RUSH: Mary in Hartford, Connecticut, I’m glad you called. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you. Nice to speak with you at home. I’m just calling because your premise that the immigration bill is a strategy by the Democrats to gain more voters, as a Latino, I can tell you the Latino population, illegal, legal identifies much more with the conservative values than they do with the Democrats.
RUSH: Well, I —
CALLER: We are anti-abortion —
RUSH: — just can’t —
CALLER: — we are family oriented, we are religious people, and I am a legal American. I’m a Puerto Rican American, so I know what I’m talking about.
RUSH: Well, no, you —
CALLER: I used to worship you, I loved you, until this immigration issue came out.
RUSH: I knew that was coming.
CALLER: You lost me. You lost me.
RUSH: I didn’t lose you. You called me today.
CALLER: Well, I have to still listen, as painful as it is, you know there are other issues that this nation is facing besides the immigration that I totally agree with you about.
RUSH: Well, I’ll tell you what I want you to do out there. I’ve got a commercial break coming up where we make obscene profits here, and after that —
CALLER: I’m not against profits.
RUSH: I know that. I’m not saying that you are.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Gee. Lighten up out there.
CALLER: No, you need to lighten up with this whole immigration. It’s gotten so ugly. It really has.
RUSH: You’re falling prey to the wrong people. I want to talk to you about what you said after the break when I have more time. So can you hang on?
CALLER: I will.
RUSH: Good. Gracias.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We now rejoin Mary in Hartford, Connecticut. Now, you misunderstand. I’m not talking about illegal immigrants as Latinos or as Mexicans or as Hispanics or any group. I’m talking about them as a culture. I’m talking about the economic circumstances in which they arrive, and for the most part stay. I’m talking about it legals now, and they stay that way because they are desired by the proponents of this bill to remain uneducated and low skilled so that they can be paid less. The idea that they don’t vote for Democrats? You have your anecdotal stories, but they do, in much larger numbers than they vote for Republicans, precisely because they come here very quickly and learn that the social welfare system is at their disposal.
CALLER: Oh, my God, that is such a myth! That’s such a myth!
RUSH: They learn very quickly that the Democrat Party is the author of that.
CALLER: Oh, no.
RUSH: I’ve got a story here from ABC News.
CALLER: Well, can I just interrupt you for a minute?
RUSH: Well, you just did.
CALLER: Because to lend credibility to your argument that it’s inclusive of all immigrants, then we should be talking about building a fence on the Canadian border. We should be talking about building a fence on the Vermont border.
RUSH: But that’s not where they’re coming from. It’s not where they’re coming from, Mary.
CALLER: Well, they’re coming from all over — and excuse me —
RUSH: (sigh)
CALLER: — was it a couple weeks ago that this man with TB was able to fly across the country, come back through — hello? — the Canadian border! (Unintelligible) —
RUSH: Precisely. Precisely. That’s another —
CALLER: — that’s getting just obliviated [sic] by —
RUSH: Shh! Shh! Calm down.
CALLER: I will. I’m very passionate about this.
RUSH: You’re making another one of my points here.
CALLER: I hope so!
RUSH: I’ll explain it. They tell us we’re going to get border security, and they can’t even keep a guy with TB out when they know he’s got it.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I mean, they build a fence right under the federal agent’s guard post. Border security is what this is about. It’s not keeping Latinos out of the country. It’s not what this is about. Listen, I’ll tell you about this ABC story.
CALLER: Rush, you know what? That should be your message. This is just not about the Latino, illegal Mexicans. This is about all illegal immigrants.
RUSH: I have said that!
CALLER: That’s not what we’re hearing. That’s not what the Latino population is hearing.
RUSH: Well, they should have listened to this show because that’s not nearly the first time I’ve said it.
CALLER: Well, you’re not saying it loud enough.
RUSH: It’s not about race. This is about the preservation of the American culture and people who are coming here are not assimilating to it. They’re coming here, getting on the welfare culture of this country, which is not the culture that built the country. Here’s the story from ABC News yesterday. ‘Illegal immigrants seek health care for kids. Proponents say clinics offering care save tax money; foes say they encourage illegal immigration.’ They’re coming here asking for health care for their kids when they’re illegal. Now, they know what’s available to them here. These people are not going to be voting Republican, and they’re not going to be living their lives as conservatives, trying to pay for these things themselves — and that’s the main point that I wanted to address with you, the idea that the group of people I’m talking about come here and become conservative. You said you’re legal, right?
CALLER: I’m a Puerto Rican-American. I believe so.
RUSH: Well, I thought I heard you say that you were a legal immigrant in the first segment.
CALLER: Well, I was just… That was just for the drama of it.
RUSH: Well, okay —
CALLER: You know —
RUSH: Well, now, don’t —
CALLER: As you know, Puerto Ricans are born United States citizens.
RUSH: Don’t start giving me grief for using talk show host license to create drama in my own program.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: But I’m not talking about people like you. Don’t you want the greatest country you can have? Don’t you want as many people to be prosperous and self-supporting and self-reliant as possible?
CALLER: I do. Absolutely.
RUSH: Well, this legislation is not attracting that kind of immigrant.
CALLER: Well…
RUSH: That’s all —
CALLER: I think the rhetoric needs to get a little bit more civil. I think kindness needs to get into the conversation, and I think, if in fact it’s about all illegal immigrants, that conversation needs to be just a little bit louder, because right now the Latino population is feeling very targeted.
RUSH: Well, guess who’s making them feel that way?
CALLER: Well, Rush, I think you may have just a little bit to do with that.
RUSH: Oh, I don’t think that at all.
CALLER: You and the Hannities of the world. Have you listened to Fox News lately? Do you watch Fox News?
RUSH: You know what? Fox News isn’t even talk about this.
CALLER: Every segment! Every segment is a little bit targeting the illegal Mexican immigrants. They look for the criminal elements of the illegal immigrants.
RUSH: Mary, call them. Call them and complain. Don’t call me! I’m not doing it!
CALLER: Well, I called you just to let you know that your premise that all these illegal Mexican immigrants are going to be voting Democrat, I don’t believe your facts.
RUSH: I didn’t say ‘all,’ but the vast majority of them do. After the ’86 Simpson-Mazzoli bill, we can track the election results. We can track who votes. We know who registers. That’s not even arguable. The Republicans are trying to do, in fact, what you suggest. I think one of the things motivating the Republicans in the Senate is pandering to the very people you’re saying be nice to. I guarantee you, in a contest between who can be more liberal and give more of the government away, the people on the receiving end are going to quickly realize the Democrats are the best bet there. If you really want to get a piece of this country without working for it, vote Democrat! That’s what they know, and when the Republicans try to act like they’re just as nice and compassionate and thoughtful because they, too, would love those votes… But if you’re Republican, you try to get votes by acting like a Democrat, why go for the pretender? You go for the real thing, and in this case that’s the Democrats. Well, I hope we got you back here, Mare, with this productive and polite phone call. We had our requisite amount of screaming, which is healthy in all relationships, so for me it was a pleasure to have you on the program and to have a chance to speak to you about it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Joe in Edinburgh, Texas, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, this is Joe.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Thank you, sir, for taking my call. I live down here in Edinburgh, Texas. We’re about ten minutes away from the Mexican border and I’d just like to voice my support for your stance on this immigration mess that they’re debating over there. I’ve seen basically everything there is to see over here from illegals crossing over my in-laws yard, from the illegals basically getting hospital care, which I have to pay for and I’d just like to say, ‘Thank you, Rush. You’re doing the Lord’s work in voicing your stance.’
RUSH: Well, I’m running America. You know, I have to be responsible about it, and I can’t shirk the responsibility by being afraid of what people’s reaction to what I say is going to be.
CALLER: Yes, sir. I thank you for your attitude and who cares what they say?
RUSH: (Laughs.)
CALLER: I’m an America of Mexican dissent. I got family members still in Piedras Negras, but, you know what? If they pass this thing here, I agree wholeheartedly that the face of this country is going to change for the worse.
RUSH: Well, there’s no question about it. Down the road, it will be years and years, but that’s a genuine fear. What Joe is responding to is Mary, who called, and her basic premise was that I’m wrong in telling you that most of the illegal immigrants end up voting Democrat. We all know that I’m right about that, because we can check it, and we have checked it. If Simpson-Mazzoli was going to turn all these people into Republican voters, then a lot of things would have been different from that point to today. But they’re not. You can look at the percentage of the Hispanic vote that Democrats, Republicans get, and it’s not even close. It’s not as bad as the gap in the black vote, but it’s still heavily Democrat. Another point that she made was that I (and ‘others like me’) are not being nice enough and kind enough, and we are stirring up anti-Republican sentiment with our characterization of Latinos as subpar citizens and so forth. Look, folks, I think it’s the other way around. When all these immigration rallies took place and all these people supposedly ‘living in the shadows,’ show up in public in the sunshine waving their Mexican flags and demanding that the law not apply to them, I’m sorry, but this is not a chicken-or-egg question. The idea that we are responsible for making them mad is just the opposite.
(interruption)
What are you frowning in there? See? He can’t believe I had the guts to say that. I’m on a roll!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Folks, I want to expand even more on the complaint that we heard from our caller from Hartford, Connecticut, Mary, who called just about 40 minutes ago and who I held over through the bottom-of-the-hour break. You’ll recall she was the one who said that I was wrong about the fact that Hispanics don’t vote Republican. Most of the people coming in the country are hard working, conservative oriented type people. But the thing I want to expand on is her complaint or her allegation, her charge, her vicious charge, that I am inflaming the passions of Hispanics in this country, and that’s why they will not vote Republican. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, you probably have. I didn’t see Meet the Depressed yesterday, but Snerdley told me during the break that he watched it and that there was a congressman, Luis Gutierrez. He represents the Hispanic caucus on the Democrat side. What does that tell you?
Anyway, Buchanan was on and Russert threw up my quote about this bill being the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007, and Buchanan started talking about this is not immigration, this is an invasion. He had the numbers to back it up. He is showing what is happening here with no border security. Gutierrez just, ‘You’re just too mean about this. This debate is uncivil. This debate is just not nice.’ That’s what this lady from Hartford was basically saying to me. ‘You’re the problem because you’re sounding hateful and spiteful and extreme and mean and this sort of stuff.’ There’s a technique to this. There’s a favorite liberal technique. You know that they’ve been attacking talk radio as the bastion of incivility. They blame talk radio for the partisanship that exists in the country and the big divide and the reason why so many people are angry and enraged is because of talk radio. The lack of civility in our public discourse these days is a favored liberal technique and tactic out there, folks. What they attempt to do with this is to get people to shut up. It is nothing more than political correctness. This guy, Gutierrez , did not answer many, if any at all, of Buchanan’s claims. He just attacked Buchanan for being mean. ‘This is just unfortunate. The debate here is just too mean-spirited.’
I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen here if people on our side of this are intimidated into shutting up. We’re going to get political correctness with the Hispanic population. Whereas you have to back off what you say about minorities in this country, you can’t tell the truth, you can’t say what you really think about minority situations without hell descending on you. You can’t criticize an actor who has Parkinson’s disease when he tells lies in a television commercial. You can’t do that without people coming out and trying to destroy you. You know, victims, minorities, what have you, this group of illegal immigrants is always going to be looked at that way. You know that the proponents of this bill, in fact, are acting like we ought to apologize to them, because they’re illegal is because of our law. They’ve done nothing wrong. We need to make amends with them. If you don’t fly along that path, then you’re going to be said to be mean-spirited and extremist. We’re just going to have a new group, a minority group about whom we can’t speak without hellfire descending upon the people who do happen to say what the truth is and what they think.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The guy that was on with Pat Buchanan was our old buddy Luis Gutierrez. Do you remember the story about Luis Gutierrez? Luis Gutierrez went on 60 Minutes shortly after he was elected. The Democrats were running the House then. I’ve always told people, look, folks, these Democrats, here’s what happens. These freshman Democrats are brought into the speaker’s office, be it Fort Worthless Jim Wright or Tip O’Neill or whoever, Tom Foley, and they’re given the lay of the land. ‘You want to stand out here? Ha-ha-ha, no, no, no. You will do what we say. You will vote the way we say, and if you don’t, you’re not going to get any reelection help from us. You’re not going to get any campaign funds from outside your district, and you’re going to have do it all on your own. Now, if you want to rise in our ranks of leadership here, then you do what we say.’ He went on 60 Minutes and said that’s exactly what happened to him. We wanted to talk to him in the Limbaugh Letter. He had agreed to do an interview in the Limbaugh Letter about this and backed out. So it was Luis Gutierrez who was on with Buchanan yesterday, was talking about the debate is not civil, the debate, you’re too mean-spirited and so forth. Favored liberal tactic.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Pat in Spokane, Washington. I’m glad you waited. You’ve been up there for quite a while, and I appreciate it.
CALLER: Oh, it’s good to talk to you, Rush. I’ve been wanting to for a long, long time.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: About Mary calling.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I work in Denver, even though I’m in Spokane this week, and I work where there are, oh, probably two, 300,000 Mexicans pass by me every week, go through where I work.
RUSH: Two to 300,000?
CALLER: Yeah. At least that many.
RUSH: Wow. You obviously want to keep some of this close to the vest, and I, using my instincts, here, will not ask.
CALLER: Right, and they all berate me for not speaking Spanish, and I tell them, ‘I don’t have to. I’m an American citizen. I don’t have to speak Spanish,’ and they said, ‘Well, you should learn.’ ‘Why?’ ‘So you can talk to us clearly.’ I said, ‘You have to learn to speak to me. I don’t have to learn to speak to you.’ Am I wrong?
RUSH: No, but, see, that’s exactly what I was talking about. You’re exactly right. It’s for their own benefit, by the way.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: You’re trying to be helpful. You’re trying to help me them, but what’s going to happen here is that they’re going to tell people what a witch you were.
CALLER: (laughs) Oh, I’m sure.
RUSH: You were ‘unkind’ and all of that. That’s how it works.
CALLER: Oh, they do that all the time.
RUSH: Well, I admire you for hanging tough. I admire you for the answer that you gave. Most people wouldn’t. Most people say, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll do my best to learn, but as for now, I can’t.’
CALLER: No. So then I also tell them that I had lived in New York at one time, I said, and most of the Puerto Ricans there speak English. They said, ‘Well, Puerto Ricans are not Hispanic, and we don’t have anything to do with them.’ So Mary is way off if she thinks she knows what they’re like.
RUSH: Well, I’m sure you’ve made her day.
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: So she called in to defend a group she’s not a member of.
CALLER: That’s right. They don’t even care. To them, Puerto Ricans and Cubans are not on their list whatsoever. ‘We are Mexicans.’
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I’ve been told that: ‘We are Mexicans.’ Okay?
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. Actually, I’m not surprised to hear that, but I was really pleased to hear how you deal with it.
CALLER: Well, thank you.
RUSH: You’re not wrong. What they said to you — your responsibility is to learn their language — is essentially what the Senate is telling us, that all of this is our fault. We need to apologize to them. They are unfortunate victims. They’re the backbone of our country, and we need to apologize. It’s like all of this that has resulted in their status as illegal is our fault, is our law. We feel almost like we have to apologize to them — and they get that, by the way, which is why they have the courage to come up to you and tell you in Denver, Colorado, you need to learn to speak Spanish. This is Michelle up next from Billings, Montana, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush, mega dittos from Billings, Montana.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m an eight-month-old Rush baby, and you can’t believe I’m talking to you.
RUSH: An eight-month-old?
CALLER: I’ve only been listening to you for eight months.
RUSH: Oh, oh, oh, okay, you’ve been listening for eight months.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I got it. Well, welcome to the program. How did you find us?
CALLER: My fiancé listens to you. His name is Bill. He listens to you every day, and I’ve been looking since I met him to find my way and my beliefs and you are exactly what I’ve been looking for, as far as politics and so forth.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Oh, you are the greatest. My question is, I work with people from
RUSH: Are these illegals?
CALLER: No, they’re here working. They’re just afraid that they’re going to have to go back before their summer is over.
RUSH: Well, I need to know more. They gotta be illegal if they’re worried about having to go back.
CALLER: Okay. So if they’re not illegal we don’t have to go back?
RUSH: No, if they’re citizens — the only way you can be legal is if they’ve got a green card.
CALLER: They’re here on work visas.
RUSH: They’re here on work visas, and the work visas expire this summer?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Tell ’em not to sweat it. We’re not deporting anybody. Nobody on our side is even talking about deportation.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The whole point is border security, to tighten it down. That stuff, deal with it later.
CALLER: They’re becoming listeners of yours also, and they were just wondering what your advice would be.
RUSH: (Laughing.) Are you for real?
CALLER: I’m not kidding. I have some workers that are from Russia and Méjico.
RUSH: They want to know what my advice to them would be?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: They’ve been listening for a week?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Are they listening now?
CALLER: I do believe they are.
RUSH: They’ve been listening for a week. Does listening to this program…? I’m going back to what Mary said an hour ago. Does listening to this program scare them?
CALLER: No. Actually, they like listening to you and they like to hear your point of view, especially on the global warming and on the fuel and so forth.
RUSH: Are they from Mexico?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: They speak enough English to understand this program?
CALLER: I understand enough of them. But yes, they speak enough English and some things they don’t understand, I explain to them.
RUSH: Good. Very, very good. Well, I’m not trying to be funny here, but I think the risk of deportation is very small. There are occasionally — like if I could find the story. Let me see if I can find the story in the stack. I put the immigration stack aside. Give me a moment. Here it is: ‘2,179 illegal immigrants arrested, half of them have criminal records, about 800 have been previously deported.’ This is a CBS story. ‘In a blitz that began May 26, ICE,’ the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ‘has arrested nearly 2200 legal immigrants across the country.’ Now, they put these stories out now and then to try to convince people, ‘We’re rounding them up. We’re doing everything we can to enforce the law. We’re finding these people and we’re sending them back,’ but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. You could probably round up… Well, we just heard from a woman in Spokane who works in Denver that two to 300,000 of them walk by her every week, or did she say day?
CALLER: I think she said day.
RUSH: Whatever. So there are two to 300,000 there. Nobody is making any attempt to deport them. Here’s a number. I mean, you could probably find 2,179 illegal immigrants outside a hardware store in a mall in certain cities in this country over the course of a day. So it sounds like a lot, but it’s really not, when you’ve got 12 to as many as 20 million here. So the odds are, as things stand now… You know, I really shouldn’t say with conviction because I don’t know the individual circumstances here, and it also depends on their employers, if their employers are responsible.
CALLER: That’s another question they have, sir, is their employers and so forth treat ’em, you know, like… Well, can I say ‘crap’?
RUSH: Well, yes. You just did.
CALLER: And so forth. They were wondering if the ones who do have work visas here, if somehow they’ll be allowed to where they’re not treated as overworked and underpaid.
RUSH: Well, that’s… (sigh)
CALLER: Does that have anything to do with the bill?
RUSH: That’s why they’re here.
CALLER: I know that’s why here they’re here! (giggles) I told them that and they kind of got upset.
RUSH: Well, that’s why they’re wanted by some people who want them here. Now, see, everything is cringing because this is another truth that I shouldn’t be saying.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: You can look at this in another way, too. The very fact that there are people in this country who say that it is compassionate to have this steady extreme of undocumented, low-skilled and uneducated people, believe me: they want a current crop of that because they want the cheap labor and they want the welfare dependents. They want the transfer of wealth.
CALLER: They want them to line their own pockets.
RUSH: Well, no, the Democrats want voters, and they want dependence. They need new victims. They need dependents. They need people who are dependent on government for health care for their kids and for whatever else they need that their salaries, their wages do not provide them. It’s all about the redistribution of wealth for Democrats. It’s about creating power. It’s the ultimate illustration of the lack of compassion that liberals and Democrats have for these people. If they really had compassion for them, they would be concerned that if they’re here and they’re not going to be sent away, that they at least be educated, learn English, and learn what it takes to assimilate to our culture and prosper in it. But that’s not what this bill is about. This bill is about keeping a steady flow of these kinds of people so that they can be exploited! There’s no other way to put this. Now, exploited by some people and they are going to be doing the exploiting on their own because they’re going to be accessing, without the benefit of citizenship, the social safety structure that this country provides for the indigent and for the needy. So this is kind of what frosts me when I hear that the opponents of this bill have no compassion. It’s just the exact opposite. To sit here and say that these people are going to come in with the qualifications they have, and that no effort is going to be made to improve those qualifications is not helping those people at all. Now, I don’t really have enough information to know what’s going to happen to them when their visas expire because I don’t know what their companies will do. Some companies will do everything they can to…
CALLER: They’re hoping that they can come back and work.
RUSH: Beg your pardon?
CALLER: They’re hoping that they don’t get deported and that they can come back and work next year.
RUSH: It’s possible. But it depends on the employer. There are a lot of employers that don’t report them.
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: Why do you think we’ve got 20 million illegal in the country?
CALLER: Exactly. Well…
RUSH: But I don’t know who they work for. I don’t want to know. I’m not asking.
CALLER: I’ll probably get in trouble if I said that. (laughs)
RUSH: I’m sure you would, and it’s not relevant to the conversation here.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: But I would be irresponsible if I were to say one way or the other. My inclination is to say they’ll be fine, based on history, based on experiences, but they could be working for somebody who’s going to say, ‘Okay, your visas over, and you’re gone, and I’m going to bring somebody else in that’s got a card.’
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: So…
CALLER: All right. Well —
RUSH: The thing to tell them to do… (sigh) Well, I was going to say, ‘Tell ’em to get in line and become legal,’ but that takes a number of years. The quickest route to get what they want is to stay illegal.
CALLER: Oh, no. They don’t want to do it that way. Okay. Well, you can help out a bit.
RUSH: I understand that. I’m commenting on the bill. I’m not commenting on them, you understand.
CALLER: Uh-huh. Well, the bill would like ’em to stay illegal, that way they can become victims, but they want to be as legal as possible.
RUSH: No, no. The bill will make them legal (snaps fingers) the minute it becomes law. That’s why my instinct is: just hang tough.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: The thing may happen. You never know. People are going to do their best to stop it. But if this bill ever becomes law, the day the president signs it, they’re legal.
CALLER: Really?
RUSH: Whether they have citizenship or not. They don’t have to become citizens to be legal, if this bill happens.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: All right?
CALLER: All right.
RUSH: Tell ’em to hang tough.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Rush.
RUSH: All right, Michelle.
We’ll take a quick break and be back. Boy, you never know what’s going to happen.