RUSH: Michael, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh. Yesterday I was watching TV, I saw Mr. Cruz come on and basically blame Trump for these protests taking place at the rallies. To me, I mean, this is a so-called constitutional lawyer here, I mean, I don’t know how you see it, but I see it as all of Mr. Trump’s First Amendment rights being violated. The so-called constitutional lawyer should have saw that. For him to take the side of the, as you know, agitators, anarchists, whatever you want to call them, to me that exposes Mr. Cruz as one of the Republican establishment guys —
RUSH: No. No, no, no, no. Come on.
CALLER: Come on, Rush.
RUSH: No, come on.
CALLER: Come on.
RUSH: Do not take such a leap. Of all the crazy things —
CALLER: I got more evidence if you’d like it.
RUSH: Michael, do you really, after everything that’s gone on, do you think Ted Cruz is a secret member, a secret handshake away from being a member of the establishment?
CALLER: He’s already got the handshake. He’s put the check in his pocket with Goldman Sachs.
RUSH: Oh, come on. That’s Trump drivel that you ought to know is untrue and that’s just campaign rhetoric. Goldman Sachs. You gotta wise up out there. You gotta know when Trump’s making a joke and trying to rile you up and when he’s serious. He’s not serious about that. He’s not serious about the loan business. He wants you to believe it I guess. Look, Cruz came out, he acknowledged where these protests coming from. He acknowledged they’re started by leftists. He knows that this is a Democrat radical way of life.
But I think Cruz and Rubio, they’re in a Republican primary. Their enemy right now, their opponent is Trump. They’ll get down to getting after Hillary or Bernie later on. Right now they’ve gotta get past Trump. Rubio really laid into Trump on this on Saturday morning, to the point that Rubio looked really, really troubled by this. He was asked, “Are you still gonna vote for the nominee?” He was really pained with this, because he is of the belief that Trump is coarsening our politics, coarsening the conversation and is not representing the better elements of our nature, what have you.
But Cruz got this right. I think the initial temptation of, look, there’s some things that happen at Trump rallies, I mean, a Trump supporter did cold cock a Black Lives Matter guy. A 78-year-old Trump supporter in a cowboy hat, his cowboy boots were so pointed this guy could have kicked excrement in the corner with no problem whatsoever. And this guy then turns to the camera (imitating protestor), “This guy shows up next time we’re gonna take him out.” Well, I mean, yeah, you’re gonna have Republicans speak out against that kind of thing. It’s called trying to gain advantage, but at the end of the day Cruz knows where this all comes from, and he said so.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Jeremy in Memphis. Jeremy, glad you waited. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. Thank you for introducing me to Realville ’cause I was a resident of Greenville for a long time. My comment was, I just don’t see how Ted Cruz is going to be the nominee. I like him. I like what he said he’s gonna do. I don’t see how he could do anything, however, because over the last few years, as everybody has seen, the Republicans have blocked almost everything the Democrats try to do, which is a good thing. But they’ve kept Obama from doing anything, so nothing’s really moved. When Ted Cruz gets in office, if he is elected, the Democrats are gonna do the same thing and Obama’s policies will stay in place. Because the Democrats will do everything they can to keep his agenda from going through.
RUSH: Well, it’s a good question. It is an excellent question. You could ask the same question of Trump. You could. But I’m gonna answer it here. I’ve got a specific answer to you about Cruz, but I’m just saying that it’s a good question, if either Cruz or Trump is elected. You know, all these authoritarian people worried about Trump authoritarianism, you’ve heard ’em, say, “Hey, you know what? The Trump supporters, they’re the same as Obama supporters but for a different guy. We don’t need the same kind of thing, Rush. We don’t need a bunch of people making presidents all powerful either way.”
Big difference.
Why has Obama gotten away with it?
Obama has gotten away with it ’cause the Republicans stood down, Republicans sat down. The Republicans back out of the way. In fact, the Republicans, they didn’t even try to draw any distinction between themselves and Obama. Furthermore, the Republicans announced they weren’t gonna stop Obama. They took impeachment off the table. They took government shutdown off the table. Therefore, they took any spending restraint off the table. If you’re Obama, “To hell with the Constitution! These guys have just made me king, for crying out loud, and I’m gonna take advantage of it.”
In one sense, given the statist that he is, you can’t blame him. If they’re gonna make him king for eight years, do it! Take the deal. But if Cruz or Trump win, the Democrats are not going to similarly stand aside and just let these guys do whatever they’re gonna do. Now, both Trump and Cruz would have different ways of dealing with this, I believe. Now, I haven’t talked to either of these two guys about it. But, Jeremy, it’s a good question. Here’s what I… I don’t want to say “assume.” If Cruz were here, and we’re answering the question, he would say, “Yeah, I can understand why you think that.
“I’ve opposed my own party. I’ve opposed the Democrats. I’ve stood on principle. I’ve fought everything they want to do, both individually and together. I’ve stood for the American people. I’ve stood up for the Constitution.” I think, Jeremy, that Cruz would attempt to reach the American people in a direct fashion and create a majority of Americans who want his agenda to succeed. I think it would be along the lines of how Reagan did it. There was opposition to everything Reagan wanted to do. The Democrats hated Reagan.
They were coming after a dismal Jimmy Carter presidency for four years. The last thing they wanted was for the Republican replacement to succeed. It’s the last thing they wanted. But Reagan did. And the first thing he did was win in a landslide. You know, that scared the Democrats tremendously. He won 1980 in a landslide, and he won 1984 in a landslide. He had the American people with him. I’m guessing that Ted Cruz would attempt to secure the same thing and would probably lay claim to it if he were to be elected president.
He would lay claim to the fact that he’s got a working majority of American voters who support him, and that would be his mandate. He would begin to try to implement his agenda and claiming that’s what the American people voted for, and therefore he would not be bucking Republicans in Congress. He wouldn’t be bucking Democrats. Well, he would be but he would be doing it with the expressed mandate and desire of the American people who had elected him president.
That’s my guess. My guess is that Cruz would use the power of his personality and the ability to persuade and his positive nature and love of country, to persuade an even larger number of people than those who voted for him to participate with him in revitalizing America. I know he has the ability to make that case, and I know he has the ability to inspire the American people to want to join him on it if he has access to them in that regard.
As a president, he would with the bully pulpit. However he’s also going to be spending a lot of hours taking knives out of his back that will have been stabbed there by both Republicans and Democrats. And some people think he’d be too busy taking the knives out of his back to get anything done, but I think that’s how he would do it. Trump probably would go about a different way. He’d call ’em out.
Related Links