RUSH: Let’s look at New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s next. Iowa is in everybody’s rearview mirror. (No offense, Iowa.) New Hampshire is next, one week from today. The New Hampshire primary is one week from today. The Real Clear Politics rolling average there has Trump way out in front of Cruz and Kasich. Those are the closest competitors in New Hampshire by nearly 22 points. The Real Clear Politics rolling average in Iowa had Trump up four. Thirteen polls had Trump winning yesterday by four, and they all missed it.

Now, the Real Clear Politics… This a website, and they average a bunch of major polls, and that average now has Cruz and Kasich trailing Trump by 22 points. Trump’s lead is… Aside from a couple of outliers, Trump’s lead in New Hampshire has not been in single digits since October. Stated another way, Trump has had a double-digit lead in the rolling average of polls in New Hampshire since October. So what’s gonna happen? The four-point lead that Trump had ended up being a three-point defeat, right?

So you call it a swing of seven. It’s a fair way of looking at this. They had him winning by four. He loses by three. So it’s a swing of seven. So let’s say, “Okay, he’s at 22, a 22-point lead. Does that make it 15 or 16 in reality?” Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. Some people are gonna try to analyze it this way. Is Trump going to blow…? Can what happened in Iowa result in Trump blowing a 22-point lead? Can a 22-point lead become a one-, two-, or three-point loss next time? You’re saying not very likely?

Well, I’m here to tell you that as we sit here, do not be shocked and surprised if later in the week you’re watching TV (I don’t care which network) and a bunch of mainstream Drive-By analysts tell you that it’s gonna happen. The anti-Trump fervor, the hatred, the dislike, however you want to describe it, is so profound — and this is not news to you. But it’s so profound, so deep in the Republican establishment… Don’t forget, these people have believed, hoped, dreamed, whatever, that Trump was gonna implode back in August.

And then he was gonna implode at the end of August, gonna implode Labor Day. He was gonna implode on the opening day of the NFL. He was gonna implode on September 3rd. He was gonna implode by Halloween. And he didn’t implode, didn’t do anything of the sort. He just grew and grew and grew. They’ve been hoping and praying. They’ve been at their wits’ end! They’ve been asking, “What can we do?” All these people have hung in this race with the belief that Trump’s gonna blow this somehow, or that people are gonna wake up and realize that Trump’s not who he says he is, or they’re gonna abandon him.

“Something’s gonna happen!”

Well, I’m here to tell you that people are gonna take this result last night and say that’s what it means. They are going to say something along the lines of this: “Hey, look, Trump was all hype from the get-go. Trump is nothing but, ‘Win, win, win. We’re gonna win so much, you’re gonna get tired of winning. You’re gonna ask me to lose some, and I’m gonna say, “I don’t know how to lose. I’m Donald Trump.” Win, win, win.’ Okay. Pedal-to-the-metal, rubber hits the road, he didn’t win.” They’re gonna say, “That lets all the air out of the baloon, and it’s gonna come plunging back down to earth, and people in New Hampshire…

“Everybody wants to be with a winner. The people that are giving Trump this 22-point lead are gonna look at what happened in Iowa and say, ‘This guy’s a phony. That wasn’t real. Oh, my God, I can’t hang around with a loser,’ and they’re gonna leave Trump.” It’s already being stated by some people out there. I don’t remember who. I can’t remember the names. I was up late last night watching as much of the stuff as I could ’cause I knew that this result last night was gonna create its own new set of narratives that consist of things nobody knows what they’re talking about.

Just like we had a deal with prior to yesterday. So there’s that theory. The other theory is that Trump can’t handle personal rejection and is gonna blow it. He’s gonna go out there and he’s gonna start insulting people that he thinks are responsible for his loss and he’s gonna embarrass himself. There’s any number of scenarios where Trump now doesn’t win a single primary, Mr. Snerdley, and if you look in the right places on the Web and you search a lot of, you’ll find it already. Oh, yeah, there’s all kinds of gloating out there.

Now, the candidates are not gloating. Cruz isn’t gloating, and Rubio isn’t gloating. No, no, no. It’s the establishment types. You might have some of the Jeb consultants out there gloating. I think they think they’ve got a new breath of life. What did I see Jeb spent, $25,000 a vote? Is that right? That’s off the top of my head. I could be wrong about. Maybe it’s $2,400 a vote. I forget which. Whatever. Stay in New Hampshire for just a second here, folks. Trump’s double-digit lead, 22 points over Cruz and Kasich. Rubio is not in the top three in New Hampshire.

If there is a commensurate fade for Trump in New Hampshire like there was in Iowa, it might make that 22/23-point lead a 15- or 16-point lead. I mean, if things are commensurate, which they probably won’t be. Just because something happened in Iowa does not mean the identical thing is gonna happen in New Hampshire. If it did, it would mean Cruz would win. And don’t forget, there’s all kinds of other things here. You could say, “Well, hey, Reagan didn’t win Iowa, and he went on to win two landslides.” The retort of people is, “Yeah, well, Trump isn’t Reagan.” But it still happened.

Reagan, he didn’t do the last debate. He didn’t do a debate in Iowa, either, for whatever reasons. He went on to lose Iowa. He won New Hampshire — ran table, practically. Well, not ran the table, but won the nomination, and won presidency in a landslide. People always find points of time in history where they think are indicators of the present. So New Hampshire, like Snerdley just said, “How in the world do you lose a 22-point lead? You can’t. Not in a week. You can’t lose a 22-point lead.”

The only way, Mr. Snerdley, you can lose a 22-point lead in a week is if you’ve never really had it, and that is what the anti-Trump people are counting on, that the polling data on Trump is like everything else with Trump, in their minds: Hype and spin, not real. Many people are hoping that. Now, after New Hampshire comes South Carolina, and as you go further, Trump’s leads get bigger. In South Carolina, his lead is almost as big as it is in New Hampshire.

So now what would be the best thing to happen, in your mind? Should some of these guys that we know aren’t going anywhere get out? Should Christie get out? Should Kasich get out? Should Jeb Bush get out? I was gonna say Rand Paul, but Rand Paul might show halfway decent in New Hampshire. Should they get out? Should their voters be free to coalesce around somebody else? Because these people divvying up the vote this way is not helpful. It’s not helping answer any questions, it’s not furthering the decision. Other people want them to stay in because the more establishment people that are in there to split the establishment support this time around is what they want.

People are sick and tired of 10,000 conservatives in the race with one moderate RINO, and the 10,000 conservatives split the conservative vote and end up losing to the one RINO. Well, now, it’s possible that you could have a majority of people still in the race be RINO moderates who will split their money and support, water it down, thereby focusing more votes and support for the conservative candidates in the race. So theories can go either way on what do you think ought to happen with people in the race.

I don’t know if you’re gonna have a lot of mass exodus prior to New Hampshire ’cause so many people like Christie, Kasich, Rand Paul, any number, New Hampshire was their firewall, New Hampshire was where they were gonna make their mark. They knew they were never gonna do anything in Iowa, which, by the way, is what Trump is saying. (imitating Trump) “Hey, I wasn’t even supposed to go. My advisors said, ‘Don’t go to Iowa, Iowa is not your place.'” He said, “I gotta go, I gotta go to Iowa. I love people in Iowa. People in Iowa love me. I gotta go, I gotta go.” “No, Mr. Trump, it’s not your place. Sacrifice it, spend your time and money elsewhere. Don’t go to Iowa.” “But I had to go to Iowa.”

He’s trying to construct a scenario that he spend as little time there as any of the candidates, hardly any money and still finish second, major achievement. “Who else could have done what I did? I go into a place that I have no business being, nobody told me to go to Iowa, I insisted going to Iowa ’cause I love the people of Iowa, but everybody with the smarts said don’t go, don’t go. So I didn’t spend much time there, and I still finished in second place. As far as I’m concerned it’s a grand slam victory.” That’s how Trump’s playing it.

So it’s fascinating stuff to watch here, folks.

Huckabee’s gotten out. Yeah, yeah, Huckabee’s gotten out, it’s true. I was gonna say something impolitic. He wasn’t in it? Well, okay, Huckabee wasn’t in it, fine, we’ll leave that as it is. (interruption) What do you mean is he was never gonna be a contender? How do you explain Santorum winning four years ago and getting whatever he got last night, how do you explain that? Hm-hm. (interruption) Right. Well. Who worked the state? Right, but what happened to him this time? If he worked the state four years ago. Okay, so Cruz did the full Grassley, came in, worked. All right, that’s why you think Santorum went from winning it to last place? Well, yeah, electability. There’s a lot of factors in it. But at the top you’ve got to throw in what Cruz did. Cruz had the organization.

This is why even the establishment types who hate Cruz and hate Trump, they’re all hailing Cruz’s victory because of the way he did it, because what Cruz’s victory represents to them is the survivability of politics as a business as they’ve always known it. What really scared them about Trump was that Trump was going to totally change the way politics is done, the way candidates win. The establishment guys, “Oh, no, we can’t have that.” They want it to be the same way it’s always been, retail. You gotta go in there, you gotta shake hands, kiss babies, you gotta have a ground game, you gotta have hundreds of volunteers making phone calls, getting out the vote, gonna do all that.

They were scared to death Trump was gonna win without any organization of any kind like that. Cruz wins with the best organization like that of anybody in the state, and the establishment, even though they hate him, giant sighs of relief because they think Cruz’s victory affirms their way of doing business.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Dan in Warrenton, Oregon. Great to have you, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Good morning. Dittos from Oregon, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you very much. Great to have you here, sir.

CALLER: Yeah. I’d like to bring up a point, and there’s a chance a second one later. I am a real Trump follower, and I noticed one of his very latest tweets is that he doesn’t feel people are really appreciating the fact that he’s self-funding, and I do agree with that. I don’t believe people can even comprehend what that really entails as far as costs, including running that plane around all over the place. I used to work on 757s myself.

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah, he’s leased the plane back to the campaign, which is fine.

CALLER: What I did was I immediately sent a tiny little contribution. I believe that —

RUSH: You did?

CALLER: — it’s a good thing to do.

RUSH: Okay, Dan, thank you, I appreciate the call. I really do. Here’s the tweet. Trump was tweetless for 13 hours last night, then he tweeted up a storm, and the tweet that old Dan here is talking about is this: “I don’t believe I have been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign. The only one. I’ll keep doing it, but not worth it!” Followed by an exclamation point. Not worth it. Okay. (imitating Trump) “I’m gonna keep doing it, but not worth it.” Interesting.

I don’t know, folks. The next tweet after that: “I don’t believe I’ve been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign. The only one. I’ll keep doing it, but not worth it!” The next tweet was: “I’ll be talking about my wonderful experience in Iowa and the simultaneous unfair treatment by the media later in New Hampshire. Big crowd.” Next tweet: “The media has not covered my long shot great finish in Iowa fairly, brought in record voters, got second highest vote total in history.” Next tweet: “Because I was told I could not do well in Iowa, I spent very little there, a fraction of Cruz and Rubio, came in a strong second, great honor.” Next tweet: “My experience in Iowa was a great one. I started out with all the experts saying I couldn’t do well there and ended up in second place. Nice.”

The first tweet, Dan in Oregon sent him a little money here because Trump tweeted: “I don’t believe I’ve been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign. I’m the only one. I’ll keep doing it, but not worth it!” Well, you know, people do talk about the need to reform campaigns, all the money being spent, donations, campaign finance reform, and he is spending his own money. It’s the “not worth it” I’m tossing around here in my deep, dark crevices of my cranial cavity here to figure that out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, no. I know what he’s saying. He’s saying that he thought that it would be a big plus, that he was funding his own campaign, and the media hasn’t given him any credit like he thinks they would give other people credit if they were doing it. So it hasn’t been worth it, but he’s gonna keep doing it ’cause it’s the right thing to do. That’s how I interpret it, okay? Now, back off, Dawn.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Oh, yeah, I’ll gladly explain that. Yeah, I just got a question about Trump. I’ll be happy to explain this. I want to go back to this tweet that Trump put out there. Here’s this tweet: I don’t believe I have been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign, the only one. I will keep doing, but not worth it!” I don’t think he’s saying funding his campaign isn’t worth it. I don’t think he’s saying that his campaign isn’t worth it.

I don’t think he’s saying that. Don’t misunderstand. I think that his point is all this talk about all the money in politics, and there’s too much of it, and too much lobbyists. So he goes out and self-funds and nobody says anything about it. Nobody praises him for setting a new tone, a new direction in politics. So what he’s saying is, essentially, that self-funding his campaign has not gotten the accolades he thought that it would get. But he’s gonna stay in the campaign. Don’t misunderstand. He’s not saying that that’s not worth it.

I get this totally. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m gonna go back to what we talked about earlier. In the Real Clear Politics rolling average, Trump has a 22-point lead. In some other place, I’ve been corrected, and I’ve been told it’s a 28-point lead. And I’m telling you the Drive-Bys are hoping that it goes away, the Republican establishment is hoping it’s as meaningless as his four-point lead was in Iowa. And what they can’t wait for is New Hampshire to come along and for Trump to lose that, too, and then be able to…

Now, here’s the thing. That isn’t gonna happen. What happens when Trump wins New Hampshire, if he does? We’re gonna be back one week from tomorrow. We’re gonna be right where we are today. We’re gonna have a week of a bunch of speculation, a bunch of predictions, a bunch of mindless twaddle about what Iowa means as relates to New Hampshire. A bunch of people are gonna claim Iowa told them exactly how New Hampshire was gonna turn out even though nobody knows, and every week is gonna be like this.

Because the media cannot escape the horse race aspect of this. And if you think… If they think that… Well, let’s put it this way. Think forward. Hypothetical, Trump wins New Hampshire, as the polls say. What’s the media gonna do then? “Is it over for Cruz? Cruz was a one-state wonder?” Can you imagine where this is gonna go? It’s why you gotta keep a level head about this, folks. You really, really do. Try. It’s hard not to. I mean, it’s hard not to get caught up, because if you watch any media for any length of time, you’re gonna get caught up in narratives and the templates and whatever else that they’re spreading.

Which they do just to keep the hype up, crisis mentality, whatever, hanging onto viewers. But I’ve often said, “If you just have confidence in what you think about things — you know as much as anybody else does in terms of what’s reported — you’ll have gut reactions to everything.” I’m just telling you to trust ’em. Trust your instinct, trust your gut reaction, instead of getting all caught up in what ends up being (no matter where you go) the same analysis, the same predictions, the same explanations.

It varies very little.

Yeah, and I know I need to explain myself on Hillary a little bit more, but I’m not gonna be able to get all that done yet today.