CALLER:  Well, I have a little bit different take on the happenings of last night.  Until last night I had almost persuaded myself that I could actually vote against Hillary Clinton by voting for Donald Trump, and I did not watch the convention last night.  I haven’t watched any of it. But our local station puts on a program reviewing it.  So when that came on last night, they were talking about Cruz being booed and what a terrible performance he had.

So this morning I went online and watched it, and I thought it was an absolutely wonderful speech.  I thought it was marvelous.  I thought it was, you know, very patriotic and uplifting.  However, I also, in… Toward the end of it heard the, “Endorse Trump! Endorse Trump!” and since Trump knew what he was gonna say, and knew that he was not gonna endorse him, I have to sort of think that maybe that was put up.

Over the last year, I have come to have a very low opinion of Donald Trump’s character, and I think, you know, that was deliberately planned to make Cruz look foolish.  And I’m sorry, I think Donald Trump is an insecure, arrogant, thin-skinned boy.  And nothing that I’ve seen or heard in the last year has persuaded me anything about that that’s what he is.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do now.  I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton.  I didn’t like her 25 years ago; I certainly don’t like her now. But I don’t know what to do. Right now, I don’t know.  I have a very low opinion of Trump.

RUSH:  Dolores, I’m gonna tell you what you have to do. And it is not going to be easy for you, but it will be a patriotic thing.  You have got to vote for Trump.  Voting for anybody else… If there’s a third-party option and you vote for that, you’re voting for Hillary. No matter what. You may not even pull the lever for her, but if you don’t vote Trump, you are voting for Hillary. You’re helping Hillary Clinton.  There’s no other way, unless the third-party would happen to be Bernie Sanders or Fauxcahontas.

CALLER:  That’s even worse.

RUSH:  But that’s not gonna happen.  The third-party candidates are gonna be people that would take votes, in large part, away from Trump.  Now, I tell you: I think you have a point, however.  I think… You know, Peter King, a congressman from New York out there on Long Island hates Cruz.  He hates Cruz more than Mitch McConnell hates Cruz.  He hates Cruz more than Boehner hates Cruz.

He hates Cruz more than Boehner and McConnell combined hate Cruz.  And he’s in the New York delegation.  And if you’re right, it would have been Peter King leading that chant: “Endorse Trump! Endorse Trump!”  It probably was the New York delegation behind that.  Now, your theory is that it was set up, that it was planned; that if Cruz didn’t endorse, the New York delegation at some point in the speech was gonna launch into Cruz, disrupt him and so forth.

CALLER:  That’s right.

RUSH:  Well, you may be right.

CALLER:  It’s Trump character.  I’m sorry, he’s the one that’s presented himself the way he’s presented himself.

RUSH:  Yeah.

CALLER:  I probably in the end will once again hold my nose and vote for a Republican, although I don’t really think he’s Republican.  But, you know, I wrote our secretary of state and our State Department representatives asking for an option on the ballot, “None of the above” so that everybody who felt like me could vote for neither one of them, but they didn’t respond.

RUSH:  I know you want to vote your conscience.  What is it that you don’t like about Hillary Clinton?  Why could you never vote for her?

CALLER:  Well, you paid attention to her for the last 25 years.  The woman’s a creep.  She’s dishonest. She’s —

RUSH:  Corrupt.

CALLER:  — just awful.

RUSH:  She’s dishonest, she’s corrupt, she’s incompetent.

CALLER:  Yep.

RUSH:  She does think of herself as royalty.

CALLER:  I know.  I know.

RUSH:  You’re in a position that I don’t know how many people are in, but you’re not alone in your opinion of Trump and your dilemma here over what to do.  But that’s what it’s always been for me.  This whole campaign, to me — and Newt said it, maybe. Was it Newt last night?  If it wasn’t Newt, it was somebody.  It might have been Cruz.  It might have been Cruz this morning the Texas delegation.  It was either that or in his speech.

Cruz said just trying to defeat Hillary Clinton is not gonna be enough.  You’ve gotta be voting for principle. You have to be voting for freedom. You have to be voting for things.  I forget the exact riff.  But it was either Newt or Cruz that made the point that the anti-Hillary motivation is simply not enough. Maybe it was Cruz’s speech last night.  Which, again, coming from Cruz is a… Well, that’s another slap at Trump.

Because that’s one of the primary reasons that people who have cold feet about Trump are nevertheless gonna vote for him is because, if anything, it’s better than Hillary.  But that’s what it’s always been for me.  I mean, it’s not even close.  Now, I didn’t want to fall into a trap this year of ever feeling like I couldn’t vote ’cause my guy didn’t win, and that then leads to my vote or non-vote eventually helping Hillary Clinton.  That’s unacceptable.

Because, folks, voting for Hillary is voting for Obama.  It’s voting for everything that’s going on now continuing and being doubled down and tripled down.  And it’s just… Four more years of this stuff is not recoverable.  You know, Pence had a great line last night. “Hillary Clinton’s secretary of the status quo.” It’s a great, great, great line.  Pence’s speech was fabulous last night.  Pence was great last night.  And Pence…

I’ll tell you something: Pence’s neighboring state? Indiana? Dolores, Pence ought to give you a little comfort level, because whoever Trump’s vice president is is going to have a much bigger day-to-day role than vice presidents usually do.  The New York Times had a story yesterday.  Get this.  New York Times had a story yesterday that Trump’s son (Donald Trump Jr. or Eric, I forget which one) had approached Kasich and said (paraphrased), “Look, if you accept the VP position, you’re gonna be running the show.

“You’re gonna be in charge of domestic policy and you’re gonna be in charge of foreign policy,” and Kasich said, “Well, what the hell is Trump gonna do?” And his son said, “He’s gonna be making America great again. But you’re gonna be running domestic policy, and you’re gonna be running foreign policy.” That was the pitch to Kasich.  Now, this is according to the New York Times.  Now, if there’s any truth to that? Well, the various elements of conservative media are already running with what their interpretation of that means.

And here is the consensus.  By the way, New York Times, many in the establishment believe it.  If it’s in the New York Times, there’s some truth to it or a lot of truth to it or total truth to it. It’s just the way the establishment people look at their newspaper.  And they are interpreting that story, the offer of domestic and foreign policy to Kasich, as a tantamount admission that all Trump wants is the pomp and circumstance.

He just wants to be called the big guy.  He just wants to be president, but the day-to-day, he doesn’t want that. This is just a mountain to climb. This is just a height to achieve. This is just another notch in the belt, but when it comes to actually — this analysis, I forget where I read it, ’cause I read so much, and I didn’t print this out, but Kasich now is out saying he was never asked to be Trump’s VP, so that kind of blows the New York Times story to smithereens.

Now, why would the New York Times run a story like that?  So that certain conservative media could look at it and believe it and say, “See?  See?  Trump doesn’t even want to be president.  He just wants to win the election. He just wants to be the big guy. He just wants the ego thrill.  He knows he doesn’t know anything about foreign policy, and he knows he doesn’t know anything about domestic policy. So he’s just gonna put the vice president in there to run the show while Trump goes to the state dinners and the parties and so forth and that’s it.”

And that’s what people are saying off of that New York Times story.  Kasich is blowing it by saying he was never approached.  Which is kind of strange.  Kasich, if the Trump campaign came to him and said, “Look, if you accept VP you run the show,” how’s little John gonna turn that down?  But he did, but he also says that he was never asked.  New York Times Magazine, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, six of one half dozen or another.

The Suffolk University Ohio poll, when we get back from the break, but Dolores, since you didn’t watch, go find Mike Pence’s speech, and that’ll comfort you to know that he’s there if Trump wins, as vice president, believe me, it will help you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Carol in Scarborough, Maine.  Great to have you with us.  I’m glad you waited.  Hi.

CALLER:  Thanks, Rush.  And I apologize if I’m a little nervous.

RUSH:  No, not at all.

CALLER:  Okay.  I am a Ted Cruz supporter.  I was not originally for Trump.  And I have a couple points while being on hold and listening leading up to why I actually called.  I don’t agree with the previous caller because I think that Trump — I think because Cruz had to be there, because Trump and Cruz were the last two men standing, so Cruz had to do something during the convention.  Secondly, I don’t think Cruz could have won no matter what he was saying.  If he came out and endorsed Trump, you know, rah-rah-rah Trump, people would have said, “What about your principles?  You said this, this, and this.”

RUSH:  Wait, whoa.  Principles, he could have fallen back on the pledge.

CALLER:  True.

RUSH:  He wouldn’t have had a problem at all with the principles.

CALLER:  Well —

RUSH:  He could have done it in a way that would limit whatever damage — ’cause most of his supporters wanted him to do it anyway ’cause it’s the path of least resistance forward.

CALLER:  I think you’re right on one hand, but just hear me out to where I’m going with it.

RUSH:  Okay.  Okay.  My lips are zipped.

CALLER:  You can interrupt.  I think that Cruz did the best he could in endorsing Trump, because he said vote your conscience.  So he spoke of honesty.  Well, is that Hillary?  No, not so much.  He also said vote for the love of your children.  Well, look at Benghazi.  What difference does it make?  It wasn’t my kid.  And I think the reason why Trump allowed Cruz to get up there, the big picture, this is what I think, is that if Trump wins, he is gonna nominate Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court.

RUSH:  Weeeeell, I gotta unzip my lip here on that.  I don’t know anymore about that.  I realize many people speculated that might be the case, but I’m not so sure.  But winning takes care of a lot of things, so anything still remains possible.