RUSH: Here it is. Missouri’s been called, Trump at 40.7% of the vote, Ted Cruz at 40.5. It’s about 2,000 votes. Kasich at 10.1% of the vote, Rubio at 6.2 and all the others at two and a half percent. That’s so close there might be a recount now, but it’s a 2,000 vote different. And here’s the delegate assignations.
Trump gets 25 delegates in Missouri; Cruz gets 15. There are 12 delegates unallocated, pending further results. ‘Cause some of these were congressional delegates that are apportioned, who won the district, district delegates. Kasich and Rubio are not expected to win any delegates in Missouri, so it’s gonna be Trump 25, Cruz 15, plus whoever gets 12.
Here’s Lindsey Graham moments ago on CNN. Dana Bash was talking to him, said, “Senator, you have some news.” And he does. I guess he called CNN, he had the news. And here’s the news.

GRAHAM: I’m gonna be doing a fundraiser with and for Senator Cruz. I think he’s the best alternative to Donald Trump. John Kasich, I think, is the most viable general election candidate. I just don’t see how John gets through the primary.

RUSH: Oh, come on.

GRAHAM: This is an outsider year, he’s seen as an insider, so I think the best alternative to Donald Trump to stop him from getting to 1,237 is Ted Cruz.

RUSH: You might as well have not — I don’t understand that. Are you kidding me? “I’m gonna be doing a fundraiser with Senator Cruz. I think he’s the best alternative to Donald Trump.” Stop! End of sound bite. But no. “John Kasich I think is the most viable general election candidate.” I’m speechless! Kasich has won one state and the confetti.

Look, I warned you people, I warned you yesterday this is gonna be exactly what happened, ’cause I saw that headline on Tuesday right at noon when this program started. “The Fate of the GOP Hangs on Ohio.” You know what this is? I like Senator Graham. He’s affectionately known here as Senator Grahamnesty. But you know what this sounds like? “Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna get behind Cruz, it’s our only real hope. I really want Kasich, but I’m gonna get behind Cruz. Kasich’s the guy, but I gotta get behind Cruz.” And the reason for that is, “Hey, my fellow senators, don’t hate me here, I have to do this. We know, everybody knows we hate Cruz but we gotta get behind him.” So throwing in with Kasich. I’m gonna go do a fundraiser here for the guy that we think can stop Trump so that we can put Kasich in there. Is that what this means?

I’m not trying to start any trouble. What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything here. I’m analyzing it. Play the sound bite again. Sound bite number 21, in case you’ve thrown it away. Grab it back out of the trash. And here it is again.

GRAHAM: I’m gonna be doing a fundraiser with and for Senator Cruz. I think he’s the best alternative to Donald Trump. John Kasich, I think, is the most viable general election candidate. I just don’t see how John gets through the primary. This is an outsider year, he’s seen as an insider, so I think the best alternative to Donald Trump to stop him from getting to 1,237 is Ted Cruz.

RUSH: He’s won one state. I feel like going to commercial break or I’m gonna start saying things that we don’t have enough of a delay to handle. I’ll just laugh about it. He’s won one state. He doesn’t even have — what is his delegate count? Is it a hundred some odd? He’s got 143 delegates, okay? You need 1,230. He’s not going to win another state. “Oh, don’t be so sure, Rush. I mean, he could win Michigan.” Wait, they already had Michigan. “Oh, that’s right. The Rust Belt state, could win Buffalo.” No, that’s a city. “Could win Pennsylvania.” It isn’t gonna happen.

“John Kasich, I think, is the most viable general election –” how can you say that about a guy that’s won one state? Why wasn’t anybody talking about Kasich as the viable, most viable general election candidate two weeks ago, two months ago? All of this last-minute love for John Kasich, where has it been all of these past months? “Well, Rush, don’t forget they were with Jeb, and then they went with Marco.” I know. They didn’t go with Kasich. They had every opportunity to go with Kasich.

“I’m gonna go out there to fundraise for Cruz to stop Trump, but I think Kasich’s the guy.” Because of the animosity for Cruz — I know what’s going on here. Because of the animosity for Cruz in the Senate, Republican senate, he’s got to qualify his support for Cruz. He cannot have anybody think he’s all in or they’re gonna think he’s a sellout, so he can’t have that. So he’s gotta throw a bone to the confetti guy. John Kasich needs an additional 1,094 delegates to reach the magic number. You know what? I tell you what we’re gonna do: RushLimbaugh.com Kasich Countdown. Koko, I want you to set this up. Get the graphics department up there, get it ready, Kasich to the nomination countdown. Put the magic number up there — which is 1,094 — and as each of these primaries go by, we’re gonna be counting how many confetti ceremonies there are as well as delegates won.

This is the establishment thinking here, John Kasich is the best alternative to Donald Trump. No, John Kasich is the most viable general election candidate. I know the Cruz people are gonna get mad at me for this. Folks, we’re not gonna be doing anything but recording failure here. Somebody tell me what state’s Kasich gonna win? What’s the next round of states? Kasich thinks he can win California. Kasich win California. Okay. What other states? How about New York? How about New York? How about New Jersey? How about New Jersey? Okay. How about Washington? State of Washington. How about Utah? Mitt Romney’s in the camp. How about Utah?

All I’ll you, all of this is sabotaging Cruz. Well, because you’re divvying up the anti-Trump vote and you’re out here now promoting it. While you’re fundraising for Cruz you’re out there telling everybody that you think Kasich is the most viable general elect –. I don’t think that’s gonna shift some votes to the guy somewhere in some of these states? Meanwhile, the Cruz people, they have been waiting and waiting for this moment when they thought, hoping it would be one on one where they could offer the ultimate contrast. I know they were hoping for the debate. I know a lot of people down on Trump for pulling out of the debate, but, look, he’s the front-runner, folks.

This is the way these things work. Incumbent candidates, particularly presidents, one debate, I mean, very rarely do you do two, and that’s only if you are in trouble. There is no way an incumbent can win in a debate. Let me tell you, an incumbent, just the way the optics work, here you have the incumbent president, whoever he is, say it’s Obama, Obama won’t work ’cause — well, let’s say it’s Obama and it’s 2012. But he didn’t have an opponent. Okay, let’s use Obama, forget primaries and do general. Obama and Romney.

Now, there were three debates in that circumstance. And the reason for that is that there was a lot of concern that Obama was in deep trouble, and the second reason they did it is they thought they could smoke Romney, they had Romney on Obamacare and all that. But the reason that incumbents don’t like to do it is here you are the incumbent, you’re the most powerful person in the world, and you’re gonna share the stage with a pretender, with somebody who wants it, you automatically validate them by simply having them on the stage with you. I guarantee you the way Trump thinks, no way, he’s not gonna do that. And once Trump pulled out, Kasich pulled out because Kasich does not want to rip into Trump, because Kasich is probably hoping he’s got some leverage here by the time we get to convention to get something if there’s a Trump administration.

So that means the only one left is Cruz. And Fox canceled the debate. Cruz people should have been hey, hey, let’s tonight do the debate, and you bring in anybody you want to ask me questions. You put other media people up there occupying Trump’s chair and put another media person up there occupying Kasich’s chair, and let’s have the debate, and you ask me anything you want. Have somebody pretend to be Trump or what have you.

I know that this is one of the things that they were really, really counting on is the end of the division of the anti-Trump vote. Really wanted to see if it would coalesce around Cruz, because here’s the thinking. It’s pie-in-the-sky thinking, but the pie-in-the-sky thinking is, the Cruz camp, they could win every remaining primary simply because there are more anti-Trump voters than there are pro-Trump. Trump hasn’t got 50% anywhere yet. I know, shake your head. I’m telling you what’s the thinking.

What’s erroneous in the thinking is the — and I don’t know if it was really assumed; it was hoped. But even in some of the anti-Trump vote, once say Rubio’s gone, some of Rubio’s people will go to Trump, not automatically all go to Cruz. So the assumption that everybody not voting Trump would continue to not vote Trump and that all the anti-Trump vote would then go to Cruz, that was the hope, that was I guarantee you some of the strategy. And if it were to happen, then Cruz would win out, if that were to happen, or come close to it. And this was something I know they were desperately, desperately hoping for. And they still are even though the debate has been canceled.

But then there are other factors that you have to look at same time, and that is, is there any indication, I mean if the voters would go to Cruz once Rubio and others get out, why haven’t they gone to Cruz yet? I mean, it’s not as though people don’t know what’s going on here. If you want to beat Trump, why vote for somebody continually you know doesn’t have a prayer, like Kasich or Rubio, that you know wasn’t gonna win this thing. But people did continue rather than vote for any other Republican, Cruz in this case. It was always gonna be a long shot, but they thought that they were prepared for it.

They wanted to fight that battle. They wanted to try to make a big pitch for the entire universe of Republican voters that was not going Trump. And it’s there. I mean, you hear and see it every day here, typified by various public people denouncing Trump and saying they’ll do anything but Trump, third-party people now. So there still is a significant percentage of voters to coalesce there, and that’s still gonna be their objective.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know this Lindsey Graham sound bite, it says so much. Let me set the table here. It’s not anything you don’t know. You’ve got Trump with a, what is it, a 250 delegate lead now, 662 to 408 over Cruz. And the news is can Trump be prevented from getting 1,237 before we go to the convention. You get theories on both sides, New York Times says he can get there, AP says, no, he can’t. You have a bunch of conservatives who are talking about no Trump, gonna go third party, having a meeting today to talk about maybe going third party, you know, what to do about Trump.

Here you have Lindsey Graham saying that he’s gonna do a fundraiser for Trump while also saying that Kasich is the most viable general election candidate. You’ve got a guy here, Ted Cruz. Where is all of this anti-Trump emotion, desire, why isn’t it going to Cruz? It seems to me that the guy next in line, if you want to deny Trump, you’ve got to go with Cruz. You’ve got to put all of your energy behind Cruz in these remaining states. You’ve got to join the campaign effort, get votes out, donations, what have you.

And I tell you what it is, folks. You’re being shown, it’s being demonstrated again what you already know. Again, this is nothing you don’t know. But the Republican Party, establishment, whatever you want to call it, they don’t want conservatism, either. This is not just stop Trump, because there is a humongous opportunity standing right next to ’em is Ted Cruz. And you want to talk about debates and who can hold — there is no way Hillary Clinton can come anywhere near holding a candle to Ted Cruz in a debate, on policy or anything else. There’s nobody better equipped to indict Hillary Clinton, to expose her and her party for everything that’s going wrong, and yet to the Republican Party it’s like Cruz is not even there. And they’re focusing on the guy who’s won one state, and it was home state. It’s not even really a win. It’s a de facto.

And now we got this meeting here to come up with a potential third-party candidate, when, if you want to stop Trump, the best opportunity you’ve got is Ted Cruz. Plus you have all these people saying, “Hey, look, all this talk about a contested convention, brokered, whatever, isn’t gonna happen. It’s with gonna be one of those two guys. It’s gonna be Cruz or it’s gonna be Trump, because they’re the two front-runners. They’re the only two with a legitimate chance of getting 1,237 in any which way you go, either before the convention or, you know, for second ballot, what have you.”

This is another one of these eye-opening episodes here. We had a caller, I’ve said it myself, I mean, you’ve got the most capable, qualified conservative that has sought the presidency in years. Trump’s attracting attention because Trump’s Trump. I mean, Trump is a personality phenomenon, it’s a charisma, personality, media, phenomenon. There isn’t anybody that can compete. Hillary can’t compete with it. Bernie Sanders can’t compete. Nobody can. But yet everybody wants to stop this guy. I mean, this grasping at straws out here when there’s an obvious go-to is really eye opening, is it not?

Now, look, I’ve got a brief time-out here the bottom. They come too fast here I know because this is the fastest three hours in media. We have remaining phone calls. Pretty good roster still remaining and, yes, what I’ve already talked about doing, the latest attempt by the intelligentsia to explain to themselves what’s happening out here, all coming up when we get back.