RUSH: So Bill Ford called Donald Trump to say they're gonna keep the SUV plant in Kentucky. iPhone is saying they're looking into manufacturing some iPhones in America. What does this really mean, aside from the obvious? It's profound. There's a lot of meaning to this. I will be happy to explain it to you when we get back after the top under the influence hour break. The Washington Post has a story saying they were gonna do this anyway. Trump had nothing to do with it.
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RUSH: I was talking to Mr. Snerdley. He came in, he was grinning ear to ear over the news that Ford was gonna continue to build SUVs here instead of moving it to Mexico. And he was all excited that Trump broke the news, you know, on Twitter, not the Drive-Bys.
Now, over at Apple. Folks, as I have deigned to explain, moving iPhone production to the United States, it would be as close to impossible -- you could do it, but there's no way an iPhone would cost the same price after you do it, and there would be constant shortages of them because it takes factories with three, 400,000 people to make these things at a clip that meets the demand. You know Apple is still behind on the iPhone 7 Plus? You go to an Apple store today, you still can't find one. I have more of them in my slash closet back there than an Apple store has.
The demand for these things is such that there's an imbalance, a supply demand imbalance, it may not reach equilibrium before the end of the year. If you go to the Apple online store right now and try to buy an iPhone 7 Plus jet black, they say three to four weeks to ship. That's ship. They ship from China. That can take a week. Five weeks, maybe. Bye-bye Christmas. And they've got hundreds of thousands of people making these things. The jet black iPhone, the jet black case is a massive project to manufacture that, and the yield rate, I understand, is like 70%. It's that precise on that particular model. But all the models are backlogged.
Now, to move all of that to the United States, I don't think they can. I think what would happen, like the Mac Pro, the Mac Pro is actually built by a Singapore company that built a factory in Austin. And what Apple's talking about, Foxconn is their manufacturer in China. Hon Hai Precision. The Anglicized name is Foxconn. And they're talking about locating a factory here, but it would be Chinese technology that would just be located here to build the factory. I don't have a problem with that.
Here's what fascinates me about this. Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple, and it's safe to say that 90% of the Apple top 100 execs were for Hillary. It's safe to say that about pretty much any Silicon Valley Bay Area tech company. There is no way these people wanted Trump for a whole bunch of reasons, but it's primarily because they're closed-minded about conservatism. If they actually examine Trump economic policy versus Hillary, they ought to no way support Hillary Clinton. But they did, in large part because of the pressure to go along with everybody else that thinks the same way and the cultural things and the social things.
Look, this is a long way of... My point is that here you have Apple diametrically opposed to Trump, did not want Trump to succeed, did not want him to get elected, doesn't agree in their own minds -- they're wrong -- with anything. Yet Trump wins and all of a sudden, "Hey, you know what? We're thinking about moving iPhone production -- some of it -- to the United States." What does that mean? What does that represent to you? To me, it represents fear, and that's what bothers me. I don't like people afraid of the government, whether they're my political enemy or not.
I don't like people thinking... I don't like cronyism. I don't like CEOs making business decisions because they're afraid of what some executive in the government's gonna do. It bothers me. "Are you saying you don't care if Apple makes...?" I'd love for Apple to make iPhones here. I happen to know how impractical that is, and I happen to know that even if it does happen, it isn't happening any time soon, and if it does happen, it's not gonna be that many American jobs. Although I think it'd be great. But it's so complicated with the supply the chain. That's all over in China and the Far East as well.
But to me, more, it's... Obama? Classic. The automobile companies? I mean, Obama put the fear of God in 'em so they went along. The insurance companies? Fear of God. He went along with 'em Obamacare. So you had all these people acting not in their own best interests or self-interests and the best interests of their customers. They were behaving because they're afraid of what the government might do if they didn't play along. Hospitals, nurses associations. When it comes to Obamacare, he put the fear of God into people that didn't play along.
And that's why all these insurance companies... They had no business getting in bed with this kind of a plan, even if there was a mandate that was gonna require every customer to buy health insurance. It was not good for the country! It was never going to work. But they didn't care. We had a president who was acting very authoritarian and was making it plain he was gonna punish people that didn't go along. I don't know if people view Trump that way, but if they do, it bothers me. I don't like people who can be bent that easily.
It just goes to show you how much power the federal government has where even a suggestion -- a threat, such as a ban of the iPhone -- can cause a CEO to make a statement. He may not mean it. They actually may never, ever move a factory here to make iPhones or assemble them even partially. It could happen, but I just don't like the fear. In the founding documents of this country, there was never anything about making it all work because people were gonna fear the president, the people were gonna fear the House of Representatives and fear the Senate or fear the IRS. (Well, there wasn't an IRS at the founding.) That's what bothers me about this. I know fear can be a great motivator when used for, you know, results that are upstanding and right, but...
Anyway, break time, out of time, back in a sec.
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RUSH: Folks, I don't want you to believe this garbage that Ford was gonna build this SUV in Kentucky anyway, that Trump had nothing to do with it. Bill Ford called Trump, and Bill Ford calling Trump is a genuine change in direction for Ford. This is all spelled out in the Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post is dead wrong about this today. "Ah, there's no news here. This typical Trump braggadocio. Ford was gonna make this thing..." No, no. Ford called Trump because it does represent a genuine change in direction.
This is not a symbolic gesture. Now, some of you might think, "Rush, you're wrong. Apple and Ford are not doing what they're doing 'cause they're afraid." I hope that's true. Maybe it's just cronyism. Maybe they've realized, "Okay, Trump's the president, and he's said that he wants to build phones, so we better sidle up and be friendly." I guess that would be preferable. I just... I don't like cronyism, which is what we had eight years of.
You can call it crony capitalism or crony socialism, whatever, but I really don't like people being afraid. I can understand being afraid of boss, but this being afraid of the president? This is... Something about it worries me from the standpoint of the structure of the country. That's not... (interruption) No, you can be afraid of an individual man and might instill fear. I mean, the fear of the power of the office is what I'm talking about. That's not built into it, and that's not part of the design.
Look, I've got this San Francisco teachers union story to do, plus I've gotta get back to your phone calls.
But now I have another obscene profit break coming up. So you sit tight my friends. The fastest three hours in media just rolls right on.
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RUSH: Somebody said that it's not fear, that Apple and Ford are not afraid, that they see a huge opportunity to have an administration that's gonna help lower their taxes and get rid of the right -- fine and dandy, but why did they oppose it then? I would love it, folks, if Apple and Ford are excited because they see an opportunity in Trump, but they campaigned against him.
You can't write that out of the equation. They were part of the group of people raising money and everything else to destroy Trump. Now all of a sudden they see a great opportunity? Why didn't they see it then? Or maybe they did but peer pressure made 'em unable to support Trump? Regardless, ticks me off.
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