RUSH: Everybody’s stumped today. Everybody’s stymied. Everybody’s curious. Can’t figure it out. All of a sudden Donald Trump says he doesn’t want to criticize Cruz anymore. All of a sudden Donald Trump says (paraphrased), “Yeah, you know what? I like Ted! I might even have him as my vice president if I get the nomination.” “But, wait a minute! Everybody says you’re thinking of suing him ’cause he’s from Canada. What the hell’s going on?”
They can’t figure out what happened.
So they’re assigning it to, “Well, you know, maybe Trump’s insane.”
Then they say, “No, he’s not insane. So what’s going on here? Well, maybe he’s just trying to keep everybody on their toes and off guard and not knowing what’s coming next?” No. That may be, but that’s not what’s going on here. “Well, but then why? He abandons Dr. Carson! Dr. Carson was his big friend, and then all of a sudden doesn’t care about Carson. He likes Ted Cruz? All of a sudden he’s not gonna complain about Iowa? What’s going on?” And they’re all struggling to try to figure this out. And the answer can be found by going back to yesterday’s program here on the EIB Network. This is why…
RUSH ARCHIVE: Now, I understand that the polling is hit or miss and that 13 of them were wrong. I understand. Thirteen polls had Trump winning. And I’ve got nothing against Dr. Carson. I think Dr. Carson’s one of the finest men alive today walking this planet. This whole episode, nevertheless, boggles my mind — this whole thing — manufactured as it is. It just boggles my mind. We’re on the verge here, we conservatives, of wresting control of the Republican Party from the establishment and getting sidetracked with this stuff. It isn’t helpful. I wish it would stop, but I’m not running all these campaigns.
RUSH: And I said even more than that. I got specific. I said, “This notion that you can’t take a tweet that’s found on CNN and spread the news around it without correcting some kind of controversy is silly. It’s a waste of time. It’s a distraction,” and a couple of times yesterday, I just said, “Stop it. Stop this stuff. There’s way too much going on to get distracted by this. Too much time is spent on this.” You know, it’s okay to disagree with people; it’s okay to have policy differences with ’em.
But there’s no reason to start excommunicating people either from the party or from the movement, people who you know are conservative but may be wrong on an issue here or issue there. Fine, disagree with ’em all you want. Defeat them all you want. But this excommunication stuff, and banishing them? I had enough of it yesterday. It’s destructive. I mean, this election is too important. I’m rehashing much of what I said yesterday, and adding a couple things to it. But, really, there’s just too much at stake here. So I’d just had it.
I was telling people in my circle of friends that this stuff’s starting to get embarrassing to me. There was no election stolen in Iowa and all of this about… You know, I did hear from a guy named Bill Saracino. Bill Saracino, goes way back to my days in Sacramento. Bill lost his hearing and he was one of the first guys I talked to about what life was going to be life with a cochlear implant way back in 2000, whenever that was, and he was extremely helpful.
He had gone to the House Clinic just as I had, and he helped me to prepare for what hearing and life and getting along was gonna be like with a cochlear implant, before I had had mine surgically implanted. And then after that, I lost track of him. I got an e-mail from him yesterday, the first time in 12 years, and he is in — or was in — California. I guess he’s still California. He’s working on the Carson campaign, and he was telling me, “There are people who had their votes shafted away from ’em, Rush.
“I heard you on the radio today saying that not one person’s popped up to say that they were gonna vote for Carson and didn’t because of what Ted Cruz’s campaign was doing. Well, Rush, I got a couple of them here. You need to know this.” So he was telling me that a couple of people had stood up. But I still haven’t heard it or seen it. Whatever, it wasn’t gonna add up to 25,000 votes, which is what Carson needed to tie Rubio phone number third place. That wasn’t gonna happen — and furthermore, Carson outperformed what he was supposed to get if you believe in polling data.
So the whole thing to me just seemed unnecessary, and I had the usual, “Oh, you’re just in the tank for Cruz!” I’m not in the tank for anybody here. It’s not my job to win a campaign for any candidate. It’s not my job to take people out of it, either. It’s not my job to make ’em win it or help ’em. It’s not my job to see to it that they lose it. That’s up to them. And it’s always been my philosophy. But when I see really unfortunate time-wasting things like this, and it just feeds right in to the Drive-Bys. Here we’re on the verge…
Like I said, here we’re on the verge of wresting control of the party from the establishment, which is what has to happen for us conservatives, and now here we’re in the process of trying to destroy two or three of ’em. It’s a circular firing squad. So, anyway, that’s what I said yesterday. Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, interviewing Donald Trump. Cooper said, “You came in second in Iowa to Ted Cruz. Let’s talk about Cruz! You basically accused him of fraud, stealing the election in Iowa. You talked about wanting a new election there. Have you actually spoken to Republican Party officials about that?”
TRUMP: Nah. Look, I’m into New Hampshire now. It’s just one of those things. It was sort of a lot of strange things. And, you know, I like Ben Carson very much, and he got pretty roughed up, frankly. Although it affected me maybe more than Ben. But I’m so much — because I’ve been now here for two days. I’m so much into this, into New Hampshire that I just… I don’t care about that.
RUSH: Okay. So that’s what happened. He doesn’t care about it anymore. He’s moving on. H esaid what he had to say about it, got his message out, thinks Cruz is from Canada is a fraud and is now moving on. He’s dropping it. But the media’s not happy. That’s why, folks, “Are you saying that you have…?” Who else did? Nobody can figure it out. I’m giving you a possibility, certainly. So then Anderson Cooper… The media’s the last group of people who want to see this happy. The media want to see Trump loaded for bear.
The media are deathly afraid of Cruz. And they are afraid of Trump. And they’re gonna end up being parade of Rubio at some point. They want Cruz taken out. They’re frustrated. The media is frustrated that they haven’t been able to take out Republican front-runners yet, and the Republican front-runners-in-waiting are the bottom of the pile. The media candidates of ours, they prefer, can’t get any traction. They’re frustrated. So here comes Trump aiming at Cruz; they loved it. Anderson Cooper said (impression), “Oh, no! But — but — but wait! Donald… Donald, you think… you think Ted Cruz intentionally was spreading false information, right? How can you do this?”
TRUMP: I don’t care. I mean, I don’t — I don’t want to even say. Let’s see what happens. I guess people are looking at it. Who cares? We’re into here. I picked up a lot of delegates, you know? I was second. I picked up one less than he did. So that’s not gonna be even a factor. But this is the place that I’m focused.
RUSH: Right, he’s focused on New Hampshire now. So everybody’s running around, “What happened? What, I mean, why did…?” There’s a possibility for you. By the way, Cruz? This guy is so sharp. He is so quick. Did you hear he…? A reporter tried to — and they ought to give up trying. They’re never going to do it. No reporter on earth is gonna be able to outwit, in a match wits, Ted Cruz. They’re just not gonna be able to sabotage the guy. A reporter kept hounding him about this “dirty trick.”
The reporter said (impression), “It’s a dirty trick! It’s a dirty trick to confuse voters! Don’t you think it’s a dirty trick to confuse voters?” And Cruz said, “No. We’re not gonna scapegoat anybody.” This reporter wanted to know, “Are you gonna fire anybody?” “Nobody gonna scapegoat anybody. I would note that the news story that our team passed on was true and accurate. CNN reported it.” The reporter said, “Yeah, but it’s a dirty trick, right? Don’t you think it’s a dirty trick? I mean, how can you do that? That’s a horrible thing to do!”
Cruz: “Is it a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You’re in the journalism business. Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story,” that’s where this reporter worked, “or is it only a dirty trick when I pass on CNN stories?” And the reporter (stammering), ’cause Cruz is saying, “Hey, I didn’t do a damn thing! Carson’s people called CNN. CNN put something up. We saw it; we used it. If there’s a dirty trick, it’s you people in the media putting it up in the first place.” So Cruz is essentially saying this ABC reporter, “Oh, really? It’s a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You’re in the business. Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story? Or is it just a dirty trick to pass on CNN stories?”