RUSH: Here’s Colleen in Pittsburgh. Colleen, great to have you with us. How are you doing?
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush, since 1992. How nice to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Hey, I am not surprised at all with Trump’s win, with his cabinet picks, or the efficiency of how things are getting done, and I’m gonna tell you why. Months ago, shortly after Donald Trump announced that he was gonna run for the presidency, one of his sons — and forgive me, I don’t remember which one — was being interviewed, and they asked him, “Did your father consult you regarding, you know, his intention to run and what was your response?”
And his son said, “Dad, you better be a hundred percent sure that you want to be the next president of the United States, because if you run, you will win.” And at that point I had such hope and optimism, and I don’t think I have to tell you why; I think you understand this mind-set — and I come from a family of sports competitors — I’m one myself, family of coaches. And that mind-set of somebody that just knows how to win, and not just the presidency, but for the next four years to continue winning has given me such hope. I have four children. I’m so optimistic about the future. And I’m just excited about what’s to come. I really am.
RUSH: Well, I think you’re entirely justified in that, and I understand exactly what you mean. Donald Trump, I can remember telling people this in the early stages of the primary when people can’t figure him out, they don’t know why he’s saying these crazy things and why is he doing these crazy things and what is it that motivates him, and I tried to tell ’em, and at the top of the list, Donald Trump is a winner, Donald Trump wants to be known as a winner. We all want things in life. His is to be known as a winner, because he does win. He wants to be known as a genuine — and he is a legitimate winner. Now, you said something that I think a lot of people hear and they don’t really stop to think about it. You said he knows how to win.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Now, I’ve heard this all of my life, too, but I never really knew what it meant until one day I was flying on the Phoenix Suns airplane, the team plane, on the way to Chicago. They were in the playoffs against the Chicago Bulls. Paul Westphal was the coach. This is a team that had Kevin Johnson and Danny Ainge and Charles Barkley. And I was talking, I was talking to Danny Ainge on this flight, and he was talking about the concept of knowing how to win.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And I said, “What is that?” ‘Cause I think everybody in the league wants to win. He said, “Oh, everybody does want to, but not everybody knows how to.”
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And so he proceeded to give me from his perspective as an athlete, and now he’s a coach, what the whole concept of knowing how to win is, and he said part of it is rooted in experience, the experience of winning, but it’s attitudinal, it’s the belief that you should, it’s the belief that you can, it’s the belief —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — that you will, no matter where you are at any stage or phase of the competition.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: There are many people in athletics who only know losing. Their team never wins they only know losing and therefore nobody on their team really understands — they’re all trying to win, but it’s a select few who know how. And Trump is one. He does know how to win.
CALLER: Yes, he does.
RUSH: Some people are guilty when they win. Some people, “Ah, you know, it’s so unfortunate, some people had to lose.” I mean, even some modern-day competitors, athletes, you name it, some people have a guilt complex about winning. They think it isn’t fair. That’s not how you win. You don’t feel guilty when you wine, and you don’t feel sorry for anybody about it.
CALLER: No. My husband’s been a football coach for years and they would watch football games and you’ll see one team that is clearly being blown away, and he says you never feel sorry for your competitor, you just don’t do it at any time during the game because you need to win.
RUSH: It’s not to say that you do not exhibit sportsmanship.
CALLER: Right. No. Exactly.
RUSH: Okay, look, iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. You’re a caller. You get one if you want one.
CALLER: I’d love one.
RUSH: You what?
RUSH: You know, nobody has yet refused one? One gave it to a soldier, yes, but nobody has refused one, and nobody has said, “Sorry, I already have one.” People are smart, even people who have one are, “Oh, gosh, I would love it.” What kind do you want?
CALLER: I’d like the 7 Plus, please.
RUSH: What’s your carrier.
CALLER: AT&T.
RUSH: So you can take any color you want. What color would you like?
CALLER: Do you have rose gold?
RUSH: I do.
CALLER: I’ll take it
RUSH: I’ve got rose gold, 256 gigabytes, AT&T rose gold iPhone 7 Plus. You hang on out there, Colleen, and Mr. Snerdley will get your address and you will have it by 10:30 tomorrow morning.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, let me contrast something here for you. I want to go back to Hillary for just a moment. Compare and contrast: Donald Trump is going out thanking the voters who supported him. He’s going to Fayetteville, North Carolina; he goes to Ohio; he’s going to Iowa. You look at his cabinet picks. They are not donors. These three military guys are not being chosen because they’re being paid back for donating to Trump. He’s picking them because they’re the best. His campaign did not rely on fundraising, although there was fundraising going on.
It was behind the scenes, and it was substantive, but they didn’t make a big deal of it. And I think these thank-you tours that Trump is doing are brilliant because it continues to reinforce with the voters they made the right choice. Folks, let me emphasize something again. I don’t want anybody to think that I am perpetually pessimistic about this, because I am not. I am more optimistic about things and our country and our future than I’ve been in eight years.
But it’s a guarded optimism simply because I know how easy it is to fall back into Big Government-itis, liberalism, compassion-oriented, feel-good kinds of beliefs. It’s… Liberalism’s the easiest, most gutless choice in America, and it’s very, very seductive. As I say, we had nothing to show for the 1980s by 1995, and the left isn’t going away. They have been vanquished. But one of the mistakes… Remember the 1994 House win, first time in 40 years?
They’re going to continue doing this because that’s all they know. They are not optimists. It isn’t in their bloodstream. They thrive on negativism. Their fuel is pessimism that leads to rage. So Trump is constantly on the thank-you tour validating people and their choice. I think he’s gonna continue to do this as president, by the way. It is one of the arguments for the never-ending campaign, if you will. But Trump is going to couple governance with the-never-ending campaign, which is fine with me. But you contrast this with what Hillary Clinton is doing.
Trump is going out thanking the people who voted for him, thanking the people who stuck by him when it would have been easy to abandon him. It would have been easy to throw him overboard. And, by the way, if I may interject something personal: I can relate to that. You people have stuck with me through any number of episodes that had you abandon me, it would have made perfect sense. But you haven’t. You have stuck there. You have stayed in this audience.
You’ve maintained its size, and you’ve even grown it all over again here. And I have never-ending, deep appreciation for all of you, and I think Trump is the same way with his voters. He has almost a personal connection and understanding with every one of them. And what’s Hillary doing? Hillary is going to the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan to a very exclusive and relatively small ballroom (only 450 people) to thank who?
Her fat-cat donors. She is thanking the money people. She’s not thanking supporters. She’s not thanking people who believed in her for her ideas and substance and her personally. She’s doing a thank-you for the money, largely because she wants them to continue giving it to her. Make no mistake about that. And that is almost the difference in the two campaigns, in a nutshell. It’s a stark contrast.
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