RUSH: I’m watching CNN here. I can’t help it, folks. It’s either that or soap operas, and I haven’t descended to that degree of boredom yet here. But CNN’s reporting… This is their headline: “GOP Revolts Against Trump Over Tariffs and the Saudi Arms Deal.”
Now, it’s true that there’s a growing number of senators, Republican senators, who are opposed to Trump putting tariffs on Mexican imports/Mexican exports until they start getting serious about stopping these migrants who are coming through Mexico to claim asylum in the United States.
The law is, if you’re coming from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, you apply for asylum in the first safe country you reach — which in this case, is Mexico. But Mexico’s telling them to pound sand and they’re pounding sand on their way up to where they are declaring asylum in the United States. Trump says they’re ready to make a deal. Mexicans are making a deal. They’re at the White House. They’re talking to Lighthizer and Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, and these Republicans in the Senate…
I mean, there’s a significant number of them talking it down. “Big mistake! We shouldn’t do it.” They’re undercutting, they’re undermining the negotiations that are going on. We’ll have to see how it plays out. Meanwhile, CNN is reveling in these GOP revolts. The apparent reticence over any kind of an arms deal in Saudi Arabia is because of that new young prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who they claimed murdered the Washington Post columnist. Ferdinand Khashoggi, whatever his first name was. Jamal Khashoggi.
So it’s just more of the same, and it’s a shame. I don’t know how serious Trump was on the tariffs. He probably meant it and means it regarding Mexico. The thing is, the Senate can’t stop him. The president can impose tariffs. He doesn’t have to go through the Senate for a vote, so there is no overriding veto or any of that. The president can slap a tariff on anybody he wants, and all they can do from the peanut gallery is yell and scream about it — and they’re trying to convince him not to do it. But they can’t stop him, so it’s not really serious undermining of the position. But it’s not helping.
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