Greetings, my friends, El Rushbo behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the distinguished, the prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.

So there’s all kinds of stuff out there today.  So we have Obama in Japan saying that Trump is rattling foreign leaders because they’re afraid his policies might not be thought through.  Frankly, I am ready for foreign leaders to be a little rattled by what’s happening in this country — as opposed to what they have become accustomed to and what they have come to expect out of this country, which is a blank check.

I think it’s about time foreign countries — by the way, if you hear some squeaking, I got some new shoes, and I’m telling you, these things make noise when I — you hear that?  That’s my shoes.  Leather being broken in.  So there’s nothing wrong here.  Look, it’s loud.  If I can hear it, it’s loud.  You know, I go walking through the halls here and at first, “What in the world?” Thought I’m about to fall through the floor here and then I figured out it was the new shoes.  Great, great shoes, by the way, best shoes, Trump shoes, brand-new leather. (laughing) Just kidding.  They’re Tommy Bahamas.

That’s not the only one.  Obama in Japan saying that world leaders are rattled.  And there’s another story, same premise, only about global warming, that Trump doesn’t seem to be aligned in a right way on global warming.  They’re very, very, very concerned out there.  I even read this on my tech blogs.  They’re very, very concerned.  They’re laughing at Trump.  They’re mocking Trump ’cause Trump thinks that global warming is a hoax sponsored by the ChiComs to impede our economic growth.  It is a hoax.  It is a leftist hoax and it may indeed involve the ChiComs, but Trump’s instincts on this are correct.

But grab sound bite 23.  Paul Ryan.  This is from his weekly press conference this morning, and it’s only at the top of the sound bite roster here because of the AP story, Trump reaching the magic number to clinch the nomination, 1,238.  So this is Ryan, the Speaker of the House, weekly press briefing, and during the Q&A, Luke Russert, the NBC congressional correspondent, said, “Speaker Ryan, I wondered how the phone call went with Mr. Trump last night.  We heard from your team that it was good.  Is there anything more you can share?”

RYAN:  It was a productive phone call.  Like I said, we’ve had these conversations, our staffs have been meeting.  We had a very good and very productive phone call.  So I’ll leave it at that.  What I’m most concerned about is making sure that we actually have real party unity, not pretend party unity, real party unity because we need to win this election in the fall.

RUSH:  I guess he’s still waiting for real party unity before endorsing Trump.  Let me just tell you Trumpsters something.  Trump is making this tougher on Ryan than it needs to be.  When he went after Susana Martinez, Ryan has no choice but to be protective of her.  I mean, she’s chairman of Republican governors.  You can frown in there at me all you want and I don’t care whether what Trump said about her was true or not.  I was asking myself, why in the world, the timing of this, when Trump himself states that he’s attempting to unify the party.

By going after Susana Martinez, Trump gave Ryan a reason to hold off a couple more days or week or whatever.  I mean, Ryan can’t come out and endorse Trump the day after he dumps on a Republican governor.  You just can’t do it, no matter who’s right or wrong. No matter what Trump said about her, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter, just the optics.  You understand that, right?  I know she dumped on him first.

By the way, there’s a story here that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention.  I think it’s big, and I think it’s important, and I think it is, for those of you who are deeply invested in Donald Trump, it’s crucially important, and it’s very, very comforting.  It’s the story about how he fired Rick Wiley.  But a lot of people, “What’s the big deal about that, Rush?”

Well, I’ll tell you why it’s a big deal.  It’s a big deal for what it stands for and what it represents.  You know, Rick Wiley is an establishment guy.  Manafort hired him. He was also an establishment guy. He ran Scott Walker’s campaign in Wisconsin.  So he’s got establishment bona fides, and Manafort brought this guy in, and they were going to try to, I don’t know, overthrow, they were gonna try to take control of campaign from Trump’s team that he’s had throughout the primaries, led by Lewandowski and whoever else is in that mix.

Now, you might remember, it was either last week or the week before that I issued a warning of sorts that one of the pitfalls Donald Trump is going to face as the weeks and days go by and as he gets closer to and then surpasses the number of delegates — this is human nature; it happens in many businesses; it has happened to me. One of the reasons I am fully aware of this is because of personal experience with it — the effort to change Trump is going to be intense from within his own campaign. It’ll be well intentioned, but it’ll be wrong.

There are people who tell Trump, “You’ve gotta change, now. You have won the nomination.  It’s not the primaries.  It’s the general.  You have to change.”  And what that means is: “You have to tone it down! You have to dial it back.  You have to become more presidential.”  Whatever the advice is, it will consist of people thinking that Trump now has to grow in stature, in office, and drop whatever it is that worked during the primaries because they’re over now, and we’re on to the general, and it’s not a whole slate of opponents. It’s one opponent, and there’s all kinds of money involved now.

And the biggest mistake Trump could make would be to take any of that advice.  The biggest mistake Trump could make would be to listen to anybody who tells him it’s time to change.  Now, some of the advice is intended to sabotage, even people supposedly in your own circle.  Folks, there’s envy and there’s jealousy within every organization, and in something like Trump’s — which is red hot. It is the focus of attention in the modern world today, and everybody involved wants the light to shine on them, too.  It’s human nature.

There are people in that organization, in every organization, particularly those that are humming and are hot and have a lot of attention focused on them. There are people within those organizations who want attention themselves.  They want to be credited as the advisor, as the confidant, as the guy who has Trump’s ear, as the guy who’s making Trump be Trump.  They’re everywhere. Some of them are well-intentioned; some of them are just attention starved.

Others are saboteurs.  And the fact that Trump… This is not about Wiley.  I don’t even know him.  What I’m about to say here is not intended personally about Rick Wiley.  I don’t know him.  I’m speaking to you, really, using my own experiences, which are overwhelming in number.  Let me just… Folks, let me put it to you this way to set this up.  I have been doing this radio program… If you count the 3-1/2 years that I did in Sacramento before I went national 1988, I’ve been doing this program over 30 years.

And along the way there were consultants at radio stations where I worked.  Some of these consultants had never, ever been behind a microphone.  Some of these consultants had never, ever run a radio station.  In the 30 years that I’ve been doing this program, I have had two people not try to change me.  Everybody else that I’ve worked with in management or consultants, tried to get me to change.  Some of them even threatened to fire me if I didn’t change.

And what I mean by that is, “You can’t do a show without guests.  If you don’t start getting guests in here — ’cause nobody listens to talk show without guests — you’re not gonna last.”  Ratings would come in, my ratings would be higher than anybody else’s on the station, and people would come to me, “This isn’t gonna last.  You’d better start getting guests,” or, “You’d better stop playing all that music or whatever you’re doing! It’s not talk radio, what you’re doing. You can’t do it that way.”  All the ex… Only two people.

If I had been… What’s the word? If I had been forced to take the advice of I-can’t-tell-you-how-many consultants — I’m talking, 10, 12 — I wouldn’t be here today.  My program would have been a failure, “Because you just can’t do it that way.”  I said, “When have you ever done it?”  “Well, I have a track record! I’ve consulted stations here and there.”  “Yeah, how are they doing?”  “Well, nobody does it like you.”  “Precisely! It’s what I’m trying to achieve here.”  It got knock-down, drag-out at times.

Some of these consultants even today are quoted in magazine articles about how, “You know what? This Limbaugh thing is a fad! It isn’t gonna last. It isn’t gonna last. He’s not gonna last! He isn’t gonna last.” Even 28 years later, they’re out there saying, “It isn’t gonna last!” They’re out there saying, “It’s over,” doom and gloom. So my point is… These are not my friends.  I don’t have consultants.  I have never had a consultant.  Since this show started live, there has never been a consultant.  I’m talking about when I worked at radio stations that had hired consultants.

Trump is facing the same thing.  Everybody who is a powerful personality, who is generating a lot of heat, who is winning at what he’s doing and Trump’s doing all of that by a multiple factor of 10, Trump just owns it right now.  And there are people that don’t like that.  There are people that want to be part of it.  There are people who want you to think they are responsible for it.  There are all kinds of people surrounding Trump right now, and I’m guarantee you that he’s being advised by…  I don’t know who they are, but I will guarantee you he’s being advised to change.

He’s being advised… He’s being told by some people, “You can’t do it this way! You can’t keep doing it the way you’re doing it. You’ve got to change. You’ve got to become more president. You’ve got to do,” whatever.  He’s got people on his staff telling him to ignore that, too.  Don’t… He’s got all kinds there.  The point is, he ought not listen to anybody except the people he goes to to ask questions.  But if somebody comes in and starts giving him advice, let it go in one ear and out the other.

Depending on who the person is, be respectful.  But Trump’s instincts are just fine, and he had better continue to trust them.  He had better not start doubting them.  He’d better not let other people make him doubt them.  Not to say he’s not gonna make mistakes.  Not to say he’s not gonna wish he could take something back.  But the point is, the only stuff that would be fatal to Donald Trump is if for some reason people in his campaign started listening to the media, started listening to critics.

Or some of the people within the campaign got scared, “Oh, my God, I don’t think Trump can keep this up! You can’t keep talking this way. He’s not gonna win,” and tries to change him.  He’s got to have a steel spine.  I think he does.  I think he loves himself enough to remain who he is, and that was my advice last week.  Whoever he is, is what’s gotten him where he is.  He’s got to stay who he is.  He must not let anybody, well-intentioned or otherwise, talk him out of being who he is.

Don’t put a teleprompter up there unless it’s an official policy speech to some group of people where even the slightest mistake cannot occur.  Otherwise, leave the teleprompter.  I’ll give you a classic example: Last night in Anaheim or yesterday in Anaheim.  By the way, kudos. They waited ’til after this program was over to start the rally in Anaheim.  Did you notice that?  And even it was late at that.  Because it was late, the organizers of the event — the people that Trump had hired to put on the event wherever it was, the convention center — went to Trump.

And they said, “Look, sir, we’re running behind and we’re gonna have to scrub the National Anthem.  We just don’t have to time, we’re so far behind schedule.”  Trump said, “What do you mean? We’re not canceling the National Anthem,” and he called the singer up on the stage right then and right there and made her sing the National Anthem right after he’d been told they had to cancel it. He took a step or two away, gave her the stage, gave her the microphone, put his hand over his heart, and mouthed the words as she was singing.

It was a great rendition.  That act is worth more votes and more loyalty and deepens the bond of connection.  You know, stop and I think of it. Something you and I would think is as innocuous as the National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner can mean something to Donald Trump. Because there are people in this country who don’t like it.  Democrats, leftists, anti-Americans, what have you.  Something as simple as what is considered to be noncontroversial, tradition — the singing of the National Anthem — can become provocative.

Because there’s some who don’t like it. But whatever. Trump instinctively knew not to have the National Anthem ripped.  He didn’t want it canceled, and he took care of it.  A lot of people would have listened to the organizers. A lot of others would say, “Okay, okay, okay.”  He’s got to continue this.  The pressure to change, the pressure from all these so-called know-it-all consultants who’ve never done what he’s doing — in business or in politics — who have never done what he’s doing, will be trying to tell him.

So the fact that he got rid of this guy… I don’t know Rick Wiley.  It’s not a comment about him. But the fact that Trump got rid of the guy, to me, is a good sign that he’s holding on to his identity and is confident in who he is and has realized he doesn’t need the kind of advice if it’s, “Mr. Trump, you have to change. Mr. Trump, you can’t keep doing this.”  “Oh, yeah?  Fine.  Well, find another candidate.  You’re gone.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  No, no.  Folks, my point is simply: I’ve been there.  I have been where Trump is, and I know what kind of things are happening.  I know the efforts to change him.  I know the fear.  As I say, some of it’s well-intentioned.  Others are saboteurs and so forth.  It’s why I can relate to so much of what’s happening with Trump and his campaign. It’s precisely because I’ve been there.  I just… I’ve not spent any time telling you about this stuff.  It’s all inside baseball.  I mean, I’m not gonna come here every day and explain, “Guess what happened to me when the show…

“I had a meeting and they told me…” I’m not bother you with it.  But just trust me.  For the first couple years of this program, you would not believe.  I mean, and these guys were all out there telling me, “You can’t do it the way you do!  You’re gonna fail.  I don’t want you on my station.  You better change! You want to be big in Latrobe or you want to be big in New York?”  I heard that twice at WABC.  Those guys that told me that are not working, and yet they’re quoted in every story about how I’m about to end.

So I know what’s happening with Trump in the campaign.  I know the kind of people that are out there trying to sabotage it and also trying to nose in on it and to get some of the attention for themselves.  There are all kinds of personalities out there. In every organization that’s somewhat large, you’re gonna have a mix of those people.  Now, the real backstory, what happened with Rick Wiley happens to be in Politico, but I don’t think they realize their own lead here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ere’s what happened with this Rick Wiley story.  It’s in The Politico.  I’m gonna read The Politico verbiage first, and then I’m gonna translate it for you.  “On Thursday, word leaked back to Trump. He phoned Giorno, concerned, sources said. ‘Tell me what’s wrong?’ Trump asked her, according to one person familiar with the call. ‘Karen unloaded on Wiley,’ the source said. ‘Mr. Trump is loyal. He believed her. ퟀ� Rick picked a fight with the wrong person.’ At that point, Trump ordered Wiley to stay away from Giorno and to neither call nor email her. ‘Donald is loyal. And she’s loyal,’ a source said.”

Let me translate this for you.  Rick Wiley — and I’m just picking this up from Politico — tried a power play, and these are common in these organizations.  So much of this stuff, I feel like I’m reliving it in a sense, when I hear about these things.  This guy, Wiley, tried a power play, on Trump’s female manager, Karen Giorno.  She’s the Florida campaign chairwoman.  And Wiley, an associate of Paul Manafort’s, who Trump had hired, attempted a power play to get her out and to take over her job as he was attempting to amass power within the Trump organization. And Trump, when hearing about this, sided with the woman, in no uncertain terms, and so Rick Wiley is out.

Trump did not care about gender.  He only cared about competence and loyalty.  But in this story, so far, no reporters have mentioned that the reason Rick Wiley was let go was because Trump is remaining loyal to and standing by his Florida female campaign manager over the guy.  So we have a female delegate and a delegate from Colorado who are the two that put Trump over the top.  We have Trump siding with his female campaign manager in Florida, Karen Giorno, and Rick Wiley, the relatively new hire brought in by Manafort, is gone.

The irony is totally lost on the press because the press has this narrative that Trump hate’s women and women hate Trump.  You know, one of the silliest narratives that’s out there is Donald Trump hates women.  Donald Trump loves women.  He happens to really like beautiful women.  That’s being portrayed as kooky and abnormal and strange and weird and something we must investigate.  But it is the most natural thing since God created Adam and Eve, that a man is attracted to women he finds attractive, and all men have different definitions of attractive.  That is manifestly obvious.  There’s nothing unnatural about it.

What is unnatural, what makes no sense whatsoever — ladies in this audience, when you hear all these news reports about how Trump hates women, stop and think what kind of sense that has. They’ve said that about every conservative in the context of feminism.  “Well, he’s anti-female.”  No.  There’s no anti-female.  Anti-liberal, maybe, anti-feminist ideology.  Trump doesn’t hate women.  That’s one of the stupidest allegations I’ve ever heard.

I know it works.  There are a lot of women, we had one call yesterday not particularly crazy about Trump because of what she thinks Trump thinks of women.  But he loves them.  He loves being around them; he loves being surrounded by them.  He stands by them.  He hires them.  He pays them as much or more as he pays the men.  A woman was in charge of getting Trump Tower built.  That’s his home, in addition to his building.  He stood by this woman, Karen Giorno, who is his Florida campaign manager, over this so-called highly touted professional and also, must be stated, GOP Establishment consultant type guy.

And yet after today it’s still gonna be out there that Trump hates women.  It’s one of the silliest things.  Not just about Trump.  They say it about every conservative. They say it about every Republican.  Anti-female, anti-gay, anti-this.  If you ever stop to think about it, it literally makes no sense.  You’re gonna hate half the population?  It’s absurd.  But particularly in Trump’s case.  It’s just the exact opposite.

Now, grab audio sound bite 15, maybe through 20 here.  Let me illustrate Trump being who he is.  Whether you like it or not, whether people on his staff, “Oh, oh,” when they shudder when he says, “We gotta get him to change. We gotta get him to tone down. Oh, my God, he’s gotta become more presidential.”  As long Trump stays who he is.  I mean, what’s the old phrase, “You dance with who brung you.”  I mean, he’s where he is for a specific set of reasons, and it’s not because of any consultant advice he got.  It’s not because of any polling or focus groups that he did.

Donald Trump is following his instincts, and he has a deeper bond and connection with his voters than any candidate in this race, including Bernie.  And it’s self-evident why.  And, by the way, that threatens traditionalists, too.  “Well, we’ve gotta bust that up. We can’t have that deep a connection, it’s not healthy.  We’ll call it a cult, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll call Trump’s supporters a cult,” as the attempt to impugn them ratchets up.

But it’s not a cult at all.  Trump supporters are there for specific reasons, specific, substantive reasons.  And that’s why every effort that’s been made to separate Trump from his supporters has bombed.  ‘Cause the people trying to separate Trump from his supporters don’t even know why the bond exists.  They probably never experienced one themselves.

So this is late yesterday in Anaheim at the campaign event, and here’s Trump speaking about Kristol, Bill Kristol.  I’ve been waiting for him to get around — you know, Kristol is the face of this highly touted effort in establishment circles to come up with a third party candidate, because Trump is so unacceptable, Trump is just, yuk, ew, we can’t be associated with that. Even if we lose we’ve gotta find a third party.  And Kristol is noted as leading that movement.

TRUMP:  I just happened to see this guy in one of the shows the other day.  Bill Kristol, he’s got some magazine, I don’t even know what the hell it is, and he’s saying “oh, we’re looking for another candidate.  We’re looking.  We’re looking.”  He’s sweating, he’s sweating.  “We’re still looking for a third-party candidate.”  He’s been doing this for like nine months.  He can’t find anybody.  What a loser.  What a loser.

RUSH:  Now, people inside the Trump campaign shudder, “Oh no, he didn’t say that, not about Bill Kristol, we gotta walk it back, we gotta walk it back, we gotta get Mr. Trump to walk it back.”  No, you don’t.  That’s who he is.  He’s got to remain who he is.  However far it takes him.  If he starts abandoning who he is, if he tries to become somebody he’s not, that’s how he breaks the bond with his own supporters.  Only he can do it.  If he starts taking advice to tone it down or to take it in a different direction — (interruption) no, no, no.  I’m not saying that there isn’t room for improvement.

The point is his instincts have guided him this far, and we’re in a business where people don’t trust instincts.  They trust consultants.  They trust research.  They trust focus groups.  They trust polls.  They trust everything but their own brains.  Trump is relying on his own brain and his own heart.  What do you think Bill Buckley meant when he said, “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than the faculty at Harvard”?  It’s exactly what he meant.  And then, as you know, one of the names Bill Kristol continues to tout as this potential third-party candidate savior is Mitt Romney.

TRUMP:  Poor Mitt Romney.  Poor Mitt.  I have a store that’s worth more money than he is.  I helped him.  I raised for him.  I endorsed him.  He wanted my endorsement — he begged for my endorsement — and now all he does is bad mouth.  I understand losers.  You can make a lot of money with losers.  I said, “Mitt cannot run.  He choked like a dog.  He’s a choker.  Once a choker, always a choker.”  So now, as retribution, “Donald Trump shouldn’t run, blah, blah, blah,” and he walks like a penguin onto the stage.  You ever seen?

CROWD: (laughter)

TRUMP Like a penguin!

RUSH:  “He walks like a penguin,” and the people in the Trump camp say, “Oh, no, he didn’t! Gotta back it off. We gotta back it off! Get back to the issues, Donald. Please talk about the wall. Please talk about the Mexicans. Please talk the Muslims. Please talk foreign policy. Don’t say Romney walks like a penguin! Oh, no.”  And Donald Trump is gonna keep doing what he does. Did you hear the crowd? The crowd doesn’t want Mitt Romney to be president.  They don’t want Bill Kristol choosing the president, and that’s all you need to know.  Here’s Kristol. This is yesterday, Bloomberg Politics website, Masters in Politics blog. Betsy Fischer Martin, I guess, is the cohost here, and she said, “How’s it going in terms of finding that third-party candidate to run out there against Trump?”

KRISTOL:  I think the leading possibility — the real maybe the last chance here — is with Mitt Romney, who has said “no,” but I think is thinking seriously about it.  I think he thinks that maybe he is the right person to do it.  I think we might have a shot at Mitt Romney doing it.

RUSH:  “Might have you a shot at Mitt Romney, third-party candidate, to upset Donald Trump campaign.” The GOP Establishment still hasn’t given up, folks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Here’s that National Anthem bit at the Anaheim. What would…? I guess the Anaheim convention center is where Trump did the rally yesterday afternoon after this program.  This is when the organizer said, “Mr. Trump, we’re running so far behind, we just don’t have time National Anthem.  We’re gonna have to cancel the National Anthem.”

TRUMP:  I got here, and they all said, “We have a great crowd. We don’t have time for the National Anthem.”  I said, “Yes, we do.”

CROWD: (cheers)

TRUMP: We have time for the National Anthem, right?  And we have a young lady that is going to sing it.  I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Well, I was supposed to sing but they had time because of the television cameras. They couldn’t do it.” I said, “Guess what?  We’re gonna do the National Anthem.” Okay?  So Sherry Wilkins, come up.  Sherry, come on.

CROWD: U! S! A! U! S! A!

RUSH:  Now, I don’t know if that’s unique.  I mean, I don’t know if you had any other candidate who would have reacted the same way.  You might have.  But the point is there are candidates who would have agreed to cancel the National Anthem and nothing would have been said about it. Just do the event. There’s no anthem. Nobody would have said anything about it.  But Trump… “Life is show prep” has been my phrase. “Life is show prep.”  And apparently be careful what you say to Trump, ’cause he’s gonna use it. He’s gonna use it and he’s gonna turn it to his advantage if he can.