RUSH: There’s a New York Times story. And, folks, it actually was written following what happened on this program yesterday.
Remember, I opened the program asking a number of you Trump supporters if you’re starting to feel betrayed over Trump flip-flopping, apparently, on the Export-Import Bank and what you think he said about not intervening militarily in other countries like Syria and the ChiComs and currency manipulation.
The New York Times obviously was listening, because they based a story around the whole premise. And the headline: “Focused on Trump’s Successes, Many Supporters Are Unfazed by His Reversals — As some on the right howled about a series of reversals by President Trump on a number of his campaign promises … Rush Limbaugh asked his listeners on Thursday whether any of that flip-flopping really mattered.”
And they quote me accurately here as saying: “‘See what Jeff Sessions is doing?’ Mr. Limbaugh said of the attorney general, answering his own question: ‘Damn straight.’ ‘Have you seen what the job situation is?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen what the economic forecasts in the future are?’ he went on. The sentiment that Mr. Limbaugh was homing in on — the undented confidence that many Trump supporters have in the president as a get-things-done leader and deal maker — is the reason many conservatives say they do not think Mr. Trump will suffer.”
This story reeks with disappointment. The New York Times went out and sought Trump supporters who were angry and seething and ready to throw him overboard already, on the basis that he had lied to them or had misled them by saying what they wanted to hear during the campaign, and in less than a hundred days, reversing himself.
You know, some people are even talking about this giant missile that we dropped on ISIS yesterday. And wait ’til you hear the typical liberal reaction to that. It’s coming up. And the media has gone out of its way to try to find people angry over Trump doing this, people that voted for Trump.
If you go back, and I’m sure I don’t even have to remind many of you of this, you Trump supporters, defeating ISIS was one of the top 10 often repeated campaign promises that Trump made. And I wouldn’t even call it a campaign promise; it was an assurance. He said within 30 days he’s gonna ask his military people to come up with a great plan, the greatest plan that there’s ever been, the greatest plan ever, to take out ISIS.
Well, apparently that plan was sought, and apparently that plan has been presented, and now they’re acting on it. This, at least, is an instance where Trump is doing everything he promised he would do. The only thing that he didn’t say is when he would do it. And that, of course, is strategic. He doesn’t believe the enemy should be informed in advance of when we’re gonna hit them. Think it’s very stupid and dumb to do it like Obama did.
In fact, you gotta love Trump. He even said of his giant bomb that was deployed yesterday on that ISIS tunnel, he’s out there saying, “This shows the biggest difference between me and Obama in the last eight years.” (laughing) And he’s exactly right. You don’t have presidents talking that way very much. Grab sound bite number one. We can squeeze part of this in before the break.
THE PRESIDENT: We are so proud of our military, and it was another successful event.
REPORTER: Did you authorize it, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Everybody knows exactly what happened, so — and what I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military in the world, and they’ve done a job as usual. So we have given them total authorization, and that’s what they’re doing. And, frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately. If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that to what — really to what’s happened over him the last eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference.
RUSH: Big difference between me and Obama. But the point he’s making, they asked, “Did you order the bomb dropped?” And Trump wouldn’t say he did. He said I got confidence in my generals.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A.J. in Denver, as we head back to the phones. A.J. in Denver, great to have you. How are you doing, sir?
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I’m doing good. I want to first thank you, and I appreciate you talking about The True Jesus book that your brother wrote, and I’m gonna buy that book.
RUSH: Thank you. I really think you’ll thoroughly enjoy it.
CALLER: I’m sure I will.
RUSH: Regardless what your educational level is about Christianity and Christ, even if you’re a scholar of Christianity, this book is going to highly impress you, guarantee it.
CALLER: I’m looking forward to it. The reason I called was because, as a member of the Trump base, President Trump, they don’t understand him and they don’t understand his base. The pundits ask questions, “Well, what do you think about the flip-flopping?” They don’t understand that he’s a businessman, you adjust to the market, you adjust to the situation, and you get things done, and that’s what he’s doing. And the Democrats lost because they didn’t understand this, and the Republicans would have lost also. And so they don’t understand this man, they don’t understand the base, and it’s so interesting —
RUSH: You know what it’s really rooted in, A.J.? It’s rooted in the fact that they still don’t understand why such a large number of Americans voted purposely for a nonpolitical outsider.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: They continue to remember to factor that into everything. They cannot help it. They continue to try to plug Trump in to an existing political profile that they have established in Washington and judge him that way. In politics there are flip-flops, exactly right. In business, there are adjustments, as you’ve just said.
CALLER: Exactly. And the two universal laws that Trump is using is the law of diminishing returns and the law of nothing changes, nothing changes. And so for so long, nothing has changed. And we’re looking for change, and we’re looking for the use of diminishing return. That’s why they dropped the two bombs, because we got everybody’s attention now, and they understand that they have something to lose, and everything from the wall on, he’s just changing things. The whole paradigm has changed in politics, and they don’t get it.
RUSH: Let me ask you this, A.J. What they’re trying to make Trump base voters believe by virtue of the reporting in the media, they want you to believe that Trump’s abandoned you, that he’s no longer America first, “Make America Great Again.” Do you think that in all these things that Trump is doing?
CALLER: Oh, absolutely not. He’s doing exactly what we expect him to do. He’s doing exactly what he said he’s going to do. The number one thing that was important to me, or the top three, was the Supreme Court justice appointment, that is huge, major. And he got that done, and he’s doing other things. If the rest of the impotent Republicans would get behind him, we have the opportunity to destroy the Democratic Party with extreme prejudice, if they just put on their big boy pants.
RUSH: You know, that begs the question of is that what some Republicans really want to do. And I’m not just saying that. I actually — and it’s come as a surprise — when I started this program back in 1988, I thought that the objective in politics was to not just win, but to dominate so that the other side was nothing more than a little speck of opposition, keep you honest and this kind of stuff.
It actually took a while for me to figure out that the Republican Party didn’t think that way at all. They didn’t think aggressive. They didn’t think in terms of defeating and dominating and taking control of Washington with a reform agenda. I labored under that belief for the longest time. I forget when it actually hit me, but it was, you know, 10 years, at least, into doing the program.
And then it got even worse than that. Then it became apparent that survival was the objective and that even if they lost, that they had developed strategies to be the opposition and to be reactionary. And for some people, that was preferable to the pressure and the responsibility of actually having to lead and move an agenda. And I think this is another reason why people are having — I don’t even think they’re having trouble. It’s not right.
I don’t even think people are even making an effort to understand Trump. I think inside the Beltway, and not just Republicans. I’m thinking primarily of Democrats and media here. I think they’re so arrogant that they don’t look at Trump as anything other than a badly molded piece of clay that has to be fixed and reshaped and reformed. And there isn’t any interest whatsoever in actually finding out what the guy is or what makes him tick. The only objective is to shut him down as he ticks now.