RUSH: Here comes Biden saying he’s gonna destroy the oil and gas industries? Let me explain, by the way… I’ve got a couple of minutes here. Let me explain how that is gonna happen because the Biden team and the media are saying, “That’s the biggest exaggeration! He’s not gonna destroy the oil and gas industry.” Yes, he is because that’s what the Green New Deal is!

Now, Trump during the debate last night mentioned that Biden supports spending $100 trillion on climate change, and Biden is shaking his head, and he’s laughing, and he’s shaking his head. “The guy’s a nut! He’s trying to convey something he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” But Trump is right on point. He just didn’t identify what the $100 trillion is.

That’s the Green New Deal, folks, and that’s exactly what it’s gonna cost over X-number of years. It’s no different than Biden saying that he’s going to raise taxes $4 trillion, but only on the rich. But that’s not possible. Because Biden then says he’s going to cancel the Trump tax cuts. Well, if he cancels the Trump tax cuts, then the middle class, the upper middle class, the lower middle class are all gonna get a tax increase, not just the rich.

It’s the same thing as Biden saying, “Ah, $100 trillion on climate change? He’s crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Yes, he does. You’re gonna spend $100 trillion on the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal wipes out fossil fuels, wipes out oil and gas. That’s what it does! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, The Gang (whatever they call themselves), and Bernie Sanders, these are the people pushing this agenda, and that’s exactly what the upshot of it’s gonna be.

It’s kind of like there’s a thing that came up in the health care debate last night, which is very, very, very important.

In fact, let me take a break rather than have to hustle through this ’cause I want to have ample time to make myself understood. We’ll be right back.

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RUSH: So Biden kept disguising Medicare for All as the public option, but his plan really calls for anybody who wants it to be able to get Medicare. It’s only different from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insofar as you’re not forced to get on Medicare, but who will turn down that deal? But it’s a little bit more easily refuted than Trump did it last night.

The public option versus Medicare for All.

Biden kept disguising Medicare for All as “the public option.” The moderator never called Biden on that. Trump never got a chance to spell it out. Here’s how to do it — and if you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re discussing health care for people… I don’t mean this to be a criticism, but the president missed a great opportunity during the health discussion, and it’s only ’cause he doesn’t know the terminology.

He’s not a politician.

He knows the facts, but you gotta be able to combine the facts with the terminology. They discussed… You know, president kept talking about how many people are gonna lose their health insurance under Biden’s plan. He threw the number out. It was 120 million, 140 million, 160, whatever it was, million people — and he’s right — are going to lose their health insurance (he called it “private health insurance”) under Biden’s plan.

What it really is — and this is how you nail it. Under Biden’s health plan, under the Democrat health plan, under the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders health plan, if you have your health insurance at work, you’re gonna lose it. That’s what they’re going to take away from you! Everybody who gets their health insurance at work as an employee benefit — and most people like that.

People that get their health insurance at work have been documented to prefer it. They like it. They like it as a benefit, as a perk. Well, this is what Biden’s health care plan will do. But that’s why Trump says, “160 million people are gonna lose their health insurance,” that’s how.

But he didn’t say, “If you get your health insurance at work, Biden’s gonna take it away,” but that’s exactly what’s gonna happen. To just say, “120 million people lose their health insurance under Biden’s plan” leaves it open to be disbelieved as a wild-ass assertion that may not be true. But it is true!

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RUSH: A lot of focus group research and polling data that indicates health care is one of the things that matters the most to people in America right now. And so it’s important, folks, to understand what Biden’s health care plan will do. And when I say Biden’s, I mean, he’s the ticket. He’s the top dog on the ticket so, yeah, it’s his. But it’s not his. I guess it really doesn’t matter. It’s the left’s agenda here that Biden has agreed to advance in exchange for being the nominee.

And Trump was right last night when he kept pointing out how many millions of people — 160 million people are gonna lose their health insurance under Biden’s plan. Now, Biden was able to make a face and react like that was the stupidest thing anybody could say. You think I’m gonna take 160 million people’s health insurance away? You’re crazy. Which is why this needs an explainer.

Trump was exactly right. That is exactly what’s gonna happen because the Biden health care plan, in order to get as much health care provided to people from the government, is gonna eliminate employer-provided health insurance. And that’s how 160 million people or however many hundreds of millions get their health insurance at work, that’s how they’re going to lose it.

If you get your health insurance at work and Biden wins and they implement this health care plan, you’re gonna lose it, you’re gonna have it taken away. Remember when Obama said that if you like your plan, you get to keep your plan? Remember, if you like your doctor, you get to keep your doctor? Remember Obama said your premium’s gonna come down $2,500 a year? Remember how none of that was true? None of it.

You didn’t get to keep your doctor, you didn’t get to keep your plan, because you were forced to make a move signing up for Obamacare, which – a little codicil, if you will, in the deal — which meant you were giving up your current plan if you engaged in Obamacare as the law demanded. They gave you no choice. You were never gonna be able to keep your plan or your doctor and your premiums were never gonna go down $2,500 bucks, but they lied through their teeth for month after month after month to sell it to you. Then they laughed and they gloated about how easily this was done, how stupid the American people were.

It’s the same thing all over again now with a different agenda. Remember the purpose of Obamacare — and this is still relevant, folks — Obamacare was to be staged in, phased in. It was designed to not work. Phase 1 was designed to not work. It was designed to look good. It was designed to look valiant. It was designed to look like, “Oh, man we’re really trying. We want everybody to have health insurance. We want everybody to get the best coverage.” But it was designed to fail. At which point that was gonna take — well, the sooner, the better, but they wrote it into a five-year fail plan.

And the objective of it was, in the middle of the second term of the Obama administration, to put their hands up in frustration, “Oh, we tried, we tried. But it isn’t gonna work.” And in replacing Obamacare would come the government option. And that was gonna be a mandate. And that’s how you were gonna lose the health insurance that you had. It was designed to fail so as to have the public clamoring for a fix.

The way the leftists do these things, they know you don’t want government-run health care. They know you don’t want the DMV running health care. They know you’d never support it so they designed a system, Obamacare, which looks good on paper, got all these great intentions behind it, but then in practice it just doesn’t work. Too complicated, too convoluted. And after a while, the American people demand that somebody do something about it. The American people demand it and the left is there waiting to act on the demand, go full-fledged single payer. And that was grand design.

Well, one thing happened. Trump got elected and we were able to get rid of the personal mandate. And that took the guts out of Obamacare. Now Obamacare is before Supreme Court on the constitutionality of a whole bunch of it. So they’ve got their plan on the Democrat side, and it is to take away your health insurance if you get it at work. So just as Biden can sit there and laugh and shake his head when Trump says you’re gonna destroy oil and gas, when that’s exactly what Biden intends to do, same thing with health care.

They make it look like, “That’s outrageous. You think we’re gonna cancel 160 million people’s health care.” But they are. So it really is a mean trick that they’re trying to pull off here, all for the sake of government being in control of it and once again limiting your mobility and limiting your freedom, limiting any kind of option that you might have with your own health care.

This is why it was so important, I think, for Trump to continue to run as an outsider. He ran for president because of insiders like Biden, ran to reverse course, Make America Great Again, making the point that we got to keep the country open while fighting the virus. I mean, there Trump was. He was strong on jobs. He was strong standing up to the ChiComs. He was strong on staying out of wars, strong on energy independence.

It was such a big thing to brag about we’re now energy independent. We don’t need to go into wars, and we don’t need to be defensive around any of these other oil producing countries in the Middle East ’cause we don’t need them anymore. He was standing up strong for families, for the oil and the steel industries. And when it comes to the oil industry, by the way, that is America’s number one energy source.

And Trump, “Hey, Texas, did you hear what he just said? Hey, Oklahoma, did you hear what he just said? Hey, Pennsylvania, did you hear what he just said? Hey, Ohio, did you hear what he just said?” “Who built the cages, Joe?” All of these were killer lines. ‘Cause Biden’s saying he would be shutting down the oil industry. Not just fracking. He was gonna shut down the whole oil industry. Biden’s out there tree hugging and everything and Trump is playing the role of the adult in the room.

And make no mistake. This was a big deal. Biden did promise to shut down the oil industry, not just fracking, and not just fracking on federal land. That’s how he tried to slither out of this last night. “No, no, no. I just meant fracking on federal land.” Nope. He’s not just shutting down fracking. They want to shut down the oil industry. That’s what the Green New Deal does. That is the foundation of the Green New Deal is shutting down the oil industry, fossil fuels.

We don’t have anything to replace it, folks. We don’t have an industry of energy that will get big commercial jets off the ground, cargo or passenger. We just don’t. We are a long ways from it. We don’t have anything, anywhere near anything to replace oil. I mean, it was a big moment. And there’s Trump saying, “Remember what you just heard, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio. Remember that, America.” “Who built the cages, Joe?” “Why didn’t you fix this when you were there? It wasn’t that long ago, three-year, four-year, five years ago, why didn’t you fix the cages back then? I ran because of you, Joe.”

Biden got a little nervous with that line and actually went after Obama. Biden said he’d get immigration reform done “’cause I’ll be president, not vice president.” He was even attacking Obama. “Well, I’ll fix immigration ’cause I’ll be president, not vice president.” Ooh.

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RUSH: Joe Biden says that nobody lost their private insurance under Obamacare. That was rated the lie of the year by fact-checkers.

Of course, tons of people lost their private insurance under Obamacare because that was the design. That was built in. It was designed to frustrate you and make you demand single payer in order for health insurance to work.

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RUSH: No, no, no, it was a mind-boggling blunder last night by Biden. He said that nobody lost their private insurance under Obamacare. They did. It was the design. That lie was rated the lie of the year by fact-checkers. Millions of Americans lost their private insurance. By design. Obamacare forced them into unaffordable policies, premiums skyrocketed, deductibles went through the roof. I mean, deductibles under Obamacare were so high that people effectively had no health insurance, folks.

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!

RUSH: I’m gonna tell you, Joe Biden is at a huge disadvantage. If he wants to talk about the stuff that happened during the Obama administration, he’s picking the wrong timeframe, ’cause we don’t forget any of that. We’re not gonna forget a thing. We’re not gonna forget a thing about Obamacare. We’re not gonna forget the stimulus deal, the Porkulus deal. No way. I mean, even PolitiFact, that’s a left-wing fact-checker group, said it was the lie of the year.

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RUSH: New York Post: “Vladimir Putin Explains Why He’s Open to Working with Biden.” (Snort!) “Russian President Vladimir Putin said he’s aware Joe Biden has made sharp anti-Russian statements, but is open to working with him if he’s elected president, citing that the Democratic Party shares many of his ideals,” many of Putin’s ideals. “The Russian president then pointed to Biden’s agreement to extend a new [arms reduction] agreement that expires in February, or agree to another arms-reduction treaty.

“‘This is a very serious element of our potential collaboration in the future,’ he said.” Putin would love us to get rid of oil. Do you realize how much Putin would love that? I mean, I don’t know what Putin’s sex life is, but I’m telling you, he might be a Jeffrey Toobin out there if we ever decide to get rid of oil. (interruption) What, did that make you nervous in there? (interruption)

Well, I’m just telling you, do you think Biden — or Putin would not love it if we got rid of petroleum, which is what Biden claims we’re gonna do? We’re gonna close the oil and gas industry! We’re gonna end fracking. We’re not just gonna end fracking, we’re gonna shut down oil and gas! No wonder Putin’s in favor of Biden. Look, I have long said it’s not hard to see.

You listen to Democrats as they campaign against Republicans, and then listen to people like the Iranians or the Russians campaign against America, and it’s almost identical word-for-word. The Democrat Party sounds just like our enemies. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, back when he was running Iran, sounded exactly like John Kerry in 2004 when Kerry was running for the White House.

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RUSH: Here’s Mike in Houston. You’re next. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, thank you. Prayers daily to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I have two points. Pennsylvania, New Mexico had one billion surpluses in December of 2019. Forty percent of the economy in New Mexico is oil and gas. I know for a fact it changes lives there. And I know that they had great plans to lift the city, the state with infrastructure projects and so on. They are very excited and then it just went away. We know why.

Pennsylvania, they took $300 million, they put it towards their rainy day fund. Things were going great. This is because of oil and gas. Isn’t it interesting that the Middle East wasn’t even a heavy topic. Usually you get a heavy dose of that in the debates. But it wasn’t that big because Trump has done so well in the Middle East, calming it down, and it just wasn’t the topic. When was the last presidential debate —

RUSH: I was gonna say the Middle East was not a topic because peace is breaking out so there’s no way to rip Trump for that.

CALLER: I have one final thing to say. I hope you Google something. I hope you Google Fulton Sheen, Bishop Fulton Sheen on the glory of being an American. He did a 20 minute presentation on the beauty and greatness of the individual and the value of the individual. And he compared it to what communism is, which is the masses. And it is wonderful and inspiring, and I know how much you love inspiring things. You have to watch this. Bishop Fulton Sheen —

RUSH: I’m familiar with Bishop Sheen. In fact, Martin Sheen, the well-known actor who kicks homeless guys off of sewer grates so he can sleep on them himself, took his name from Bishop Fulton Sheen.