RUSH: "Hi. Welcome back, folks. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, and we are right here with you on Christmas Eve, all three busy broadcast hours, one of them already in the can. And it’s a thrill to be here with you, a fun day." Telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

"A couple of people who are not Washington insiders have written an op-ed in the USA Today today. It prints out to four pages, and their basic point is that Trump is only gonna get this wall built if he does it using executive power, that the Congress is never gonna agree to it particularly when the Democrats come back and take control of the House. It isn’t gonna happen. They’re never gonna come to an agreement. They’re never gonna give Trump what he wants.

The last thing in the world they’re gonna do is give Trump what he wants while they’re in the middle of trying to bust up Trump’s base — and that is probably true. Now, I think there would be a way to do it, but it would require shifting public blame for this in a majority sense or basis to the Democrats, who deserve it! They’re the ones unwilling to capitulate and agree to border security. It’s no more complicated than that. They’re unwilling to participate in anything involving border security.

Not just a wall. They’re unwilling to appropriate any money whatsoever for border security.

So you heard Trump float the idea that he could get money from the defense budget or elsewhere in the federal budget that the executive branch controls and build it that way.

And you’ve heard chuck schumer and other Democrats say, “He can’t do that! He can’t spend money we have not earmarked. He can’t spend money we have not appropriated.” It simply isn’t true.

There are all kinds of departments and bureaucracies and areas of the executive branch with unspent money, and Trump can go get whatever he needs from any of those different departments and allocate it, and he can get started building the wall, and he can do it constitutionally on the premise that he is engaging in an act of national security! He is the executive. He does not have "some of the executive power"; he has all of it!

It’s on that basis that if he really wanted to fire Mueller, he could! If he wanted to fire anybody at the Department of Justice, he could. He can fire anybody. He is the only source of power. It is not divided. There isn’t a committee. There’s not a board of directors. He is the executive, and, as such, he alone has the full power of the executive branch. And as long as he is executing those powers under the terms of the Constitution, there is nothing anybody can do to him! The price he pays for any blunders in this area is at the ballot box. The price any president pays is political.

If using his executive power angers many people in the country to vote against him and his party, that’s the price he pays for doing it! But it is not impeachable to act on behalf of national security according to the Constitution, which he is singularly allowed to do. And he believes that open borders are resulting in the infiltration of the country of all kinds of undesirables — including terrorists and gangs and whatever — then he is perfectly within his rights to go get money already allocated to the executive branch and build the wall.

So you question: Why doesn’t he do it? Well, there are any number of answers to this. One of the answers is that not everybody on his team is for him. Not everybody on his team is for a wall. Not everybody on his team believes in his ideas. By “his team,” I mean the administration, in the West Wing. As we all know, there are people there who — to one degree or another since Trump was inaugurated — have attempted to undermine via leaks and sabotage. It’s been one of the curious aspects to me, Trump’s staffing choices.

But, remember, to fill positions in Washington in an administration, executive branch, the odds are you’re gonna get some people from Washington. Everybody in that town is a devotee to one degree or another of the swamp. Trump has not brought in a bunch of full-fledged outsiders. He’s got some people that are careerist Washingtonians, career government types. And I’m sure that he has chosen people he thinks can help him navigate the waters — he being an outsider — on the belief that they are on his team.

But I have no doubt, for example, that there are people on his staff… You know, the Drive-Bys are trying to tell you that I changed his mind on signing this continuing resolution. The real truth is that there are people in his administration trying to get him to sign this thing with no deal for him. There are people on his team that are telling him (because it’s the way they think) that getting a deal with Congress is the best thing you can do.

You know it as well as I do that many measures of success, when it comes to president and Congress — individual senators and congressmen and members of the House — is, “How much legislation did they pass? How many bills have their names on them?” This is just the way the town works.

It’s one of the many reasons Trump was elected to blow it up, that it works this way.

It’s so big, Trump doesn’t know them all. He can’t possibly know everybody. Now, in his immediate circle, yeah. But you should take a tour. You can’t, but you should take a tour through the West Wing. You would not believe. I don’t know what you think the West Wing is, which is where the Oval Office is and all the executive offices. They can’t put 5% of the people that work in the administration in the West Wing.

Across the street is the Old Executive Office Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and that’s not even big enough to house ’em all. I mean, they’re everywhere. And they’re all working through their superiors — and everybody has superiors — to try to influence the outcome of the administration. Some try to protect Trump from himself, they think. Some try to advocate and help him.

But they’re all people who believe that the route to success is this old crossing the aisle, shaking hands, showing Washington works, compromise, process. How many media people went bananas last week — we played the sound bites for you — when Trump announced that he was not gonna sign this thing, the CR, and that there was gonna be a shutdown? Remember A.B. Stoddard? She went ballistic on Fox News, on you Bret Baier’s show. She was beside herself! She could barely speak because the president had rejected what? "Process and compromise".

Now, you and I both know that process and compromise in Washington equals Republicans caving and getting nothing and Democrats getting what they want. And that’s what it is, and that’s what A.B. Stoddard was upset about. (impression) “Trump should realize he’s got the losing position here. That would be immature thing to do.

“Trump should realize he’s got nowhere to go on this, that he lost the House. Trump should realize it! He should take what he should get, can get, and be thankful for it.” And when Trump didn’t do that — when he said, “Hell, no, not signing this thing. Government shutdown” — and then starts trying to lay blame on the Democrats, they go apoplectic on the basis that Trump has rejected the way Washington works: "Compromise and process".

Well, there are people advising Trump to do just what people like A.B. Stoddard wanted him to do. “Take a deal, Mr. President! Take $1.6 billion, take $2 billion and get as much as you can.” But this is how we show people we are governing. This is how we show people that we’re cooperating.

Well, that’s not what Trump was elected to do. Trump was elected precisely to overwhelm and overcome this process because we always end up on the short end of the stick on it.

We have been fed up for years and years working under these concepts of process and compromise where we always end up losing and our politicians that cave into it are then praised to the hilt as mature. “They’re growing in office!” But we always end up losing somehow — legislatively or otherwise — to the Democrats.

Well, Trump has totally eschewed process and compromise now. And his position is that until the Democrats are forthcoming with the amount of money he wants for border security, the government is gonna remain shut down. And so it is! **** YE-HAA! ****

So now there are people who are thinking that this compromise is never gonna happen, meaning the Democrats are never, ever, particularly with control of the House only the January 3rd away, they’re never gonna cave. They don’t think Trump has any leverage and they think they have it all.

And they think if they can humiliate Trump that they might be able to cause some of you in Trump’s base to get frustrated, throw your hands up and give up and fade away and realize that you can’t beat the swamp and never, ever again vote for somebody like Trump who says that that’s what he’s going to do. That’s what they have at stake. And they’re so close to it in their minds that they can taste it.

Now, the Donald Trump of the campaign, what do you think he’d be doing right now? I tell you what I think he’d be doing. I think he would already have amassed a pile of money, unused, from other areas of the executive branch and the various budgets. And I think that he would have already started on the process of building the wall and that Congress would be going nuts like they are now, like they do anyway. The Democrats would be going absolutely bonkers, and the media would be going absolutely bonkers.

I saw that Dinesh D’Souza had a tweet where he thinks Trump ought to deliver a major address to the nation on the importance of immigration policy and trade policy, the importance of both those to national security and prosperity.

I like the idea of a national address. I don’t know the networks would give him the time, though, if he requested it. You know, they don’t have to. But a national address that’s written and promptered could explain what’s going on and why. Doing it during the break between Christmas and New Year’s might not get the largest audience.

We also had the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was on I think Fox News over the weekend, one of the Sunday shows, and he said that Trump is willing to accept less money to build the wall. He said the new offer is between Trump’s $5.7 billion request and the $1.3 billion the Democrats are offering. Mulvaney said he’s waiting to hear back from Schumer, but he hasn’t heard anything.

Dick Turban said that all we need is technology along the border like drones instead of some medieval wall. This is such caca. You will find walls around every important business or every important wealthy person’s estate, because they do work. This is absurd. This is just distracting.

This has now become — the Democrats, there are two things involved.

#1 Trump doesn’t get a win.

#2 and there isn’t gonna be anything done that would interrupt the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States because the Democrat Party wants them. The Democrat Party needs the illegal immigrants and they’re not gonna agree to anything. So there isn’t gonna be an agreement here.

There’s going to be a showdown of power, executive branch power versus congressional power. And there are many people who think the president has the executive power to start building this wall with money that’s already been allocated in budgets that exist in the executive branch and he can and he does. There will be hell to pay.

I mean, if you think this is bad, the minute a wall’s construction has actually begun with money that chuck schumer and his gang don’t think they participated in allocating or appropriate, they go nuts and they start shouting and yelling “impeachment.” But the fact of the matter is — and the Washington swamp would be too.

And I’m sure that there are people in the administration they do not want anything like that to happen, that they think the only way out of this is a negotiated settlement where nobody gets exactly what they want from both sides, just the usual way that these kinds of things end up being settled.

Does anybody remember, for example, how the 1995 budget deal was solved? Or any other government shutdown. Do any of you remember what happened to end them? I will wager you don’t. I will wager there’s not a one of you that remembers what happened to end any of those shutdowns. You’d have to go look it up. You’d have to Google it. You’d have to Wikipedia it. You’d have to do something to find out.

How did the shutdown 11 months ago, the schumer shutdown over DACA, three day shutdown over DACA, how did that end? Do you remember? My point is nobody ever remembers these things anyway. They don’t remember how they end. This is time to take a stand on a premise that has existed since the Trump campaign. And it is border security. If you want to throw the wall in, go ahead and throw the wall in.

But I think it’s time to take a shot at breaking these people on this right now. I think it’s time to illustrate that the Democrats are acting like a bunch of spoiled brat little kids when it comes to an issue of national security and prosperity and the rule of law. Don’t forget here we’re talking about illegal immigration.

The message should continue to be it is the Democrats who do not want to fix this! It’s the Democrats who are saying “no”! It’s the Democrats who are the obstacle to border security or to reopening the government or whatever. It’s the Democrats who want no part of it. It’s the Democrats who are stopping things. It’s the Democrats who won’t cooperate. It’s the Democrats who won’t across the aisle. It’s the Democrats who won’t compromise.

All of this is true. All of this needs to be part of the messaging. It is the Democrats who are not interested in securing the southern border. It’s the Democrats who are acting like children. It’s the Democrats who are acting like spoiled brats. That is what needs to be illustrated and with every Republican signing on to this, that objective can be reached. It requires full-fledged support for the president and the premise which every Republican should sign on to.

I know people are quoting polling data, “42% of the American people don’t want a wall.” You’re gonna get polling data that backs up the Democrat during every controversial issue there is. You’re gonna get polling data that shows Republicans are in the minority on everything. Ignore it!

It’s the Democrats willing to damage the country rather than support the president. It’s the Democrats willing to put the country in great peril because they are refusing to shore up the border. It needs to be demonstrated. And to me this is a golden opportunity. Everything we want to do, everything we want to teach people about the Democrats and illustrate is right here on the table, and it’s already happening. We just need to be pointing it out each and every day!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So I checked the email during the break, and people are asking, “Rush, are you sure that Trump can go get unspent federal dollars somewhere and allocate it to whatever he wants? I don’t know. I’ve heard people saying that that’s not constitutional.”

Let me ask you all a question: Where did muslum barrry hussein obuma get his $150 billion, much of it in cash, to drop on the tarmac at Tehran International Airport in the midst of the Iran deal negotiations?

Where did that $150 billion come from? Did obuma call his buddies at the Fed and say, “We need you to print me some money”? Did obuma go to various federal agencies? Did he go to the defense budget or did he go to a bunch of different places and get the money? Where did he get cash? Where do you get that much cash? I think it was $8 billion in cash. It may be $8 million, I forget. But it was a hell of a lot. Where did obuma get it? And you’ll notice that nobody in Congress raised a stink about it.

Nobody in Congress said, “Mr. President, you can’t do that. We didn’t authorize it. We didn’t appropriate it,” and even if somebody in Congress would have said that, obuma would have said (impression), “I can do it ’cause you can’t stop me and I know you won’t and I have the media on my side,” and it would have not changed. What did we do when obuma said that? Well, we shouted from the rooftops and we tried to tell everybody that this stunk and that obuma was lying to us about the deal. He gave $150 billion to the mullahs.

Now, it was also part of a prisoner release. So some were saying that part of that money was a ransom payment.

The point is that Donald Trump can certainly go find federal money and start building the wall. I’m just telling you that he’s probably got a lot of people in his own administration — and I don’t doubt his lawyers are telling him not to do it, either. I think, in fact, if I may be so bold — and this may not be bold now. I think other people have probably pointed it out. But in the early days of the Mueller investigation, Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel…

The White House counsel. Not personal lawyers, but the White House Office of Legal Counsel, presidential lawyer, presidential adviser and so forth. I will bet you a dollar to a doughnut that almost all if not all, of those lawyers were telling Trump to not criticize Mueller, “Don’t be public. We’ll try to negotiate a deal. We’ll show we’re willing to compromise,” because they’re all Washington people. They’re all… Their clients come and go, and presidents come and go.

But people that live in that town are gonna be there long after presidents come and go, and so their loyalties really are to a system. Their loyalties really are to a set of circumstances that exist in the establishment inside the Beltway. So that even Trump’s lawyers that he hired that ostensibly are there to advise him on how to prevail in things probably were preaching compromise.

They probably were preaching the standard things that lawyers tell clients, “Don’t criticize the prosecutor! “Don’t make ’em any angrier at you than they already are,” which I thought would be irrelevant. They’re gonna be angry at Trump as long as he’s alive. But the point is, he didn’t have a whole bunch of Donald Trumps around him. He’s had people around him trying to rein him in. And I’m — don’t doubt that some of them have been acting on what they think are his best interests. I mean, if you live and work in that town and if the coin of the realm in that town is compromise and process… Here. Just to repeat this, grab sound bite No. 23. This A.B. Stoddard. I referenced this earlier. You may not have heard this last week. It was last Thursday the Fox News Channel. This was after Trump vetoed the budget and began the shutdown. Listen to this meltdown…

STODDARD: The nation’s fourth graders know this is no way to run a lemonade stand. This is completely irresponsible. The markets are rattling on the prospect of a shutdown. The president time and again is contemptuous of process and of compromise. He doesn’t have 60 votes. He must compromise. He was all for a DACA deal. He refused to take it. He took four positions on the Goodlatte bill.

BAIER: I get it. I get it.

STODDARD: He refuses to do the hard work.

BAIER: If he listens to the Mark Meadows and the Jim Jordans and the other people on the House floor —

STODDARD: They don’t know what they’re talking about! This is political malpractice. They’re wrong!

RUSH: (impression) “They don’t know what the president… The — the — the congressional caucus there, the Freedom Caucus, they don’t know what they’re talking about! Anybody urging Trump to do anything than compromise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. He doesn’t have 60 votes. That means he’s got to compromise.” He doesn’t even… They don’t even need 60 votes for this! If Mitch McConnell really wanted to act like the guy running the Senate and wanted to make the rules, they don’t even need 60 votes for this!

You and I know this! But that’s not how the town thinks. The town thinks, “We got these rules, and they’re sacrosanct, and we dare not touch them.” But the Democrats always do. Sometimes it comes back to bite ’em, but the Democrats will do whatever they have to do whenever to win. We could fix this. Mitch McConnell could fix this so he doesn’t need 60 votes. Now, it’s not just as simple as me saying it. There’s a process, and it would require taking a lot of hits in the media.

It would require taking a lot of incoming fire that they’re not used to talking about, not to degree that they were on this. But you hear her. “Political malpractice. The markets are reacting to this. The president time and time again is contemptuous of process and compromise.” My point to you is that I think a large number of people called his advisers (who surround him) believe exactly that. And I think his first team of lawyers did via Mueller. Maybe even the current crop of lawyers believes that way.

“Process and compromise. It’s the coin of the realm. It’s the way it works here.” Well, that being the case, it’s one of the reasons why our side always ends up coming up short, which is why Trump was elected to kind of blow all of that up, which he is in the process of doing every which number of ways. And it is causing the predictable meltdown reaction. Nobody should shy away from it because of the reaction.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I need to make a correction, folks. The Iranian deal was not $150 billion. It was $1.7 billion. It came out of something called the judgment fund. There’s some aspect of this Iran deal, my memory is, that’s 150-something. And I misspoke when I said $150 billion. It’s $1.7 billion was the entire deal that Obama arranged to pay Iran in the middle of the negotiations on the Iranian deal.

But then there were those pallets of cash that were delivered to the tarmac at Tehran international spaceport. And I’m gonna have to track down that 150. I know that there was a cash element here, and for some reason this figure of 150 is being bandied about inside my deep, dark crevices of my fertile cranium, little gray cells.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This whole Iran deal now has got me bugabooed here because I’ve used some figures here that I thought I knew were right. But I’ve been having people say, “No, no, no. It was this and it was that.” Everybody’s trying to be helpful. So I did a little search here in the top of the hour. I found a Breitbart story. The date of this story is not specified but it was a fact-check story, and the headline: “Yes, the Nuclear Deal Hands $150 billion Over to Iran —

“During the opening statements on Sunday night’s presidential debate … Donald Trump described the Iran nuclear deal as a ‘one-sided transaction’ that would result in $150 billion returning to the coffers of … Iran.” So I’ve had that number going about my head, and I’ve used it. “No, Rush, it was $1.7 billion, and that was cash, and that was dropped on the tarmac. It came from the judgment fund, and it was part of a ransom payment for hostages and also part of the Iran deal.” Then another friend said, “No, the cash element, Rush, was $400 million.”

Well, that figure rang a bell, too! I said, “Okay, that makes sense.” So I finally said, “I need to go check this,” and the fact check says it’s mostly true on the premise that the nuclear deal hands $150 billion over to Iran, and much of that is from the unfreezing of Iranian assets that was part of the Iran deal. Lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing assets. I do remember that there’s something to that, ’cause I remember that there were so many American corporate entities that were in favor of it, in favor of the Iran deal.

I said, “Why in the world…? What possibly could explain this?” I said, “There has to be a reason,” and I looked and I found one explanation for it, and it was Boeing! Boeing was looking forward to Iranian sanctions being lifted because the Iranian national airline fleet was practically falling apart because of these sanctions. They hadn’t been able to import or pay for any modernized jets for airliner travel. The lifting of the sanctions would permit it! The Iranians were on the way to signing a contract with Boeing for $60 million, I think.

No, it’d be much more than that. I mean, that’s one plane. But it was a deal for Boeing to participate and compete against Airbus for purchases by Iran of modernized jet aircraft. The point is none of that could have happened unless Iran ended up being flush with money, and one of the ways it happened was the lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing of assets, and all of it totaled a $150 billion benefit — give or take a few billion. Now, the amount of money on the pallets was $1.7 billion.

It was cash. That’s a lot of cash. (chuckling) I don’t know where you go get that. There isn’t… I wonder how much cash there is in circulation the country at any one time. I mean, it is regulated, the amount of actual hard, cold cash that’s in circulation. It would shock you how little it is. Well, maybe it wouldn’t shock you, but it would shock you how little it is compared to the total gross national product, gross domestic product. The amount of cash in that is actually chump change because there’s so much credit and credit card usage."

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 28, 2018 at 5:15pm: President Trump Escalates Border Fight.

If the border can't be secured...

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The president commented on the ongoing funding stalemate as the partial government shutdown continued into the seventh day.

Trump added that he was willing to freeze economic activity between the Southern border and even end trade with Mexico.

"If the border cannot be secured with a wall, it should be shut down!"

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 27, 2018 at 8:46pm: Trump Making Huge Gains With This Group.

12/27/18

Other surveys also found roughly one-third of mexicanos supporting the GOP. Data from the Pew Research Center and from exit polls suggest that a comparable share, about three in 10 mexican voters, supported Trump in 2016. That tracks the share of mexicans supporting Republicans for the last decade.

The VoteCast data shows that, like white voters, mexicans are split by gender — 61% of men voted Democratic in November, while 69% of women did. And while Republican-leaning mexicans can be found everywhere in the country, two groups stand out as especially likely to back the GOP — evangelicals and veterans.

The fact that mexicans that are evangelical and/or veterans seriously lean towards Trump shows that these Americans identify with shared values over ethnic affiliations, which throws a wrench in Democrat plans for a blue wave.

President Trump is drawing a significant part of his support from mexicans – almost 1/3 of them. Fox News reports:

There is a larger bloc of reliable Republican mexicanos than many think, as the GOP’s position among mexicans in America has not weakened during the Trump administration — this, despite presidential rhetoric against immigrants and the party’s shift to the right on immigration.

In November’s elections, 32% of mexicanos voted for Republicans, according to AP VoteCast data. The survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters — including 7,738 mexican voters — was conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 27, 2018 at 8:33pm: Sarah Sanders Shares Video Of Troops Cheering Trump!

12/26/18 | Politics

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders shared a video of American troops cheering and chanting for President Trump during a surprise visit to U.S. soldier in Iraq during Christmas.

In the video, a large hangar full of U.S. troops can be seen cheering wildly as the president took the stage and breaking into a chant of “USA! USA! USA!” The president was joined by Melania onstage. The president went on to address the troops and thank them for their sacrifice and service. The late Christmas evening trip was a surprise to most everyone. Many in the media had criticized Trump for not making a trip to see the troops over the holidays.

https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1078033941779513344/pu/img...

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Sanders also shared a story about a young man who had rejoined the military because of President Donald Trump becoming commander-in-chief. (RELATED: Sarah Sanders Shares Touching Story About Trump’s Trip To...

“Powerful moment,” Sanders tweeted, ‘Member of United States Army told the President he came back into the military because of him.” Trump replied, “And I am here because of you!” according to Sanders.

The trip marked Trump’s first time visiting a war zone as President.

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 27, 2018 at 8:18pm: Trump, first lady in Iraq for surprise visit with troops!

12/16/18 By Travis Fedschun, Frank Miles | Fox News

Trump, visiting troops in Iraq, defends Syria pullout plan. https://media2.foxnews.com/BrightCove/694940094001/2018/12/26/69494...

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump appeared in Iraq on Wednesday for a surprise visit with troops and senior military leadership at Al Asad Air Base. There, he said it's because of U.S. military gains against the Islamic State terror group that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria.

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump appeared in Iraq on Wednesday for a surprise visit with troops and senior military leadership at Al Asad Air Base. There, he said it's because of U.S. military gains against the Islamic State terror group that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria.

"We're no longer the suckers, folks," Trump told service members at the base, which is situated in western Iraq. "We're respected again as a nation."

During his first visit to the troubled region, Trump also said he has "no plans at all" to remove any of the 5,000 U.S. troops from that country.

Trump's visit — which is also his first to a combat zone as commander in chief — comes on the heels of his announcement about pulling troops out of Syria, and the rumored removal of thousands of troops in Afghanistan.

President Trump and the first lady during a hangar rally at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Wednesday.

Trump said the U.S. mission in Syria was to strip the Islamic State (ISIS) of its military strongholds — not to be a nation builder. He said that's a job that should be shouldered by other rich nations — reiterating his America First policies and an ideology that challenges America's roles as global cop.

"I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds," Trump told troop Al Asad Air Base. west of Baghdad.

The president said the U.S. presence in Syria was never to be "open-ended," and that Turkey has agreed to eliminate ISIS remnants.



The first couple, greeting military personnel at the dining facility during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base.

Trump made the 11-hour flight on a darkened Air Force One with lights off and window shades drawn, accompanied by a jet escort.

The president was joined at the air base by National Security Adviser John Bolton for meetings with political and military leaders. No other top officials or members of Congress were along.

The president spent around three hours on the ground with the first lady.

"President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish them a Merry Christmas," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted.

The president called it "pretty sad" that after all the U.S. has spent in the Middle East, his trip still had to be a surprise for safety's sake.

Trump's surprise visit to the region came a week after he declared ISIS had been “defeated” in Syria in a tweet and ordered all American diplomats and soldiers out of the country.

The U.S. first deployed troops to Syria in 2015 during the obuma administration as part of a partnership with Kurdish-led forces against ISIS. A year before the deployment, U.S. airstrikes also began in Syria.

The president on his visit to Iraq, attired for the occasion.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who did not travel with Trump and was working in his Pentagon office on Wednesday, signed orders on Sunday to pull all American troops out of Syria in the coming weeks, a senior defense official told Fox News. Pentagon officials at the time refused to discuss specifics, including the timeline, citing operational security for the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria.

The president told reporters traveling with him that he wants to get U.S. soldiers home from Syria and that Iraq can still be used as a base to stage attacks on Islamic State militants if needed, according to the Associated Press. Trump added that if needed, the U.S. can attack ISIS "so fast and so hard" that they "won't know what the hell happened!"

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Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!

“If we see something happening with ISIS that we don’t like, we can hit them so fast and so hard they really won’t know what the hell happened,” Trump added about the militant group that he has said is defeated, as Bloomberg News reported. “We’ve knocked them silly.”

"I think a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. It's time for us to start using our head," he told reporters. Trump said security concerns forced him to scrap an earlier trip to visit U.S troops in the Middle East. Last month, Trump, who begins his third year in office next month, hinted he soon would visit troops deployed in a war zone.

President Donald Trump visits with members of the military at a dining hall at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018.

In an exclusive interview on "Fox News Sunday," Trump was asked by host Chris Wallace why he hadn't visited the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in the two years he's served as commander in chief.

"Well, I think you will see that happen," the president said after Wallace noted that Obama and former President George W. Bush had each visited soldiers in war zones. "There are things that are being planned. We don’t want to talk about it because of — obviously because of security reasons and everything else."

The president previously drew criticism for his decision not to visit Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day, following his trip to Europe. He said later he "should have" visited the cemetery but was too busy with official business.

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 27, 2018 at 7:43pm: CONFIRMED: The Government CAN Build The Wall With Brian Kolfage’s GoFundMe Money.

12/26/18 By Jonathon Moseley

A total of $17,313,633 had been donated by 284,843 individuals in just 9 days as of late afternoon December 26, to fund part of the border wall. The campaign is a GoFundMe appeal started by U.S. Air Force veteran and triple-amputee Brian Kolfage. His campaign has more information at www.WeFundTheWall.com. A parallel appeal by the American Border Foundation has raised another $191,755 at www.FundTheWall.com.

Attempting to discourage this effort, Democrats and the mainstream news media are arguing that the government is not allowed to accept donations for a specific purpose, Congress would have to vote on it, and — to subtly sow doubts — “it isn’t clear” how this would work. The surge of popular support undercuts the narrative of open borders activists that the border wall is not popular or that support for Trump is eroding.

Criticism from ABC News, Democrats and others that it isn’t clear how this would work doesn’t mean that the organizers have doubts.

Brian Kolfage declares that his group has contacts discussing the plans with the Trump Administration. The American Border Foundation claims to have an even more extensive plan worked out.

So can private donations help build Trump’s border wall with Mexico? I will say yes, as an attorney for 21 years, having worked for both Judicial Watch and Larry Klayman’s current Freedom Watch, and worked for five years in the federal government including in budgeting and expenditure issues.

First, let’s start with the clincher: Who would object? Courts state and federal have been waging a war on citizens who want to hold their government to the law. Courts keep raising the bar on who has “standing” to bring a lawsuit in court, closing the door on the courts to the citizens.

So imagine this: Citizens raise, oh, I don’t know, $100 million to donate towards a section of the border wall. The organizers tender payment of the money to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (or perhaps the Army Corps of Engineers). President Donald Trump says yes, take it. The agency receives the funds. They are not complaining.

Left-wing organizations will rush to the nearest federal judge. What “standing” do they have to object? If I withhold from you $1,000 I owe you, you have been aggrieved. If I give you $1,000 you did not expect or have any right to, how have you been harmed? So if the federal courts follow their own oft-repeated rules on why citizens cannot require the government to follow the law, they will have to find that no one has standing to object to a windfall.

Second, however, it has long been the law that private citizens can donate to the government. In 2012, a billionaire donated $7.5 million to help rebuild the Washington monument after the August 2012 Virginia Earthquake. Most of the legal authority focuses on when a taxpayer can deduct a donation to the U.S. Treasury from his or her income taxes. Most legal discussion involves general donations to reduce the national debt. Believe it or not, the Bureau of the Public Debt gets a lot of private donations every year.

Laws and regulations specific to different departments and agencies provide different rules. For example, the regulations for the U.S. Department of Defense provide procedures unique to helping soldiers and sailors. Some legal authority pertains to donating to medical research, museums, libraries, or schools.

The governing laws and regulations for DHS are silent on the use of gifts. It is neither prohibited nor provided for. There is no general rule for the U.S. Government as a whole. For some departments, gifts are allowed only if they are “unconditional” — that is, donated to the general fund not targeted to any particular activity. Other departments do allow “conditional” gifts for a particular purpose.

DHS explicitly permits such donations at the directive level. DHS Directive Number: 112-02 Issued on February 11, 2008, “Gifts To The Department Of Homeland Security” explicitly states in Section V: “E. DHS may accept gifts to carry out program functions regardless of whether or not appropriated funds are available for that purpose, provided such expenditures are not barred by law or regulation.” (The American Border Foundation deserves the credit for finding this gem.) Note that Congress slightly amended related laws in 2010 after this 2008 Directive, which is generally interpreted to mean that Congress accepted the 2008 Directive, which it left undisturbed.

There are regulations and laws that appear to prohibit donations but those involve situations in which accepting the donation for a specific purpose would thereby obligate the department to draw upon other funds in addition to the donated funds to carry out the project.

[UPDATE: An alert commentator on this article at Free Republic reminds us of President Ronald Reagan’s appeals for students to send in their pennies to restore the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island. The private donations to save Lady Liberty were so extensive that “they wrote a book about it,”

The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story. A private foundation raised $100 million towards the $230 million budget, of which $63 million came from corporate deals negotiated largely by Lee Iacocca. See Corporations Saved the Statue of Liberty:  A new book details how c... H/T McGavin999]

Third, Congress has already voted to build a border wall. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 both authorizes and requires the building of physical barriers along the entire Southern border, except where the natural topography creates a physical barrier naturally. The word “fence” should not confuse us. The law requires DHS to determine whatever is necessary to completely prevent any unauthorized entry. So in the 2006 law, “fence” is explicitly defined to mean “whatever it takes.” The law is not limited to a fence, but requires a complete barrier to entry into the United States without permission. It merely leaves it to DHS to decide in each location given the terrain what is appropriate in each section.

Fourth, GoFundMe has elaborate procedures and requirements. The money will not be released without verification that the money will be delivered to the purpose that was promised to donors. GoFundMe is prepared to automatically refund donations if proper release of the funds is not confirmed, since donations are by credit card.

A person raising money on GoFundMe (and similar sites) does not get any of the money until the fund-raising campaign is finished.  Brian Kolfage is not getting any of this money now. GoFundMe will verify distribution of the money to it intended purpose before $1 is released.

Therefore, if for some reason the money cannot be used by the Trump Administration to build the wall, dedicated with certainty to the promised purpose, the funds will be returned automatically by GoFundMe by reversing the credit card charges.

[UPDATE:   One should also place this in context, when Democrats are insisting they support border security in general (clearly they do not). Democrats call for at most a “virtual wall” of sensors, drones, etc. However, a virtual wall can be turned off on a moment’s notice.

A wall cannot be taken down. The reason Democrats would grudgingly accept a virtual wall is because they can shut it off and re-open the border within minutes of a Democrat President being sworn in.]

For the Democrats, everything is at stake. Recall that Democrats have pinned all their hopes on future demographic changes in the U.S. electorate. Democrats live in the world of stereotyping based on race. Therefore, Democrats believe that all Hispanics will vote the same way as a group. All Blacks. Women are being vote-shamed for having their own individual opinions and harassed for not voting for the Democrats.

Democrats are convinced that change is coming. See: Joshua Holland, “Can Democrats Count on Demographic Shifts to Put Them Back in Power?,” The Nation, January 18, 2017. This fundamental transformation of America’s voters is an article of faith among Democrat thinkers. See John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority, Scribner Book Company, 2004.

For Democrats, this is a fight they cannot afford to lose

And for conservatives it is a fight we must win. Whether or not the United States of America continues to exist is on the line.

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 26, 2018 at 3:52pm: Utah Rep Asks For His Pay to be Withheld Until Partial Government Shutdown Ends!

The representative for Utah asked the clerk of the U.S. House of Representative on Dec. 21, to withhold his pay until the partial government shutdown is over.

Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) took to Twitter to make his request, saying that “Congress must be held accountable” for the partial shutdown over border security."Like in previous shutdowns, I plan to ask to the Clerk of the House to withhold my pay until the government is funded. Congress must be held accountable. If we can't do our job, we shouldn't get paid!"

The House and the Senate were adjourned on Dec. 21, forcing the partial government shutdown after lawmakers failed to reach a compromise on budget legislation. The key stumbling block in the discussions is President Donald Trump’s request of $5.7 billion to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

Senate Republican leader mitch mcconnell sent senators home until Dec. 27, after there appeared to be no immediate hope of a new deal on the bill.

The partial shutdown, which has entered its third day, has impacted 25 percent of the government and 15 percent of the federal workforce, officials said. More than 420,000 government employees would be working without pay and over 380,000 would be furloughed, according to the projection by Senate Appropriations Committee staff.

click to watch video

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said in an interview with Fox News Sunday on Dec. 23, that the partial shutdown could potentially continue until next year. He added that the White House had since reduced the requested $5 billion in border-wall funding and hopes the Democrats can move higher than the $1.3 billion amount floated previously.

He also added that federal paychecks would go out Dec. 28, and only their future pay period, scheduled on Jan. 11, would be affected.

“It’s very possible this shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress,” Mulvaney said.

It’s unclear how long the shutdown will last. Democrats have repeatedly opposed Trump’s requested border wall funding. Trump also indicated that the shutdown could last for longer than usual because of their opposition.

Trump Will Not Back Down on Wall

The president canceled plans for a scheduled Christmas vacation in Florida and are staying in Washington D.C. because of the partial government shutdown, according to a tweet on Dec. 22. Trump previously said he would stay in the nation’s capital if Congress couldn’t reach a solution. First Lady Melania Trump, who had already left for Florida, will also return to Washington.

In a series of posts during the shutdown, Trump continued to appeal for the border wall.

“The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking, and massive crime is at our Southern Border. We need Border Security, and as EVERYONE knows, you can’t have Border Security without a Wall,” Trump wrote on Dec. 23.

In one of his latest posts he said, “The Wall is different than the 25 Billion Dollars in Border Security. The complete Wall will be built with the Shutdown money plus funds already in hand. The reporting has been inaccurate on the point. The problem is, without the Wall, much of the rest of Dollars are wasted!”

He added that he was waiting for “the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed border security” in another tweet on Dec. 24.

Meanwhile earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Trump will met with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Dec. 24, to “discuss border security,”

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 26, 2018 at 3:16pm

Fellow Patriots, here's your chance to do something about the wall.

The Border & Illegal Aliens, And What We Are Doing About It. =

Here's your chance to do something about the wall.

Senate refuses to fund the Wall.

The government is shut down. President Trump will refuse to sign a spending bill that doesn't support national security; including funding for the border wall. We've stood with the President and his America first agenda since day one – and we stand with him now – no wall, no deal!
Will you help us call the Senate and Demand the Wall be funded?

CALL NOW

Sincerely,
Ed Rollins,
Chairman, Great America PAC
P.S. We can't let this issue get kicked until next year – when Democrats will control the House. Call now and demand your Senators fund the wall now!

CALL NOW

Sincerely,
Ed Rollins,
Chairman, Great America PAC
P.S. We can't let this issue get kicked until next year – when Democrats will control the House. Call now and demand your Senators fund the wall now!

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 25, 2018 at 4:15pm

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE: Trump Doles Out Contract for 115 Miles of Border Wall

Published

23 hours ago

Dec 24, 2018

Peter D'Abrosca

At the beginning of last week, Trump appeared to fold during budget talks, signaling that he would pass the continuing resolution to keep the government open even without funding the wall. After pushback from his base, he reversed course and put the screws to Democrats, telling them to fund the wall or risk shutting the government down. They chose the latter.

Since then, Trump has held talks with border hawks in the legislature on how to get the wall built for the American people, which was his central campaign promise.

Apparently, he has made some progress, announcing that he will move forward with 115 miles of wall in Texas! The border stretches about 2,000 miles in total. Some parts are walled and others are fenced, but as a whole, the border is porous.

Monday evening, President Donald J. Trump said on Twitter that he has contracted a company to build 115 miles of wall along the southern United States border.

“I am in the Oval Office & just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas. We are already building and renovating many miles of Wall, some complete. Democrats must end Shutdown and finish funding. Billions of Dollars, & lives, will be saved!” he said.— Donald J. Trump 12/24/18

The announcement comes during a time when the federal government is partially shut down, after Democrats would not allocate $5 billion in budget money to build a wall on the border.

0shaMonday evening, President Donald J. Trump said on Twitter that he has contracted a company to build 115 miles of wall along the southern United States borde“I am in the Oval Office & just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas. We are already building and renovating many miles of Wall, some complete. Democrats must end Shutdown and finish funding. Billions of Dollars, & lives, will be saved!” he saidI am in the Oval Office & just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas. We are already building and renovating many miles of Wall, some complete. Democrats must end Shutdown and finish funding. Billions of Dollars, & lives, will be save—12/24/18 DonaldTrThe announcement comes during a time when the federal government is partially shut down, after Democrats would not allocate $5 billion in budget money to build a wall on the borde

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 25, 2018 at 3:51pm: Dow plunges in worst Christmas Eve for stocks in history, as President Trump blames the Fed.

12/24/18 Good Morning America Soo Youn

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 650 points Monday -- the worst Christmas Eve trading session in the country's history, according to experts -- after eyebrow-raising comments by the treasury secretary, an escalating trade with China, and amid an economic slowdown.

Stocks are negative for the year, and the Dow has fallen thousands of points from its high of nearly 27,000.

The Dow ended the day a dramatic 653 points lower at 21,792 in an abbreviated trading session ahead of the Christmas holiday, down nearly 10% from a mere week ago. The day's losses of 2.9%, added to last week's of 6.8%, set the stage for a sober last week of trade this year.

"I do believe this was the worst Dec. 24 in history," U.S. Global Investors head trader Michael Matousek told ABC News. "There hasn’t been a worse Christmas Eve since I started in the industry 22 years ago."

Last week was the index's worst in 10 years -- since the 2008 financial crisis. This month is currently on track to end as the worst December since the Great Depression.

The tech-heavy NASDAQ also suffered, ending the day more than 5 percent lower at 6,193. It crossed into bear territory last week for the first time since the 2008 recession, which means it is down more than 20% from its record high on Aug. 29.

https://s.abcnews.com/images/Business/new-york-stock-exchange-01-ap-jc-181224_hpEmbed_22x15_608.jpg"/>

A picture of President Donald Trump on a computer on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Dec. 24, 2018.

President Trump renewed his attack on the Federal Reserve, which has become predictable after poor performances on the stock market, which the president tends to focus on over other economic indicators.

"The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market," Trump tweeted. "The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch - he can’t putt!"

The central bank raised interest rates last week in a widely expected move of .25 percent. However, the bank issued a forecast less bullish than expected, predicting a slowing economy.

Trump has consistently railed against raising interest rates and lashed out against its chairman, Jerome "Jay" Powell. The Wasington Post and other news outlets have reported that Trump blames Mnuchin for suggesting Powell for the job.

The markets moved lower after the tweet on fears Trump would try to fire Powell, adding to market instability and concerns about the threat to the central bank's independence.

However, the recent sagging performance of the markets has been largely attributed to the White House's policy moves, sparking a lingering trade war with China, invoking a government shutdown and chaotic news signaling political instability.

Over the weekend, Mnuchin tweeted that he called the CEOs of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup from his vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

His agency is one of the federal departments affected by the current government shutdown. Others at Treasury are forced to say home without pay. It is unclear whether Mnuchin traveled on a government plane to his vacation.

Comment by Bullheaded Texan on December 25, 2018 at 3:31pm: Trump Can Build the Wall Without Congress!

12/24/18 by Rush Limbaugh

RUSH:  "Hi.  Welcome back, folks.  Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, and we are right here with you on Christmas Eve, all three busy broadcast hours, one of them already in the can.  And it’s a thrill to be here with you, a fun day."  Telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.  The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

"A couple of people who are not Washington insiders have written an op-ed in the USA Today today. It prints out to four pages, and their basic point is that Trump is only gonna get this wall built if he does it using executive power, that the Congress is never gonna agree to it particularly when the Democrats come back and take control of the House.  It isn’t gonna happen.  They’re never gonna come to an agreement. They’re never gonna give Trump what he wants.

The last thing in the world they’re gonna do is give Trump what he wants while they’re in the middle of trying to bust up Trump’s base — and that is probably true.  Now, I think there would be a way to do it, but it would require shifting public blame for this in a majority sense or basis to the Democrats, who deserve it!  They’re the ones unwilling to capitulate and agree to border security.  It’s no more complicated than that.  They’re unwilling to participate in anything involving border security.

Not just a wall.  They’re unwilling to appropriate any money whatsoever for border security.

So you heard Trump float the idea that he could get money from the defense budget or elsewhere in the federal budget that the executive branch controls and build it that way.

And you’ve heard chuck schumer and other Democrats say, “He can’t do that!  He can’t spend money we have not earmarked.  He can’t spend money we have not appropriated.”  It simply isn’t true.

There are all kinds of departments and bureaucracies and areas of the executive branch with unspent money, and Trump can go get whatever he needs from any of those different departments and allocate it, and he can get started building the wall, and he can do it constitutionally on the premise that he is engaging in an act of national security!  He is the executive.  He does not have "some of the executive power"; he has all of it!

It’s on that basis that if he really wanted to fire Mueller, he could!  If he wanted to fire anybody at the Department of Justice, he could.  He can fire anybody.  He is the only source of power.  It is not divided.  There isn’t a committee.  There’s not a board of directors.  He is the executive, and, as such, he alone has the full power of the executive branch.  And as long as he is executing those powers under the terms of the Constitution, there is nothing anybody can do to him!  The price he pays for any blunders in this area is at the ballot box. The price any president pays is political.

If using his executive power angers many people in the country to vote against him and his party, that’s the price he pays for doing it!  But it is not impeachable to act on behalf of national security according to the Constitution, which he is singularly allowed to do.  And he believes that open borders are resulting in the infiltration of the country of all kinds of undesirables — including terrorists and gangs and whatever — then he is perfectly within his rights to go get money already allocated to the executive branch and build the wall.

So you question: Why doesn’t he do it?  Well, there are any number of answers to this.  One of the answers is that not everybody on his team is for him.  Not everybody on his team is for a wall.  Not everybody on his team believes in his ideas.  By “his team,” I mean the administration, in the West Wing.  As we all know, there are people there who — to one degree or another since Trump was inaugurated — have attempted to undermine via leaks and sabotage.  It’s been one of the curious aspects to me, Trump’s staffing choices.

But, remember, to fill positions in Washington in an administration, executive branch, the odds are you’re gonna get some people from Washington.  Everybody in that town is a devotee to one degree or another of the swamp.  Trump has not brought in a bunch of full-fledged outsiders.  He’s got some people that are careerist Washingtonians, career government types. And I’m sure that he has chosen people he thinks can help him navigate the waters — he being an outsider — on the belief that they are on his team.

But I have no doubt, for example, that there are people on his staff… You know, the Drive-Bys are trying to tell you that I changed his mind on signing this continuing resolution.  The real truth is that there are people in his administration trying to get him to sign this thing with no deal for him.  There are people on his team that are telling him (because it’s the way they think) that getting a deal with Congress is the best thing you can do.

You know it as well as I do that many measures of success, when it comes to president and Congress — individual senators and congressmen and members of the House — is, “How much legislation did they pass? How many bills have their names on them?” This is just the way the town works.

It’s one of the many reasons Trump was elected to blow it up, that it works this way.

My only point is, in staffing an administration — and it’s massive!, folks.

It’s so big, Trump doesn’t know them all.  He can’t possibly know everybody.  Now, in his immediate circle, yeah.  But you should take a tour.  You can’t, but you should take a tour through the West Wing.  You would not believe.  I don’t know what you think the West Wing is, which is where the Oval Office is and all the executive offices. They can’t put 5% of the people that work in the administration in the West Wing.
Across the street is the Old Executive Office Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and that’s not even big enough to house ’em all.  I mean, they’re everywhere.  And they’re all working through their superiors — and everybody has superiors — to try to influence the outcome of the administration.  Some try to protect Trump from himself, they think. Some try to advocate and help him.

But they’re all people who believe that the route to success is this old crossing the aisle, shaking hands, showing Washington works, compromise, process.  How many media people went bananas last week — we played the sound bites for you — when Trump announced that he was not gonna sign this thing, the CR, and that there was gonna be a shutdown? Remember A.B. Stoddard?  She went ballistic on Fox News, on you Bret Baier’s show. She was beside herself!  She could barely speak because the president had rejected what?  "Process and compromise".

Now, you and I both know that process and compromise in Washington equals Republicans caving and getting nothing and Democrats getting what they want.  And that’s what it is, and that’s what A.B. Stoddard was upset about.  (impression) “Trump should realize he’s got the losing position here.  That would be immature thing to do.

“Trump should realize he’s got nowhere to go on this, that he lost the House.  Trump should realize it! He should take what he should get, can get, and be thankful for it.” And when Trump didn’t do that — when he said, “Hell, no, not signing this thing.  Government shutdown” — and then starts trying to lay blame on the Democrats, they go apoplectic on the basis that Trump has rejected the way Washington works: "Compromise and process".

Well, there are people advising Trump to do just what people like A.B. Stoddard wanted him to do.  “Take a deal, Mr. President!  Take $1.6 billion, take $2 billion and get as much as you can.”  But this is how we show people we are governing.  This is how we show people that we’re cooperating.

Well, that’s not what Trump was elected to do.  Trump was elected precisely to overwhelm and overcome this process because we always end up on the short end of the stick on it.

We have been fed up for years and years working under these concepts of process and compromise where we always end up losing and our politicians that cave into it are then praised to the hilt as mature. “They’re growing in office!” But we always end up losing somehow — legislatively or otherwise — to the Democrats.

Well, Trump has totally eschewed process and compromise now.  And his position is that until the Democrats are forthcoming with the amount of money he wants for border security, the government is gonna remain shut down. And so it is! **** YE-HAA! ****

So now there are people who are thinking that this compromise is never gonna happen, meaning the Democrats are never, ever, particularly with control of the House only the January 3rd away, they’re never gonna cave. They don’t think Trump has any leverage and they think they have it all.

And they think if they can humiliate Trump that they might be able to cause some of you in Trump’s base to get frustrated, throw your hands up and give up and fade away and realize that you can’t beat the swamp and never, ever again vote for somebody like Trump who says that that’s what he’s going to do. That’s what they have at stake. And they’re so close to it in their minds that they can taste it.

Now, the Donald Trump of the campaign, what do you think he’d be doing right now? I tell you what I think he’d be doing. I think he would already have amassed a pile of money, unused, from other areas of the executive branch and the various budgets. And I think that he would have already started on the process of building the wall and that Congress would be going nuts like they are now, like they do anyway. The Democrats would be going absolutely bonkers, and the media would be going absolutely bonkers.

I saw that Dinesh D’Souza had a tweet where he thinks Trump ought to deliver a major address to the nation on the importance of immigration policy and trade policy, the importance of both those to national security and prosperity.

I like the idea of a national address. I don’t know the networks would give him the time, though, if he requested it. You know, they don’t have to. But a national address that’s written and promptered could explain what’s going on and why. Doing it during the break between Christmas and New Year’s might not get the largest audience.

We also had the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was on I think Fox News over the weekend, one of the Sunday shows, and he said that Trump is willing to accept less money to build the wall. He said the new offer is between Trump’s $5.7 billion request and the $1.3 billion the Democrats are offering. Mulvaney said he’s waiting to hear back from Schumer, but he hasn’t heard anything.

Dick Turban said that all we need is technology along the border like drones instead of some medieval wall. This is such caca. You will find walls around every important business or every important wealthy person’s estate, because they do work. This is absurd. This is just distracting.

This has now become — the Democrats, there are two things involved.

#1 Trump doesn’t get a win.

#2 and there isn’t gonna be anything done that would interrupt the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States because the Democrat Party wants them. The Democrat Party needs the illegal immigrants and they’re not gonna agree to anything. So there isn’t gonna be an agreement here.

There’s going to be a showdown of power, executive branch power versus congressional power. And there are many people who think the president has the executive power to start building this wall with money that’s already been allocated in budgets that exist in the executive branch and he can and he does. There will be hell to pay.

I mean, if you think this is bad, the minute a wall’s construction has actually begun with money that chuck schumer and his gang don’t think they participated in allocating or appropriate, they go nuts and they start shouting and yelling “impeachment.” But the fact of the matter is — and the Washington swamp would be too.

And I’m sure that there are people in the administration they do not want anything like that to happen, that they think the only way out of this is a negotiated settlement where nobody gets exactly what they want from both sides, just the usual way that these kinds of things end up being settled.

Does anybody remember, for example, how the 1995 budget deal was solved? Or any other government shutdown. Do any of you remember what happened to end them? I will wager you don’t. I will wager there’s not a one of you that remembers what happened to end any of those shutdowns. You’d have to go look it up. You’d have to Google it. You’d have to Wikipedia it. You’d have to do something to find out.

How did the shutdown 11 months ago, the schumer shutdown over DACA, three day shutdown over DACA, how did that end? Do you remember? My point is nobody ever remembers these things anyway. They don’t remember how they end. This is time to take a stand on a premise that has existed since the Trump campaign. And it is border security. If you want to throw the wall in, go ahead and throw the wall in.

But I think it’s time to take a shot at breaking these people on this right now. I think it’s time to illustrate that the Democrats are acting like a bunch of spoiled brat little kids when it comes to an issue of national security and prosperity and the rule of law. Don’t forget here we’re talking about illegal immigration.

The message should continue to be it is the Democrats who do not want to fix this! It’s the Democrats who are saying “no”! It’s the Democrats who are the obstacle to border security or to reopening the government or whatever. It’s the Democrats who want no part of it. It’s the Democrats who are stopping things. It’s the Democrats who won’t cooperate. It’s the Democrats who won’t across the aisle. It’s the Democrats who won’t compromise.

All of this is true. All of this needs to be part of the messaging. It is the Democrats who are not interested in securing the southern border. It’s the Democrats who are acting like children. It’s the Democrats who are acting like spoiled brats. That is what needs to be illustrated and with every Republican signing on to this, that objective can be reached. It requires full-fledged support for the president and the premise which every Republican should sign on to.

I know people are quoting polling data, “42% of the American people don’t want a wall.” You’re gonna get polling data that backs up the Democrat during every controversial issue there is. You’re gonna get polling data that shows Republicans are in the minority on everything. Ignore it!

It’s the Democrats willing to damage the country rather than support the president. It’s the Democrats willing to put the country in great peril because they are refusing to shore up the border. It needs to be demonstrated. And to me this is a golden opportunity. Everything we want to do, everything we want to teach people about the Democrats and illustrate is right here on the table, and it’s already happening. We just need to be pointing it out each and every day!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  So I checked the email during the break, and people are asking, “Rush, are you sure that Trump can go get unspent federal dollars somewhere and allocate it to whatever he wants?  I don’t know.  I’ve heard people saying that that’s not constitutional.”

Let me ask you all a question: Where did muslum barrry hussein obuma get his $150 billion, much of it in cash, to drop on the tarmac at Tehran International Airport in the midst of the Iran deal negotiations?

Where did that $150 billion come from?  Did obuma call his buddies at the Fed and say, “We need you to print me some money”?  Did obuma go to various federal agencies?  Did he go to the defense budget or did he go to a bunch of different places and get the money?  Where did he get cash?  Where do you get that much cash?  I think it was $8 billion in cash.  It may be $8 million, I forget.  But it was a hell of a lot.  Where did obuma get it?  And you’ll notice that nobody in Congress raised a stink about it.

Nobody in Congress said, “Mr. President, you can’t do that. We didn’t authorize it.  We didn’t appropriate it,” and even if somebody in Congress would have said that, obuma would have said (impression), “I can do it ’cause you can’t stop me and I know you won’t and I have the media on my side,” and it would have not changed.  What did we do when obuma said that?  Well, we shouted from the rooftops and we tried to tell everybody that this stunk and that obuma was lying to us about the deal. He gave $150 billion to the mullahs.

Now, it was also part of a prisoner release.  So some were saying that part of that money was a ransom payment.

The point is that Donald Trump can certainly go find federal money and start building the wall.  I’m just telling you that he’s probably got a lot of people in his own administration — and I don’t doubt his lawyers are telling him not to do it, either.  I think, in fact, if I may be so bold — and this may not be bold now.  I think other people have probably pointed it out.  But in the early days of the Mueller investigation, Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel…

The White House counsel. Not personal lawyers, but the White House Office of Legal Counsel, presidential lawyer, presidential adviser and so forth. I will bet you a dollar to a doughnut that almost all if not all, of those lawyers were telling Trump to not criticize Mueller, “Don’t be public. We’ll try to negotiate a deal. We’ll show we’re willing to compromise,” because they’re all Washington people.  They’re all… Their clients come and go, and presidents come and go.

But people that live in that town are gonna be there long after presidents come and go, and so their loyalties really are to a system. Their loyalties really are to a set of circumstances that exist in the establishment inside the Beltway.  So that even Trump’s lawyers that he hired that ostensibly are there to advise him on how to prevail in things probably were preaching compromise.

They probably were preaching the standard things that lawyers tell clients, “Don’t criticize the prosecutor! “Don’t make ’em any angrier at you than they already are,” which I thought would be irrelevant.  They’re gonna be angry at Trump as long as he’s alive. But the point is, he didn’t have a whole bunch of Donald Trumps around him.  He’s had people around him trying to rein him in.  And I’m — don’t doubt that some of them have been acting on what they think are his best interests. I mean, if you live and work in that town and if the coin of the realm in that town is compromise and process… Here. Just to repeat this, grab sound bite No. 23.  This A.B. Stoddard.  I referenced this earlier.  You may not have heard this last week.  It was last Thursday the Fox News Channel.  This was after Trump vetoed the budget and began the shutdown. Listen to this meltdown…

STODDARD: The nation’s fourth graders know this is no way to run a lemonade stand. This is completely irresponsible. The markets are rattling on the prospect of a shutdown. The president time and again is contemptuous of process and of compromise. He doesn’t have 60 votes. He must compromise. He was all for a DACA deal. He refused to take it. He took four positions on the Goodlatte bill.

BAIER: I get it. I get it.

STODDARD: He refuses to do the hard work.

BAIER: If he listens to the Mark Meadows and the Jim Jordans and the other people on the House floor —

STODDARD: They don’t know what they’re talking about! This is political malpractice. They’re wrong!

RUSH: (impression) “They don’t know what the president… The — the — the congressional caucus there, the Freedom Caucus, they don’t know what they’re talking about! Anybody urging Trump to do anything than compromise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  He doesn’t have 60 votes. That means he’s got to compromise.”  He doesn’t even… They don’t even need 60 votes for this!  If Mitch McConnell really wanted to act like the guy running the Senate and wanted to make the rules, they don’t even need 60 votes for this!

You and I know this!  But that’s not how the town thinks.  The town thinks, “We got these rules, and they’re sacrosanct, and we dare not touch them.”  But the Democrats always do.  Sometimes it comes back to bite ’em, but the Democrats will do whatever they have to do whenever to win.  We could fix this. Mitch McConnell could fix this so he doesn’t need 60 votes.  Now, it’s not just as simple as me saying it.  There’s a process, and it would require taking a lot of hits in the media.

It would require taking a lot of incoming fire that they’re not used to talking about, not to degree that they were on this.  But you hear her. “Political malpractice.  The markets are reacting to this.  The president time and time again is contemptuous of process and compromise.”  My point to you is that I think a large number of people called his advisers (who surround him) believe exactly that.  And I think his first team of lawyers did via Mueller.  Maybe even the current crop of lawyers believes that way.

“Process and compromise.  It’s the coin of the realm. It’s the way it works here.” Well, that being the case, it’s one of the reasons why our side always ends up coming up short, which is why Trump was elected to kind of blow all of that up, which he is in the process of doing every which number of ways.  And it is causing the predictable meltdown reaction. Nobody should shy away from it because of the reaction.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I need to make a correction, folks. The Iranian deal was not $150 billion. It was $1.7 billion. It came out of something called the judgment fund. There’s some aspect of this Iran deal, my memory is, that’s 150-something. And I misspoke when I said $150 billion. It’s $1.7 billion was the entire deal that Obama arranged to pay Iran in the middle of the negotiations on the Iranian deal.

But then there were those pallets of cash that were delivered to the tarmac at Tehran international spaceport. And I’m gonna have to track down that 150. I know that there was a cash element here, and for some reason this figure of 150 is being bandied about inside my deep, dark crevices of my fertile cranium, little gray cells.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This whole Iran deal now has got me bugabooed here because I’ve used some figures here that I thought I knew were right. But I’ve been having people say, “No, no, no. It was this and it was that.” Everybody’s trying to be helpful. So I did a little search here in the top of the hour. I found a Breitbart story. The date of this story is not specified but it was a fact-check story, and the headline: “Yes, the Nuclear Deal Hands $150 billion Over to Iran —

“During the opening statements on Sunday night’s presidential debate … Donald Trump described the Iran nuclear deal as a ‘one-sided transaction’ that would result in $150 billion returning to the coffers of … Iran.” So I’ve had that number going about my head, and I’ve used it. “No, Rush, it was $1.7 billion, and that was cash, and that was dropped on the tarmac. It came from the judgment fund, and it was part of a ransom payment for hostages and also part of the Iran deal.” Then another friend said, “No, the cash element, Rush, was $400 million.”

Well, that figure rang a bell, too! I said, “Okay, that makes sense.” So I finally said, “I need to go check this,” and the fact check says it’s mostly true on the premise that the nuclear deal hands $150 billion over to Iran, and much of that is from the unfreezing of Iranian assets that was part of the Iran deal. Lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing assets. I do remember that there’s something to that, ’cause I remember that there were so many American corporate entities that were in favor of it, in favor of the Iran deal.

I said, “Why in the world…? What possibly could explain this?” I said, “There has to be a reason,” and I looked and I found one explanation for it, and it was Boeing! Boeing was looking forward to Iranian sanctions being lifted because the Iranian national airline fleet was practically falling apart because of these sanctions. They hadn’t been able to import or pay for any modernized jets for airliner travel. The lifting of the sanctions would permit it! The Iranians were on the way to signing a contract with Boeing for $60 million, I think.

No, it’d be much more than that. I mean, that’s one plane. But it was a deal for Boeing to participate and compete against Airbus for purchases by Iran of modernized jet aircraft. The point is none of that could have happened unless Iran ended up being flush with money, and one of the ways it happened was the lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing of assets, and all of it totaled a $150 billion benefit — give or take a few billion. Now, the amount of money on the pallets was $1.7 billion.

It was cash. That’s a lot of cash. (chuckling) I don’t know where you go get that. There isn’t… I wonder how much cash there is in circulation the country at any one time. I mean, it is regulated, the amount of actual hard, cold cash that’s in circulation. It would shock you how little it is. Well, maybe it wouldn’t shock you, but it would shock you how little it is compared to the total gross national product, gross domestic product. The amount of cash in that is actually chump change because there’s so much credit and credit card usage."

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