RUSH: Starting on the phones here with Matt in Arnolds Park, Iowa.  Hi, Matt.  How you doing?

CALLER:  Good, Rush.  Merry Christmas, and cigar smoking aviation dittos to you.

RUSH:  Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER:  Thanks for taking my call.  I’ll get right to my point.  I voted for Trump.  I’m for Trump, but one thing that concerns me, I’d like your take, is the infrastructure spending. I’m confident that if we round off and say a trillion dollars for airports and all that stuff, Obama gave that away to the unions.  And I realize that Trump will actually use infrastructure for infrastructure, but then it’s gonna get embedded in the baseline budgeting from here to eternity.  And why can’t we — and I know there’s surrogates from his team that listen to you.  That money that was in TARP for Obama his first year, 2008, ‘9, or ’10 whenever we passed that, or they passed it, I should say, why can’t we use that money and — it just doesn’t — I learned about baseline budgeting from you and —

RUSH:  Right.

CALLER:  — Louie Gohmert, and it doesn’t get talked about enough, and it’s just gonna kill this country, and why can’t we use that first TARP money, dig it out and explain to people —

RUSH:  Because that money’s at the Democrat Party now.

CALLER:  Well, but it’s in there every year thereafter, Rush.

RUSH:  Yeah, but it’s been apportion — I need to try to tell you how this is gonna be done, at least the way it is being planned.  What I’m gonna tell you, I’m in no way — please don’t infer right now that I’m enforcing this —

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  — by virtue of my tone of voice, but I want to explain it to you, because I have looked into this and I have talked to people up on Capitol Hill about this, and they are convinced that Trump is serious, that Trump wants a trillion dollar real infrastructure bill. That it is one of his top priorities. And so be advised — this probably will not come as a surprise to you — that Republicans on Capitol Hill are therefore very intent on seeing he gets it.

CALLER:  Hm-hm.

RUSH:  Now, wait, before you go jumping off the bridge here that’s gonna be rebuilt next year, it’s a trillion dollars over ten years, number one.  It’s not a giant appropriation of $1 trillion.  And it’s not all government money.  Some of it is going to be private sector money.  At least the attempt is going to be to have some of the money come from private sector donations, people who will be benefiting from some of the rebuilding. 

There’s also gonna be an effort — do not know to what extent — to get some of the states where this is going to happen to be participating in it as well.  There’s also going to be an effort to get some of this money from existing spots in the budget.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  It’s gonna be a fascinating jigsaw puzzle to put together.  Hang on.  I’m not halfway finished here.  Don’t go away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  We have Matt here from Arnolds Park, Iowa, concerned about the effect of Trump’s trillion dollar stimulus plan on the ongoing growth of the budget via baseline budgeting.  What I’m given to understand here… Nobody knows how it’s actually gonna come out.  I’ve learned what people’s thinking is, and Trump really wants it.  He really, really thinks our airports are dilapidated and a number of bridges and things, schools. But a lot of this is airport related and bridge and road — major, major thoroughfares. He apparently is embarrassed flying around, driving around, looking at the state of these things. 

And he’s seen all the money supposedly appropriated years and years and years ago for this, and it never gets spent on this, so he’s hell-bent on it.  And the Republicans in Congress understand how serious he is and are going to try to find a way to make it happen with as little budget impact as it can be.  It’s not gonna be your usual series of appropriations.  I don’t know the mix, and I don’t know if they’re actually gonna be able to pull off their plan of combining federal money with private money, with state money. But it’s a trillion dollars over ten years, and Trump is insistent that it be revenue neutral, meaning that it’s not gonna grow the budget. 

Now, you talk to Republicans in Congress and they’ll tell you, “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Trump. The only place to get money from that is from entitlements.”  But that isn’t true.

CALLER:  Well, Rush, I agree with what you’re saying.  I just wish legislation —

RUSH:  Did you vote for Trump?

CALLER:  I did.  I was a Ted Cruz guy in Iowa for, you know, the caucuses.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: But when that went awry, yeah, Trump was my number two guy.  In fact, I wish they could have kind of put things aside and been a team. That would have been awesome.  But, yeah, I voted for him.

RUSH:  Okay.  Well, but he was not your first choice, so therefore he doesn’t satisfy your primary —

CALLER:  No, I wouldn’t say that.  I mean, you know, I thought Cruz put up a valid fight, but he was the number two guy, and, hey, maybe next time.  But I love how he’s thinking out of the box and everything is totally different ’cause I think that going forward, elections forward, I think Republicans have been set free, that you’ve just gotta totally rethink this thing in how we’ve done things.

RUSH:  Well, I think that’s what we’re in the midst of witnessing. 

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  Look, contrary on what… I don’t know that the Trump people listen here.  I haven’t talked to Donald Trump since two weeks after he made the comment on McCain.  So I’m not wired, I’m not connected there at all.  All I have is my instincts.

CALLER:  Oh, Rush, he’s addicted to the program, just like everybody that listens for six weeks or more.

RUSH: (chuckling)

CALLER: I mean, I know he’s a busy man, but I know he’s surrounded. Anyway, you’re just not being gracious enough to yourself.

RUSH:  Well, here’s the thing.  This is what I’m telling myself.  I have faith in this.  I really do believe that Trump is cut from a different cloth.  We’re all so conditioned.  We couldn’t be otherwise.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  We are so conditioned to monitoring and witnessing and disapproving the political appropriations process all of our lives. We know they lie to us about it. We know they tell us that everything’s gonna be revenue neutral and taxes aren’t gonna go up and it’s not gonna bust the budget.  It always does.  One other little aside here.  There are a lot of conservatives out there that are taking the occasion of Trump’s desired stimulus to point out, “See, we told you this guy’s not conservative.  This guy’s spending money like every left-wing liberal.”  These are the same people, Matt — these are the same people — that authorized every Obama budget rather than oppose him.  These are the same people that that said, “No, we’ll deal with that. We’ll give Obama…” So these people have been complicit in Obama’s spending, as far as I’m concerned.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  And they want to act like they’re on a high horse and say that Trump is violating —

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  These people are the Republican that looked the other way and didn’t have the guts to stop Obama when his budgeting went out of control.  I think Trump is literally going to try.  That’s why he’s got the people he’s got in his cabinet.  These are people that can’t spend willy-nilly.  These are people that have to show a profit all their lives.  They’ve had to answer to shareholders.  They have had to be responsible in the way they’ve conducted their business. 

And they’re all fed up with the way Washington works.  And if these people — led by Trump — think that our airports, for example, are falling apart and need to be rebuilt and you tell ’em, “We don’t have the money for it,” these are people know how to find money that no politician says he can find.  I’m interested.  I really think that we’re on the cusp here of redefining the way Washington works.  I think that’s why Washington’s so paranoid.

CALLER:  I think you’re right.

RUSH:  I think we’re on the cusp here of having the entire game blown to smithereens.  Baseline budgeting, for example, is a trick that allows Washington to never cut the budget, that they put in the budget for that express purpose.  I think baseline budgeting is the kind of thing — maybe not specifically. But baseline budgeting is the kind of thing that people in Trump’s orb are gonna look at and say, “This is silly!  It’s stupid!  How can you authorize more spending when this budget area still has some left?”

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  So —

CALLER:  It’s killing us, Rush.  It’s killing the country.

RUSH:  It is.

CALLER:  At some point it is —

RUSH:  It’s not just that.  It’s what it’s being spent on.  It’s being spent on people to keep them dumb, to keep them unemployed, and to keep them dependent.  And believe me this is not what Trump wants, and certainly not people in his cabinet.  Some of these people I know, and they are in no way interested in acquiring power the way the Democrat Party is or your average politician, i.e., in creating dependency among people.  Trump wants people productive.  He wants people kicking ass and busting their ass.  He wants the country to actually become great again as he remembers it in his youth and beyond, and he thinks it can be done, and he thinks everything being done now in the way it’s being done is cockeyed and crazy. 

CALLER:  Rush, do you think like the State Department, which is just full of career politicians that are liberals — or career people that are liberals. Do you think that swamp will get drained? I would be heartbroken… It would make me mad to know that Marie Harf still has a job in this new administration doing something different. (chuckles) I mean, are people like that gonna get their walking papers?

RUSH:  She may have already.  I haven’t seen Marie Harf in a couple of years.  She’s a spokesman anyway.  She’s just the, you know, “assistant secretary of state for strategic communications” or whatever.  That’s just spokesman.

CALLER: (laughing) I know! It’s unbelievable she’s collecting a paycheck.

RUSH:  Let me tell you: If Rex Tillerson is confirmed as secretary of state, they’re gonna have mass resignations in there.  You’re gonna have a bunch of liberals; they’re gonna march out of there in protest.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  But, look, we’re way too soon to be able to make real solid predictions here.  I’m trying to separate my predictions from my desires.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  I’m like you. I don’t really know what’s gonna happen, except that I know Trump, and I listen to him.  I believe he says what he means when it comes to things like this that he’s very serious about.  I think when Trump talks about how stupid our leaders have been, I think it’s this kind of stuff he’s talking about: Budgeting, wasting money and getting nothing for it — other than cementing political power.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  I think he’s about something entirely different, and we’ll just have to wait and see.  I could be shown to be dead wrong in time.  And if he is, his base… If he is anything… If he is significantly different than what he’s leading his base supporters to believe, he’s gonna have troubles with ’em.  He’s made it very clear to them what he’s gonna do and who he is and he understands why they supported him.  And I think the panic in Washington is well deserved on these people’s part because I think they’re fully aware of just how much he could come and shake these things up.  The Republicans already are working on their early first-year Trump agenda that is designed to give him what he wants.

CALLER:  Rush, can I ask you a quick aviation question.

RUSH:  Sure.

CALLER:  I’m a pilot, and I do work at an airport.

RUSH:  Yeah, go ahead.

CALLER:  EIB 1, I understand TFRs, and I know you talked about this a couple of weeks ago.  Are you gonna get a special waiver from him to be able to get EIB 1, you know, repositioned?  I mean, we kind of laugh, but if he’s elected for eight years, that could be a real thorn in your side.

RUSH:  We don’t know yet.  What exists now — pardon me, folks, ’cause I gotta do some aeronautics inside baseball lingo here.  I had to fly out of here over the weekend, and I drove past Trump’s plane on the way to EIB 1, and Trump’s plane, if he were president, would be Air Force One.  The way it’s working now — and I don’t want to give too much of this away, but we’re all given unique squawks that are going constantly and are the equivalent of a digital fingerprint.  And they have to be on the whole time. There are no restrictions so far, there haven’t been any. 

Now, what happens when Air Force One is on the ground instead of Trump 1, I don’t know, but nobody has alluded here to any impending, dire consequences.  I’m not too worried about it.  And if I were to be granted an exemption, you would be the last to know. (laughing) If I get one, I would in no way say so.  In fact, if you ask me if I got an exemption, I would say, “What exemption?”  Now, before you go here, Matt, do you want an iPhone 7 or an iPhone 7 Plus?

CALLER:  Rush, God love for everything you do.  I’ll take a 7 Plus, Verizon.

RUSH:  And what’s your carrier?

CALLER:  Verizon.

RUSH:  Verizon.  What color you want?

CALLER:  Rose gold?

RUSH:  Rose gold.  We got it.  We can set you up.  You sound just like Mike Pence.  Are you sure you’re not Mike Pence just angling for a free phone?

CALLER:  (laughing) No, I’ve never heard that before, but I take that as compliment.

RUSH:  You sound just like Pence on the phone, anyway, to me.  Remember I’m deaf.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  So don’t hang up.  Mr. Snerdley will get your address.  Rose gold, Verizon, 7 Plus, we’ll get it out today.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  You know, I take it back.  I’ve been reminded.  Trump called here on October 25th, and we did a 15- or 20 minute — it wasn’t an interview.  We had a conversation.  It was during that conversation where I asked him about his continual reaction to critics and, “Why don’t you just ignore ’em?  I mean, these people are chump change out there.” 

And that’s when he said, “Yeah, I know, my advisers are telling me don’t waste my time, but, Rush, whenever somebody attacks me, somebody attacks my family, I’m not gonna let it set in.  I’m not gonna let it get planted and start growing out there.  I’m gonna nuke it.  Somebody wounds me, I’m gonna hit ’em back.  And you’re right, my advisers are telling me to forget it, but I just can’t.” 

And it made news, because the reason up to that point that people thought Trump was tweeting out all these reactions to small-fry critics was that he was a narcissist and an egomaniac and just couldn’t help himself.  And in fact his answer explained the opposite.  It wasn’t narcissism or ego.  It was an effort to do what he could to keep his name and his family from being destroyed, being impugned with lies.  And he has continued to do so. 

Last example of this, this little union guy up in Indiana upset over the Carrier deal saying Trump was bragging about it too much, and Trump reacted to him and basically told him to go get a screwdriver and put it where the sun doesn’t shine. And people said, “You’re president-elect, you can’t start reacting to every day citizens who criticize you.  Trump said to hell with it, the guy’s wrong, he’s lying about me, and I’m not gonna let it set in.  And that’s just who he is. 

But I had erred and said the last time I had spoken to Trump is shortly after he had said of McCain that he was not impressed with military people that get captured. I had forgotten that he called on October 25th.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Look, my answer to the caller on the Trump infrastructure spending as it relates to baseline budgeting, believe me, it’s a trillion dollars over ten years, and there is a desire for a mixture of all kinds of funding here, not strictly federal. Trump expressed the desire to get as much of it from existing areas of the budget where there is waste and unnecessary spending.  There’s lots of those areas, so we’ll see.