RUSH: Some audio sound bites as we shift gears now. This is Donald Trump last night in Las Vegas during a campaign event. Listen carefully.

TRUMP: So I heard today when they announce the poll, 41-14 — and I like Cruz, good guy — but I heard — here’s now they announced. “Cruz surging.” So when I heard — this was on television — “Cruz surging.” So I said, “Oh, I don’t know. That sounds bad to me.” “Coming up, Cruz surging.” Then they say the Monmouth poll was just done, “Cruz is surging, Trump 41, Cruz 14,” I said, “Wait a minute, what’s going on?” I tell you what, they are the most dishonest people.

RUSH: You notice a little shift here, ladies and gentlemen, away from Cruz and to the Drive-Bys now? Yeah. (imitating Trump) “So I heard today when he announced the poll 41 to 14 — and I like Cruz, good guy.” That’s a little bit of a shift in tone from yesterday and the day before to today. I wonder why? I wonder why. I wonder what could have happened.

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RUSH: Jeff in Atlanta, you’re up first. Thank you for waiting and hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Honor to speak with you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Actually, my thought actually ties into the first clip you played. It’s something I’ve noticed and I obviously wanted to come to you for confirmation, and this is regarding Trump as relates to you. You’ve been on the cutting edge of societal evolution and political thought ever since you’ve been on the radio. Trump seems to create his success by surfing the public mood and emotion. He doesn’t come at it from long-held beliefs, and you are extremely confident in your beliefs. And Trump, I submit to you, couldn’t be confident. He probably derives his confidence from you, in large part, about the issues of the day. And so I think this ties in with the Chris Wallace piece on Fox News where Trump really doesn’t have anyone in his headquarters. He doesn’t have any political consultants.

RUSH: Now, wait.

CALLER: And I submit to you you’re his political consultant without — you know, not officially.

RUSH: Naw, he’s got a lot of people around him, and they’re good, and they are professional political people. They are not a ragtag assembly of yes-men.

CALLER: Okay. Exhibit 1. Okay. Okay. Sorry.

RUSH: No, he does. Corey Lewandowski. Some of these people are really quality people.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: And I just… You know, I’ve said this before, and I guess I need to be pretty open about it. I know Donald Trump. I have been around him. Ah, it’s usually on the golf course, but there have been other times. I’ve been at dinners with him. The most recent was Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation where he was the award recipient. He was the honoree that night, and I can assure you… What you’re saying to me is highly complimentary.

CALLER: Well —

RUSH: But I can tell you that some of what he’s saying, I’ve heard him say before. He’s not parroting people.

CALLER: Okay. How about Exhibit A, if you’ll allow me. The first clip you just played was very nuanced, and I know you caught it. He backed off his attack on Cruz a little bit, focusing it to the media. It was just you who pointed this out sort of in the way that, “Hey, that’s a little out of character. What’s he doing that for?” He immediately backs off and so —

RUSH: Right. All right, all right. Hang on here. Hang on. I was hoping to wrap this up, but obviously not yet.

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RUSH: Our caller from Atlanta named Jeff did not hang on. I wanted him to because I wanted to be able to finish the conversation with him. Let me just address the thing about Trump I think that is resonating with people. It’s nothing that I haven’t said before, but I’ll tell you: The things that you hear him say? I’ve heard him say these things. These are not things that advisors are giving him to say and he likes it or doesn’t like it. He’s not picking and choosing. It’s what he thinks. I’ve heard a number of times.

I’ve heard for years, in fact, criticism of Obama. I’ve heard Trump express his frustration with things overall. He’s attracting this support base of his because the things that he’s zeroing in on are things a lot of people happen to agree with. The political system is corrupt. It no longer listens to the American people. It’s not seen as working to benefit the American people, and I don’t know how much it takes to recognize that. That seems to me to also be the common-sense view. This government — I don’t care who’s running it — is governing against the will of the American people on issue after issue after issue.

It’s my point about common sense earlier. None of this makes any common sense. And when it doesn’t make common sense over and over again, what do people do? They start assigning reasons why the people in charge, people in power don’t seem to have any common sense. That doesn’t seem believable. It’s not reasonable to think that everybody in Washington or the vast majority of them are absent common sense. So there must be something else going on here. There has to be something else to explain all of this that doesn’t make any sense.

It makes no sense to have open borders right now. It makes no sense to be insulting the innocent people of this country and accusing them of engaging in activity that’s causing this behavior. That doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense to be destroying the greatest health care system in the world. None of this makes any sense, and there aren’t very many elected representatives of the people who are out saying so.

Trump is.

And that is the magnet.

Now, when you add to that that most everybody thinks we have also a perverted or corrupt media that none of our elected representatives seem eager to take on and Trump does, there’s another magnet. All of this is wrapped up in common sense and the fact that so little of it seems to be used. At the highest levels of government, where common sense ought to rule the day, there doesn’t seem to be any of it. And there’s a third thing. Have you noticed? Trump has been in this campaign since June, or July, whatever.

But before that, he’s been all over the media for a host of reasons. Have you seen this parade of former employees, former business associates, former friends that literally despise Trump? You haven’t seen a one, have you? Don’t doubt they have been sought. Don’t think people aren’t out looking for people that have been screwed over, taken advantage of, used, whatever. Apparently they can’t be found. My point is that Trump, to the people that know him, is a nice guy. And he’s engaging, and he’s outspoken.

And to many people who know him much better than I do, none of this is particularly surprising. The idea that… It’s often said that people in politics must get their ideas from somewhere else. You know where this comes from? You know what stems from this whole concept that people have advisors? The common sense thought there is: If somebody has an advisor, they need to be advised — and if they need to be advised, it means they don’t have the ability to think for themselves.

So it’s natural thing to think, “Well, he’s got his advisors ’cause he’s not capable of doing it on his own.”

Frankly, I have always been of that opinion. I don’t… What is this advisor business? I don’t need advisors tell me what I believe. I don’t need advisors to tell me what to think. Now, I might need advisors on dealing with certain people I don’t know or understand, but not if they’re gonna make me violate my instincts, which I trust. But because everybody has advisors, everybody has spokespeople and this, it’s easy to assume that the guy at the head of the organization — in this case, the candidate — is nothing but a sponge walking around soaking up what people tell him and then making sure he says it right.

And I don’t think that’s the case with a whole lot of people. There are some obviously that are brain-dead and need advisors. But I don’t think Trump is one of them.