Trump’s Border Strategy Is Working Out Exactly As I Told You It Would

RUSH: It was in the third hour yesterday during the segment of the program taking phone calls. A very disturbed and irate caller named Vickie had been on hold for nearly the entire program. When I connected with her, she said, “I’m about to melt down. I’ve been waiting all day for you to mention this, and you haven’t mentioned it yet, and I don’t know what to do.”

She was talking about Trump canceling the ICE raids to deport all of the illegal immigrants that could be found. I spoke with her about it. I talked her off the ledge. I calmed her down. I gave her a theory. I told her that, “You’re right. I did mean to get into this in the first hour. I got sidetracked though with a recounting of a story that reminded me of something I’d seen on HBO that I’m for and I never got back to this story.” So I thanked her for calling me.

She was very, very alarmed that Trump had caved. And it led to a quite spirited discussion that contained two things on my part. One, I expressed a little shock and a moderate amount of anger over the fact that these raids were even announced. Why announce them?

Now, Trump had tweeted about them I think on the Friday before, but he had not specified when. He just said they were gonna happen. Then a leak hit in both the Washington Post, the Washington Times of the specific timing for the raids, which required them to be called off.

Now, after the program was over, a story ran at Townhall, a column by Matt Vespa. And it explores the possibility that the acting director of Homeland Security may have leaked the raids himself. A Trump cabinet official may have leaked the raid information in order to torpedo the raid so as to make himself look good with the Washington establishment and media. It’s not confirmed. It’s merely mentioned as a possibility.

“It was the operation that reportedly cost former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen her job. She was reluctant to go through with it. So, Trump got rid of her, part of the massive overhaul at DHS that occurred in April. To put it simply, we’re going to have a large-scale raid on illegals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s not cruel. It’s not immoral. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the law,” for crying out loud.

“You cannot come here illegally, no matter how sad your sob story is — we have a new sheriff in town.” Donald Trump. “It’s time for these folks to go. The president tweeted about the planned raids last week, but they were postponed. Why? Well, from sources at DHS, acting director Kevin McAleenan leaked the plan in order to torpedo the raid.

“Trump did mention the ICE raids, but The Washington Post got their hands on some key information that reportedly no one but a select few knew, according to Anna Giaritelli of The Washington Examiner. In fact, these five sources that spoke with her accused McAleenan of leaking the plan to the media in anticipation of the blowback that could follow.”

Meaning, this guy didn’t want the grief, he didn’t want the media grief, he didn’t want the Trump treatment. So he leaked this to torpedo it so that he wouldn’t get any personal media grief. Here is the story from the Washington Examiner, the pull quote.

“In a move he said was to placate Democrats, President Trump announced on Saturday that the nationwide immigration enforcement operation planned to start Sunday … was called off to give lawmakers two weeks to work on a plan –” Now, more on that in just a second ’cause that’s the real key here. I just want to cover this possibility.

“However, all five officials who,” knew about the raid, “spoke with the Washington Examiner confirmed McAleenan’s decision to go rogue and stymie the operation was what prompted the White House to call it off.” There were going to be raids in 10 cities, major blue Democrat cities: Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston (not so blue, but look out). The Washington Post first reported that on Friday.

The news is that Mr. McAleenan “leaked it so that he could ‘be the martyr’ in the face of anticipated blowback in the future. A third official claimed McAleenan ‘cares more about what liberals and Never Trumpers in Congress and the media think of him the achieving the express mission of his department.’”

This is not confirmed. It’s sourced to people unnamed and reported in the Washington Examiner. But it doesn’t surprise. I mean, there’s so much sabotage, has been so much sabotage, an unreasonable amount in the Trump administration, and the fact that the raids are gonna happen — and we all know what happened to Kirstjen Nielsen and the guy that replaced her can remember what happened to her, and he may not want the blowback. “I don’t want to look bad to the media and I don’t want to look bad to the Never Trumpers.” He wants to curry their favor so he sabotages Trump. That’s the story.

Now, the second part of this, when I was talking to the caller yesterday, she was livid that these raids had been called off. We didn’t know yesterday about the possibility that the raids had actually been leaked by the director of Homeland Security in order to sabotage them. That was unknown.

And what I told her was — just play the bite. Grab sound bite number 1. This is what I said to the caller in an attempt to explain to her what might be a reason for this.

RUSH: He’s giving them two weeks knowing they’re not gonna help so that when he does it, he can say he got no help, they didn’t want to join, they didn’t want to cooperate, they’ve done nothing but try to stop this. It’s positioning them on the completely opposite side of the issue from him as we head into the Democrat debates in the 2020 campaign.

RUSH: That’s my guess as to what this is. I don’t want to think it’s anything else. (crosstalk) I know where you’re coming from. This is Donald Trump. He campaigned on he’s gonna deport these people, he’s gonna fix the wall, he’s gonna fix the border, build the wall and all that stuff, he’s not gonna care. In fact, he was elected to not listen to these people. He was elected to go over their heads if he had to. It’s why he was made president. You want to see that kind of action. I totally understand that and agree with you. You have to give it time, a little bit more.

RUSH: So let’s now take what we know is a possibility and plug it into all this. The raids were gonna happen. They were scheduled to go, and then a rogue leak from somewhere, let’s just say at Homeland Security to the media, alerts everybody, and so they have to be canceled. That’s one possibility.

The other possibility is that we do know that Pelosi called Trump and said, “You can’t do this. You’re scaring the children. You’re scaring the children. You can’t do this.” And Trump said, “Okay.” He went out, “The Democrats don’t want to do this, so I’m gonna give ’em two weeks.” This is the real key to it now.

I told her that what this was was more than likely an attempt to give the Democrats a chance — we’re in the midst of a campaign season — give the Democrats a chance to come on board and work together to fix the problem that they are calling out. All of this time the Democrats refuse to acknowledge there’s a crisis at the border. Then all of a sudden when they get the pictures of squalid conditions in a couple of places they all of a sudden start talking about the crisis at the border and demanding that something be done about it.

And now they’re refusing to participate. And I told the caller that we’re in the midst of the 2020 reelection campaign, and this is an opportunity for Trump to demonstrate while the eyes of everybody in America are on this issue, it is an opportunity for Trump to demonstrate to one and all the Democrats don’t care, the Democrats are not interested in border security, the Democrats are not interested in solving the crisis in any way, shape, manner, or form.

He’s gonna give ’em two weeks to come on board. Pelosi’s out there saying, “We’re gonna have a bill, we’re gonna have a bill today.” Pelosi’s in big trouble. Audio sound bite number 2. We have a montage. This is amazing. I nailed it yesterday. The Democrats are holding up the funding of humanitarian aid at the border, and the Drive-By Media is blaming them for it.

JOHN BERMAN: (music) House Democrats at odds over implementing a strategy at the border.

NICK VALENCIA: (outdoor noise) Democrats really, right now at this point, haven’t shown that they’re willing to budge.

MIKE BARNICLE: (background noise) The Senate can send billions to Saudi Arabia and we can’t send diapers, toothpaste and toothbrushes and soap to children?

CHRIS HAYES: They need more money, they need more resources in the hands of ICE, and Democrats are standing in the way.

DANA BASH: The speaker is pleading with her membership: You’ve got to get on board with this!

POPPY HARLOW: What is above party? If anything is above party, are the way children are treated. We even saw the New York Times editorial board call out the Democrats —

JOHN AVLON: Blame could credibly be shifted to Democrats, saying, “Why aren’t you funding the money to make the situation better?”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: The president is constantly out there blaming the Democrats; they’re put in a position that they have to act at this point, too.

RUSH: So now we have the combination of two things. We have the ICE raids, which were going to happen and then were called off because of perhaps internal sabotage, combined with the president’s attempt while conducting the raids to also get some new funding to handle the squalid conditions.

The Democrats don’t want the ICE raids to happen at all, they don’t want any deportations, they don’t want the law upheld, and now they’re opposing and obstructing the funding for alleviating the source of the crisis at the border. And it’s so bad that even the media is calling them out, which is kind of making the point that I made yesterday, that Trump is attempting to isolate the Democrats and focus everybody on the fact that the problem here is them.

Whether he does ICE raids or not, the fact of the matter is the Democrat Party is trying to undermine that, go along with the sabotage of that, and not fund — ’cause they want the issue. They want the kids to continue suffering. They want the photos. They want the photos of squalid conditions.

Just like during the 1995 budget battle, they wanted the kids to be ought of as starving. They wanted to be able to blame the Republicans for it. They don’t want the issue to go away, particularly in an election year. They never want anything resolved, just like no bureaucracy ever does.

Solving a problem means you don’t need the bureaucracy anymore. Solving the problem means you don’t need the Democrats anymore. Solving the problem means you can’t blame Trump for it anymore. But apparently the pictures are so bad and the suffering of the children is so bad that not even the Drive-By Media wants to cover for the Democrats.

From The Politico: “Congress Flails After Trump’s Deportation Ultimatum — Lawmakers are stumbling in their efforts to address the border crisis,” the Democrats denied even existed just days ago. “before bolting for the holiday recess, dimming long-shot hopes that Congress can meet President Donald Trump’s two-week deadline to stave off his threatened mass deportations.”

I hate to say it, folks, but it’s working out exactly as I analyzed it would work out yesterday. Yesterday was a classic, prime illustration and example of you being on the cutting edge of political and societal evolution if you are a regular listener to this program.

“House Democratic leaders spent Monday night fighting off a last-minute liberal rebellion to tank their $4.5 billion emergency spending package, with progressive lawmakers demanding changes to the bill that complicate the [House]’s plans to deliver money to the border.”

And this, by the way, takes us right back to who? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I have think Pelosi’s about had her fill of this babe. I don’t know this, but human nature being what it is, Pelosi being the grand pooh-bah mama of all leaders, here comes this upstart little Millennial trying to run things, doesn’t know what she’s doing, Pelosi may have had it, may be close to the brink, may be close to the maximum absorption level. ‘Cause now it’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanding substantive changes in the bill that will guarantee Trump will veto it when all Pelosi wants is the money so the Democrats can get off the dime on this and not have this blamed on them.

From TheHill.com: “Pelosi, Democratic Leaders Seek to Quell Liberal Revolt Over Border Bill.” Folks, it’s even better than I thought it was gonna be yesterday when I told the irritated, angry caller Vickie to hang tough, that we’re in the midst of an election season, Trump is taking the occasion, the opportunity here to illustrate that the Democrats really don’t care about these people, don’t care about border security, don’t care about upholding existing immigration law.

“House Democratic leaders scrambled Monday night to rally support for their border funding bill amid a liberal outcry over the Trump administration’s treatment of migrant children. … Lawmakers leaving the meeting said they expected changes to the $4.5 billion package to ensure stricter standards for the facilities housing migrant children, which have been overcrowded with reportedly unsanitary conditions.

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in impassioned remarks, summarized the liberal opposition to the House legislation — unveiled just a day earlier by House Democratic leaders — emphasizing she wants to ensure migrant children aren’t detained in such conditions to begin with. ‘I’m not interested in … making sure that caged children are getting warmer burritos. I’m trying to make sure that they’re not getting caged in the first place,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. After nearly three hours, Ocasio-Cortez emerged from Pelosi’s office describing the discussions as ‘just a really delicate situation.’”

Which means that Pelosi probably told this babe to go someplace where the sun doesn’t shine.

RUSH: So Vickie in Austin, Texas, our caller yesterday that was very, very upset, are you feeling any better about this? Let me tell you what Trump has done. Let me put this in terms that everybody can understand. Are you ready?

The Democrats can promise $32 trillion in various New Green Deals, $32 trillion over 10 years, what have you. They can promise, as Crazy Bernie did, $1.9 trillion in student loan forgiveness, as Crazy Bernie did yesterday and as other Democrats will probably soon sign on to.

They can promise Medicare for all for $14 trillion. But they are refusing to fund $4.5 billion to fix what they call a humanitarian crisis on the border. This is where Donald Trump has positioned them to make it clear as a bell what they’re about when it comes to this immigration issue.

RUSH: I’m not quite finished with this situation between Trump and the Democrats on the funding of four and a half billion dollars to clean up a crisis the Democrats say is existing on the border! And again, I cannot stress enough that this has been a fairly brilliant maneuver on Trump’s part brought about probably by an attempt to sabotage the ICE raids.

He had to call ’em off after they leaked. Pelosi then calls Trump supposedly (imitating Pelosi), “You can’t do this. You’re making children cry. You’re scaring the children, and it’s horrible. What you’re doing is worse than that show Big Little Lies on climate change. You’re scaring the children!”

So Trump says, “Okay. I’ll give you guys two weeks, two weeks to come on board so we don’t have to do this. Two weeks.” Knowing that Congress is leaving in one week on the Fourth of July recess. And in the midst of this is a four and a half billion-dollar funding bill to clean up so-called squalid conditions. The Democrats are not supporting it.

The young Turk Democrats want to sabotage the bill by adding to it rather than just authorizing the money, appropriating the money for it. That’d be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So here’s Pelosi in Washington on Capitol Hill today. She was leaving a building, she’d been to a building doing something. Don’t know what building, don’t know what was in the building, but Pelosi was there at the building.

Then as she was leaving the building, she was getting into a waiting limousine and she spoke to reporters about the border supplemental bill, the four and a half billion dollars they don’t think we’ve got the money for. They’ve got $32 trillion for Green New Deals, they’ve got $14 trillion for Medicare for all, they got $1.9 trillion they proposed to retire all student loans, but four and a half billion dollars to the suffering of the children at the border? They’re not coming up with the money. So two women reporters are asking Pelosi about status of that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER 1: (outdoor noise) Will you be voting on the border supplemental today?

RUSH: Don’t know if you heard all that. “Do you think it will pass?” Yes. “What was your message to the caucus?” “It will pass when we bring it to the floor.” So Pelosi is assuring the Drive-Bys here that she’s still running the show and that if it comes to the floor, it’s gonna pass.

Well, now, that’s the standard, ordinary rule of the day anyway. You don’t take anything to the floor if you’re not sure it’s gonna pass. So Pelosi saying it’ll pass when we bring it to the floor, it doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen today. She’s not gonna take it to the floor ’til she knows she’s got the votes. And she’s gotta somehow solve the contretemps between herself and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some of the other Young Turks.

Let’s continue with the media on this. Here’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America today talking with their senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce about the Democrats holding up the money to fund ICE detention facilities.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This border funding is being held up by some Democrats who are concerned that if they approve the funding, they’re gonna be approving the president’s border policies they oppose.

BRUCE: Everyone here on the Hill agrees that this emergency funding is needed, but Democrats are divided because many of them are concerned that the president may use that funding to go ahead and fund tactics that they simply don’t agree with to further fund his crackdown on immigration.

RUSH: A-ha! So you see, the Democrats think that Trump is trying to pull a fast one on ’em. They don’t want to authorize the money ’cause they don’t want to make it look like they support Trump running the raids. Pelosi’s gotta balance it all out: What’s best for her presidential candidates and what’s best for her holding onto the House.

And when you’ve got four and a half billion dollars earmarked for the children, and you’re holding it up for whatever reason, I guarantee you it’s gonna be her calculation. CNN New Day Co-Host Alisyn Camerota talking to Representative Karen Bass, Democrat, California, about Democrats not passing the money to shore up the detention facility.

CAMEROTA: It’s not like the Democrats have solved this problem. In fact, there are reports that last night, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, had this three hour sort of contentious meeting. It was described as very tense with high decibel levels of people, you know, yelling at each other or whatever exchanging ideas. So what is making it — why is it so hard for Democrats to figure out what to do right now?

BASS: I know that my colleagues are struggling over, you know, money for the border wall, money for security, when the primary resources need to be targeted to humanitarian needs.

RUSH: What’s the difference? “My colleagues are struggling over, you know, money for the border wall, money for security when the primary resources need to be targeted to humanitarian needs.” Four and a half billion dollars is not gonna build a wall. Four and a half billion dollars is for these detention facilities.

Again, I just want to make sure you get this. The Democrats have promised to spend $32 trillion on the New Green Deal, $1.9 trillion on student loan debt forgiveness, $14 trillion Medicare for all, but they’re refusing to fund four and a half billion dollars to fix what they themselves are calling a crisis on the border, humanitarian crisis, because they’re afraid that Trump might take some of it and use it to deport people (gasping) and they don’t want to have any part in that. Alisyn Camerota, after hearing this answer from Karen Bass said, “I don’t like that answer.”

CAMEROTA: I’m sorry to interrupt. I understand that he’s not solving to the problem at the root and a lot of people believe that they should, but it does sound like Democrats, why squabble over money? Why are you all still squabbling over money when the kids need the soap today? I mean, why was that meeting, among only Democrats, so contentious?

BASS: Look. They don’t want to give the Trump administration money that then they will allocate in some other direction. And I know that they’re fighting to make sure that the money goes toward the children.

RUSH: Right. So this is the story the Democrats to want tell. “Oh, we’re all for the money going to the children. We think Trump is gonna take it away from the children. We think Trump is gonna use it for other directions, like he’s gonna use it to defund other things or to pay for the raids and they want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

And Pelosi knows that’s not a win-win because now they’re in the area of making it hard to understand. See, this is a great position because it’s very easy to understand. Four and a half billion dollars to eliminate the suffering of children. Democrats say no. That’s all anybody will hear. Pelosi knows it.

She knows people are not gonna hear, “But wait, we’re worried that Trump might take some of the money and conduct ICE raids.” It’s not gonna get that far, especially not with a Democrat base the way they have conditioned their base to react to such things.

RUSH: Here’s Mary, Lebanon, Ohio, as we hit the phones. Great to have you, Mary. How are you doing?

CALLER: Hello from Trump country in Lebanon. (chuckles) My question for you is, several weeks or maybe couple months ago, President Trump said that he would be sending these illegals to sanctuary cities, and there was a huge uproar from the people — you know, the governments — in those cities. And they were like, “No, we don’t want them! We can’t handle them.” So now that the Democrats are refusing to provide money for this huge humanitarian crisis and refusing to help these children that they claim to care so much about, I wondered if it would be within the law for the president to send these families with children to the sanctuary states and cities anyway, and let the individual states and cities deal with this rather than the border states.

RUSH: Well, I would be in favor of something like that. When Trump announced that he was gonna do it, I was all in favor of it. And the reaction from the Democrats (as you pointed out) who run these sanctuary cities, these mayors, was priceless. (impression) “You can’t do that! We don’t want these people!” They don’t at all want to have to actually defend what they’re doing. They’ll use this as a taunting factor. (impression) “Yeah, we’re a sanctuary city! What are you gonna do about it, Trump?” But when faced with more of them they don’t really want them.

Keep in mind we’re in an election season. Everything… You’ve gotta look at this through the prism of 2020 presidential politics now.

RUSH: Let me go back and wrap up our previous caller. Her idea was that, why spend all this money on cleaning up circumstances at these refugee centers, which I’m sure many think these people are not refugees. What are we having detention centers for? Just send them back. Just send them back. What is this? But that’s not what we’re doing.

So her idea, send them to the sanctuary cities. Rather than spend four and a half billion dollars, which the Democrats don’t want to authorize anyway, send them to sanctuary cities. Send these kids there. The sanctuary city people, these mayors of these towns and these governors of these states love it. They extol the virtues of sanctuary cities. Except when Trump threatened to send some there, then they rose up in righteous indignation.

Why? Are they not telling us the truth about how much they love illegal immigrants and they want them to settle in their cities in these sanctuary areas? So Trump offers to send more in, and they say, “You can’t do that! That’s against the law. You can’t send people –” so it’s another thing.

When the Democrats love the issue, they love to have the issue to pummel people. When it comes to actually doing things, when everybody’s looking, they don’t want to have any part of it whatsoever.

RUSH: Upper Michigan. That is Barb. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I love your show, and I love President Trump. My point is, remember all his campaigning — and he still says — Mexico’s gonna pay for the wall?

CALLER: And everybody thought that was crazy. But with what Mexico is doing with sending troops to their northern border, their southern border, deporting people, I really think that his promise… That was one of his promises, and I think it’s coming true. I just wondered what you thought.

RUSH: Well, I think that Trump will be able to make the case through trade deals, tariffs, any number of things, that Mexico has essentially paid for the wall. It depends on how much political gain there is in saying so. Mexico is finally adhering. Mexico, especially on the southern border, is simply behaving like they have been committing to behave for decades. Well, maybe two decades, 20 years. They’ve been letting their southern border slide, and nobody was pressuring them on it.

Both political parties in America didn’t mind open borders. The more the merrier! The Democrats for voter registration; Republicans, ostensibly, for cheap labor. So Trump is the game-changer here now, and the reason the Mexicans are doing what they’re doing on their southern border? It only took a couple of days after threatening to slap a bunch of tariffs on ’em, and look what happened. They started adhering to law that was already on the books. This entire situation that we are in with illegal immigration could be rectified with the simple enforcement of existing law, which is what the ICE raids are going to be.

There’s simply… There’s nothing new about them. There’s nothing Draconian; there’s nothing outrageous. There’s simple the enforcement of existing law. We haven’t done it for so long is why it looks inhumane and mean to people, but it’s existing law! There is so much law in this country, that if we would just enforce a lot of it that we don’t, we wouldn’t need any new laws of any substance or consequence, is what I’m trying to say. But we don’t enforce a lot of them. So he’ll be able to say that Mexico’s paid for it one way or the other. Whether or not he’s gonna want to say that in a taunting way? That’s yet to be decided.

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