RUSH: This is Julie in Topeka. It’s great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. I just have a question.

RUSH: Yes?

CALLER: At what point would you see…? I know Ben Carson wants it and I know Bush wants it and I know Kasich wants it, but by having so many people in there it allows Trump to carry that banner of, “I’m winning.” Is there some point that those others, the lower tier at this point, would say, “For the sake of the Republican Party and saving the country from Trump,” that they would throw in for, like, a Rubio or Cruz just so that he can’t carry that banner of winning and pull the whole party down?

RUSH: I want to thank you for asking the question. Because it’s a good question, and it reminds me of something else that I’m going to include in the answer that you didn’t specifically ask about but it’s related to it. The reason is there’s — and actually, there’s more than one. But the primary reason why none of the lower tier guys are getting out is because there’s only two primaries so far, New Hampshire and Iowa. Another reason is that, I’m here to tell you, from Reince Priebus on down, there’s still this belief that Trump is not real; that he’s either going to get defeated big time somewhere by somebody, or that he’s going to get out of the race.

They still cannot, have not accepted the fact that Trump is in this for real and forever all the way to win this. They’re hoping. So everybody is hanging in, hoping that they’re right, that Trump eventually is either taken out of the No. 1 slot — which would open it wide up — before they get out, or that he eventually quits. They all have donors, which have given them money. This is a third reason: The donors want to see some investment for the money they put in, particularly on the Jeb side of things.

Kasich thinks he’s got a shot at winning this thing because of what happened to him in New Hampshire. You can see it the way he’s campaigning. Rubio, because of the same thing, and his endorsement with Nikki Haley. He thinks he’s still alive. So there’s no way. What you say is, it would be really cool. Because the fact of the matter… Here’s her point. The point is when you look at these numbers, a full 65% of Republican voters oppose Donald Trump. But that 65 percent is split five ways. Trump’s there with his 30, 35%. And here come the others.

So the question is, “Why don’t some of these lower tier people like Carson and all just quit and throw their supporters to Cruz or Rubio?” Well, none of them have small enough egos to want to be team players yet. But let me tell you… Here’s the other thing, Julie, that I think every one of you… If you are Republican primary voter or if you are simply a Republican interested in all this and you’re going to vote in November, I think you better be well aware of this.

I don’t know this for a fact, but I will tell you what I really think: I think the establishment and the RNC (whoever they are) are even now, as we speak, conceiving various options and strategeries designed to thwart whoever wins the primaries. If it’s Trump, if it’s Cruz, I think that the establishment and the people that run the party are (as we speak) hatching plans to take over the convention and deny whoever wins the most delegates by virtue of the primaries, and throw it open to try to deny whoever wins this, Trump, Cruz, Rubio. Whoever.

If it’s Rubio, they’d probably go with him.

But I believe — and this is just intelligence guided by experience — these are not the kind of people that sit around and wait for things to happen and deal with a loss as though, “Ho, hum. We gave it our best shot; we lost.” These are people, in their minds, they run the party. They run the convention. This is their show. This is their business. It’s their party. And they’re not going to let this outsider, Trump, or Cruz get it. Believe me, they’ve got some plan or a series of plans — options — that they’re going to hatch if at all possible to throw this convention wide open, if somebody they don’t like wins these primaries.

We won’t know until it happens.

We will not know until that actually happens.

The theory is that the rules are such that a brokered convention is impossible, and that’s why we have the primary system. The brokered convention, it was fun, but once everybody banned smoking, there were no smoke-filled rooms, and the smoke-filled rooms where all the fun was. And since there aren’t any smoke-filled rooms, there’s no brokered conventions. But you watch. They’re just not going to sit there. If Trump won’t quit and if nobody’s going to beat him (and ditto Cruz), they’re just not going to sit there and let this happen. They’re going to try however, whichever, whatever. They’re going to have a last gasp if they don’t get what they want after all these primaries take place.

And that will happen at the convention.