RUSH: I just want to reiterate, folks: The president of the United States does not even have to declare a national emergency. He can rely on existing federal law to stop all immigration today on the basis that there is a crisis, that there is an invasion. He can cite any number of reasons for it, but he doesn’t even have to do that. The law permits him singularly to decide whether or not there is a crisis or danger at the border. Now he’s got people… He knows he can do this. He’s got people in the Senate telling him not to do it.
(impression) “Oh, no, Mr. President, you don’t want to do that. That — that’d be akin to nuclear option! You don’t want to go that far.” But he could make exemptions to this. He can exempt students. He can have any number of exemptions if he wanted to. What do you think would be the practical result if the president actually declared — and again it’s Title 8 United States Code Section 1182(f). It “gives the president the power ‘to suspend the entry of all aliens’ whenever he finds their entry ‘would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.'”
Period!
Stop!
If he did this, what do you think the practical result would be in Mexico, in Latin America, in these countries that are packing up their huddled masses and sending them here? Would they stop, or would they continue to flood the border? I think they’re gonna continue to flood the border no matter what Trump does because I think this is all politics. I don’t think that the root of this is people escaping disease and poverty and what have you.
There’s clearly some of that. We are the richest nation in the world, so by comparison, yeah. But do not mistake that there is a political element motivating this and organizing this and enabling this. How are these people getting here? Somebody has to be paying for that. Somebody has to be accompanying them. Somebody has to be providing services along the way. This is not the Trail of Tears. They’re not taking the hoof express, folks.
This is an ongoing political effort that is all part of the worldwide left’s attempt to wipe out the United States, to transform the United States into something that it was not founded to be. It is an emergency. It is a crisis, and it is detrimental to the United States, the interests of the United States. We simply cannot deal with this. We cannot accept it. These people cannot be absorbed. They certainly cannot be assimilated. That probably isn’t even their objective.
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RUSH: Rob in Reno. It’s great to have you, sir. What’s up?
CALLER: Great to talk to you, Rush. This is Rob in Reno. I’ve been a listener since 1990, ’91, around there, and I’m just calling to tell you that the topic that you brought up today just infuriates me and my wife. This was the key issue for which we voted for Trump, basically, because we wanted to make sure we put somebody in power who was gonna preserve our culture. And I can’t for the life of me — given the fact that you brought up this Title 8 power — understand why Trump isn’t using it. And so I was curious as to why you thought… Given he doesn’t have to rely on Congress or anybody to bring this about, why the heck…? Given this is the key issue we voted for, or one of the key issues, why is he not using this power? Why is he not using this power to stop this influx?
RUSH: Well, before I answer it, let me see if you have any ideas. Why do you think he might be reluctant to pull the trigger on this?
CALLER: You know, I really don’t know myself other than to think that — and this is totally an inference here. I don’t really know. But when I hear him start wanting to increase numbers of like H-1B and H-2Bs visas in order to — he’s made statements to this fact — bring in more labor for businesses, part of me, you know, cynically thinks that he’s just like a Rubio or just like any of the other 16 we could have elected, who —
RUSH: No. Let me stop you, because that’s not the case, and I wanted to hear what you thought to kind of take your temperature. I’m not gonna take your opinion and extrapolate it to millions of other Trump supporters. But I wanted to hear what you thought for a reason, and it’s quite telling. You are now willing to entertain the possibility that Trump is a Trojan horse on this, as well as every other Republican who has been, and you’re doing this on the basis that you hear him talk about H-1B. In those circumstances, he’s talking about legal immigration.
And that’s its own separate issue, by the way. And it is also being corrupted by American corporations all for cheaper labor. But let me set that aside. To answer your question, the best answer I can give you — and I cannot give you this with ontological certitude — is that the president wants support from the party. He wants Republican support for whatever action he takes. Look, everybody knows that he’s gonna be impeached, and he knows he’s gonna be impeached. It’s in the cards. It’s been set up since Mueller was appointed. Trump is going to be impeached. The only question is when. The Mueller report is due to drop this week. That’s some of the best thinking out there, tomorrow or Friday. When it does, that will signify the official beginning of impeachment season. Jerry Nadler, I think, has a heads-up on it. Nadler’s investigation is focusing on obstruction of justice at the highest levels of the Trump administration. That’s what Mueller’s report is ostensibly gonna focus on since it can’t focus on collusion since there wasn’t any.
So Trump is looking for support from his party. The only way he survives impeachment is if his party stays with him. The Democrats can impeach him all day long in the House, but they have to get a conviction in the Senate, and if Trump loses Republican support in the Senate — if the Republicans decide for whatever reason that they want Trump gone, too — well, then, he’s got to take this into account! So let us assume, maybe, that Mitch McConnell (The Turtle) and others in the Senate are telling Trump not to use this law, that it would be the nuclear option, that there would be no recovering from this.
“That’s way too much. That’s not called for right now.”
So if the Republicans in the Senate are signaling to Trump that they’re not gonna back him if he does something like this — and they’re clearly signaling that, because they aren’t gonna support him unilaterally on the declaration of a national emergency. So the president has to make a decision — and, by the way, folks, I’m wild guessing here. I should tell you, I’ve spoken to nobody. I haven’t been able to speak to anybody, but I don’t speak to anybody normally anyway. But I’m just trying to assemble pieces of this myself.
It’s why I took the call, because it’s a great question and I’m thinking through the answer as I give the answer to our erudite caller from Reno. I think it all has to do with the future impeachment of the president. Now, let’s take the other side of this. When it comes to impeachment, you have nothing to do with it. Trump can satisfy every damn one of you by exercising his constitutional privilege to shut down immigration. He can stop it today. He can use this law that I have cited three times already; he can stop it today.
And, by the way, everybody agrees that he has the authority. Jimmy Carter suspended the entry of Iranians during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton suspended the entry of Iraqi refugees for six months. Do you remember this? You may as I remind you of it. There was a suspension for six months of all refugees from Iraq because it was feared that some were from Syria and there might be terrorists coming in. Nobody said a word about it, because it was Obama doing it! Obama didn’t even bother to tell Congress he had done it!
He just did it. It was discovered. Nobody said boo, because nobody was ever gonna oppose the first African-American president. So it’s been done! If Trump does it and he gets 100% support from you — “Right on. This is why we elected Trump” — and if it works, if it suspends immigration and his approval numbers climb to the seventies, that’s not gonna matter much when it comes to impeachment. If it climbed to the seventies, they could stop impeachment.
But the point is, every one of you who voted for Trump, loving Trump implementing this law is not gonna change how the Senate looks at him. (sigh) Now, that’s not true, either, because it might have an impact. But my point is, the way Trump is looking at this, unanimous support from you does not give him insurance against impeachment. That exists only in the Senate, and if Senate has a number of Republicans saying (impression), “Mr. President, I really don’t think you oughta be doin’ this, Dude. I mean, this is a nuclear option. Nuclear!
“You do this, and ain’t no comin’ back from it.” He doesn’t want to be without party support on something like this. By the way, if I were him, I would be so damn frustrated over this, I couldn’t see straight. The fact that you can’t get a majority of Republicans in your own Senate to support you on something which is so obvious a crisis, which is so obvious a disaster in the making, which is so obvious sabotage of this country? The fact that he can’t get party unity behind him on this would irritate me to no end.
Now, I could be all wrong about this, and he could implement this law like this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow, next week. I don’t know. I’m just telling you he can do it, it has been done, and there’s nobody that can stop him — and the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that he can do it as recently as last year after the travel ban. So after winding its way through all the lower courts — and let’s go back. Grab audio sound bite number 11 just to remind you. Barack Hussein O, the first African-American president in the nation’s history, June 30th, five years ago, 2014 in the White House Rose Garden…
OBAMA: We now have an actual humanitarian crisis on the border that only underscores the need to drop the politics and fix our immigration system once and for all. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a surge of unaccompanied children arrive at the border, brought here and to other countries by smugglers and traffickers. The journey is unbelievably dangerous for these kids.
RUSH: Five years ago, Obama admits we had a crisis at the border. Well, if we had a crisis five years ago, we have a disaster today. We have an ongoing crisis and a disaster. Now, in Obama’s world, the crisis is not the number of people at the border. The crisis is, “Oh, my God., how are we going to help all these people? What are we going to do? How are we going to get them into the country? These are children.”
He was trying to parlay the fact that there was a crisis into trying to convince people to just drop all this immigration law business and let ’em in! Because that’s what the Washington establishment wants. They want amnesty; they want open borders. They always have wanted that. But it doesn’t matter because for our purposes Obama himself five years ago declared that what we had going on the southern border is a crisis. If it was then, it’s even worse now.
If anybody else has any better ideas as to why Trump is reluctant — and I don’t. Look, I know he knows of the law, and I know he knows he can do it. I imagine he’s got — and not just Republicans in Senate. I imagine he’s got some people on his legal team telling him, “I — I — I wouldn’t do this, Mr. President.” It’s like this guy Ty Cobb, his first lawyer in the Mueller case. Ty Cobb comes out yesterday (summarized):
“This is the most honorable man in America! Robert Mueller’s an American hero. There’s no witch hunt about this.” Man — and that’s your lead lawyer when the whole thing began. So I imagine there’s all kinds of people advising, influencing Trump. “Don’t do this! Doooon’t do this. Nuclear option.” You know the thing about nuclear is that once you go nuclear, that’s it; there’s nothing else. There’s no coming back from it, right? That’s why they use the word.
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RUSH: The Democrats have come up with a new term for illegal aliens. It’s “newcomers,” and it comes to us from Nancy Pelosi. The story here is from Cybercast News Service: “Speaker Pelosi: We Should Not Be ‘Suppressing the Vote of Our Newcomers to America’ — Speaking at a news conference on voting rights with Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said immigrants ‘make America more American.'” How in the…? You know, there’s so many things these people say.
Does anybody believe that voting rights…? It’s one of these ongoing things. It’s like we’re still back in the 1800s and so forth. Voting rights! We’ve got Democrats running around claiming we’re still suppressing the vote, denying people the vote? For crying out loud, it’s gone the other way. We have people voting that aren’t even alive. We have people voting who haven’t even been born! We have illegal aliens being given driver’s licenses in California. Voting rights? As though we are suppressing the right to vote on behalf…?
It’s crazy! Both parties are going out of their way to register as many voters as possible, yet Democrats are still running around claiming that this country’s trying to suppress the vote of minorities! So she’s at one of these voting-rights news conferences and she “said immigrants ‘make America more American,’ and we should not be ‘suppressing the vote of our newcomers to America. So, when we talk about newcomers, we have to recognize the constant reinvigoration of America that they are, that we all have been — our families,’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
“‘And that, unless you’re blessed to be Native American — which is a blessing in itself that we respect — but that constant reinvigoration of hope, determination, optimism, courage, to make the future better for the next generation, those are American traits. And these newcomers make America more American. And we want them, when they come here, to be fully part of our system. And that means not suppressing the vote of our newcomers to America.'”
So you see? It’s just like people who are your neighbors. They moved into the neighborhood! They’re just a bunch of “newcomers.” Time to get out the welcome wagon! Okay. Let me ask a question here. She got something right. This “reinvigoration of hope, determination, optimism, courage, to make the future better for the next generation,” where does that come from? Is that not distinctly part of what I call the unique American culture? And what makes it possible? Not the people arriving! It is the circumstances, the system that has been set up.
It’s like our Constitution and Declaration of Independence that enable that in human beings who are here! It is not that those are values brought with them. That’s why people come here, is to avail themselves of those human rights and the human dignity that’s granted to people who live in this country. What Pelosi is saying is that this country’s no different from any other, unless these people with these great values are allowed to come in. She’s got it exactly backwards! It is why these people want to come here.
But the fact that we cannot continue these great traditions without these “newcomers” is absurd! I’ll remind everybody again, we shut down immigration from the 1920s to 1965. A lot of people, when they hear that for the first time, can’t believe it. “We did?” Yeah, we did. I mean we still had people. Even during a total suspension, there are waivers. Certain people were allowed in, maybe a hundred thousand a year max.
But from all intents and purposes there was a virtual shutdown of immigration. It certainly wasn’t in the millions. You know why? It was to allow the time for those who had come in from the late 1800s into the early 1920s, which was millions, to assimilate, to learn the language, to become Americans. It’s why they came. Well, that’s not happening with this wave. We’re Balkanizing. We’re multilingual now. There’s nothing at all in common with today’s illegal immigration with the past legal immigration of this country. There’s nothing the two have in common.
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RUSH: Try this headline: “Thousands of Fake Government IDs Made in Covert Oregon Lab Were Sold Across U.S., Prosecutors Say.” There’s an ongoing sabotage/invasion involving illegal immigration.
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RUSH: Back to the phones we go. This is Dan in Manchester, Connecticut. Hi.
CALLER: How are you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Just fine, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Hope you’re feeling better.
RUSH: I appreciate that.
CALLER: You were mentioning in your opening monologue the federal code, Title 8, United States Code, subsection 1182 that President Trump could invoke right now to stop this crisis at the border. There’s another federal statute that he could also invoke to stop the crisis. One reason why we have so many illegal aliens invading our country is because you have numerous state and local officials who are harboring these illegal aliens under the guise of “sanctuary,” and Title 8 United States Code subsection 1324 — which is titled “Bringing in and Harboring Certain Aliens” — has criminal penalties for people who do so. They can be fined and imprisoned for doing so. President Trump could arrest these government officials, and that would drastically reduce the flow of illegal aliens into the country.
RUSH: Well, that’s all true. Doing all of that would be real hardball. The national emergency, declaring it, is a different thing than the federal statute Title 8, section 1182(f). That gives him the right to stop immigration, right this minute, today, if he wants to. Shut down the border. He has the legal authority to do it. Declaring a national emergency would then facilitate the use of funds from elsewhere in the budget to start building a wall. Those are two separate things. Both could be done at the same time, as well as your cite on sanctuary cities. That would be…
You know what I would love? I would love the day Mueller’s report drops, Trump does all of this. I think that would be the biggest display of hardball Trump could employ. Mueller’s report drops, here comes the speculation about what’s in it, and Trump executes executive orders — that the Supreme Court has recently affirmed — that he has the power to do to just shut down the border while we assess invasion, then declare the emergency, start building the wall. And he would be unbeatable. That would be real hardball. I know that Trump cares about Republican Party support for all of these things, and because that has ties to eventual impeachment and a vote in the Senate.