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RUSH: Immediately after the debate last night… Well, actually it wasn’t immediately after. I got the note about this about twenty ’til 10 so there was still a little over a half hour left in the debate. Apparently Brit Hume couldn’t wait to pounce on Ted Cruz. I know, it seems incongruous as it can be, but what Cruz did to irritate Brit Hume was to list all of the fights that he has led as senator and as attorney general, the things that he has tried to get done, the things he’s tried to stop, the things he’s tried to achieve.

So Brit Hume tweeted, “Ted Cruz going on about all the fights he’s led in Washington. Never mentions the number of fights he’s won. The answer is none.” Is that how we’re going to judge things now? Ted Cruz, the one guy in the United States Senate that’s trying to stop this decline of this country? The one guy trying to make something happen, the one guy trying to lead others, the one guy trying to turn the linguine-spined Republicans into spines of steel in the United States Senate? Why do you think…? A good friend of mine sent me me a note.


“Why do you think a movement is called a ‘movement’? Because it has to move! If it doesn’t make the case, if the movement doesn’t make the case even in the face of temporary defeats, then it dies.” Where would Obama be if he had believed when the Berlin Wall fell down, that communism was finished? Where would any of the leftist Democrats, the Alinskyites today be if they had just thrown in the towel? “Oh, my God, our precious Berlin Wall is down!

“Our precious Soviet Union’s over. I guess that’s it for us.” They didn’t react that way, did they? They never stop moving. They never stop fighting. They never stop trying to win. And they don’t win every time, and nobody puts that kind of judgment on them. Everybody sits around and marvels at how often they do win, but in order to win, you have to move. You have to have movement. You have to lead efforts. I mean, the Democrat Party had a bunch of people back in 1993 who thought, “You know, we’ve gotta abandon this drift to the left.

“It’s over. The Berlin Wall is down.” Ronald Reagan in 1976 lost the Republican presidential nomination. I guess it was over. “I guess Reagan’s a failure. He waged a fight and he lost. Yeah, what good’s Reagan?” He kept fighting! I really think this is instructive, too. This is establishment-type thinking from inside the Beltway. The left has lost every one of their battles until they’ve won them. Name for me somebody that wins all the t.ime I mean, this tweet, it was unnecessarily… Well, what is the point of going after Cruz last? What is it?

Because there is this great fear inside the establishment, like I said yesterday and I mean it. I didn’t know dDrudge was gonna make it his lead headline, but I tell you: The Republican establishment would much rather have Hillary Clinton than Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz scares the hell out of them because Hillary will keep the government growing, Hillary will keep the money being redistributed. She’ll keep taxing people. Government’s gonna get bigger and there’ll be all kinds of money around, all kinds of jobs in the government, all kinds of work for lobbyists and so forth.

Cruz stands for an attempt to reduce all of that, and so the people in Washington who feed off the federal teat are threatened by somebody who wants to reduce the number of teats. Imagine, Ted Cruz being the biggest enemy when you are a Republican or a conservative, either an elected official, a campaign official media figure or whatever. Ted Cruz! Your biggest enemy! I said last night one of the things that that irritated me the most about the behavior of the assassins disguised as journalists/moderators in the debate last night.

There was an overarching assumption as they attempted to impugn the character, the qualifications, the capabilities of all of these people on stage last night, and the overarching thing was that none of them are qualified. “None of ’em are qualified. They don’t know what they’re doing.” And of course, the assumption is that every Democrat is qualified: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. “Barack Obama is maybe the most unqualified president we’ve had in my lifetime.” He has been a singular disaster!

But you know why he’s said to be qualified, and Hillary and all these people?

‘Cause he cares about people. He’s such a good guy. He’s compassionate. And maybe he doesn’t know he’s doing, but he’s trying. He trying to help people. At least that. The Republicans, you don’t care if you keep people country, and you keep people out of their homes and keep people out of the abortion clinics and arm everybody,” and it just goes on and on and on. And it’s why I get continually frustrated with Republicans who think they have to deal with these people, think they have to change their minds, think they have to persuade them if they’re gonna win something.

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RUSH: Carl Bernstein was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night after the debate was over. Anderson Cooper said, “Carl, we haven’t heard from you yet on our roundtable. What did you think of all this tonight?”

BERNSTEIN: I agree with the head of the Republican National Committee. I thought it was a disgraceful performance by the sponsors of the debate, by CNBC, and the way they conducted it. And it was gotcha, and we need in the mainstream media, as Ted Cruz said, to start paying attention to the right-wing media. I read it, I think we need to know what’s going on out there. It’s not for nothing that there’s a Republican Congress, and there may be a Republican president. We’re not paying enough attention. What we saw tonight was the real Republican Party. And it’s very interesting, and it is a big threat to the Democrats. People need to pay attention.

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RUSH: Holy cow, folks, that’s blasphemy. There’s Carl Bernstein saying, “You people, you better start paying attention to the Republicans and the conservative media –” he called ’em right-wing media. He could have been talking to Charlie Rose, who may not know there’s a conservative media yet. Well, no, I’m sure he knows that. I take it back. He just doesn’t think it’s legit. But why do you think he said it? Why did Carl Bernstein say it? He said this precisely because these people are cloistered. They hang around with each other. They don’t know. Doing this program I can tell you more about what liberals do, think, say, and are going to do than maybe even they know themselves.

They couldn’t begin to give you the truth about me or any other conservative ’cause they don’t take the time to study because in their minds we’re not real, we’re not legit. We’re bitter clingers. We’re a tiny percentage. It’s not even worth their time or trouble. We’re insignificant. We, on the other hand, study them. And every time I present or talk about an issue to you on this program, I am able to tell you what the left’s position on that issue is, top to bottom, 100 percent fully accurate. They can’t do that about us. They don’t take the time. Carl Bernstein’s practically a communist. Nora Ephron did that. Yeah, it’s true. It’s one of those sad things. But he practically is and yet he’s warning these people. When he said we saw the real the Republican, he’s talking about Ted Cruz.

I’m telling you, they are fearful of Ted Cruz. They mask that fear by laughing at him and making fun of him and all that, but they are afraid of him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Frank Luntz, I referenced this earlier. This is Luntz on CBS This Morning. Charlie Rose said, “Hey, Frank, you watched last night’s debate with a focus group of Republican voters. Let me begin with Senator Cruz. How well did that do, Frank?”

LUNTZ: It did the best of anything that I have tested since I started doing debate testing in 1996. It get up to a 97 and 98 out of a hundred. To put it in perspective, we had 26 people in our Fox News group; 24 out of the 26 was giving him a perfect 100. Now, he goes and he lists all the different questions. And I want to point out, he never looks down at his notes. He never has to refer to any — any text. He remembers every single question that every reporter asked, and people were stunned by that capability. But the reacted even more favorably to the fact that he said, “Enough is enough.”

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RUSH: Yeah, you know, isn’t it amazing? And I’m not trying to diminish what Cruz did. He did. He’s able to recite the questions that were asked. Note how unique that is, in people’s minds, to have a memory like that. And he does have a great memory. He’s got almost a photographic memory. There’s term for the kind of memory he has, be able to remember things like that. But I’m stunned at all of the observations made. “Yeah, man! Look, he was able to speak without notes,” as though it’s some big feat.

I’m not… There’s nothing about Cruz. Don’t misunderstand. You know, Obama can’t speak two syllables without teleprompter, and he’s brilliant, right? “He’s the smartest guy in America. He’s a big intellectual boombah. Man, Barack Obama is the cream of the cream!” He can’t speak two syllables without a teleprompter, and some people who can speak without looking at notes are oddballs? (interruption) I know people marvel at it. But… No, but see they’re look… (interruption) No, no. The point is they’re all trying to say, “Look at how stupid Cruz is! He’s racist, sexist,” all of this stuff that Cruz is, yet they marvel at his brilliance. I’m just saying it’s major.

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RUSH: The word for it is “eidetic,” a photographic memory, an eidetic memory. It’s e-i-d-e-t-i-c. There no question Ted Cruz has one. Look, I’ve got some sound bites I’m not gonna be able to squeeze in here about Cruz. But I just to want to tell you who the people are who are saying, after the debate last night: “Keep a sharp eye on Ted Cruz.” David Axelrod on CNN; Gloria Borger on CNN; The Forehead on CNN said Jeb Bush is now toast; Rubio is winning the wrong primary, meaning it’s just not his time. Gotta keep an eye on this Cruz.

He’s always been the guy to keep an eye on.

That’s the hidden second tier truth here: Cruz has always been the guy to keep your eye on, when you realize this isn’t over.

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RUSH: Here’s The Forehead talking about this last night — actually this morning on CNN.

BEGALA: He’s dispatched Jeb. And so let’s just deal with that. Jeb is toast. Those few who are at home who have a little butter, get it out for Jeb; he’s toast. But I think Marco is winning the wrong primary. He’s winning the establishment primary, and the guy I’ve had my eye on for a long time who I thought was outstanding last night was Ted Cruz.

RUSH: He’s had his eye on him for a long time. Right, right. Well, he probably has actually in a fearful trepidatious way. But I’ll bet we could go back and find instances of The Forehead mocking and making fun of Cruz. Bet that wouldn’t be too hard. Now all of a sudden, “Wow, keep a sharp eye on Cruz.” Gloria Borger and Axelrod the same, ditto.

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