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RUSH: Last night Trump offended everybody by showing up on the battleship USS Iowa standing in front of the three giant guns to make his speech at a rally. It bothered ’em that he dared show up on the Iowa. They thought he was gaming the system because of course the Iowa caucus, the Hawkeye Cauci, here’s Trump speaking on the US Iowa, which is a decommissioned battleship.

By the way, Trump sent out a tweet. You know, I don’t spend any time on Twitter so this was sent to me. I would have not known this had my brother not sent it to me. He sent me a screenshot of it and it’s way in the distance here. It’s a tweet from Trump, it says, “Rush, I’m in LA –” He’s looking at property to make a deal out there, and in parentheses, “– ‘creating lots of jobs.’ And I’m listening to you. You are truly fantastic. Thanks.” I can’t see what time the tweet went out. It’s up there. I’ve got it on a secondary monitor way in front of me there. I should have printed it so I have in front of me.

And then he mentioned me again in his remarks last night. This is just a portion. We have a number of cuts or sound bites. Here’s the first.

TRUMP: I took a tremendous hit when I brought up illegal immigration when I announced I was running for president. And for two weeks I said, “You know, Rush Limbaugh, who’s a great guy,” he said, “he has suffered more incoming,” meaning the press, “than anybody I’ve seen.” So what happened is you have now found out what illegal immigration is all about, and I am so happy that I’m the one that brought it to the fore, because, believe me, it’s a big problem. It is a big problem.

RUSH: Yeah, I don’t care what anybody says, he’s right about that. If he hadn’t brought this issue up, it would just be languishing there as a fait accompli that both parties support. The Republican Party would be trying to massage us with all kinds of policy wonkish kind of language to explain why we ought not be bothered. Their policy is exactly what we need, they would be telling us. But at the end of the day it would be agreeing with the Democrats, executive amnesty authored by Obama that we all sign on to under the premise that we can’t win without Hispanic votes.

If Trump had not brought this issue up the way that he has, nobody else would have. And the fact that he did bring it up and the way he’s dealing with it and what his opinions are and how he’s expressed them is exactly why he’s number one. We’ve spent a lot of talking about this the past three days so I want to avoid being redundant. But the disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country — and it’s not really a disconnect as I’ve explained. They know full well that we are upset and disagree and don’t want any part of their agenda. They know it.

It’s not that they’re unaware. They know full well they’re governing against the will of their voters or of the majority. And that’s where they’ve been caught here. Trump is the one who has enabled this issue to rise to the forefront and illustrate this great disconnect. But make no mistake about the elites or whatever you want to call ’em inside the Beltway. They are well aware of a vast majority of people opposing amnesty, comprehensive immigration reform, or whatever.


If it hadn’t been for Trump, then this would have been just another one of these issues where the insiders in Washington get their way, and there would have been added frustration, more anger, and people I think in greater numbers would have just left the political system and tuned out, not planning on voting, being totally frustrated once again. You add the Iran deal on top of that, it would have just been more frustration and anger aimed at Washington than we’ve seen in a long time. So he’s absolutely right that he single-handedly has given voice to the majority opinion on this issue. And, as such, that’s why he’s the target tonight.

Here’s the next bite from Trump last night aboard the USS Iowa.

TRUMP: I’m fighting some very nice people, even though I’m leading in the polls. But they’re very nice people. But they’re never going to do anything with these countries. They’re never gonna be able to do it. It’s an instinct. It’s something that’s special. They don’t have it. Believe me. They don’t have it. It’s just going to be more of the same. So, we are gonna make our country so great. We are going to make it strong. We are going to make it powerful. We’re gonna rebuild the military. We’re gonna make it so strong. We are going to take care of our veterans.

RUSH: Okay, this sound bite is a great example to illustrate something. This sound bite is something that the inside-the-Beltway crowd, the elites of both parties will point to and say, “See? I mean, anybody can go out and say that. We’re gonna be strong. I’m gonna rebuild our military. I’m gonna make it happen. I’m a great guy. I’m rich. I’m gonna rebuild the military and these guys aren’t gonna do a darn thing.”

They’re gonna say, “He didn’t say how. He doesn’t tell you how he’s gonna do it. He’s insulting everybody in the military right now. He’s telling everybody involved, from the president on down, they don’t know what they’re doing but he does, but he hasn’t told you how. So why are you applauding this? Anybody can get out there and say, ‘I’m gonna make America strong. I’m gonna make America great.'”

If I may be permitted, and I’m sure there are exceptions, but the simple fact is I don’t hear too many people talking about how to make America great again. To me that’s one of the problems. I’m not trying to be insulting to anybody. There are clear Republican candidates who do and have. I could list them. Cruz, Carson, Rubio, there are any number of them. But the people that we’re talking about that are diametrically, humongously opposed to Trump, they’re the ones that seem to have lost this ability to think of America as great, as unique, as exceptional, as a superpower.

It seems like this attitude that America’s days of greatness and stature are indeed over and the job now is to manage a new America in a New World, in this new position. And the American people don’t want any part of that. The American people don’t want to hear talk of decline. They don’t want to hear, even if it’s not directly talked about, they don’t want to hear anything that implies that America’s best days are behind us. So Trump coming along, his track record is not in government. His track record is in business. People can look at that track record and they can be confident, or they are confident that what he says, he’s gonna make America great again and rebuild the military, that he means it, and that he’s gonna do it.


Whether they’re right or wrong, I don’t know, I’m just trying to explain to people why this stuff does not disqualify Trump to people supporting him whereas it does with the people who don’t support him. You’ve got the policy wonks who want every statement,
“I’m gonna make America great, rebuild the military.” “Yeah, what’s the policy? How you gonna do it? How are you gonna make the Democrats go along with it?” They want all these kind of things answered. And to them, that’s politics as usual. I mean to Trump supporters that’s politics as usual, which is what Trump represents, not politics as usual. He doesn’t start out with constraints. He doesn’t start out with can’t do it this way, can’t do it that way. He starts out with the great, bold premise, which is the American way. It’s not a mystery to me why people support the guy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites, back to Trump. Let’s move on to number five. This is Anderson Cooper and this is a montage here. CNN last night — this is kind of funny. After promoting Trump’s speech all night they kept bumping out of Trump’s speech that he made on the USS Iowa ’cause he wasn’t providing specifics. “We’re going to take a brief break here from the Trump remarks. Still haven’t noticed any specifics here. We’re gonna come back after a commercial break and we’ll rejoin Mr. Trump and hopefully he’ll get to specifics.” Here’s the montage of how it sounded.

COOPER: We’ve been told there’d be some specifics tonight on foreign policy. Haven’t heard them so far. Listen more when we come back. We’ve been told to expect specifics on national security. So far we have not heard any. We’re gonna continue to monitor this. Kind of a standard stump speech. We will, if we do hear any specifics from Donald Trump, we’ll turn that around and bring those to you. Donald Trump has just finished talking, not offering the specifics on national security that we’ve been led to expect. Perhaps no surprise.

RUSH: (imitating Cooper) “Yeah, he lied to us. We’re sorry here at CNN. We covered this speech, we believed him. He said he was gonna do specifics on foreign policy, national security, we never got to ’em.” Anyway, they should have stayed with it promoting their debate tonight.

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