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RUSH: I really missed our guys beating up on the media last night in the debate. Did you watch the debates last night? I really missed that. You know, some of the Drive-Bys are saying it was boring last night. Here, grab sound bites two and three. Let me illustrate for you. Here’s Charlie Rose leading off. This is the beginning of the CBS This Morning show just this morning.


ROSE: Welcome to CBS This Morning on this Veterans Day. The latest Republican presidential debate revealed sharp policy divisions among the candidates. Unlike their last primetime debate, they did not complain about the questions and the focus this morning is on their answers.

RUSH: Damn it. You could just hear, “Damn it,” in his voice. “Damn it, we wanted the focus to be anything but the issues. We wanted the focus to be anything but that.” What do you think, Mr. Snerdley, little pop quiz. No wrong answer. It’s an opinion. What do you think was one of the most revelatory not people, things, but issues last night, what was one of the most? I’ll tell you what it is, in fact, just to tell you I’m not — I think Cruz, this is another thing, you know, I feel like apologizing to you people for letting this go and not clarifying this because I just assume, I make too many assumptions here based on my belief in the awareness and intelligence of people. When Ted Cruz said, “You people are missing the point –” I’m paraphrasing here “I’m sick and tired of being called anti-immigrant. I’m not anti-immigrant. Do you people not understand, this is an economic issue. We are destroying people’s wages. We are importing low skilled, low educated people. We are hurting the economics of American citizens.”


Bingo. Cruz’s point was that he’s fed up with all these allegations anti this, anti that, anti-immigrant, when he’s pro-American. But the point that illegal immigration, it’s been right in front of my face, maybe it’s something you all realized long ago. I knew it, but I haven’t voiced this either. The people pushing, including Kasich — I’m thinking of doing a Kasich impersonation today, by the way. I did it for Snerdley and he says, “You gotta do this on the air.” I said, “I’m afraid if I start doing my Kasich impersonation on the air I may start uttering profanities and the broadcast engineer up there will have to bleep this and bleep that.” I don’t know, but I’m thinking about it.

You know Jeb and Kasich and all these other guys, they look at it as a civil rights issue, and the left looks at it as a civil rights issue. They almost look at it as a racial issue, and it’s not. To me it’s never been a civil rights issue. But to them it is. These are the poor of the world and they’re people of color, and they are coming here wanting to improve their lives, and who are we to say no? So for them they think it’s an act of compassion to welcome them in, and if we disagree with ignoring the law, then we are called racists, and it’s not about that at all. It’s about sustaining the US economy, the job market, the wage base, all these kind of things.


Anyway, the subject of immigration of course was the big subject last night, and in fact Jeb even woke up during that. Just to show you how much he cares about this, he came alive. But I thought one of the most telling lines when they’re discussing all this, Jeb says (paraphrasing), “You know, you talk about deporting people, 11 million, 12 million people, you realize they’re doing handstands and applauding over at the Clinton campaign?” And Trump comes in, “You ever heard of Ike? I like Ike, Dwight Eisenhower, Ike, I like Ike, we like Ike, everybody likes Ike. You know what Ike did? He got rid of million and a half of ’em, he deported them, what do you mean it can’t be done?” Of course the other two guys. Ba ba-da ba-da ba-da, Bruce Babbitt routine trying to respond to it.

Here’s what Cruz said. “When the mainstream media covers immigration it doesn’t see it as an economic issue, but I can tell you for millions of Americans at home watching this it’s a very personal economic issue.” He’s exactly right. And this is something, again, I’m feeling a little embarrassed having not voiced this myself, yet I think it, feel it, it’s the primary aspect of this issue. It’s an economics issue, it’s legal and economics. There’s no civil rights here. There’s no compassion here. It’s not racist at all. The way the left looks at this is why it’s so destructive. We’re supposed to tear down our country. We’re supposed to wreck our economy. For compassion?

Anyway, Cruz said (paraphrasing), “I will say the politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande.” At first the crowd didn’t get it. You could hear some rumbling and a little bzz bzz bzz bzz, but then when Cruz said, “Or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the media, then you would see an entirely different take on this issue from the Drive-By Media.” He’s exactly right and made the point extremely well. But I think the most fiery moment last night came when the candidates talked about Trump’s plan to deport illegal aliens. It matters so much Jeb came alive. And Trump was entirely correct to point out the history, what Eisenhower did. And I don’t think Trump went far enough, actually. In reality, Harry Truman, another Democrat president, deported illegal aliens, over 3.4 million. Did you know that?

You did not know about Harry Truman? Well, then I’m happy to be able to inform you. Harry Truman deported illegal aliens, 3.4 million of ’em. You add that to the 2.1 million Ike deported or who left on their own at the time, nearly six million illegal aliens were deported or left voluntarily under those two highly beloved presidents. The country didn’t fall apart and we didn’t become a bunch of racists overnight. We didn’t lose our compassion. We didn’t lose our big hearts. And again I remind you, there wasn’t any immigration. The reason why these deportations, ’cause there wasn’t any immigration from like 1924 to 1965. And in those years is when Eisenhower and Truman served. I mean, there was illegal immigration, got rid of ’em. I know that sounds harsh. We deported them. They were breaking the law.

And at the time, of course the Truman and Eisenhower were in the midst of a postwar, particularly with Eisenhower, postwar economic boom, and there was no way we were gonna dilute it and water it down by allowing people to break the law and come into the country. And here’s Kasich and Bush, “You can’t do that. You can’t break up these families. You can’t set people apart,” and so forth and so on. Like so many other things in history, we did, and we can. But overall, folks, the Drive-Bys are not happy because the issues were on the plate.

Here’s F. Chuck Todd on the Today show today with Willie Geist. Question: “Not a ton of fireworks in the debate last night, Chuck, but there was something radical: policy.” See? Conservatives discussing policy is radical. Yes, you see how this works? “They talked about taxes, Chuck. They talked about spending. They talked about immigration. Radical stuff, Chuck. Who did that benefit the most, do you think, Chuck?”

TODD: I think it hurt the two front-runners because I think Donald Trump and Ben Carson both struggled when it came into some policy details. Marco Rubio, he never got challenged at all. He got to sort of stay on script; totally ducked the immigration issue. I don’t think we’re gonna remember this debate in two days.


RUSH: No, we’re not gonna. You know why? Because there were no fireworks, because the media didn’t go after and try to destroy these guys. That’s why it was boring. “Ah, it was boring. Nobody’s gonna remember it.” F. Chuck and the boys hate this. You see, the purpose of a Republican debate is for the Drive-By Media to make ’em look bad. The objective of the Drive-By Media is to take ’em out. The objective of the media in every Republican debate is to get rid of at least one of the candidates, and last night not one of the candidates was gotten rid of.

In fact, a lot of the candidates either held steady or might have shored up their position, not that it’s gonna matter much in the end. And everybody’s misunderstanding Trump on this. Before Trump, Cruz was awesome last night, and postdebate polling shows Marco awesome last night. Carly was good last night but the problem with Carly is we won’t hear from her again until the next debate. What’s she’s doing with these…? You know, she’s getting rave reviews on these debates. Trump said, “Would you make her stop interrupting? She’s just interrupting.”

Trump gets booed for that, privately applauded and so forth. And one of my favorite… I’m sorry, folks, but one of my favorite moments was Trump saying, “Come on, let’s let Jeb talk, okay? Can we let Jeb talk?” Do you realize how cold that…? I mean, folks, that was brutal. That was brutal in so many ways. And then added to it later on, Jeb thanked Trump for letting him speak, trying to be jocular about it. But no, these guys in the Drive-Bys are upset because there weren’t any fireworks. Discussion of Republican issues was boring, radical, nothing to see, nothing to do.


The problem is, the media didn’t make a name for themselves. The media stayed out of the way. Even when the barn-burner arguments got started, the media kind of backed out for a while until they had to start ringing that infernal chime, whatever it was, to denote the time limit had been reached. Ben Carson opened up much more energetic than he had been. Everybody says he’s got the best close of the night, closing remarks. Consensus opinion from all the analysts was that Carson’s close was the best.

The thing about Trump is that the Drive-Bys are saying, “You know, Trump’s quiet. We don’t hear from Trump much. He doesn’t say much in these debates. He’s not nearly as fiery,” and that’s not true. Trump… There’s a theory. No, it’s not a theory. It’s an adage, and it is applicable to a lot of things. You cannot be hurt by what you don’t say. By the same token, a music radio station cannot be hurt by a song it doesn’t play, or record it doesn’t play. The way a radio station gets hurt is people tune out.

They hear a song, “Ooh, I don’t like that song,” hit the button, change stations, and start listening to something else. But if you don’t play a song that people don’t like, that won’t happen to you. So it’s same thing with words. You cannot be hurt by something you don’t say, unless… Look, there’s exceptions. Unless you are setup, like Romney. Romney was hurt by something he didn’t say, in a debate with Obama over Benghazi. He was set up with a hanging curveball, and they decided not to go there because they thought they were cleaning up and they were gonna be nice guys and be above the fray.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Carol Costello on CNN this morning talk about her impressions of the debate last night.

COSTELLO: What was the mood like in that room? Because it appeared to me the moderators didn’t ask very challenging questions. (snickers)

DANA BASH: Well, I think, you know, obviously that depends on — on who you’re talking about.

RUSH: What kind of…? “Well… that depends on — on who you’re talking about.” She’s trying to be nice to Carol. “[T]he moderators didn’t ask very challenging questions,” ’cause Carol doesn’t know anything outside the liberal bubble. There wasn’t anything about racism, gay marriage, transgender issues, lesbian, gay, bisexual. There wasn’t anything about legalization of marijuana. So to her, it must have been a debate that took place in a foreign language. “What do you mean, tax cuts? What are those? Tax cuts? You mean, for the rich guys? Who’s for that? Spending? Oh, don’t get serious!” This kind of stuff is foreign to her, so it was boring.

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