RUSH: Back to something I predicted. This is after the CNBC debate. I want you to go back, listen to what I said the day after the debate.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I think there’s this built-in fear of going against the media because the criticism is, “You mean you can’t handle questions from the media and you want to be president of the United States? Come on, you can’t be serious. You need to toughen up.” And that’s the wrong way to look at this, because we’re not dealing with tough questions here. We’re not dealing with challenging questions here. We’re dealing with assassins. We’re dealing with character assassins. We’re dealing with career assassins. That’s who the media is today.
RUSH: And right on schedule, last night the Republicans’ greatest fears were realized, and it comes from the mouth, the oral cavity of none other than Barack Hussein O at a Democrat National Committee fundraiser in New York City.
OBAMA: Have you noticed that every one of these candidates say: “Obama’s weak, Putin’s kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he’s gonna straighten out. Just looking at him I’m gonna — he’s gonna be –” and then it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at a debate. (cheers and applause) I mean, let me tell you, if you can’t handle — if you can’t handle those guys, you know, then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are gonna be too worried about you.
RUSH: Exactly. This is what they’re afraid of, and this is why they don’t attack the media because they think Obama and other Democrats are gonna make fun of them, and they’re not gonna have any retort for it. But we’re not dealing with tough questions, as I said. These were assassins that were asking questions. There was an attempt here to destroy. There wasn’t any attempt to ask tough questions. There weren’t any challenging questions. These were assassination type, career ending type questions.
The mission was obvious here. It was to take these guys out, take out as many of these Republicans out as you can, particularly the front-runners. But the Republicans did not cave to them. What’s everybody missing about this? The Republicans destroyed those moderators. They didn’t walk away whimpering in fear. Led by Ted Cruz, they put those people in their place. Republicans rolled over those moderators. They didn’t whimper and cry and put their tail between their legs and leave the stage and then go out there and start complaining about this.
They devastated, they destroyed those CNBC moderators. How is what happened in that debate weak? How is taking control of fixed debates weak? How is finally getting some gonads and saying, “You know what? We are not going to willingly put ourselves in the crosshairs of assassins that are disguised as journalists who are nothing more than Democrat Party hacks” weak? Can I remind you of all the Democrat debates that have been on Fox News? Yeah, right. I didn’t think you could remember any because there haven’t been any.
The Democrats are scared to death to go on Fox News. The Democrats wouldn’t get anywhere near it. And, in fact, Reuters story, flashback, March 9, 2007: “Nevada Democratic Party officials said on Friday they were canceling a presidential debate co-sponsored by Fox News, following a joke chairman Roger Ailes made about Democratic candidate Barack Obama. In a letter sent to Fox, Nevada State Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Ailes ‘went too far’ with comments made the night before.”
So were there any comments back in 2000 that Obama was too chicken-excrement to deal with Fox News ’cause Ailes had told a joke about him? This is the guy who does cave to Putin. This is the guy who does cave to Bashar Assad. This is the guy who stands up to only one person out there, and that’s Benjamin Netanyahu. And even that’s not really standing up. That’s just disrespect from distance. But this guy caves to everybody that’s out there.
This is a guy who thinks the Republican Party is his number one enemy, and so he dispatches his minions at the IRS and the EPA and the State Department and the Department of Justice to go out and destroy his Republican enemies because he doesn’t even want any opposition. “The letter makes no reference…” This is a letter that the Nevada state Democrat Party sent to Fox. “The letter makes no reference to a crusade by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org to boycott Fox, which it calls a ‘right-wing mouthpiece.'”
Remember, this is 2007, so it’s eight years ago now.
“Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards dropped out of the debate on Thursday, citing in part Fox’s participation. … Fox News Vice President David Rhodes responded with a written statement criticizing the Democrats for caving in to MoveOn.org,” which is exactly what the Democrats do. They cave to their rabid, left-wing, insane, lunatic asylum base supporters. But we didn’t get a bunch of whining after that debate or during that debate. We got a bunch of people standing up to something they should have stood up to long ago.
They literally destroyed Harwood and they destroyed Quintanilla and they destroyed Becky Quick. And it was informative, and it was illustrative and it was educational. But more than that, it was way overdue. But, see, despite what you saw, despite what I saw — which I just accurately described — everybody’s making hay now out of this Obama comment that the Republicans are a bunch of chickens. “Yeah, talking tough about standing up to Putin, but they can’t even stand up to CNBC!”
Stand up to them is exactly what happened. The Republicans on that stage stood up and refused to roll over, refused to play the game, refused to be assassinated by those Democrat hit squad members disguised as journalists on CNBC. And of course, not to mention the fact that I predicted and called it. Just further evidence that if you listen regularly to this program, you’ll be on the cutting edge. Now, as it relates to debates, that’s another story out there.
In addition to polling data and sex drive being killed by global warming and air-conditioning being the aphrodisiac (except the EPA is gonna destroy air-conditioning because it’s destroying the planet), and you can be killed by two Diet Cokes a day, the Republicans are revolting against an establishment Republican lawyer named Ben Ginsberg who is trying to take over the debate format process. The RNC had control of the debates. Candidates want to control the future debates themselves. Ben Ginsberg is a…
He goes way back. You may remember first seeing Ben Ginsberg back on the old MSNBC when they actually did news there during the first and second Clinton terms. Ben Ginsberg was a constant guest there. He’s a bald, redheaded guy with a beard. He’s a Republican lawyer. He’s a K Street kind of guy. He’s an establishment Republican, RNC kind of guy. He was involved in the Florida recount with James Baker. I mean, you know who this is.
And now he’s surfacing here. He’s trying to gain control of the debates for the establishment, since the RNC is facing a takeover by the candidates. Trump… This is another thing about Trump. The news… Well, before I get to Trump, the news is out about what the candidate demands are for the next debates, and they’re trying to make fun of them and belittle them for these things. They want the thermostat set. They want the temperature in the hall to never go above 67 degrees.
They want some on control over questions, like they don’t want to have show-of-hands kind of questions. And they want to do away with some of these… They want some limits on opening, closing statements, do away with limits. I’m not actually sure. The thermostat demand? Folks, that is one of the meanest tricks debate organizers could play is to keep the air-conditioning high. Well, to keep room temperature high.
I mean, the absolutely worst thing that could happen to anybody in politics when they’re appearing in public is to sweat. And if CNBC’s running a debate and they want take these guys out and do their assassin-type questions, another thing to do is keep the thermostat 72, 75 degrees and these guys all sweat and so forth. You know what it did to Nixon during the 1960 debates with Kennedy. Don Hewitt discovered that. You may not know this, but David Letterman — featured leftist, favorite late-night comedian, modern era — kept his studio at 60 degrees on purpose for a host of reasons.
One of them is, he never wanted to sweat. Number two is, it gets hot under those lights. And number three — contrary to what you think — you can expend caloric energy sitting down as much as somebody running. I do it every day. You know, I have one of these calorie-measuring apps on my Apple Watch. It measures my calorie usage during the day. I burn more calories during this three-hour show than all the other hours I’m awake in the day combined — even when I go out and play golf! The three hours on this program, according to this app, I expend more energy.
Well, it’s the same thing with anybody that’s in a constant performance mode. There’s something that happens to metabolism, the heart rate all goes up, and that all tends to make you sweat. And performers, that’s the worst thing that can happen. It’s not an outrageous demand. Every TV set’s freezing! Anybody that’s ever been on one will probably tell you that, especially people that are not used to it and they can’t believe it, how cold it’s kept. Because those lights, for one thing, are hot as blazes.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: They asked Trump if he’d do his impression of Jeb Bush during his press conference. And Trump begged off. He said he didn’t want to stand at the podium and pretend to be asleep, when asked to do his impersonation of Jeb Bush. It was brutal out there.
Now, the CNN has this headline: “GOP Debate Revolt Crumbles.” And of course, the story’s made to look like the Republicans are once again flailing away and disorganized and can’t unify and can’t work together and can’t seek a common goal, and if the Republicans can’t work together even among themselves, then how can they possibly work together with the Democrats move the country forward. It’s the way this crap gets reported.
“The Republican effort to stage a united front on debate reforms began to crumble Monday night as several campaigns announced that they would not sign a letter of demands to debate media sponsors. Late Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after campaigns gathered outside Washington to discuss the reforms…” There is no revolt. What’s happening here is that Trump said, “To heck with you guys. I’m not joining you guys. I’m gonna talk to the network myself. I’ve got my own plans, and I’m gonna talk to the networks on my own.”
I think, once again, this is what a leader would do.
Leaders don’t wait for committees.
Leaders organize committees and tell other people to go to the meetings. The leader doesn’t. The leader gets a report on what went on at the meeting but doesn’t show up at them. Leaders don’t seek consensus among competitors before looking out for their own interests. Why would you do that? “Well, Rush, to put a united front, this is Republicans…” No, it’s not. These are individual candidates. They all happen to be Republicans, but Trump said, “To hell with this! I’m gonna forge my own deal with the networks. I’m not gonna join this crowd. This crowd’s a bunch of losers. Why do I want to throw my hat with a bunch of people that are gonna end up being losers in this thing?”
And that’s his attitude about it.