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RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites on the debate, ’cause there are some doozies here, and we’ve been talking about this. We may as well listen to some things actually said. Let’s get started here. Actually, before we get to the debate sound bites, a couple of setup pieces. Let’s start with Stephanie Ramos. This is Good Morning Amer… Sorry, this is America This Morning. This is long before Good Morning America, and she is a correspondent reporting about last night’s Republican primary debate.

RAMOS: The moderators, for the most part sticking to policy, which has some analysts saying that shift led to a boring debate.

RUSH: See, this debate was a disaster for the Drive-Bys, because there is nothing happening they can tar and feather and destroy and ruin Republicans with, other than to say, “Hey, you know, it was boring.” Well, I’m gonna tell you what, Drive-Bys: It was boring for me, too. I kind of enjoyed and was getting used to seeing our guys take you people in the media out, and I missed that last night. It kind of cuts both ways. Talking to Ted Cruz after the debate, Neil Cavuto happened to mention me…


CAVUTO: Rush Limbaugh: We’ve any built monuments to moderates, right?

CRUZ: Let me put it this way. If you define as a Reaganite anyone who was with Ronald Reagan in the primary in 1980, do you know Republicans have never once nominated a Reaganite for president after 1984? Every Republican nominee from ’84 on opposed Reagan in 1980. I’m 44 years old. I’ve never once been able to go and vote for a Reaganite for president. And if you look at why we’re losing, if you look at the numbers, the most striking difference between ’04 — the last race we won — and ’08 and ’12, is the millions of conservatives who stayed home in ’08 and ’12. And if we want to win, we’ve gotta bring them back.

RUSH: Which takes us to David Axelrod who was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, who offered this opinion…


AXELROD: This is interesting because this, seems to me, is the debate that the Republican Party has to have. Each election the Republican Party has nominated a center-right kind of establishment Republican at the end of the day, and they’ve lost the popular vote five out of the last six elections. You hear conservatives like Ted Cruz say, “We need a real conservative.” Maybe you guys have to run the experiment.

RUSH: Well, what do you think of that? I mean, these guys generally tell us what they’re most afraid of. But here’s Axelrod. Is this a rare moment of candor, or something Axelrod thinks he’s tricking us with? Yeah, you might say it’s a rare moment of candor because you want to believe he means it. He desperately wants to believe he means it because you desperately want to believe that a Democrat can see us fairly. And so you’re looking Axelrod… By the way, he’s right about this. We keep nominating these moderate, little, linguini-spine guys, and they do keep losing.

He said, “You know, maybe it’s time to run the experiment, actually run a conservative. I mean, that is last time you guys won. I mean, he might not have actually been one, but you said he was and people believed it.” Here’s Axelrod answering question about Jeb Bush from Anderson Cooper. He said, “There were times when it seemed like Jeb was quibbling about not having enough time in the last debate. How did Jeb seem to you, David? Did he seem strong enough?”

AXELROD: Is it possible that he’s just not good at this? And I don’t know that he’s ever gonna be good at this. I actually think what happened in this debate is that John Kasich came in very energetically. His views may not appeal to the base of the Republican Party. He’s going for independents in New Hampshire. But I think he completely shoved Jeb out of the mainframe here and became the main advocate for that point of view.

RUSH: You know, it’s amazing. If you look at… One of the reasons I think this debate was good last night is because there is not unanimity of opinion on anybody. I mean, you can find people who think that Kasich was good last night and aced Jeb out. You can find people who think Jeb stopped the bleeding last night. But there’s a lot of people — and I’m talking about analysts on my side, ’cause I don’t care about the left in this instance.

Analysts on our side say, “Yep, Jeb might not have helped himself, but he certainly didn’t hurt himself anymore. Yeah, Jeb might have stopped the bleeding. Jeb might have made the donors feel a little bit better tonight. Yeah, Jeb started off really strong and then kind of tapered off toward the end of the debate.” But there’s a lot of consensus that Jeb did well. Most of the consensus is that Kasich bombed. But here’s Axelrod:

“Kasich? Hey, pretty smart guy! He’s going for New Hampshire. He’s going for the moderate independents here, and I think he aced Jeb out.” Here’s Chris Stirewalt, the political director at Fox News, with Megyn Kelly who said, “Carson and Trump don’t want to lose their standing, but they also want to grow their share of the electorate. They’re neck and neck, Carson and Trump, but they need more. They need to collect some of the votes of those under guys so that they will get out and they can then run away with it.”

STIREWALT: I can tell you, having seen John Kasich’s performance, that stage is gonna get smaller still. That was a dire performance that he gave. He scolded his own party from pen to post. He gave an answer on bank bailouts that was flabbergasting. And I could not believe… It was so much in the mold of Jon Huntsman. It was so much in the mold of the Republican who’s running against his own party. It’s like, Dude, you are in the wrong town.


RUSH: Yeah. I could see that. Dire performances, scolded his own party. A number of people have observed that it didn’t come off well because, basically, Kasich was telling everybody in his own party that they’re stupid and don’t get it. Okay, so that’s Chris Stirewalt at Fox. Now, let’s go to the actual audio sound bites from the debate. This is Trump and Kasich going at it over immigration.

KASICH: For the 11 million people? Come on, folks! We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them across — back across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument. It makes no sense.

TRUMP: All I can say is, you’re lucky in Ohio that you struck oil. That’s for one thing. Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower — good president, great president, people liked him. “I like Ike,” right? The expression, “I like Ike.” — moved a million-and-a-half illegal immigrants out of this country. Dwight Eisenhower. You don’t get nicer. You don’t get friendlier. They moved a million-and-a-half people out. We have no choice.

RUSH: And Harry Truman even more. The combination of Truman and Eisenhower, we deported 6.4 million illegal immigrants. We either deported ’em ordered left on their own in advance of being deported, but the numbers are a little over two million for Eisenhower, and in the three and a half to four million range for Harry Truman. These deportations happened at a point in American history where we were not permitting any immigration of any kind. You know, I still shock people when I tell them this, if they don’t know it, that there was no immigration in America from 1924 to 1965. There was none. People don’t believe it.

And then when I explain why, it makes sense. Well, because we had all of this immigration in years prior, we had to assimilate these new immigrants. They wanted to be Americans, we had to assimilate them. There were people trying to get in, there were illegals, but they were deported. That was the point that Trump was making. Now, Kasich however was having very little of it. He continued, and Trump eventually gets tired of being lectured.


KASICH: Jerry, Gerald, it was —

RUBIO: Just —

KASICH: — an attack.

BUSH: I got your back.

RUBIO: What happened to my question? (laughter)

KASICH: No, you donÂ’t. You’re not going to have my back. I’m going to have my back. Let me say–

BAKER: Governor — couple things here. First of all —

TRUMP: You should let Jeb speak.

KASICH: We have grown, we have grown —

TRUMP: But no, itÂ’s unfair.

BAKER: Governor– (edited laughter)

KASICH: The fact is, all I’m suggesting, we can’t ship 11 million people out of this country. Children would be terrified —

BARTIROMO: Thank you.

KASICH: — and it will not work.

TRUMP: I built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars. I don’t have to hear from this man —

BAKER: Mister —

TRUMP: — believe me.

RUSH: I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, but it’s — (laughing) — “I built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars. I don’t have to hear this.” Yes. And Jeb finally gets in on the action here, and he advocates for the Democrat position on amnesty. Listen to this.

BUSH: Thank you, Donald, for allowing me to speak at the debate. That’s really nice of you. Really appreciate that. What a generous man you are. Twelve million illegal immigrants, to send them back, 500,000 a month is just not possible, and it’s not embracing American values. And would tear communities apart, and it would send a signal that we’re not the kind of country that I know America is. And even having this conversation sends a powerful signal. They’re doing high fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this. That’s the problem with this.

RUSH: Right. And you heard some applause there. That was the donors in the audience. Chamber of Commerce was there and Bush has got his supporters, and they believe this. I mean, by the way, who says 500,000 a month? Who says that got to do this inside of a year? Who’s put a time frame on this? You know, once you start doing it, it’s gonna speed up. This is dynamic. It’s not static. If this were to ever begin. But it’s not embracing American values. What, American values are ignore the law? American values, what about the American worker? What about the issue of the economic impact of all this? These people look at this as a compassion, civil rights issue. Here’s Ted Cruz to clean it all up.

CRUZ: What was said was right. The Democrats are laughing, because if Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose. The politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande, or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press. Then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation. And I will say for those of us who believe people ought to come to this country legally and we should enforce the law, we’re tired of being told it’s anti-immigrant. It’s offensive.

RUSH: That was the moment of the debate for me, because this is the issue, and Cruz framed it. I opened the program today saying, this is one of the things that’s so obvious. I’ve been remiss not mentioning it because it’s something that’s so obvious I just figure everybody on our side understands. I too am tired of being called anti-immigrant and racist and all this stuff, but it is, it’s an economic issue, and the idea that the left and the moderates in our wing try to sell this as a civil rights issue and as a compassion issue, and I addressed it last week. What’s wrong with that is these are not even Americans. Why are we bending over backwards to satisfy people who are not even Americans at the expense of people who are?

The American people have expressed it in so many ways, election after election, poll after poll. They do not want people to be able to violate our immigration law. They want the law to stand for something, and they want it to be enforced. And they’re ignored. And they’re called names. Anti-immigrant, racist, bigot, whatever it is. So Cruz cleans this all up by saying none of that’s true. We’re not opposed to legal immigration. And then tying it into the fact that there’s a dire economic consequence to all of this for actual Americans. It’s depressing wages. It’s hurting employment overall. It’s one of the reasons that 94 million Americans are not working.

Anyway. Up next, when we get back some of your phone calls to get in, but Kasich and Rubio and others weigh in on the hypothetical question of whether or not to bail out a big bank if it gets in trouble.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Did you like Rubio’s line last night, that welders make more than philosophers? He’s going on, what’s wrong with vocational schools? What’s this notion’s everybody’s gotta go to college? Hell, vocational schools used to be big, welders make more than philosophers. And they do. They do. It’s a great point.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me ask you a question. I touched on it couple times today. Let me see how up to speed you are. Why did the students and the teacher not want the media amongst them? Remember that mass media studies professor said, “Call for muscle. You can’t be in here.” She said to the photographer, “You can’t be in here. We don’t want media here. You can’t be in here.” Why? This doesn’t make any sense. Why did the protesters not want their buddies there? I mean, their best buddies are the media.

The media’s on their side. The media’s making their case. Why wouldn’t they want them in there? There’s an answer to this. Why wouldn’t they want the media there? (interruption) Well, I think the answer to the question is that the same people who raised hell in Ferguson are raising hell in Columbia, and they didn’t want the media to see, up close and personal, that the same people they saw in Ferguson are here in Columbia. That’s part of it. I think there’s an element also of distrust.

They’ve got their narrative, and they don’t want the media attaching their own narrative to it. So they’ve got their own narrative and they want to hold on tight to it. They don’t want their buddies in the media screwing it up. But I also think that they wanted to make like Mizzou was independent and not tied to any other protest movement. When in fact, it’s directly linked to Ferguson and Black Lives Matter and all these malcontents that have bused in from Oakland, California, that were in Ferguson raising hell there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s James in Rochester. One more call and then back to the audio sound bites of the debate. Hi, James. I’m glad you called, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’m calling because at one point I got really aggravated with the moderators during the debate last night. It was during the climate change question that went to Rand Paul. When Rand Paul got done with his answer, I heard Ted Cruz start speaking up and thought, “This is gonna be great. We’re finally gonna hear our viewpoint on this thing,” and instead, they cut him off and went to Jeb Bush. And the exact same thing happened in the first debate.

RUSH: You know, I didn’t draw that connection, but I did notice that there were a bunch of questions asked that I wish every one of them would have answered. You’re right. Rand Paul is the only guy that got to weigh in on climate change, and it’s a sitting duck on our side, and there’s all kinds of… Frankly, I want to hear what Trump thinks about that.

CALLER: Yeah, me, too.

RUSH: Well, it tells you a lot. It will tell you a lot about people when you get them to opine on climate change, ’cause if they in any way sign on for it, you’ve got to be dubious. I don’t care who they are. There was another question that only Marco Rubio got, and Maria Bartiromo, the moderator, the Money Honey, got booed by the audience when she started reciting Hillary Clinton’s resume as though it was impeccable. She then asked Rubio, “Why are you better than this?” I thought that was a hanging curveball, right over the middle of the plate.

I think he was so shocked by the question, he said, “Well, let me begin by, uh, beginning.” And I wish other people… I mean, that’s the whole reason they’re there! I thought it was a great question. I don’t care that the Money Honey got booed and I don’t think it was fair that she did, but it’s irrelevant. She doesn’t care. It’s a great question. That resume is just made to be blown up, sliced and diced. And I gotta tell you: I don’t think Rubio did it. The last half of his answer scored well on that, but I think for some reason…


You go and you prepare to hit Hillary and attack her, but the way she asked ’em to do it is (paraphrased): “Here’s her resume. I mean, it’s what everybody thinks. The resume that was presented. This is what the media thinks. This is what the Hillary supporters think. It’s a great resume with this, that. Most qualified, all these travels, secretary of state, first lady, first female… More experience than any of you guys got. Why are you better than she is?” I mean, it’s made to order. And I wish they’d have all been given a chance to take a whack at it.

One more, maybe two more. Jim in Minneapolis, you’re next, and thank you for calling. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hey, thank you so much, Rush. Regarding the University of Missouri protests, I’m getting some glee regarding the fact that it’s actually happening at a university. It’s sort of like these protesters are biting the hand that feeds them.

RUSH: Yes. I understand this. It’s a little schadenfreude.

CALLER: (chuckling)

RUSH: Here are these citadels of higher learning, the academy — these institutions of higher learning where all the brilliance in the world is located and concentrated — and here it’s being cast as a citadel of racism and bigotry and homophobia, and this is a bunch of liberals!

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: You’re exactly right. And it’s a great way of putting it, too. I think that it’s… (snorts) This is what… In fact, this is what O’Reilly was saying, Mr. Snerdley. He was saying he heard me say that. I mean, you can’t expect much else than this. If the professors are gonna poison the minds of the students with all of this rotgut about how horrible America is — how unjust, how unfair — at some point, you have to expect that they’re gonna believe it. And at some point, you have to expect that they’re gonna act on it.

You can’t whip people into this kind of frenzied rage and have them stay peaceful. If you’re gonna make ’em mad — and the professors have been teaching this garbage for decades now. And it’s erupting right in their classrooms and right on their precious campuses, and it is delightful that supposedly the purest places in America — citadels of higher learning — actually end up being nothing more than mass collections of racists and bigots and sexists and homophobes.

Back to audio sound bites. We’re up to sound bite 13. John Kasich. This is the bailout question, and this is Kasich and Cruz going at it over what happens if Bank of America… It’s a hypothetical question: If Bank of America looks like it isn’t gonna make it, and they can’t make it without a bailout, what do you do? Kasich up first.


KASICH: When a bank is ready to go under and depositors are getting ready to lose their life savings, you just don’t say, “We believe in philosophical concerns.” Philosophy doesn’t work when you run something.

CRUZ: What would you do if the bank was failing?

KASICH: I would not let the people who put their money in there all go down. As an executive, I would figure out how to separate those people who can afford it, versus those people are the hardworking folks who put their money in those institutions.

AUDIENCE: (grumbling)

RUSH: I don’t care what you say: That is not conservative, that’s not conservatism, and it’s not informed. “When a bank is ready to go under and depositors are getting ready to lose their life savings, you just don’t say, ‘We believe in philosophical concerns.'” You gotta believe in something. Philosophy matters. Core principles matter. John Kasich made it clear that he’s got a lot of philosophy and core principles, but they don’t really matter when you really start governing.

It just boggles my mind.


(imitating Kasich) “The philosophy, yeah, you guys have philosophy you want. Have all your beliefs you want, but I’ve done it and when people are suffering and when the families are hurting and people are losing everything, you gotta go in there and be able to broom all that philosophy.
You gotta go in there and be able to commiserate with people and tell ’em you feel for ’em and know how they’re feeling, you gotta save ’em.” And your philosophy is worthless. Your philosophy and your core beliefs are what guide you here.

But then he compounded it by saying, “I wouldn’t let the people who put their money in there all go down. As an executive, I would figure out how to separate those who could afford to lose everything versus those hardworking folks who put their money in the institutions.” So he would means test losing everything, and if he determined, as an executive, abandoning philosophy, that some people could afford to lose everything — by the way, how do you do that? Who can afford to lose everything?

Snerdley, you have everything, defined as everything you want and need. And some bureaucrat’s gonna come along and say, “You know what? You look like a guy who can afford to lose everything. But your neighbor over there really needs me. He needs me because I really feel his pain, I really identify, I can relate, I have compassion, I have a big heart, I know and I love people, and I’m gonna fix it. But you, you can lose everything, I can just determine.” How do you make that determination? You don’t.

And then the second thing is, or actually the third thing here is that when a bank is ready to go under and depositors are getting ready to lose their life savings, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. FDIC. When this was happening, I must have had e-mails from five friends of mine who are either bankers or retired bankers, and the e-mail is all: FDIC, FDIC, $250,000 per account, FDIC, FDIC.” He didn’t even know it. He works for a bank, or he did. Or if he knew it, he forgot it. What have you.

I think what’s going on here, New Hampshire. Moderates. Voters. I think so much a desire, maybe a strategy, an intense strategy to prove that he’s a compassionate conservative, big-hearted, understands the pain of living and is willing to commiserate. I think the strategy was to make that point above all else. And once the idea of a bailout and a bank losing everything and customers, that was made to order for a candidate to demonstrate how he cares and understands suffering, and he would broom his philosophy. He would broom everything philosophical because he understands the suffering and he would relate to and unite with and identify with the sufferers. And he would determine who could afford to lose everything and who couldn’t.

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