RUSH: Let’s grab Douglas on line 4, San Diego. Douglas, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Well, thanks. It’s wonderful to be here. Of course, I often… I listen to your show. For the most part, I enjoy it, and I’ve often thought of, you know, topics I’d like to tell you about. The one I want to pick today is I want to advance the point, basically stated, that Republicans can do better than Trump. I don’t think… I’m not a Never Trumper. Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol are Never Trumpers. I’m just a nobody. But I —
RUSH: You’re not a nobody because you’re appearing on this program.
CALLER: Well, what I want you to understand —
RUSH: You are Douglas on the EIB Network. You have escaped the bonds of Nobodyness.
CALLER: I’m very grateful for that —
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: — and it’s a wonderful opportunity and I hope I make the most of it. What I want to say though, is —
RUSH: Okay. You think we can do better. Who can we do better with?
CALLER: I’m sorry?
RUSH: You said that we can do better than Trump, “Republicans can do better than Trump,” and so I’m asking: Who do you have in mind?
CALLER: (unintelligible) …Trump Derangement Syndrome, and that will allow any normal Republican to get elected in 2020. Republicans can nominate a young, potentially two-term president, one that believes in fiscal conservatism. We’re gonna have… In 2019, there’s gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn’t really care about that. He’s not really a fiscal conservative. We have to acknowledge that Trump has been cruelly used.
RUSH: Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.
CALLER: That’s a difficult one. That’s a difficult one. And you’re right, that is true, that Republicans in Congress love spending taxpayer money almost as much as Democrats do. But it’s not just fiscal conservatism. You can get other characteristics. And the point is, you need to acknowledge that what has happened to Trump would try lesser men. It’s not fair, but that doesn’t mean that we owe him a reelection.
RUSH: I understand it. Look, I want to move forward. Time is limited here; so I want to… So you think any, quote-unquote, “normal” Republican could win now because the Democrats have gone so wacko left extreme. So the thing we should do is find a normal Republican to win, and they can win simply because the Democrats are so objectionable?
CALLER: That’s correct. In Michigan, in the 2016 elections, Trump didn’t win because he got a bunch of votes from people. A bunch of people left their presidential ballots empty because they didn’t want Hillary Clinton. So I think the people that you would gain by nominating a normal Republican are greater than the people you would lose that are, you know, Trump supporters.
RUSH: Okay. Give me the name, then.
CALLER: (crosstalk)
RUSH: Give me some names of “normal” Republicans. I’m not trying to put you on the spot! You’re the guy with the opinion. I just want to know some names that you’re thinking about here. Remember, this is your come-out moment. You’re coming from nobody to somebody here.
CALLER: Well, um… (pause) You know, I — I — (sputters) That’s not my place to do. Uh, I don’t know —
RUSH: Aw, come on, Douglas!
CALLER: No. I’m not working for any candidate, and, um, it would be, I think, a very Trumpy thing for Trump. You know, imagine if Trump somehow had, you know, God forbid, you know, some illness or something that he decided precluded him from running again and he decided, “You know, my fellow Americans, I thank you for this great honor, but, you know, I can’t be your president again and…”
RUSH: I just want to tell you something, Douglas. I appreciate you calling, and I think I understand where you’re coming from. You’re in the group of people that think all this negative media coverage of Trump is bleeding over and hurting everybody. But I’m gonna tell you something. There were 16 normal Republicans that sought the nomination in 2016. Not a single one of them came close to winning the nomination — and if one of them had, there’s not a single one of them who would have beaten Hillary Clinton. You gotta think about that. It’s all well and good to think we need a normal Republican, but then you can’t give me a name because you haven’t taken this that far for some reason.
You’ve got to give me a name or you go back to nobody status!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Mark in Ottumwa, Iowa. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, old friend. I finally get to talk to you.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you made it.
CALLER: Yes. I miss the days when you used to nuke the whales. Remember that?
RUSH: We didn’t nuke the whales. That was the animal rights update theme with Andy Williams. We had bombs and guns and explosions going off in the jungle. That’s what it was.
CALLER: Yes. I was a Democrat and I still agreed with you.
RUSH: Are you a Democrat still today?
CALLER: No, sir, I am not.
RUSH: Friday, see if you can find Born Free by Andy Williams, the environmentalist wacko theme from the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites. If you can’t find it in a hurry, no big deal, but let me know if you do. Anyway, you have metamorphized now, you’ve moved from Democrat to Republican. Why?
CALLER: The ridiculous policies, the ridiculous mind manipulation, the choice of words to intentionally twist the intention. It’s all preprogrammed, and if you pay attention you can see right through it all.
RUSH: Do you think it is driving other people away, or is it succeeding?
CALLER: I’m not sure because I live in a fairly liberal community, and the people there are all hypnotized by Oprah, and they don’t understand —
RUSH: Are you telling me that Oprah owns Ottumwa?
CALLER: No, not Ottumwa. She owns Fairfield, which is where I’m actually from.
RUSH: Oh, I see.
CALLER: Your screener asked where I was calling from.
RUSH: You’re in Iowa. Fairfield what? Fairfield, Iowa? Fairfield, Connecticut?
CALLER: Fairfield, Iowa. Fairfield, Iowa.
RUSH: Fairfield, Iowa. Okay.
CALLER: Yes. So you had an earlier caller that suggested a, quote, unquote, normal Republican run, but he had no offer of candidate. I submit to you Lindsey Graham. Not that I’m advocating that anyone run against Trump, but if you were to choose one, I believe Lindsey Graham has the qualifications.
RUSH: You think Lindsey Graham. I knew this was gonna happen, we would have some people responding with names. What we had, if you missed it, folks, a few minutes ago a guy called and said Rush — he’s a Republican — we can do better than Trump. The Democrats are so damaged we could win with a normal Republican. That was his phraseology. So I said, “Give me a name, normal Republican.” He said, “I can’t give you a name, any of them would be fine.” So I knew we’d be getting calls of people wanting to offer names. You think Lindsey Graham could be elected president. Why?
CALLER: Yes, sir. Well, number one, when he thought Trump was colluding with Russia, he hated him. But once he found out —
RUSH: No.
CALLER: — that it was all a lie —
RUSH: No.
CALLER: — he got right in the camp.
RUSH: Sorry. This is one of the problems of being a powerful, influential person. You know things.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I know Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham is a friend of mine. I have played golf with Senator Graham.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I have dined with Senator Graham. Senator Graham — and anybody will tell you — Senator Graham did the 180 after the John McCain funeral.
CALLER: Okay. Okay. He’s also very articulate. He appears to have the same conservative views. He’s strong on Iran. He’s strong on North Korea. He believes our economy is flourishing —
RUSH: You’re describing somebody — what’s fascinating about it, you’re describing somebody who is a dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter, is what you’re doing. That’s who Senator Graham has become. Yeah, he’ll have his moments where he steps off, like yesterday, Sunday, when he was on TV. He kind of distanced himself just a little bit from Trump with his tweets on The Squad and said, “Don’t go after them personally. Go after their policies. Go after their socialism and communism.”
Did Trump really go after them personally? See, I don’t think he did. It isn’t personal to say: If you don’t like it here, then go back to your native countries and fix ’em and then come back and show us how you did it. What’s personal about that? Trump did not use any racial or racist language. He did not personally insult any of these women. He just categorized them for what they are. They don’t like America. They hate America. And he asked ’em if it’s such a rotten place, why don’t you leave? But he didn’t say don’t come back. He said leave, go fix the places you left because they were so rotten and then come back here and tell us how to do it.
So I don’t even think it was personal. There was such an immediate reaction to Trump’s tweets, and I was studying the reaction, happened over the weekend and I was immersed all Sunday afternoon in show prep. So I was in the thick of this. And I was trying to find as many reactions to this from the Trump support side as I could, and there were a couple of noteworthy — one was on Power Line, I forget where the other one I found was.
But one was called: The Greatest Unforced Error of Trump’s Presidency, this kind of stuff, it’s self-defeating. He didn’t need — I said, well, what here did he say that crossed the line? What here did he say that was the unforced error? And I think it was two things. There is or was a belief that the Democrats were in the middle of a giant, divisive war, and they were, and they still are. Make no mistake about it.
Nancy Pelosi is being challenged every day by The Squad. And they’re accusing Pelosi of being a racist to the point Trump had to defend her. Cortez is running around saying that Pelosi’s attacking women of color and so Pelosi got a small, little dose of what it’s like to be a Republican every day. I gather one of the reasons for concern was that everybody thought the Democrats were shooting themselves in the foot, and Trump comes along and attacks these Squad members, and that allowed Democrats to unify, and that became self-defeating for Trump.
As you know, I look at it another way. I think Trump is in his own way rehashing his 2016 campaign. I think what we’re in the middle of today is exactly where we were in the immediate aftermath of Trump coming down the escalator in June of 2015. I mean, some subject matter differences, but people are reacting to Trump today exactly as they did the day he came down the escalator.
I mean the calls back then were, “You can’t win. This is an embarrassment. Get out of the race. You’re not serious.” That’s been replaced by, “You’re a scumbag, you’re a racist, you’re a pick, you need to resign, you need to be impeached.” But it’s the same stuff. The other reaction to it was that telling them to leave, I think, caused some people, “Oh, my God. That’s so over the top. Oh, there’s no coming back. Oh, my God. Unforced error. Oh, my God. Telling them to leave, oh, that’s a horrible thing, oh no.”
And again the fear was that it was unifying the Democrats. Maybe, but I also think it’s identifying them. I think it’s linking these Squad people with the whole party, which I think is a brilliant tactic. I also think, folks, that this is gonna have really – well, I am such a powerful, influential member of the media that certain things I say will be heard and reacted to by the opposition. And in saying something here, I could end up helping them, which I don’t want to do. So that’s sometimes why I draw myself back and don’t go full-throated.
But let me just go ahead and say it since I teased it. I actually think all of this is gonna end up hurting Bite Me as well, which I think is one of the objectives of the Trump campaign, because I believe that there is a theory that Biden would be the toughest to beat. Not because of his link to Obama, and not because of Biden himself posing some great threat. It’s just that he’s normal compared to the rest of these people running for office and the rest of the Democrat Party, and there is a belief within the Republican hierarchy that the Democratic Party is not this radical left party yet.
They get all the attention, they get all the news, but that the bulk of the voters of the Democrat Party is not madcap, extreme, radical leftist, that they’re more in line with Biden, which equals Obama, and Biden’s trying to facilitate that. So this could end up doing damage to Biden by associating him with it, making he come out and defend it. Anything that can radicalize Biden is also viewed as a positive by the Trump campaign. I just think there’s so much more going on here than what you get in the daily, hourly, surface treatment of this by the Drive-By Media.
I think there’s much more going on here. I don’t believe that this was an unforced error. I don’t believe it was an embarrassment. I don’t think it was insulting. I don’t think it was any of this. Telling these people that if they don’t like it here to leave? That’s been a time-honored, American saying, bumper sticker, attitude for as long as I can remember. I think the Democrat Party’s famous for this. They all promise to leave if Trump won the election or Bush won the election — and Trump and Bush won, and they never leave. They’re the ones always threatening to, always promising to, but they never do, do they?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We may have the savior. Yes, we had the call from Iowa. Remember that guy? (summarized exchange) “We need a normal Republican, a normal Republican to run, because the Democrats are so radical, any normal Republican could win. Now, we don’t owe Trump anything!” I said, “Well, give me a name.” (impression) “I — I — I — I don’t know any names.” I said, “Well, then your quest to become somebody has failed, because if you’re not gonna give me a name here…”
Well, we have a name! A Republican has thrown hit hat into the ring. It happened on CNN right now earlier this afternoon. The hostette, Brianna Keilar, was asking a member of Congress — a Republican from South Carolina — about his possibility of running for president. “So you’re considering a primary run against a sitting president. Tell us why, Mark Sanford.”
SANFORD: There is little to no — I guess I’d say no — discussion of debt, deficit, and government spending in Washington these days. I’ve watched two Democratic presidential debates, and there’s been zero discussion on both of them as to this issue. The president said we’re not gonna touch the very things that drive debt and spending. So I think that we’re walking away into one heck of a financial storm, and there’s no discussion. I was just sitting on set and listening to people discussing both sides of the president’s comments. I think that they’re noxious and they’re weird and they’re all those different things that people are discussing. But there is, again, plenty of discussion on that front. The place where there’s no discussion is the way in which interest is the largest growing expense in the federal government!
RUSH: Well, there you have it. I mean, how can you stop this guy? Mark Sanford: “Everybody’s talking about how weird Trump is, but nobody’s talking about the interest and how interest on the debt is the largest growing expense of the federal government.” (interruption) “The” Mark Sanford, yes. “The” Mark Sanford! (laughing) How many years have people tried to scare everybody about at the deficit? How many years, how many decades have politicians tried to scare us about the deficit, the national debt, (Sen. Jim Sasser pronunciation) “the dafycit,” any number of things? Yet here we’re still here, and the great jaws of the deficit have not bitten off our heads and chewed them up and spit them out.
“Well, it’s coming, Rush.”
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