STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): What did you make of the president yesterday seeing the writing on the wall, it would be a protracted legal fight, they're already printing up the census, he decided to essentially ask all the government agencies to send all the data about citizens and non-citizens to the Commerce Department and they will try to figure out who -- how many citizens we have in the country?

RUSH LIMBAUGH (CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO HOST): I think everybody is looking at this in the wrong way. It is a testament too, by the way, the the power of people who write the narrative every day. I call it the Washington soap opera. And I firmly believe it's the media that's running the Democrat party today, not the other way around. The real controversy here is, who took the citizenship question off of the census and why? Why is the controversy wanting to know who among us happens to be a citizen and who isn't? Why is that controversial? It would seem to me that this kind of attention should have been asked when somebody in the Obama regime decided to get rid of it, because we all know why. They don't want non-citizens to be invisible. They want them -- I mean, they do want them to be invisible. They don't want them to be counted as non-citizens for a political purpose. All of this, everything the left does is political. And they couch it in compassion and concern and not wanting to target or single out anybody. My problem with all of this is that the American left today seems to have one major problem that is guiding every agenda item they have and that is they don't like this country. They don't like this country as founded. They don't like this country's place in the world, and so they want to diminish us. They're too afraid of American superpower, American exceptionalism. But this idea of who's a citizen and who isn't, why did that question get taken off? That's where everybody's focus should've been. And I'll put this on the Republicans. Look at the way things happened. Obama takes the question off. The Republicans do what? [snoring] Say nothing. Then the Democrats get back and we want to put it back on, President Trump, because it's common sense. Put it back on. The Democrats fight, propose, oppose, make it hell on Earth to try to get this done. And this is a great illustration of the difference in the two parties and how they operate politically. I think it is outrageous that the desire to know who here is a citizen is controversial.

DOOCY: Well, I don't know exactly when they did stop putting it on but that certainly is what a lot of people are talking about.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): 2010. 2010, when President Obama -- it's been on there from 1870 to 2010. Rush, will you elaborate a little bit?

LIMBAUGH: Exactly my point. Exactly my point. The controversy, who took it off and why? Look, we know the answer to this. It just needs to be explained to people. As far as people are concerned, wanting to find out who's here is the suspicious thing. Wanting to find out who among us is a citizen is now the suspicious or controversial thing. This is 180 degrees out of phase. It's wrong, and I applaud the president for trying to get this done and I think by hook or by crook he actually will get it done. He's focusing everybody's attention on it which is the first thing you have to do to effect positive change

EARHARDT: Will you elaborate on how exactly this would affect elections? Why don't the Democrats want this on the census report? You said it's political. Will you elaborate on that?

LIMBAUGH: Well it's -- ultimately, they want these people to be able to vote. The reason the Democrats want open borders -- look there is a lot going on with this. The first thing behind this is a globalist movement to eliminate the whole concept of citizenship. And look, I know some of this is going to sound strange but it really isn't. This is happening. They want to replace the concept of citizenship with residence. And these are global elites who want to manage the world and control as much of the population as they can. And the first thing you do, if you really want to do that, is get rid of this concept that people are citizens of different countries. You replace that concept with residents. Now you bring it to this country specifically. The Democrats here want open borders. They want as many people crossing the border as possible. Multiple reasons. One is, they need a permanent underclass. The Democrat party is a party that, the worse that can happen to it is for people to become self-reliant, for people to be able to produce for themselves. They need people constantly in need, dependent, they need to create as many victims as they can, people hopeless, thinking the game is rigged, they have no chance because the deck is stacked against them, the Democrats are going to pave the way for them, I'm going to protect them. And so they need as many of these people as they can get. People with no chance, no hope. And they become the champion. They need these people, they want them to vote. Right now you have to be a citizen to vote. Except in California. They want non-citizens to vote there, they're trying making that happen. Keep an eye on California, it's the model for what the left wants the entire country to become. But the whole question about politics here, Ainsley, is non-citizens can't vote. The Democrats want these people to vote, and that's the underlying desire and energy behind this as far as they're concerned.