RUSH: So the Drive-By Media and others continue to debate the Oval Office meeting yesterday between Chuck and Nancy. They’re becoming a couple. Chuck and Nancy went to the Oval Office, Chuck and Nancy did this, Chuck and Nancy over there, Chuck and Nancy here. And of course the Drive-Bys think that Chuck and Nancy just hit a grand-slam home run. And many of the Never Trumpers think that Trump just made the biggest mistake in the world by claiming that he would own a shutdown if it ever happened.



And that one example I think serves to illustrate one of the things that we are all up against here and have been for I don’t know how long. The Republican Party and the so-called conservative movement in Washington thinks exactly and identically the way the people who run that town think. And that would be the Democrats, the media, the American left. And one of the tenets of official Washington, one of the inviolate beliefs is that if there’s a government shutdown, the Republicans are gonna get the blame, no matter what.

And so you never want a government shutdown, because the Republicans are gonna get the blame. So what happens? Well, you never shut down the government, which means Democrats win every budget fight. Because the Republicans have made a calculation. “We would really get creamed if the government shuts down. We would get blamed for not caring about the poor and the downtrodden and the thirsty. And so we’ll fix this budget stuff, we’ll kick the can down the road and we’ll get ‘em at the next budget fight.”

And the same thing happens, threatened shut down, the Republicans shudder in fear, “Ah, ah, shut down, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we don’t want any part.” And Democrats win every budget battle. And that leads to groupthink that says government shutdown equals death for Republicans, therefor never, ever shut down the government. No matter what else happens, don’t do it.

So Donald Trump, who’s not a citizen of the swamp, he’s not a denizen of the swamp, understands that there are crucially important things that are happening that are threatening our country in a lot of ways. One of them is illegal immigration. It’s got to stop. He has promised a number of things to try to stop it. Among them, building a wall.

So they have the meeting yet the Oval Office yesterday and Trump says, “You know what? The American people are with me on this. We’ve gotta stop this. I was elected because of this. We’ve gotta get a handle on it. We’re gonna build a wall. If you shut down the government, I’ll gladly own it.” And the Republicans, “Oh, my God.” Get ’em the vapors.

And so the Washington intelligentsia thinks that Trump stepped in it. They think that Trump committed the biggest faux pas that is possible for a Republican to commit, and in their world this is why Donald Trump is just flat-out stupid. You never, ever advocate for a shutdown and you never, as a Republican, claim that you’ll take the blame for it or own it. And that is what you’ll hear from any and every Republican inside the Beltway that lives in Washington.

And I’m just telling you that way of thinking equals perpetual, never ending budget fight defeat. It’s what it has always meant. We now have a president willing to stand up to it to try to win these budget battles for the good of the people of this country and at the same time accomplish something that’s necessary, and that’s stop massive illegal immigration. And if it takes a government shutdown to do it, then that’s what Trump is gonna do, it’s what he was elected to do.

I told you he’s got nothing to lose here! He has now the Democrats running the House — I would suggest to you Trump does well. Look, when he was running for the Republican nomination, he had 16 opponents. He vanquished them all. He had the media; he vanquished them. Now he’s up against the Democrats and constantly the media. I think Trump is gonna shine in these next two years. At least he has the potential to based on his track record. These are circumstances where he does shine.

And he continues to take advantage of a really great opportunity, and that is to continue to demonstrate that he is not of Washington, that he is not of the swamp, that he is a different breed, which is what people perennially say they want election after election. Somebody that’s not an ingrained insider.

So what actually happened yesterday? When these debates between Democrats and Republicans actually happen on live television, whether they happen in the Trump cabinet meeting or a meeting with congressional leaders that the cameras were allowed to stay, or yesterday in the Oval Office with Chuck and Nancy, when these debates on policy happen live and unedited and people are allowed to see them, we’re always gonna win! And the reason is our ideas are going to trump — no pun intended.

They never want to debate us on ideas. That’s why we’re racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes. That’s how they try to discredit us. They never engage us on ideas. When Trump keeps the cameras in there, guess what? They got no choice. What’s the first thing they did? “We gotta close down the cameras, Mr. President. We need to have these negotiations go on in private. We need to get the media outta here.”

Wait a minute, the media is your big buddies. Why do you not want them there? The reason they don’t want them there is because they don’t want the people to see how they actually operate and what they really believe. They can talk about Trump stepping in it by owning a government shutdown. What did Chuck and Nancy do? Chuck and Nancy stepped in and owned the idea that they don’t care about border security! They were made to look like that is not a concern to them. You tell me how Trump loses that.

The debate that Trump had with the Democrat leaders in the Oval Office is a great example. The Democrats were so uncomfortable. Chuck Schumer, there’s a picture, there’s a picture, Trump is talking to Schumer — it’s a still shot — Trump is talking to Schumer, Schumer is looking at his lap. I have the perfect caption. “Where are my gonads?” Schumer is asking. That’s what this looks like. So uncomfortable.

They can’t support their positions with fact or common sense. They can only win these events when there’s no coverage and then they walk out to the cameras and microphones and start spinning what happened with media total support. In other words, they have to go out and misrepresent what happened in there like Pelosi did. She left and went up to Capitol Hill. (imitating Pelosi) “I felt like the mom. I felt like I was dealing with a child. I felt like I was in a tinkle contest. You never want to get in a tinkle contest with a skunk.”

So she calls Trump a skunk and said they got in a tinkle contest, said that she had to act like the mother. And then she started questioning Trump’s manhood. (imitating Pelosi) “Yeah, that was just a tinkle contest to show his manhood. Manhood from this guy?” That’s what she was reduced to, not debating Trump on the issue, not rejecting Trump on his idea of a wall. She had to go out there and start personally insulting Trump, and Schumer does the same stuff.

These things ought to happen more and more is my point. All of these debates, as many of them as possible should happen live on television. And I don’t mean like they happen in Congress because there you have formal rules where, “The gentleman yield for two hours?” Yes, the gentleman will yield. A bunch of pablum and blather going on for two hours, tune out ’cause they get so boring. But these things like Trump does in the Cabinet Room or in the Oval Office yesterday, Democrats don’t want any part of that. And the proof is Pelosi walking out of there and trying to recast what happened in terms of Trump being a bumbling fool.

But that doesn’t work on people who saw it. Believe me, everybody that watches cable news or any news saw it because the Drive-Bys couldn’t help themselves. They kept playing it over and over again because they think Trump committed this great, gigantic faux pas by claiming to support a shutdown and then saying that he would own it. But the Democrats need these things to happen in private, they then go out the phalanx of cameras and microphones where they lie and spin what happened. The media starts carrying their water.

More of what happened yesterday, as much of it as we can get issue after issue after issue. Here’s a classic example too. Now, this is a story from TheHill.com. Wait a minute. It isn’t The Hill, but it’s about a Los Angeles Times reporter whose name is Eli Stokols and the story is that Los Angeles Times White House correspondent Eli Stokals’s reported yesterday that Donald Trump stormed out of the Oval Office after his contentious meeting with Chuck and Nancy and then threw a folder full of papers out of frustration.

He was on Hardball last night, PMSNBC. He stormed out of the oval, he walked into an anteroom just off the oval, he had in his hand a folder of briefing papers, just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room. He was citing his own reporting, which means nobody else saw what he claims to have seen. He said Trump was frustrated with Schumer following the meeting. He felt that Schumer got the best of him in the meeting. And he refers to Schumer as Trump’s old New York sparring buddy.

I don’t think Trump would ever consider Schumer to be an old New York sparring buddy or any other kind of buddy. They’ve had very little to do with each other before Trump’s election. But there’s no evidence. This is what the Democrats have constantly relied on. There’s nobody else that reported this. There is nobody else that can confirm this, that Trump thought he had been beaten by Schumer and got so mad he starts throwing briefing papers all over the anteroom in the Oval Office?

This is what the media does for the Democrats. This is what and why the Democrats do not want any of these things happening live. And then Pelosi, of course, minutes after the, quote, unquote, public showdown went back to the capital, started railing against Trump in a private meeting with her colleagues. If it’s private, why do we know about it? If Pelosi had a private meeting with her colleagues, why do we know about it? We know about it because it wasn’t private. It was intended to be leaked to the media.

She said Trump must have said the word “wall” 30 times. I was trying to be the mom, but it just goes to show you, you get into tinkle contest with a skunk and you get tinkle all over you. She said it’s like a manhood thing with him, as if manhood can be associated with him. This wall thing, this wall thing, is just tinkle stuff, is just manhood stuff. They wanted it out. Not one word on the substance. Not one word on the substance of what Trump wants to do to stop illegal immigration.

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RUSH: Upstate New York. William. Great to have you, sir. You’re first today. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Mega dittos from upstate New York. Hey, Rush, I was listening about the Republican intelligentsia, you know, and how they responded to what Trump did with the press conference, I guess you could call it, in the Oval Office. But I think Lindsey Graham made a difference. His comments on Sunday morning talk shows about how to stand up like that. I think it’s important because I think there could be a little bit of a shift between the thinking, especially possibly in the Senate and the House.

And, you know, I think we first saw that with the Kavanaugh hearings and we’re hearing it now. And I think it’s important considering Lindsey Graham’s past positions on amnesty. And I think under Trump they possibly — and we may not be seeing yet — really uniting behind him and so forth, contrary to what the media and everybody is telling us. And considering us to not listen to this the way the academic class and the consultant class have been doing and just look at the responses, you know, in terms of where Trump wins the election, how he fought back in the Kavanaugh hearings. And I think there will be much more emphasis on people like us than on the consultants.

RUSH: I guess I’ll chalk this to my hearing. I’m not sure what your point is. You started to talk about Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham supporting Trump means what, do you think?

CALLER: Well, I think because he was out there Sunday more of an amnesty guy saying on I think it was Face the Nation and on Fox News Sunday how he said Trump, you better shut down this wall, and that was such a bizarre position for him historically. And I think over the last 48 hours that because he was getting that support from Lindsey Graham as well as other establishment Republicans possibly behind the scenes and I’ve heard some strong talk from other senators like (unintelligible) et cetera, that it’s possible that this has been a setup and that they’re more solicited, the establishment class, behind Trump than we’re led to believe. And I was wondering —

RUSH: Ah. You mean Republicans in the Senate are more aligned behind Trump than we may know?

CALLER: Yes. And I think the shift by people like Lindsey Graham and what he was saying was a prelude for what happened yesterday in the Oval Office, more of a united front, shall we say.

RUSH: Okay. All right. I got it. So you think Trump was emboldened to stand up for the wall and a shutdown, to claim credit, because Lindsey Graham was on TV supporting him on Sunday, which you think means that there may be some more behind the scenes unity for Trump among the Republican Party than is known. Well, it could be. One thing about Lindsey Graham, he has become a full-fledged Trumpist in the aftermath of the passing of Senator McCain. That has been noted.

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RUSH: Couple of headlines. “Poll: Americans Want Trump to Compromise on Border Wall to Avoid Shutdown.” That’s NPR. “Poll: Nearly Two in Three Trump Voters Support Government Shutdown for Border Wall.” The first one’s NPR. And it’s predictable. We always get polling data right after an event like this.

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RUSH: That’s right. It always happens. The Drive-By Media produce a poll that shows the American people want exactly what the media and the Democratic Party want, after an event like happened yesterday in the Oval Office. So Trump takes Chuck and Nancy to school, we immediately the next day get a poll showing a majority of the American people agree with Chuck and Nancy.

You can make book on it! And it’s why I claim these people are not news, they’re not journalists, and they’re not engaged in trying to tell us what we don’t know, what we didn’t know what happened when they were there and saw it then report it to us. They’re activists. And they are working to advance the anti-Trump agenda, the Democrat agenda.

And here we have a new poll from NPR/PBS/Marist that claims that 57% of Americans say that Trump should compromise on the wall to avoid a government shutdown rather than stand firm.

Now, can you imagine the questions that were on the poll to get this answer? “Do you agree with the president that the government should be shut down, jeopardizing Social Security checks, unemployment checks, food stamps, and the free flow of water from your faucet? Or do you think the government should remain open and you should be able to eat and get to and from work and have Christmas?”

What the hell are people gonna say? I mean, I don’t know that those were the questions, but I can guarantee you that they’re pretty close to that. The director of the Marist poll claims that the wall is only important to Trump’s base, not to Democrats and independents. So what? Trump’s base won the election. Donald Trump won the election on the strength of his base. So the Democrats and independents oppose it? BFD! So what?

Well, I’ll tell you so what. When Democrats don’t want something, why, it shouldn’t happen, because what Democrats are just is. What Democrats are is just normal. And everything else is extremist wackos. The Marist director also claims that everybody agrees they don’t want gridlock or a government shutdown. Bohunk! I can tell you right now that a lot of people on our side like gridlock if it stops the left. If it stops the growth of government, if it stops the encroachment on liberty and freedom.

But it’s funny because remember last January when Chuck and Nancy shut down the government for three days over DACA, we never heard anything about how people opposed gridlock. We didn’t hear anything about you how people oppose government shutdown when Chuck and Nancy did it for three days over DACA. It was the Schumer shutdown.

So as President Trump continues to threaten to potentially shut down the government over his border wall, Americans would prefer to see him compromise to prevent gridlock, according to NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll by a 21-point margin. Sorry if I don’t buy it. It’s too camp. It’s too predictable. It is too usual.

But there’s another poll, ladies and gentlemen. Breitbart reported it. What’s the polling unit? Well, it doesn’t say here, but nearly two and three supporters of President Trump and Republican voters say they support shutting down the federal government in order to secure full funding on a border wall for the United States Mexico — oh, it’s a Marist poll — what? What? The NPR poll is a Marist poll. The latest Marist poll reveals 65% of Trump supporters, 65% of Republican voters say the president should not compromise on the wall even if it means a shutdown. See, that’s the point! Build the wall! And if there’s a government shutdown along the way, fine, build the wall!

The government shutdown is not the objective. Building the wall is! The media turns it around, “Are you in favor of a government shutdown denying people Social Security checks, welfare checks, food stamps.” None of which happens, by the way. So it’s just predictable after a meeting like yesterday’s where Chuck and Nancy kind of had it taken to ’em. Right there is NPR, PBS with a poll showing by a 21-point margin people don’t want Trump to succeed.

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RUSH: So we have all this polling data we’re being told here, majority of Americans don’t want a wall. Does anybody remember the polling data that a majority of Americans didn’t want Obamacare once we learned how much it was gonna cost and how much it was going to deprive us. Does anybody remember the media caring that the American people opposed Obamacare?

Does anybody remember that Jeremiah Wright said, Reverend Wright said that Obama offered him $250,000 during the campaign to shut up. Reverend Wright said it. Obama, 250 grand, a quarter of a million dollars to shut up. Why is that not a campaign contribution? Why wasn’t it? Well, we all know the answer. Obama’s Steph Curry. Impossible to say stupid things, impossible to do wrong things, impossible to be an idiot or unethical.