RUSH: TheHill.com, there’s a poll: “Poll: Only Die-Hard Trump Fans Oppose Compromise On Border Wall Shutdown Dispute.” This reminds me, we gotta go back in the audio sound bites, need to go back and grab number 3 and number 4, I think. I think they may be applicable. Have ’em standing by. Aside from that, we will stick with number 10.
“President Trump has said that shutting down the federal government in support of his demand for a southern border wall is a ‘total winner’ for him politically, but according to a new poll, the only people who oppose compromise on the issue are his strongest backers.”
Okay. Compromise. What has compromise always been in Washington? And I say this with no exaggeration, no hyperbole, just straight-up fact. Compromise has always been Republicans caving. Compromise has always been Republicans giving up, which can then be reported as such. Republicans have caved, realizing that they held a losing hand. Republicans have caved after pouncing originally, realizing that they were holding an untenable position, or some such BS way of reporting it.
The fact of the matter is, 93% of the American people think that open borders and illegal immigration is a serious problem. So now you go from that poll — this is a Hill-HarrisX poll. Seventy percent of registered voters, they say, “said they want Trump and Congress to reach some sort of compromise, compared to just 30 percent who say that sticking to principles is more important than ending the partial shutdown.”
We get this at every shutdown! We get this whether there’s a shutdown or not! We always get a poll: the American people want Republicans and Democrats to work together, the American people want compromise, the American people want people reaching across the aisle and shaking hands and cooperating, blah, blah, blah, blah, BS. It is yet part of the concerted effort to weaken the resolve not just of Trump, but of his supporters as well. And it happens whatever the issue is, in this case it’s a wall or immigration, whether it was a budget deal, I don’t care what it was, there’s always a poll on the eve of some major event happening or being negotiated. We got commentators, we got pollsters and everybody saying they want compromise on political issues.
Okay. So the way I always dealt with this, pick your subject and then say where’s the middle ground? Where is anything that we have in-common on it? Take abortion. What do we have in common on it? Not much. What do we have in common here on the wall? Where’s the middle ground between the Democrats and Trump on the wall? The Democrats starting point is zero money for the wall. Trump, $5.7 billion. Trump says, “Okay. If you’re not gonna give me that, then I’m just gonna go get it somewhere else. I’m gonna declare a national emergency. I’m gonna have the military build it.” Where’s the compromise here?
They’re not talking about compromise. Once again they’re talking about Republicans caving. That is the whole point of this poll, it’s the whole point of the story is to apply pressure. The only way out now for Republicans is to cave, to realize the mistake that they’ve made and try to get out of it as quickly as possible to limit the damage. And it always involves Republicans caving on principle! How do you compromise on principle? How do you take a little of your principle and throw the rest away? With the Democrats, it’s not nearly as tough a question ’cause they’re not guided by principle in most cases. They’re guided by political victory.
Now, we got the pope, the pope is weighing in too. “Pope Francis compared today’s emergence of populist and nationalist movements to the days of Nazi Germany in an address to a group of diplomats accredited to the Holy See Monday.
The upcoming year will mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the League of Nations, the pope said in his annual address, which represented ‘the beginning of modern multilateral diplomacy, by which states try to remove mutual relations from the logic of oppression that leads to war.’”
What? The League of Nations died. And it was replaced by the United Nations. “The pope went on to put forward his belief that globalist organizations are key to the maintenance of peace and international stability.” Yeah. We can’t return power to ordinary people, whatever. And here comes Pope Francis joining the side of people who do not believe that returning power to ordinary people is just and is proper and instead that power should be overridden, superseded, taken away from ordinary people and given to globalist governments.
I mean, they’re everywhere. They literally are out there everywhere attacking and doing what they can to destroy what is seen as the common-sense sentiment. I really think that’s what’s got everybody all exercised tonight about this national address.
Here’s the thing about this. If Trump really is the buffoon and the idiot that they say he is, and if he’s really so factually incorrect, then why not get out of the way and let him make a fool of himself? I mean, that’s the old standard. If you’re in an argument with a fool, don’t join it, because after a while nobody’s gonna be able to tell who’s the fool and who isn’t. If somebody’s in the business of destroying themselves, get out of the way and let it happen. Do not join in and end up destroying yourself.
So we’ve had sound bite after sound bite, news story after news story, about how Trump is a lying sack of you-know-what. He’s factually incorrect. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s dangerously incompetent. He’s stupid, uninformed, and he’s gonna be lying through his teeth ’cause all Trump wants is chaos. If Trump is that bad, then put it on display. There should not have been even any delay in deciding whether or not to televise this nationally. If Trump wants to go be a buffoon on TV, shouldn’t these people be happy about it?
Shouldn’t they be eager to stand aside and let it happen and then just point it all out when it’s over? No! What are they doing? They are instead of promising to distort this thing from the moment it begins! They’re scared to death of what Trump’s gonna say! They’re scared to death of what Trump is gonna propose and they’re scared to death of what Trump is gonna do! And they must be really worried that Trump is gonna end up being highly persuasive!
Because everything they’ve announced that they’re gonna do is designed to destroy the ability of Trump to get his message out! Why? If they’re so cocksure that it is destructive and wrong and embarrassing, why wouldn’t they want to let Trump do this self-destruct? These people are really worried about it this, and the reason… They’ve actually carved out for themselves an indefensible position. They somehow have to defend and promote the concept of no border controls.
They have to somehow come up with ways to promote the idea that anybody wanting in the country should be let in, that somehow the United States owes it to the world to let anybody in the country who wants to come in, that it’s unjust and immoral for us to say no! They’ve gotta somehow come up with a way to promote this in such a way that a majority of Americans are gonna end up supporting them on it? When they start with two strikes against them, 93% of the American people say illegal immigration, the southern border, all of that, is big problem.
If they had the American people on their side, if everything about this tonight was a guaranteed win for them, and all that had to happen was for Trump to make his speech, why not get out of the way and let it happen and then pick up the pieces and say, “See? We told you this guy’s unqualified. We told you this guy’s dangerous. We told you he’s a buffoon. We told you he’s stupid. We told you he’s unsophisticated. We told you he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
They could do all this in their response to this country, go out and explain why Trump poses a great threat, and then make the case for open borders! Because that’s what they’re effectively giving themselves. That’s the position they’re taking here. If they’re gonna oppose Trump on border security and on a wall… (interruption) Hang on. My watch thinks that I have fallen. No, I didn’t fall and I’m okay. I get wildly gesticulative here as I get impassioned and in making, points and sometimes when I pound the table (tapping) with the wrist wearing the watch, the watch thinks that I have taken a dive.
I mean, it’s good that it does this. It’s good that it gives the opportunity to say, “Nope, I’m fine. I didn’t fall. Leave me alone.” Anyway, I think it’s rather obvious here that rather than a winning hand they’ve been dealt, they are worried to death about this, and I think this promise of theirs to fact check it as it goes and to correct Trump’s mistakes as it goes with all these graphics on TV? I think they are hell-bent on disrupting this. Their objective is to make sure that Trump’s message does not get out, that it does not appear coherent or cohesive.
They must be scared to death of this, ’cause I’m just… Folks, I’m just telling you from practical experience: When somebody is making your case for you about how incompetent or foolish they are, it’s a golden opportunity when they’re gonna demonstrate it themselves and you don’t have to tell anybody. You just say, “Watch,” and that’s all they would have to do tonight. But they can’t allow that. They simply cannot permit it. Now, there may be another factor, and that is that Trump just so offends their sensibilities about proper behavior in the swamp.
I don’t think that’s the big reason why they are so panicked, and you can’t escape that that’s what they are. They are panicked, and they are paranoid, and they’re scared to death about this. They’ve even ginned up this debate over whether or not Trump has the power to declare a national emergency, and this is not the even arguable. I mentioned this in the first hour of today’s busy broadcast. The National Emergencies Act of 1976, an act of Congress in the post-Watergate era.
The reason that’s important is this act gives the president powers that I’m sure many of you don’t know that he has. The president of the United States can seize property if he wants. In fact, you know, you’d be amazed to learn what Abraham Lincoln did in World War II to maintain the unity of the nation. You would be shocked and stunned at the people… (interruption) Civil War. The Civil War. The things he did, the people he fired, the individual liberties he suspended including habeas corpus? You’d be shocked.
The Executive Emergencies Act was passed by Congress because they were very, very certain that the Democrats were gonna be holding the White House, the Oval Office, for quite a long time after Nixon and Watergate. And so they empowered the executive branch with the National Emergencies Act. He can confiscate private businesses if he wants. All he has to do is declare it a national emergency and he can go out and confiscate Planned Parenthood if he wanted to.
He could confiscate Apple (hee-hee-hee-hee) until they start making iPhones in America. Oh, they would raise Cain. I mean, no question about it. But when you look at border, immigration is already established as a federal government issue, a federal government prerogative. National emergency. The border is wide open, unprotected. If they want to get into some academic discussion about it just for the fun of showing people how smart they are, fine. But there’s nothing that says he can’t do it.
There are even a couple of guys in USA Today in an op-ed who have written that he can. “President Trump Could Declare a National Emergency. But Would That Get Him Funds for a Wall?” Presidents have the power to defend the country, and this National Emergencies Act is pretty broad and pretty encompassing. “So does the president have the authority to declare a national emergency and direct resources to the border?” Yeeeep!
“‘Trump can surely test [it],’ said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.” Can you get a major in that at Princeton? I wonder. A major in human values, a major in human rights, a major in civil rights. “The National Emergencies Act allows him to declare a state of emergency without approval from anyone else, but then he has to stay within congressionally delegated emergency powers,” which are specified in, again, the 1976 National Emergencies Act.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, there is an excellent piece at ConservativeReview.com that explains the Emergency Powers Act of 1976. Daniel Horowitz has written it. It’s a really great piece. So we will link to it at RushLimbaugh.com to facilitate your finding it.