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RUSH:  From the New York Post:  “Obama is Helping Trump with Cabinet Picks.”  Okay, let’s examine this. (interruption)  No, no.  Why are you reacting that way?  Well, no.  Obama believes it, and that’s the key.  Do not forget what I told you.  Remember after the 10-minute Oval Office meeting that stretched to 90 minutes between the Trumpster and Obama, and Trump came out of there talking about what a great guy Obama was and how much Trump says he had learned and how much Trump said he was going to be relying on Obama’s advice.  

Do you remember what I told you in explaining that?  You remember?  The shorthand was, we are at a very precariously dangerous point in our country.  This is what I said back then after the Oval Orifice meeting.  Donald Trump’s not gonna be president for two months.  The people who lost, the people who have been repudiated, humiliated, still control all the levers of power.  And, as such, we have — by the way, don’t anybody tell Obama I’m saying this ’cause by explaining this I’m destroying the whole strategy here.  So don’t anybody tell anybody that knows Obama that I’m saying this.

 But Trump had to make Obama think that he was relevant, useful, helpful, because we’re really in a dangerous — and we still are.  We were and we still are in a very precariously balanced circumstance or situation.  So I think it was brilliant what Trump said.  A lot of people were frightened by it.  You know, because Trump’s still, to a lot of people, a newcomer. Like Paul Ryan’s out there (paraphrasing), “You know what, I’ve really gotten to know this guy now, and I like him. I really like this guy.  He can be very forgiving.”  

Something about human nature that never ceases to amaze me.  I’ve known Donald Trump for years.  I have never been frightened by one thought or thing of Donald Trump, and yet listening to people who don’t know him but should have some measure of common sense about the guy, he’s lived his life, and he’s not done all these horrible things people say he’s capable of.  I don’t understand the surprise.  

I’m shocked when people claim they find out I’m a nice guy.  It doesn’t make any sense.  I’m a nice guy every day, and I’ve been a nice guy for 30 years on this program.  Maybe not to the left, but just in terms of my behavior and comportment, I’m a nice guy.  And so’s Trump.  So I don’t understand the surprise people have.  

But, anyway, back to this, you can see that whatever advice Obama’s giving Trump he’s totally ignoring it, but he’s still claiming that Obama’s advice is valuable.  He’s still talking about how much he likes Obama, how much he’s learning from Obama and how much he’s gonna continue to rely on Obama.  Believe me, folks, I’m here to tell you that is brilliant.  

Can I give you another example with sports?  To make this analogy, I would be better served by mentioning names, but then that would get me in trouble.  Let me give you a hypothetical.  Major, major dynasty NFL team, huge star quarterback, the team goes out and signs a wide receiver that by all measure is a reprobate.  

But when the wide receiver gets to this team he becomes a model citizen, becomes a star, the quarterback does nothing but praise the guy.  And he became a model citizen overnight.  They know what they’re doing, and they know human nature, and they know how to get the best out of him. 

Trump obviously knows what he’s doing here, ’cause I’m telling you, with the levers of power still at the White House, they always will be, and the guy at the White House is not yet Donald Trump, it makes every bit of sense.  So the New York Post: “Obama is Helping Trump With Cabinet Picks — Donald Trump’s budding bromance with President Obama flowered anew on Wednesday when the president-elect gushed about his once bitter rival on national TV — and said he’s soliciting his advice about potential appointments. ‘We have a really good chemistry together. I really like him as a person,’ Trump said on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. ‘I love getting his ideas.'” 

Then you look at Trump’s picks. (laughing)  I will assure you that there’s not a one of these people that Obama has suggested.  There’s not a one. Now, it’s entirely possible that Trump is running these names by Obama.  Stick with me on this.  And it could be, you know, Obama has a little bit of Machiavelli in him.  It could be that Obama thinks that Trump’s the biggest doofus that ever came down the pike and that everybody’s falling for this and the best way to sabotage Trump — keep in mind the way the left thinks.  

They think all this is nuts.  They think they are brilliant.  They think they are the only thing that is and that matters.  So Obama may be encouraging Trump to pick the people he’s picking under the guise that this is gonna destroy Trump.  In Obama’s world, these are the worst guys in the world.  If Obama’s thinking of maintaining his legacy, if Obama’s thinking the best way to cement his legacy is for Trump to fail, then Obama, in his ego and narcissism, might think Trump’s picks are the biggest accidents, the biggest mistakes, the biggest boobs that have ever come down the pike and he may be telling Trump that he likes ’em, because in Obama’s world these guys are destined to fail.  

That’s how out of it the left is.  I’m not predicting that, but I’m just telling you I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what’s going on.  And, no, I don’t think Trump’s being fooled by any of it.  I can’t say anymore because if people tell Obama what I’m saying it kind of blows all this sky-high.  I mean, when people are running a scam, the last thing in the world you want them to know is that you know they’re running a scam.  I don’t know that Obama’s running a scam.  

Look, it’s one of two things:  It’s either what I said or else Trump is just calling Obama, telling everyone what a great guy is, appreciates his help, and then goes out and does exact opposite of what Obama’s saying.  It’s one of those two.  But regardless, it’s still fascinating to watch.  But I just wanted to remind you, for those of you that think maybe — it’s like Trump brings in Algore.  Well, Algore ends up there.  We don’t know yet who called who.  

So Trump allows Algore come in, or Algore goes in there, meets with Trump, meets with Ivanka, and everybody starts having a panic, including me.  I wasn’t in panic, but I let it be known that if Algore has any say in what our environmental policy is gonna be then I have a big problem.  Well, it turns out that the EPA pick, Algore’s gotta be sitting there wondering, “What in the world happened?  I told him who to pick.” 

Oh, he also talked to Leonardo DiCaprio.  Did you hear that?  Leonardo DiCaprio, who knows nothing but is an avowed expert on the left on climate change, he also snuck into Trump Tower, had a meeting with Trump, and all these leftists are out there thinking that they’re having input now. And then Trump picks the exact opposite, and they are panicking.  

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RUSH:  The next thing they’re complaining about is all the military people that Trump is choosing to put in his cabinet.  Marine General John Kelly, Department of Homeland Security; retired Marine General James Mattis (i.e., Mad Dog) the defense secretary; retired Army Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, national security adviser.  

You know what I notice about ’em?  Not a one of ’em is a donor.  You know what that means?  That means Trump’s not returning favors.  These people haven’t donated to him, so he’s not paying off.  He’s actually picking the people he thinks are best — and do not doubt for a moment that Donald Trump has an agenda, and do not doubt for a moment that Trump expects to move this agenda at a faster rate than agendas have ever been moved in our lifetimes.  And he’s picking people who are going to go do what he wants done.  

He’s picking people who have demonstrated success in areas where he is putting them.  He is picking people who are independently intelligent, and they are not yes-men.  They are can-do, they are have-done, and they are “we’ll continue to do it” kind of people.  When I say that not a one of these people is a donor and that Trump isn’t returning favors, another way of saying is, “This isn’t about politics.”  This is not politics, and the political establishment still doesn’t know how to judge and analyze Trump.  

They can’t avoid it.  They can’t help themselves.  They continue to try to plug him in as a lifelong politician into the political system that they know and love and trust.  And that’s why they’re so confused.  Trump doesn’t fit.  He doesn’t compute.  It’s a round object in a square hole.  It doesn’t make sense.  But they are not learning how to see and view Trump.  It isn’t about politics.  It’s about mission.  It’s about an agenda and getting things done.  It’s, by the way, not that generals can’t or don’t have an ideology, but there are two kinds of generals, folks, and we’ve talked about this. 

There are warrior generals — fight the battles, advance the military agenda — and there are political generals, who basically abide by political correctness. They live and thrive in the political system, and their advancement is based on how they behave in the political system, not the battlefield.  Trump has chosen battlefield people, and that’s another thing that the left is not gonna be able to understand.  They hold battlefield people in disdain and contempt.  They blame them for much of the problems in the world.  

And while they’re all trying to figure it out, while they’re calling it all “controversial” and while they’re seeking the vapors to stay conscious ’cause they can’t believe what’s happening, Trump is nominating highly decorated, proven leaders.  The real question is: Why is all that scary to liberals?  Why are highly decorated, proven leaders in the military scary to the American left and the Democrat Party?  I mean, you look. We still don’t know who the secretary of state’s gonna be, but we knew who Obama’s was.  

Take a look these three guys again, very quickly, these three men that Trump has chosen: John Kelly, Homeland Security; James “Mad Dog” Mattis, defense secretary; Mike Flynn, national security adviser.  Highly decorated, proven, accomplished military leaders.  Who did Obama put at secretary of state?  A war veteran who had such disdain for his own country he threw his fake medals over a fence at the White House.  You couldn’t have a greater and more stark difference in where this country is headed versus where it has been going.  

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RUSH:  There’s one other point here about generals — warrior generals, battlefield generals — being appointed to these various key cabinet posts.  These people know how to run big organizations.  They know how to delegate.  They know how to get things done in the real world, and they know how to overcome adversity.  They have the greatest amount of experience in exactly what is needed.  Contrast that with all of the academic eggheads that Obama surrounded himself with.  

Not one real-world success story nowhere, particularly when it relates to domestic economics.  The contrast here is stark.  Now, one other thought here about Trump and the story that Obama is helping him with his cabinet picks.  Now, I realized when I saw this that a lot of people were gonna, “Oh, no, no, no,” and then they’re gonna read that Trump’s praising Obama and thanking Obama for all of his help.  

There’s something else going on here besides Trump understanding how precariously dangerous our country is right now in this next — well, it’s about a month and a half now.  It was two months at the time Obama met with Trump in the Oval Office, and it really is a dangerous, dangerous time.  I mean, here’s Harry Reid with his farewell speech to all these Democrats.  They’ve been snookered.  They’ve been schlonged.  They have been repudiated. But they still run the show here at the White House for a month and a half.  

This is also, in addition to acknowledging the precarious danger that’s there, very smart politics.  By virtue of Donald Trump claiming that Obama is helping him with his cabinet picks, Trump is therefore putting Obama’s fingerprints on this, Obama’s imprimatur on these cabinet picks.  Now, we don’t know which ones, obviously.  But the story’s out there that Obama is helping Trump with his cabinet picks.  Well, we don’t know which ones.  

So do the Drive-Bys go to Obama and ask him and then does Obama say, “Well, I’m not helping Trump whatsoever.  I had nothing to do with what Trump.”  Does he openly defy Trump like that?  Trump’s being nice.  Trump’s making it look like Obama’s got a role.  Or does Obama say, “Well, I can’t tell you which cabinet secretaries Donald Trump, but  he’s listening very, very closely to my advice.”  I just think it’s… It limits the Drive-Bys’ attacks somewhat, and Trump could always, “Hey, Obama liked the guy.  I talked to Obama about.”  It’s brilliant, I think.

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RUSH:  The reaction to the nomination of the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, to lead the EPA.  I made a point to check my little tech blogs today on this, and they are in abject panic and fear, not only over the name of Mr. Pruitt, Scott Pruitt. They’re also upset at a name they’re seeing bandied about to run the Food and Drug Administration.  Now, these are people, the Millennial types really do believe… 

Folks, it’s uncanny.  It’s unnatural how much they believe the propaganda on man-made climate change.  Many of them actually believe the world will not be habitable by the time they reach 65 because of fossil fuel if we don’t implement the Paris accords, if we don’t implement the United Nations deals.  Trump being elected? They literally have been consumed by an apocalyptic attitude.  Dan Pfeiffer, who was the senior adviser to President Obama in the office of communications, tweeted, “At the risk of being dramatic, Scott Pruitt at EPA is an existential threat to the planet.”  

To the planet! 

This is exactly what I mean about these people fearing that the planet will not survive.  Even if the man-made global warming hoax were true — even if man was causing the earth to warm — a one-degree or two-degree centigrade increase would not mean disaster.  It would actually mean a warmer climate for a lot of people.  It would lead to more crop yields.  There’s hardly anything bad that would come from it.  The polar ice caps would not melt, even though these people think that they are now.  But the ridiculous nature of this is here you have Scott Pruitt, who is the attorney general Oklahoma.  

Anybody ever been to Oklahoma?  Well, I have.  Oklahoma’s in the Midwest.  I’m from Missouri.  It’s a beautiful place.  Much of it is pristine.  It is a gorgeous landscape state, and these people would actually have you believe that the attorney general in that state wants to destroy it! They would have you believe that anybody that opposes the whole idea of man-made climate change actually wants to destroy the planet, like leftists have been accusing us of wanting dirty air and wanting dirty water and wanting our kids to get sick.  

There hasn’t been any rationality to these people at all.  So Trump starts talking to Gore and Trump starts talking to Leo DiCaprio and Trump starts entertaining them — and Ivanka, too — and everybody starts getting panicked and saying, “Oh, no!” And Trump told the New York Times, “Well, you know, I’m open to it, Arthur [Sulzberger]. Yeah, I’ll take a look at it.”  I think Trump tells various people what they want to hear and then says, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full,” to himself and walks out the room.  I don’t think that Trump is a personally confrontational guy.  

Meaning in a setting of officialdom like in an editorial meeting with the New York Times, I don’t think he’s gonna sit in there and start a verbal fight with them.  He’s just gonna get in and get it and get out and then tweet what he wants and announce what he wants and do what he wants while attempting to appease people on one level, but not with policy.  So far, I don’t see Trump appeasing anybody with policy.  Quite the exact opposite.  The Wall Street Journal story: “Donald Trump Taps Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to Lead the EPA.”  

A couple of excerpts from the piece.  “‘[Pruitt] understands the regulatory stranglehold that the EPA has had on industry during the Obama administration,’ said [Harold] Hamm, founder and CEO of Continental Resources, which is based in Oklahoma City. ‘I believe that [Scott] will work to unleash prosperity in America through the proper use of regulations and adhering to the rule of law.'” Now, there’s a novel idea.  Trump is appointing people that are gonna get government out of the way.  

Trump is appointing people that are gonna get regulations and government out of the way and allow prosperity to take its normal course.  Another pull quote:  “While Mr. Trump can’t generally repeal Mr. Obama’s rules unilaterally on his first day in office, he and his new EPA administrator, with the help of a GOP-controlled Congress, have a handful of ways to curtail the agency’s work. They can restrict EPA funding on particular issues, pass laws nullifying individual regulations, and opt not to defend rules that face court challenges, including the Clean Power Plan and the water rule.” 

The Clean Power Plan is something the left considers biblical in importance, even though they’re not traditionally religious.  The Clean Power Plan is like a bible to them, and basically all it is is a list of can’ts and don’ts and punishments for economic growth.  I can’t tell you how satisfying and how uplifting it is for Trump to have picked somebody like this to head the EPA.  Like everybody, I’m gonna have a wait-and-see attitude.  The reasons for optimism are abundant here.  

But you wait and see what happens.  We all know what happens to people when they end up in Washington.  No, I’m not trying to be negative, folks.  Don’t misunderstand.  You know, I’m Mr. Optimism here, and I have been for 29-plus years, and I’m gonna continue to be.  But I also am governed by intelligence guided by experience, and I’m hoping we’re looking at a new day in all kinds of ways.  Certainly, the right kind of people are being appointed to Trump’s cabinet.  There is no doubt about that.  This guy who wants to… 

Look, anybody who wants to cut down any cabinet bureaucracy, cut the ’em down to size — get rid of the tentacles that reach deep into our American society and culture — is fine and dandy with me. Because when you get down to it, folks, I have much more faith in individuals pursuing excellence — trying to be and accomplish the best — than I do with a bunch of bureaucrats standing in the way of that.  And that’s what bureaucrats do.  Bureaucrats do not promote excellence.  They stand in the way of it.  

A bureaucrat’s primary objective is to make sure there’s always a reason for him to be.  And the only reason — well, not the only.  But the best way a bureaucrat can guarantee his position is to make sure that very, very little gets done so that the bureaucrat is always the one the person or people turn to for permission, for guidance, or what have you.  But here we have one. We have another hands-on, can-do individual that Trump has appointed to a very important position, and it’s consistent with what Trump has said that he believes about climate change.  

It’s consistent with what he has said.  

He has listened to Algore.  He’s listened to DiCaprio. He’s listened to a bunch of climate people, presumably Obama, too.  And he has stuck with what he promised he would do.  And he seems to be doing that on pretty much every cabinet pick so far.  A little audio sound bite action here on this.  This is CBS This Morning.  Charlie Rose talking to Susan Page of USA Today.  They’re confused.  They don’t know how Trump could have picked Pruitt after he talked to Algore.  See, it doesn’t make sense to them.  They’re scratching their heads and they’re very, very concerned.  Charlie Rose says to Susan Page, “What can we say about how this administration is shaping up, including this latest pick for the EPA?” 

PAGE: (breathless) Donald Trump has signaled  in the interview with TIME and the interview he did with New York Times a more moderate stance, a willingness to change positions on some things like even climate change, meeting with Algore yesterday with Leonardo DiCaprio who’s been an activist on environmental issues. And yet hit appointment of Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA indicates he plans to follow through on his campaign promises to really curtail the EPA, curtail some of these steps the Obama administration has taken on climate change. 

ROSE:  So what is it about?  I mean, on the one hand he sees Algore — 

PAGE: M’yeah! 

ROSE: — on the other hand he appoints Scott Pruitt to EPA. 

PAGE:  Donald Trump is the least ideological president we’ve elected in modern times, but if he appoints to these key jobs people who have a clear agenda — a clear ideological agenda — they’re the people who are gonna be in charge! 

RUSH:  Right.  Well, there’s some truth to that.  But you see they’re confused.  See, in their world all it would take is one meeting with Algore, and any reasonable person who was a climate denier would change their mind.  No, no.  Folks, they really think this.  Charlie Rose, Susan Page, to them Algore is the next thing to a climate god that you could get, and DiCaprio a close second.  

DiCaprio is an ignoramus.  He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about when it comes to the climate.  He’s just an activist raising funds.  He’s trying to promote his box office by tapping into an issue that people his age think is important.  And he may actually believe it.  I know he idolizes Gore, which means he doesn’t know anything.  He really doesn’t know anything.  He’s full of BS.  

The guy runs around and preaches to all of us about how we must reduce our carbon footprint, and he flies around more than Trump does on private jets.  And he’s going to parties; he’s going where there are 15,000 models for the weekend.  And he jets off to the next one while preaching to everybody else how they shouldn’t live the way he does, but he exempts himself like Algore exempts himself because they’re important, and it’s important for leaders to be able to get where they need to go.  

You must retreat.  You must withdraw.  You must cut back on your lifestyle.  But, no, no, no, they won’t, because they are too crucial to the matter, they are too important to the cause.  They must have the mobility to get around and talk to people.  So people like Charlie Rose and Susan Page have bought into the Algore is the smartest guy on climate change.  

And they can’t understand.  “Why, why, Trump talked to him, and then he talked to DiCaprio.  How can he do this?  How can he do this?”  I’m telling you, folks, takes a special kind of stupid to be this obstinate and to be unable to see what’s going on right in front of you.  I’m talking about these leftist media people.

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RUSH:  One more sound bite on all this.  Good Morning America.  This is George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz.  Martha Raddatz, as you remember, got into an argument with Trump during one of the presidential debates.  It was about Trump criticizing the Obama administration for announcing strategy against ISIS in advance. 

Trump said, “Why would you tell ’em what you’re gonna do?  Why would you not surprise them?”  And Martha Raddatz started arguing with him.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  Have you ever heard of psychological warfare?”  Anyway, she then erupted in tears on election night when the left learned that Hillary had lost for the second time.  So that’s who we’re talking about here.  A discussion between Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz about Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. 

STEPHANOPOULOS:  The president-elect is getting a fair amount of attention for his meetings with former Vice President Gore, and also Leonardo DiCaprio on the issue of climate change, yet his pick just announced this morning for the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt from Oklahoma, a real opponent leading in the effort to fight regulations on those issues. 

RADDATZ:  Scott Pruitt is a man who has basically battled the agency. He is now asked to lead.  He has said the debate on climate change is far from settled.  And Pruitt said in a statement released by Trump today, “The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”  I see a fight upcoming. 

RUSH:  Yes, and she can’t wait for it.  But this line here from Scott Pruitt.  “I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American business.”  That really is, in a nutshell.  The left does not think it’s possible for American business to have freedom and be responsible, without destroying the climate.  

Folks, do not doubt me on this.  It may sound, “Wow, that’s really over the top, a generalization.”  It’s not a generalization.  It is exactly who they are.  It is why the EPA is run by the Nazi types that run it.  It is why this entire administration is anti-free market, anti-corporate, anti-prosperity.  They want all things that appear to be good to derive from government.  They do not trust, they have contempt for people in what we call the private sector.  

They don’t trust their intelligence.  Look at the way they campaigned.  Hillary, they can’t figure out why she lost.  How about she called half the country deplorable?  They really can’t figure this out?  They think American business by virtue of its existence pollutes, destroys, and kills customers.  So now we have somebody running the EPA who doesn’t believe in that at all and simply wants to get this bureaucracy downsized and out of people’s way.  You know what’s gonna happen, my guess is?  We’re gonna have economic growth like many people alive in this country have never seen.  

Now, you and I, those of you who were alive in the eighties, we remember it, may be to a degree some in the nineties, but we didn’t really have the perception of economic growth in the nineties because we had such a Big Government administration in the way they talked that overshadowed everything.  

But if Trump pulls this off, we’re gonna have economic growth like we haven’t seen.  And it’s gonna anger the left like you haven’t seen.  And they’re gonna be as opposed to it as they’ve been opposed to anything.  They’re not gonna come around, folks.  The last thing they want is for individual prosperity to be off the charts and them have nothing to do with it.  It’s not gonna be pretty.  

It’s gonna be a battle against them each and every day.  And the more success Trump has, the more insane and stupid they are going to be.  There might be, I don’t know, a pocket of citizens here or a handful of Democrats over here who claim that they see the light and become supporters of what Trump is doing.  

But overall, and it’s happening right now, the fundraisers of the left from the Hillary Clinton machine, Podesta, David Brock, it would be the whole slew, they’re already fundraising for one purpose, and that is opposition research and the actual day-to-day obstruction of the Trump administration.  That is who still leads the Democrat Party.  They haven’t seen the light. They haven’t learned a lesson. They are ignoring what voters have told them.  

They’re ignoring what’s right in front of them to learn if they to want reform and start winning elections again.  They’re gonna be the same people they have always been:  raising money to start throwing around allegations, personal destruction, character destruction of all the people in the Trump administration they can in an effort to drive them out, in an effort to thwart whatever economic agenda there is because individual prosperity and economic success is one of the greatest threats to American liberalism they can conjure.

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RUSH:  The current EPA has a guy named Al Armendariz, and in 2012 he was caught on tape promoting the idea of crucifying the oil companies.  He heads up the EPA’s Region 6 office which is based in Dallas, and he’s like all of them there:  Crucify the oil companies.  

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