RUSH: “GOP Lawmaker Condemns Trump Over ‘Human Scum’ Comment — Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) criticized President Trump’s recent tweet calling ‘Never Trump’ Republicans ‘human scum.’ ‘To call anybody human scum is beneath the office of the presidency. You can’t say that, right? You’re the president. You have different standards,’ Kinzinger said in a CNN interview.”
Now, if the name sounds familiar, this guy’s a regular on CNN. He’s a Republican in the House, but he’s a regular on CNN throughout the Drive-By Media. Last month, for instance, he blasted Trump for merely retweeting a comment from a pastor that impeachment could lead to a Civil War-like fracture. Pastor tweeted that; Trump retweeted it. Adam Kinzinger: That’s beneath the president. He shouldn’t be retweeting things like that. He said that retweet was beyond repugnant.
Now, I think this is rich. See, in the normal ebb and flow of things, I can understand, “I wish he hadn’t said ‘scum.’” But, folks, these are not normal times. And I dare say that none of these people who are telling Trump how to act and trying to define standards of decorum for him, I doubt that any of them could tolerate over a week what he puts up with, maybe not even that long.
Donald Trump has been called a Nazi, a white supremacist, a racist. He has been accused of supporting white supremacists and Nazis — that’s that whole Charlottesville debacle — he has been called a traitor. And they have been serious about it! He’s been called a Russian agent. He has been accused of undermining the United States government. He has been called the worst personal things, insults that you can possibly imagine. And he, like every other Republican, is just supposed to sit there and take it.
The Never Trumper contingent of the Republican Party can make up any insult about Trump that they want, and the Drive-By Media happily echoes it. John Brennan and Hillary Clinton can run around and virtually say anything they want. Hillary Clinton can run around and talk about how Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein are Russian agents, and in the next breath they talk about her as qualified to run the Democrat Party’s presidential aspirations again. Tulsi Gabbard, Russian agent, Jill Stein Russian agent, yeah, she’s a Russian asset, Hillary says all of this and even crazier stuff, and they put her at the top of the Democrat field.
Look at what Trump has had to endure them saying about his kids. Now, I know that many of you are saying he should still be above it, Rush. In fact, I’m gonna share an email with you that I got. I’m gonna paraphrase it ’cause I didn’t print it out ’cause I didn’t intend to reference it. But the subject line the email, “Rush, when I hear you talking about Trump, it sounds like you identify with him.” It went on to describe how, over the course of doing the show, “we’re aware of how you’ve been insulted, but you never respond to any of it the way Trump does.”
I guess the point was that Trump should not respond the way he is. Well, it’s true. But I’ve had far different reasons. I’ve been handcuffed in how I can respond to this stuff, folks. I’m responsible for much more than just me here, and I have to take that into account. But the business about identifying with Trump, I’m not conscious of that, but as I stop and think about it, look at the things — you know, I’ve been accused of making fun of people that can’t walk.
I have been accused of being in favor of slavery with this little effort of mine to be a minor part of a team buying an NFL team. The Drive-By Media is running stuff unchecked, total lies made up, put up by Media Matters that I lament the loss of slavery, that slavery was better than ever for this country and it should come back. I never said anything of the sort. It was out there, it was being amplified, it was put in every newspaper, it was on every website.
I can’t remember all of the things because it’s been over 30 years, not just the racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe stuff, but the abject lies and misquotes about things that I have said. So I guess in a way it’s not that I can identify with Trump, but I know what it’s like. And I’m not the only conservative Republican who does. But I’ve wanted to respond — this is the conversation I’ve had with you about nobody knows the right way to respond, no matter what you do, somebody’s gonna think you’re doing it wrong.
If you respond at all, some say, “Big mistake, you’re just validating it. You’re showing them that it upsets you and they’re gonna come back for more.” Others say, “You can’t let that go without responding to it. You can’t let them call you a racist. You can’t let that set in. You’ve gotta respond.” These are all well-intentioned people. And no matter what you do, somebody thinks you’re doing it the wrong way. No matter how you deal with it, somebody thinks you could do it better or you shouldn’t do it at all.
So I do look at Trump maybe in ways that other people don’t. But I don’t think anybody out there can in any way relate personally to the literal attempts, I mean, real attempts to destroy everything about him, his life, personal, business, his presidency, and then before that his campaign. And what do you think somebody’s going to do when they are the subject of endless attacks like this?
And then you’ve got people in his own party who are out there for years advocating for the very things he’s implementing. They have devoted their lives, say, to the principles and benefits of tax cuts, trade deals and making corrections with the way we’ve dealt with China. Trump is doing all of this. And the very people who’ve made their livings advocating all this are now trying to destroy him.
I don’t blame him for being ticketing off. I also think that there’s something strategic about it. It’s like the other day when he used the word lynching to describe the way he’s being treated. It took this Bill Taylor store off the front page. It literally obliterated all of their grand plans on this Bill Taylor testimony because the media couldn’t help themselves. They had to go after Trump and what a reprobate he is for saying something that only happened to blacks. He can’t say it, it’s horrible.
Now he comes along and he’s calling his fellow Republicans scum, and the same thing’s happening. So I think there’s something real and genuine about it. There’s something also strategic about it. Now, we happen to have a sound bite on this. This is the woman that replaced Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham this morning on Fox & Friends. Brian Kilmeade said, “The president called the Never Trumpers ‘scum.’ Does he regret that?”
GRISHAM: No. No, he shouldn’t. The people who are against him and who have been against him and working against him since the day they took office are just that. It is horrible that people are working against a president who’s delivering results for this country and has been since day one. And the fact that people continue to try to negate anything that he’s doing and take away from the good work he’s doing on behalf of the American people, they deserve strong language like that.
RUSH: That’s Stephanie Grisham.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Jay in Santa Cruz, California. Great to have you, Jay. Hi.
CALLER: Rush, thank you for taking my call. I’m out here in a sea of liberals, and you’re my lifeline.
RUSH: I was gonna say, getting a call from Santa Cruz is rare enough, but a conservative in Santa Cruz is practically unheard of.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I mean, you gotta be invisible out there.
CALLER: I have no friends. I stay under the radar. Anyway, my question for you is I want to know what you think — I feel like Trump is brilliant. I feel like he’s playing three-dimensional chess. I voted for Trump, but I wasn’t enthused about him, and over the last three years I’ve learned to trust his tweets. I’ve learned to trust his instincts. He’s taught me about the deep state and the corruption. He’s taught me about the media and the left and the corruption. And I feel like I’ve been schooled for the last three years. And I’m wondering if there’s more people out there like me that are rook solid for Trump that weren’t necessarily three years ago.
RUSH: Let me ask you a question. When Trump calls people “scum,” do you go, “Ew, ew, I wish he hadn’t said that, oh, no,” and think about ending your support for him?
CALLER: No. I will admit there have been times when I have been overwhelmed by Trump’s approach or his language. However, within a few days I understand why he did it. Maybe it’s to expose the left. Maybe it’s to expose corruption. But I always feel like in the end I am absolutely fine trusting that man’s judgment to the grave.
RUSH: If you’re just patient, if you wade you through the immediate press panic after each one of these supposed outrages, is what you’re saying, wait two or three days, a week or whatever, and Trump makes it all clear to you, and you end up fine with it?
CALLER: I’ll tell you, I listened to mainstream media. I got a balance. I’ve listened to you off and on for 30 years. I never, ever watched Fox News. I became introduced to Fox News after Trump was elected because the corruption from the mainstream media, I don’t watch it anymore. I don’t even let my TV set be on that channel so that Nielsen’s not getting any credit for me being on that channel. You and Trump are all I listen to anymore.
RUSH: Well, you can’t go wrong.
CALLER: No. And I want to know, are there others like me that were nervous voting for him and have become rock solid like myself —
RUSH: Damn right there are. You’re never alone. Nobody in a country of 300 million is ever the only who thinks something. I guarantee you you have company in that sentiment. Look, it’s tough to quantify. All we have to go on is people like you telling stories, which is called anecdotal, meaning it’s not scientific. We don’t know how many people you speak for. We only know that you’re speaking for yourself.
So we next turn to polling data and that’s so all over the place, it’s so misused and has such ill intentions the way it’s used that it’s hard to know what and when various polls are accurate. But there have been a number of them this week that talk about your very phenomenon. And one of the polls, it was an internal poll that Ronna McDaniel released. She’s the head of the RNC. And it was from yesterday, maybe two days ago.
I’m gonna have to paraphrase this, but it was that 10% of people that didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 are now going to. And it’s voters that the Democrats think that they pretty much own. I just can’t remember whether it was independents or a certain classification of Democrats. And sadly I’m gonna have to go back to the email to find it and then print it because I throw away each piece of paper every day, so I don’t have it at the tip of my tongue here.
But it basically was there’s a group of people that weren’t crazy about Trump in 2016, didn’t vote for him who now are going to. And there’s a bunch of polling data out there. But I’m sure that the Democrats will be able to produce polling data of a whole bunch of Trump supporters in 2016 who can’t do it again, they’re fed up with things like Trump calling people scum, and they’re fed up with Russian collusion, and they’re fed up with people storming private Democrat meetings, this kind of polling data. ‘Cause whatever you want, there’s a poll out there that will make you think that you’re in the majority. You can do a lot of things with statistics.
This why we have to go through campaigns and wait for elections.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Norah in Charleston, South Carolina. Great to have you with us. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush! It’s an honor to talk to you.
RUSH: It’s great to have you here. You sound peppy and perky and up, and way to go.
CALLER: That’s me, peppy and perky. Hey, listen, I want to let Jay from Santa Clara know he is not alone. My husband was a Ted Cruz guy all the way, not a big Trump fan –
RUSH: What was it that turned you off of Ted Cruz? When you found out his dad was there at the JFK assassination?
CALLER: (laughing) No. I love Ted Cruz. But I just —
RUSH: I’m just kidding! It’s one of the most incredibly funny moments of the campaign to me. I didn’t mean to distract you. I know what your point is here. Please continue.
CALLER: No, I’m so nervous too, Rush. It’s just, you know, being on the air with you is like the best moment of my life. (laughing)
RUSH: Well, thank you very much for that. I appreciate that. I really do. I really do.
CALLER: So my husband, he wasn’t crazy about Trump, but he voted for him. But now, you know what, he would go through fire for that president, no joke. He is a huge Trump fan, Trump supporter. I think it was just a matter of getting to know him and getting to, like, you know, get used to him, and now that we’ve seen what he’s done for this country and how he’s just a fighter.
RUSH: Can I ask you a couple of quick questions about this?
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: I’m serious. I’m not trying to lead you to any — I want to know what you really think. So there’s no trick here. There’s no setup. I’m just genuinely curious. When Trump tweets out some stuff like this business of calling Never Trumpers scum, does your husband or do you cringe, does it make you less supportive?
CALLER: No. First of all, Twitter, I mean, you know, I don’t know. I really don’t get it, honestly.
RUSH: Well, no, but he did tweet it. I mean, he did —
CALLER: No, I know he tweeted it and it doesn’t bother me at all. I mean, I think that it’s about — I mean, that’s Donald Trump. And I don’t really get hung up on that and I actually love when the left gets all riled and like, “Oh, my God. He’s so unpresidential, it’s this, it’s that.”
RUSH: Okay. Here’s the thing – and again, nothing scientific about it. I can’t find anybody else who’s bothered by it either. But, now, I see people on TV. It seems to me that if you’re a conservative and you go on TV you almost feel obligated to, “Well, I wish he hadn’t said it, but –”
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: Instead of, “Come on, get off of it, look at what they call him.” And then there’s the crowd of people that say, “Rush, it doesn’t matter what he’s been called, and it doesn’t matter what other people, he’s president. There’s a certain decorum and standard that must be maintained, and he just isn’t doing it.” None of that affects you?
CALLER: Rush, no. Where’s the decorum and standard on the other side? My goodness. The things that these people say, the lies that they spew, people are sick of it and that’s why none of Trump tweets bother me in the least bit.
RUSH: See, that is the overriding thing for me. To a lot of people the Russia thing’s over and Trump won it, they didn’t find — it’s not over! And it is outrageous what it is and was and continues to be. And Trump could say anything, and it wouldn’t compare to what these people are attempting. They’re trying to discount a presidential election. They are attempting to reverse it because they don’t like who won it. They are challenging the Constitution and the very fabric of the country. Trump is building the country. He’s strengthening it, and he’s doing it for the people that make it work.
CALLER: He’s defending the Constitution —
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — by tweeting what he’s tweeting. Honestly, he’s defending the Constitution.
RUSH: But these people are not giving up in trying to turn people like you against him. So he comes out and he tweets that the Never Trumpers criticizing him are scum, or he tweets something else, or he says this, or the map where the hurricane was supposedly gonna hit Alabama that he supposedly made up. And they focus on this. And they’re hell-bent, they are hell-bent on convincing people like you to drop him. They’re hell-bent. They will not learn that you’re not going to.
CALLER: We’re not going to. And, you know what? As a matter of fact, they should actually take a look at how many Democrats have left and are voting for Trump, or secretly voting for Trump and too afraid to say that they support President Trump. Because it’s like when my dad, my dad was a Reagan Democrat, he was a Democrat when Reagan was elected, he was a delegate at the Carter — whatever the big hoopla thing that they do, he was one of the delegates. And he became a Reagan supporter and actually switched parties eventually and became a Republican. So how much of that is going on right now? That’s what I’m —
RUSH: Okay. Well, let me address that because that’s an interesting thing. If you listen to the Democrats, I mean, just literally listen to them, you would have to conclude that they literally believe that Trump’s support is vanishing and that all of these efforts of theirs are succeeding and that more and more people are becoming more and more embarrassed. But then if you dig deep, like the Drive-By Media is not doing stories about the Democrats in panic like I just did. The stories are out there but they’re ignoring them. They’re not using them.
They’re trying to create this picture where Trump is slowly losing everybody and is soon to be standing alone and it’s only a matter of time because they can’t deal in reality. Reality’s not on their side right now. So everything’s an illusion, everything’s an image that they’re trying to paint, make, or create to convince people like you to believe.
And I wonder, are they? You said they’re not aware of the number of Democrats that have defected for Trump or are planning on it, and I do wonder if they are even aware of it. I know them look the back of my hand, but there’s still certain things about them that are mysterious to me.
CALLER: Well, I think that if they were being honest with themselves they should be worried about it. You know, they really should be. I mean, if you break down the support for Trump like Hispanic, black, I mean, Trump’s unemployment —
RUSH: I don’t think they look at any of that. And I don’t think they get mad. I think their mind-set is one of entitlement. And what they are right now is livid at people like you. They are so mad they can’t see straight that people like you and everybody else don’t see the truth. They are so frustrated they can’t persuade you, they are so frustrated. They don’t think they should have to change an iota.
They think you ought to see how bad this guy is. They think you ought to realize how entitled they are to power. They think you should realize that this is their job, they’re entitled to it, and nobody else. And until you do, they’re not gonna be happy. And whatever they have to do to either persuade you or force you into voting the way they want you to, they’re willing to do.
I think these are dangerous times, and the fact that there are Republicans trying to help them, I cannot tell you how it frosts me. Look. I have to run. I’m glad, Norah, that you took the time to call.