RUSH: We have a 12-year-old young man on the phone from Ft. Lauderdale named Ben. Ben, great to have you. How are you doing, sir?

CALLER: Good, how are you?

RUSH: Fine and dandy. I am glad to hear from you.

CALLER: Hi. Real quick I just want to say that I love all your books and I’ve read and listened to all of them.

RUSH: Why thank you very much. You’ve read and listened to all of them?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Good for you. Thank you so much.

CALLER: Thanks. So I was wondering if you thought that Trump still would have won the election if he had been less brash and if he cared more about what others thought and said about him.

RUSH: I do. If he had stayed focused on the issues, if his position on the issues had been the same I don’t think it would have hurt him at all. But look, I’ll admit that the brashness equals fearlessness, and a lot of people admire that. The brashness equals confidence, and a lot of people not only admire that, but need it. But the reason I say this, a lot of people want to take away from Trump, “He only won because he appealed to these base instincts of these despicable white working-class voters.”

And that’s not the reason Trump got elected. He got elected on issues of substance, and the truth is that his personality quirks did not hurt him. To some extent they did help. So, yes, I think he still would have. If he had been as consistent on issues, with those behavioral changes, yep, no doubt about it, in my mind.