RUSH: You know, this is funny to watch. Sean Spicer resigns, and the Drive-Bys are beside themselves. The entire Washington establishment is just out of control over this. They can talk about nothing else. What do you think the percentage of the American people who are hanging on this thread with bated breath about Sean Spicer resigning is? I’ll betcha it’s not even 5%. This is a great illustration of the disconnect that exists. Spicer resigns, the Drive-Bys are excited! They think they caused it, number one.
They think it means Trump’s falling apart, number two. They think the Trump administration’s unraveling, number three. They think that this is precursor to Trump eventually resigning. This is a precursor to the administration supporting Trump resigning! First it will be Priebus and then Bannon and then it will be a veritable groundswell of Trump officials resigning in anger and disgust. This is what they hope this means, and they can’t let it go.
There’s a press briefing scheduled to have happened 10 minutes ago. It hasn’t started yet. The Drive-Bys waiting with bated breath to see who comes out and who does the briefing. Will it be Scaramucci and will Scaramucci be combative? Will Scaramucci tell the press corps to go to hell? Something like that. It won’t be Scaramucci. It will probably be Sarah Sanders, whoever. But the point is, this is a great illustration, because I would be very confident in saying that well over 75% of the American public doesn’t care.
It’s not something controversial to them. It’s not troubling to them. It doesn’t indicate anything’s wrong. They’re not panicked about it. They’re not worried about it. Including Trump’s supporters. In fact, if I had to wager I’d say a majority of Trump supporters are happy about it. Nothing against Spicer, but Trump supporters want people that can be able to speak for Trump — proudly, unabashedly — and Trump supporters don’t… (sigh) Well, I’ll stop. I’m not dumping on Spicer. I like Spicer a lot, and I don’t want anything I’m saying to be construed as dumping on Spicer. (interruption)
So now you want to know what I was gonna say, huh? Let me try it this way. I just… (interruption) Look, you know me. I just tell you what I think, if it’s problematic (audio glitch). I think your average Trump supporter wants a press secretary Saturday Night Live cannot make fun of, lampoon, discredit, and all that. Am I wrong about that? (interruption) You mean Trump supporters don’t know what Saturday Night Live does? (interruption) So it’s not…? (interruption) Okay. So I’m wrong about that.
Trump supporters do not care that Saturday Night Live makes fun of Trump and Trump people because it’s always gonna…? (interruption) Okay. Well, bottom line is… (interruption) the bottom line is that whatever they think — and I could very well be wrong. They’re not thinking it’s deeply meaningful. (interruption) They are not waiting with… (interruption) Who wants to clean the president’s clock? (interruption) Right. That’s… (interruption) That’s… (interruption) Okay, that’s another way of saying it.
Trump supporters want a press secretary that’s gonna take it right back to the press and send them out of that room on their tails every day. If that’s what they get, they’ll be happy with it. Here. Tell you what. Grab sound bite number 21. Chris Wallace. I happen to think that Chris Wallace is the best Sunday show host on all the networks today. I think that Chris Wallace’s voice and his presence has more weight and seriousness than any of the other shows.
He’s a throwback to the days when the Sunday shows really had power, when they really mattered. Now they’re just… What’s the purpose of a Sunday show when it’s nothing different than what happens 25 times a night during the week? But his is different, and it’s not just because… That is the reason I go on it, but anyway, I’m gonna disagree with him here in a sound bite. He was on America’s Newsroom, Fox News, and he was being asked what he thinks of Spicer resigning. This is what he said…
WALLACE: There is a Game of Thrones quality to this White House. I mean, you do have various power centers that are colliding with each other. So — a more populist team. The question though, this was a populist wave that may have helped elect Donald Trump, but there was no populist wave on Capitol Hill, and you still have to deal with the entrenched Republican power structure on Capitol Hill, people like Paul Ryan, like Mitch McConnell. And I’m not sure if you put the Scaramucci and Lewandowskis of the world that they’re gonna have any better luck dealing with the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate that this group has had. Which, so far, has been not much.
RUSH: Okay, so, the first thing is he obviously thinks the communications director is a liaison to Republicans on Capitol Hill and that Scaramucci isn’t gonna do any better than Spicer ’cause Scaramucci’s an outsider and these guys are insiders and there’s an unbridgeable gap there. This populist wave… I spoke about this yesterday, and this is where I’m gonna disagree with the estimable Chris Wallace. There was a wave! Why do you think people elect Republicans?
In this era, Trump was elected for all the specific reasons we’ve gone through. We don’t need to detail them again. At the top of the list, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination because, of all the candidates, he was the one people thought would have the best success at stopping the left, at doing battle with the left, at unraveling Obamaism and the Obama legacy! It was not “a populist wave.” All these analysts, I respectfully say, are missing the boat here.
I don’t think your average Trump voter knows what a populist is and doesn’t think of himself as a populist or a nativist or a nationalist or an alt-right. What they don’t want is the Democrat Party to keep winning! The Democrat Party, meaning the vote embodiment of the left. I mean, the media doesn’t vote. The media runs the left. The media’s the organizing power. But the Democrats are where liberalism gets voted on in the House and Senate.
So everybody that voted… This is the reason the Republicans are in trouble. Since 2010, even before that, Republicans have been sent to Washington to stop the Democrats as Trump was. Trump is trying; they don’t appear to be. Now, Chris’ point here is that you had a whole new group of people who came out and voted for Trump and they’re populists. They’re not conservative, they are America-firsters and America-onlyers. But those same people didn’t vote for Paul Ryan.
Traditional, standard Chamber of Commerce Republicans voted for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and all the rest. And therefore, there isn’t a component in the House of elected officials from the same political bailiwick as Trump. Therefore, it’s oil and water trying to mix. It sounds good, but I think it misses the point. And the reason why the Republican Congress is in such disfavor with Republican voters is because people that voted for them and voted for Trump voted for the same thing.
Not populism, but stopping the left. Rolling back and getting rid of Obamacare, paring down the tax code, fixing the border. These are not populist per se and exclusive issues. These are issues where the Democrats have been running amok and winning day in and day out, and our side is tired of the Democrats winning, and they want people to fight back against it. Populism? Nationalism? None of that matters.
It’s not even conservative versus liberal, although it is in the sense that those are the forces that are battling with each other, the Democrats, the media, the left wing obviously is extreme left-wingism, liberalism, socialism, what have you. But I think it’s a convenient fallback to say, “Well, yeah, Trump’s isolated. A bunch of populists sent him there, but those are not the same people that elected Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan doesn’t have to do that to satisfy his voters.” That’s where I strongly disagree. I think that’s where many of the inside-the-Beltway super thinkers and brilliant political scientists and analysts are totally missing the boat. I don’t think they yet understand.
Well, hell, folks. They’re the ones who we know do not think the country’s in any kind of crisis. They think that you who think it is are all wet. They think you’re crisismongers. The country’s not in crisis. What are you talking about? We’re not in danger of losing the country. They think you’re stupid for thinking that. But you are at your wits’ end. You’ve been voting for Republican, and, by the way, the Republicans know it ’cause look how they campaigned. They promised to roll back Obamacare. They promised to repeal it. They only thing they don’t promise is building a wall. They’re big for amnesty, comprehensive immigration reform. On that issue there’s not that much different between Republicans and Democrats in the swamp, in the establishment.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to reinforce something else, too, going back to the Chris Wallace bit in which his point is, look, the reason there’s dysfunction there is because a populist wave elected Donald Trump. But there is no populist wave that elected McConnell or Ryan; they are standard, traditional establishment Republicans, and Trump’s Republicans are a different breed. That’s not what’s going on here. That is not the fight. That’s not the battle. There is no populism here. And everybody that wants to focus on that is purposely, I think, missing the boat.
What is happening, the battle in this country — you can read about, if you want to get specific, you know, our old buddy Mark Levin’s latest book, Rediscovering America, it’s all about progressivism versus Americanism. That’s the battle that’s happening here. You can call it conservatism versus liberalism, but Americanism versus progressivism. It’s plain and simple! And in this battle the people voting for Americanism are voting Republican.
The idea that Republicans are segregated and the populists elected Trump and the traditional establishment Republicans elect members of the House and the Senate and therefore there isn’t any unity on the Republican side, that’s not why there isn’t any unity. The reason there isn’t any unity is because the Republican Party doesn’t accept the premise that it’s them versus progressives in a battle for the future of the country. They don’t think that battle is ongoing, and they don’t think there is a crisis. We do, and the Republicans are the only choice we have in voting to stop liberalism.