RUSH: Nolan in El Dorado, Arkansas, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you today?
RUSH: I’m good. Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Yes, thank you for taking my call. I just want to thank you for all you do on the radio show. I enjoy listening to you. I have an article that I was reading this morning on The Politico about linking Donald Trump to Ku Klux Klan, which I think is just ridiculous, but —
RUSH: Is that The Politico?
CALLER: Yeah, The Politico.
RUSH: Yeah, I saw that, too. I think I’ve seen it in two different places, Politico and somewhere. But, yeah, this is classic. The Drive-By Media has gone out — here, look. I’ll tell you what’s going on here, Nolan. I have a story here from Breitbart.com: “Trump Beat Reporters: We Can’t Find Supporters Who Won’t Vote for Him After Plan to Ban Muslim Immigration.“
The Drive-By Media thinks that everybody’s just shocked and angry and appalled at what Trump said so they fanned out all over the country trying to find Trump supporters who are also mad, so much so that they will no longer support him. And they can’t find a single one, so what they did, they went to some clown who claims he’s a Grand Kleagle in the KKK, and this guy said he loved what Trump was doing, and so it’s just the opposite. Now we got the media saying, “Oh, no, this is what we worried about. Trump is energizing racists and bigots and white supremacists and so forth.” That’s what you’re seeing. That’s what you saw, right?
CALLER: Yes. And I can’t understand — well, I know why, but it’s just frustrating when I see something like this, but yet you don’t see articles coming out and saying, oh, you know, the Clintons, or Obamas defends the Ku Klux Klan, but you don’t see that anywhere.
RUSH: Well, no, you don’t see the equivalent, that’s true. Well, but this is the media as its wits’ end. This is the last ditch. This is throwing the excrement up against the wall hoping something sticks out there, Nolan. I mean, this is pathetic. It’s embarrassingly pathetic, to have a serious story: KKK Grand Kleagle Encouraged by Trump. It’s just laughable. I think part and parcel of this Trump phenomenon, folks, this is the kind of stuff the media gets away with with other people, but it’s not affecting Trump. This is one of the myriad reasons why they’re so frustrated. They can take out any Republican they want with things like this. They can take out a Tea Party person. They can take out anybody they want with shenanigans like that.
But they can’t hurt Trump. And they’re gonna leave no stone unturned, so to speak, in their effort to do some damage. They have totally lost control where Trump is concerned. He owns them, and it is something they just can’t abide. They are beside themselves. They are at their wits’ end, and so what you’re seeing here is the last desperate act of a bunch of deranged people. It’s perfectly understandable you’d be mad about it and the hypocrisy, no such connections are ever found between Democrats, even though the last KKK member to be a member of the Senate was a Democrat. Sheets Byrd. Robert “Sheets” Byrd of West Virginia was a Grand Kleagle or whatever in the Ku Klux Klan. You can’t find a Republican member of the KKK elected to office, national office, only Democrats. It’s that hypocritical.
But, look, that takes us to the next the sound bite. Don Lemon. Trump was on with Don Lemon on CNN last night, and Lemon is one of these guys with the rest of the media out there desperately trying to find Trump supporters mad at him over the things that he’s saying. And it’s fascinating. This Trump phenomenon is real and these journalists know it. See, this is not a flash in the pan. It’s not some temporary thing. It’s real, and it’s deep-rooted. And they’ve done everything, and they’re gonna continue to try to do everything they can to stop him. So here’s Don Lemon, Trump appeared with him last night, but here’s Don Lemon just with one of his statements on CNN last night.
LEMON: I’m being honest here. As I walk around New York City and other places as I travel the country, as I’m at the barbershop or I’m in a bar or I may be shopping, I’m in the drugstore, whatever, people will walk up to me and say things privately about Donald Trump which they will tell me that they will never say publicly. That they support him. They actually support what he says about banning Muslim immigrants temporarily. These aren’t all Republicans who are saying things like this. I’m not the only person who is an interviewer, who is a journalist who said this. I’ve heard many different journalists say this.
RUSH: So what Don Lemon is saying here is that there are more people that support Trump than we even know. What he’s saying here is that Trump’s support is underreported, underestimated. No matter where he goes people come up to him and say, “Don, I really like what Trump’s saying here. I don’t want to be on camera. I don’t want you to quote me.” Some people still fear that the media can harm ’em, so they come up and they tell Don. And Lemon is saying that a lot of other of journalist buddies of his, same thing is happening, people are approaching them. ‘Cause they know these guys are out there trying to harm Trump.
They know these guys, the people, they know these journalists are out there trying to dig up dirt on Trump. So they’re approaching these journalists, “Hey, I like the guy. Hey, I agree with what he’s saying. You know what? I don’t want to go on camera, I don’t want that, but I’m just telling you, and a lot of my friends do, too, you guys are way off the beaten path here, Don. A lot of people really, really dig what Trump’s saying.” And Don Lemon went on CNN last night to warn his audience that even more people than you think support Trump, agree with Trump.
This morning on CNN’s New Day, Chris Cuomo spoke with senior national correspondent John King about Trump’s campaign. Chris Cuomo said, “What’s the best current thinking about what this ceiling is on this group of people that resonate within the GOP for Trump right now? How many people does the GOP have to be worried about that Trump owns?”
KING: Go back to the report you had at the top of the show. This couple was radicalized as far back as 2012. Why didn’t the government know about this? You ask people on the street and they think the government would screw up a free lunch. They just do. They think the government is incapable of doing in everything anything right, and Donald Trump taps into that. We will not know about Trump’s full appeal until we get to a race between Donald Trump and two or three other candidates. The three least spoken words in Washington: “I don’t know.”
RUSH: They’re scared to death, too, because it’s their business to know. Not only is it their business to know, it’s their business to shape the outcome, folks. In their minds, the media determines who wins and who loses, in their minds. And they don’t know. Poor Don Lemon, people coming up to him saying, “Hey Don, you know what, psst, I love what Trump’s doing. I really agree.” And Lemon says a lot of people and a lot of his journalist buddies say the same thing. “I don’t know how big Trump is. I don’t know what the ceiling is.” They are really, really worried. This little comment here, “The government screws everything up.” It’s not that the government screws everything up.
Let me tell you people in the media something. John King here says, “Yeah, this couple was radicalized back in 2012. Why didn’t the government know about this?” Mr. King, in all candor, when you quote people as thinking that the government would screw up a free lunch, don’t make the mistake of thinking that the people telling you this think that it’s innocent incompetence. The people telling you that they don’t trust the government to get anything right, they think the government’s goofing up on purpose. They think it’s part of a plan to screw things up. They do not trust.
If it were simple incompetence, Mr. King, if all it was was a bunch of people in government that just weren’t bright or smart, that could be dealt with, but it’s far deeper than that, in most people’s estimation. The people of this country think the government is governing against their will, knowingly and purposefully. It’s not just they’re a bunch of screws up. They’re not looked at as a bunch of screws up. They’re looked at as saboteurs, Mr. King.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know what the Wilder Effect is, right? The Wilder Effect is pollsters show up, you have an African-American candidate in the race, and a bunch of people will tell the pollster they’re gonna vote for the African-American ’cause they don’t want the pollster to think that they’re racist. They actually not gonna vote for the African-American, but they tell the pollster that just so the pollster won’t hassle ’em or think they’re racist.
It’s called the Wilder Effect for former Virginia governor Doug Wilder, who polling data said was gonna win in a landslide one year and got beat. And they chalked it up to people lying to pollsters. Well, listening to Don Lemon, there has been something going on out there called the Trump Effect. It could well be that a lot more people support Trump than are saying so. Don Lemon says, “Yeah, these people are coming up and they say, “Psst! Hey, Don. I don’t want to go on TV or anything, but I gotta tell you: I love Trump.
“Me and a lot of my friends, we really dig what Trump’s doing. Don’t tell anybody. I don’t want anybody to know.” Well, that could indicate the Trump Effect is out there. There are a lot of people telling pollsters that they’re not for Trump when they really are, ’cause they don’t want the pollster ripping into ’em or criticizing them. ‘Cause they know what the media thinks about Trump. (interruption) Yeah. Well, depending on… Yeah, it could make the exit polls fun. I mean, it could be. The Trump Effect could be in place out there.
Only time will tell.