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RUSH: I’m gonna get started now with Mike in Atlanta.  You’re first today, sir, and it’s great to have you.  How are you.

CALLER:  Hey, Rush, how are you doing?

RUSH:  Well done, sir.  Very much.

CALLER:  Awesome.  I started listening to your show when this whole election process started, and thank you very much.  It’s very informative, and I appreciate it a lot.

RUSH:  You’re more than welcome.  I appreciate you saying that.  Yes.

CALLER:  Yeah, my… Well, I want your take on something after I… Trump’s picks for the… Let’s see, Mitt Romney or Giuliani for secretary of state. I think it would be a great pick to bring Romney in there, to show the rest of the Republican Party that, you know, let’s sweep everything under the rug. Let’s join this thing together.

RUSH:  Well, you know, I understand that thinking.  I totally reject it, however.  The pick is too important to give it to somebody ’cause they want it.  It’s too important to give it to somebody to show unity.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  It’s too important a position to try to do anything other than fill it.  I mean, it’s a serious position.  The secretary of state is the president’s representative to every foreign government with whom we have relations and even our enemies around the world.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  The president can’t talk to them all, for protocol and a number of other reasons.  The secretary of state has to carry out the policies of the president of the United States.  That, to me, is the only criteria.  Now, we don’t know what to believe.  This is another thing you have to be really careful, Mike, all of you.  For example, one of the things that you’re reading that Trump really likes Romney ’cause he’s got really great looks.  Romney looks good on TV.  Romney presents well. 

That’s what we’re being told that Trump says privately about Romney.  I, for one, don’t believe that.  He may be saying it, but that’s not why he would pick him to be secretary of state.  If you examine the way all of this has gone down, and if you know Donald Trump like I do, Mitt Romney… People have forgotten, Romney went out in the very early stages of this campaign and savaged Trump in a way that was so sincere and deeply felt that it, to me, seems impossible that Romney could even apologize and mean it for what he had said. 

There was no doubt that he doesn’t think or didn’t think Donald Trump should be within a thousand feet of the White House.  But now the talk about, “Well, he might issue an apology,” or, “The Trump camp is demanding an apology.” I have a thought about what this all is, but, sadly, I just now glanced at the clock, and I’ll have to wait to share my thought with this on this.  I don’t think, to answer your question, that the pick ought to have anything to do with showing up the Republicans or anybody else anything.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Kellyanne Conway, Trump campaign manager, is savaging Mitt Romney, just savaging him.  The question everybody’s asking: Has she gone rogue or is she doing this at the direction of Donald Trump? 

We will explore that and everything else when we get right back here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, look.  Let me finish up on the Romney business, because I didn’t get a chance to finish up with the caller.  Our previous caller had asked me or had opined, had said that he really thinks Romney would be a great choice because it would send a message to the Republican establishment that Trump is willing to include them. That is the way everything’s always been done in Washington and that’s what we’re hoping does not happen here.  The way it’s always been done is what was sent packing. 

You know, pick somebody here because it’ll make somebody there happy.  Pick somebody here because it’ll make the media report X.  Pick somebody here because it’ll build bridges elsewhere.  Now, the ambassador to Kokostan, fine.  Secretary of state, no.  I mean, that’s what ambassadorships and underambassadorships and undersecretary positions are for, is to take care of the patronage and to show people that you really don’t hate them as much as they think you do or whatever. 

Secretary of state, look how important it is.  Look what we got with four years of Hillary Clinton, an utter disaster.  We have a Middle East on fire because we put somebody in that job, Obama did, totally unprepared, ill-equipped, and incompetent.  Hillary Clinton had had literally zero experience in things necessary for that job, but Obama put her there for reasons totally unrelated to that.  He was gonna run foreign policy.  She was going to be the rubber stamp but the face of it in case it blew up so that he would not be —  She was his Limbaugh Theorem protection on foreign policy.  Middle East blows up, it’s Hillary’s plan. 

Libya didn’t go well, that’s ’cause Hillary decided to overflow Khadafy.  If we had not gotten bin Laden, that would have been Hillary’s fault.  It would have been whispered to the media, that would have been the report. Obama at least would have tried it.  He ran that show, but Hillary, he wanted to keep her in house.  You know the old saw, you rather have your enemies inside the tent peeing out than outside the tent peeing in. 

Despite what Obama said about Hillary during the campaign, the convention, there’s no love lost between those two or the families, the Obamas and the Clintons.  It’s all fake.  I mean, that was all strategy, it was all buzz and PR positioning.  She was no more qualified to be the chief diplomat, she had no foreign policy experience.  Look, the first thing she did was a silly reset our relations with Russia with a plastic red reset button.  I mean, it was embarrassing. 

Henry Kissinger, I mean, he was aghast when he saw this.  And so was anybody else with any sincerity.  Obama made every effort to get in bed with the Russians.  That’s what makes their claim now the Russians tampered with our election even funnier, because it was the Obama administration tried to get in bed with them.  Don’t forget in 2011 during the campaign there was an open mic.  Obama was talking to the foreign minister, number two the guy to Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and the open mic caught Obama saying, “Tell Vlad,” as in Putin, “Tell Vlad that I’ll have a lot more flexibility after the election.” 

They were talking about America reducing its nuclear arsenal, not the Russians’, just America.  Because, you see, in Obama’s world, the American nuclear arsenal is the threat.  If America would get rid of our nuclear arsenal, then the rest of the world would realize we don’t threaten ’em, that we’re not the bad guys, and that they can all breathe easier.  That’s dangerously incompetent and borderline insane.  But that was our position.  Hillary had no more business discussing events in the Middle East, I don’t care whether it was the Israelis and Palestinians or whether it was whatever was going on with the Muslim Brotherhood, she was totally, totally out of her league. 

The woman hasn’t been in her league since she stopped being first lady.  This is a woman who has survived on reputation alone, resume enhanced reputation that was built and promoted by the Democrats and the media.  The woman hasn’t got any practical experience, certainly no success stories.  Maybe her most successful operation, the bimbo eruptions unit in the White House, but even that had its problems.  She’s a great example, long story short, she’s a great example of putting somebody in the job for all the wrong reasons. 

Mitt Romney, what recommends him to be secretary of state?  I don’t know what your reaction was, but of all the things I’ve thought of for Romney secretary of state, that wasn’t one.  “But, Rush, but, Rush, he saved the Olympics.”  Well, yeah, but he was an autocrat there.  Look, I remember what Romney said about Trump.  And it was stuff you can’t take back.  It was personal.  He called him a con man, a cheat, dishonest, a liar.  I mean, every insult that you can think of, except he wasn’t insulting him.  He was trying to alert everybody to the reprobate Donald Trump is. 

Now, what’s going on with Kellyanne Conway?  Well, there are two schools of thought on this.  As you know, Kellyanne Conway, starting over the Thanksgiving weekend, started going public with how many people she was hearing from who opposed Romney.  And it was an overwhelming number, she said.  And the number kept increasing. 

She kept hearing from people, “No to Romney, no way to Romney, people don’t want Romney.”  And the question immediately arose, “Well, now, wait just in time.  This is unusual.  Somebody in the inner circle going public with what’s going on behind the scenes about a nominee.  So people began to ask.

The original theory was that Trump never forgets, that Trump knows what Romney said, and that Trump wants to dangle a carrot in front of Romney and make him think he might have a chance at it and then yank it away at the last moment and smile.  Oops.  Sorry, Mitt.  Did you ever really think I was considering this? 

That was the original theory and that Kellyanne was part of it, that she had been sent out to take the place of Trump describing how much opposition Romney was getting.  ‘Cause Romney’s name had been floated, and seriously.  Romney’s name, Rudy’s name, the impression was that Trump was seriously considering both.  And the New York Post had a story over the weekend that Trump, while down here at his club, Mar-a-Lago, on Thanksgiving Day, was going table to table asking club members, who do you think I should pick, Romney or Giuliani?  That Trump was asking everybody he ran into.  That was the story in the New York Times. 

Then Kellyanne Conway ups her tweeting and makes it even more abundantly clear that not only does she not want Romney, but nobody she knows wants Romney.  The next thing to hit was that Trump was supposedly furious about this, that she’s gone rogue, that Trump is not behind this. That he doesn’t want this handled this way and in fact does have another meeting scheduled with Romney tomorrow.  He also has a meeting this week with David Petraeus, who is also in line for the same gig, secretary of state. 

So now the thinking, you can take it one of two ways.  You can think it’s Kellyanne Conway, an insider campaign manager, who is dismayed and distraught and concerned and worried that Trump is actually considering Romney and thinks it would be one of the biggest mistakes he could make and has told him so face-to-face, but it doesn’t appear he’s listening, so she’s doing whatever she can to force Trump not to pick the guy because she thinks it would be one of the biggest mistakes he could make, in terms of disappointing his voter base. 

I know some people who voted for Trump.  This is anecdotal.  This doesn’t mean anything.  I’m just passing it on.  I know some people that are ticked anyway that Romney is even being occurred.  They don’t understand it.  Why would Trump even play games with this after what Romney said.  People weren’t supportive of Romney in 2008 as president, they didn’t like him then for a host of reasons, why in the world of all the people Trump — I know a lot of people very concerned that Trump really wants him and would consider it an act of betrayal. 

So maybe Kellyanne — all we can do is speculate here ’cause I don’t know.  No, I wouldn’t ask.  See, I’m not gonna start calling these people and ask because they’re not gonna tell me what’s really going on, so I just join the crowd and speculate here.  It looks to me like Kellyanne has taken it on herself to try to keep Trump from doing this. 

The other possibility is that she’s not gone rogue, that Trump’s behind all of this, and that this is how he is choosing to pay Romney back for what he did by having this never-ending stream of “We hate Romney, we hate Romney, we hate Romney” for day after day after day. 

So, of those two, folks, what do you think it is?  Kellyanne’s gone rogue, that she’s worried Trump’s actually gonna choose the guy and thinks it’d be a big mistake and is risking her professional reputation by taking an inside baseball matter public. Or is she doing Trump’s bidding, is it all part of a brilliantly conceived, flawlessly executed stratagem designed to squash Romney into the dirt by dangling the carrot, making it look like it’s possible, and then the reaction to it being universal disgust and disagreement as a means of paying Romney back without Trump ever having to say it. 

What do you think it is, Mr. Snerdley?  You go for option two, that this is Trump directing Kellyanne to do this.  Well, Snerdley just said to me, Kellyanne’s too smart to go rogue like this.  David Axelrod’s out there, this is extraordinary, you just don’t see this.  But this is not your traditional president or presidency or transition.  There’s nothing traditional about it.  So to say, “Well, it’s extraordinary,” maybe over there for establishment types, but we don’t know what’s extraordinary yet and what is normal. 

What we do know is that basically throw out everything you think you know about insider politics with the Trump transition and Trump and the presidency and the presidential-elect position here because he’s exactly opposite of that and that’s why he got elected. And so maybe it isn’t extraordinary.  Maybe this is one of these — look, Trump tweeting is extraordinary.  Whatever he tweets, just the fact that he continues to tweet is extraordinary.  People can’t get their arms around that.  I mean, establishment types can’t get their arms around that.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Joe in Tampa.  Glad you waited, sir.  Welcome to the EIB Network.  Hello.

CALLER:  Mega dittos.  Yeah, Mr. Limbaugh, I was wondering if maybe you thought that Kellyanne Conway, as you had earlier mentioned, was doing this, coming out against Mitt Romney as something that possibly Trump wanted her to do, ’cause I don’t think her being as close to the campaign as she has been running everything would come out and stab him in the back like that.

RUSH:  Well, I understand your thinking.  Let me — and I don’t know what’s going on.  I’m like you; I can propose Scenario A, Scenario B, and then take a wild guess at it.  From everything I’ve been able to learn, Kellyanne Conway is not going to be part of the administration.  She has turned down press secretary, other positions.  So she may even now not be an official member of the Trump team anymore.  I’m not sure about that.  But I’ve heard from people in the know that she has refused various offers to stay in the administration.  So, does it change your thinking at all if you were to learn she’s not on team Trump per se as we speak?

CALLER:  No.  I still think that she would be behind him a hundred percent.  I don’t think she would have turned around and —

RUSH:  Remember, she started this campaign running the PAC for Ted Cruz.  She started the campaign as a Cruzer and then migrated over to the Trump campaign at some point.  You realize — maybe you don’t — you should understand that there are a lot of people, maybe not inside the Trump team right now, but there are a lot of people who still are keeping Trump at arm’s length that are not sure what he’s going to do as president.  They’re not sure how much of what he said he meant.  They’re not confident. 

They’re waiting to see if his actions match his words.  What if Kellyanne is one of those people who is yet to be convinced that Trump is what he said he is, and maybe she’s really, really alarmed that there’s no way Donald Trump, under any sun, should even be considering Mitt Romney, given everything that happened in the campaign and everything Trump said about foreign policy, and yet here he is considering Romney?  Maybe Kellyanne is literally appalled and is very, very worried that this represents Trump not being who everybody thinks he is and is doing what she can to keep him honest.  Ponder that. 

Hey, I’m just throwing things out folks.

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