RUSH: George in Raleigh, North Carolina. You’re up first, sir. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, good to talk to you again. Rush, I’m a longtime listener. I’m a listener to you for a long time, and I’m normally in full agreement with your opinions. But I’m just one of those people that can’t for the life of me understand the allure of Donald Trump. I heard so much intellect on that stage last night. None of it, in my opinion, was coming from Donald Trump.

RUSH: Well, I don’t think you have heard? In terms of…? Well, define “intellect.” What do you mean by “intellect”? You mean intellectualism? What do you mean? Manner of speaking? What do you mean?

CALLER: Yeah. Well, just in substantive issues. When Carly Fiorina talked about how the Internet has left our government behind, I knew exactly what she was saying. I’m in no way, shape, or form a Rand Paul fan. But I knew exactly what he was saying, I know exactly what his position is, and that’s why I know that I disagree with him. Donald Trump hasn’t said anything new since the first debate. I don’t know anything more about his policies or how he plans to do things. He just says he’s gonna get it done, it’s gonna be huge, it’s gonna be great. But I have no idea how he’s going to do it.

RUSH: Well…

CALLER: I get a sense from Marco Rubio, I get a sense from Ted Cruz, that they have a plan.

RUSH: Okay, so because of that you don’t understand why Trump is number one there, it doesn’t make sense to you?

CALLER: No, it makes no sense. All he just came off last night as was the most unintelligent person on that stage.

RUSH: Oh, wow. Okay. “The most unintelligent person on the stage.” That’s interesting. “The most unintelligent person on the stage.” Well, so, then what explains it, do you think? Even though you might have been listening on hold where I just did explain it, what do you think explains it?

CALLER: Well, I hate to say it, Rush, but I didn’t think in the conservative movement we had low-information voters.

RUSH: Well, now, understand something.

CALLER: I think that people are just drawn to his bombast and are really not focusing on the issues and what he’s saying.

RUSH: Wait just a second. I’ve said this a number of times, and this is something that’s gonna needs to be repeated. The majority of Trump’s support base does not come from the Republican base. A lot of it does, but not the majority. I mean, his support base is all over the place, demographically. He’s got blue-collar people in there. He’s got disaffected Democrats. He’s got some Hispanics. He’s got a lot of women that support him. It actually is what the Republican establishment claims they want the party to be.

CALLER: He’s talking about whacking, for lack of a better word, the families of terrorists.

RUSH: He’s talking about whacking?

CALLER: Whacking. I’m sorry. My Italian is coming out in me. He’s talking about whacking the families of jihadists.

RUSH: Oh, whacking the families.

CALLER: He’s not Don Corleone. He’s not running to be Don Corleone. That’s a ridiculous statement, and people just brush it off like it’s just Trump being Trump. No, that’s not fitting of the commander-in-chief.

RUSH: Let me explain it to you again. I’m not justifying it. I’m gonna explain it to you. After I explain this to you, you can say, “Rush, I don’t care; that’s not a reason to vote for somebody.” Which, don’t do it. If you don’t like Trump, don’t support him. You know, find the guy you like. But, as I just said… You know, everybody’s asking– and you are, too, in your own way — “I don’t understand this Trump guy. I don’t understand people supporting Trump. I don’t understand why. He’s the dumbest guy on the stage last night. I don’t understand it.”

I don’t even think that’s the right question anymore. If you want to understand why people support Trump, then you need to know what they are asking. And you know what they’re asking? You know, trying to figure out Trump is the wrong question. The question is what’s wrong with the ruling class establishment? They are the ones implementing policies that are causing this country to be at greater risk, less safe, and our economy to crumble. The real question is: What’s with the ruling class establishment?

The evidence is abundant that they are doing harm to this country, from regulation, to taxes, to health care, entitlements, immigration, national security. It is the Washington establishment dragging down this country, and the people supporting Trump have been asking why for years. And they haven’t gotten an answer. The establishment’s not interested in what people think. The question is, “What’s wrong with them?” not what’s wrong with Trump or Rubio or Cruz or any of these other candidates. The real…

Why doesn’t the establishment see what the rest of us see? That’s the question to me. And if they do — if they see what we see, and it doesn’t change the way they implement and support policies — then do they not love the country as much as the rest of us do? Why would anybody knowingly take us down a path that’s gonna end in a horrible crash? That’s the real question. And Trump is asking that question at every appearance, and that’s why people are signing on. He was the first to tap into what Americans are feeling and thinking, George, when nobody else was. It’s that simple.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The first caller should get a gold star. This is exactly what I mean when I say it’s a caller’s job to make the host good. This guy has lit a fire under me, because this guy said something that when I watch the debate, I know a lot of people are asking. I know a lot of people thinking it. “Boy, this guy, Trump, he’s not very deep. Nuclear triad? He doesn’t know that that is. He’s answering these questions off on tangents. This guy, I don’t know. I don’t know how smart this guy really is.” It’s not that you’re saying, “I don’t think he’s smart.”

It’s, “I don’t know what this guy knows. This guy must not really know very much.” I know a lot of people are having that reaction to Trump, and even among those who aren’t, the question still is: “What explains Trump?” Everybody’s running around trying to explain it. Now, I just did in the first hour of the program, and I will do it again in mere moments. But I want to add to it here. Because that guy’s call illustrated something for me that is really important and ever so true, even on the Republican side of the aisle.

The question today and going forward is not what explains Trump. The question is not: “How do we understand Trump? Just who is this guy?” But, “Why is Trump succeeding? Why can’t Trump be taken out? Why do people who support Trump not leave him?” That’s not the question. It’s a wrong question. It’s the question posed every day by who? The establishment and the media. The real question is: “What’s with them?” How do you explain them? If anything needs to be explained, it’s the Washington establishment and particularly the Republican establishment.

If anything needs to be understood — if there need to be questions asked and if some of us need to get answers on anything — it’s that question: “What is with them?” The evidence is all around us, and it’s what Trump has tapped into. The policies being implemented in Washington are destroying this country. They are destroying this country’s economy and its future, destroying this nation’s health care system, making a mockery of our immigration law — and in fact, making a mockery of the rule of law in a broad-based sense as well.

Overregulation. Taxes. Health care. Entitlements. Out-of-control, irresponsible spending. We don’t have the money for any that we’re doing right now. Immigration. National security. The ruling class establishment is engaging in behavior that demands explanation. The things that they are doing defy common sense. There is no reason for the borders of this country to be as wide open as they are and everybody welcomed as though we are obligated to take them. The ruling class establishment attacks on mainstream people in this country need to be explained.

There is a palpable fear all over this country. People who have lost their jobs are afraid they won’t find one. People who have jobs are afraid they’re going to lose theirs. People who have savings are worried it isn’t going to last, or it’s going to be erased or taken away. There is a palpable fear. Militant Islamic terrorists seem to be able to kill at will. And when it happens, the ruling class seeks to point fingers at people who are the actual victims, and they want to find evidence of racism and bigotry.

Then they want to discuss the niceties of beating the bad guys and to tell us how we can’t do that and do it, we can’t do that and do it, we can’t do this and do it. People are confused, because it makes no sense. There is no common sense in what’s coming out of Washington. The question is not what’s wrong with Trump, not what’s wrong with Cruz, not what’s wrong with any of them. The question is: What’s wrong with the people currently leading the country? Why do not they see what the rest of us see? And if they do, if they do see what we see, then why do they permit this continue to happen?

Why do they fund it? Why do they support it? Why are they taking us down a path that is endangering this country as founded? Why are they doing it? That’s the question. And why will they not answer those questions? So I don’t think the issue here… It may be for you in the context of the Republican presidential race, but overall in terms of problems that we face and the questions that we have, the issue is not understanding Trump, which is easy. I just explained Trump to you, and I’ll do it over and over again.

It’s not hard to understand why Trump’s doing what he’s doing; why it’s working. He speaks plainly. He’s straightforward. He’s not politically correct. He refuses to accept the terms mandated by the establishment and the ruling class, the conditions they put on everything. Trump’s not destroying anything. Trump hasn’t cost anybody their job. Quite the contrary. Trump’s not taking people’s health care away from ’em and making it more distant and unaffordable. Trump is not implementing policies that place American citizens at risk to acts of terror and crime in their cities and towns and communities.

That’s all on the establishment, ruling class, whatever you want to call ’em. So the public’s not hanging on every word that Trump utters.
The public is not micromanaging and looking for mistakes or errors. The public is not playing gotcha. The country’s not trying to find evidence to laugh at Trump and put him down. That’s the ruling class doing that. And every time they do it, every time they try to play it that way, all they do is cement and solidify Trump’s support and the support of anybody else they target.

What you see is that the supposedly wise and intellectual and brilliant ruling class types have given us a massive debt, endless illegal immigration. They create problem after problem after problem, and then they claim they’re the only ones with the solution. And the “solution” makes the problem worse! The “solution” actually codifies and cements the problem and justifies it. Now, it used to be that all of this that I was saying used to apply primarily to the Democrats. The great, sobering reality is that you have to include some Republicans in this diatribe now.

Because there are plenty of Republicans in the ruling class who are joining forces with the powers that be who are demanding all of these policies. Endless immigration. We have a dismal economy. We have 94 million Americans not working, for crying out loud! We got more people on welfare and federal benefits than ever before in our lives. We have more food stamps. We’re destroying peoples lives. We’re destroying human dignity.

We’re taking away from them the opportunity to be the best they can be before they even have a chance to understand what’s happening to them. We have attacks on the family by redefining marriage and then calling people bigoted who have deeply held religious beliefs that were present at the founding of the country. Those people are the new bigots and racists. We turn the US military into a social architecture playground for the Democrats and the libs. Every day brings new race-baiting.

“Hands up, don’t shoot”? Don’t make me repeat what blew me up yesterday. Yeah, the Washington Post said (summarized), “You know what? ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’? That was worth four Pinocchios. That’s one of the biggest lies all year.” Really? Who made that happen? The very people handing out the Pinocchios! Now, about Trump’s lack of intellect. You know, there’s somebody else they accused of being a dunce, and that would be Ronaldus Magnus. Ronaldus Magnus was tarred and feathered as being too simple, simplistic, “an amiable dunce,” a nice guy.

He didn’t have the brain power to stay engaged on anything longer than 10 minutes, and then it was off for a nap. Reagan’s reply was, “There aren’t any easy answers, but there are simple answers.” And, you see, when we’re talking about the intellectual elite and the ruling class, understand one thing: The more complex, the better, as far as they’re concerned. “Because the more complex, the harder it is for you to understand something, and the greater the divide between us and you.”

The more complex, the harder it is for you to understand it. The more complex, the more necessary they are to explain it and deal with it, because they have the deep intellect to get it. The more complex the better. But the fact of the matter is, as Ronaldus Magnus said, yep, no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Well, I would submit to you that a lot of people see Trump that way. They’re not worried about the niceties of the intellect and all that. They understand that the problems are deep, and here’s a guy talking about his desire to fix ’em and solve them, and he has a track record of doing that.

Reagan would cut through all the academic debating, present the simple answers. And the intellectual elite do not like simplicity. They’re not needed for that. And, you know, oftentimes they don’t even get it. Simplicity is too beneath them. Folks, we have just had, and we are still in the middle of seven years of somebody that the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party think is the smartest president we’ve had in generations, Barack Hussein O. Oh, man, is he smart, does he use the language. Oh, does this guy know how to speak. This guy is so brilliant, it’s dripping off of him. Harvard Law, law review, except we’ve never seen the transcripts, never mind. What good has all of that brain power done us? That is why I’ve always maintained that we have the need to redefine “smart” here.

But here’s another reality. For all of you trying to understand Trump, understand that today the ruling class is aiming all of its fire at Ted Cruz. Now, part of the reason the ruling class establishment’s backing Rubio, and they are. Rubio has assumed the position that Jeb occupied. The ruling class, nobody’s admitting it yet, but they understand that Jeb’s not gonna pull this off. They need a stand-in, and for them, in their mind, it’s Rubio. And they’re pushing for Rubio to try to take out Cruz.

Rubio’s the new stalking horse. I mean, they were hoping that Kasich could do this. I still go back to last night. Kasich opening up by saying (paraphrasing), “Yeah, my daughter said, ‘Dad, you know what I don’t like about politics? There’s too much yelling. There’s too much screaming. There’s too much disagreeing. There’s too many arguments that go on.'” This is from the guy who pledged his super PAC to take down Trump. Remember that? So there’s a lot of hypocrisy out there that people also note.

So the big RINO donors are gonna move to Rubio. They’re gonna put tons of money in his PAC. They’re gonna run a lot of ads suggesting Cruz is anti-Israel, anti-military, pro-amnesty, but there isn’t any amount of PAC money that’s gonna convince people that Ted Cruz is pro-amnesty, but they’re going to try. You know, folks, here’s a point. They’re never gonna be able to make the case that Ted Cruz is pro-amnesty? Of all the people in the world, be trying to make the case that Trump is, and yet they’re going to try with all of this money. As many of us suspected — you’re gonna think this is a big subject to move off the subject, but it isn’t.

When they closed the LA school system yesterday, there were a lot of people, and I was one of them, who thought, wait, these people are overreacting. They got scared. This is gonna be a hoax, you wait. It’s a bunch of people that have been just totally shackled by PC. We’re living in the shadows of the San Bernardino massacre just to the east of LA and it turned out to be a hoax. And you know how they finally figured out it was a hoax?

Now, this is very important. The hoax came from Germany. It was an e-mail. It turns out that the hoaxer was using the storyline from this season’s series of Homeland. This season’s episodes of Homeland was his inspiration. But you know how they knew ultimately that the e-mail was a hoax? There was no capital A on Allah. Now, wait. Wait a minute. Wait just a second. What does that mean? It means that he could not have been a true Muslim. He could not have been a true Islamic Muslim terrorist ’cause he didn’t have the sense to capitalize “Allah.”

Well, folks, I’m sorry. They have just admitted with this explanation that it is indeed devout Muslims from where militant Islamic terrorism comes from. Whether they know it or not, they just admitted it. Obama’s out there saying that there can’t be any terrorism in Islam because Islam’s a religion of peace, and that Islam opposes ISIS, Islam opposes all this terrorism, they oppose it as much as we do, and yet the experts in Islamic terrorism were able to proclaim this e-mail a hoax because “Allah” was not capitalized, which meant it wasn’t from a true Muslim. But wait. These very same people tell us that, “No, no, no, you can’t. No. There’s no terrorism in Islam.”

They have just exposed of themselves. Now, for whatever reason they’re lying to us, but it’s another example of the ruling class trying to tell us that what we know isn’t so, telling us that what’s right in front of our face that we can see isn’t what we see. Militant Islamic terrorism is militant Islam terrorism. Trying to tell us it isn’t because there’s no such thing as terrorism and Islam, except they knew it was a hoax because the e-mailer forgot to capitalize “Allah,” which meant that he wasn’t a genuine devout Muslim.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, if Hillary Clinton is an example of deep intellect and intelligence, then spare me, ’cause I don’t want any part of it. I think this whole argument about intellectualism and depth and who’s smart and who’s not, it’s idiotic. Theruling class establishment want nothing to do with two of the smartest people in our country today, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Trump is enormously successful businessman, well liked, generous, very popular. Ted Cruz, the smartest man in the United States Senate, the smartest man maybe in the Republican Party, and the ruling class of Washington wants nothing to do with either of them.

So the question to me is, what’s with them? Why are they so exclusionary, and of whom? I mean, they’re trying to destroy these two people. They must feel really threatened. Meanwhile, you don’t hear anybody going after Hillary or Obama the way they go after these two. And these are the questions that people are asking out there. People in this country are trying to understand why Washington’s doing what it’s doing, why Washington supports the people it supports, issues and on and on.

Here’s John, Sioux City, Iowa. John, great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you for taking my call. I understand where the previous caller’s coming from, but here’s the deal. We need somebody in office who loves the United States of America and who will support and defend the Constitutional republic for which it represents, number one. I’ve listened to Trump a lot on his rallies and things like that, and the man’s a builder. He builds things, just like he says in his rallies. He’s a concrete thinker, he’s a nuts and bolts kind of guy, and when he wants a building built, he knows what he wants, when he wants it, and how he wants it and why he wants it, but he has a whole multitude, a whole team of surveyors, engineers, architects, and draftsmen that actually put the thing together. You could liken that to him being the president of the United States. He’ll have a whole cabinet of —

RUSH: Well, this is the point. Why is it that the only brainiacs — don’t hang up out there, John — the people that the establishment hires to do this building are making a mess of everything? Why are we supposed to respect that?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, back here with John in Sioux City, Iowa. Sir, I took that call, I thought I had one more minute than I did, I misread the clock. So I’m sorry I had to interrupt you, but finish your point.

CALLER: It’s a privilege to be on your show. Thank you.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I was just saying that one of the problems that people are having with understanding Trump is that I think as a nation over the years that we have been conditioned and trained with an expectation of what a politician, or more to the point, an establishment politician should sound like, okay? Trump is a straight talker. He’s a straight dealer. He gets things done, like you said, look at his track record, and that’s exactly what we need. And just like Trump said, we need good, tough, smart people running the country. And the original point I wanted to make when I called was, just real quick and then I’ll let you go, Trump may have already come up unwittingly with the strategy to get the Muslim population to help us with the Islamic terrorists, and that’s with the ban. And how would that be? That would be an incentive for them to help us out. If we’re gonna put a ban on any Muslims coming to this country for a temporary time, what better way to incentivize those other Muslims to help us.

RUSH: It’s interesting you bring that up, John, because right here the next item at the top of my Stack — this is not in the debate Stack. Could be, though. New York Times. Look, of all places, now, this is a strange story because it’s atypical of the Times, or untypical. “How Unpopular Is Trump’s Muslim Ban? Depends How You Ask,” is the headline. Now, in one sense this makes my point. Okay, everybody’s asking the question, how unpopular is Trump’s Muslim ban. They don’t ask any questions like this of people who are actually implementing policies that are putting our country at risk.

Here we have a candidate who’s running around and made a proposal that’s rooted in common sense and has precedent, previous precedents in this country’s history. But this is a surprising article, because it first acknowledges the possible existence of the Trump Effect we posited last week. This article, the Trump Effect is that his support in the polls is understated, that there are actually more people in favor of Trump than say so, depending on the poll and how it’s taken. If the poll is a personal interview or a phone call and it’s not a robot on the other end, it’s an actual human being, because of the Drive-By Media and the public impression of Trump, a lot of people that support him may not admit it. They don’t want to get grief, or they don’t want the pollster to think they’re an idiot, so they don’t say Trump when they support Trump.

The New York Times is acknowledging that this is a valid question to ask in assessing Trump’s strength right now. The story ends by saying it’s impossible to look at all of these polls and figure out how the public really feels about Trump’s ban. That is an amazing admission for the New York Times. You would expect the New York Times to run a story claiming that the vast majority of reasonable Americans oppose this, it’s deadly, it’s dangerous, it’s bigoted, it’s racist, and they’re holding out the possibility it’s more popular than any of us, meaning them in the establishment media, are aware.

But it still goes to the point that they’re still asking the question, how unpopular is Trump’s ban? Now, I understand it’s a unique proposal, nobody else has made it, therefore it makes sense questions would be asked. But, again, I don’t think the question today is what explains Trump. Trump is not doing anything. The question is, what explains Washington today? What explains what is happening there and what’s coming out of there? What explains Obama? If anything needs explaining, it’s Barack Obama and what he’s doing and wants to do. And I happen to believe that a majority of the American people think that and are asking that very question. And they think they know the answer in many cases, and they don’t like it.

But you look, ruling class here, they are dead set against two of the smartest Americans having anything to do with the American political system, Trump and Cruz. Now, John in Sioux City, there is one thing. I’ve said it before. It bears repeating. He made the point here that we have been conditioned to accept a certain personality type and a certain resume as the qualifications to be a successful politician. And he’s right. However, it must be noted that politics is its own enterprise and business, and, as such, it does have its own rules, requirements, for climbing the ladder of success in that business.

And like a lot of other businesses, it is an insider-based business. People in sports media — I can tell you this personally — people in sports media do not want somebody from the political world coming in and doing their jobs. They’re looked on as outsiders and they’re not welcome and they’ll do everything they can to get rid of ’em. And a lot of business is that way. Economists do not want anybody other than trained, ordained economists who know the language endeavoring to explain it. No outsiders welcome. So it’s not just politics that’s exclusionary.

The difference here is that politics and Washington is about how we manage our affairs. It’s about maintaining and growing the greatness of the United States. It’s not a separate business in and unto itself, which it’s been converted into now. The problem really is, I think, that those in the political business have decided to make it a business that’s oriented toward their personal enrichment, their personal acquisition of power, and maintaining that power. And the idea that they are there to do something like defend and protect the Constitution, defend and protect the country, yeah, but secondary.

The primary purpose of politics now is to glorify those in it. And maybe it always has been to a certain extent, but it really seems more of an exclusive insider, no-outsiders-welcome type of enterprise than it has ever been. And yet it seeks and demands the American people thinking they’re part of it in order for it to succeed. So a giant game is being played. The American people during campaigns are told how important they are and then after the election is over, the American people go back to becoming irrelevant again and dunces and know-nothings and worse.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Bob in Spokane. You’re next, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush.

RUSH: Hey.

CALLER: 48th Assault helicopter Company blue-star dittos to you.

RUSH: Great to have you here, sir. I appreciate it.

CALLER: Thank you. Hey, for those who don’t understand Trump’s appeal or his support, it was on full display at the top of last hour, on a sound bite from our new Speaker of the House who’s touting what a wonderful job they did back there in DC because they passed some bill and nobody got what they wanted, you know? It would be like me coming to you, you’re the president, I’m the general and telling you the war is going great, nobody’s winning, you know, or a football coach going in and saying, you know, fire up the team, let’s get out there and tie one for the Gipper.

RUSH: Bob, this is an excellent point. You are making an excellent point, and you know as well as I do what this means, because I heard the same thing. I saw the sound bite on the news at the top of the hour and I saw the graphic and the closed-captioning, and that is, Ryan saying, “Hey, this is a great deal because nobody’s happy,” which we are supposed to interpret as meaning everybody comprised, and that’s what we should be happy about, everybody compromised and everybody gave some ground and we’ve got a deal, and everybody is unhappy. And, you’re right, that’s exactly what Trump is saying is a mess.

We’re in this to win. America needs to win. We’re not in this to get lousy deals. And we certainly don’t want to stand around here and brag about it. We don’t want to brag about getting lousy deals. We don’t want herald lousy deals. And we don’t want to hoist ’em up as our objective. But, see, the Beltway types, they really believe this business that all of you out there want this kind of compromise. And the greatest example of compromise is when both sides are unhappy. I don’t know. Unhappy is unhappy. And I don’t know anybody who wants to be, other than the psychologically screwed up, who are happily unhappy. I can’t relate to it, but the shrinks tell me it exists. Great point, Bob. I appreciate it.