RUSH: Lisa in State College, Pennsylvania. It’s great to have you here. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Rush, thank you. This is my biggest Christmas present right there.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: It’s an honor.
RUSH: Appreciate that.
CALLER: Such an honor, and I want to remember after I make my comment to ask you about the Rush Revere books for my grandson.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: But my first comment is I was listening to you in the opening session about all of Trump’s accomplishments, and I completely agree with you, which is why I’m one of the people that absolutely hates his tweets. I understand why some people like ’em, ’cause it’s kind of the finger in the eye thing. I get it. But living in an incredibly liberal town, it’s very hard for me to defend him when he does these personal attack tweets.
I don’t mind when he goes after the Fake Media. I get that. But when he does personal attacks, it really bothers me. And when he gets into, you know, the football controversy so much and that kind of thing, it really annoys me. And I’m an early riser, and one of the first things I do every morning about 5:30, 6, is to see if he’s said anything stupid that I have to defend him for that day.
RUSH: Defend him? Where do you run into these people that you feel the need to defend him?
CALLER: Let me give you an example. I have a boss who’s very liberal, but when I question her about politics point-per-point on mostly economic issues, she agrees with me, and she agrees with Trump even on some liberal issues. But when he does something like, you know, call somebody fat or, you know, does a personal attack like he did on the Brzezinski woman or whoever, you know, she’ll say, “He’s just an idiot. How can I take him seriously as president and, you know, we can’t have someone like this as our president.” So do you see what I mean?
RUSH: Yeah, I see what you mean.
CALLER: He makes me cringe. And it’s not that I have to defend him, but it makes it very difficult for me. If he would just, you know, starting going back a year when he did that amazing State of the Union address last January, and then, you know, just, what was it, four days later, I can’t even remember now what the controversy was, but he made some crazy comment. He makes these great speeches in Europe, and I listened to his speech yesterday.
RUSH: That was awesome. We got sound bites of that coming up.
CALLER: Amazing, fantastic speech. So I was so happy when I woke up this morning and I didn’t hear him, you know, saying anything stupid on Twitter. And I realize the liberal media is gonna go after him no matter what.
RUSH: Exactly right.
CALLER: But he’s giving them so much more fodder.
RUSH: You gave him an out though. You said you don’t mind him tweeting when it’s against the Fake Media.
CALLER: I don’t mind that. It’s when he gets personal about people or when he gets into these controversies like the football thing. I got the first tweet, that was okay, but then, you know, he goes on and on about it, and I want him to tweet about his accomplishments more and less about personal attacks. I don’t mind when the media comes out and does something clearly wrong, like CNN did and like the guy on ABC.
RUSH: Or the Washington Post writing today, yesterday, that he wanted to rescind the nomination of Gorsuch.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: He had a tweet that that was bogus because if he doesn’t tweet that, nobody’s gonna know.
CALLER: No, that I get. Again, it’s when he does personal attacks on people that I don’t. You know, I like about 50% of his tweets.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: But I just wish —
RUSH: All right. Look, I really need to discuss this with you further, and I’m out of time. Just one more point that I want to make, but I’m not gonna be able to get back to you for some minutes here, so you can either hold on ’cause you wanted to talk about the Revere books —
CALLER: I do. I wanted to know which is the first one I should get for my grandson.
RUSH: The first one is Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims.
CALLER: You think that’s a good one to start with?
RUSH: Oh, yeah, that kicks the whole thing off, absolutely.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: But, here. Hang on. Don’t hang up, or give us your number and we can call you back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We go back now to Lisa in State College, Pennsylvania. Before we gets to your question about Rush Revere Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans and our wonderful Christmas ornament, I wanted to get back to your question about Trump, your observation. It makes you nervous when Trump tweets things that you think are attacks on people, personal attacks, right? Have I got that right?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Personal attacks. And it makes me cringe. I mentioned my grandson, and it sometimes reminds me of him and his little buddies on the playground. I don’t care about it being presidential so much as I just think it’s beneath him and, you know, I feel like don’t waste your time on it. We have other things to worry about.
RUSH: Let me present an alternative view of this. Because I’ll tell you the way I look at it. I look at it as Trump’s not the problem. I look at it as Trump reacting to the problem.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The problem is your unwillingness to defend him to the people trying to destroy him. You want to defer to them rather than go through the effort, trouble, whatever it is, to defend him. Donald Trump and his family are among the most viciously savaged, lied about, attacked with the effort of destroying him and them of any president in my lifetime. There are close seconds, like Nixon and Reagan.
CALLER: I get that.
RUSH: But this is personal. I don’t think Trump starts anything. I think Trump defends himself or goes after people who hit him first. And he’s never shied about telling people, “You hit me, and I’m coming back at you.” I think the NFL players, the example you cited, I think he is genuinely, profoundly offended and angered by looking at some of the wealthiest people in this country trash it. I think he feels this need to say so because he thinks of himself as leader of the country and leader of the people that voted for him.
I don’t have a problem with it. I think we need more of it. The left has introduced this kind of behavior. The left has been attacking conservatives in this vicious, personal, petty six-year-old school ground way for as long as I’ve been doing this program. And our side has never reacted to it. We’ve always been told we must stay above the fray, act presidential or act with decorum or what have you, and they continue to get away with it. And they get away with lying about us. They get away with lying and mischaracterizing and let me just tell you the truth. Lisa —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — among the people who do not know me and do not listen to me, my reputation is destroyed.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: The people who do not listen. Well, Trump is sitting there saying, “I’m not gonna let ’em destroy my reputation. I’m not gonna let them. They’re gonna have to fight, they’re gonna have to battle me if they’re gonna succeed in destroying my reputation.” My whole career, my advice has been, “Don’t respond to it, you only elevate it.” My advice has been, “Don’t react to it. They love it and they keep on.” And they do, with Trump.
But there is a reality of this, and that is these people have the largest megaphones in the country. They have the largest number of Twitter robots that are repeating and tweeting and Facebooking lies and disparaging personal insults, and their objective is to destroy people. And Trump’s simply saying he’s not gonna let himself or his family be destroyed within that universe. Now, certain things like the Mueller investigation, he’s gotta restrain himself on.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But I’m sympathetic to it because I don’t think he starts anything, unless you want to say him beating them started it. But they’re the ones that are behaving like children. They’re the ones that are behaving like spoiled brats. They’re the ones that are behaving like immature adults. They’re the ones behaving like they have been denied their entitlement, which is power in Washington.
CALLER: Well, I agree with that, and I see what you’re saying, but I think the way he responds, in other words, if he could respond in a way that wasn’t juvenile. In other words, you know, I can’t think of a specific example right now. I’m sorry. But maybe Jeff Flake or one of these guys that, you know, like, you know, a personal thing. I don’t know why he has to respond personally, you know, to denigrating their looks or something like that.
RUSH: Oh, that kind of thing.
CALLER: That kind of thing.
RUSH: Well, how many people make fun of his orange hair? how many people have made fun of his wife’s accent? How many people have made fun of his children? How many people are trying to destroy them?
CALLER: Yeah. I know what you mean, but I can’t help that it bothers me when he does it personally.
RUSH: If you lived in a town where there were no state college liberals that were attacking you because you like Trump, would you have as big a problem with this?
CALLER: Probably not.
RUSH: Yeah. That’s where it lies.
CALLER: Yes. Probably.
RUSH: Okay. I said my piece to you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: About the books. Yeah.
CALLER: Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. I was gonna ask another quick question.
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.
CALLER: On the tax thing. I want someone at some point to ask Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi if they could name an income level at which people become evil. You know, they’re always talking about rich people, rich people, the evil rich, evil rich.
RUSH: I can answer that.
CALLER: Is it $100,000, is it $150,000? At what point does someone become an evil person that has no right to their own money?
RUSH: It’s $60,000.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: It may now be a hundred, but back when I first was aware of them referring to the evil rich, about 30 years ago — get this statistic — 30 years ago this is true, and it’s not much different today. Thirty years ago, if you earned $60,000 a year, you were in the top 10% of wage earners in the country, 30 years ago. So when Democrats started talking about raising taxes on the rich, it was $60,000 that they started raising taxes. That’s where the upper brackets hit. That’s who they were talking about. Today, the rich is anybody that’s got a dollar more than you do.
CALLER: Okay. That makes sense. I was just curious.
RUSH: The rich is a faceless, nameless group. The rich is simply everybody but the middle class. The Democrats are simply relying on the shotgun approach. If they attack the rich, they figure there are many more people who aren’t who will like it than there are rich people who will be offended by that. And they’re right about that. Whether you say the rich starts at a hundred grand or 10 million, they’re vastly outnumbered by the middle class and the poor. So the Democrats are simply engaging in class envy and class warfare, and the delineation of where the rich begin really doesn’t matter.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: It’s a political philosophy that needs to be nuked and destroyed.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The Democrats are dividing people. They’re trying to divide people by race. They’re trying to divide people by gender. They’re trying to divide people by sexual orientation, sexual preference, by bathroom usage. They divide people in any which way they can. Income, you name it. The Democrat Party’s the worst thing going on in this country right now.
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: Now, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. That’s the first book.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: What was your question about the books?
CALLER: Okay. Yes. Yes. I want to start him out because my grandson lives in another liberal bastion of northern Virginia.
RUSH: Ugh!
CALLER: So I need to get on his education quickly here.
RUSH: Well, let me tell you, there is nothing — and we did this on purpose. There is nothing that is articulated conservative or liberal in any of the Rush Revere books. It’s just history told truthfully for 10- to 12- to 13-year-olds — and younger. But we don’t get into who was a liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat. It’s clear, but we don’t say it. There’s nothing divisive about the books. It’s just the truth that people are not taught, and of course the first one is where you should start: Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. Because the Pilgrims and what happened to them when they arrived here is what laid the foundation for the kind of country the Founding Fathers would assemble.
It’s all there with the Pilgrims. Now, I’ll tell you, hang on here and Mr. Snerdley will get your address and we’ll send your grandson some stuff from the Rush Revere neighborhood here that will go along with the books. You can get him the books, but we’ll send you some CDs, the audio versions, so that he can listen to ’em now and then if he wants to take a break from reading. I appreciate the call, Lisa. Thank you for your time. And, again, you know, I get passionate about this stuff and I raise my voice. I did not mean to be yelling at her. If you thought I was, folks, I was not.
I was simply being emphatic. But I’ll tell you, I have a short fuse with this ’cause I… (sigh) So much of this stuff is personal. I can’t tell you. I’ve had people over the course of my career say, “You make it so hard to defend you. You know, I’ll convince people to tune in and then you go one of your updates and your rants and then they look at me, ‘You think this guy is good?’ You just make it so hard.” Why is it so hard to defend me? What it boils down to is that people remain intimidated by liberals, and it’s understandable. Liberals destroy property. Liberals get in your face. Liberals are bullies and all that.
And I think what we’re seeing is somebody who’s not gonna cow to it, and that’s Trump. But I’m telling you, folks, they start all this, and they are the children. They are the immature children. They are the entitled spoiled brats. They’re the ones that are… I mean, putting vagina hats on your head and running around? You think that’s a sensible, reasonable protest? Why shouldn’t they have to defend insanity like that? Give me a break. Instead, these people are treated as “social justice warriors,” when they’re a bunch of pansies who can’t take it!
They can’t take being disappointed. They can’t take not the getting their own way. They can’t deal with losing now and then. I don’t have any patience for ’em, and the idea that we’re here to placate them, that we have to defend ourselves to them? Screw that! Where is it written that they occupy the moral high ground that we owe them an explanation for what we think and what we believe and how we say it? Screw! Them! These people aren’t doing anybody any favors, and every bit of progress that has happened in this country over the past 12 months has had to happen over the objection.
Every bit of progress! It is progress these people oppose! That’s what climate change is. Climate change is opposition to progress; opposition to enhanced, improved standards of living! Opposition to liberty! Opposition to freedom! They should be forced to defend why they oppose freedom and liberty. We shouldn’t be forced to defend why we’re in favor of it. I’m just telling you, don’t let these people put on you the defensive. I don’t care if it’s a Christmas party, cocktail party, Super Bowl party, football party. If you don’t feel comfortable trying to defend Trump, just smile at ’em and tell ’em to deal with it.
Anyway, brief time-out. Cooling-off period here. Back with more in a moment.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Carla in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hi. How are you?
CALLER: Hi, Rush! Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I’m talking to you. I told Snerdley I had a football question, but I just want to say that I’m happy and willing to defend our president, because I don’t defend him. I just smile, because I feel like we belong to the secret club that these leftists just don’t understand and they hate. They’ve always been the cool kids? Well, we turned the tables. So I just smile with them. Oh, and I love the way his mind works. You know, he doesn’t —
RUSH: Smiling can be the best revenge. Our time is dwindling. What is your football question?
CALLER: Well, I’m proud of our president, warts and all, which is why I think this is the best time for you to buy an NFL franchise now. The Carolina Panthers would be perfect for you. I live in Al Franken Land, but I’m a Pittsburgh girl, and the Steelers, if they go to the Super Bowl, it’s gonna be here in Minneapolis, and I wanted to ask you: Are you gonna go to the Super Bowl if the Steelers go?
RUSH: See, if I say, “no,” then you, living in Minnesota, would be insulted thinking I’m not coming because who wants to go to a Super Bowl freeze your ass off? But that would be not why I didn’t go. I really don’t know. I have no plan to go to the Super Bowl this year, next year, whenever. It’s a been there; done that kind of thing.