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Republicans Still Live in Fear of a Government Shutdown – And They’re Still Resisting Trump

by Rush Limbaugh - Apr 11,2017

RUSH: This is not going to make you happy, ladies and gentlemen. And here it is. And I must admit, this is puzzling. Who won the House in November? The Republicans. And who won the Senate in November? That would be the Republicans. And who won the White House in November? That would be the Republicans. So there is a story out today that there’s no way that the Republicans are gonna be able to actually put together a budget for the rest of the year.

Instead, what’s gonna happen is another omnibus spending bill. When you hear the word omnibus, there’s a word you need to use, and it’s called catch-all. It’s a catch-all spending bill that will take the government through the end of September this year, maybe the end of October. And they’re just gonna throw whatever they need to operate the government at current baseline levels. There’s going to be no budget discipline. There aren’t gonna be any attempts to cut spending or any of that. And it’s gonna infuriate people.

The Republicans won for express reasons, and many of them include reducing the scope of government, the reach of government, the size of government, get spending under control. And it looks like no effort is even going to be made. And then Breitbart just dropped this story this morning. “GOP Leaders Dropping Border Wall Funds, Says Report — Federal funding for one of President Donald Trump’s premier policy proposals may be excluded from the House GOP’s budget for Fiscal Year 2017-2018.”

That’s not the omnibus. The budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018 would start in October. The omnibus is just enough to get us through the rest of this fiscal year. “House Democrats, along with a few House Republicans, are working around-the-clock to make sure funding for the estimated $12 billion border wall is not factored into the GOP budget, according to a report by The Hill.”

Now, that’s a caveat. When it’s reported by inside-the-Beltway Drive-By Media, you have to pause, and you have to say, “Is this true?” I have no doubt that there are members of the House and Senate Republicans and Democrats who are telling reporters, “Nah, no money for the wall. We don’t believe in the wall. We’re not gonna authorize that. There isn’t gonna be any wall. There isn’t gonna be money for the wall.” And I would not doubt the media running with it. But it may not be official. It may just be part of an overarching plan to deny Trump what he promised during the campaign. Because, believe me, despite everything else going on, that, too, is still going on.

Now, the report in The Hill said: “With Democrats united against new wall funding, it’s unlikely the Republicans have the votes to get it through and prevent a government shutdown.” And here we are again. We’ve arrived at that precious moment where yet another government shutdown is out there on the horizon. And whenever we hear government shutdown, what do Republicans hear? “Never, no way, can’t do it. We are gonna get blamed. The American people don’t like their government shut down, and we always get blamed for it, because the media’s always gonna side with the Democrats, even though the Democrats would be responsible for it in this case.”

And make no mistake, the Democrats, if there’s a government shutdown, it’s their doing. But they know the media’s gonna blame Republicans. And I think this is the greatest Republican fear in all of Washington. And there’s a lot of them. There are many things elected Republicans are afraid of, but government shutdown sends them into abject panic. And they will do anything to avoid even the appearance of a government shutdown where they get blamed for it.

And so as to avoid a government shutdown, there cannot be any funding for the wall. There’s too much opposition to it. It would cause too much disagreement. We wouldn’t have agreement on the budget, therefore we’d have a government shutdown, therefore no wall. No funding for the wall.

We have a quote here. Will Hurd, Republican, Texas, and Martha McSally, Republican, Arizona, are “two Republican lawmakers teaming with Democrats to stop the funding of the border wall, despite both representing districts that share a border with Mexico.

‘We recognize the need for robust border security and infrastructure to ensure public safety and increase cross border commerce,’ Hurd and McSally wrote to the Trump administration in a letter, according to The Hill. ‘We also have an obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.’ Establishment Republicans in the Senate, like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), are also teaming with Democrats to stop the border wall, with McCain worrying more about the sentiment that Mexicans have towards America.”

He doesn’t want to make the Mexicans mad. He doesn’t want to hurt the Mexicans’ feelings. He doesn’t want the Mexicans mad at us. McCain said during a Senate hearing, “There’s a lot of anti-American sentiment in Mexico. If the election were tomorrow in Mexico, you’d probably have a left-wing anti-American president there. That can’t be good for America.” That’s a major shift in tone from McCain in his 2010 reelection.

So, anyway, the threat here of not having a real budget, having an omnibus, no money for the border wall, none of that makes up the news of the day on the budget side. And this is going to provide another little challenge here for the Trump administration to overcome.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Palm Harbor, Florida, as we head back to the phones on the EIB Network. It’s Jake, and it’s great to have you here, Jake. How are you?

CALLER: I’m very good, sir. Thank you. My comments go back to what you were talking about in the first hour with they’re not gonna be able to find a way to pass a budget and there’s not gonna be any money to build a wall.

RUSH: Right. GOP Leaders Dropping Border Wall Funds, Says Report.”

CALLER: Yep. Well, my little word of advice for them is since Donald Trump told us what he was going to do and the support that he had, we were able to temporary slowdown the destruction of the country with the Supreme Court. The second thing for me was building the wall or border security. If they don’t do those two things, there will be a bloodbath and us silly Trump supporters will not put an X beside a Republican’s name in the upcoming midterms. I can guarantee it.

RUSH: Well, just a theoretical question here. If the only people on the ballot are Republican Democrats in this election you’re talking about, it’s a Republican that did not vote to help Trump, who do you vote for?

CALLER: Well, at this point it doesn’t seem to make any difference because we’ve given the Republicans everything they’ve wanted for the last four years, and they have done absolutely nothing, so to quote Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?

RUSH: Well, I’m gonna tell you a theory of mine, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I think this Republican Party resistance to Trump was predictable. I think I even did predict it. The Democrat Party resistance, you don’t even need to predict it. It’s as natural as the fact that we’re all alive. The Republican resistance, I think it’s gonna go on until they become convinced of what you say.

But the way they’re going to become convinced is not polling or any of that. I think it’s going to take some time before everybody in Washington actually comes to grips with the fact that Trump is actually president and is not temporary and this is not some kind of aberration. And all of this hinges on Trump continuing to be Trump and hanging in. I’m out of time here. I need to expand on this. I think they’re eventually gonna come around. Right now it’s typical the Beltway, resist this and maybe it isn’t happening.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, now, look. My belief has not changed. There’s still many people in the Republican establishment who do not want Donald Trump to succeed. Folks, that hasn’t changed, notwithstanding the Syria attack even though they’re all saying they’re on board and yuk yuk supporting it and so forth. There are still lots of people there that do not want Trump to succeed, even if it means the Republican Party doesn’t succeed for a while; that’s a secondary concern to making sure Trump doesn’t succeed.

At some point that’s gonna burn off. It’ll never burn off on the Democrat side. They’re not predisposed to agreeing with Republicans no matter who the Republicans are about anything. The Democrats are totally, totally focused on retaining, regaining power and denying the Republicans and Trump anything. But the Republicans I think at some point will come to accept it. And however they define Trump finally becoming president, Trump finally cementing himself as for real and there and not going anywhere, that realization is gonna hit ’em.

I think there’s a lot of people still dealing with the fact that they can make this temporary, that they can somehow — they don’t know specifics. We’re not talking impeachment. I’m telling you some people are dreaming that something’s gonna happen. Trump’s gonna quit. He’s just gonna get tired of it. They can force this to happen or what have you. They don’t know who they’re dealing with. They still haven’t the slightest idea who they’re dealing with.

There is going to be health care reform at some point, and Trump’s gonna see it. There is gonna be a wall. And if it requires tariffs on Mexican goods to pay for it, there’s gonna be a wall. Trump is gonna do these things. He wasn’t just talking to hear his head rattle. I don’t know how all this stuff’s gonna manifest itself.


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