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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: I thought Mrs. Trump smiled very sincerely, looked stately in her own right last night. She looked very engaging and made for the role, made for the position. I didn’t detect any phoniness last night. In fact, poor Juan Williams. One of the things I watched after this — poor, poor guy. He’s the only Democrat — well, by name, he’s the only anti-Trumper by name on the panel. And everybody has just extolled the virtues of the speech and how it’s so over the top, it was the greatest, maybe the greatest speech they’ve ever seen a president give.

And then they turn to Juan. Of course, Juan has to beat it down. So poor old Juan Williams said (paraphrasing), “Yeah, Trump did a good speech.” You have to call it a good speech. But then he started complaining. “But that’s not what Trump usually does. Where was the media bashing?” he asked. “Where was the intel community bashing? Where was the subscription to American carnage in the inauguration speech? Where was all the real Trump? Where was the real Trump? Where was the hateful Trump? Where was… this, this, this, yeah, damn good, but, but, but… where was the real Trump, damn it! Why did he have to be this good?”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: A quick question: Those of you that watched the Trump speech last night, did you hear him accept various aspects of Obamacare last night? When you listen to President Trump speak, did you hear him acknowledge good parts of Obamacare that he wants to hold on? Did you hear that? (interruption) I didn’t. I honestly didn’t. But CNN is reporting that’s exactly what happened. CNN’s reporting that Trump… I forget the exact word of their crawl.

But Trump admitted or acknowledged agreement with certain parts of the Obamacare. Now, right below that on my second monitor on Fox, they’re doing the same story, and they say that Trump doubled down on immigration and Obamacare. The exact opposite of what CNN is reporting. Fox also alluded to the fact that when it comes to immigration, Trump may have tricked the media because he gave an impression before the speech that he was gonna, you know, moderate a little bit, and then it didn’t happen.

Exactly what I saw happen myself, and I had so many panicked emailers worried about last night. There’s another interesting aspect. You all know the new National Security Council adviser, this H.R. McMaster? He’s active-duty military. I think he’s a two-star general, maybe three. It’s very, very unusual to have active-duty military, not retired, serve in this position. Anyway, during the day yesterday in one of the voluminous blogs that I consult now and then, there was a story about how McMaster had convinced Trump to stop using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” and the blog…

There were two or three places I saw this, and they were all happy. They were celebratory. “Finally! Finally, one of Trump’s security guys is telling him the right way to go about this. Finally, an adult’s in there. So McMaster goes in there and tells Trump, ‘You’re not gonna use that.'” And McMaster… The report was that McMaster succeeded in getting that phrase out of the speech. This is another reason I had people in panic emailing me last night because they had seen this, too. “What do you mean? McMaster…? One of Trump’s appointees is gonna get him to stop talking about radical Islam?

“Trump can’t do that, not after the way he campaigned on this.” So we cut to the speech. Did you notice that when Trump mentioned “radical Islamic terrorism,” he paused and then raised his voice when he used the phrase? “And, yes, radical Islamic…” It was a rebuke to whoever had put that story out there. Somebody leaked it. We don’t know who, but somebody was telling eager-beaver media types and bloggers that “radical Islamic terrorism” had been taken out of the speech by Trump’s national security guy, McMaster.

(chuckling) Well, when that happened — you know, maybe it’s a small point — I stood up and cheered on that one. I just… Not because of “radical Islamic terrorism.” Because Trump was just ramming it down the throat of whoever leaked this . You know what? You know people are trying to assign the ways in which Trump differed last night from previous speeches — because, of course, he must. Because that speech, there’s no way intellectually you can really criticize that speech. I mean, some people don’t want to praise it to the hilt.

But you can’t intellectually rip that speech, and so, in order to praise it — if you’re a Drive-By Media type, if you’re a leftist — the last thing you want to do is say anything good about Trump. So the way you have to do it is to acknowledge that Trump normally is a reprobate, but last night, “Wow! Wow! What a huge change,” and then, of course, “But what will he be in 24 hours? Will this hold or will Trump revert to the guy who looks out across America and sees a charred and destroyed land?” and this kind of stuff.

They just have to qualify everything. They can’t accept that that’s who Trump is. The worst thing in the world is the realization that that’s who Trump is. But, as I say, those of you who have been following Trump since he got into this, that is the Donald Trump that you’ve always known. It’s why you voted for him! Who he was last night — what he said, what he believes — wasn’t a shock to anybody that voted for him. And Trump proved something that I have always believed. I do not get many requests from people for advice on success in radio, but I got one recently.

In the last couple of weeks, somebody came up to me. A friend of theirs starting in radio wanted to know, “Are there any tips you have?” So I thought about it. I said, “What kind of show?” “It’s a talk show.” “What’s the subject?” They gave me the subject, a sports subject. I said, “Well, the number one requirement is confidence. You have to have the confidence to be able to tell yourself that until people have heard you say it, they haven’t heard anything, despite however many other people are out there saying things.

“And what gives you the confidence is knowledge, being totally prepared, having to not even think about what you believe, not having to consult notes when it comes to time to express an opinion, having the confidence of your opinion — and that it’s based on deep research and indelible knowledge,” and that’s what Trump was last night. The thing that just jumped off the screen — at least to me — was the confidence, and the confidence that Trump had last night also conveyed the sincerity behind everything he said and mentioned and brought up.

I thought it was much more sincere than any Obama speech. I think it was just a home run in delivery; it was home run in the way it was constructed; it was a grand-slam home run in delivery. And it was all rooted because every second of it was delivered with supremo confidence. I’m not talking about bombast. I’m not talking about braggadocio. I’m talking about genuine confidence. No self-doubt whatsoever. No qualms about what he was gonna say. He couldn’t wait to say it, couldn’t wait to get all this stuff out.

That kind of confidence, you can do anything, and nobody can shake you off of it. Nobody can shake you up. Nobody can rattle you. If you bring confidence to what you do — and it’s not just true of doing radio or public speaking; it’s in anything. And it’s really hard. It’s really hard for a lot of people, because we’re raised to believe that confidence is the equivalent of arrogance and it’s the equivalent of a big ego. Which are bad things. We’re not supposed to have big egos; we’re not supposed to be self-focused. But that’s not what confidence is.

Just like self-interest is not selfishness, well, confidence is not a negative. Confidence is not an off-putting thing. It’s, in fact, necessary for all good leaders. In fact, one of the greatest lines in the speech last night, many people probably didn’t even pay much attention to it. It did get rousing applause, but not a single bit of reaction from any Democrat, and it is where Trump is going through NATO and going through our defense purposes and our arrangements with allies around the world, and he said, “Once again, America is ready to lead.”

Now, the Republican side blew up. That was huge, because for the last eight years it’s been the exact opposite. We haven’t been leading anything because the people running this country haven’t thought we deserved to be leading anything, because we were the problem in the world. So Trump said, “We are the United States and we are ready to lead — and, by the way, the world is much better off when we are leading.” Not a single Democrat stood up; not a single Democrat applauded; not a single Democrat even reacted — except with scorn or curiosity or looks of perplexity on their faces.

Never was the divide clearer. I tell you, the Democrats did not look like they have any interest in crossing the aisle. We always hear from them that the Republicans need to show this. “Republicans need to show they’re willing to cross the aisle, willing to compromise, willing to show that Washington can work.” Where were the Democrats on any of that last night? They were nowhere to be found. And I thought, by the way…

Mr. Snerdley, I thought it was a very, very bad decision. Whoever made the decision on these Democrat women to show up in all white to supposedly show solidarity with the women’s suffrage? Could somebody tell me where women can’t vote in this country? What’s the solidarity needed for the suffrage movement? What…? I thought, “When Democrats start wearing all white, that reminds me of the Ku Klux Klan,” and that I didn’t think they would dare risk that. They did.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re gonna go on it is phones now with Jack in Tucson, Arizona. Jack, I’m glad you called. Be interested in your thoughts on all this. What are they?

CALLER: Cigar smoking, golf club swinging dittos to you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

CALLER: Last night, I didn’t know what station to watch the speech on, and I turned on NBC for the heck of it. And President Trump, he’s coming through the crowd, he’s approaching the podium, and Chuck Todd and another guy are talking in the background, and one says to the other, “Boy, the crowd seems enthusiastic.” And the other one says, “You have to remember, they applauded Nixon, too.”

RUSH: (laughing).

CALLER: Yeah. And, Rush, I almost fell off the couch. And then on the bottom of the screen — I’ve got the closed-caption on — I watched it go across again, and I just broke out laughing. I mean, you talk about blatant.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, look, there were reactions all over the place last night. I TiVoed, I DVR’d a bunch of stuff just to watch the entrance, just to see what the anchors did. Some people, I forget who, were saying, “Man, I can’t believe Donald Trump is going to address Congress. Donald Trump? Donald Trump? I don’t believe we’re watching this, Tom,” or some such.

So, anyway, about an hour into it I got an email from a very good friend of mine, it said: “I can’t believe this, Donald Trump’s addressing Congress.” And this is from somebody that supported him. It was. Folks, this is momentous. This was outsider riding into town taking no prisoners.

You know, the Drive-Bys last night kept referring to Trump’s awful inauguration speech where he kept talking about the carnage out there on the American landscape, and they talked about how it was not uplifting, and it was just pessimistic, and it was dark and it was loud and it was this or that and the other thing.

See, I don’t think these people understand Trump at all. And it’s not hard. He’s written about how he does things. For example, the news that we had yesterday that he wants a 37% cut in the State Department budget, and so the turtle is out there, Senator McConnell is out there saying (imitating McConnell), “I don’t think we’re gonna get 60 votes. I don’t think we’re gonna…” I did not. I did not. Did not say that, did not mean that. Senator McConnell. Senator McConnell made it clear that what Trump’s budget suggestion for the state department, doesn’t have a prayer. Really?

Do they not know the simple reveal in Art of the Deal, ask for three times what you want? Do they not know that everything with Trump is a negotiation? Do they not know? Do they not know that everything Trump does is done with a long-range plan? The State of the Union speech was done purposefully. It was written purposefully. The inauguration speech was written specifically and purposefully and delivered that way.

You gotta go look at who the audience for that was. Who was on that podium when Trump gave his inauguration speech? Everything he campaigned against there up there. People like to think that because Trump’s an outsider, that he’s a boob, that he’s a bull in a china shop, that he’s not disciplined. He’s probably the only one of them that doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink. He’s probably the only one of them that goes to bed later than they do and gets up earlier. He probably outworks all of them.
He probably spends more time getting more things done that any of them have any experience with, but yet he’s the one undisciplined, he’s the one that’s haphazard, he’s the one who’s erratic, he’s the one who’s unpredictable. Well, if that’s what they think it’s because that’s what he wants them to think. Trump is not haphazard. Trump has the ability to improvise at a rally or go off the prompter at some point. But Trump has plans for this year laid out, objectives, goals laid out.

He’s not getting up every day and saying, “Okay, what can we get done today, let’s try this, let’s try this.” It’s not that at all. That’s what they think is going on, because they think he’s unprepared, he’s too erratic, he doesn’t know the world he’s living in now. I mean, they say all these things to themselves to make themselves feel better about what’s happened. And what they don’t get is that — and it’s not all the time, but he’s smoking ’em.

This speech last night ended up being a total shock compared to what they had told them by the establishment, the Democrats, and even the Never Trumpers, what they had told themselves it was gonna be, to reassure themselves. They were convinced that there’s no way Trump could do this last night. You need to be a seasoned veteran of Washington. You need your party on your side. You need all of this.

The arrogance here is striking. And with the arrogance is apparently a real reluctance to even try to understand Donald Trump, who he is, what motivates him. And yet he’s the most outspoken, transparent, here’s what I want to do, here’s what I think we should do. There’s no mystery here. But since they aren’t that transparent, since they don’t act that up front, they just can’t accept that anybody would. So they’re forever gonna be confused.

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