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<\/p>\nRUSH: Rush Limbaugh and the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network. As always, I proudly and happily engage here with talent on loan from God-d. A delight to have you here. I gotta tell you, I love getting up every day knowing what\u2019s ahead of me. It still is a thrill. You know, I have people asking me, “Well, how much longer are you gonna do this?” You know, most people asking me this look at what I\u2019ve done and they think, “My God. I\u2019d be tired of it by now. For crying out loud.”<\/p>\n
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I said, “It\u2019s probably, on balance, three of the most consistently satisfying hours of my life, of my day. Why would I want to give this up?” You know, I\u2019ve tested it. I\u2019ve taken two-week vacations once or twice. I really can\u2019t do that much for some business reasons. But I have to tell you, after one week — and sometimes even before one week — has gone by, I feel purposeless. I feel worthless. I feel like I\u2019m losing my identity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like Tom Brady after the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
What is this, his fifth one or sixth one that he\u2019s won, and they said, “So, are you thinking about this is it?” He looks around at the stadium and the crowd and the festivities. “Why would I want to give this up? Why would I want to walk away from this?” There\u2019s always a question that successful people get: “Well, so, when are you gonna quit? Why are you gonna hang \u2019em up? When are you gonna walk away?” With athletes, the question is usually related to age. For me, I just can\u2019t imagine anything else providing as much satisfaction, contentment, or even happiness on so many levels.<\/p>\n
So never take for granted that I take for granted that you are here daily.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re constantly appreciated.<\/p>\n
I was talking to our last caller about President Trump, and I made the observation that I think — we\u2019ll probably never know for sure. But I think a lot of people have had a long-time opinion of Donald Trump that\u2019s less than stellar based on what his public persona and public image have always been. A tabloid denizen. Page Six tabloid denizen. Sensational news. Seeking publicity in various pursuits and so forth. Somebody that has, in some people\u2019s estimations, been clown-like or superficial. We don\u2019t know who the real guy is.<\/p>\n
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He\u2019s constantly angling to get noticed. I think people have had that view, and even people who are prone to supporting him are probably having second thoughts about it. I\u2019ll tell you why. You know, and the best way to illustrate this is my wife, Kathryn. The thing that… When his name comes up, the thing that seems to have made the greatest impact on her is he doesn\u2019t have to do this. He didn\u2019t have to do this before he did it.<\/p>\n
He was happy and successful and had the life he wanted even before he did this. He\u2019s 70 years old when he starts this, he\u2019s 72 years old now, and what has doing this gotten him? Well, yeah, he\u2019s president. There aren\u2019t very many people who\u2019ve done that. But he had his own jumbo jet. Air Force One\u2019s in a class by itself. He had palatial residences all over the world. He could go anywhere. He had security. He had all the trappings the presidency has minus the power. Now he has the power.<\/p>\n
But the one thing he has now that he\u2019s never had is concentrated, relentless hatred and destruction aimed at him — and he hasn\u2019t changed. He has not caved a single time to any of it. In fact, he keeps doubling down. We noticed this about him during the campaign. If he said something that people found unacceptable or controversial, the next time he added to it he would double down and tick them off even more.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s got people on his own staff, apparently, who are leaking, like the schedule data that just recently leaked. He\u2019s had people leaking against him, some of his closest aides from what I know (not many, but some), and certainly people on the periphery in the White House. There are a lot of people there that have been trying to do him great personal and professional harm. It has not embittered him. He just keeps plugging ahead.<\/p>\n
Look at the 92% media coverage negative — and, folks, that is significant.<\/p>\n
Ninety-two percent is practically 100% of the coverage he gets is hatred! It\u2019s lies! It is massive distortion! It is personal destruction! He didn\u2019t get this kind of media before he started this. He got a lot of media. Much of it in New York was fawning and supportive, lovable. He runs for president. He\u2019s never been a racist, a sexist, a bigot or any of these horrible things. Not seriously. Now he is all of those things, and it\u2019s obvious that he\u2019s not doing what he\u2019s doing for personal approval. He\u2019s not doing what he\u2019s doing to be loved.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not doing what he\u2019s doing to be liked, \u2019cause that ain\u2019t working. Well, he\u2019s liked by his supporters. Don\u2019t misunderstand. But people that want to be liked want to be liked by everybody, like Obama, like Bill Clinton, and they\u2019ll focus… The thing about Clinton and Obama is if they were in a room of a hundred people and just one or two of the hundred people were known critics, that\u2019s who Obama and Clinton would gravitate to, to try to change their minds, to try to find out why those people don\u2019t like him.<\/p>\n
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Trump cannot care less. His agenda is genuine, it\u2019s legitimate, and he is legitimately, genuinely committed to it. And whatever they throw at him — people in his own party, people who think they\u2019re smarter — he\u2019s outlasted them all, and in many cases he\u2019s rendered them irrelevant. You look at some of these Never Trumpers who used to have magazines. They\u2019re out of business! They went out of business opposing Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
They went out of business so fast that they started doing cruises! They would sell cruises with expert lecturers on the cruise. Those bombed out. The magazines went defunct. All of these people supposedly smarter and brighter and more experienced and more intellectually equipped, all of them have been rendered (and they know it) irrelevant. Nobody is turning to them to death what to think. The people that did turn to them to find out what to think were shocked and dismayed.<\/p>\n
When they see Donald Trump implementing agenda items that all of these people have supposedly devoted their lives to, and these people hate it? These people still hate Trump? Even though whatever the policy they\u2019ve supported, Trump is implementing, that didn\u2019t convince them? That didn\u2019t turn \u2019em to supporters?” People said, and they were right. My point is that I think it takes a lot of character to withstand the kind of heat that Donald Trump gets.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just gonna tell you that in my lifetime, I\u2019ve only seen two people — legitimate people — get this kind of heat, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and I think Trump has gotten it much worse than either of them. It is relentless, and it never stops. His approval number out today at 52% is owing to the fact that he has not succumbed to any of it. There is — and I don\u2019t think any of these people I\u2019m talking about would ever admit it.<\/p>\n
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But there has to be a begrudging respect, and there are a lot of people in the media, the Never Trumpers on the right, who are privately asking themselves, “Who is this guy? What…? Why…?” \u2019cause it doesn\u2019t compute. People like this, they have been able to humiliate, take out, embarrass, destroy, persuade, what have you. Not only have they not taken Trump out, he has not even responded. He has not made one move to try to make them like him.<\/p>\n
He has not extended overtures to them to soften them up. He has not asked them to join his administration — which really ticks some of them off, by the way. (interruption) Oh, yeah! I\u2019m not kidding. They expected… Many of these people expected to be hired after the election because, “Hey, it\u2019s politics! During the campaign, we all say what we think. We get ourselves on the record. But after the election\u2019s over, he should want the best and brightest.”<\/p>\n
Why should he want people who wanted him to fail? He\u2019s got enough trouble dealing with saboteurs. He\u2019s got an independent counsel, he\u2019s got the Department of Justice and the FBI leadership from the Obama era trying to run a silent coup on him. And even that he still gets up and smiles and laughs and has fun with these people day in and day out. It\u2019s got to be driving them crazy.<\/p>\n
My point is that I think it takes a profound character to be able to put up with this, to not be distracted or deterred by it, to not be destroyed by it, to not cave partially or totally to it. It takes commitment. It takes a genuine belief in who you are and what you believe and what you think is best.<\/p>\n
And it takes a lot of courage. ‘Cause I\u2019m telling you, the forces that are arrayed against Donald Trump are some of the most powerful in this country. And he\u2019s just driving all of them batty and driving them to various degrees of insane.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here\u2019s Dave in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Welcome, sir. You\u2019re next. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hey, Rush, I want to talk about this Rasmussen poll a little bit. What I think really has got to have the Democrats terrified is they know that they over-poll Democrats and under-poll Republicans — and also, Republicans tend to even be afraid for whatever reason to tell the truth in these polls. When you combine that with this Star Wars bar scene of candidates they\u2019ve got in 2020, they\u2019ve gotta be terrified of their chances to take him out.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I think… (sigh) I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re terrified right now. It\u2019s early, and I think… I get your point about polling data not accurately representing Republican strength — and for the most part, that\u2019s true. Except Rasmussen is not a polling company the left pays attention to. I mean, they\u2019ll see it, and they\u2019ll see 52%. But they\u2019ll react to that the way you and I react to an NBC\/Wall Street Journal or ABC News\/Washington Post poll. We\u2019ll kind of discount it because we think it\u2019s biased. That\u2019s what they will think of Rasmussen.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll note it, but they won\u2019t particularly believe it.<\/p>\n
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They\u2019re also at the stage now… Remember, in their minds… These people are not connected to us, folks. They\u2019re not… They live in a dreamworld, a made-up world — and in that world, everybody hates Donald Trump, and it\u2019s just a matter of time. Mueller is going to prove that Trump colluded. And if that\u2019s doesn\u2019t happen, Michael Cohen is gonna testify that Trump told him to make a deal with the Russians. And if that doesn\u2019t materialize, then the U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York, is gonna indict Trump and the campaign organization for money laundering or what have you.<\/p>\n
If that doesn\u2019t work, Adam Schiff is gonna get Trump\u2019s tax returns and they\u2019re gonna prove that Trump colluded with Russia. They believe one or all of these things is going to happen. They are so convinced that right now, 20 Democrats have announced for the White House, including six women, four of them United States senators. In their frame of mind right now, they are so guaranteed of defeating Trump that everybody on the Democrat side that\u2019s ever dreamed of being president is gonna try.<\/p>\n
If they thought Trump really was next to unbeatable, if they thought Trump was cruising to reelection, then they would coalesce behind the one candidate they thought had the best shot of defeating Trump. But if you\u2019re asking yourself, “Why are so many running?” it\u2019s because they all think the Democrats are gonna win in a landslide like should have happened in 2016. They\u2019re gonna get it right this time because there ain\u2019t gonna be any Russian collusion. There isn\u2019t gonna be any cheating.<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t gonna be any of this stuff. They\u2019re gonna have a better candidate than Hillary was, and since the Democrats are such a lock that every one of them that dreams about it is getting in the race. These people are… As I say, they are not in any way connected to the people that elected Donald Trump. They are not connected to the 52% who approve of Trump\u2019s job performance — and when I say not connected, they literally are not connected. Those people don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t try to connect to them; they write them off. They don\u2019t think the number\u2019s 52%. They think Trump\u2019s base is maybe 40% tops. They are spending every waking hour trying to drive a wedge between Trump\u2019s voters and Trump, and they think they\u2019re succeeding. They are not living in reality right now. I know some of you think, “Rush, they know there wasn\u2019t any collusion. They\u2019re just…” No, no. No, no, no. Some of them, maybe.<\/p>\n
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But I\u2019m telling you, folks, these people are lost in this make-believe world that they have created that explains Trump winning. They have been knocked senseless. They haven\u2019t gotten over it, and they still don\u2019t think it\u2019s legit. So in the world they live in, Trump is a poser. He\u2019s not legitimate. And in their world, the whole country thinks this, and the whole country knows this. So it just is a matter of time here until order is established and the Democrats are once again running things.<\/p>\n