RUSH: The polling data today. It’s skyrocketing northward for Trump. It’s just expanding.

And more evidence coming in that his comments on a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration and refugee immigration, he’s up in practically every poll that has been taken since his comments. And over here is the Drive-By Media and the Washington establishment, and they’re befuddled and they’re bemused and they don’t understand it. They expected this to be the end of Trump. MSNBC did a phone poll. Now, admittedly it’s an Internet poll, one of these things where when you’re watching NBC you dial a number.

You go to the Web, you click on this, and they release their results. Ninety-six percent of African-Americans agree with Donald Trump. Ninety-six percent. This is what MSNBC reported in their graphic on screen. Again, it’s not a scientific CBS, Wall Street Journal, ABC-type poll. And is obviously is of the MSNBC audience. But there is nobody, I mean, it’s African-Americans 96%, Caucasians 85%. I mean, it’s not even close.

The vast majority of Americans at large and by demographic ethnic group, agree with Trump in overwhelming majority numbers. Seventy percent is the minimum. Some of the headlines: “Fear of Terrorism Lifts Donald Trump in New York Times/CBS Poll.” “Poll: Terrorism Beats Economy as Top Concern for First Time in Decade.” “Poll: Trump Unscathed in New Hampshire as Christie Climbs.” “Poll: Trump up 35% in CBS/New York Times Poll.” Now we’ve got a story that the GOP was overheard having a secret dinner conversation about a brokered convention.

They’re now denying that that was anything more than just floating an idea and it had nothing to do with Trump. Ben Carson said, “Really? You guys gonna do that? You’ll have a brokered convention? That means you’re gonna ignore the will of these people in the primaries. I guarantee you it won’t only be Donald Trump leaving this party if you guys do this.” In the meantime, Senator Jeff Sessions… Back to moral authority: Jeff Sessions, senator, Alabama, says that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are speeding through a funding bill to pay for more Syrian refugees. Obama held a little powwow with sop Syrian refugees and told them they are what’s great about America. I’m not making any.

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RUSH: By the way, here is that screen grab from MSNBC. It’s their audience voting in this poll, whatever kind of poll it was. Are you…? Well, I did. Where is it? Here it is.

Question: “Has Donald Trump gone too far with his plan to ban all Muslims?” Caucasians: “no,” 69, “yes” 31%. Has Donald Trump gone too far with his plan to ban all Muslims? Hispanic: “No,” 87%. “Yes,” 13%. “Has Donald Trump gone too far with his plan to ban all Muslims?” African-American: “No,” 96%. “Yes” 4%. And there’s a category called “Other,” and they are “no,” he has not gone too far, 88%. Twelve percent “yes.” So we are at a crossroads. We’re a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, and the people in charge of the national security of this country have been exposed as not only willing, but actually engaging in the politicization of national security in order to protect whatever political aspects of Obama need to be protected.

That’s what we’re up against.

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RUSH: John in St. Paul, Minnesota. We fortunately had his number and were able to call him back. Hi, how are you, John?

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega-dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I think the Muslim immigration issue is a really watershed moment for the Republican Party. The Republican establishment have their political slide rulers out over this issue and, I think that they need to instead put them away and be real leaders on the issue. If they wake up, Americans are gonna follow them and vote for them. But I think if they push Trump out, either at the convention or before it, that folks like myself are gonna follow Trump, because we want to have a real leader who’s got our best interests in mind.

RUSH: Yeah, but your larger point here is: “A watershed moment for the Republican Party.” The Muslim immigration issue. But it’s not just that issue. There’s a whole lot of things in this campaign that Trump is talking about. As an umbrella issue, immigration would cover this what to do about refugees, say, from Syria or Islamic or Muslim immigrants as well. But there’s Obamacare. There’s any number of things.

There’s spending. Believe me, there are a lot of issues that Republican base voters have split from the Republican Party on. Well, actually, it’s the Republican Party that split from the base voters, and they’ve been doing so since about 2010. But you think if this goes the wrong way the Republican Party could end up dooming its existence as a viable political party for a generation or two, right? That’s what you’re saying?

CALLER: I absolutely do. When I see that also they are working to pass the repeal of Obamacare, and I hear there’s a bunch of pork in it, that’s again the same things that we’re concerned about in middle America. It’s like, what are you guys doing out there?

RUSH: Well, here, let me give you the one today. The whole subject of Syrian immigrants, Syrian refugees. Given everything that we know with ISIS infiltrating these refugees — ISIS promoting them, ISIS training them, ISIS instructing them to fan out all over Europe and now to the United States — there is a question that maybe we ought to be really careful and limit these people coming in, too, until we can properly vet them. The Regime tells us, “Oh, no, no, no, no! We are vetting them. We’ve got a great vetting system!”

“Against what? There’s nothing known about them!”

“Well, surely they wouldn’t lie when we ask them if they’re terrorists. Surely they wouldn’t be so low as to lie to us when we ask them that, right? So we can trust them. We ask ’em, ‘Are you terrorists or are you gonna be a terrorist? Do you know any terrorists?”

“Oh, no. Not me! Never.”

“Fine. Come on in.”

Well, clearly the Republican base wants to proceed with caution on all of this. Jeff Sessions, Senator from Alabama, has written a piece or he’s made a statement that the House and Senate Republican leaders are preparing right now to ram through a spending bill that would allocate the money to immigrate and allow in these Syrian refugees. That is a direct slap in the face to these Republican leaders’ voters. So it is ongoing. There’s no lesson being learned here. The confrontation continues. And I think you’re right.

It’s gonna come to a head at some point. I think in this whole campaign, there are things happening that are not even being reported yet that are… For example, I think Trump’s doing better than even the polling data suggests. I talked about this yesterday. Remember the Wilder Effect where people did not tell pollsters the truth about their intention to vote or not vote for a black candidate? Doug Wilder was a governor of Virginia. He’s running for election. Of course, people are polling it.

And what was learned was that the polling data suggested he’s gonna win big. He was gonna win maybe landslide. And so everybody in the campaign was happy about it. His opponents kind of thought it was over, didn’t put a lot of effort into it. And then they had the election, and he lost. And they went back and they compared all the polling data which showed he was gonna win big to the fact that he lost. They concluded that a bunch of people lied to the pollsters ’cause they didn’t want the pollsters to think that they’re racist.

So here comes, you know, Johnny Pollster: “I’m here to ascertain how you’re gonna vote upcoming governor election. We have the African-American black candidate, Doug Wilder, and we got this white guy over there. How are you gonna vote?” “Oh, I’m voting Wilder! Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m not racist. Don’t tag me as a racist! I’m voting for Wilder.” “Good.” They record him as a polling selection for Wilder. The same person goes in to vote does not vote for Wilder. I think there’s something similar going on with Trump right now.

I think there are a lot of people who are not telling the pollsters that they’re gonna vote for Trump — but they intend to — because they think that the pollsters are coming from the Regime or the establishment or whatever and they’re gonna mock them or argue with them or what have you. Or else they don’t trust the pollsters, or else even more there is a sophisticated behavior with pollsters now to purposely lie to them because people have such distrust in what they do anyway. The dynamic here, in other words, is much broader and larger. It’s not as slam dunk simple as it used to be.

But the media, the Democrats, the establishment are stuck in their sandbox of days, weeks, months, years ago, thinking this process is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow as far as they want it to be because they control it. And they have not concluded that voters have become more sophisticated. So the idea is that voters would not trust the pollster and maybe lie. It’s happening in exit polls now. People are purposeful trying to screw polling companies by lying to them in exit polls. Here’s a sample here that sort of makes my point.

It’s in TheHill.com. It’s a Rasmussen poll: 70% of Republican voters believe Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee, 31% percent say Trump is very likely to win, and just 21% say he is unlikely. So if you combine the somewhat likely, very likely, you get 71%. Seventy percent think that Trump’s gonna be the nominee. “Those who support Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims among the US are even more likely to think that he will be the nominee.” Now, you might be saying, “Well, that contradicts exactly what you just said.”

No, because this is not a poll of what these people will vote. This is being asked who they think the nominee will be, not how they’re gonna vote. So the pollster is getting hold of them, “Who do you think the Republican nominee is gonna be?” “Oh, I think it’s gonna be Trump.” Well, do you agree with that? That question isn’t asked. So when you ask ’em not how they’re gonna vote, but how they think the vote’s gonna go, 70% say they think Trump is the man.

This is the Rasmussen Reports poll. In this polling data today, Trump is up all over the place. And for all of these to be wrong… You know what I’m amazed at, Mr. Snerdley? I haven’t had…. You may have had ’em and haven’t let ’em through. I have not had one call through this whole cycle claiming that the pollsters are setting us up, and every other campaign we get somebody — at least a couple/three people — who think, “Rush, don’t believe these people. They’re setting us up from big disappointment. They’re sandbagging us out there.”

Like we heard during the 2012 presidential campaign that the polling data showed Romney winning. People called here, “Don’t believe it, Rush. They’re making it up. They’re not gonna have that happen. They’re just trying to get everybody to stay home and not vote, trying to make everybody think it’s a slam dunk.” I’m not hearing anybody say that. I haven’t had a single person in this entire primary process since last May tell me they think the polls are rigged or otherwise not true. And I don’t care what poll you look at.

Particularly in every poll that has been taken since Trump’s Muslim comments, he is up either a lot or somewhat, and in one a little. But in every poll he has gained ground. Now, if we’re being sandbagged here, this is a pretty mammoth conspiracy between ABC, NBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. And not to mention Monmouth and all the others who are reporting the same thing. It would have to be a massive conspiracy. But I don’t think it is because I think these people are totally 180 degrees off their game.

They’ve been knocked totally out of phase by Trump. I don’t think that they have the slightest idea what’s hit them yet. Now, some sound bites here to illustrate the point. Let’s start with number eight. Here’s Frank Luntz last night on Hannity, who said, “Frank, you said that you’ve never seen anything like this, that there’s no sign of the people in the focus group leaving Trump, that he’s created or found some ‘magic formula.’ So you don’t think he’s going away?”

LUNTZ: What we saw was remarkable, and it is time for the Republican establishment to accept the fact that Trump is not only a viable candidate, but this lead is real. His candidacy is real. The support is real. We show them both positive and negative. And the responses, when it was over — even after showing them negative information on Trump — his support went up from when they walked in three hours earlier.

RUSH: And they don’t understand that, folks. This is how they’ve taken people out. This is how they’ve taken Republicans out. I’ll show you how easy this has been. They almost… On the Friday before the election in 2000, remember that report that Bush had a DUI, and that he had covered it up or nobody knew about it? He almost lost the election because of that. So the Drive-Bys, media, they are very comfortable with the idea that they can take people out.

All it takes is opposition research and this type of stuff where they report about Republicans all the time. And what Luntz is saying here is: “You hit Trump supporters with that, and his support goes up.” Now, why do you think that is? I know exactly why it is, and it means that the whole media formula is exploding on ’em. It means that the respondents here know full well what people reporting that negative stuff about Trump are trying to do.

And what they’re saying is, “Screw you. You think you can talk me out of this? Screw you! I love Trump even more. Report that.” That’s what’s happening here. There’s a rebellion going on against the establishment, a rebellion going on against pollsters and the media, with Trump owning it. And practically running it. And they are beside themselves. Listen to me. Back on September 17th in 2013 little over two years ago. This is me on this program.

RUSH ARCHIVE: What if I were to tell you that the Republican establishment doesn’t want people like you and me making up their base, their primary supporters, their number one supporters? They want to trade us in for a new base of people. More moderate, not so pro-life, not so focused on “the social issues.” So they might be willing to live in the wilderness for a few elections, in order to switch out their base.

RUSH: Remember me saying that? I remember saying it. Of course, I would, because I did say it. I just heard myself say it. I love hearing myself. I never get to hear myself the way you people do. That’s one of the great things about these audio sound bites of me. (interruption) I do. I really sound good. I understand now. But I remember making the point, “They might just be willing to live in the wilderness for 10, 20 years, just to get rid of this base that they’ve got, that they don’t like.” Well, last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, speaking with Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker — who parades around as a conservative, and she has for a number of years. Anderson Cooper said, “What more, Kathleen, can the Republican Party do to stop Trump?”

PARKER: There are some people making the argument that let’s just go ahead and lose them. You know, if we lose the election, let’s at least keep the Senate, let’s keep the House, and let’s focus on 2020.

RUSH: In other words, now we’ve got the Republican establishment saying, “Let’s go ahead and lose.” It’s usually people in this audience who say, “Hey, Rush let’s let the Democrats win; have the country find out just what a rotten people they are.” Now Kathleen Parker, speaking for the establishment, says (translated), “Let’s go ahead and lose this. Let’s go ahead and lose this, get rid of these base people. Just get rid of ’em. We’ll come back stronger 2000, maybe hold the Senate. Gotta keep our chairmanships! But let’s go ahead and lose it.” Don’t ever doubt me.

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RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites. This is NPR, the Diane Rehm Show. Diane Rehm still has a show? Wow. Okay, cool. Well, anyway. Oh, there’s a Fill-In Host. Okay. Melissa Ross. And E. J. Dionne Jr., the Washington Post columnist, is the guest. They’re talking about the presidential campaign and Trump, and the guest host says, “Now, some people are saying, E. J., that this split in the Republican Party is only between professional politicians and the people, that Trump is within the law and saying what our president should be saying.”

DIONNE: We are talking as if Donald Trump is speaking for the people in a big way. Let’s looks at numbers. If he is getting 30%, that’s a high end of the average in the polls, of the Republican and Republican-leaning independent, 40% of the electorate, that is 12% of Americans. Now, 12% is a lot of people. It can support Rush Limbaugh’s radio show very handsomely. It can win a bunch of Republican primaries ,because the proportion of Republicans who call themselves “very conservative” has almost doubled — very conservative has almost doubled — over the last 20 years. (funky music) So yes, it can win in primaries. But that doesn’t mean he is speaking for anything like a majority of the country.

RUSH: Oh, they’re so hoping that’s true. Oh, man, they’re just talking amongst themselves, and they’re assuring themselves that Trump is still really just a speck on the wall. He just a minor player. It’s just this extreme base of the Republican Party. How do I end up in this? (paraphrasing) “Oh, 12% of Americans, that’s a big number of people. That can support the Rush Limbaugh Show very handsomely, but…” E. J., I think you’d better recalculate some of your data here with some of the polls that have just been released today. This poll data came out after E. J.’s appearance yesterday on NPR.

Carly Fiorina, jumping forward to sound bite number 12, was on CNN’s “New Day” today with Chris Cuomo, who said, “Look, Trump seems to be connecting with voters in the way that you and the rest of the field are not. I mean, don’t you have to give him his due?”

FIORINA: Donald Trump knows how to play the media like a master. I think he’s a Pied Piper. I think he says things and you all rush to cover it. Every single network. I’m not being critical of CNN any more than anyone else, but he knows how to dominate the news coverage, and I think it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in the polls. I’m not saying he doesn’t resonate with voters. Voters with deeply afraid, and voters are very frustrated. And in a way, Donald Trump is a reaction to the unbelievable weakness and delusional nature of national security policy from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

RUSH: Now, that’s fine as it is, but it inspires a question, here. Donald Trump knows how to play the media like a master. I think he’s a Pied Piper. I think he says things and you all rush to cover it. Every single network. I’m not being critical of CNN any more than anyone else, but he knows how to dominate the news coverage, and I think it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…” Well, is this by accident? This is my point that I’ve been trying to make. Maybe clumsily. Maybe I should admit. But all week I have been trying to explain Trump’s ownership of the media and dominance.

But it’s not accidental. It’s not just because of who he is. Once again, if you can sit there, if somebody can sit there and analyze this and chalk it up to, “Well, you know, he’s a Pied Piper. Yeah, he plays the media like a master.” Well, if he can, why can’t anybody else? Trump’s showing it can be done, so why is he the only one who’s doing it? I’m not putting people down. It’s a legitimate question, because there are legitimate substantive answers to it. And the answers rely in content, content, content, and substance, substance, substance — and not just theatrics.

It’s not just Pied Piper-ism. It’s not just propaganda-ism. There is substance here that Trump owns! He’s the only one willing to say some things. He happens to have an engaging personality, a charismatic personality. Not everybody has one of those. But even if you do have a charismatic personality, there are a lot of people who would love to be able to own the media. It’s not just something that happened and you can’t blame the media for it.

They would love for it not to be the case. They can’t afford not to cover the guy. Their ratings depend on it. That’s the dilemma, the conundrum they have. They can’t afford not to cover him. They have to, if they want to maintain an audience, and they have to cover him the way he wants to be covered. Because there’s so much coverage, if somebody tries to screw him, there’s a record of what really happened on the next network. So they can’t get away with the traditional ways of editing and sabotaging, because everybody’s covering Trump.

So in a sense, Trump doesn’t even need them. He can go directly to the people with his Twitter account, his Facebook, whatever. He can go straight to the people. He doesn’t even need the media. The media is like icing on the cake for him. But it’s not just ’cause it’s happenstance. It’s not ’cause it just happened. It’s not because it’s a quirk of fate. Just like it wasn’t with Reagan. There are specific, substantive reasons why somebody — Donald Trump in this case — has been able to come along and totally render the media impotent.

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RUSH: Listen to this. Erin Burnett was on CNN last night, Erin Burnett OutFront, speaking with their political correspondent Sara Murray about Trump, and Erin is (hysterical): Please, would you tell me that he’s bombing out? Would you tell me that it’s temporary? Please, just tell me I don’t have to put up with this!

BURNETT: How are they reacting? I mean, are they angry? Are they turning away from him? Or are they standing by him on this news?

MURRAY: You know, it’s amazing. Even the Trump supporters I talked to who didn’t agree with him on every point, still said that they understood where he was coming from and they appreciated him bringing up this issue. This is the amazing thing, Erin. When you talk to his supporters, there are, yes, a number of people who agree with him who think this is a great proposal and the US should do it. And even the ones who don’t really think that he is on to something and he is at least proposing something to try to deal with this issue and sort of projecting an aura of strength that they say is missing from President Barack Obama.

RUSH: What does all this add up to? I mean, it doesn’t matter where you go, this story is all over the Drive-By Media. They’re sending reporters out trying to find holes in the Trump support base. They’re trying to find defections, and they can’t find it. And even when Trump says something his supporters don’t particularly agree with, they love him even more. Why? There is an answer to this, and it isn’t complicated. There’s an answer to why Trump has this kind of insurance. It’s all about the bond that he has built with his supporters. There’s a level of trust. There is a degree of perceived honesty and seriousness of intent. And it’s deep. And it’s based on human reality.

We’ll explore this in future broadcasts.

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RUSH: You know, the media never wondered if Bill Clinton’s voters were gonna abandon him after they discovered the semen-stained dress, or people never ask, “Is Hillary gonna lose her support when they find out she lied about the video in Benghazi?” They only ask this about Republican candidates. Creeps. Real creeps.