RUSH: Did you hear what Trump said? Well, that’s like asking, Did you ever hear what I said? Trump said, “I’m a conservative but at this point who cares. We have got to straighten out this country.” Yep. He said, “I’m a conservative. Of course I’m a conservative! But who cares? What does it matter? We have got to straighten out this country.” A lot of people think that conservatism is how you do it.

Here is Alfonzo in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Great to have you on the program, sir. How are you?

CALLER: Hey, Rush! I love you man. I can sum up the Trump campaign in four words: “I hope he fails.”

RUSH: (chuckling)

CALLER: Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are like arsonists that burn down your house. Trump paid for the gas, he paid for the matches, and he paid for the cab ride to your house. Now he wants to turn around after your house is burned down and tell you, “I’m gonna make your house great again.” I can’t choose between Hillary Clinton and a Hillary Clinton donor.

RUSH: Trump says those are his old days, that he’s gonna eviscerate Hillary Clinton now. He’s gonna rip her to shreds in his campaign. He’s going to beat her. He doesn’t deny having donated to these people, by the way.

CALLER: Well, you know, I just… I — I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.

RUSH: Okay, I know how you feel about Trump, but why are you for Cruz? Are there affirmative reasons why you are supporting Cruz?

CALLER: Absolutely. I voted for Cruz when I lived in Texas and he ran against [David] Dewhurst, and they all said he couldn’t do it, and that he wasn’t an outsider. He is the epitome of the Tea Party. He’s not the establishment. He is America. He’s the flag. He’s… I’m against the establishment and everything they’ve done. You know, Trump wants to get things done? Well, we’ve gotten $19 trillion in debt with the things are getting done. Frankly, I’d like them to not get anything done. Go play golf! Go away.

RUSH: So you don’t believe Trump? You —

CALLER: (interrupting)

RUSH: No, you actually don’t believe Trump is going to do anything that he says he’s going to do?

CALLER: I do not believe Lyin’ Don.

RUSH: Lyin’ Don. All right. Okay. We got you. Lyin’ Donald. You’re not gonna vote for a Hillary donor or Hillary. I don’t want that option. Alfonzo has thought about it out there, and… Well, Alfonzo, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

Brian in Davenport, Iowa, you’re next. Your turn. Make it count. How are you?

CALLER: One common thread woven throughout the years of your political commentary, Rush. Your values, your principles are steadfast and they are never changing. You have already told us how to vote. If people really listen to the values, the principles that you talk about on a daily basis, it’s not that hard to figure it out who you’re voting for, and I do hope you’re voting. You know, it’s a liberal —

RUSH: Of course I vote. What do you mean? Of course I’m voting? I voted in the Florida primary, and I’m gonna vote in November. Of course I am.

CALLER: Well, absolutely. I believe it. You know, what? It’s a liberal attribute to, uh, put your party first and then think about your values and principles maybe if it’s convenient. But a conservative attribute is to look at your values, your principles, the things that you believe in, and then make an educated decision on that. You know, an analogy I could use is how you talk about Apple all the time. You’ve never gone out and told everybody what to buy for an iPhone or an iPad. You’ve talked about your excitement over getting a new product, you’ve talked about your disappointment of battery going dead. But then they fixed it. “Oh, man it’s great,” you know?” So here I am. I’m out shopping for an iPad, thinking about gettin’ one, but you never… I don’t know anybody that calls in and accuses you of being an Apple endorser or —

RUSH: Oh, they’re out there, believe me.

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: All kinds of people think I’m shilling. But I’m not. You’re right, I don’t. I just share my passions with people, is all I do.

CALLER: Right. Well, I’m listening to the things you say about Apple, I like the things that you say. There’s some pros, there’s some cons. But, you know, Rush, people, if they really listen to you, they’ll know who you’re voting for. You have to! People want you to tell them how to vote, but they don’t want to sit down and look at the things that you believe in and the things they believe in and make an educated decision. The same people that want to slam you every day for not endorsing their candidate, those hardcore people are gonna be the same people that won’t listen to you when it comes to down to their candidate losing, and you’re trying to get everybody to rally against the Democratic Party.

RUSH: Well, that is absolutely true, and you obviously are very perceptive and sharp, and you listen deeply. You’re not somebody — thank you, sir — catching the surface waves out there, if you will. And I appreciate that. And you’re absolutely right. To me, the objective is stopping the Democrat Party. I don’t know how else to say it. They are the most destructive force in America today. I could make the case that everything many of you think is wrong in this country can be traced back to Democrat Party or American liberal policies or power.

“Power” meaning power over education (from K all the way up through the university level) to power over the pop culture. But everything that’s happening — all the cultural rot that is called tolerance, all the cultural rot that is called modernization and so forth, all of this — all of this has origins, and the originals are liberalism, socialism, the Democrat Party, you name it. And they have to be stopped. And there is… Now, unlike our last caller, I don’t think there is anybody running on the Republican side that comes anywhere close to the destructive nature…

You know people on the Republican side that don’t like America. They’re all over the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party is loaded with people who have never believed in America’s greatness and do not want America to be great because they hate capitalism. They hate the founding, whatever. They do not want this country to be great. They do not want this country to be exceptional in any way. They are delusional and deranged in many cases. These people at one time were college students themselves back in the 1960s.

They happen to be running the country today, in many ways, in many regards. And, to me, that is the ultimate objective, which is why I told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday… He asked me in a trick question about what I thought was gonna happen when all this was over. I said, “It’s a trick question,” because it’s the only one I didn’t correctly anticipate that he would ask, and I just gave the stock answer on unity, that I think — I hope — that when the time comes, everybody’s gonna realize who the real enemy is. But that may not happen. You just said that the rule of principled people is to put all of that before party.

Well, to some people the party is the principle.

To the establishment, the party is everything, because that’s where they are. That’s where their careers are. That’s where their identity is. That’s where their own self-esteem is. That’s where their connections are. It’s where they matter as being in tight with that entire establishment. So above all else, it must be preserved and held onto. I think one of the biggest myths, if you will, is the idea that the Republican Party’s a Conservative Party. It hasn’t been in a long time. You could say compared to Democrats, maybe.

But as structured, it never really has been a Conservative Party. It has been where the conservatives in America are, but the party itself has never really embraced conservatism. It’s been forced to accept it occasionally, with Ronaldus Magnus being an example, and there are some others, of course. But I’ll tell you something, folks. My theory about Cruz — and it’s not a theory. I don’t know how many people in the GOP-E would admit to it. But did you see George Will’s column? Did you hear about George Will’s column over the weekend?

I’ve never seen any like it. I have never in my life seen… George Will actually said that the job of the Republican Party, if Trump is the nominee, will be to lose the presidential election by 50 states. If Trump is the nominee, the GOP must work hard to lose all 50 states. Because the party and preserving it is paramount. And going back to the theory that if Cruz is the nominee and the party wants him to lose… By the way, the party’s got all kinds of different people in it. There’s not a unified position.

Some of them are more opposed to Trump than they are Cruz. But officially, if they had to pick — and it’s not hard, once this is explained. If it’s Cruz versus Trump, you have the establishment deciding which one they prefer, you have to understand that they think that both are going to lose in a landslide. You start with that. Many in the Republican Party, in the conservative media, Republican media — many in the Republican Party — have already given up. They have already assumed that both these guys would lose and lose big.

So, given that that is a reality, they have then factored, “How do we benefit the most or how do we lose the most?” And the way they’re calculating this is, who would they rather never have to deal with again? And that’s Cruz. Because there are a lot of Cruzes, in the sense there are a lot of principled conservatives out there. There are a lot of people that want to shake up the establishment. There are a lot of Republicans who would like to follow in the footsteps of Cruz.

But there’s only one Trump, meaning there aren’t a whole lot of people out there who could be Donald Trump tomorrow if they wanted to be. But the Republican Party is filled with potential Ted Cruzes. So they don’t think they have to worry about another Trump ever again, ’cause he’s the only one there is. But Cruz? Well, there’s a lot of potential Cruzes out there. And how do they get rid of them once and for all? And the answer to that is, Cruz getting the nomination and losing 50 states.

And then they can say, “See? We told you! We told you that if you nominated this guy, it was gonna be Goldwater all over again. You keep telling us…” They will say, “You keep telling us that we pick these RINOs or these moderate, these Northeastern liberals like Romney or these moderates like McCain and Dole, and they lose all the time. What happens when you guys run? You guys lose in landslides! You guys lose. Just go away — and take your abortion with you, and take your gay marriage with you. Take your social issues with you and just go away, because we can’t win with you guys.”

That’s the dream.

And it’s all based on the fact that there’s a lot of potential Ted Cruzes. There’s a lot of principled conservatives out there. But Trump is a genuine — you know this — outsider that they don’t know how to deal with. He has his own money, doesn’t need any part of the apparatus. They don’t figure there’s very many of those, if any. So that’s where I think they line up on all this. And of course, the Cruz people think he can beat Hillary and the Trump people think he can beat Hillary — and they think he can beat Hillary in a landslide.

We don’t have any polling data that… Uh, uh, uh! But we do. We just got a poll today that shows Trump beats Hillary by three points. First time that’s happened. But what a disconnect! The party big wigs think we are destined to lose big, and the supporters of both Trump and Cruz think their guy can beat Hillary — and I happen to agree with them. And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go conceding anything in freaking May.