RUSH: Actually, you know, to be honest, I started getting irritated last night. I don’t watch much cable news, primarily for this reason actually. It’s not to be critical of cable news. Everybody needs to eat, everybody has to do things they love for a living and so forth. I just… You know, you go through phases where things are informing, entertaining, educational, or what have you. Nothing that I say is intended to be personally critical of anybody. That’s another thing regular listeners know: I don’t do that.
I don’t create feuds between me and other people that do this. I was just happy to go… It was The Ingraham Angle last night, Laura Ingraham’s show. It was a segment on… I don’t even know what the segment was on, but as soon as I tune in I conclude that there’s not a person on that panel that thinks the Republicans can hold the House. Everybody’s acting like it’s a fait accompli. “Yeah, the Democrats are gonna win the House.” It is? Why are we thinking this way? This blue wave business?
I still think it can be dealt with. I think the Democrats can be beaten. You know, that kind of rubbed me wrong to hear. I mean, here we are not even to August yet and people are reacting to polling data and consultants and said, “Yeah, it’s axiomatic! The Democrats gonna win the House and they may even… You know what, Rush? They may even win the Senate!” Really? And then CNN over there and CNN’s talking about Trump is so desperate, so scared, so frightened of losing the House that he wants to step up the rallies.
I haven’t seen any evidence of this — and then I started realizing the cat problem I was gonna have this morning. So I went to bed. I was in a foul humor when I went to bed. I should have stayed with watching Inspector Morse instead of checking out cable news because then I hear we don’t have a chance of holding the House. It’s already done and over with, and then Trump is so panicked he’s thinking about doing more rallies.
So I go to bed fully aware of the monumental task of getting the cat to the dentist for gingivitis today.
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RUSH: Steve in Kansas City, Missouri, you’re next. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I appreciate you taking my call.
RUSH: Wait. There’s LeBron James right up there talking to Don Lemon. LeBron James noted political scientist be sitting there looking… Well, never mind. I don’t want…. No. No. Not gonna go there. But Trump is dividing people using sports to do so. Who started it, LeBron? I didn’t mean to interrupt you out there, Steve. What’s up?
RUSH: Yeah, and I think you’re not alone. I think there are a lot of people who voted for Trump who now make up the Republican base who think the same. I’m only gonna take a minor disagreement — and it is a really razor-thin, minor disagreement. I think that the greatest enemy Trump faces… (sigh) You know, you’re probably right. It’s a toss-up. I was gonna say the media. I really think the greatest challenge the country has is the media.
CALLER: Well, the problem, Rush, is that —
RUSH: Trump’s found a way to deal with the media. You’re right. He hasn’t found a way to get around the Republican leadership consistently.
CALLER: It’s kind of like Julius Caesar with Brutus. You know the very ones right around him are trying to stab him in the back, and I think they want rid of him just as badly as the Democrats do. But if he’ll stand hard on this, we’ll keep the House of Representatives, and we’ll have a better speaker in the first place who we can get these things done in this next term and he’ll win reelection.
RUSH: Yeah. I’m of the same opinion. I also think that there’s no reason to start talking today about losing the House being axiomatic. Byron York has a piece about that today. He’s not saying that per se, but I’m gonna use it to bounce off of. It seems to be encroaching conventional wisdom now that the Republicans are gonna lose the House. Maybe not in a gigantic blue wave, but they’re gonna lose it.
I blanch at that kind of talk because of the attitude that it represents. Other people say, “Well, Rush you gotta be real. You’re Mr. Realville. You’re the mayor of Realville. I mean, it’s real.” But it’s not real ’til it happens! You know, I also believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. There’s no reason. Why are we gonna start accepting polling data now when we know how wrong it’s been in the past. But to me it’s not even that complicated. Why give up? Why just assume? You talk about Brutus and Julius Caesar. “Et tu, Brute.” Don’t forget what Delilah did to Samson. That’s also a factor.
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RUSH: Here is Susan, Scottsdale, Arizona. Glad you called, and welcome.
CALLER: Dan’s Bake Cake [sic] dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: The Republicans and Democrats only came out about the Democrats taking back Congress after President Trump said that he would close down the government for the wall. So it’s reverse psychology. I think they know if President Trump takes that stand that he will absolutely win everything.
RUSH: You mean if the president does take steps to shut down the government, that he will get what he wants?
CALLER: Absolutely. They only came out saying that the Democrats were gonna take back Congress after President Trump said he was gonna shut down the government for the wall.
RUSH: Well, now, I see the timeline that you have assembled on this — and within, you know, a narrow period of time you might be right. But the Democrats have been predicting they’re gonna win the House since last December, when the first generic polling data came out. Actually longer than that, but when they had polling data that showed them with a 15-point lead in the generic ballot, they started talking about this blue wave, blue wave, blue wave. And with the timeline beginning the December, now here we are late July, and some conservative Republicans are now thinking, “Yeah. Yeah. Thirty days ago, Rush, I wouldn’t have believed it, but this has been a bad month. That Helsinki thing, that press conference was bad, and the separating the kids and their parents? That’s done Trump in.”
You really believe that?
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RUSH: Let me explain my comment that came over the ear-splitting tone. Byron York’s story in the barbiturate examiner, the headline: “After ’30 Days of [Excrement],’ GOP Midterm Elections Fear Rises.” So it’s about a political consultant “whose name we would all know” who’s not named. We don’t know who it is, but we would know if he was named, and the guy claims that 30 days ago, 60 days ago, 120 days ago he didn’t buy into this conventional wisdom that the Democrats were gonna take back the House.
But that the last 30 days, everything’s gone to excrement. Everything has gone to hell. The last 30 days Trump may have blown it for two reasons: A, separating parents from their children at the border among illegal aliens. Yes, the consultant… Remember, is a Republican political consultant. I don’t know who this guy is. He could be one of these people that’s hated Trump from the get-go and never did think Republicans were gonna keep the House. Just saying so for emphasis. I don’t know who it is. I don’t think Byron identifies him here.
That’s the cog in the wheel! You’re only allowed to hold kids 20 days. When they show up illegally, they are held in different sectors because one’s for adults, one’s for kids. They showed up on their own! They arrive as illegal. They arrive breaking the law. We have had policies in place to deal with it. The kids go to one camp over here — where it’s nice and they’re not mistreated in the slightest. The parents go to a different one. If the parents file for asylum, well, that takes a long time to process.
But you can only hold the kids for 20 days.
So after 20 days the kids have to be released while the parents are still being held. That’s been U.S. law for I don’t know how long. That’s what Obama took advantage of by swooping in and picking those kids up and taking them all over the country and dispatching them to the equivalent of Democrat foster parents. Trump didn’t start this! Trump came up with an executive order to stop the separation. Anyway, this consultant wants us to believe that the Republicans were trucking along just fine and it looked like we’re gonna hold the House until that story hit.
And when that story hit, a bunch of people decided they hated Republicans and just couldn’t vote for them. I just don’t think it works that way! The second thing the consultant says is that Trump did so badly in Helsinki. He just botched the press conference with Putin so bad that he embarrassed everybody, and now a bunch of people that were gonna vote Republican simply aren’t, in House races, because Donald Trump was eaten for lunch by Vladimir Putin.
Now, tell me something honestly, folks. Do you believe people…? Would you change your vote in an upcoming House race where you live because of those two events? Give me a break. This is how Washington professional consultants think that people change their votes or decide to change their vote, vote for somebody else, based on the way the media covers an event. But then I’m reminded I was in California shortly after this faux, manufactured controversy of separating young children from their parents at the border came up. Remember, I told you about this.
One of my gulf buddies said, “Oh, those pictures look bad, Rush! It looks really bad for Trump.”
“What pictures? There weren’t any pictures.”
“Well, the media. The media is talking.”
I said, “You know it’s a bunch of BS!”
They said, “Yeah, Rush, but it looks really bad.”
“What do you mean, ‘It looks bad’?” I lost it with the guy. I didn’t lose it with him as much as I’m losing it with you telling you about it. I said, “You are falling for the exact ploy and trick the media is trying to get you to fall for. They’re trying to get you to abandon what you know to be truthful because of some of the images they are creating.”
“It looks bad, Rush, I gotta tell you.”
“Well, I — I can’t, Rush! I — I can’t defend separating…”
“Do you know what the rule has been? Do you know what the policy has been? Do you know it’s been going on for 25 years?”
“No, I didn’t know. I don’t care how long it’s been going on. I just can’t defend it, Rush.”
“How about trying? How about trying? How about trying? It doesn’t take much to defend it. You just tell people the media’s lying to ’em about it. That’s all you have to do! You just tell ’em, ‘The media is making it up. They’re exaggerating it. It’s not nearly as bad as they’re telling you.’ You know the media does that. Why are you falling for this?” I was really beside myself with frustration because this guy’s smart, but here he was falling for it.
He probably fell for the news about Helsinki, that Trump performed horribly in Helsinki.
But, anyway, so we have a story consultant, “Yeah, Republicans are looking great. They were looking really trying to do, really strong, and then at it last 30 days Trump has just blown it. Separating kids from their parents and that performance in Helsinki. So now people are falling for, “Yeah, I think it is possible Democrats will win the House, Rush? Yeah, I really think so! Oh, yeah, they may be. Maybe not by much, but they may win.” Really? I mean, they may one the House, but this isn’t gonna be the reason why. If the Democrats win House back, these reasons are not gonna be why.
Do I have time? Yeah. Let’s squeeze another call in here. Jason in Brooklyn. You’re next. It’s great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Greetings from the garden spot of the world, New York City and Brooklyn. How these consultants can actually think this when of the polls in 2016 were wrong every single time.
RUSH: Ok.
CALLER: And it’s disgusting. Bernie Sanders was supposed to lose Michigan by 25. He lost. (sic)
RUSH: Right.
RUSH: That’s true, yeah.
CALLER: So why these consultants class believe this? I mean, I have an idea.
RUSH: Well, tell me what it is.
CALLER: Because the consultants are part of the establishment. They’re part of the deep state. They’re part of the people who weren’t hired by Trump and their class. So they need to get back their power, so let’s promote the fact that Trump’s gonna lose, Congress is gonna lose, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
RUSH: I don’t think they ever want Trump to win. I don’t think they want the Republicans to win the midterms. Some of these people wanted the Republican Party to lose everything. That was the only way they could save the party was by losing everything. Remember that?
CALLER: That’s been going on for as long as you’ve been around, 30 years tomorrow.
RUSH: Well, Reagan, yeah.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Even before that, back in the eighties with Reagan.
CALLER: Yeah. And these people do not get the fact that polls are always oversampled Democratic. The polls… Don’t believe the social media because social media is a cesspool. Don’t believe the polls that you’re getting, don’t believe all these articles. Just vote in November and Republicans will win. Because let me tell you something. Trump is successful. He is! He’s continuing to be successful. That 4.1% GDP? That’s successful to me. Tax cuts? That’s successful to me.Keep going. That’s all I’m saying.
RUSH: Yeah. But don’t you know the media is saying, “It’s strange! Nobody knows why. But this is the first time in American history where a president with a booming economy will not benefit from it.”
CALLER: (laughing) Sure. Sure.
RUSH: And Barack Obama was the first president American history not to be hurt by a slagging economy.
CALLER: Yeah. Okay. Sure.
RUSH: The real question is: Are the Russians meddling in the economy?
RUSH: Marshall, North Carolina. This is Linda. Great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Dittos, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: I have a question for you and a comment about the wall, if I may.
RUSH: Sure. Go ahead.
CALLER: Okay, first of all, my comment about the election is I don’t believe Mr. Rosenstein at all. I believe that it was rigged. It was rigged by the Democrats, and it was rigged right from the very beginning with Bernie Sanders. He should have been the nominee. I think he would have gone a lot further than Hillary, and I wonder what it would have been like with Donald Trump versus Mr. Sanders. What do you think?
RUSH: Well, I don’t know. I think Bernie would have done better than Hillary.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah.
RUSH: It would have been close. But, look, Rosenstein was saying that the Russians didn’t affect the outcome of presidential race. He wasn’t talking about the Democrat primary. It may have been the Russians that rigged it against Crazy Bernie, but if they did, they were working with Hillary. Because with Hillary and the Democrat National Committee, it wasn’t so much rigging as it was a predetermined outcome. Hillary was gonna win that primary no matter what happened. They were gonna do that with superdelegates, and no matter how many election states that Bernie Sanders won, the superdelegates — enough of them — were gonna go for Hillary. It was a prearrangement. To say that the thing was actually rigged might give the wrong idea. It was literally like a prearranged marriage, you know, in another country.
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