RUSH: Investor’s Business Daily has a poll out: “51% Back Trump’s Temporary Ban On Refugees.”

I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here, because I’ve got a whole Stack coming up on this, including who is the judge. This is so typical of the left. They highlight the fact that this judge, Judge Robart out in the state of Washington is a George W. Bush appointee, as if to say he’s a Republican, man, he’s a conservative, man, and he ruled against Trump because he knows Trump’s a dictator.

Whoa, whoa, Judge Robart is not a Republican. Judge Robart is not a conservative. Judge Robart is a judge chosen by Patty Murray. You know, federal judgeships in the federal district courts, the way they are chosen is — I’ll give you an example. My cousin Steve is a federal judge, and my uncle, his father, was a federal judge. He was appointed during the Reagan presidency and Steve during the George W. Bush presidency, federal judge in Missouri.

And, in order to get that done, they had to make a deal in the Senate that the post office or something in Washington will be named after LBJ or some such thing, and, in the state of Washington, in many cases — there are actual full details on this on how this happened, but they blue slipped the opening of the district court judge in the state of Washington and Patty Murray was able to finagle getting her judge because, in many cases, senators from states, even of the opposite party, are given great deference in the establishment.

Many of the things that many people think are wrong with the establishment, although some people probably don’t think this is all that bad, but the way it worked in the establishment, let’s say you’re Bush and there’s a district court opening in the state of Washington, well, the senators in states get the opportunity to recommend. In the case of federal judges, that’s what begins the process. Senators recommend, and that’s really tantamount to asking.

And depending on the president and his people and what kind of curry their favor or what they need in another area, like, okay, if we give Patty Murray this judge, then what’s she gonna give us or what are the Democrats gonna give us somewhere else? And that’s how this kind of horse trading works. That’s how this Judge Robart ended up a federal judge in the state of Washington.

He’s not a conservative. He’s not a Gorsuch. He’s not a Scalia. He’s a full-fledged liberal. His ruling didn’t even consider any opinions on the law. He basically said that in his opinion, the president didn’t have the right or the authority and wasn’t making a smart move, so he stayed it. Now, the reason the left is gonna delay Gorsuch — they can’t stop him, and they’re not really going to. They’re gonna delay him, because, with the Supreme Court deadlocked at 4-4, this case, the Trump EO on the immigrant ban is gonna be decided by the Ninth Circuit, ’cause the way it works, the Ninth Circuit is where the briefs will be filed and the case argued.

The Ninth Circuit is the most liberal appellate circuit in the country. So the odds are the Ninth Circuit will side with Judge Robart and continue the stay and issue a temporary injunction against Trump’s executive order. Then it goes to the Supreme Court. Well, if they vote 4-4 that means the last decision reached is the one that holds. So the Ninth Circus is gonna be the focus of this. And in service of that, I’m way ahead of myself here, I had intended this to be the first segment in the next half hour, but since I’m in there I’ll go ahead and finish the thought.

The way to legally approach this, in my humble opinion, is for the government’s lawyers, for the DOJ, for Trump’s people to go in there and say this is nothing to do with religion. I’ll tell you where this thing is getting hung up. Well, it’s getting hung up because the left is hell-bent on stopping and resisting anything and everything that Trump does. That’s number one. Number two, what they think gives them moral authority here is they remember Trump saying he was gonna have a ban on Muslims.

And so here comes Trump’s executive order from these seven countries that are almost entirely Muslim, and so they’re out there, “See, it’s a Muslim ban, it’s a Muslim ban, it’s a religion ban, and we don’t have religious tests.” And Judge Robart fell for this. He wouldn’t have had to fall for it, Judge Robart was gonna do this. I mean, these people went to the state of Washington for a reason. State of Washington is California north. The way to argue this — and I don’t know if there’s anything they can do with the Ninth Circus ’cause the Ninth Circus is not gonna decide this on the law, they’re gonna decide it on politics ’cause the left has politicized everything, including the Super Bowl, getting back to that in just a moment.

The way to argue this is that Trump was not — the government is not — thinking religion at all here. This is strictly national security. This is strictly common sense. This is strictly the commission of the enactment of a campaign promise to tighten the vetting process on refugees and immigrants to make sure the people are permitted into the country are not problems. And just get it all off religion. Religion had nothing to do with this. This is purely national security, statistics, the history of violent protest uprisings and militant Islamic terrorism in the country to date.

And that’s the way to go about this. My humble… I’m not a lawyer. My dad was a lawyer, but I’m not a lawyer. But it seems to me… I am an astute analyst of politics, and this is a political case. It’s not a legal case, and the left has made it a political case on purpose, and so we need to take back the politics aspect of this and turn it back into the legal concept that Trump executive order actually is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Grab sound bite 25. I didn’t get the transcript but I know what this is. Trump addressed the military. It’s an Air Force Base, and he addressed them… It’s also CENTCOM, but he addressed them about his executive order and the importance of vetting, and I want you to listen to it.

THE PRESIDENT: We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and we will not allow it to take root in our country. Not gonna allow it! You’ve been seeing what’s been going on over the last few days. We need strong programs so that people that love us and want to love our country and will end up loving our country are allowed in, not people that want to destroy us and destroy our country.

MILITARY: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: Now, I’ll tell you what’s great about that.

THE PRESIDENT: Freedom, security, and justice will prevail.

RUSH: That’s real people. That’s the men and women at CENTCOM, the United States military, who know well what we’re up against. This whole executive order of Trump’s has been mischaracterized as bigoted toward religions that Trump doesn’t like, bigoted toward religions that are not associated with the founding of America. And that would be Islam. And there’s nothing religious! This is not a religious ban. This is the way, in my humble opinion, that the Trump Justice Department defeats this stay, this temporary injunction on implementation of the executive order.

By the way, this judge… When you get right down, this judge does not have the legal power to do what he did, because he interpreting Trump’s state of mind. If you read the judicial opinion that orders the temporary stay from the judge, this Judge Robart guy in Seattle, he doesn’t even address the law of this! He just addresses typical left-wing touchy-feely things and then presumes to understand the president’s state of mind, and he presumes to understand the president’s prejudices and biases. Even Alan Dershowitz — who doesn’t agree with Trump about anything but is a constitutional scholar — said that Trump could have ignored this.

Trump could have just told the guy to go pound sand, but Dershowitz even said that the president has too much respect for the legal system to openly defy a judge like this, that they’re gonna go through the process of trying to get this stay of his executive order overturned so that it can be re-implemented. It’s not about banning Muslims. It’s about vetting terrorists. It’s not about religion. This is the thing that… See, the left has been allowed to frame this and characterize this via the protesters and the rioters working in consort with the media.

You know, Trump people are sitting there thinking they’ve done a great thing. “Oh, it’s what we were elected to do; people are gonna love it,” and then these people begin protesting within minutes of this executive order. They fill up LAX, they fill up JFK, they make it look like the whole country’s fit to be tied as this and then they mischaracterized it as a ban on Muslims and a bigoted religious ban, and they say America’s never had a religious test. Which we have, by the way, just not the way you think or the way it sounds. But we’ve always asked refugees their religion when they claim they’re fleeing religious persecution.

We have to know what their religion is! We have to be able to verify what they’re saying. You can’t just show up and say (impression), “I’m from San Cordoba and there is religious persecution, and I want to be into America.” “Okay, fine! Come on in.” That’s not how it works. “First thing, where is San Cordoba?” “Well, San Cordoba is wherever I happen to be on that day.” “Fine. What kind of religious strife is going on there?” “It’s the kind of religious strife that does not let me practice my religion. Well, what is your religion? You are not allowed to ask me that! I know because George Soros told me.”

It’s not that way. (sigh) We do it all the time, and we have done it all the time.

Here’s the problem, folks. And this judge, again, just to rehash, they love saying that Judge… Is it Robart or Hobart? These names have similar sounds. It’s Judge… (sigh) Well, Robart or Hobart. It’s Robart. They say, “Hey, hey! He’s a great judge! You guys oughta love him! He was appointed by W, George W. Bush.” Doesn’t mean anything. He was chosen by Patty Murray. Look, I don’t have time to get into how these judge things work with a federal district judge. There’s a lot of horse-trading going on. She has praised this guy. This is the judge that praised Black Lives Matter in a lawsuit out in Seattle!

This is a guy sympathetic to Black Lives Matter. This is an activist leftist judge. Now here is the problem. This case, the next stage will be briefs filed and then arguments at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal circuit, appellate circuit in the fruited plain. The Supreme Court right now has eight justices, and they’re split down the middle. You got four libs, three conservatives, and Anthony Kennedy, who is thought to vote with the conservatives on something like this. So 4-4. In the event of a 4-4 decision at the U.S. Supreme Court, the case reverts to the prior court and its holding.

So if the Ninth Circus upholds Judge Robart and claims that Trump’s executive order is illegal, and it goes all the way to the Supreme Court and they find 4-4, sorry, Trump’s executive order is found to be unconstitutional. Ninth Circus would be the final stop along the way since the Supreme Court deadlocked. That’s why we make tracks and confirm Gorsuch, which the Democrats will drag their feet on and try to stop. But, again, this is another classic example of where what’s being reported in the Drive-By Media about this is not true.

Again, Dershowitz: Trump is showing respect for an independent judiciary. He could have easily ignored Robart. He could have just told the judge in legal terms to pound sand and maintained, because the law is on Trump’s side. Federal statutory law, made by Congress, is on Trump’s side to make these determinations during these such times. A federal judge cannot overturn Trump in things like this.

Now, a federal judge did overturn Obama because Obama was acting outside federal law. Trump is not. “Yeah, but Obama was held back by a judge and you applauded that.” Different case entirely. But this, their argument has to be, the Trump DOJ, when they go before the Ninth Circus, they have to say this is entirely about assessing the threat posed by refugees and illegal immigrants coming in from these seven countries. It isn’t about religion. That has to be the legal side they pursue.