never even signed this thing. It was nothing more than Obama’s personal policy preferences, is all it was. It never was an official position of the United States because there had never been any ratification of it by the elected representatives of the people.
And because Obama could not get… He didn’t even present it to the Senate for a vote on a treaty because so many Democrats, Wendy, were opposed to it. Many of them New York liberals like Chuck You Schumer — a whole bunch of them — wanted no part of this deal, wanted no part of anything that strengthened Iran. The only reason this is possible is because Obama was doing things that the people in his country did not want done and didn’t support.
So reversing them and getting rid of them is a needed, proper correction. This is why the Obama legacy is so easily reversed, because none of it happened in a bipartisan way. Barack Obama was never able… After the 2010 midterms when he lost the House, Barack Obama was never able to get any legislation accomplished whatsoever because he would not compromise with the Republicans in the House in order to get their support.
So everything Obama did was via executive action. This is after Obamacare, for which there’s not a Republican vote. After that, it’s executive action and executive orders. And that’s why they can be reversed. But they exist in the first place because Obama never had popular support for his agenda, Wendy. And look who won the presidency in 2016. Why, the guy promising to undo it all is who won. So whereas Obama really never established a mandate for all of these executive actions in orders…
His country was not with him on these things, Wendy. Now, you people on the left, I’m sure, have not stopped to look at it this way. Because, in your minds, Obama was invincible! Obama was unopposable. Obama was the first African-American president. As such, he was historical. As such, you could not oppose him. It was just a gauche, improper thing to do. Whatever Obama wanted, Obama was supposed to get.
That was part of our duty as a nation to make amends for slavery, the mistreatment of African-Americans for all of these centuries. Obama was reparations lite. Let him have whatever he wants. But he couldn’t get support for any of it. Hence, a guy ran for the presidency promising to get us out of the Iran deal, promising to get us out of this Paris climate accord, the whole climate change hoax.
We had a guy run for the presidency who promised to do everything he’s a doing, and now the left is attacking him for keeping his promises. This is something that’s just not done. In the modern era of politics, promises are for campaigns, but they’re not for governing. Don’t tell Trump that. So the guy promising to undo Obamaism, including Obamacare, is the guy who got elected. So, Wendy and John, there is much more popular public support for what Donald Trump is doing than Barack Obama ever had. It’s not even close.
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RUSH: The Mac Daddy of ’em all, Rush Limbaugh, the Mr. Big of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy here behind the Golden EIB Microphone. 800-282-2882.
Here is (grab audio sound bite No. 3) Nicholas Kristof yesterday afternoon on CNN’s Newsroom. He’s talking to Brianna Keilar, who is the infobabe there. She says, “You wrote an op-ed that said Trump’s attempt to blow up the Iran nuclear deal isn’t foreign policy; it’s vandalism. What do you mean?”
KRISTOF: It seems to me and to an awful lot of people that his essential motivation in rejecting the Iran accord — as in, indeed, much of his foreign policy — is simply to, uhh, overturn President Obama’s policies, to, uhh, dismantle President Obama’s legacy. So to that extent I think the underlying force here is not really about foreign policy but about vandalism of everything that President Obama had done in ways that, I think, create really risks ahead for the U.S. and for the world.
RUSH: They’re losing their minds here, folks. I mean, there’s some amoeba in there that is literally eating away at whatever admittedly small brains they begin with. This is absurd. There is no Obama policy. Obama wasn’t able to get his policy supported. All of these so-called Obama policies are just Obama’s personal opinions, his personal policy preferences that he could not sell. It’s very important to understand Donald Trump ran for the presidency promising to reverse all of this, and he’s the guy who got elected.
And the only reason Trump can reverse it is because Obama was unable to get it passed and made official U.S. government policy in the first place. The Iran deal? If it had been ratified as a treaty, if it had gotten two-thirds of the votes in the Senate, Trump would not have been able to get rid of this. He probably won’t even have trade. Two-thirds votes of the Senate, that’s a pretty solid endorsement of the deal. Same thing with the Paris climate accord.
If there had been a ratification, if there had been bipartisan support for this in the U.S. Congress, Trump would not have been able to get rid of any of this. The fact is, Obama never had support for any of this. It’s not just “vandalism.” This is a gigantic correction. This is a major repair job that is taking place, and it’s amazing how much has been repaired. It’s amazing how much has been fixed in just a year and a half. This ought to tell you liberals, you do not yet control the minds and hearts of a majority of the American people or Obama would have done all this stuff in spades and made it irreversible.
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RUSH: In all four corners of the world, I am a household name. Recently tagged by CNN International as “the Mac Daddy of ‘Em All,” and time now to go to the phones. We start in Yorba Linda, California. Hey, John, you’re up first today. It’s great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: How are you this morning?
RUSH: Fine and dandy. Thank you.
RUSH: Yeah, it’s an excellent point. You’re exactly right. If Obama — if any liberal, actually — ever ran for office, particularly the presidency… If they run for the presidency honestly telling us what their agenda is, they can’t stand a prayer. If Obama had run on you losing your health insurance and your doctor and your premiums skyrocketing… If everything that has happened in Obamacare, he told you that’s what you’re gonna do…
If he told you your taxes were going up, if he would have told you that he was gonna make sure the Iranians ended up getting a nuclear weapon; it’s the only way to make the world safe and so forth. He would have never, ever gotten elected. Instead he got elected by promising all of this free stuff for everybody, health care for all. Like your doctor, keep your doctor. He made that promise after he was elected, but that’s an excellent point.
Let me tell you what he’s calling about. It’s been a while since I made the point and what John here is thinking. All these leftists are having conniptions over Trump reversing Obama policy in canceling the Iranian deal and pulling out of the Paris accords, and those were never policies, folks. Obama never had the support of the American people for the Iran deal or the Paris climate accord. I don’t care what you think, he didn’t, because he couldn’t get either of those ratified as a treaty or as official U.S. government policy!
So he just did it.
So Trump runs for office promising to get us out of all these stupid things and wins! So it is Trump that is fixing and repairing a bunch of things that the American people never voted for and didn’t want that Obama did. When Trump wins the presidency on an agenda largely made up of reversing Obama policies, then how can you say that there’s a theft or hijacking of a legacy going on here? There’s simply a major correction taking place.
But I’m gonna tell you something, folks.
This works two ways, and if Trump is unable to get Congress to go along with him on some of his major initiatives, then the next president can unravel what Trump has done too. And what if that the ends up being the way we’re governed? What if this partisanship remains such that we end up having a bunch of presidents do rogue things that are then unwound by the next president and so forth and so on with nothing ever having the official imprimatur of a treaty or the support of the elected representatives of the people?
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RUSH: Now, so far the only thing Trump has done that has been via executive action or order is reverse Obama regulatory schemes. The tax cut, the Trump tax cut, that’s legislation. The next president, if they want to reverse that, they can’t just do an executive order and eliminate it. Pelosi… (chuckles) Pelosi is out there campaigning on if the Democrats win the White House in 2020, the first thing they’re doing is raising taxes.
Well, it’s not gonna be easy. She’s gonna have to… Whoever the president is is gonna have to go through the whole motion of getting legislation drafted and written and debated and then passed. Trump, so far, has not done anything that President Obama has done. The Iran deal. Trump’s not done anything. All he’s done is said, “You know what? That was never U.S. policy, and it’s not gonna be. We’re not going to abide by it because it’s never been ratified.”
Trump essentially said, “I’m pulling us out of this because this country has never officially positioned itself as a signatory to this deal. This is purely and simply Barack Obama.” So the next president, if they want to… If the next president wants to reengage in the Iran deal, he is gonna have to do one of two things. Unilaterally come up with a deal and impose it on everybody like Obama did or actually come up with a treaty and have it ratified by the Senate and make it official and thereby make it impossible to reverse with a presidential signature.
He was very frustrated that he couldn’t get anything through Congress after the Republicans won the House in 2010, and they won because of Obamacare and his out-of-control spending. From that moment on Obama said, “To hell with it,” and just started doing everything with executive signatures, executive orders, executive actions. Every damn one of them can be rescinded and overturned by another executive action or rescission. It’s that simple. But not Obamacare. Look at how hard it was to get rid of Obamacare.
It still hasn’t been done. In the tax cut, the individual mandate was wiped out, but Obamacare’s still there. Trump could not just cancel it with a signature. So the point here is that whatever Trump wants as a legacy item or series of items that are long lasting are going to have to be the result of either treaties or legislation — meaning the support of Congress, which is the elected representatives of the people. That’s what Obama bypassed because he never had the support.
He could not have gotten his Iran deal ratified if he had chosen the treaty route. It never had the support. Obamacare barely did. The Paris climate agreement is another one. That was never official United States treaty or sanctions or action. It was, once again, the individual preference of the president of the United States, but it had no force of law or permanence attached to it because it did not actually represent the political feelings and thoughts and desires of the American people.
And that’s why it’s easy for Trump to undo them. This is what these Obama people had better understand. These things that Obama did were not popular. They never had the popular support of the American people. Obama and the Democrats and his administration were governing against the will of the American people. It’s the only way Obama could implement his agenda. He never had support for it. He was not a great president.
He was not able to marshal support for his ideas. He was not able to go to Congress, come up with compromises, and get people to support what he wanted to do. Trump has done a better job of that than Obama ever did. Much as it might gall people to hear that. But the Iran deal cannot be automatically reimplemented with the next president. Whoever the next president is is going to have to write his own and implement it with his signature, like Obama did, or he’s gonna have to do it as a treaty.
In other words, these people that want to restore Obama’s legacy are gonna have one hell of a time doing it. Because there really isn’t an Obama legacy being unraveled here. These are the desires of a president who was a community organizer being shown that he did not have the unitary powers he thought he had to implement and put in place his agenda. Look how easy it has been to unravel Obama on climate change, Obama on net neutrality, Obama on Iran.
It’s been a snap, and the only reason is Obama never had popular support for it. We remain a constitutional republic. If you leave the people out of what you’re doing, it’s going to come back and bite you — unless what you do is universally popular. Anyway, you get the drift. And if Trump tries the same things Obama did, if he gets frustrated at being unable to get support in Congress, whoever the next president is is gonna be able to erase what Trump did too. It cuts both ways.
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RUSH: Let me give you another example of something Obama did that never had the support of Congress, and that’s DACA. Why was Trump able to cancel DACA? DACA is not federal law, folks. It’s not statutory. It’s not federal law. It’s a presidential executive action. And all it takes to get rid of it is Trump getting rid of it, which he tried to do. And because the children are involved, there was blowback.
Everybody had a fit. But DACA is not the law of the land. DACA did not come from Congress. It’s not legislation. Trump would not have been able to sign it out of existence if it were. Do you realize how little of the Obama agenda actually is real in terms of being representative of the will of the American people? Practically none of it is.
Who’s next? Jerry in Chicago. Glad you called, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Rush. Ten-year listener, first-time caller. Great to finally talk to you.
CALLER: I just wanted to point out what you were talking about in the first hour, what one of the previous callers mentioned. The Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, Keystone pipeline, clean coal, whatever you want to call it from the Obama administration. Trump ran on the ideas of getting rid of all of that, and he’s succeeded so far in doing all of what he has promised with those issues, and I just want to point out the fact that what you talked about ten years ago was Obama and I hope he fails and the mainstream media making a big ordeal about that?
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: It’s finally happening.
RUSH: That is an excellent point. I did say that I hope Obama failed about two weeks before his inauguration in 2009. It was in a Wall Street Journal piece, but it wasn’t because they wanted 400 words, and I said, “I don’t need that many. I can do it in four: ‘I hope he fails.'” They didn’t print it and it was mischaracterized as I was hoping the country failed.
I didn’t. I was hoping the country would be spared, that Obama’s policies would fail to be implemented — and in large part, they were. This is the caller’s point. Obama had to do it himself with executive action, and Trump is erasing them. The next thing up: Draining the swamp. That was a big Trump promise, and that will fix a lot of things if he would actually do that.
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