Who Wants to Fix the Immigration Crisis and Who Wants the Issue Kept Alive?
Jun 17, 2019
RUSH: That so-called side deal that Trump had with Mexico that was a surprise? Trump was gonna let them announce it. It’s been revealed. The upshot of it is that Mexico has 45 days to make good on their commitment to shore up their southern border and make sure that any of these “migrants†— illegals seeking asylum in the U.S. — are stopped. They have 45 days to meet the satisfaction of Trump and the White House/the administration, or else the possibility of tariffs being imposed comes back to life. So that’s the secret side deal that Trump taunted the media with last week.
“No, no, it’s a secret deal. I told Mexico they could announce it whenever they feel like it. It’s a secret. I’m not gonna tell you. It’s a secret.†So it has been un-secreted, and there probably is more to it than that, but that’s the upshot. Mexico has 45 days. I think Mexico’s got a head start. You know, there’s a… Let me find this piece here. Here. Peter Navarro has an observation here at Breitbart. “Trump’s Tariffs Accomplished More in Two Days than Congress Has in 20 Years.â€
Now, Mayor Pete. Mayor Pete’s really thrilling them out there. You know, Mayor Pete’s jazzing the Democrats up. They’re really excited. They’re kind of conflicted. They would love a guy who kisses his husband after campaign rallies to be the nominee, but then they think, “Ah, don’t know if we’re quite ready for that.†But they love seeing it, and they love how Mayor Pete slices and dices Trump while appearing not to. Now, Mayor Pete is — and plus, Mayor Pete raised $7 million in a 30-day period of time.
That, of course, is gonna impress anybody in politics because it’s all about money. Now, Mayor Pete is out there, and he’s commenting on the Mexican tariff deal and how it’s supposed to improve immigration. Mayor Pete is saying that Trump does not want to fix the immigration now. The last thing in the world Trump wants is a solution at the border. Mayor Pete says that Trump wants ongoing chaos and crisis at the border because that will allow him to continue to re-campaign on that issue; to go out and tell his voters that he’s needed more than ever.
That he’s done everything he can, but he needs more time because he’s got no assistance of the Democrats. “We finally got some help from Mexico, and we’re gonna keep watching Mexico to make sure they hold up their end of the deal.†But Mayor Pete’s point is Trump doesn’t want to solve this. Let me ask you a question about that. You know, I understand the theory — and it’s, unfortunately, true for both parties throughout the political sphere. It’s true of bureaucracies.
It’s true of places like the State Department. Oftentimes, the last thing anybody really wants is a solution because when there’s solution, what else is there then to do? Bureaucrats are famous for this. Bureaucrats are famous for not solving anything, to continue to press the need for bureaucrats to work on it, to work toward a settlement, to work toward a solution, but they never get there. And I have commented over the course of the many years I’ve hosted this program during elections, the Democrats or the Republicans…
They don’t want this fixed right now. They want to be able to blame the other party on this. It’s a pretty common technique. But in the case of Trump, as Peter Navarro says here, Trump has done more — and he was on Fox Sunday Morning Futures, I guess, with Maria Bartiromo. Oh, a brief correction: Kayleigh McEnany has left the RNC and has rejoined the Trump campaign for 2020. She was with the Trump campaign in 2016, and I didn’t know she’d left the RNC. I knew she was going to but didn’t know it had happened.
So she’s now officially at the campaign, and I had identified her at the RNC. "Senior White House trade adviser Peter Navarro praised the tariffs used by President Donald Trump. According to Navarro, the tariffs achieved more in two days on immigration than Congress was able to accomplish in 20 years. ‘Polls show that about 80% of Americans believe there’s a crisis at the border. If you ask Americans in a poll, “What do you think about 100,000 illegal aliens moving every day on a conveyor belt from Guatemala up to San Diego and El Paso?†I’d say about 90% of them would object to that.
“And the tariffs that President Trump used, he got in two days more than Congress did in 20 years on this. We have got troops down at the southern border that Mexico has deployed. We have got Mexico committing to take the phony asylum seekers onto Mexican soil, which will deter further immigration from the Northern Triangle down at the southern border with Mexico. And we have a very strong commitment to break up that conveyor belt, which is this Rube Goldberg machine of narco-traffickers and human traffickers making billions of dollars off these poor immigrants coming up — and off the American people — who have to take their drugs, and the illegal immigrants, which hurt us in terms of jobs.'â€
Navarro is saying that Trump has put the brakes on this in two days, whereas in Congress, nobody did anything in 20 years, which brings me to my question. Mayor Pete. Do you think Trump would be helped in his reelection effort if there was a solution to this before the campaign, before the election of 2020, or is Trump better served with the crisis ongoing with little successes here and little successes there? Does Trump benefit from continuing to be able to point out the Democrats are opposed to it, that the Democrats don’t want to help solve it?
The Democrats are not interested in closing the border, and having that demonstrated daily by the Democrats. Does that help Trump more than solving the issue would help Trump? Now, remember, in 2016, this was… This remains, I believe, the issue that got Trump elected. It’s close, because there’s some overall things that appealed greatly to people about Trump, and not just a single issue like immigration. The outsider status, the something fresh and new. You know the whole drill about Trump personality.
“Can-do guy! Gets something done. Fearless in the face of the media. Fearless in face of criticism.†Those things all add up and they count, and they’re part of the recipe for why people voted for him. But “build the wall,†that became synonymous with making America great again. Now, we’re not gonna get a wall built between now and the election. So it’s kind of a moot point if you use the wall as definition of success. But if there were a serious reduction in illegal immigrants for reasons accomplished by Donald Trump — and those reasons were obvious, and the numbers of illegals down was obvious.
If all of this stuff that Trump’s doing to fix this were obvious, if the numbers of illegals trying to get in is greatly reduced and it’s because of Trump, does that help him in terms of, “He kept a promise, he kept a commitment; he said he was gonna do it, and he’s done it� Or is it better for it to go on as it is with illegals popping up through manhole covers in El Paso, with videotape of illegals streaming across the fence with nobody there to stop them. Now the news that Mexico is gonna shore up its own southern border with Guatemala to make sure that this “conveyor belt†is stopped.
It’s a toughie. I’m sure there are some of you who think if Trump fixed this in a demonstrable way that was obviously Trump and Trump alone who did it, that nobody could beat him. I know there’s a lot of you who think that, and that would be the counterintuitive position. The standard operating procedure in politics is, “Don’t solve it. Use it as a campaign issue. Don’t solve it. Use it to beat up your enemies. Don’t solve it. Use it to keep people on edge and say, ‘Vote for me, I’ll fix it.’ The worst thing you can do is fix it.
“Now you’ve got no reason to tell people to vote for you, other than, ‘I said I was gonna fix it; I fixed it. Now I’m gonna fix this and you move on to something else.'†The counterintuitive answer to this is that Trump would benefit tremendously from fixing the issue, demonstrably so. It has to be obvious. It can’t just be a PR statement that says Trump has dramatically reduced illegal immigration to the country. It would have to be undoubted. It would have to withstand media fake news about it. It would have to withstand lies from Democrats that Trump hasn’t accomplished a thing.
But I really think in this… I could be naive. But I think if this issue had been solved… I think if the wall was already built, I don’t think anybody could touch Donald Trump. Let me put it that way. But we’re not gonna get the wall between now and Election Day 2020. (interruption) No, I don’t know how the Trump campaign’s looking at this. I have no idea. I’m just saying, as counterintuitive as Trump is in politics in general, he’s the antithesis of political conventional wisdom.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2019/06/17/does-trump-want-to-fix-the-immigration-crisis-or-does-he-want-the-issue/
