RUSH: Celina, Ohio, with Josh. Josh, you want to weigh in. You’re first here. It’s great to have you on the program, hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks a lot for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Listen, I was really excited when Trump got in the race, and I think a lot of conservatives were. But all he does now is attack people. It’s getting ridiculous. I mean, I thought the Fox debate was great. I thought it was fair across the board. He attacked them all. He’s attacked Erick Erickson. Carly Fiorina, who is now my number-one favorite. I absolutely love her. I donÂ’t… This is not helping. This is not helping. How is he gonna handle world leaders? Just go out and call ’em names when they make him mad? It’s childish. It’s like he’s a little kid. I don’t understand it. It’s getting ridiculous, and, um, it’s not helping.
RUSH: Well, then tell me something: Give me your theory, then, as to why his numbers continue to rise.
CALLER: Well, I don’t have a theory. (chuckles) I don’t know. That’s what’s troubling. I thought after this weekend we would have seen a little bit of a dip, but we haven’t.
RUSH: Exactly. See, that’s my whole point, uncharted territory. So here’s all I can figure. You know I just said that I think Trump needs to get back to the issues. Codifying or very succinctly repeating what I said, he needs to get back to the issues. But, nevertheless, even when he doesn’t, this stuff that he’s doing, nobody’s seen. In its own way, it’s refreshing. Don’t forget that there is a percentage — I don’t know how big, but it’s large.
There’s a percentage of the population that is totally fed up with the political class, including the media. And they have wanted things said to people and about people for the people they’ve been voting for for years and they haven’t heard it. I mean, the media is not loved. The media in some cases is despised, and Trump is giving it right back to ’em in ways that many people in this country have dreamed of happening. And, as such, he comes off as refreshing.
Even when he’s not on message or when he’s not on issues, he comes across as somebody that says things they would like to say, things they have wanted to say, things they have hoped other people would say. ‘Cause, frankly, I’m gonna tell you, again: I don’t think that a lot of these big players, including in the media, have any idea who their audiences are. Particularly the Drive-Bys. I don’t think they have the slightest idea the size of and the amount of real anger out there directed at them.
It goes so far beyond the fact that they’re biased.
It’s way beyond that now.
And Trump is the only guy addressing it, whether he’s talking about issues or them.
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RUSH: So in the last sound bite that we played, F. Chuck Todd is begging Trump… Well, he’s not begging. He just is incredulous. (paraphrased) “Why can’t you say you’re sorry? Why can’t you just apologize? It’s a very common statement for people to make, that they were wrong.” You know, the Drive-Bys are obsessed with this, by the way. They would not let George W. Bush… There was one particular press conference every question was, “Have you made any mistakes?”
They want people to admit they’ve made mistakes, because that changes the whole narrative. So they’re trying to force an apology. Trump’s not falling for that, but in this sound bite F. Chuck says (summarized), “Come on, man! I mean, why can’t you just apologize. Look, you go after people like Bette Midler, Gail Collins!” Let’s talk about that for just a second here, because our last caller, Josh, started out liking Trump but, eh, it’s just making him nervous.
He’s just attacking everybody, and it’s not what he thought this was all about. It’s starting to make him nervous. F. Chuck Todd is getting mad at Trump because he’s attacking women on the basis of their looks and so forth, but let’s take a look Bette Midler, for example. Now, Bette Midler… I have never talked about this because my policy is to ignore it all. Bette Midler is a raving lunatic leftist — and angry.
So much so that in her recent concert appearances in Vegas or wherever, she peppers her performance with insults of me and Bush and anybody else she does. Do you think…? Just stick with me here for a second. It’s not about me. Do you think, in all of the hundreds and hundreds of people that show up at Bette Midler concerts or whatever, do you think some of them in there maybe are not liberals/progressives? Were some of them maybe just in there to hear her sing and she starts into this political stuff and they get ticked off?
They don’t show up at these things to get preached to by singers, especially from an upstart, condescending, arrogant platform in a condescending, arrogant way. Okay, so if you happen to be one of those people and there are probably thousands of them by now and all of a sudden here’s Trump firing back at her? You might sit there and say, “Good,” but you might be sick and tired of having to put up with it for all these years, and not just Bette Midler but everybody else in entertainment.
Gail Collins, who is at the editorial board and a column New York Times hasn’t had a good thing to say about a conservative since she was at the New York Daily News! Does anybody ever fire back at her? No, because the media’s off-limits. Well, Trump is firing back. Do you think maybe some people enjoy it? Maybe some people find it refreshing. I don’t know how far they’re taking it in terms of if this is what they wanted at candidate. But for now, at this moment in time, what everything is, there’s some people that may even be nothing more than that.
Our previous caller, Josh, said to him Trump’s coming off as juvenile. It may be. It may be. But to a lot of people… I’m just telling you, I don’t want to just focus on the media. When I talk about the elected political class, I’m talking people in Washington, people in New York, all of the elites. I don’t think they have the slightest idea. They think they do, but I don’t think they have the slightest idea the real anger in the country over what they are doing to it.
There is real visceral anger over this amnesty BS. There is real visceral anger over what’s been done for the economy. There is real visceral anger over what is being done to the health care system via Obamacare. The reason they don’t know it is because they do not care to talk to the people who feel that way, so they never do features on them. They never go out and do man-on-the-street interviews with people like that.
Because they are interested in furthering the agenda that has made all of this happen. Now, they know there are gonna be some people that disagree with it, but they immediately relegate them to insignificant status. They’re either bitter clingers or they’re lunkheads or they’re small in number or they’re just old-fashioned ditties that don’t deal well with change or what have you. But they’re missing the real anger, and it’s been building.
The anger, you can see it in the midterm 2010, 2014 elections. There have been people have shown up in droves. The Democrats have lost over a thousand seats in those midterm elections, and part of those elections were Republicans being elected because the people voting for them wanted them to stop all of this, or at least try. And they don’t see any trying to stop it. They don’t see any effort being made, any serious effort to defund Planned Parenthood.
I think there’s some real outrage in this country over what has been learned, was always suspected but now what has been confirmed was going on in those abortion clinics. There’s real anger out there. And the one person that’s come along that’s tapped into it and that gives everybody the impression that he’s fully aware of it and agrees with them is Donald Trump. As such, he’s got a pretty wide berth here. He’s got a pretty big margin of error.
I can confidently say to you that the noted experts in both parties, the political professionals and all of their associates are stymied and stupefied over the fact that Trump went up in a poll after the Thursday night Fox debate. They thought that was it. You even saw Drudge headline on Friday. I forget what it actually said, but the meaning of it was that party leaders, in this case GOP party leaders, thought that he’d finally stepped in it; it was over.
Now, as to this apology business, I know the people involved here. I mean, I know Megyn Kelly. I’ve gotten to know her socially and professionally, and the same thing with Trump. I know a little bit about them. I’m not good friends with either one. But I know enough to know that the last thing Megyn Kelly wants to be is perceived as a victim here. So I doubt… And I could be dead wrong about this, but I doubt that she’s out there craving an apology, nor is she even considering offering one.
But I know she doesn’t want to be considered a victim. She doesn’t want to in any way, shape, manner, or form. So I think that, to her, this is part of the territory. As far as Trump’s concerned, the first time I actually met Trump not just to say “hi” somewhere was at his golf course here. And this is years ago. And he was then what you see today. He found out I was there, came up and said hello to me, and the first thing he did was point out some guy.
“See that guy over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Richest man in Italy! He’s my friend. Richest man in Italy. Nobody in Italy has more money than that guy. You ought to see his car that he driving. It’s a Ferrari! You want to go take a look at? I’ll show you,” and then he started bragging about his golf course. “Best golf course in the world! There isn’t a better golf course no matter where you go. Augusta’s nothing compared to what I got. They say Pebble Beach is great. Pebble Beach is nothing compared to my out in LA. You seen my course in LA? I have an ocean; they got a little lake. No comparison!”
It’s just who he is. My point is, it isn’t an act. It’s genuine, and I think people are picking up on that. One other thing here: As you know, I’m in the free speech business. I’m a big believer in it, and I think… I don’t quite know how to express this. I’ll give it my best shot. I think, bouncing off Chuck Todd here, “Are you going to apologize, Donald Trump? Can’t you just apologize?” What is this with these apologies?
I’m stunned, frankly, at how words have become so damn powerful. Meanwhile, if anybody owes anybody an apology — I’m dead serious about this — it’s Barack Obama and the Democrat Party for what they are doing and have done to this country. I mean, there are real things of action taking place that are genuinely transformative and destructive. Transformative in a negative way. That I don’t believe anybody in a near majority came close to voting for.
That is far more offensive to me and bothersome and worrisome than anything anybody says. And particularly when people are trying to tell jokes or be funny about something. We’ve learned that stand-up comics do not even play college campuses anymore because political correctness is so ingrained that nothing is seen as funny. Well, that isn’t healthy, and it isn’t good, and I know some of this is also a two-way street. Do you notice nobody ever demands people on the left apologize for anything?
I’m telling you, you could throw Trump in there, whatever happened the Fox debate. Some of the stuff that is said about some of us on the right by people on the left dwarfs what we’re all talking about today. What happened in the Fox News debate. Some of it is despicably destructive. Look at what Reid said about Romney. Look at what the Obama campaign said about Romney not caring that some employee’s wife died or that Romney hasn’t paid his taxes in ten years.
They’re just out-and-out lies, for the purposes of destroying someone’s character, personality, and career. Nobody ever runs to them and asks them to apologize or to explain themselves. So it’s clear to me that certain people can say whatever they want, and it’s fine and dandy, and it will maybe even be applauded. Now, I’m not saying, “If they get away with it, we should be able to get away with it.”
I’m saying there’s a double standard here, and too many people on our side attempt to comport themselves in ways they think will gain the approval of our enemies. An example would be anybody who says, “I want them to know that I can work with them, that I’m willing to cross the aisle, that I can cooperate.” We are not the problem! By “we,” I mean, conservatives. We are not the problem. None of this that happened in our country has got our fingerprints on it.
I’ll give you detailed examples of this as we get deeper into the Stack of Stuff as the program unfolds here today. I don’t know how much of what Trump says he’s trying to be funny and how much of it he’s being dead serious, but I’ve always been… Not perplexed ’cause I understand it. I’ve just always been… Okay, somebody goes out and says something outrageously offensive, insulting, whatever. Outrage automatically appears. “How dare they! Who would really think that, blah, blah.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it! It wasn’t me. That’s not who I am.”
“Okay, everything’s okay.”
You mean that takes away that it was said? If it was so bad, how can an apology erase it? How can an apology make it as though it didn’t happen? There’s something else at work here just besides apologizing for something outrageously stated. I just think everybody’s wound too tight over this, and I would dare say that even that is a direct result of liberalism and PC and all of that that has been inculcated in the skulls full of mush in public education for the last 50 years.
You got all these socialist economists writing books abut the failure of capitalism. The failure? Tell me why is it. When have we had capitalism in this country for enough years for it to actually demonstrate what it does? The liberals have been running this show. Every bit of trouble that we are in in this country, the vast majority of it is because of liberalism and the success they have had in implementing their beliefs, policies, and whatever, much of it without even having passed Congress.
EPA regulations, Fish and Wildlife regulation, you name it. They never have to say a word! They just have to put the regulations in place, people automatically abide by them, and they’re assumed to have the force of law, and they end up being destructive and damaging to the American economy, the American culture. And then all of a sudden we hear guys like — well, take your pick. Any Republican president is the problem, or a Republican senator conservative is the problem.
The fact of the matter is, aside from the eight years of Reagan, when has there really been any? This country is what it is because liberals have been winning and have been succeeding, enforcing their policy preferences even on the judiciary now. I what’s frustrating for me is that is a fact, that is a reality.
And I watch Millennials interviewed on TV: “What’s the biggest problem your generation faces?” “Jobs. Jobs.” Why do you think there aren’t any? Why do you think the job market is what it is? Who has been taking pieces of the private sector and pieces of the private away and making it smaller and limiting opportunity? Who’s been doing that? The Democrat Party!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We just got a new poll hot off the presses, and you know me, I’m not big on polls, but what the heck? It’s our buddies at this commie lib polling unit in North Carolina, Public Policy Polling. And it’s Iowa. Trump still leads in Iowa. He’s at 19%. Ben Carson and Scott Walker both at 12%, 11% for Jeb, 10% for Carly Fiorina (which is way up), 9% for Cruz, 6% for Huckabee. Rubio and the other nine are clustered between 3% and zip. Kasich and Rand Paul at 3%.
Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Santorum have 2%. Chris Christie is at 1%. Gilmore, Lindsey Grahamnesty, and Pataki have less than 1%. So Trump is still leading with 19%. I don’t know what he was in the previous Public Policy Polling Iowa poll, so I don’t know if 19% is up or down. That’s just the first paragraph. I just got this. I haven’t been able to read whole thing.
It’s 12% for Ben Carson and Scott Walker. So this is two polls that Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina have skyrocketed off the Fox News debate. Two different polls that Trump holds his lead in both polls. Cruz is up, too, a little bit, but not nearly as much in this one as he was in the NBC Monkey time poll, SurveyMonkey poll. Here’s Gregory in Washington, DC. Great to have you, sir, in the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, sir.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Enjoying your show.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Very much.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to make the point was… What I wanted to say was that people are standing with Donald Trump even if they don’t agree with him because people don’t like bullies. They don’t like to see people treated unfairly, and if you look at what’s going on, you see a lot of people have that… Donald Trump, even if you look at articles that are from liberal sites to conservative sites that point out that Trump is now getting ready to fall in the polls, that he’s attacking women.
If you look at the comment section, you’ll find a lot of people say they don’t buy it, they don’t like the attacks that they are aiming at Donald Trump, and even as a Christian — I’m a conservative evangelical Christian — there’s no way that I can look at Trump’s statement that he said in regards to Megyn Kelly and then say, based on that statement, that he was talking about menstruation. Now, there’s no way that I could make that judgment.
I would challenge any Christian to say that, based on his comment, that you can say definitively that you know what was in his heart so you can make that statement about him. So to make the statements like Erickson did, talking about he wouldn’t want his daughter in the room with Trump — to say what Fiorina said, saying now there was no excuse for Trump to make such a statement; she stands with Megyn Kelly — all of this is just completely off base. When people see those kind of attacks taking place, they don’t want to be a part of it. Even if, again, they might not agree with Trump, they don’t like to see that happen.
RUSH: Wait.
CALLER: One last thing.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I think Republicans are missing the point when they say the goal is to win the presidency. No, the goal is not to win the presidency. My goal is I want to see a true conservative represent what I value. So even if I lose the presidency, even if the left wins the presidency, the issue is the country.
RUSH: Well, now, we’re out of time here, but that’s interesting, Gregory.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, back to the audio sound bites. We’re gonna go back to the Today show today.
This Savannah Guthrie is interviewing Trump, and they’re talking about his comments about Megyn Kelly, and this follows F. Chuck Todd on the Today show asking Donald (summarized, “Why can’t you just apologize, man? Just be done with it. Just say you’re sorry.” He’s not gonna do that, by the way. He’s not. I’ll tell you the reason he’s not gonna do it is because he’s not going to admit that he was wrong. That’s just not who he is. Temperamentally, personally. So Savannah Guthrie was the next on NBC to give this a go.
GUTHRIE: If someone made such a comment about a female journalist, suggesting that they were on their m-menstrual cycle.
TRUMP: That would be inappropriate.
GUTHRIE: It would be classless and juvenile and over the line, right?
TRUMP: That would be inappropriate!
GUTHRIE: Yes.
TRUMP: But I didn’t do that. First of all, look: I happen to be a smart person. I went to the best schools. I was a great student. I built a great empire. I did The Art of the Deal. I did The Apprentice.
GUTHRIE: What does it say —
TRUMP: Let me just —
GUTHRIE: — to you that so many people think you did that very thing —
TRUMP: Savannah, I don’t think so many people do.
GUTHRIE: — that — that your reputation is such that people thought that?
TRUMP: No. It’s all fueled by the press, by you in the press.
GUTHRIE: (grunts)
TRUMP: I mean, it’s ridiculous. Who would say such a thing?
GUTHRIE: (grunts)
TRUMP: No, if I would have said that, it would have been inappropriate.
RUSH: (summarized) “I went to the best schools, I’m too smart to make a reference about periods, about Megyn Kelly. Just too smart! I got the best grades, went to the best schools, built an empire. I wouldn’t do it!” So another journalist shows up in the OK Corral with Trump and walks away with empty cylinders. Here’s Carly Fiorina. This is what our caller was talking about toward the end of the previous hour. This was on State of the Union. Jake Tapper talking to Carly Fiorina, says, “Are you offended by Trump personally attacking Megyn Kelly? Are you offended by how many are interpreting his remarks about blood?”
FIORINA: They were completely inappropriate and offensive comments. Period. I started out as a secretary, and as I made my way up in the business world — a male-dominated business world — I’ve had lots of men imply that, um, I was unfit for decision making because maybe I was having my period. So I’ll say it, okay? Women understood that comment, and, yes, it is offensive.
RUSH: Okay. (sigh) You know, folks, this… It is what it is. I mean, people are gonna… There’s no doubt there are a bunch of stereotypes associated with this. So the fray has been joined. Jeb Bush, Saturday in Atlanta, this is at the Red State gathering.
JEB: Come on! Give me a break! I mean, are we…? D-do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53% of all voters? What Donald Trump said is wrong!
RUSH: So the War on Women meme, thereby was reinforced by Jeb Bush. By the way, if you’re just joining us, I should maybe remind you that there’s been a poll taken — actually two now. But there was an NBC/SurveyMonkey poll, an online poll that is scientific, they claim. It’s 3,000 respondents, and in that follow poll (and this is following all this dust-up that happened on Thursday night), Trump went up a point, 22 to 23%.
The big news in this poll, is Ted Cruz in second place to 13%. He’s up 7%. Ben Carson was up 3% to 11%, and Carly Fiorina had the biggest jump, she went up from 2% to 8%. That’s a 6% increase. Well, a six-point increase. And she was tied there with Marco Rubio. Jeb was down three points after the Thursday night Fox debate. Cruz’s support more than doubled, and Fiorina’s more than tripled. And Ben Carson, too.
And those results have been echoed in the Public Policy Polling poll that was just released maybe a half hour ago, maybe 45 minutes ago, in Iowa. Trump is at 19% and the second place is Ben Carson and Scott Walker at 12%. Jeb Bush at 11%; Carly Fiorina at 10% (which is way up for her). Cruz was flat at 9%. So in two polls since this dust-up, Trump is either flat or up a point. But others did well, by the way, in that debate. Carly did great in her five o’clock debate, and Cruz did well, and apparently a lot of people liked what Ben Carson did as well.