×

Rush Limbaugh

For a better experience,
download and use our app!

The Rush Limbaugh Show Main Menu

Listen to it Button

RUSH: Ah, I’m trying to remember where I saw it. You know, it must have been something I read over the weekend and I didn’t print it out because I figured by the time I did, it’d be old. If I read something on Saturday, I’ve learned not to bother to present it because by the time Monday comes along, it’s not gonna be relevant anymore. But it was about this whole dust-up. It was all about this dust-up with Trump and Cruz over New York values and so forth. And it was somebody writing. I don’t think it was one of these pedal-to-the-metal leftists.

I don’t think it was TIME Magazine or New York Times or any of that. Somebody — maybe a Republican establishment type — was bashing Cruz for daring to insult people this way. They started praising Michael Bloomberg as an example of a great mayor. I’m thinking, “My God, what in the world…? This is the guy who wanted to tell people that they couldn’t buy a soft drink over so many ounces. This is the guy who wanted to ban trans-fats and have all these silly regulations for restaurant menus and stuff,” and that was just the half of it.


Here’s the thing about this Trump-Cruz dust-up on “New York values.” Everybody that matters in this knows what Cruz was talking about. It is why he didn’t apologize for it, Snerdley. It wasn’t about the character of people and the way they react to a tragedy like 9/11. It was indeed, Cruz made it very clear, that these are the people that openly celebrate everything that’s right A, B, C, D, E, F, G on down the liberal agenda. The liberal, ideological agenda is what New Yorkers vote for. Whatever you think of it, they do.

The point that Cruz has been trying to make is that’s where Trump comes from, and Trump is not… You know, Cruz wants ownership of the fact that he’s the conservative in this race, and everybody knows that Trump is getting some conservatives as part of his support group because he has a very crucial message that overlaps a lot of what defines a conservative today, and he’s hitting home run after home run after home run when he talks about those things, and they are essentially his attacks on the establishment. And Trump does not specify Democrat establishment or Republican establishment.

He just lumps everybody in with it when he goes after the incompetence of the government, the incompetence of our current leaders who can’t make good deals, don’t negotiate. It’s assumed he’s talking about Obama ’cause they’re the people in charge. It’s assumed he’s talking about Democrats ’cause they’re the administration now. It’s a legitimate criticism. It resonates with people who are conservative on a lot of different things. And I think, in fact, what this kind of illustrates… I’m not finally decided on this. But I think the areas of commonality that Donald Trump has tapped into with members of what you might consider to be the conservative base actually, to some voters, are more important than conservatism itself.


And let me give you an illustration of what I mean. Washington, Obama, take whatever issue. Obamacare or illegal immigration. Let’s take these two. Let’s focus on illegal immigration. I don’t think the people in this country who know full well what letting this go on means, care who the solution comes from. If anybody is willing to come along and shut this down and stop this assault on American culture… Because that’s what this is. These people are not assimilating. American culture is being not just watered down; it’s being altered and changed.

There are a lot of people, and they are a majority of people, who do not want this to happen. They don’t believe America is guilty of anything. They don’t believe America should be in decline. “We’ve had more than our fair share of time at the top. It’s not right that we’re the only superpower.” People don’t think this way. Liberal Democrats think this way. A majority of the American people don’t. They don’t find anything wrong with a powerful America. They don’t find anything bad with America that wins. And they certainly don’t think anything bad about an America that would protect its borders and make sure the country is not overrun by people who are not interested in becoming Americans.

So whoever comes along and convinces voters that they’re gonna put a stop to it and, in the process, save America, I don’t think they care whether the person’s a conservative, liberal, or a Martian. That’s how big the issue is. And that’s what I mean by, “I think some of these issues trump whether or not it’s a conservative offering the solution.” Here’s where it matters. To people who are conservative, who are doubtful of Trump, it’s because he’s not a conservative. And thus, if he’s not a conservative in their minds, then what is he?

Well, he’s either an agnostic or he is a liberal — or, worse, he’s nothing and doesn’t care and is a calculating opportunist will go wherever he thinks the popularity resides (i.e., be a populist), which may be just as bad in other areas while being right on immigration. And so in that sense they will worry that he’s not a conservative. “He may be right here, may be right there, but in the long haul we could be getting in bed with somebody that we can’t trust,” whereas a solid conservative like Cruz who’s also right on the wall, also right on immigration, also right on all of these things, is also gonna be right on everything else.

And some people say, “You know what? I don’t care? I’m not gonna take it that far. If I hear somebody who convinces me that they’re gonna stop this,” meaning, this upending immigration, “if we have somebody that’s gonna stop this lawlessness, if somebody is going to deal with it and put up a wall or do whatever it takes… The wall is symbolic. If they’re gonna do something to stop this, I’m all-in,” because to a lot of people, it is the defining issue. If this doesn’t get done, then all the rest of what happens in the future is academic because the country’s gonna be so altered and changed and transformed and redefined for the worse that it doesn’t matter.

Other people have an opinion about Obamacare and health care and what it represents. They are fully aware that health care is how totalitarian regimes get their hooks in. People are informed and educated enough to understand that every totalitarian regime in modern era has sought first to promise universal health care, because once they do, they have total control over a population. When the government’s in charge of who gets health care, who gets treated and who doesn’t, they can set forth whatever conditions they want to make you follow in order to get treated.

So if you’re gonna get health care provided by the state, then you better not weigh more than what their table says. Or you better not engage in, say, drinking more than 16 ounces of Diet Coke, or drinking more 16 ounces Diet Coke in a setting. That may disqualify you. The government can say, “You know what? You haven’t cared enough about your own health, so we’re not gonna put you at the top of the list. You have a heart problem or some other disease, diabetes? Too bad! Other people have been living the way we’ve been telling them to and they’re gonna get our first attention.” Smoking, take your pick.

If you smoke — the exception being marijuana. If you smoke in violation of what the state tells you, in violation of their health accords and suggestions and you happen to get sick, the state can say, “Too bad. You know, there are other people who got sick who followed our directives. They are gonna get first dibs on treatment. You’re not gonna get treated.” The state can do that. A lot of people who have studied what socialized medicine actually means in terms of a government being able to control people, it’s as big an issue to them, Obamacare is, as immigration is to others.

The point is that both issues, Obamacare and illegal immigration, are speedboats to totalitarianism for governments in charge of them. Immigration can be used to remake the culture and identity of a nation in not too much time. You could do it in a generation or two. You could totally change the makeup, the fabric, the kind of country this is, with maybe 25 years of unstopped immigration. You pick the places you want to allow the immigrants from, and you can change what this country is. You can take 230 years of America and wipe ’em out in 25.


And people who want to be totalitarian leaders know full well how to do it, and they know how to use health care as the same. They know how to use government regulations. They know how to sidestep the Constitution. So when you have the stakes this high, people in one of the camps that I have described might decide, I don’t care if the guy offering the solution — and I believe him, I trust him, I don’t care. Maybe he’s not as conservative as I would like, but if he really does this, I can’t not support him, when I don’t hear anybody else saying what he’s saying. Or maybe one other, maybe two others. That would be Cruz.

So my point is that for a lot of people there are issues at this crucial time in our nation’s life span where it may not matter what the party affiliation or the ideological assignation is to the person proposing to solve it, fix it, stop it, what have you. That’s why I think some conservatives are with Trump. And I think those who are with Trump, I don’t think they’re with him ’cause they think he’s conservative.

So I don’t think conservatives are stupid. Now, some of you in this audience are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, you don’t want any part of Trump precisely because you know or feel he isn’t and therefore not trustworthy on issue after issue after issue and you much would prefer that for. It’s a totally understandable position to have. It’s why the contest is so fascinating. But don’t feel bad for Ted Cruz. He has turned all of this to a very positive for himself. You may not know it because the Drive-By Media is not reporting it, but out there where people who vote in primaries are paying attention — let me give you an example. This is the Daily Caller. Actually there’s a couple things here.

One is the Politico: “Trump Brands Cruz a Nasty Guy.” Trump went after Cruz’s likability on Sunday, calling the Texas senator a nasty guy. “Nobody likes him, nobody in Congress likes him, nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him.” That’s the exact criticism that he went after Cruz. I mean philosophically. The first time Trump went after Cruz it was on the basis that, “You know what, Ted Cruz can’t be the president because, look, he can’t get anything in the Congress, he can’t get anybody to cooperate with him.”

And I said, “Donald, that’s the wrong way to go after him. We don’t want to work with the Democrats in Congress. Now they’re destroying the country, Donald. We don’t want to compromise with ’em.” It’s a credit to Cruz, what he’s doing. Plus, it was contradictory because Trump was out there saying that he’s gonna pick his own team and he’s gonna do it his way. He’s making this big deal how he was not a compromiser with people that were no good or any of that and here he was criticizing Cruz basically for not compromising. I said, “Donald –” on the radio, I said. I haven’t talked to him since last summer. Or maybe it was September. Whenever he came out with his McCain thoughts. “It’s just the wrong way. It’s gonna backfire on you.” And this has the potential to as well ’cause everybody knows that Cruz was not insulting New York character after a disaster.


Everybody knows Cruz was talking about governors like Cuomo. And we chronicled this when it happened. Cuomo actually goes out and says that conservatives — and they describe them — are not welcome in New York. You remember the previous governor, David Paterson, when he found out that I left New York because of taxes, you know what he said? He said, “If we had known we could have gotten rid of Rush Limbaugh that easily we would have raised taxes much earlier than we did,” and the Drive-By Media is applauding.

Those were the kinds of things that Cruz was talking about, and Cuomo, I remember when he said it, I remember playing the sound bite here, and he was talking about how these are undesirables, these pro-life conservatives have no place in New York. He knows this is what Cruz is talking about. And then you have the Bloomberg agenda with the limit on the size of soft drinks and trans fats and all of this.

So Cruz has turned this around. While Trump’s out there saying that he would do the public a big favor by suing Cruz over eligibility, Cruz has turned all this around and has been making public apologies to New York because everybody demanded that he apologize after Trump gave him his lunch at the debate, which people thought. I’m not even sure that that’s the end result of that. I think again the main media conventional wisdom is that Trump cleaned Cruz’s clock in that debate. But again, I’m not so sure.

But nevertheless, the demands were made Cruz should apologize. So he’s been apologizing, over and over again. But not for what he said. He’s been apologizing to the people of New York for the type of leaders they have had. He is telling them how sorry he is that they have elected the people that lead them, and he’s been detailing the kind of things these leaders have done, governors. And when you get to de Blasio, here’s a guy who makes it perfectly clear he thinks the cops are the problem with law and order in his city.

So Cruz has flipped it around. He’s turned these things into positives for himself. So you don’t need to feel sorry for Cruz. You don’t you don’t need to think, “Oh, my God.” This is a political contest, and it’s for all the marbles here. And to think these two were never gonna criticize each other, that there was some sort of an agreement? That was never, ever gonna happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to the phones to Detroit and Roger. It’s great to have you, sir. Hello.


CALLER: Hi, Rush. We all know of Trump’s conservative shortcomings, but I’m willing to vote for him anyway because he can win, and the number one thing is he’s a patriot. He wants to seal the border and cut off the benefits to the illegals, and then they can deport themselves. And he also wants to stop the export of our jobs by the ruling class. So I don’t see him getting in bed. You know, Cruz was on board with Obama trade. That doesn’t sit well with me.

RUSH: You mean the pan-Pacific partnership?

CALLER: Yes, that’s the one, yes.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Also he had an amendment to the amnesty that if he — like, when Reagan gave amnesty, they were supposed to get E-Verify and border security, but we got the amnesty, only never got the security. So that’s the same deal with Cruz. He inserts a little amendment. We would get the amnesty, and they wouldn’t enforce the new laws because they’re not enforcing the current ones.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I lost you there. What did Cruz do?

CALLER: Well, when he put an amendment to the amnesty, when Rubio accused him, he said, “Well, hey, Ted be you were in –”

RUSH: Oh, the poison pill thing. Oh, the poison pill.


CALLER: Yes, the poison pill.

RUSH: That was that was that was to make it impossible to vote for.

CALLER: No, ’cause when Reagan did it that was his poison pill.

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, there was no poison. Just like when Reagan raised taxes with the promise that there would be spending cuts, there weren’t any spending cuts. He signed Simpson-Mazzoli with the promise from Ted Kennedy to close the border. They didn’t close the border.

CALLER: That was the poison pill, yeah, but they never enforced it.

RUSH: Well, no, if it were a poison pill, it would a meant that the legislation was never signed. The purpose of the poison pill is to keep it from being signed. And what Cruz was trying to do was in his own way illustrate that what they were agreeing to was never gonna — they were not telling the truth about it. It was kind of like me saying, “Hey, I’ll support amnesty if you say they can’t vote for 25 years.” Everybody ignored me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, James Carville. This is not the first time he has said this. But I want to play it again. This was on CBS This Morning today. He was being interviewed by Charlie Rose, who said, “Taking the experience you’ve had in presidential politics, does it look like through your eyes Donald Trump is gonna get the Republican nomination?”

CARVILLE: Cruz, I think, has got it more thought out. I mean, he’s got a real, real fire in his eyes. But Trump, you know, he’s very crafty. And, Charlie, you’ve watched a lot of entertainers and stuff in your day. He has a real timing touch to him. He can really turn a phrase. If I had to bet right now, and I’ve said consistently I thought Cruz was the most talented of these Republican politicians I’ve seen a long time. He was at my house —

ROSE: Mary gave a —

CARVILLE: — a couple weeks ago, fundraiser. He’s got an idea where he’s going. He’s got it pretty thought out.
RUSH: All right. So Cruz was at the Carville humble abode because Mary Matalin is working the Cruz campaign or had a fundraiser for him. Now, the question is, does Carville really believe this or does he know that when he says it so many conservatives say, “See, see? Cruz is the guy, that’s who they’re afraid of. I mean, Carville came out, he admitted it. They’re afraid of Cruz, see.” Does Carville really think that, you think, Mr. Snerdley? (laughing) It is. (imitating Carville) “It’s hard to say out there what the hell he means. We don’t know whether he had a gumbo yet or not.” But he does, he’s said it before. And Alan Dershowitz at Harvard has said it.
Smartest student he’s ever had, best debater he’s ever seen in college. Dershowitz.

Moving on now to audio sound bite number 12, Jonathan Karl, ABC’s This Week. This is during the roundtable. Noted Democrat hack disguised as journalist moderator George Stephanopoulos said, “Let me ask you what I asked Donald Trump. Is it now a two person race between Trump and Cruz, Mr. Karl?”

KARL: I have to say, when Ted Cruz came out with this New York values attack, it looked like it was a gaffe. Trump had a great moment in the debate. But what’s it done since? It has driven everybody back to that interview 20 years ago with Tim Russert where Donald Trump says he is pro-choice, pro gays in the military, and does it citing the fact that he is from New York, not from Iowa. It may have been a masterstroke.

RUSH: Yeah, and I’ll let you hear that sound bite again when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. I’m told on good authority that Carville means it when he talks about Ted Cruz being one of the most talented Republican politicians he’s seen in a long time, he means it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is what Cruz has reminded people of. Donald Trump’s appearance. This was on Meet the Press back in 1999. Tim Russert says, “Do you think gays should be allowed to be married?”

TRUMP: It’s something I haven’t given lots of thoughts to. I live in in New York City. There’s a tremendous movement on to have and allow gay marriage. It’s just something that is too premature for me to comment on.


REPORTER: How about gays serving in the military?

TRUMP: It would not disturb me. I mean, hey, I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, okay, so, you know, my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

RUSH: There you go. This whole thing which people thought to be a big Trump slam dunk win the night of the debate has ended up producing this from the archives of grooveyard forgotten sound bites. And here it is, Trump essentially making Cruz’s point. He grew up in New York, he’s different. He grew up in New York, he thinks different. He grew up in New York, Manhattan, he’s got a different attitude about these cultural things. Bingo.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This