RUSH: What is the big thing that everybody’s talking about still? Trump’s flip-flopping on immigration. That’s a bigger topic today on cable news than whether or not Trump is a racist, sexist, bigot whatever. In fact, the way CNN’s covering this is Trump, Hillary trade barbs on racism. What? You mean the coverage isn’t Hillary Clinton nails Donald Trump as the racist pig we all know he is? No. The coverage is Trump, Hillary exchange barbs on racist allegations.
What? You mean the Republican is being given some sort of, if not credibility, you mean a Republican accusing Hillary of racism is actually getting covered? Who would have ever thought that? So, I think we’re in the middle of a bunch of fluidity, and it’s headed in directions that nobody yet knows. Because, look, folks, by the measure of traditional common sense, Trump should have been finished I don’t know how many months ago, right? And he’s not. I don’t think he’s even close to being finished.
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RUSH: Now on to the issue of Trump and immigration. Let me answer my own question. My own question is: Why are the Drive-Bys not just hammering Trump as the racist, bigot pig Hillary says he is? Why have they dropped that? Why are they focused so much on Trump and his apparent flip-flop on immigration? The answer is: What are the Drive-Bys trying to do? What’s their objective? Their objective is to elect Hillary and to defeat Trump. So by focusing on his flip… Immigration is his number one issue. In the Drive-By community, in the Drive-By world, the only reason Trump ever had a prayer was his position on immigration.
And, if they can destroy Trump on that, they think they can destroy his candidacy, and that’s why they’re focusing on it. As far as the Drive-Bys are concerned, a Republican being accused of racism? “That’s so old, it’s not exciting anymore. There’s no future in that. Been there; done that. We’ve already told everybody Trump’s a racist! We’ve already told everybody that every Republican’s a racist.”
They’re bored by it. But with Trump flip-flopping (in their minds) on immigration, well, that’s a golden opportunity to finally once and for all destroy his candidacy. So that’s why they’re focusing on it. And we start here with Kellyanne Conway defending Trump on immigration on ABC’s Good Morning America today. George Stephanopoulos says, “We heard Trump last night say he thinks Hillary is a bigot. Do you think she’s a bigot?”
CONWAY: I think her policies have, uh, left many people behind. And if we’re going to look at the 70% of Americans who say that this country’s headed in the wrong direction and they want change, then we can’t possibly abide policies by really a political party and — and Hillary Clinton leading it that leave —
STEPHANOPOULOS: But is Mr. Trump right to call her a bigot?
CONWAY: Well, is she right to call him a bigot? Have you seen what this man is called on a daily basis? He’s called a bigot, a racist, a sexist. Why is this a one-way conversation? Why is her team and her apologists almost everywhere allowed to throw personal insults and get away with not having a press conference in 265 days?
RUSH: Stephanopoulos then says, “Well, if they stay…?” Back to immigration here. “If they stay, will there be a path to legalization, or do they have to leave the country?”
CONWAY: He has said no path to legalization, no path to citizenship, and no amnesty. You can return home, and then if you’d like to go stand in line like everybody else is — the thing that we learn in kindergarten: Stand in line, wait your turn, go through the normal courses — then that would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
RUSH: So — and Trump, by the way, is saying what you heard on Anderson Cooper last night. (paraphrased) “They gotta go back. They gotta go back! We’re gonna find the drug dealers, gonna find the rapists, the purse snatchers, the muggers. We know who they are. We know where they are. We’re gonna send ’em back. They had to come back, the good people. We’re gonna get the bad ones. We’re gonna find the bad ones and gonna send ’em packing. And if they want to come back, they gotta go through channels.”
So Trump is essentially saying, “Well, yeah, we’re gonna deport a bunch of and if they want to come back, they can come back.” I know what the reaction to this is gonna be, “Well, why go through the motion of sending ’em out? I mean, how much money’s that gonna cost? You send ’em out, bring ’em back, gotta find ’em? Why not just legalize ’em?” “No, they gotta go! They gotta! I told everybody they gotta go. They gotta. They gotta go, come back, stand in line, and go through the same process just like everybody else.” That’s Kellyanne Conway: Stand in line like you did in kindergarten.
Poor Ann Coulter. She writes her latest book, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! She was one of the early devotees of Trump, and immigration is why. And almost the day her book comes out is when Trump makes people think that he’s flip-flopping on it. So she had a series of tweets expressing her frustration, and she started joking that if Trump’s really changing, ah, this might be a short book tour. And the leftists… I’m telling you, they don’t understand conservative or Republican jokes.
They don’t understand real humor. They… It escapes them. They actually thought she was promising to do a short book tour! So they’ve been asking her, “Are you really gonna shorten your book tour? Are you really going to if Trump changes his mind?” Do you guys not get jokes? Do you not understand jokes? And I’m telling you, they don’t. But still, the timing of Trump’s flip-flop — apparent flip-flop — with the arrival of her book, that had been… Oh, my gosh, I can’t… So she doing the rounds, and she was on Hannity last night, and we have two bites. Here’s the first.
COULTER: Donald Trump came along and didn’t need the donors, so he wasn’t being bossed around by campaign consultants, though it sounds as if some campaign consultant has slipped into his campaign. And I don’t think he should have been hiring (chuckles), you know, Rubio’s speechwriter for his interview with you giving all these ridiculous talking points for amnesty. And to speak to that, for one thing, um, the mainstream media… I’ve criticized Trump before. I’m not some, you know, Clinton cultist or a Cruz cultist. He’s my guy, but I give him constructive criticism. And every time I do this, the media makes a huge, big deal of, “You know, Coulter tiring of Trump.” It was a joke when I said this was gonna be the shortest book tour ever. It’s called “a joke.”
RUSH: She did say it but they hope it’s true and they’re asking, “Are you really gonna shorten your book tour if Trump sells you out and so forth?” She is clearly frustrated. She’s of the opinion, let Trump be Trump. You don’t need speechwriters, don’t need consultants. She did say that the day they hire their first consultant is the beginning of the end of the campaign. Here’s the next bite.
COULTER: These are all the Marco Rubio cliches used to push the Gang of Eight bill, and I think it’s stupid because all Trump is doing is demoralizing his base. The never… The people who hate him still hate him but now they can call him a flip-flopper. Way to go whoever told Trump say that! He isn’t aye politician, he does get some things wrong. The one thing I described in his book is he has always been super patriotic, has always put Americans first, has always cared about working-class Americans, and if you are putting Americans first you are not going to want to keep even it is most law-abiding illegal alien.
RUSH: Okay. So who is it, if anybody, advising Trump to soften or change his approach on this? Well, Ann Coulter herself last night on ABC put forth the idea that it’s Roger Ailes’ fault, that Ailes is advising Trump and that Ailes is a Bushie, therefore a moderate, and that Ailes is advising Trump as he would advise a Bush. “Hey, you gotta soften a little bit.” That is turned out now to be refuted by others in the campaign such as Rudy Giuliani, who is now claiming that it’s Chris Christie who is causing Trump to change his language on this.
As Katrina Pierson said the other day: He’s not changed his attitude; he’s just changing the words. “Yeah, he still thinks the same thing and he’s gonna do the same, he’s just using different words to describe it.” And of course the CNN people start snickering and laughing, think, “Man, what an idiot! Changing the words?” So Giuliani says that it’s Chris Christie and that it’s Chris Christie who is gonna continue to work on Trump to change, modify, moderate his position on immigration and deportation and amnesty. We will hear from Trump himself when we get back.
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RUSH: Anderson Cooper 360 last night on CNN. Trump doubling down on the wall. Question from Cooper (paraphrasing), “One of the big things you’ve talked about in the primaries and so forth, interviews about this, talked about it in the debates, 11 million undocumented immigrants, they have to go, you say. The good ones can come back in, can put a door in the wall, the good ones come back in, do it humanely, seems now there’s been some contradictory statements about all this.”
TRUMP: We’re gonna build a great wall. The wall is gonna be paid for by Mexico. People are not gonna be able to tunnel because we’re gonna have tunnel technology. We’re gonna have all sorts of things on this wall. This is gonna be a real wall. Drugs will stop flowing into our nation and poisoning our youth and everybody else. We’re gonna have all sorts of E-Verify and everything you can think of in terms of immigration. People will not come in to our country illegally. We’re gonna fix that.
RUSH: Cooper then says, “On Hannity last night, you used the word softening.”
TRUMP: I’ve heard people say it’s a hardening, actually.
COOPER: But 11 million who have not committed a crime, there’s then going to be a path to legalization; is that right?
TRUMP: You know it’s a process. You can’t take 11 at one time and just say, boom, you’re gone. We have to find where these people are. Most people don’t even know where they are. Nobody even knows if it’s 11. It could be 30, and it could be five. Nobody knows.
RUSH: Right. But we’re gonna find ’em. We don’t know where they are. Could be five million, could be 30 million, could be 11 million — I think it’s more than 11, by the way. How did this number 11 — you know, this number used to be 14, and I’ve always thought this number’s closer to 20. We’re talking about since 1986 here. That’s when we did Simpson-Mazzoli. That’s the last time we granted amnesty and they promised that would end everything, and it’s built from then. No matter what the number is, the experts say, “Well, they’re living in the shadows, you’ll never be able to find ’em, you can’t find ’em. What are you are talking about, find ’em? You can’t.”
Eisenhower did it. I mean, it’s been done. I mean, if you really wanted to do it, you could do it. But Trump here is saying it’s a process. You can’t take all of them, however many it is, 11 million, five million, 30. You can’t get rid of all of them at once, but we’re gonna do it. I like the tunnel technology. I like that. We’re gonna have tunnel technology. You know me, I’m a big tech guy. Tech is my hobby. (interruption) How are we gonna do tunnel technology? We’re gonna have tunnel technology, that’s gonna be part of the wall. The wall will not allow tunnels. You’re not gonna be able to burrow under the wall with a tunnel, which means the tunnel’s gotta be pretty deep.
The foundation of the wall has to be deep. If you’re gonna have anti-tunnel tech, then you’ve gotta make sure that somebody can’t build a tunnel underneath the wall. That’s what tunnel technology is. If anybody knows about tunnel technology, it would be Trump. I mean, he’s a construction ace, right? So if you’re gonna have tunnel technology — Cooper didn’t ask him what it is. Cooper’s thinking I don’t know half of what he’s saying so I don’t know what to ask him about.
But the tunnel tech I would have zeroed in. What is tunnel tech, I mean, how do you make sure that tunnels aren’t gonna work? The only thing I can think of is you gotta build the foundation of the wall really, really, really deep if you don’t want people to come underneath it, ’cause that’s what a tunnel is, right, a tunnel’s underneath.
How many people do you think — I’m just asking, like the Lincoln Tunnel in New York, or the Battery Park tunnel, how many people do you think, think the tunnel actually is in the water? I will bet you a lot of people think the tunnel is actually in the water rather than underneath the riverbed. So when you start talking tunnel tech, well, it opens it way, way up. This is the last bite we have with Trump and Anderson Cooper last night.
TRUMP: There is no path to legalization.
COOPER: You talked about paying back taxes on Hannity.
TRUMP: Unless people leave the country — well, when they come back in, if they come back in, then they can start paying taxes.
COOPER: So they still have to leave the country?
TRUMP: But there is no path to legalization, unless they leave the country and come back.
COOPER: So that means of the 11 million who are here, even if they haven’t committed a crime.
TRUMP: But you don’t know, again, you keep saying 11 million. You don’t know what the number is. You know millions of people…
COOPER: Well however many, that’s the estimate.
TRUMP: And using the existing laws of our country, using the existing laws, millions of people are deported every year.
COOPER: Right.
TRUMP: You know that, right?
RUSH: Yeah, they are. Obama is deporting people, there’s no question. It’s just not very many, but there are deportations taking place. So the question that got this going was, “Well, if they haven’t committed a crime, will there be a path to legalization?” And Trump said there is no path to legalization.
You know what I think is being set up here? Remember when I, many times in the recent past, when people have come to me and said, “You know, if you got behind this, you could make it happen. If you would sign on to it, you could make it happen.”
I said, “Yeah, if I sign on to it, I can wave bye-bye to my career.” But I did have this proviso. I said, “I will be glad to sign on to amnesty. I will sign it right now if you put a provision in that those granted amnesty cannot vote for 25 years, or ten years or 15.” Let’s see how many Democrats support that. Let’s see how many people I have who want my assistance who would welcome it that way.
You want amnesty? Fine. You want a path to citizenship? Trump says there is no path to legalization, other than obeying the law. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being headed in that direction. I’m not predicting it. But I’ve always thought that was a great way to just expose everybody on this and what their real purposes are.