RUSH: I had some people send me a note during the break, “Rush, what did you say, that children arrive via tracking are essentially granted amnesty in this bill?” Let me try to explain this to you. Folks, this budget bill. (sigh) I alluded to it in my interview with Chris Wallace, and I spoke a lot about this on Friday when I saw this. I read enough of this to know that the things in this bill are a giant middle finger to Donald Trump.

There are things that are gonna do great damage to this country, but they are there primarily to send a signal to all of you who voted for Donald Trump that your vote’s wasted. “You think Trump’s gonna build a wall and you think Trump’s gonna win on immigration and Trump’s gonna…? Well, look what he just signed,” and eventually during the campaign, they’re gonna make hay out of this, and their whole point…

Their whole point is going to be, “Don’t ever think an outsider can come in here and fix what you don’t like about the way we run this town! We are not gonna let you decide what happens here. So you voted for this guy Trump, and look what we forced on him.” The bill re-implements the Obama policy of letting coyotes bring kids to the border and drop them off at “reception centers.” Reception centers!

Think of what serves as a reception center in your town. Where do you go for receptions? You go to the church basement. You go to the VFW hall. We’re setting these up for arriving minors on the border who are delivered by coyotes! And then the, quote-unquote, “parents” (who can be anyone who claims to be a parent) come and pick them up and take them “home” in the U.S. So this actually promotes trafficking. It assumes that children who are the victims of trafficking are being saved because we are getting them away of the coyotes.

A lot of this is, by the way, the drug cartels doing this. “Coyotes” is kind of a broad-based term, but there’s all kinds of people that serve as coyotes. When you watch a TV show or a movie, coyotes are portrayed as these swarthy looking, sweating Mexican cowboy types that drive 25-year-old vans. And they’ve got 15 or 20 people in the back of vans, and they’re driving through dusty desert, and there’s no water and the people are barely alive when they get to the border, and the back doors of the van open and here come the people who’ve paid to get that far.

Well, that’s how they’re portrayed in TV shows and movies, but that’s basically what’s happening. Child traffickers are allowed to drop those children at the border. This is an Obama-era policy that has been re-implemented in this budget bill. It drops them off at “reception centers” and any adult — an Obama-approved Democrat family — can come along, snatch ’em up and take ’em home.

It’s essentially, “Hi! Welcome to America. You’re now an American citizen.” It’s amnesty, what have you. What this means is that illegal aliens in the U.S. can now pay coyotes to bring up their kids, and the U.S. government will provide the drop-off areas and make sure the kids get a clean bill of health — because there’s health care provided at the reception centers! And Tootsie Pops! And Bert-and-Ernie cookies and stuff! All of that before they begin their new lives in the U.S.

This bill even prevents the government from checking to see if the adults who show up to pick up these kids are even their parents. You just have to be an adult. Show up; pick up the kid. You’ll be the parent, you are the parent, whatever. They let you have the kid. Drug cartels are doing the trafficking. It’s even more profitable than drugs. There’s zero risk because it’s the children. I’m not exaggerating on this. It’s actual reception centers.

I saw this when I read the bill. I didn’t read the whole thing. It’s thousands of pages. I read, you know, a highlight sheet. And of course we haven’t even discussed what’s in the bill about fencing and walling and what can and can’t be done.

Now, there are obviously a lot of reasons to do this. The Democrats want a permanent underclass. They want as many people getting into this country who are poor, needy, don’t speak the language. In other words, are gonna be totally dependent. They want as many of them as they can get. But there’s also the political aspect of this which cannot be overlooked or denied.

And don’t forget, folks, there are a lot of Republicans in on this. The portion of Congress that’s considered open borders, that wants amnesty for all of the illegals, that’s almost a unity party, unitarian, Republicans and Democrats in this group, as you well know, from dating back to the first Bush administration, Bush 43, his first four years. I mean, that’s where the modern era push for amnesty began. And that was all Republicans who were wanting that. Democrats always have. Republicans were joining ’em.

But it’s always been the case. You know how you’ve had to get into action with faxes, emails, and so forth how many times to stop this. But they just keep coming and they just keep coming and they just keep passing legislation like this. And it’s not just the thumb in Trump’s eye. It’s yours too. You elected Trump. They’re basically telling you, “Don’t ever think that you can beat us. Don’t ever think that you can send people to this town, they’re gonna succeed in beating us on these issues.”

They really want you thinking that it is pointless to vote for anybody not from the approved class of Republican or Democrat candidates. They want you thinking it’s futile. Do not let them get away with that. That’s what they want. Do not fall for this. And that’s not new. It’s so obvious in this bill, they’re feeling their oats. Democrats won the House, they’re flexing their muscles, 20 of ’em running for president now. They have no idea what that is gonna do.

Can you imagine — in fact, there’s a part of me that wants to shut up about this and not give them any heads up about what they’re heading into here. But with that many Democrats in the campaign and the Democrat base being what it is, the contest is gonna be who can turn this country into a communist nation the fastest and the soonest. They won’t use the word “communism” but each one of these people is gonna be outextremisming each other.

This campaign is going to be featuring some of the most extreme liberal ideas, leftist ideas that you’ve ever seen. It can’t go any other direction. They’re already trying to destroy Howard Schultz or anybody who has any claim as not being an extreme leftist. Now Crazy Bernie’s gotten in, making it official.

So they think they own it. They think they’ve defeated Trump. They think they’ve stopped the wall. They think they have given de facto amnesty here by reenabling this Obama-era provision involving trafficking and kids and welcoming them and having an adult pick ’em up and so forth and so on. They have no idea that what they’re really doing is riling and revving everybody up even more than they were in 2016.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Carl in Leona Valley, California. Great to have you, Carl. How are you doing out there, sir?

CALLER: I’m doing just fine, Rush. Thank you so much for putting me on. I just love your show.

RUSH: I thank you for that. I appreciate it very much.

CALLER: Okay. Here’s my question. I was wondering if there’s a chance that Trump can find loopholes in that spending bill to actively pursue the immigrants that we would need in this country. I’m talking about scientists and doctors and chemists and engineers and move them to the front of the line.

RUSH: Well, now, wait a minute. See, you’ve just — ah. This has nothing to do with that. We are talking about illegal immigration here. We are attempting to stop illegal immigration. At the very least, we are talking about upholding the law. The immigration you’re talking about is legal immigration. There are laws for that, and there are people following those laws and doing what’s necessary to become citizens. They are applying, they’re standing in line, waiting in line, they’re doing what’s necessary.

This is none of that! Don’t confuse the two. This is pure, 100 percent illegal immigration that the Democrat Party and half of the Republican Party is trying to maintain the status. They are trying to avoid the law being applied. It’s always my answer when people accuse me or people like me of opposing illegal immigration. “You just don’t like brown people and you just don’t want to share the wealth. You’re selfish and racist.”

No, no, no. You’ve got this — this is about the rule of law. If we’re not going to enforce our laws and enforce a border, we’re not gonna have either. It’s at the very basest element, this is about legal and illegal, and we’ve got the entire Democrat Party endorsing illegal and helping it along with sanctuary cities, which makes sure that federal law enforcement officials cannot find the lawbreakers. We are encouraging illegal immigration. We’re making it easier. And in the process, in order for this to happen, we have to ignore the law.

To me, that is the simplest, basest way to approach this. But we get caught up in arguments over minutia about numbers and economic circumstances. We can’t let everybody in here! We owe the world nothing! It’s not how it works. But the left thinks we owe the world everything because we wouldn’t be what we are if we hadn’t stolen everything we have from the disadvantaged. That’s the way this works. Trickle-down economics? How’d the rich get rich? They stole it from the poor. Listen to ’em. This is what they say.

They believe the United States has stolen resources, that we have stolen land, like the Indians were here first, and the Mexicans had California. This is not ours. We’ve committed all these crimes centuries ago, and this is justice coming due. That’s how they look at it. Because the end result is power for the Democrat Party.

So no matter what we do with legal immigration and try to set up systems to get the best and the brightest and people that really love America, really want to come here and become Americans, that’s a separate thing. It happens over there. And nobody is trying to game that system. Illegal over here is an entirely different thing. It’s become its own movement and it has its own inertia. Trump is trying everything he can to stop it. And everything he’s doing they’re erasing and wiping out.

I’m out of time. I have some things to add but I have to go to. This is what we call a hard break. It doesn’t move, so I have to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Terry, Crystal River, Florida. You’re next. Great to have you with us. Hi.

CALLER: Oh, Rush, you’re such a blessing to all of us that love this country, and your gifts to condense information and simplify it and help us get to the essence of these issues. I wasn’t really upset with the fact that the bill got signed. A thousand pages given to look over within a few days. And even as it was — it wasn’t signed yet, we were starting to get leaks of some of the things that were in there, and it just sounded not worth it, not worth the one-point-some billion and the extra beds. And my thought was, why not do a continuing resolution just for a very short time and call the state of emergency and get on with it that way. I’m so afraid that we are going to suffer much more than the benefit that we will get out of this bill.

RUSH: Well, you know, those are good questions. I think a lot of people said, “Why not just sign a continuing resolution, then declare the emergency?” The Democrats were not gonna offer that. They were daring Trump to shut the government down again. And one other major point. Most members of Congress did not read this. They didn’t have the time to read it, but most did not read it. From the best intel I’ve got is that most didn’t read it. I think you’d be amazed at how many of them do not read a lot of legislation. But this one I know was not read by very many. There simply wasn’t time.

I went back and forth, too, on signing this or not and shutting down. But you have to understand, the Congress on this issue, the president does not have a majority of Republicans supporting him on this, Terry. You shouldn’t be surprised. A lot of Republicans are open border types for their own reasons. They don’t see the crisis in all these people eventually being registered the Democrats because they don’t think it’s gonna happen. They think they can get a lot of them to register as Republicans ’cause they’ve got this convoluted belief that people from Latin America, because they’re Catholic, tend to be conservative. It’s the most cockeyed belief system I’ve come up against.

There’s also — the Republican Party, elected Republican Party is more afraid of government shutdowns than they are of going to hell, if there is one. I cannot tell you — and I think the president is surrounded by people who a government shutdown, even though the president’s polls shot up — you know, I talk to people that are in the White House. I said, “Why are you worried about a shutdown? He’s up 52% here after the shutdown.” “Did you see what the polling was right after it?” “Yeah, 43%.” “Well, that’s the point. It was 43%. It didn’t go up until it ended.”

That’s not why it’s up at 50. People were not celebrating the end of the government shutdown! They were celebrating the job he’s doing! The shutdowns do not hurt Republicans! But you can’t convince them of that because the media and the Democrats in Washington have got them convinced that government shutdowns always get blamed on Republicans and that the American people cannot get out of bed every day if the government shut down.

So there was no way another shutdown was gonna happen. And the only way to avoid a shutdown is to sign this thing. They had Trump convinced that he lost on the shutdown, that he’d lost the stare down with Pelosi. And of course the media is reporting that too. They’re celebrating Pelosi’s great victory staring down The Art of the Deal Donald Trump and showing him how Washington really, really works.

Trump is gonna have to pull some magic out of his hat on this in doing what he can to see to it that as much of this stuff really doesn’t happen. Just because it’s in the legislation doesn’t automatically mean it’s all gonna happen. The people involved have to take action, really have to have people there welcoming the coyotes and we have to build the reception centers and all this stuff.

I think the legislation is more a series of, “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.” But he can’t pick and choose. There’s no line-item veto for elements of legislation, just like there isn’t a line-item veto on the budget. So he’s gonna have to turn this into a campaign issue, which can be done if done right and done — his instincts on it are right on the money.

But this is gonna have to be turned into a campaign issue. Look, losing the House was everything, Terry. Once the Democrats run the House you realize that immediately means divided government. You can say goodbye to anything we or Trump wants coming out of Congress from the moment the Democrats win the House, over.

CALLER: It’s so frustrating. It’s really, really frustrating no matter what. You know, we can write letters, we can call our congresspeople, and it all seems like it’s going on deaf ears. And it’s — I don’t know — I just don’t know where this will all go.

RUSH: Look, this is not a cop-out. Please don’t misunderstand. It was always gonna take more than one election. And the Mueller investigation and what that stands for ought to be an everyday signal to people that voted for Donald Trump what we are all up against. And it should send a signal that there’s still a whole lot of defeating that needs to happen.

The Democrats need to lose, but they won the House. Statistically everybody said they were going to. It’s just traditional, it happens, it’s part of American politics for some reason. But Trump was out doing rallies left and right trying to stave off as much of it as he could. But, you know, elections have consequences, and there are a lot of Republicans that retired.

If you want to get mad, I mean, the return incumbency rate in Congress is 95%. If you’re an incumbent, 95% chance you get reelected. Fifty-five Republicans quit! They resigned. “Well, we lost our committee chairmanships and there’s really nowhere else for us to go.” They don’t want to go back to just being a regular old member of Congress. Who wants to take that step down?

I just got a story here — I’ll check it during the break — about some newly retired Republicans that just got hired for big bucks as lobbyists on K Street, which is how it’s done.