RUSH: This is Katie in Costa Mesa, California. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega dittos, and I just wanted to tell you, I’ve been listening to you — I’m 45 years old, and my mom used to listen to you, so it’s been 30 years now, and I’m just praying so hard for you and hoping for a recovery and sending you love and life.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

CALLER: Absolutely. What I wanted to say is I did not grow up in California, but I grew up in Nebraska and I’ve lived here now for 20 years. And on Saturday I was signing a recall for Governor Newsom at a Target parking lot and was verbally attacked and called a racist by a Biden supporter and her young daughter, and to the point where it got so bad I had to call the police. It was horrible, and my children saw it.

But the very next day I took my kids with no more fear to go down to Newport Beach, and they saw the president two times. And for hours I stood with my sister and her two children, and we showed them the difference between two days. And my question to you is because of that, it gave me a little hope. I am nervous, but is it time for me to cut bait from this state?

Because I was ready to vote for Donald Trump the minute he came down the escalator, and that is because I saw the difference in the states in this country and how this one is ran. And it’s been ran into the ground, which was why I was signing the recall. But let me ask you this. Do you think, if I have hope for my children, do I need to leave California?

RUSH: See, these are deeply personal questions, and I don’t have nearly the information about your life there that I would need to make an honest assessment. If you’re getting beat up in parking lots simply for attempting to engage in the political process, then that, of course, is not good. I think the economic circumstances in California — I love California. I would no more move there right now. And I can afford it. I could afford —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — to pay their exorbitant tax rate. I just refuse to do it. I have a lot of friends in California that I would love spending time with. But I’m not gonna do it. I’m just not. I’m not gonna go there. I’m not gonna make myself a target of the state government, either for taxes or financially or otherwise. And in a way, it breaks my heart that I’m making decisions like this based on politics.

But that state’s become so politically unfriendly to people like me that I ask myself, you know, visiting, staying in a hotel, hiding out, that’s one thing. But actually living there, moving there, going on the tax rolls and so forth and becoming an enemy of the state because I’m a Republican, I don’t know. It’s not something that I want to do.

But telling you to pack up and leave, that is a tough thing. I don’t know what your financial circumstances are. I don’t know how big a burden moving would be. I’m not trying to cop out. I’m actually trying to be responsible. My instinctive answer is to get the hell out. But I can’t say that in good faith ’cause I don’t know enough.