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RUSH: Minnetonka, Minnesota. This is Josh. Great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Great to be with you, Rush. Longtime listener. Just wanted to call and say I’m extremely disappointed in the GOP right now. We’re fighting ourselves, we’re taking each other down, and we’re not focusing on the big issue, which is Hillary. And you make that point every day, and it’s just… You know, as a strong conservative for my entire life now and only being 27, it’s hard to see my country in front of me falling partly because my own party can’t get its head out of its butt.

RUSH: Yeah, it’s the fact they’re not unified against a single thing. But that… Look, that happens in primaries, Josh. What we have to hope for is that when this is over and the rivalry stops being within the party, we hope then — we haven’t had this. We hope then that the party changes its focus to the Democrats. But the problem is the last seven years, Josh, there hasn’t been… I got into a huge knock-down-drag-out last night at the cigar dinner with a Republican establishment babe over this very fact about the Republicans falling apart because they’ve not pushed back.

In 7-1/2 years they’ve not tried to stop one thing Obama’s done. They’ve said they were going to, but they haven’t, and that precedes this primary. That precedes what’s happening in the primary. The primary, it’s understandable you’re gonna have candidates at each other’s throats because they want to win. This is the first objective right now, and that’s winning the nomination. So that’s why the battles are taking place. I just think that one of the ways of doing that would be out continually saying how you’re gonna save this country by defeating Democrats, ’cause I think that’s ultimately what people need and want to hear.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Alan in Madison, Wisconsin. Great to have you, sir. Hello.


CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: Yesterday I voted for Ted Cruz. Come November if it’s Cruz, obviously I’ll vote for him. If it’s Trump, I will vote for him. With that being said, I know you don’t want to speak overly negative of Trump because you may offend a lot of your listeners, but I feel that today is a day for you to uphold your duty as a conservative. And I think the reason for that is is because of Trump’s statements that he’s made about Scott Walker. You won’t find a more conservative governor than Scott Walker. We got Act 10, right-to-work, concealed carry.

And in the radio interview that Donald Trump did in northern Illinois stating that Scott Walker should have raised taxes, you know, that he’s part of the establishment? I mean, that’s just crazy. It’s crazy to put in Walker with the establishment, with the GOP, when Scott Walker has done all of these true conservative things. And I know that you see it. I know that you know that. I know you don’t want to tick off a large part of your listeners, but I think today’s the day that you gotta call out Trump for these ridiculous statements that he’s made.

RUSH: Why? What…? What does this accomplish? First off, what specifically are you referring to that he said about Scott Walker? Did he say something last night about Walker? His statement where he accused Cruz of breaking the law with the super PAC?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: The statement last night was childish.

CALLER: I think — and while I was on hold I brought it up. Trump said quote, “You had a $2.2 billion budget deficit and the schools are going begging and everything was going begging, because he didn’t want to raise taxes because he was going to run for president.” Well, is Trump saying the only way to fix a deficit is to raise taxes? I mean, day one of conservative school, people! You understand, you realize, you learn that there’s other ways of handling things —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — than just raising taxes.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I mean, what person that identifies themselves as a conservative in their right mind would EVER say that?


RUSH: Somebody who’s trying to attract Democrat votes in a crossover primary, who is trying to — in his own maybe questionable view of things — expand the Republican Party.

CALLER: (unintelligible)

RUSH: It is the only thing I can come up with. ‘Cause you’re talking about those things. He said those a while ago. I thought you meant something he said last night that I hadn’t yet heard.

CALLER: He’s said worse.

RUSH: Yeah, his attack on Walker is Campaigning 101. He thinks… Trump thinks that a lot of his support is coming from anti-conservative Democrat crossover voters. He did the same thing in South Carolina. He just trashed George W. Bush, and I commented on it then. He trashed George W. Bush. He was trashing all kinds of things that conservatives believe in, and he’s doing it for specific reasons. But I’m telling you: My condemning it isn’t gonna hurt him. My condemning Cruz wouldn’t hurt him.

CALLER: No, but put it out there who he is.

RUSH: I do.


CALLER: Okay. Which candidates, you know, true conservative candidates — your Scott Walker, your Ted Cruzes — have tried to dance around policies and tried to attract voters on the left? Why don’t we just try to teach people what conservatism is, ’cause that’s what you did for me back in 2008. I always thought of just the Republican and Democratic Parties. But then because of people like you and Mark Belling, I have learned what conservatism is. And that is how I try to speak about politics to other people, is try to teach them what those values are, try to educate them and inform them. And, to me, the writing is on the wall; it’s clear as day what Donald Trump is. If we can teach these people… If they’re voting for Trump because he’s an outsider, great. That’s their right.

RUSH: I’m telling you.

CALLER: But down the road we could teach them what conservatism is —

RUSH: How many times do I have to say…? You’re putting me in a position here of sounding like I am make excuses for things, and I’m not. I’m telling you that nobody is going to be able to talk Trump supporters out of supporting him by reciting conservatism, by telling them, “Hey, you know what? This guy’s not a conservative.” I could tell ’em the following. I could tell Trump supporters… In fact, let me try it! I’ll do it right now. “To all of you Trump people, let me tell you something: He doesn’t know squat!

CALLER: Thank you.

RUSH: “He doesn’t know anything about how politics works.” But that’s his appeal. That is his draw! I raked him over the coals for his statement on abortion the other day in the interview with Chris Matthews. I called it a disaster! I am not hiding behind anything here. And I knew exactly what he was doing. Donald Trump — and I was criticized for this. Charles Lane of the Washington Post on the Fox network accused me of saying that what Trump was doing was pandering. What I said was that Trump gave an answer that he thinks pro-lifers want to hear, plus he’s a law-and-order guy.

He runs on law and order.

He thinks he’s got a lot of support from law-and-order people because of illegal immigration. “You break the law; you get punished. You come in the country illegally; you get sent back.” So he’s asked a hypothetical about abortion. “What do we do if abortion’s illegal, Mr. Trump? What do we do with a woman?” “We punish her!” His instinct was he’s a law-and-order guy. Number two, he’s a New Yorker. How many times have I said this? You’ve got to listen to this program every day if you’re gonna be able to understand me. I can’t repeat everything every show to make up for people that can’t listen every day.

When he made that answer on abortion, I was leading the pack here in talking about how embarrassing it was and why it was damaging, not just to Trump, but to the Republican Party, because he clearly answered that question in a way that he thinks pro-lifers want to hear an answer, because he’s not. But when I say that Trump’s not a pro-lifer, that’s not a criticism. Trump is not ideological. He never has been. It takes all kinds of people in this world. I’ll say it again. You look at Chuck Schumer and you see a liberal Democrat enemy that’s gotta be stopped.

He doesn’t see Chuck Schumer as a liberal Democrat. He see him as a Democrat, but he doesn’t see him as a liberal. He doesn’t see people as conservatives or liberals. That’s not how he was raised. It’s not how he’s lived his life. Not everybody does. I wish more people did! I wish everybody understood what liberalism is and who they are when you spot ’em, so that you automatically oppose them. But sadly, not a whole lot of people do. It’s been the quest of this program for 27 years to educate and alert people to liberalism, socialism, communism, all the derivatives and how to spot it and how to spot them.

Well, Trump is a personality type that doesn’t see people that way. Yet he finds himself in a Republican primary. And the subject of abortion comes up. My guess is that Trump’s views on this over the past have evolved. I think more than likely… Wild guess here. But my guess is it hasn’t been something that’s defined his existence. You know, it’s just something that happens. He probably thinks, “Abortion happens. It’s gonna keep happening no matter what anybody does,” and he’s a business guy. He not gonna get involved in all that.

He probably, at some point in time in his life, has probably been not all that favorably disposed to social issues types, but here he is running in the primary. So he’s gotta care about it. I think over the course of his life, based on things I’ve read, I think he has become more pro-life. I think he has become sensitized to abortion and what it is — and partial-birth abortion, he has actively changed his mind on that. But in terms of having that be in the frontal lobe of his daily existence, it isn’t. He’s got other things that define him, that make more sense to him, that are more important to him.

Lord, if I went out and disqualified everybody who isn’t a conservative ideologue like I am from being permitted to engage in the political process, where the heck would we be? So you combine a whole lot of things. You try to educate people about conservatism so they come to it on their own. That’s been my philosophy. You don’t wag a finger in somebody’s face and warn them that they are going to hell if they don’t see the light. You don’t tell them how dumb they are. You don’t tell them how stupid they are. You don’t tell them to wake up. You don’t threaten them. You don’t blame them. You just set up circumstances to which the conclusion is obvious and they eventually come to it themselves. And you stand for it each and every day, and you live your life.

I’ve had people call me for 27 years, “Rush, what more can I do? What more can I do to spread the word of conservatism? What more can I do? I don’t have a microphone.” I said, “Live your life according to what you believe. Be an example. Set an example. Be a leader in the things that are important to you and you will influence more people than you will ever know.”

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I’m very lucky. I have people like you call and tell me that I’m the reason they understand conservatism and became conservative. For most people that doesn’t happen. You walk around and wherever you live on your college campus, at your job, in your town and you live your life the way you live it and these subjects come up, you discuss it, you’ll never know how many people you’re influencing because most people are not gonna come and say, “You know what, Alan, I used to be a commie SOB, but listening to you…” You might get that someday, but most people will never tell you.

Most people don’t want you to think you had to talk ’em into it. Most people don’t want to admit they didn’t understand it. Most people want you to think they saw it on their own. Most people want you to think they’re bright enough that they don’t have to be talked into something. But you can’t at the same time just start disqualifying people ’cause they don’t think like you do, especially if they’re trending in your direction. And if they stand for certain things that’s gonna help you accomplish what you want to accomplish, if they don’t pass every litmus test, fine.

You just can’t be that exclusionary. It’s something I’ve learned over the course of the career I’ve had here now into our 28th year. But when Trump goes after Scott Walker, I think it speaks for itself. Did you not see the results in the primary result last night? Nobody had to tell ’em. And I don’t think I’ve gotta prove my bona fides every day here by identifying phony, fraud conservatives or fake liberals, whoever they are, each and every day.

Believe me, for 27 years I’ve been trying to alert everybody listening to what a liberal is, how to spot liberalism, and how to never, ever support it. I would be in an insane asylum if I took it personally how it hasn’t worked. People are who they are. It takes all kinds.

The low-information crowd is specifically low-information because they’re low-information. They don’t know diddly-squat. And no amount of talking to ’em is gonna convince ’em ’cause they don’t know they don’t know anything. I can talk about the low-information crowd in this audience and nobody in it thinks I’m talking about them because nobody, “Oh, yeah, I’m one of those, I’m a know-nothing.” Nobody will admit that about themselves, so they all think I’m talking about somebody else. Well, some know, but it’s a very sparse number.

I could understand you being upset if Trump had won last night. I could understand you, “Wow, Rush, you really blew it. You had a chance, you had a chance, but you let Trump get away with criticizing Scott Walker. It’s outrageous.” But Trump lost in a landslide last night, 13 points. And I’m not surprised, Scott Walker.

Here’s the thing about the Trump organization. Somebody need to get to him and say, “Look, if you’re going to go after a governor don’t do it in a state where a guy’s had to survive three recall elections and in doing so has built up one of the most amazing conservative Republican grassroot base support systems ever to exist in this country. You’re never gonna get a guy like that disqualified. You’re never gonna get people to be against that guy after he’s done something like this.”

He’s the wrong guy to go after. Of all people, Scott Walker, to me, has always been the guy who could have shown the rest of the Republican Party how to do it. That was his big plus to me. That was his big drawing card. Certain things speak for themselves, and the results last night are the evidence and the proof of it. Besides that, Alan, after the first half hour this program, my own staff was wailing and moaning and crying at me over how excited I seemed to be about what happened to Cruz last night.

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BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll tell you something else. Sitting here right now, I know instinctively — I don’t know because I’m in touch with anybody, ’cause I’m not. But I can tell you right now what’s wrong with the Trump campaign. I can tell you why it’s gone off the rails, ’cause it has, and I can tell you what they would have to do to get it back on the rails. And if I did, I’d never hear the end of it. I would never hear the end of it.

I would hear, “How can you help Trump? You’re supposed to be a conservative!” I know we’re supposed to have political discussions here, but I can tell you right now where it’s gone off the rails. I instinctively know. I’m not — (interruption) Nope. Nope. I can tell you what they have to do, what they have to do to fix it. (interruption) You’re agreeing with the premise, then, that it’s off the rails right now? All right. Okay.

So a Trumpist has agreed with me that something’s wrong out there. They haven’t won, what is it, four in a row now, and the branding is: “Win, win, win. There is gonna be so much winning, people are gonna start asking me to lose just so we feel humble.”

Well, there hasn’t been any winning. Why? Obviously it’s not the things that everybody thinks it is. It’s not Michelle Fields. That may limit growth in certain ways. The problems, I think, started before — the answers really are to be found in insiderism versus is outsiderism and the fact that politics, no matter how you play it, still is a business. And it functions under certain rules. There’s a ladder of success in politics that you climb, and it requires understanding what’s on every rung. And it’s really, really hard to jump rungs.

But, see, that is in conflict with why people like an outsider. They want an outsider to be able to succeed without having to do any of that business-of-politics stuff. The minute an outsider starts talking about and working with and setting up offices to get delegates, then the outsider’s supporters, “Uh-oh, is he selling us out or is he being suckered in by the establishment?” They start being distrustful. It’s from the beginning of time, it’s the great conflict between an outsider getting someplace in an insider’s business. At some point the outsider’s got to learn some of the requirements that exist in the insider’s game and you have to learn how to pull those off, while at the same time maintaining your outside status.

And I think that’s what they’re afraid of. I think they’re afraid of losing. They’re on the map because they’re outsiders. They’re on the map because they’re not politicians. They’re on the map because they’re not part of that whole system. And yet they’re gonna have to master some of that system. Even if they don’t get to 1,237, they’re gonna really need to have to master that system, because the other guys set that system up and the other guys write the rules.

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