RUSH: I want to go back to our first caller in the last hour, the tail end of the previous hour, you’ll remember, he was just frustrated as he could be. He watched the thing last night and I could tell by the nature of his comments that he was young, which is good. He can’t believe what he was hearing. He literally can’t believe there are still people in a dominant, major political party talking about all of these things like they were talking about last night, which are demonstrated failures. They do not work. They do not help people. They do not revive the economy. They don’t do anything. Yet here they are talking about it and doing even more of it, and he was beside himself. He can’t find any pushback anywhere today. The media, he can’t find it. He doesn’t understand it, and I’ll tell you why that is.

This is a very, very important point here, folks. I’m sorry to sound like a broken record on it, but the reason our opening caller — and I’m sure he echoed what many of you think — it wasn’t that long ago that you could count on the Republican Party to last night be all over TV nuking that stuff. Either Republican presidential candidates or party leaders or elected Republicans would be all over, and the media would love to talk to them, and they would be nuking everything the Democrats said.

They would be engaging in pushback. They would be attempting to put it in context and to disqualify it and to expose it for what it is, as just runaway, irresponsible socialism, which hasn’t worked anywhere. And then they would contrast that with what they believe, or what we believe. And the American people watching news media last night — and the same thing would happen today — there would be some pushback on it. There would be some people with credibility who would be explaining why what you heard last night was absolutely irresponsible, juvenile, whatever else.

But there hasn’t been any of that. And so you who have that very reaction to what you heard last night, you don’t see anybody in politics representing what you believe. The Republican Party is not out fighting this stuff. And the reason that they’re not — we know this — the Republican establishment believes that to do so would be to endanger their support from independents. I’m not trying to be funny, and I’m not cracking a joke. They really do believe it. It’s why they don’t oppose Obama. The fallback is, “Well, we don’t have enough votes to override a veto.”

So people say, “Why don’t you at least fight back?”

“No, because that would anger the independents.” They really believe this stuff inside the Beltway, in the Washington establishment, in the Republican section of it, they really believe. Mitt Romney won the independents in droves and lost the election. There are election cycles behind reality at the Republican establishment. These moderates, establishment types, it’s the most frustrating thing. So the bottom line is, you have to wait until today and turn on the radio to hear any responsible opposition, pushback in putting what you heard in proper context. And you’re not hearing it from people you can vote for.

So it’s understandable you’d be frustrated. I’m with you. I totally understand. There has been a big change in the 27 years I’ve been behind this microphone. The first 10, 15 years, the Republican Party was pushing back every minute of every day, and now they’ve been scared into silence issue after issue after issue. So that’s why, you watch this last night, “I don’t hear any reaction. You really believe this crazy stuff, my God!” I understand the incredulity that you’re feeling.

Anyway, back to the phones. We had a guy who dropped off. He was from Denver. I wish he hadn’t dropped off. He was gonna tell me I was all wrong, that Hillary is not gonna be the nominee, because Democrat voters, particularly young Democrat voters, they don’t want anything to do with Hillary. They are in love with Bernie Sanders and they’re gonna make him the nominee. This guy dropped off. I don’t know if he ran out of time or what, but I would have liked to have talked to him. In the meantime, here’s Mike in Finksburg, Maryland. Mike, hi. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, professor. I appreciate your taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I’ll make it short and sweet and straight to the point. I’ve been a student since 1989, and I’m gonna put forth my plan. We’ve been given a golden opportunity, not for Republicans, but for conservatives. We heard it all last night, and it’s short and sweet. First, the economy. Simple. Lower taxes for all businesses, large and small. They want to talk about gun violence? We attack gun violence like we attacked drunk driving 30 years ago. We didn’t go after GM and Ford. We went after the guys that were killing people on the road. And it worked. Third, the border. Seal the border. Use the laws we already have. We don’t have to add one law. They’re there. They’re on the books. They just need to be used. And that’s the start. Just go straight down the line

RUSH: Yeah, well, who’s gonna do that?

CALLER: We’re the party of producers.

RUSH: Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, who’s gonna do all that?

CALLER: I’m waiting to hear. I’ve been waiting for a long time. I’ve been holding my nose and voting —

RUSH: Well, I know, you’re echoing the frustration of the first caller. The answer to this stuff we heard last night is first grade easy. It is first grade, fundamental Dick and Jane, see spot run easy. This stuff that we heard last night can be obliterated. It can be nuked in one busy broadcast news day. I haven’t heard anybody on our side say anything about it last night, other than echo how well Hillary did. Even commentators on the right have fallen into the trap of analyzing what happened last night on the basis of how well did Hillary do. Not what the hell folly did she say, but how did she do? “Oh, man, she looked formidable last night. Oh, man, the Republicans are gonna have to work.”

Mike, the point is, you’re right. We’ve had for seven years the greatest opportunity of my lifetime to contrast what we believe with what liberalism is. We don’t even have to speak about it in theory. We don’t have to go to people and say, “Look, if you elect Democrats, let me tell you what’s gonna happen, A, B, C, D, and E.” It is happening. We don’t have to wait for it to happen. We don’t have to present theory and then be patient while we’re proven right. We’re in the middle of it. All we have to do is point out to people, “What you heard last night, it’s exactly what has happened the last seven years, and where are we? Everything you heard last night that they want to do more of is what we’re already doing, and we’ve already got 94 million Americans not working. Who do you think’s running health care that nobody has? Who do you think is running immigration that you think is all screwed? Who has been in charge the last seven years?”

This is the thing about last night that boggles my mind the most, is these people get up there, after being in charge for seven years and get to act like a Republican is still in office and like we are still in Iraq and like we are still losing in Iraq. It’s as though Barack Obama has not been president other than when they need to praise Obama to be a loyal Democrat. But other than that, if you just landed from Mars last night, you would think the Republican Party’s been in charge and has been totally inept and irresponsible and is in the process of ruining this country and we need to act fast. We need to give everybody health care. We need to punish the banks. We need to get rid of oil. We need to save the planet ’cause it’s on the way to becoming uninhabitable.

Who is failing to fix all these problems the past seven years? I mean, I think it was even O’Malley in his opening statement who said, “Well, you know what, I can’t be critical of what’s happened the last seven years, but I must tell you that we haven’t gone nearly far enough.” So he even had to tantamount admit that they haven’t advanced the leftist agenda nearly as much as a lot of people want, but certainly you cannot find Republican fingerprints on any of the messes that are being made or have been made in this country. I mean, seven years and these people list these complaints like they’re out of power?

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RUSH: (interruption) Is that right? I had not heard that. You’re not…? (interruption) You’re not kidding me? (interruption) Trump praised Hillary’s performance, too? (interruption) No. No. That didn’t happen. You making that up. Okay, I’ve gotta find it. See, that’s… (interruption) Donald Trump ought to be out there today. He should have been out on the morning shows. He should have live tweeting. He should have on the morning shows mocking what happened last night. Not the people. Mocking what they said, mocking their policies.

He should have tearing it down statement by statement, issue by issue. “First thing, we can’t afford any of it. We’re already $18 trillion in debt. We have spent $18 trillion we don’t have trying to the things they want to do. Spending money obviously ain’t the way to do this. You want to have health care? This ain’t the way to do it. You want everybody to have health insurance? Whatever they’re doing the last seven years is not the way to do it. You want to end poverty? Sorry, the way we’ve been doing it since 1964 isn’t working, and spending more money isn’t gonna work.”

This stuff needs to torn down statement by statement, candidate by candidate. From Bernie Sanders and what he was saying about the banks, to this stupid climate change stuff, somebody’s gotta push back on this stuff. But if everybody’s gonna run around and talk about how well Hillary did? Sorry, folks. I don’t know how you marshal any opposition to it. What are you gonna gain by going out and praising Hillary? You’re gonna get Democrats to leave Hillary and vote for you because you go praise Hillary?

Any Republican. I don’t mean just Trump, anybody. What’s the point? You gotta get over this idea that the Republican Party is hated by over half the country and to get back in their good graces, you gotta be nice to Democrats. That’s another giant trick the Democrats and the media have concocted that every Republican that’s elected seemed to have fallen for. I remember… You know, I was alive during the eighties, and I was an adult in the eighties. I remember, you know, Alan Cranston and these guys would go out and start…

Like Bernie Sanders last night brought up once again that Republicans want to cut Social Security and leave senior citizens penniless. Well, back when Alan Cranston would make a statement like that back in the 1980s, somebody on the Republican Party would be on TV the next day laughing about it, mocking it, ridiculing it, and pointing out how it isn’t so and asking, “Is that the best you’ve got?” You have to ask yourself: Why do these Democrat complaints work, after 30 years?

How do they kept getting away with Republicans want to cut Social Security? For 30 years! Now, they may not be getting away with that. The seasoned citizen vote has been trending Republican for quite a while, and I think the reason why is seasoned citizens have figured out all these years the Democrats have been predicting that the Republicans gonna take their Social Security away, it never happens. So the seasoned citizens at some point realize that it’s a phony and false fear and they don’t have to worry about it.

But the things that were said on that stage last night, I’m telling you, are first grade easy to blow up. And they deserve to be blown up. It’s easy. Everything these people said… You want me to summarize this again? Let me summarize it for you real quickly, ladies and gentlemen. “Elect the Democrats! We’re gonna have higher taxes.” When’s that solved anything? We’ve been raising taxes, pushing a high tax rate, and we still got problems, right?

“We’re gonna make sure the borders stay open.” I even heard one of the candidates last night said this is how you raise wages in America is flood the market with all these illegals. Really? The law of supply and demand alone disproves that. Ninety-four million Americans are not working.

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RUSH: Donald Trump did have something to say about last night. He was on Good Morning America today, and he declared Hillary the winner. George Stephanopoulos says to Trump, “You said it was a good move by Bernie Sanders to tell Secretary Clinton he’s tired of hearing about her e-mails. He also took on casino capitalists. It sounds like a preview of a possible attack on you, Mr. Trump. So who wins between the casino capitalist and Democrat socialist?”

TRUMP: His performance was okay, but he had to be much better than okay. He had to come out the clear winner. He didn’t. And I actually think she probably came out not the winner, but, yeah, probably if you think about it, George, she came out the winner. She did what she had to do, and they were extremely gentle. The other three, it’s not gonna happen.

RUSH: Yeah, what he’s saying is, ah, not gonna happen, and he’s right about. That was not a debate last night, and he’s promising that when she has to go up against him it ain’t gonna be that way. But this is not — I don’t know anymore. What is this obsession with praising the other team, the other side? Bernie Sanders was an absolute embarrassment last night. Bernie Sanders was scary embarrassing last night. Rate these people on the basis of their debate performance and what have you.