RUSH: Trump Shakes Up the Inside-the-Beltway Establishment with His Immigration Plan
August 17, 2015
From the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show
Begin Transcript
RUSH: Let's start with Trump for a minute. I want to try to mix some of this in. There's a Fox News poll out and Trump is at 25%. Now, a lot of Drive-Bys and a lot of political analysts have been waiting for this particular poll or one like it. Since the first debate, they have been invested in the fact that that first debate actually was a death knell for Trump. All of the immediate polling after that first debate was online polling or telephone polling, and a lot of the Drive-Bys didn't trust it. They wanted to wait for an actual poll by a news network, and Fox is out, and Trump is up at 25%.
Ben Carson, a skyrocketing jump at 12%. Do you remember the day after the debate I told you who the left said won that debate? Who? Who? Who'd I tell you won? I played two sound bites, you said, "This is who the left thinks won the debate." John Kasich. The left thought John Kasich won the debate, and you know why? Because John Kasich finally put on display the fact that Republicans do care about people. That was the postdebate consensus of scientists, political scientists analyzing the Republican debate. Well, Kasich ends up at 4% in the Fox poll, and he's tied there with Rubio.
Now, Rubio and Kasich were thought by postdebate analysts to have done really well, and accordingly, would really do well and maybe even skyrocket in polls. In the Fox News poll they have Christie at 3%, Rand Paul at 3%. Carly Fiorina went up enough from 2% to 5% to get herself in the next debate. Scott Walker dropped three. Huckabee dropped three. Jeb Bush dropped three. Those three are: Bush is at nine, Huckabee, Walker at six, Ted Cruz up four to 10%, Carson up five to 12%.
And, by the way, these results "closely mirror all of the telephone polling and online polling that the consensus of political scientists rejected while they were waiting for this poll." And there's sadness out there. I mean, they really were thinking Trump was gonna bomb. Snerdley, I'm gonna ask all of you a question. What is it about...? Well, that's not fair. I have the answer, and I know what the answer is. Trump hasn't faded. He's not shown any signs up of fading yet.
He goes on Meet the Press yesterday and, have to tell you, the establishment is shocked, angry, saddened. He came off as presidential. He had a serious immigration plan. And the key to Trump's immigration plan is that it almost dovetails exactly with public opinion on immigration. You know, it's kind of stunning. We got 16 Republican candidates now, and there's only one of them -- only one -- with a unique view or different view on immigration. It's Trump.
It's obvious that that issue is the foundational issue for Trump, and I think for Trump to blow this he would have to change immigration. He'd have to backtrack, which he's not gonna do. But I'm just saying, all the other stuff... You know, "Is he conservative/is he liberal?" I still don't think that people in what we call the establishment (some call it the ruling class) inside-the-Beltway get it.
Both parties, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, I don't think they have the slightest idea what the vast majority of people in this country think about immigration and what's happening to the country, and they don't want any part of it. And of course the establishment is seen as wanting to ramrod their view of immigration down everybody's throat. Trump's the only guy standing up against it, and every Republican that has been elected since 2010 has been elected in part to stop it.
You know, if just one of these Republican candidates -- just one of them -- had come out forcefully for America on this immigration business, Trump wouldn't even exist as a candidate. Well, he might exist, but he wouldn't have such a free road in this one issue. It's really... When you study this -- really not study, when you observe it -- it's amazing. Sixteen people are running for the presidency, and 15 of them are perceived...
"Perceived." I know they would argue with this, but 15 of them are perceived to have essentially the same policy on immigration. One of them is entirely different from the other 15, and he's the one who's leading. Now, don't you think people inside the Beltway should be able to look at this and put two and two together and figure out what is causing this? They can chalk it up to celebrity, they can chalk it up to pop culture, they can chalk it up to circus.
But it's not. It is due to substance and it is due to immigration, and with Trump releasing this comprehensive immigration plan yesterday... You know, all these questions of who's a real conservative have been obviated here. Even that question, "Who is that a real conservative?" is up for grabs now. I've got a couple pieces in the Stack of Stuff here today. I think one's at Town Hall. I forget where the other one is. They're conservatives, conservative media, and they just excoriate the inside-the-Beltway so-called conservative establishment.
One of them really takes after George Will, 'cause I guess George Will really took after Trump last Thursday in a piece. And Arthur Brooks. We'll have the sound bite on this. Arthur Brooks, American Enterprise Institute, was on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Now, the American Enterprise Institute has long been thought of as a conservative think tank. Cato is Libertarian. Brookings is to the left. Heritage is conservative. AEI is also thought to be conservative.
Arthur Brooks yesterday is talking about (are you ready for this?) the low-information voters supporting Trump. I saw that, and I really stopped on a dime and did a double-take. Look at who they think low-information voters are inside the Beltway! You know, when we talk about "low-information voters" here, what do we mean? Who do we mean? We mean mind-numbed Democrat voters. Mind-numbed, pop culture voters who are brain-dead who are not curious.
Who don't think, who simply absorb whatever they see presented to them by various mainstream media sources and believe it. Well, we learn... (interruption) We learn... I used the term "low-information voter." Arthur Brooks... (interruption) No, don't misunderstand. I'm not getting on anybody for copying that. I'm not that petty. Low-information voters out there... (interruption) Yes, it's my concoction. Fine. Everybody's using it. Cool.
The point is, look who they think the low-information voters are. Look who the inside-the-Beltway people think the LIVs are. You people! According to Arthur Brooks, you who support Trump are the mind-numbed, uneducated, uninformed low-information voters, and they are confident that you're gonna see the light at some point. That's what I meant about this been a barnburner weekend. This is a blow-the-top-off-of-it weekend.
By the time we get through analyzing it and adding my own unique flair, color, analysis to all this. But remember Peter Jennings? After the 1994 election in which Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years, Peter Jennings did a radio commentary and said that the voters had a childlike "temper tantrum." Remember that? That's how we explained the Republicans, Mr. Newt and the gang winning the House for the first time in 40 years.
It wasn't due to substance. Of course not! It wasn't due to anything that really mattered. It was just: No, ah, the kids "had a temper tantrum." That's exactly how these guys sounded on Fox News Sunday yesterday talking about the people that support Trump. You're having a temper tantrum. They're in an utter state of denial here. Now, there are pieces being written by conservative intellectuals explaining who the real conservatives are and who the real conservatives aren't and what makes a real conservative and what constitutes a fake conservative.
And if you support Trump, you are a fake conservative, and you are dangerous, and somehow you're gonna have to be rescued and brought back into the fold here. But you are under the spell of some Svengali (i.e., Trump).
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, so Trump's on Meet the Press yesterday, and scared everybody. Looked presidential. Sounded serious. Had a multipoint immigration plan. It was serious. It was intelligent. And the inside-the-Beltway establishment is beside itself. Trump's immigration proposal is not just comprehensive. More importantly, what Trump's immigration proposal does... (laughing) It just totally repudiates the "bipartisan approach" that we're getting from both parties inside the Beltway that has been the desire of both parties inside the Beltway for years.
And everybody knows that it is an immigration plan that is going to result in millions more registered Democrats. Common-sense people, common-sense citizens have never understood it. Policy-wise, it hasn't made any sense for the Republican Party to support amnesty and make a policy that's the mirror of what the Democrats want. Policy-wise it makes no sense, party-wise it makes no sense. It only makes sense when you learn that it is what big-money donors want.
And that's when he learn who it is that's really running the Republican Party (and the Democrat Party party too): The money people. Now, we talked about this Friday. That's not new, really. Money's always been a determining and deciding factor. What's new is that the parties are no longer making even any pretense of satisfying public opinion, being on the same page as public opinion. It is governance against the will of the people on the premise that the people are too stupid to know the right thing to do here. So now you, who don't support amnesty, are considered low-information voters right along with the people we consider on the left as low-information voters.
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RUSH: Let me briefly summarize the Trump immigration proposal that happened on Meet the Press yesterday. Do not doubt me on this. The release of the Fox News poll and Trump's appearance yesterday has done more to shake up the inside-the-Beltway establishment than anybody realizes.
People assumed that they were already pretty shaken up, and they were, but now they're starting to get to the point now where Trump could literally genuinely win this thing. They're changing tunes from when's he gonna drop out, when's he gonna step in it, to, "Uh-oh." And I think, you know, I'll say it again, I don't think these people have any idea just how angry, frightened, fearful, a pretty big majority of the people in this country are, that we are losing the country, and we're losing it because of immigration, couple other things, but immigration's the biggie.
I don't know how many times I have referenced this over the years, and I'm by no means the only one. Look at California. If you want to find the future of the Republican Party and the country, look at California. There isn't a single Republican in statewide office. There never will be in the future. It's not gonna happen. The Republican Party practically doesn't exist statewide. The economy in California, you talk about inequality, the haves and have-nots, it's no more pronounced anywhere in the country than in California.
You don't have to go back that far where the Republican Party owned it. Routinely elected governors, those governors became presidential candidates. And I'll tell you when you can tie it to. You can tie the end of the Republican Party in California to 1986, and that was the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty immigration bill. We're talking back then 3.9 million illegal aliens granted amnesty. Since then it's been curtains for the Republican Party, which means constant victory for the Democrat Party. They have shaped that state, and it's a mess. And it's a harbinger of where we're going nationwide.
The people of this country do not want that and they're scared to death of losing their country, and immigration is the top of the reasons why they think it can happen. And they see both parties in cahoots to make it happen, and they don't understand it. People that love America do not understand this. I mean, even when you tell 'em, "Well, big-money donors say this because they want X, Y, and Z," it still doesn't make any sense. How does that trump patriotism? How does all that matter more to these people, elected officials, than patriotism, love of country, America, shining city on a hill and all that, why does that not matter anymore?
People are a combination of angry, scared. And there isn't a single candidate for president addressing the issue in a way that resonates with the American people, particularly Republican primary voters, not one, until Donald Trump comes along. And now Trump is illustrating his support, illustrates for any who wish to pay honest attention, what is thought of the whole concept of illegal immigration and amnesty and the future of the country it represents. And people don't want it. They've said so in every which way they can, time and time again, and they're not being listened to.
At the same time, Republican officials, Republican Party officials, inside-the-Beltway officials tell us that we can't win the White House anymore without getting additional votes besides just Republican votes. We can't win anymore with only Republican votes. We're too small. We need to branch out. We need to reach out. We need to expand our base beyond just you conservative Christians and the rest. We need to get Democrats. We need to get independents.
Okay, fine, well, guess what, who's doing that? Who is expanding the party beyond what it is normally thought to be? Trump, of all people. And yet they're lowering the hammer on the guy each and every day, when it is Donald Trump who is executing what the Republican Party says they need to win. The problem is, Trump's not getting the people the Republican Party wants to build their coalition. But, I mean, the Republicans all say we can't win with just our base. Well, if that's true, then you need to branch out.
You know, I need to include Ted Cruz in the Trump group on anti-amnesty and so forth. Cruz and Trump. The others might say they belong there, too, but that's only after they've made adjustments in their original support for an amnesty-like program. But Trump's immigration plan, back to it, before I read it specifically from his website. You know, he wants to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. He wants to deport all undocumented immigrants. They have to go.
Now, the inside-the-Beltway people, when they hear that, they cringe, "Oh, my God, don't say that's what Republicans -- oh, God." People are standing up and cheering. They don't want their country given away, for crying out loud! And to pay people at the same time. He wants to do away with, rescind Obama's executive amnesty program. He wants to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in America. He wants to revert to the tariff system that existed prior to the passage of NAFTA. And he would end the practice of granting US citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Bye-bye anchor babies.
And I'm telling you, that one has people standing up and cheering. He wants to make changes in the 14th Amendment so that that cannot happen. We are cooking our own goose by granting this privilege, and he wants to do away with it. He is in the majority of thinking, as polled, the American people. He presented this immigration plan yesterday on Meet the Press, and as I say, the Inside-the-Beltway crowd was shocked. The media was shocked, A, that he had a plan. B, that he has a campaign staff that's made up of professionals. D, that he's able to present this in a way that looked presidential. And, E, that he was on Meet the Press looking and sounding presidential.
None of this was supposed to happen. The experts all told us Trump would be gone by now, or on the way out, if not gone. "Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again -- The three core principles of Trump's plan. When politicians talk about 'immigration reform' they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.
"Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first -- not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform: 1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border."
(imitating Trump) "And if we can't do it, then look at the Chinese. Look at their wall. They got a Great Wall. They built it, how long is that wall? If they can do it, we can do it. If they got the Great Wall, we got the greatest wall. We can build a greater wall, we can do anything we want. We can do it. Who says we can't do it?" People stand up and cheer.
"2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced," or they're worthless. "3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans." And he goes through the point-by-point details, reasons, analysis, and all that, and it was right on the money.
Byron York has a piece in the DC Examiner: "Are Trump's Immigration Views Out of the Mainstream?" What York did, he went back and he looked at an -- oh, Jeff Sessions, by the way, is one of the leading participants of in the preparation of Trump's multipoint immigration plan. Sessions is great on this and has been a lone voice in the Senate. Well, next to Cruz and Mike Lee. I mean, I don't mean to leave these guys out because they have been front and center.
But Byron York found a recent academic paper published by Stanford Professor David Broockman and Berkeley PhD candidate Douglas Ahler an it "suggests a majority of the public's views on immigration are closer to Trump's than to the advocates of comprehensive immigration reform."
It's just another way of stating it, another way of writing it, but it's another way of illustrating that Trump's not the oddball. Trump's ideas are not fringe, are not outliers, they are mainstream. They represent the views and the attitudes of the people who make this country work.
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RUSH: Now, folks, one thing here about the Byron York story. This is really interesting. In a nutshell, Byron York says that this academic study by the two guys -- one from Stanford, one a PhD candidate from Berkeley. They offered seven positions. Position number one was being open border. In a poll, a survey of thousands of Americans, they offered them seven options, seven things to choose from and list them in order of importance, the American people.
The first option: Open borders. Let everybody in. Number seven was the most extreme: Build a wall and deport everybody. Okay? That was the range in this survey that these two academics sought public opinion on. Now, follow me on this. Again, number one is open borders: Let anybody from anywhere in and pay them whatever to come. I mean, just the extreme of open-borders immigration. Number seven was build a wall and deport all the illegals. Find 'em, round 'em up, and make them leave.
Twenty-five percent of the people polled picked number seven, and more than 55% picked the top three so-called radical anti-immigration positions. Here's the important thing. In this survey of thousands of Americans on public opinion, all of the top three options chosen by the American people are more quote/unquote "radical" than Trump's proposal. In other words, Trump's proposal is not nearly as sweeping as what a survey of the American people shows they want.
So the point is Trump is not seen as a radical at all in this by average, ordinary Americans. He's not seen as an extremist. He's not seen as a fringe kook. He's seen to be a little bit less radical or extreme, if you just use these terms, than popular opinion as expressed by 55% of the American people. So if the inside-the-Beltway experts of both parties -- if the elites and the establishment there -- think that Trump's proposal radical and so far off the mainstream, it's not, is the point.
The American people are even more adamant about this than is Trump's proposal, and the American people are the ones being affected by it. You know what's always amazed me about this, folks? Not just that California is a harbinger of what open borders makes happen, and not just to the Republican Party. I mean, California is one of the biggest welfare state states going now. It's in debt; it's a mess.
Millennials care about equality; it's got the biggest line of demarcation between rich and poor, haves and have-nots of any state in the country.
Where is all of the competition here? It's clear that a single issue or... Well, let me put it another way. It's clear that a single issue, maybe a couple small ones in addition, a single issue may be responsible for this Trump phenomenon. And nobody wants to get in on it? Nobody wants to compete with him. Nobody wants to try to steal it. Until now. The me-toos are beginning. "Hey, my proposal is just like Trump's." You watch.
In fact, right here in The Daily Caller, headline: Scott Walker, "My Immigration Plan's 'Very Similar' to Donald Trump's." Scott Walker today "responded to Donald Trump's newly-released immigration position paper by saying the plan he is offering is 'very similar.' Asked on Fox and Friends if he gives Trump's plan a thumbs up, Walker said: 'I haven't looked at all the details of his, but the things I've heard are very similar to the things I mentioned.'"
The me-toos. The me-toos are now starting. Rather than people trying to steal it, people are gonna want to get in on it. It has the potential here to be a genuine movement, so transformative that the inside-the-Beltway people, even while studying it and looking straight at it, still stand a chance of being blindsided by it. That is how far off the beaten path on this issue they are. And then of course there are side effects to all this.
There are now internecine wars breaking out all over the Republican Party and within a smaller subset of that, all over the conservative movement. And now we've got various entities writing pieces on who is a real conservative and who isn't, what real conservatism is and what phony conservatism is, and who the real conservatives are and who the phony conservatives are. It's a crackup, is what's happening.
And what it's exposing in the opinion of many people is that the inside Beltway version of conservative media is almost identical to the inside Beltway version of Republican Party, i.e., fear of the left and saying and doing things in order to get the approval of leftist intellectuals and critics and so forth.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look at all of the arrows that are being thrown at Trump.
We've always known this. There has been a fear throughout the Republican Party. I don't mean just the presidential candidates here. There has been a fear of the media, what the media is gonna say. "Don't criticize Obama! They're gonna call you a racist. Don't object to anything Obama's doing! They're gonna call you a racist."
You know, I still have people asking me, "This Iran deal, is there anything to be done to Obama?" No, there's nothing that can be done. The Republican Party gave him his free ride; they said there's no impeachment; they took it off the table. There's no enforcement mechanism for anything Obama does that's extra-constitutional, in violation of the law or what have you. He's got his free ride here.
And the reason he's got it is because people are scared to death of being called racist or sexist or whatever. Okay, within that, here comes Trump. It may well be that a whole bunch of Republicans agree with Trump and have not had the... I don't want... I'm not questioning people's manhood here. I'm questioning political analysis. Maybe they just haven't had the courage to do it, but Trump did and they're probably sitting back and saying, "Yeah, look what's happening to him. They're trying to destroy him."
Yeah, but that's the lesson! What is Trump doing? With every insult that comes his way, with every bit of criticism, he doubles down and fires right back at the critics. This is, in one small part, exactly what Republican voters have been seeking, wanting to see. They've been thirsting for it. They don't understand why... When one party is trying to fundamentally transform this country and make it into something it is not founded to be, why is there no opposition to it?
They voted in mass numbers, landslide victories in 2010, 2014. They can't even get any criticism of the Democrats, much less any opposition policy! And Trump comes along and they're firing more than arrows at Trump. They're insulting him. It's predictable. everything that they can throw including the kitchen sink. But again the lesson is what Trump is doing with it. I told you from the... Look, I hate to do "See, I Told You So" kind of stuff.
But I remember the first week this all happened when he stepped in it on the first original Mexico insults: Rapists, muggers, purse snatchers are who the Mexicans are sending. And then the insult of John McCain. (paraphrased) "I prefer prisoners that don't get caught, or servicemen that don't get caught." And the conventional wisdom, "That's it! He stepped in it, now. He can't survive that," and Trump doubled down on it.
I said the American people haven't seen anything like this. It's a teachable moment here. Standing up for what you believe after you say it and doubling down on it is rewarding. All of this so-called political correctness has been a myth. Oh, it's there. But the fact that the American people on a majority basis buy into it has been a myth. So that's why the me-toos are now going to start springing up.
It's a validation of what common sense has always thought. Fight back against some of this stuff! You'll be rewarded. And not just for the sake of the fight. That's not what this is all about. The inside-the-Beltway people are even mischaracterizing this. The purpose of the fight is what it represents, the standing up for principles, the standing up for the American way of life, the standing up for the very way the country is founded.
Anybody that does that is gonna be rewarded in this particular climate. They're not gonna ask, "Is the guy a conservative?" or whatever. They're not gonna ask that. They'll deal with that later. This is not a purity beauty pageant. Besides, what good has rock-ribbed conservatism done? I mean, the inside-the-Beltway intellectual conservatives are off having dinner with Obama and talking about the crease in his slacks and talking about how smart he is. What the hell good is conservatism, if that's what it means?
What good is conservatism if what it means is shutting up, and being thought of as a mannered, cultured, polite person who just steers away from skirmishes? What good is conservatism if it doesn't stand up for what it believes in? Yeah, it's an intellectual pursuit, but in terms of really understanding it, it's not something for only the intellectual eggheads on our side to be able to comprehend, define, and implement.
Believe me, this is a question a lot of people have been asking: What good is conservatism if what it does is seek to compliment Obama's intellect and his speech making ability and his whatever else? What do we gain by doing that? "Well, uh, Mr. Limbaugh, what you must understand is the Republican Party brand has been terribly damaged partly because we're seen as barbarians, constantly attacking!
"We must show that we can govern and work together and compromise. See if we can't do this, we don't have a chance of attracting the independents and so forth." Yeah, you're sitting there and you're dying with this attitude, because you're not gonna gain anything. You think you're gonna siphon Democrat votes, independent votes by shutting up?
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