{"id":4621,"date":"2015-12-17T17:10:46","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T17:10:46","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-12-17T17:10:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T17:10:46","slug":"bottom_line_marco_rubio_was_one_of_the_gang_of_eight_and_ted_cruz_wasn_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/12\/17\/bottom_line_marco_rubio_was_one_of_the_gang_of_eight_and_ted_cruz_wasn_t\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottom Line: Marco Rubio Was One of the Gang of Eight — And Ted Cruz Wasn\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Look, if you\u2019re trying to follow this Rubio-Cruz thing, it long ago got so deep in the woods, it\u2019s gotten so muddled here that you\u2019re gonna be thankful for this program in not too long a time, because what we do here is make the complex understandable. I\u2019m gonna wade deep into the muck and I\u2019m gonna go in there in the weeds, I\u2019m gonna grab the essentials, I\u2019m gonna bring \u2019em out and I\u2019m gonna tell you what it is all about, which is very simple. <\/p>\n

Marco Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight trying to secure amnesty and wishes he wasn\u2019t. Ted Cruz never was and they\u2019re trying to make it out like he was. At the end of the day when people go vote, people are gonna remember, of the two, it was Marco Rubio that was a member of the Gang of Eight and Ted Cruz that wasn\u2019t, and that\u2019s as complicated or simple as it\u2019s gonna end up being. But I\u2019m gonna tell you how we get there, \u2019cause it\u2019s fascinating. (laughing) I mean, it is fascinating to get deep into this. That\u2019s the end result. I mean, that\u2019s the bottom line. That\u2019s what voters are gonna remember when this is all said and done.<\/p>\n

But the process here has been fascinating to follow and to try to understand. I\u2019ve needed some assistance myself, I will admit. Well, only because some people were saying and writing things that I couldn\u2019t possibly comprehend. I needed to go to translators. You know, I\u2019m not really deep into — you know, I can imitate, I can impersonate deep intellectualese, you know, the language they speak, but sometimes even I, happy to admit, I need help deciphering when it\u2019s written. Anyway, we\u2019ll get to that in mere moments. <\/line><\/p>\n

In the meantime, while the all of that was going on and occupying a lot of attention, because what that Cruz-Rubio thing is really all about is the failure of Jeb Bush. And the establishment in the presidential campaign is doing everything they can to get Rubio and Cruz as the final two. They\u2019re still of the belief that somehow, somewhere down the line, Trump\u2019s not gonna be a factor, and they really want to set this up — Marco Rubio is essentially the heir to what was to have been the Jeb Bush campaign. That\u2019s been occupying a lot of people\u2019s attention. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, the dustup here between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio that started in the debate on Tuesday night. And again, not to be repetitive, but depending on how closely or not you have paid attention to this, the stakes here are really high. And that is why this disagreement, this fight, this battle — if you will — is getting so much attention, because there\u2019s so much at stake. We\u2019re talking about here the potential nomination of Republican Party for president of the United States, and Marco Rubio looks like he is assuming the position, policy preference position number one of the Republican establishment, if indeed Jeb Bush doesn\u2019t make it. <\/p>\n

The Republican establishment, as you well know, not only dislikes and is frightened to death of Donald Trump, they intensely dislike Ted Cruz, and they are deeply afraid of Ted Cruz. And so what is going on here is an effort to discredit Cruz and to expose Cruz as a liar on something that is the number one issue to most Republican voters, and that is immigration policy — and specifically, amnesty. And the upshot of the contretemps that happened Tuesday night in the debate is that Rubio is attempting…<\/line><\/p>\n

He did attempt, and is receiving the assistance of many in the media. He is attempting to say that Ted Cruz has not told you the truth about his position on amnesty and immigration. In explaining this and deciphering it, ferreting it all out, you can get pretty deep in the weeds here to the point that you will lose people. I would lose you. Even I, who am otherwise a magnet. I could lose you if I took this as deeply as it has gotten. One of the things that I like to pride myself on here is making the complex understandable.<\/p>\n

So let me tell you where this is going to end as far as voters are concerned, because I think at the end of the day nobody\u2019s gonna go into the weeds. The voters are not gonna go into the weeds to understand what happens even if they\u2019re led there. It isn\u2019t going to matter. This all revolves around the Gang of Eight. Eight senators who were trying to come up with legislation that would solve our immigration problems. A key member of the Gang of Eight was Senator Marco Rubio, newly arrived to the Senate, Hispanic, very much adored and appreciated by conservatives. <\/p>\n

So the Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate wanted Rubio in the Gang of Eight as a means of persuading conservatives that this wasn\u2019t amnesty. “We weren\u2019t going to grant legalization, we weren\u2019t gonna grant citizenship, we weren\u2019t gonna give them the right to vote (yet), but we have to do this.” And it was thought that Rubio — with his fresh, conservative newness and arrival on the scene — would bring recalcitrant Republican voters along. It was a giant miscalculation, but nevertheless they tried it. <\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s involvement in the Gang of Eight has been portrayed in one of two ways. He was either young and impressionable and brought in and misled by the veteran deceit leaders (Chuck Schumer and others on the committee, Dick Durbin) or other story is, as Schumer tells it, “What do you mean, Marco Rubio was on the back bench? He was the architect of it! Marco Rubio wrote the Gang of Eight. Marco was the guy who told you how to get it done.” Well, that\u2019s not gonna go well with Republican voters. <\/p>\n

And so during the process, during the entire process of the debate of the Gang of Eight bill and the attempt to get it passed and then sent up to Obama\u2019s desk, brought the involvement of Ted Cruz. And the argument that Rubio and his supporters are putting forth is that Cruz, in the process of getting involved in the Gang of Eight argument, the debate, actually said that he was for it and is now trying to back out of it and say that he wasn\u2019t. And it involves Cruz ostensibly inserting an amendment in the Gang of Eight bill that is called “a poison pill.”<\/line><\/p>\n

Now, “poison pill” may be self-explanatory, but there may be some who don\u2019t understand what a poison pill is. And it\u2019s not hard; it\u2019s very simple. A poison pill amendment is designed to kill the legislation by exposing, in this case, the proponents as being engaged in deceit and fraud. In opening this discussion, let me remind you of something that I did, because it\u2019s close to what Cruz did. Back during the Gang of Eight, the intense period of argument, I, on this program — a number of times and very seriously — promised that I would support amnesty.<\/p>\n

Not just the Gang of Eight bill. I said that I would sign up and I would support it and I would travel the country and try to convince people to support it and vote for it. “Comprehensive immigration reform, I\u2019m right in there! I will do whatever you need me to do to help the American people understand and accept amnesty … with one proviso. And that is that the newly amnetized cannot vote for 25 years.” Because everybody knew that the whole purpose of the Gang of Eight bill was to essentially secure 20 million new Democrat voters.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what amnesty is all about what the advocates of amnesty to the Democrat side want.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not compassion, it\u2019s not humanitarian, it\u2019s none of the things they claim it is. It\u2019s not, “These are poor people and they\u2019ve been working in the shadows in our country and we\u2019ve been profiting from them and we\u2019re denying them the basic services and aspects of citizenship, and it\u2019s time for this to stop! We owe it to these people to allow them to come out of the shadows.” None of that is why the Democrat Party — Barack Obama, you name it — is in favor of amnesty. They simply see a brand-new bunch of registered Democrats. <\/p>\n

Immigration policy is nothing more than a Democrat registration drive. <\/p>\n

<\/a>And in an attempt to illustrate that, I said, “Hey, I\u2019ll support amnesty if you will promise me that the newly amnetized cannot vote for 25 years.” It was an effort to illustrate what was really going on, and I proved that that\u2019s what was going on by virtue of one fact: Nobody took me up on my offer to join efforts to pass the legislation, not one person. And believe me, folks, when I tell you, if I had not added that proviso, I would have been overwhelmed with phone calls from people in Washington eagerly accepting my offer. I would have been all over the news, “Limbaugh Changes Mind, Supports Comprehensive Immigration Reform<\/a>.” It would have been all you would have seen in the news. <\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t get one call. I didn\u2019t get one feeler. I didn\u2019t get a single reaction to my proposal because I put a poison pill in it. I\u2019ll gladly grant amnesty, I\u2019ll support it, I\u2019ll promote it, I\u2019ll do whatever you need, but you have to put in the bill that they can\u2019t vote for 25 years. And the point was, they won\u2019t even be for it if that\u2019s the case. The Democrat Party will never vote for amnesty if there\u2019s something in there that says they can\u2019t vote for 25 years. <\/p>\n

Well, Ted Cruz, in the process of debating the Gang of Eight bill, essentially did something close to that, in an attempt to expose it and in an attempt to kill it. And it is that attempt that Cruz made that Rubio and other forces are now claiming he\u2019s a hypocrite on because they\u2019re claiming that he really did privately and to certain groups say that he was in favor of legalization and citizenship. <\/p>\n

And those are the two factors here all of this is revolving around. The Gang of Eight bill contained two key elements: legalization of those in the shadows, and the path to citizenship, and the path to citizenship is where they can go register to vote. And the key, the focus on defeating the bill was to show people that its real purpose was to provide immediate citizenship and the right to vote for however many illegal aliens are in the country. And that number is anywhere from 12 to 20 million, and maybe more. <\/p>\n

It was not just legalization. It was not just granting them amnesty for violating the law, being here illegally. The Gang of Eight bill also contained a provision that put them on a path to citizenship. And you know damn well, if that had passed, and if the path to citizenship required a five-year wait, Chuck Schumer would have been to the cameras and microphones within two hours of the bill passing and signed by the president and said, “This is unfair. We\u2019ve just granted \u2019em a path to citizenship and they have to wait five years? That\u2019s not fair. We need to move this up. They should be able to register to vote tomorrow.” And that would have passed. And so the effort to defeat the Gang of Eight bill was to expose to as many people as possible that the real purpose of the Gang of Eight was not legalization, but the path to citizenship. <\/p>\n

And this is where Cruz enters the picture here. Ted Cruz proposed a series of amendments in committee that were intended to make sure that the legislation did not end up being a path to citizenship. And people involved in this didn\u2019t want to admit that that\u2019s what was going on here. A lot of people who supported the Gang of Eight bill did not want to admit that it contained a path to citizenship, Republicans and Democrats. I mean, it was total deceit here that was underway. The proponents of the bill were trying to hide behind the fact that all it was was legalization, humanitarian, compassionate legalization. They wanted to make sure nobody knew or as very few people as possible knew that it contained a path to citizenship, because a path to citizenship equals right to vote. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Now, one of the amendments that Ted Cruz proposed stripped out the path to citizenship portion of the bill, but it left the legalization part in. And that has opened the door for opponents of Cruz to say, “He voted for legalization.” And Cruz is saying, no, I didn\u2019t vote for legalization. I did vote, but I was voting to keep citizenship out of it. I put my amendment in to expose the path to citizenship. <\/p>\n

Fox News thinks that they have caught Cruz in a lie because they think that he\u2019s been caught saying that he was one thing in 2013 and another thing in the debate on Tuesday night. Cruz\u2019s intention was to make sure the proponents of the Gang of Eight ended up voting against it. Ted Cruz\u2019s amendment was the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I\u2019ll support this, but they can\u2019t vote for 25 years.” It was an effort to get the proponents to vote against their own bill because it did not contain the fundamental number one requirement they wanted it to have, path to citizenship and right to vote. <\/p>\n

Now, the problem is that Ted Cruz now is being accused of revising his remarks, that he didn\u2019t intend to say what he said back then. This is where we get deep in the woods over, “Is Cruz really, did he go out and tell people he\u2019s for legalization? Oh, my God, wait \u2019til Cruz\u2019s voters find out that he\u2019s been lying to \u2019em about that.” That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to convince Cruz supporters of. The problem with that is that Cruz\u2019s amendment may have ended up as a poison pill, but it may not have started that way. It\u2019s dicey. <\/p>\n

He was clear not just in proposing it, but in the appearance he made at Princeton talking about this, that he offered the amendment as a compromise because he wanted to see it pass. See, the two stories of Cruz are that he actually offered this amendment to take out the citizenship plank because he wanted the Gang of Eight bill to pass so that he could say down the road that he had voted for and been a participant in a compromise piece of legislation, that he had worked with people and had helped get something done, and so he was not presenting his amendment as a poison pill when he was talking to certain groups. <\/p>\n

That is the opposite of a poison pill. He did this in an appearance at Princeton with a law professor who is a close associate and friend of his. Cruz was actually in a Q&A that he had with a professor there named Robbie George. Cruz: “The amendment I introduced affected only citizenship; it did not affect the underlying legalization in the Gang of Eight bill.” Robbie George said, “Would your bill pass the House, or would it be killed because it was proposing \u00c2\u2018amnesty\u00c2\u2019?” Cruz said, “I believe that if my amendments were adopted, the bill would pass. My effort in introducing them was to find solution that reflected common ground and fixed the problem.”<\/p>\n

So his original position was that he was actually trying to craft legislation that would pass that had removed the plank to citizenship, but that he wanted to be able to say later down the road that he had participated in compromise legislation and so forth. And that\u2019s where Rubio and Cruz opponents are trying to say, “We got him. He lied. He lied.” And if you\u2019re confused, hang in there. Gotta take a break, but it will all be made clear in a moment. <\/line><\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. So in the limited time remaining in this segment \u2019cause I went long, I\u2019m gonna give you the end result of this again and in the next segment go back and pick up in order. The bottom line is Ted Cruz has never voted for amnesty. The proponents of the Gang of Eight bill have, including Rubio. But Cruz did propose an amendment in 2013 which would have authorized legalization. Of course, what legalization meant then versus what people think it means today are two different things, probably. <\/p>\n

But Ted Cruz never supported amnesty. He wants to say now that his amendment was designed to kill the Gang of Eight bill, but in 2013 he was telling people that he really wanted the bill to pass, that he wanted a reform package that he was instrumental in having passed, but that did not include amnesty, it just included legalization. And of course the Democrats, nobody wanted anything but amnesty<\/p>\n

So the bottom line is the Gang of Eight bill failed, and people are attempting to make others believe that Ted Cruz secretly supported amnesty at one time and is lying about it, and that didn\u2019t happen. So that\u2019s what I would say if this conversation were over. But to get there I need to return to it, so hang on.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, another way to look at this is that powerful forces are trying to rewrite the history of the debate on the Gang of Eight bill. Because the history of the Gang of Eight bill is not particularly helpful to — and, by the way, I like Marco Rubio. This is why I don\u2019t endorse, folks, in primaries. This exact circumstance is why I do not endorse in primaries. I don\u2019t want to get caught in something like this — having to defend somebody on something that I didn\u2019t know was gonna come up — and just be in my best interests.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m defending nobody here. I\u2019m trying to cut through all of this noise and get to the essence of this for you. Because it\u2019s all over the media, and it\u2019s clear that Trump and Cruz are under assault. It\u2019s a primary. This is normal. This is what should and does happen, and I am not angry at anybody. I\u2019m just trying to decipher this for you. That\u2019s what we do here; we make the complex understandable. And there are some people that would very much like to have you think that Ted Cruz was much more for amnesty or involved in it, because that would take some pressure off other people who actually were. <\/p>\n

It was the Gang of Eight. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the Gang of Ten or the Gang of 12. <\/p>\n

It was the Gang of Eight, \u2019cause there were eight guys in it — and Cruz was not one of them. Now, here again is what this is about. They\u2019re trying to revise or rewrite the history of the debate. The Gang of Eight bill had two planks in it. One is “path to citizenship,” which means vote, and the other is legalization, which means amnesty. They wanted both. The proponents of the Gang wanted both. Legalization — no criminals anymore, no more criminal distinction — and citizenship — which means you get to go down and register at the DMV tomorrow as a Democrat. <\/line><\/p>\n

And Rubio was instrumental in supporting this, and that was not good for him with Republican voters. He was freshly arrived in the Senate and thought that he would be able to make his mark in a compromise way. When all this came up, here\u2019s Ted Cruz over here. This is 2013. And Ted Cruz introduces an amendment to the Gang of Eight bill that removes this plank in it on the citizenship side, which takes away the right to vote, but legalizes them. It grants \u2019em legal status but they can\u2019t vote. It\u2019s much like my gimmick here on the radio where I said, “Hey, I\u2019ll support it but they can\u2019t vote for 25 years.”<\/p>\n

This is called a poison pill. <\/p>\n

Now, Cruz back in 2013 when talking about this with a college professor at Yale. And with other groups, made it clear that he was not introducing a poison pill, that he was serious about trying to participate in a compromise of comprehensive legislation that he thought (down the road) would probably stand him in pretty good stead, show that he could do this, remove the citizenship and so forth. The fact that his amendment allowed legalization is where the critics of Cruz are zeroing in, and saying:<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s being dishonest with you and everybody else because he was for legalization and therefore he was secretly for amnesty!” And Cruz is saying now — and depending on who you talk to — his amendment was a poison pill amendment. You can\u2019t… In his defense, he can\u2019t write and insert a poison pill amendment and tell people that\u2019s what it is. That\u2019d be self-defeating. So that\u2019s where this is. Pro-Rubio supporters think Cruz has been caught in telling two versions of one story, that he was in favor of legalization, in favor of the Gang of Eight bill with an amendment.<\/p>\n

Versus his current position that he totally opposed it, wanted nothing to do with it, because he wanted nothing to do with amnesty. This all came up in the debate. Rubio was lying in wait because I think the Rubio forces thought that they might have an opportunity when the subject came up to illustrate what they think is Cruz hypocrisy. And last night, Bret Baier on the Fox News Channel, had Cruz in and hit him with two different versions of his position on the bill. And the impression left was that maybe Cruz hasn\u2019t been really forthcoming with his voters here.<\/p>\n

So what does Cruz do now? That\u2019s the question that he\u2019s got to decide and so forth. I think we\u2019re already too deep in the weeds. To me, this is not complicated. The Gang of Eight bill failed. Ted Cruz ended up voting against it; Rubio was for it. When all is said and done, the Gang of Eight bill was never supported by a majority of the American people, and it went down to defeat. And Ted Cruz\u2019s record, go ahead and look at it all you want. But there\u2019s a lot of work that he put in in trying to defund amnesty and defeat the Gang of Eight bill. <\/line><\/p>\n

And at the end of the day, it\u2019s gonna be real simple, and there\u2019s not gonna be anything anybody can do about this. You had the Gang of Eight bill, and over here we know who the people that supported it are, and over here we know who the people who didn\u2019t support it are. And as far as Mr. and Mrs. Conservative Voter in any Republican primary are concerned, that\u2019s what it\u2019s gonna come down to for them. All the rest of this is just people getting excited over details, which are interesting if this is what you\u2019re into. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. Cruz could say… It\u2019s really gonna boil down to how much he wants to say that his amendment was actually a poisoned pill designed to illustrate what the proponents are really trying to do. I have no doubt, when you propose an amendment that strips out the path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight bill, you\u2019re clearly proposing an amendment that eliminates any possibility they can register to vote any time soon. But what do you think people think when they hear the word “legalization”? A lot of people today…<\/p>\n

I guarantee you, laypeople who are not nearly into this like the professionals are, when they hear that Cruz voted for “legalization,” they\u2019re gonna think he voted for amnesty. That\u2019s what the anti-Cruz forces are relying on. That his amendment did allow for legalization. “A-ha! See? He was for amnesty! He\u2019s out there all the time and he\u2019s for amnesty and he\u2019s been lying to us!” That\u2019s what they want you Cruz supporters to believe. So what is he to do? I have no idea what he\u2019s gonna do, no idea how\u2019s gonna handle this whatsoever. I can…<\/p>\n

You know, we all put ourselves in people\u2019s shoes and imagine what we would do. He could say something like, he could have explained himself better than he did in the heat of the moment in the debate, “But let\u2019s not lose sight of what\u2019s really important here, and that is I have never and will never support amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in any reform legislation, and I will never support granting them amnesty from their crime of being illegal,” and so forth. “No matter what, and I just didn\u2019t say this clearly enough in the debate the other night \u2019cause I, too, got caught up in the weeds out there.”<\/p>\n

All he\u2019s gotta do… If I were in his shoes… To me, this isn\u2019t complicated. But of course, I\u2019m not the one under assault here, and I\u2019m not the one being criticized. But to me, this very simple. What was the purpose of the Gang of Eight? It was to register 20 million new Democrat voters. The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass of dependent people who are ill-educated, poor, maybe don\u2019t even speak English well. They can\u2019t survive without government assistance. That\u2019s the ideal Democrat voter. The more of them, the better. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what amnesty is. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what their whole point is. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the whole desire for this to pass. <\/p>\n

And the Republican side? Republicans ditto. The Republicans are for amnesty but for different reasons. Their donors want the cheap labor, the Chamber of Commerce and all that, and some Republicans want to support amnesty \u2019cause they think Hispanics will love \u2019em and be more supportive, and they think people won\u2019t call \u2019em racists. I mean, there\u2019s all kinds of different reasons that various politicians support amnesty. The Democrats\u2019 reason is universal. From Democrat to Democrat, it doesn\u2019t matter which one you\u2019re talking to, they see whatever it is, 12 million, 20 million brand-new voters — 70, 80% of which are gonna vote for them. And that\u2019s all that matters.<\/p>\n

Not to insert myself in this, but I\u2019m telling you, I illustrated it. <\/p>\n

And I know some of you are probably saying, “You\u2019re really full of yourself on this.”<\/p>\n

Folks, I have been dragged — \u2019cause when you\u2019re invited by these people you don\u2019t say no — I\u2019ve been to three different dinners with three different groups, minimum eight, over the years, trying to explain to me why I\u2019m wrong on this comprehensive immigration legislation at various stages, that it isn\u2019t amnesty. I have sat through three hour dinners with Speaker after Speaker after Speaker trying to tell me how I am misunderstanding it. I had one tell me, if you call it amnesty, it\u2019s dead, and it isn\u2019t amnesty. There\u2019s a path to citizenship, yes, but it isn\u2019t amnesty. <\/line><\/p>\n

I wish I could give you the names, but I promised beforehand to all these people it was off the record. But it\u2019s people you see on TV, even today, last night, in the debate. You\u2019ve seen \u2019em. I\u2019m just telling you that when I said I will support amnesty, I paused. Just like back in \u201992 when I endorsed Clinton, for a half hour they believed it. And so did all of you. When I told \u2019em I would support amnesty and then paused, I guarantee you, “Oh, wow, oh, oh, oh,” and then I said, “As long as you assure me that the newly amnetized can\u2019t vote for 25 years,” then I didn\u2019t hear from anybody. <\/p>\n

My only point here is that one thing about this has never changed: It isn\u2019t about compassion. It isn\u2019t about helping the poor. It isn\u2019t about saving people from war-torn regions of Central America and South America. It isn\u2019t about saving people, escape from poverty. It\u2019s about empowering the Democrat Party. That\u2019s why Rubio\u2019s got so much trouble with it. People on the Republican side do not understand why he could be hoodwinked into helping the Democrats expand their voter base by anywhere from 12 to 20 million people. <\/p>\n

So if you can bring Ted Cruz in this and say, “Well, you know what, he was actually for it, too, in this one instance he had an amendment.” Then you muddy the waters and you confuse people and take some of the pressure off. But, again, it\u2019s real simple. The Democrat bill supported amnesty for 18, 12 million, whatever it is million Americans. And the only purpose was for them to be registered as Democrats, and I was never gonna support that. No matter what you hear, no matter what you\u2019ve read, I never did support it, I don\u2019t support it, and I never will, and that should wrap it up, as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Another reason, folks, why this Cruz and Rubio things has gotten so fascinating to so many people, it isn\u2019t about policy. It is about tactics now, the rewriting of the debate, the history of the debate. It\u2019s about tactics, campaign tactics. The policy dispute here is a dead end. There\u2019s no way anybody\u2019s gonna ever be able to say that Ted Cruz was for amnesty at any point ever. But tactically can you make people think that he has been — That\u2019s what this is about. <\/p>\n

And people who get all tied up in the tactics, can somebody pull this off? Like Clinton was so loved \u2019cause he was so great at tactics and strategy. Policy, that\u2019s out the window on this. That\u2019s been decided. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Patty in Naugatuck, Connecticut.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hi. How are you?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Good, sir. I\u2019m so glad you took my call, because this is really so important to me. I am a really firm Senator Cruz fan, and I have to tell you why.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I find him to be absolutely outstanding. Truthful, trusted, passionate, courageous, strong, and dedicated to we, the people, the Constitution, and the preservation of this country. I think the voting history of this gentleman has been outstanding. He has fought for legalization of people to come to this country through the line. The Gang of Eight bill completely did not encompass those people. He did strategic engineering to put this bill so that it would be defeated. And this gentleman is taking a lot of heat for us. In that bill, he himself has said there were tremendous provisions that were very, very bad. In that bill also was the I-Squared, and that actually also would triple the H-1B visas. They took caps off —<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, I know, the whole Gang of Eight was atrocious. So look, the point is you\u2019re following all of this, and the effort the last couple of days to impugn Senator Cruz on this, it\u2019s not working on you, you\u2019re not having any doubts about him now. <\/p>\n

CALLER: Actually, sir, I have to tell you, I like the truth. I like the daylight being shined on an issue, because it goes to show those who want to manipulate and alter an absolutely prestigious human being, who actually we have the opportunity to elect an outstanding person —<\/p>\n

RUSH: All right. Okay.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — with credentials.<\/p>\n

RUSH: All right, so —<\/p>\n

CALLER: One other thing, sir —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m out of time. I\u2019m sorry. I should have gone to you first. Anyway, I literally got no time other than to point out that whatever is being attempted here is not working on her.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Just a couple things here to finally and with finalamente close the loop on this entire thing that\u2019s happening here with Ted Cruz and Rubio. And I think one of the reasons why it is — and I\u2019m wading into dangerous waters here — it\u2019s about tactics. This whole thing between Rubio and Cruz is about tactics. It isn\u2019t really about policy differences, and this is why it has a — oh, what\u2019s the term? Some people are so ticked off about this. All I can do is read my e-mail and listen to people talk to me, and a lot of people are ticked off at Fox. <\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s clear that the establishment representatives in the media and in the Republican Party in Washington don\u2019t like Ted Cruz. They don\u2019t like Trump, either. They wanted Jeb. That\u2019s not looking good, so the conventional wisdom is that Rubio is the next choice. And the effort that was made on Fox last night to — gotta be very careful — not trick, but to expose Cruz maybe as a hypocrite on some things here has got people in a little bit of a tizzy. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m just telling you, folks, it\u2019s a situation where the tactics are what is upsetting you. Nobody\u2019s upset here over the policy differences. It\u2019s really not complicated policy-wise. The Gang of Eight bill failed. It was designed to grant amnesty to 18, 12, 20 million illegal citizens. It failed. And it\u2019s not good for any Republican who voted for it, not in a Republican primary. So tactics are being employed here to make it look like there were more than one Republican that actually was hoping it would pass, and that\u2019s what this has all ended up being about. The tactics are the kind of tactics that Democrats use, and that\u2019s why people in a Republican primary are so ticked off about this to the extent that they are. An attempt to rewrite the debating history of the Gang of Eight bill. <\/line><\/p>\n

So there\u2019s an attempt here to muddy the waters in order to confuse low-information voters, or maybe even people who are not low-information but not totally up to speed on this. Trying to make \u2019em think the Gang of Eight was about more than it was. Now, interestingly, let\u2019s listen to CNN. Dana Bash this morning was on CNN with John Berman. This is on At This Hour. I think this is at 11 a.m., the 11 a.m. to 12 noon hour. The anchor said to the reporter, Dana Bash, said, “Dana, you\u2019re the reporter that launched 1,000 campaign slashes. You asked the question two nights ago at the debate about immigration between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and this has set off a heated discussion within the Republican Party ranks. Every blogger, every radio host right now seems to be lining up and taking sides between Rubio and Ted Cruz on immigration.”<\/p>\n

BASH: In typical kind of Marco Rubio style, he was obviously ready for that question, turned it around on Ted Cruz and brought up this kind of obscure amendment from back in 2013. It\u2019s kind of amazing. It\u2019s a hundred percent deflection, this amendment that Ted Cruz did propose which would have given legal status to undocumented immigrants was meant at the time as a poison pill. It was meant to try to kill the entire bipartisan legislation. But Cruz is having some trouble kind of squaring what he said at the time with what he is saying now. If you go back to the statements he made at the time, because he was trying to get that passed, he argued for it even though the dirty little secret was what he was arguing for was something that would have just mucked up the entire piece of legislation.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: So CNN — (laughing) — CNN managed to swerve into the truth there, and CNN today is attempting to solve the argument in favor of Ted Cruz. I just wanted to play that bite for you as a way of making a comparison to the way this is being treated. I don\u2019t know how much attention you pay to intraparty things and how deeply you read and watch and listen, but she\u2019s right. This has set off a huge in-the-weeds debate about this. But that\u2019s it now, okay, so that\u2019s pretty much what happened. <\/p>\n

Her contention — I find this interesting — that she is going ahead and acknowledging that Cruz\u2019s amendment from the get-go was a poison pill. And there are some on our side who say, wait, now, Ted Cruz might want you to think that now, but it wasn\u2019t then, because he argued for it, and he was out saying that he really wanted the legislation to pass, because he wanted to be able to say, like now during a presidential race, that he was participant in reform legislation that passed. He thought that would look good on his resume and so forth. And the poison pill is a fallback position. But at least from the Cruz camp\u2019s side they\u2019ve got CNN saying, yeah, it was a poison pill from the get-go but the problem is that he made it look like he was really for it, but they\u2019re accusing Rubio of deflecting — (laughing) That\u2019s that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Look, if you\u2019re trying to follow this Rubio-Cruz thing, it long ago got so deep in the woods, it\u2019s gotten so muddled here that you\u2019re gonna be thankful for this program in not too long a time, because what we do here is make the complex understandable. I\u2019m gonna wade deep into the muck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBottom Line: Marco Rubio Was One of the Gang of Eight - And Ted Cruz Wasn't - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/12\/17\/bottom_line_marco_rubio_was_one_of_the_gang_of_eight_and_ted_cruz_wasn_t\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Bottom Line: Marco Rubio Was One of the Gang of Eight - And Ted Cruz Wasn't - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Look, if you\u2019re trying to follow this Rubio-Cruz thing, it long ago got so deep in the woods, it\u2019s gotten so muddled here that you\u2019re gonna be thankful for this program in not too long a time, because what we do here is make the complex understandable. 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