RUSH: We have Zack, 20 years old in college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hi. Zack, I’m glad you called.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you doing?

RUSH: Very well. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I really felt compelled to call today. You know, like you just said, I’m 20 years old, I’m a college student, and I’m really angry, Rush. I’m really angry. I want to tell you why I’m angry, and that will lead me up to my question I have for you. I think yesterday I really reached my boiling point when I was watching the news, or was watching my local news, and I saw Obama. He was preparing sandwiches for the homeless at a soup kitchen or something like that, and I was with a few of my friends, and I started grumbling a bit when it came on the television. They’re, like, “What?” They’re used to me being a little more into politics and paying attention to things, and they asked, “Why does this make you angry?”

RUSH: Zack. Hold it right there. I misjudged the clock by a minute. Can you hold on through the break to finish?

CALLER: Yeah, sure.

RUSH: Good, good. Great. I’m glad. My bad here. Hold on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, we’re back, we got Zack here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and you left off, you were watching local news with some friends, you saw Obama at the soup kitchen —

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: — and you said your friends are used to you being a little bit more into politics and paying attention to that kind of stuff than they used to be, and they asked you why you got mad at what you saw.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Why did you get mad?

CALLER: Well, there are a couple reasons, Rush. Number one, as you know, you inform me. You know, people who don’t listen to you may not know this because the mainstream media won’t really tell you, but you have the Republicans genuinely interested in coming to terms with Obama, trying to come up with some simple bipartisanship, and, it’s not working. We’re not hearing that in the mainstream media.

So why isn’t he in the trenches trying to figure this out, trying to sort this out? It just made so much sense that this is where he is. He’s trying to look really good to the liberals. Here he is in the soup kitchen! I’m telling you, Rush, I’m surprised he’s not on vacation right now, honestly. (chuckles) But this leads me to my question: You know, it’s not working. We’re trying to do things.

You know, we tried to pass various things. We tried to open up parks, we tried to open up national museums. We tried to open up things that right now are considered nonessential but they might be a little more essential than people think. But, Rush, are we gonna have to blink with, you know, the debt ceiling approaching and everything? Are we gonna have to blink? Are Republicans gonna have to blink? Right now we’re not really winning the fight. I mean, I think there’s a little bit —

RUSH: What do you want them to do?

CALLER: People are starting to really realize kinda what’s going on, but it’s not enough.

RUSH: Zack, what do you want them to do?

CALLER: What would I like them to do?

RUSH: Yeah, what do you want? Do you want the Republicans to blink and end this so that the shutdown ends and the bleeding stops?

CALLER: Well, I don’t know, Rush. I mean, it’s really unfair because, like I said, you have the Republicans genuinely interested, like I said. Simple bipartisanship, we’re trying to come to terms with them, but they won’t let anything pass. Like you keep saying, it’s instilled in us. They’re trying to inflict pain, we know that, but mainstream media does not depict these things. You don’t see these things.

We’ve tried to pass numerous things. Obama says unless we embrace his complete plan, nothing will be passed. It’s… I don’t know what I’d like them to do, Rush, because we — when I say “we,” you know, the GOP, the Republicans. They’re depicted as monsters pretty much right now. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at Obama’s Twitter. They’re all tweets signed by him, they need to be signed before they’re tweeted, but they say things like, you know —

RUSH: You know, I’m glad you mentioned Twitter. Do you know that there are supposedly 19 million followers of Obama’s Twitter page, and it’s been learned that the vast majority of them are fake. They don’t exist.

CALLER: Is that right?

RUSH: Yeah. Zack, I hear it in your voice. You are 20 years old, you’re a Republican conservative, and you just can’t take much more of this. You can’t take much more of this criticism, of this impugning, of lying and mischaracterization of the Republicans. You don’t see them ever winning. I don’t see what this is worth because all of their efforts at what you call bipartisanship — which is what the media tells them the people want, so they try it — gets rejected.

There’s nothing they can do, so they might as well just cut the bleeding and end the bad press. The bad press isn’t going to end. You’re 20. Ronald Reagan got this kind of press. Barry Goldwater got this kind of press. I mean, every Republican who has succeeded got this kind of press. George W. Bush got this kind of press. Sarah Palin. Every successful Republican got this kind of press. I’ll tell you what bothers me.

When Palin was chosen to be the vice president, she gave a great acceptance speech at the convention. It was a good first speech there with McCain, wherever it was (I think Indianapolis, someplace in Indiana), and immediately the Democrats started and the media started making fun of her and they talked what an idiot she was. They made up things that she never said. She never said that she was an expert on foreign policy ’cause she could see Russia from her house in Alaska.

She never said it.

Tina Fey said that, portraying her.

It became as though, in the media, Palin said it.

I’d run into Republicans who said, “We gotta let her go! We gotta throw her overboard. She’s killing us,” and I got infuriated, Zack. I literally, at a dinner party I hosted, walked out. I got so infuriated at the seeming ease that so-called Republicans had with letting the Democrats pick our winners and losers, letting the Democrats pick our nominee, letting the Democrats in the media pick who among us are gonna be our leaders.

Of course they’re always gonna pick. They’re always gonna get rid of people that they’re afraid of. But what bothered me was that it was the media saying this stuff about Palin, and these people said, “If the media say it, we gotta dump her,” and I just reject that totally. If the media’s ripping into somebody, I want to keep ’em. If the media’s trying to destroy Ted Cruz, I want to keep him. There’s a reason for it.

I think what’s happening, and I spent a lot of time in the first hour of the program, is at the end of the day everybody thinks that Obama is gonna win this. But it is how the Republicans comport themselves in this that determines whether they really win it or lose it, in the long term, ’cause there’s a lot of politics to come after this. There are a lot of elections to come after this. There are a lot of policies to come after this.

There are a lot of things that we’re gonna want to oppose again. Obamacare is gonna be seen as an absolute disaster by people once it gets into its full implementation cycle. It’s gonna be an absolute disaster — and I think, you know, there are Republicans speaking up now, Zack. They are doing what they were elected to do, and I think that they’re gonna be rewarded down the line for standing up for what Republicans believe and doing their level best to stop this.

There’s not a Republican in office who ran supporting Obamacare. Not one of them voted for it. Every one of them ripped it at some point. Everyone one of them criticized. The vast majority promised in election campaigns to do everything they could to defund it or to repeal it or whatever. But when the time came, there have been very few of ’em stand up. Those people do not have bright futures in the Republican Party. I would fight, if I were you.

If I had the ability to persuade you, I would tell you to fight this notion to let the media dictate what you think Republican policy ought to be. That’s what’s happening now, and that’s why you’re mad. Republicans are essentially trying to limit the damage from the media. They’ve been doing it my whole life. What they’re trying to do is eliminate the damage or mitigate it and stop the bleeding, and all it does is encourage more of this kind of treatment.

It’s not gonna stop it.

Obama gets everything he wants in this case.

Do you think, all of a sudden, Republicans are gonna be loved? Do you think the American people are gonna say, “Yeah, I like these Republicans now. Ah, they’re very civil, very nice. I like the bipartisanship in caving and agreeing with Obama.” It’s not the case. The vast majority of the people, despite the election results, do not want Obamacare, do not like what’s happening to the country. It’s worth fighting for.

I cringe when I hear people want to throw everything overboard because the media is killing us. ‘Cause that’s always been the case, and it always will be the case, and it’s also true that the media doesn’t always win. Zack, the media’s job is to depress you. The media’s job is to dispirit you. The media’s job is to make you think that what you want can never happen, because it’s racist, sexist, extremist, not in the mainstream, homophobic and all those things.

They want you to think the way you’re thinking. And if we’re ever gonna get out of this cycle, it’s going to be because people refuse to let the media pick our nominees, pick our leaders, let the media get away with destroying various Republicans. That’s got to stop. And until that does, what you’re seeing isn’t going to change. So buck up. Hang in there. You’re 20. You’re gonna be needed. You are needed now.