RUSH: Ever since Friday when Donald Trump most recently appeared on the big program here I have been asked by people, “Do you think he’s running?” and up until Friday, I didn’t think so. I thought there were other things behind this — and I still don’t know. I’m still into wild guess territory, but now if I had to put money behind the guess I would say he’s running. I really think he is. As of now, I think (in his mind) he’s running. Now, with Trump anything can happen between now and that day that he says he’s going to announce. What is it, he said that he’s going to…? Prior to June, the finale of The Apprentice he’s gonna do something. He’s not going to announce it that day, he’s gonna announce what date he’s gonna announce.
So he’s obviously promoting the finale of The Apprentice. Ah, just a couple things out there. I think he’s gonna do it. He was in Boca on Saturday making a political speech. He basically said that Romney is not rich enough. He said Romney’s not nearly as rich as he, Trump, is. Trump says he’s a billionaire. Now, remember there was some people at — I forget who it was, a magazine or something — that did a story on Trump claiming he’s lying about his net worth (saying it’s really only $250 million or something) and he sued them, and there was a retraction.
I think Forbes. I think he opened his books for Forbes or something and Forbes came in and reported that it’s a lot more than $250 million. He sued. Trump sued some author a couple of years ago for libel, claiming his net worth was less than $250 million. The Trump libel case got thrown out, but Trump did go to Forbes, and they looked at the books, and they found it was much more than 250. Here’s the audio sound bite. This is at a Tea Party deal on Saturday in Boca Raton, but this happened to be with Candy Crowley on Sunday’s State of the Union. She said to Trump, “You’re a better businessman, you think? It’s a selling point for you over Romney?”
TRUMP: I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many Mitt Romney. I would love to put that ability to work for this country. So I don’t do it for myself, I’ll be doing it for the country — and guess what? That’s what this country needs.
RUSH: This country needs me. Well, now, you can laugh at that. I’m just gonna tell you something: Everybody that’s serious about running for office thinks that. Why else run? You almost have to. To put up with what that entails, you have to think the country can’t get along without you. The country needs you. You have to have something driving you. Trump is just verbalizing it here — and he didn’t actually say (laughing) that Romney is not rich enough. That’s a caption to a picture of Trump from Boca that the New York Post runs. That’s how they interpret it.
In fact, the New York Post story: “I’m Better for Prez Because My Net Worth’s Bigger Than Romney’s — Vote for me ’cause mine’s bigger. Donald Trump yesterday fired the opening salvo in a macho battle of bank accounts with rival presidential contender Mitt Romney, dismissing the former Massachusetts governor as a ‘small business’ person and saying his own assets are ‘much, much’ larger than [Romney]’s. Trump, whose approval ratings have rocketed upward since he started hammering President Obama, yesterday turned his fire on Romney, considered by many the front-runner…”
I can’t wait ’til he starts taking on Huckabee because Huckabee is #1 or #2 in some of these polls. “‘I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney,’ Trump told CNN’s Candy Crowley yesterday. … ‘Well, Mitt Romney is basically a small-business guy, if you really think about it. He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there. He didn’t create it.'” He’s talking about Bain Capital. “Trump [said] that he had created ‘hundreds of thousands of jobs.'” Here’s part of a speech from Trump on Saturday in Boca…
TRUMP: I know a lot about books. The man that wrote the second book didn’t write the first book. The difference was like chicken salad and chicken (bleep). I read both books. There is no way that he wrote that first book. His whole aura was caused by the genius of the first book, which was written by Bill Ayers!
RUSH: Okay, that’s birther claim #2. First you’ve got the birther claim, and now the claim that Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s book. That is the result of research done by an author by the name of Jack Cashill or Cashill (I don’t know how Jack pronounces his name. It’s spelled C-a-s-h-i-l-l. It’s either Ca-shill or Cash-ill) and Jack spent months, and he’s got this entire dissertation. He’s gone back and he’s looked at previous Obama writings. He knows the history: Obama ran up to a deadline on his first book, hadn’t gotten anything written, then he did get something written and he turned it in. It was horrible.
The publishers rejected it or something like this, and finally when the book about his father got submitted, everybody said, “We’ve never seen any writing like this from Obama. We’ve never seen this.” So then they started comparing it, Jack did, to other writers and they found what he says is an unmistakable comparison between the way Bill Ayers writes and Obama’s first book. Now, Ayers is out making jokes about this now. You know, Ayers goes out and tries to speak to these future little Pentagon bombers, little kids out there who aspire to the same things Ayers did: Blowing up people and things.
One person said, “I understand that you wrote Obama’s first book,” and Ayers said, “Yeah, I wrote it,” and then that person put that video all over YouTube: “Ayers Admits to Writing Obama’s Book!” So here’s Trump bringing this up. Next, Trump’s gonna be talking about David Rockefeller and New World Order and the Trilateral Commission and how they picked Obama. But despite all that I still think… I don’t know. Right now I think Trump is running.
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RUSH: Jonathan in Reston, Virginia, hello, and welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, good afternoon, first-time caller here.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I got a kind of small difference of opinion with you on Democrats and redistribution of wealth.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Notice how Democrats always use a conduit. They don’t give money directly to the people. They give it through a union — as in the GM bondholders. They give it to the green crap industry instead of the oil industry. They give it to AARP. See, if Democrat politicians were sincere, they would be in favor of eliminating all corporate subsidizes, right? Instead, they give it to their, quote, unquote, “rich special interests.”
RUSH: Well, wait a second, though. There is direct transfer payment. You know, WIC student loans are a direct transfer payment, a lot of them are given. Food stamps. There are all kinds of direct, common, ordinary payments. Everyday welfare payments. There are all kinds of Democrat from the Democrat Party to you payments.
CALLER: You are correct.
RUSH: Earned-Income Tax Credit. Now, you might argue that goes through the IRS, but who likes them anyway no matter what they do?
CALLER: Correct. I have another quick comment I’d like to make on Trump. I don’t trust him. I think the only reason why he’s decided to throw his name in the ring is he’s concerned about the Democrats coming after the real estate sector of the economy. You know how the Democrats went after the oil industry, the health care industry —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — the financial industry. So now Trump is concerned. He’s seeing all this transpire, and he’s like, “Whoa, they can come after my industry next, but if I get to be…”
RUSH: In what way?
CALLER: In what way?
RUSH: Yeah, like in what way could he see them coming after the industry down the road? I could make the case they already have come for real estate people. They’re coming for everybody, for crying out loud. I know what you’re saying. You’re looking for the thing that is the catalyst. “Okay, there’s one thing that made Trump do this,” and what you’re essentially saying is he’s trying to protect his own. “When it happens to everybody else, I don’t care, but now they’re gonna start messing in my backyard, okay, I’m gonna do something to stop it.” That’s basically what you’re saying, right?
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Yeah. So what could they do to real estate that would finally get him off his duff, say, “Okay, I gotta stop this?”
CALLER: Well, eliminate some of the subsidies which they’re already talking about doing, the mortgage interest deduction?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: How about —
RUSH: He doesn’t —
CALLER: — eliminate some investment interest as well?
RUSH: Possible. It’s possible. You know, his candidacy’s not even official yet. The whole thing is in its infancy. For example, he said on this program Friday that he would tax the ChiComs 25% because of how they’re screwing us. Well, he says he’s a conservative. That’s not a conservative thing. A foreign tariff, that’s just gonna raise the price of imports to this country and the cost of living. That’s not, quote, unquote, “conservative solution to a problem.” All that stuff he’s gotta get fleshed out, and at this point, with Trump you don’t know what’s talk and what isn’t yet, even the whole deal if he’s running. It’s one of those things sit back and wait for what ultimately happens — and still people are trying to figure out, “Why is he really doing this?”
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