RUSH: Trump did not suffer a congressional loss last night. The media doesn’t get this. Do you understand what happened here, Snerdley? The media, they’re so eager to report that Trump’s losing the support of his voters that they are totally missing what this Alabama thing is all about. In essence, Trump’s voters were protecting him. And I’m fully prepared to explain this.
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Now, I gotta come clean about something here. I have had people — pestering is the wrong word. I have had people in the email asking me for the past number of weeks, “Why aren’t you talking about Alabama? Why aren’t you weighing in? It’s very important.” I only use a voice like that to distinguish it from my own. I’m not trying to suggest that people complaining to me sound dumb or any other way. I’m just trying to distinguish the voice of those who are speaking to me from me.
And there’s a reason, folks. I did not say a word about this because I wanted to get a clean result of this. I didn’t want anybody to be able to say that what happened was because I urged people to do one thing or the other. You know as well as I do that the Drive-Bys are eager to attach your motivations and your actions to my suggestions.
Now, I know there were all kinds of other people out there advocating for one candidate or another, and that’s fine. But I purposely didn’t, almost as an experiment here, because, in my mind, I wanted what I view anyway as a clean result. Now, it’s obvious, and I’m not an idiot, that a clean result may not be actually ascertainable here because there were a lot of other people on radio and TV who were advocating one way or the other in this race, predominantly one way.
But at least for me I can come here today and tell you that whatever happened had nothing to do with anything specific I said. I mean, I realize, folks, I’m a powerful, influential member of the media, and whatever these results are, I didn’t want any of it, not tainted, but affected by any suggestion that voters in Alabama were not exercising their own decisions. ‘Cause you know how the media treats talk radio and conservative media. The audience is a bunch of mind-numbed robots, doesn’t know anything and they learn to do what people on TV and radio tell ’em to do. So I stayed out of this.
I also knew what was gonna happen. I knew why Trump endorsed the loser. I know why Trump endorsed the loser from the get-go. I did tell you that. He endorsed the loser because at the time it happened he was trying to buy appeasement with Mitch. Trump frustrated, can’t get his agenda done in Washington, thought he would try appeasing Mitch McConnell. I knew it wasn’t gonna work.
But what the Drive-Bys are missing here is the voters of Alabama knew exactly what was at stake here, and the voters of Alabama essentially sent an insider packing, and with this insider a bunch of others may go. Corker has announced he’s leaving. And before today, before last night, a number of other insider, establishment senators were alluding to the fact that if the result came out as it did, that they would be leaving. And we talked about this on the program.
Isn’t it amazing that rather than adapt and accommodate the mood of voters in their own party, they actually talk about retiring, thinking the place is no longer a good place for them, the Senate. Their attitude is, “Man, if the voters have gotten this far out, if the voters are this way, I got no prayer, I’m outta here.” Rather than easily adapt. It wouldn’t be that hard to adapt. You repeal Obamacare, you cut taxes, and you build a wall and you stop immigration. It’s not that hard. But they can’t for some reason seem to do it. This tax cut plan is another thing that is a disaster. It is an absolute disaster in more ways than it is not. We’ll get into that here in just a moment.
Judge Moore. The media think they have something to crow over here. A candidate that Trump supported has been defeated in a primary. I also never endorse in primaries, by the way. But, anyway, a candidate has been defeated in a primary. Never mind the candidate who beat Trump’s pick is more of a Trumpster than Trump’s pick was, and that’s always been the case. The voters were consistent here! They’re all saying that Trump has no coattails. They’re all saying that Trump’s influence is over. No, no, no, no, no.
What it means is, folks, that Trumpism is bigger than Trump. It is kind of maybe a pink flag for Trump, but I don’t think it’s that big a deal. It may be a bit of a warning. But it’s very clear what happened here. The voters of Alabama and the voters of this country, the people that take the time to vote are well aware. They have studied, and they’re fed up. And it’s not changing. And they’re very dissatisfied that even after a smashing victory like was had last November, the results are not yet seen nearly to the degree people hope and expect. And so a Trumpist was added to the arsenal in the United States Senate.
The media is grasping at straws here. They’re so caught up in what they want to happen that when they think it does, they run with it, and they’re making fools of themselves here. Because the people in Alabama, if you want to really break this down, they saw Trump endorse the wrong guy. I don’t know if they knew why Trump did it. I don’t know if they were in open defiance of Trump.
The voters of Alabama realize that Donald Trump needed somebody else. They are invested in Trump. They’re invested even more so in Trumpism. Without Trump right now, there isn’t any Trumpism. This vote had nothing to do with Trump’s endorsement. This vote had everything to do with the voters of Alabama realizing what is necessary to give Donald Trump the tools that he needs in the House and in the Senate to move his agenda forward.
That’s why I say this vote was almost the voters of Alabama circling the wagons to protect Trump. Had they accepted his endorsement and gone ahead and elected Luther Strange, the odds are it would have been a setback for the Trumpism movement, and the Trumpism movement didn’t want a setback. This isn’t complicated. But you have to have an open mind to see it this way, and the media doesn’t.
The media is reveling here in the fact that Trump’s voters ignored him. And they think they’re on the cusp now of being able to separate all of you Trump voters from Trump. And if they can do that, it’s mission accomplished. But they’re not even close. If the media had any sense, this result would depress them. If the media had any sense, this vote would shock them like a cold shower. Ice cold water coming out of the shower head is how this result should affect them.
But, folks, they’re not there. They are so guided, blinded by their own bigotry and prejudice, they are so eager to see what they hope to happen actually happen that when it doesn’t happen, they think it has happened. You ought to see it. I mean, they’re all having a party today over at CNN. They think it’s the beginning of the end of Trump. Wait a minute. Hold everything.
How’s it the end of Trump when another Trumpist has been sent to the Senate and a Never Trumper is leaving (i.e., Corker) and there might be even more? ‘Cause I’ll guarantee you this. The establishment senators… I mentioned this. The establishment senators, before this race, looked at it and they said, “Oh, my God, if this guy Roy Moore wins… This is the Ten Commandments guy! If this guy wins, oh, my!” “I gotta get outta here,” said some of these establishment senators. “This is no longer gonna be a home for me.”
As I say, rather than adapt and rather than accept the mood and desires of voters in America, they want to get out. Hey, well, that’s fine. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. The Drive-Bys on social media are saying the same things about Roy Moore that they said about Trump when he was elected, which is another good sign. They still don’t get it. I don’t think… Folks, to be honest with you, I don’t think they’re capable of getting it. I think they’re poisoned. Their political brains are poisoned. It’s been self-poisoned. They simply cannot see what is.
Their ability to analyze openly — even accommodating their biases — has been lost. To me this is rather simple. How do you consider it a loss when an ardent Trumpist has been elected to the United States Senate? “Well, because, Rush, Trump endorsed the other guy.” Yeah, see, that’s the way the Drive-Bys think — and they think newspaper endorsements matter too. See, they think you Trump voters are mind-numbed robots, too, just like listeners of this program. Whatever Trump says, you’ll do it. Whatever Trump wants, you’ll provide it.
Whatever Trump’s mad at, you’ll be mad at. Whatever Trump thinks, you’ll think. You have not got minds of your own. So in their world, you split from Trump last night. They cannot see that you had Trump’s back last night. No more complicated than that. I’d be willing to accept your thoughts on this, but, you know, to me, it’s patently obvious what happened here. Just like with Trump, by the way, the editors — the other pundits out there — are assuring us that this spells doom for the Republican Party. They never say that about a winning Democrat candidate no matter how far to the left he or she is.
We have a Republican that won an election and it’s doom for the Republican Party! We never hear when a wacko leftist Democrat wins that it’s doom for the Democrats — although I must retract that, because I had it in the Stack a couple days. TIME magazine has it, and it’s real in the weeds, but they’ve had a deep dive with everything wrong with the Democrat Party. So if you look out there in the Drive-By Media, you will find stories, columns, pieces on the problems that the Democrat Party is having.
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RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites here, folks. This is this afternoon, just moments ago, CNN, Inside Politics, John King speaking with Jeff Zeleny, the senior White House correspondent, about Roy Moore winning the Alabama primary last night. Here’s their take on Trump.
KING: President Trump spent the evening angry and venting about the loss and then he went to bed, excuse my language, quote, “embarrassed and pissed.” Jeff Zeleny joins me now live from the White House. Take us inside the president’s reaction and what comes next.
ZELENY: John, those two words that you just said sum it up pretty succinctly there. The President doesn’t like to lose. In fact, he’s not used to losing in special elections. But he is also getting a taste of what President Obama got, as well. It is difficult for a sitting president to campaign for anyone and hope that their supporters follow along.
RUSH: I would advise the president to stay out of primaries like I do, but they don’t. They’re fundraisers. But I don’t know if this is true. I mean, they say that Trump’s embarrassed, he’s mad, ticked off that he was not listened to. Maybe, who knows. I wasn’t in the White House last night. But I have to believe there’s somebody there that can tell Trump this is a win-win for him. This doesn’t mean that he’s lost any influence with his voters. It means his voters have his back. But I’ll tell you, it means something else too. It means that as far as the voters are concerned, they’re gonna do what they think is necessary whether Trump is there or not.
I think a lot of conventional wisdom people, people that have been analyzing and studying politics for years, almost can’t get out of the archaic formulations that they have used and lived by analyzing politics for decades. And you have to throw all of that out now. And I don’t know that they’re capable of it. And by that, I mean, okay, so Trump endorses candidate A and makes a fairly big deal about it. And Trump thinks that his voters are dead loyal to him, that they will do anything he says, including continue to support him if he would shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, he once said.
So he believes that these voters are inexorably tied and there’s nothing anybody can do about it, and so when he goes out and says vote for this guy, they’re automatically gonna do it. And most everybody else thinks that’s the way politics works. But it didn’t happen in this case. And since it didn’t happen, the formulaic response is, “Look, Trump has no influence. Look, Trump’s lost his influence. Look, Trump’s lost the magic that he had with his voters.” And it doesn’t mean that at all. What it means is that the national mood, the mood sweeping the nation that can be described as drain the swamp, is strong and it is growing. And that what Trump started has taken root, and it will continue to grow whether Trump is there or not. And I don’t intend that as a slam at Trump. It’s just reality.
It’s right there in the election returns last night. And if there’s one thing to learn is that this movement exists. Trump may have been — well, there’s no question — Trump was the individual who rallied this movement together. Might even want to call it a new political party that hasn’t yet formed and organized. But this movement is there, and it is growing, and it is insistent, and it wants Trump to remain in office.
This movement is devoted to the things Trump said he was going to do. And the Trump voter believes that only Trump being there can make this possible. So they’re not gonna abandon Trump. But they’re also not gonna do things that, in their view, would harm Trump, i.e., send another establishmentarian up there when there is an opportunity to send exactly the kind of person they think is necessary to participate in draining the swamp. This isn’t complicated, but I don’t know that they have a way, these age-old dinosaurs and their political analysis, I don’t think they can step outside the box.
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Dayton, Ohio. Kim, great to have you. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey!
CALLER: How are you?
RUSH: Great. Thank you.
CALLER: I’m so nervous. I’ve been listening to you since 1988. But —
RUSH: Well, that makes you a lifer.
CALLER: Oh! I’m a lifer. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Let’s go back to the Alabama results from last night really quick. You have it almost right. You’re the only one that is close. Even anybody on Fox has got this whole thing wrong about why Trump endorsed Strange. Here’s why.
RUSH: Tell us! Tell us! Time is vanishing. Tell us!
CALLER: Okay. Trump endorsed Strange because regardless of the outcome last night, Strange was still going to be in the Senate voting until December, because the election for that seat is in December. So he needs Strange in there to vote if the health care came up, taxes, infrastructure, whatever. The last thing he needed was Strange on the end of his thumb pointing down like another McCain moment.
RUSH: Well, you know what? You may have a point. That is very forward, critical thinking — much unlike what Hillary Clinton’s capable of. If Hillary had said that, Putin would be worried about thumbs up or thumbs down. I have a story here from Breitbart that says Trump was mad last night, but not at the election results. He’s mad at Kushner for giving him the wrong suggestion, the wrong advice. That’s the story Breitbart has.
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RUSH: I got the Breitbart story right here, and that’s who they say Trump’s mad at is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and that’s because Kushner apparently keeps giving Trump bad advice. Now, this is Breitbart. There was the Bannon falling out with Trump, but I don’t think Breitbart’s off the reservation here. Some people think now that Breitbart is aligning with Bannon and is anti-Trump now. I don’t think that’s the case at all, folks. You just need to chill out here and realize everything going on here, it all makes sense if you look at it just objectively as you can.
Here’s a pull quote. One thing I do know: Trump hates to lose. So I would believe he would be a little bit upset in there last night over the outcome of the election. And you know what family is, folks. Family is a different thing. You can have the closest advisers in the world working for you, people you’ve known all your life; family’s different. Family is always gonna hold sway. There are exceptions, of course, and Kushner has always been a highly valued member of the Trump family and now of the team.
But get this pull quote: “In what is becoming a disturbing pattern, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner was apparently one of those who advised the president to back Strange, to once again sail into big, jagged rocks — a humiliation for Trump that anyone with any real-world political sense should have (and did) seen coming from a mile away. Appointed under shady circumstances, Strange is a walking-talking poster child for everything Trump ran against, a good ole’ boy, Republican establishment backslapper strongly backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has done nothing but post failure after failure since Trump’s inauguration.”
True. Now, I heard that Trump did this trying to appease McConnell, that he wasn’t blind about what he was doing here, but that he was trying to forge relationships on Capitol Hill to move his agenda forward. Now we hear that Kushner was behind the advice. I can firmly believe Kushner would give this advice. I mean, Kushner is family or establishment types, and Kushner’s a Democrat. I’m not gonna hold any of this against him. I’m just trying to explain why this is understandable happening.
Something else, too. We had that caller with a good theory in the first hour that Trump endorsed Strange cause Strange is gonna be there through December and he needs Strange to support him. He doesn’t need Strange doing a McCain thumbs down on everything that might come up. Could be. But the headline to the piece is: “Luther Strange Endorsement Is Just Latest Awful Advice Trump Received from Jared Kushner.” Breitbart says here, “Moreover, Kushner’s objectively awful advice to back Strange has succeeded in doing the only thing that could be fatal to Trump’s presidency and re-election prospects — driven a wedge between the president and his supporters.
“This time, at least, the wedge appears to be temporary and those supporters forgiving.” I don’t think there’s a wedge at all here. I think Trump supporters are far more sophisticated than anybody realizes, politically sophisticated. They know plenty! They know clearly enough to know what’s wrong with it. They know enough about politics to know what to be mad at. They know enough about politics to be energized and show up and vote and try to do something about it. They’re not bumpkins. They are portrayed as bumpkins, they’re portrayed as racists, they’re portrayed as white supremacists.
They’re being slandered, they’re being smeared, they’re being slimed, and that’s not who they are. They love Donald Trump. Trump made a mistake in his endorsement. They’re not gonna throw Trump overboard or under the bus because everything is much bigger than that. It isn’t personal. In their view, the country is at a crossroads, and getting upset at Trump and abandoning Trump over this would be, in their view, petty. The big picture dwarfs this one election. They took care of it at the ballot box, pure and simple. And in doing so, they had Trump’s back. I know that’s… You know, wait ’til the Drive-Bys hear that.
That is in such contravention to the way they’re thinking.
“You hear what Limbaugh said? Limbaugh said that voters in Alabama actually had Trump’s back, that they’re not mad at him!” Exactly right. Trump endorsed; they knew it was the wrong guy. They voted for the right guy. They don’t hold anything against Trump. They know what Trump’s up against, and I think they’re very tolerant. They’re not at all… These voters, nationwide are not at all the way the media has caricatured them. They’re not at all the way establishment politicians, Republicans and Democrats, think of them. And this was just the latest illustration.
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RUSH: You know something else interesting about Alabama? Have you noticed the polling was dead on? You notice the polling in this Alabama Senate race was dead on accurate? Now, why do you think that might be the case? (interruption) Come on. No, it’s not that. It’s not they didn’t have a vested interest. There were no Democrats to oversample.
It’s a Republican primary. Simple. No Democrats to oversample, so they got a dead, solid accurate result. The polling was dead on here throughout this whole race, was it not?
Okay. We had to call some people back yesterday.