RUSH: Here’s an example. I was just watching Fox Business News. We got some weather here today which is interrupting satellite reception. So I’m flicking around here on my Apple TV looking for cable news on the DirecTV Now app. So I see Fox Business News, and there’s a headline, a little chyron the bottom of the screen. It says, “Tax Cut Timeline in Doubt.” Really? You realize no matter what it is…? “Health Care Timeline in Doubt! Tax Cut Timeline in Doubt! Infrastructure Timeline in Doubt!”
Whatever the agenda item is, the headlines are always the same: “The Republican Party is not gonna be able to get to this. The Republicans aren’t gonna be able to do it. Time isn’t working out in their favor,” whatever the excuse is. That’s not the excuse. They don’t want to do it. You remember back during the days, the early days of repeal and replace Obamacare? What were we told? We were told, “We have to do this in order to come up with the money to do tax reform — and if we don’t succeed in repealing Obamacare and replacing it with something that makes more fiscal sense, then we’re never gonna have the money to pay for a tax cut.”
Our own party was talking this way. That’s the way liberals talk: needing the money to “pay for” a tax cut. But our party was talking that way. Well, what’s changed? The Obamacare repeal and replace failed, and so what we were told originally ought to mean tax reform can’t happen. We don’t have the money for it because we haven’t repealed and replaced Obamacare. But the White House put out a story: “Moving Past Health Care, White House Looks to Tax Reform.” It’s a New York Times story.
“The Trump administration insisted on Monday, in a show of unity with one of the Republican Party’s biggest financial backers, that its plan to rewrite the tax code would be a collaborative and ultimately successful process.” Well, they keep dangling carrots in front of us, and then every so often we get the news that the time to do this is quickly vanishing. “The time to get this done is quickly vanishing! If we don’t get it done by August, we can’t get it done this year.” Why? “Well, because of all the recesses coming!
“If we don’t get it done by June — health care reform — we’re not gonna be able to get to tax reform.” Yet all during the same period of time we had some people saying, “There’s never gonna be time to do tax reform.” This White House chaos? I have said from the get-go that the one way past all of this is to simply march this agenda through. Just do what it takes to get this agenda voted on and passed in Congress.
It remains today the single best elixir the White House could use or could take in order to fix these never-ending stories of chaos and tumult and whatever else the White House operation is being characterized as. Just get this agenda done. Look, this president, more than any other, was elected with a specific mandate. This president, as a candidate, more than any in my lifetime outside of Ronaldus Magnus, had an agenda that was clearly understood by every voter in this country, and he announced it five times a day during the campaign.
There isn’t a single person who doesn’t know what Donald Trump promised to do and wants to do. And yet he wins the presidency, and how much of it is getting done? The only things that are getting done are things he can do himself via executive orders, and it’s a lot of stuff that he’s been able to do. Cutting a lot of regulations. Streamlining the EPA. There’s all kinds of success stories and achievements, but they’re not being heralded to the degree they should be. The focus remains on Congress, where nothing is happening except opposition to the Trump agenda.
Well, I hope Lieutenant General Kelly is able to focus efforts and get this agenda moving. And I hope Lieutenant General Kelly has the kind of reputation, respect, and personality that will enable him to liaison with Republican leaders in the House and Senate and give them the reasons why they need to get everything in gear and get this done. Because that’s why Trump was elected. He won the Electoral College on the basis of specific agenda items. He has a mandate, and all of this stuff that is serving as a distraction?
First the Russia collusion. By the way, you notice how that is blowing up now? It wouldn’t be hard to peg when it began to blow up, but it’s beginning to flitter away now, and one of the reasons is they’ve been at it for so long and there isn’t any evidence. Now more truth has come out about this Trump dossier, which foolishly and stupidly provided the basis for all of this — a totally made up, manufactured document.
The company that did it, Fusion GPS, is slowly and surely being exposed as a fraudulent bunch of partisan leftists. The whole thing was made up. Jared Kushner’s little statement after he gave his congressional statement or testimony was a factor, but something else is too, and that is that it is clear — by virtue of policy — that there is no love between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. If Putin wanted Trump elected because Trump was going to end up being a puppet for Putin, well, it isn’t working out that way.
And in any allegation, such as the collusion — Trump and Putin, Russians colluding with the Trump campaign to screw Hillary out of the presidency and put Trump in there — fine and dandy. But where is the evidence that it happened by virtue of policy? Whatever Trump is doing, it’s not things Putin likes. Putin and Trump are not buddy-buddy, and they’re not brothers in arms, and they are not united in any way. So this whole notion of collusion is falling apart and drifting away on the basis of reality.
So, the collusion people have to move on to something else. They don’t let go of collusion. It’s always gonna be there. But circle back now to chaos and so forth in the White House. The way to end all of this has always been to simply focus on the agenda and get it done however you have to get it done. If that means Trump has to get up to speed on every line in every piece of legislation and be able to sell it to the American people in appearance after appearance, then that’s what it’s gonna take.
If it’s gonna require Trump doing the heavy lifting because there’s nobody better as being Trump than Trump, then that’s what it’s gonna take. If Reince Priebus couldn’t get it done, we’ll see if Kelly can get it done. Meaning: Liaison with the Congress. But I’m telling you, that’s the fix for all of this. Moving the agenda forward would solve the approval numbers, because I guarantee you: Once that agenda moves forward and once items in that agenda are accomplished and begin to happen, everybody in America is gonna see and benefit from it.
Once that begins to happen, all of this opposition is going to be senseless, and it’ll be more and more obvious what it really is: It isn’t substantive; it’s political. Now, given all that — and who can disagree with that? That’s nothing but common sense. Yet members of the president’s own party are not working in that direction. They just can’t get it done. It’s just a shame they couldn’t put together the unity they needed to repeal Obamacare.
Even though every one of them had voted to repeal it many times until the moment of truth. Tax cuts? The same thing. During the campaign, during the convention, every Republican in the world — with the exception of maybe two or three — was espousing their support and belief in tax cuts as a means of reviving the economy for both the American people and American businesses. Professionals and so forth, and business.
Yet now the headlines are, “Well, the time to do is quickly vanishing. The time to get it done is evaporating.” It’s only because people don’t want to do it. And when people don’t want to do something that they’ve promised to do, it requires an effort to bring them in line.
It was never going to be easy. And if there was a mistake made — and maybe there have been many — but I think anybody in the Trump administration who thought that after a certain amount of time had passed that there would be unity, misjudged what’s going on out there. The forces that don’t want Donald Trump to succeed are still there, and they’re gonna remain there because they have a different set of priorities than the Trump agenda or even what’s best for the country.
This is gonna have to be battled, and it’s gonna have to be dealt with face-to-face and head on. And the way you get the American people behind you is to very obviously and loudly promote the agenda, sell the agenda, and then remind people who’s standing in the way of it. That’s why the Trumpster was elected, and it remains the single fix.
And in the process, if this were to happen, then this would be a nail — not the final, of course, ’cause nothing’s ever final politically — but it would be a big nail in the coffin of the Democrat Party, which there is a coffin, and there are some Democrats already in that coffin. And another nail or two could be hammered into it if this agenda were to move forward. I mean, on paper it’s easy. I know making it all happen is more than snapping your fingers. But it’s about time to get serious with it.