Sometimes the Paranoids Are Right

This article was last updated on May 25, 2022

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You want to see the roots of Trump’s appeal? Read Sunday's New York Times:

A few weeks after Senator Marco Rubio joined a bipartisan push for an immigration overhaul in 2013, he arrived alongside Senator Chuck Schumer at the executive dining room of News Corporation’s Manhattan headquarters for dinner.

Their mission was to persuade Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the media empire, and Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of its Fox News division, to keep the network’s on-air personalities from savaging the legislation and give it a fighting chance at survival. Mr. Murdoch, an advocate of immigration reform, and Mr. Ailes, his top lieutenant and the most powerful man in conservative television, agreed at the Jan. 17, 2013, meeting to give the senators some breathing room.

(All emphases are mine.) This was widely suspected at the time (Mickey Kaus sniffed it out within days), but I dismissed it as paranoia. Even after I heard whispers from inside Fox that staff had been instructed to go easy on the Gang of Eight, I couldn't get any proof.

Schumer took a different Republican with him two years earlier on the same mission:

As early as March 9, 2011, Mr. Schumer joined Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and another eventual member of the Gang of Eight, at the Palm restaurant in Manhattan, where they made their case to Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Ailes and Mr. Limbaugh in a private room. The senators argued how damaging the word "amnesty" was to their efforts, and walked Mr. Limbaugh through their vision for an immigration overhaul.

I'll bet "amnesty" was a damaging word!

Limbaugh appears to have been more victim than participant in Rubio's and Schumer's con:

On Jan. 29, 2013, the same day Mr. Obama highlighted immigration in Las Vegas, Mr. Limbaugh had Mr. Rubio on as a guest to talk about immigration and called him "admirable and noteworthy" during a warm conversation about the bipartisan immigration plan.

"I know for you border security is the first and last — if that doesn't happen, none of the rest does, right?" Mr. Limbaugh lobbed.

"Well, not just that," swung Mr. Rubio. "That alone is not enough."

The conversation concluded with Mr. Rubio saying: "Thank you for the opportunity, Rush. I appreciate it."

"You bet," Mr. Limbaugh said.

"Nothing happens until enforcement is done" is the same thing Rubio is saying now. Fool me once…

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