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RUSH: Every day is going to be like this.  No matter what Trump does, no matter what Hillary does, every day is going to be like this.  The stakes are too high, the stakes are too great.  The Democrats and the media, no matter what they may look like in this episode right now, are still bamboozled, and they’re not quite sure how to deal with Trump because the things that usually take out nominees have not taken him out.  And yet they’re continuing to try.  And that’s what this was starting with the selection of this couple to even appear at the Democrat National Convention.

And in saying that, all of this was so avoidable.  And a lot of people are saying that Trump stepped in this because he’s an amateur and that Hillary is obviously a political professional, and her entire operation is political professionals, whereas Trump is an amateur, he’s not been in politics before, and his staff doesn’t have a whole lot of professional experience, and that’s why this happened. 

And that’s not why this happened.  This is not why this happened.  I’ll tell you exactly why this happened.  And I’ve been bleating about this since last fall.  I have been trying to get through — only here.  I don’t call people; I don’t talk to people.  But if Trump does not start seeing things through an ideological prism, he will never understand the method, the motive, and the how and why these attacks against him happen. 

He doesn’t see liberalism, and because he doesn’t see liberalism, he can be outfoxed by it every day.  He’s not an ideological person.  And a lot of people aren’t.  You know, Trump will see Hillary Clinton or Chuck Schumer and he won’t think liberal, he won’t think progressive, he won’t think statist.  He’ll think other things about them, whatever his personal opinions of them are, but he will not — ’cause he just isn’t that kind of guy. 

So we need somebody who is.  And he needs somebody who will listen to him.  I’m sorry.  Somebody he will listen to who is, because Trump is not ideological, because he doesn’t see things that way, he missed the real point of this strategic move by Hillary and the Democrat Party.  He misread.  He saw something that was irrelevant and he decided to make a comment about it because he thought it dovetailed with his message on Islam and the lack of freedom and integrity and human rights that women in Islam have, so he goes after the mother on the stage wearing the hijab not saying anything. 

She’s not the target.  And Mr. Khan is not the target.  Hillary Clinton is always the target.  The Democrat Party should always be, and Hillary Clinton should always be the target, not this guy.  This guy is every bit the foil that Cindy Sheehan was for the Democrats.  This guy was plucked out of a universe that may include a law firm that does Hillary’s taxes. There’s still people trying to find out who Mr. Khan actually is, besides what is known.  But it’s clear that he and his wife were put on that stage as props, disguised as the Democrats being thoughtful and compassionate and understanding and all that. 

And the fact that he wasn’t seen as a prop I think is owing to the fact that people just don’t look at Hillary and the Democrats, at least in the Trump campaign, through ideological eyes.  The real story, if you want to boil this down, the real story here is the way Democrats treat parents of war heroes and victims versus the way they treat Republican parents of war heroes.  I mean, the comparison here from the moment Mr. and Mrs. Khan stepped on stage was instant. 

At the Republican convention, we had a mother of a fallen hero of Benghazi.  Her name was Pat Smith.  What did the Democrats do?  With the assistance of the media, the first thing they did was trash her.  Then they fact checked her.  Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi.  She lied to everybody about the video being responsible for this.  She was telling the story of the video being responsible for this in public for two weeks while at the same time telling everybody privately the video had nothing to do with it.  She told the parents when the bodies came back that she was gonna get the guy who did the video that caused all this. 

So Pat Smith reports all this at the Republican convention, they attack her.  Because they’re not gonna let Hillary Clinton be harmed by anything.  They have a wall, they have a cordon around Hillary Clinton, and they’re gonna make sure that whatever incoming toward Hillary bounces off.  And it doesn’t matter.  On one year, Cindy Sheehan can be made a hero and be followed around by the Drive-By Media because she’s hounding George W. Bush.  George W. Bush is responsible for her son dying.  The Democrats are trying to make Trump look responsible because of his insensitivity. When in fact if you want to start assigning responsibility, who voted for the war in Iraq where the Khan’s son got killed? 

It was Hillary Clinton.  She voted for it.  You would never know this if you listened to the Drive-By Media.  The real focus of this whole episode should not be the Muslim couple but rather the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton, especially the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton’s treatment of Patricia Smith and others, the parents of others.  They were lied to directly.  The media does not fact check Hillary.  Hillary continued this lying throughout the entire Chris Wallace interview yesterday.  It was breathtaking. 

Practically every assertion Hillary Clinton made, she lied. But she also did this.  “My heart goes out to them.”  The Pat Smiths, the parents of the fallen at Benghazi.  So she covers her bases, and that’s what they see. A political professional will always do that. A political professional will express compassion and sorrow and understanding, and then lie.  The compassion and the sorrow and the understanding then makes the lie acceptable, because the sorrow and the compassion had been expressed — and Trump didn’t do that.

Trump just went after the woman on stage for not speaking because she’s a Muslim and probably wasn’t allowed to speak ’cause she’s wearing a hijab.  This was a setup because you know that the woman’s gonna speak — which she did, on the Today show today.  She’s speaking all over the place now.  Look, hindsight is easy.  I understand that 20/20 hindsight’s easy. But this was standard operating procedure from the Democrat Party.  It should be ignored — or, if you’re gonna talk about this, you need to indict the Democrats for how they use people, how they use people and their sorrow.

And then you need to point out how the Democrats don’t care about certain parents of certain victims such as those who died in Benghazi.  But I know what Trump was doing.  He’s got this message about Islam.  He has a message about Muslims.  And, by the way, his message is not to ban all Muslims.  He just wants to improve the vetting process to keep potential terrorists out.  It’s another thing that everybody continually lies about here.  That’s what Trump wants to do. 

And so he’s got this focus, and he believes that he has a certain level, degree of support because of that view, those views, that comment, about vetting Muslims, and about being the candidate who’s unafraid to be critical of Islam, militant Islam, which the Democrats will not do and so I’m sure Trump thought that he was scoring a few points — with his base by trying to remind people that in Islam it is women who are indoctrinated and subjugated, and the evidence is looking at Mrs. Khan.

She’s up there, she’s in her hijab, she doesn’t say anything. That’s what he saw. That’s what he decided to comment on. That’s what he decided to score points on, all because he didn’t see what this really was because he doesn’t see ideologically.  And he’s not going to.  That’s just not who he is.  He needs somebody in that team that sees these things and knows the Democrats inside and out. It’s like George Stephanopoulos. 

If you agree to go on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, you essentially have accepted an invitation to be interviewed by Hillary Clinton.  George Stephanopoulos worked for the Clintons in their war room back in their 1992 campaign.  George Stephanopoulos and Carville and Begala, these guys all remain in total support and loyalty to Hillary Clinton.  It was Stephanopoulos asking questions of Mitt Romney that created in faux, phantom Republican War on Women that still survives to this day. 

The Democrats still play that card.  So if you go on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, you have to understand you’re going on a program that’s essentially being scripted and performed each Sunday for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, because that’s who Stephanopoulos is.  He is a partisan.  He can’t… It’s very difficult — humanly difficult — to all of a sudden, after being so inspired, so motivated, so paid, so highly paid by the Clintons…

He ran their campaign with Carville, ran the war room, which was all about destroying “the bimbos,” destroying anybody that came up and wanted to say anything negative about Clinton. The war room was to go out and destroy them. To all of a sudden expect him to become Mr. Objective and to drop all those passions the minute he gets hired by ABC to do Good Morning America or the Sunday show is ridiculous.  Yet our people continue to go on that show. 

I guess they’re gonna continue to go on that show ’cause I guess people think you have to do that if you’re running for president. You have to go on these Sunday shows. You have to do it.  But Trump — and I know Trump wants to ’cause it’s free media. Trump’s very confident of himself when he goes on TV. He thinks he can handle anything thrown at him being impromptu or improv or what have you. But it would certainly help if…

I mean, Trump’s instincts are right about Hillary and the kind of president she would be. But somebody has got to beat into him that the things everybody fears and the things he instinctively opposes in Hillary are rooted in the fact that she is a huge liberal. Huge.  And the Democrat techniques, the way the Democrats use people, the way the Democrats make pawns out of victims and parade them before the public, it’s well known.

It can be spotted a mile away. But what Mr. Trump saw was an Islamic woman wearing a hijab, not speaking on stage, and he immediately zeroed in on the Islamic treatment of women as a way of scoring points. Again, because that’s what he thought his base would respond to. Because many people fear religion, militant Islamist supremacism, and there the Democrats put it right on stage.  I’m sure this is what Trump was thinking.

“My God, they’ve done me a favor, putting exactly what I’m talking about on stage! All I’ve gotta do is comment on it.”  But the focus on the rest of this campaign has to be on the Democrats.  It has to be on Hillary, who they really are, how they do what they do, why they do what they do, how they’re gonna get it done and the fact that it’s almost incalculable the frequency with which Mrs. Clinton lies.

That appearance yesterday on Fox News Sunday is a glaring example, which we will go through here.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Well, one thing Hillary said was that she’s not responsible for what people do or do not remember from Benghazi.  An attack on the parents.  Now, I’ve got people suggesting, “Rush, you’re wrong.  We need to go after this guy Khan ’cause this guy Khan’s a hypocrite.”  It goes like this: “Trump is opposed to letting radical Muslims into the US.  The Khans’ son was in Iraq to stop radical Muslims, to kill them.  Sadly, Khan’s son was killed by radical Muslims.”  So, it goes, “Shouldn’t the Khans be on Trump’s side? 

Shouldn’t they want to keep radical Muslims out of the US?”  Maybe so, but that’s a rabbit hole.  Going down that, you’re not gonna persuade anyone. That’s not the way to do this.  ‘Cause Mr. and Mrs. Khan are not the targets here.  Contrast this with what happened at the Republican convention.  Are you aware of some of the comments made after Pat Smith (the Republican version of the Khans) spoke?  She was fact checked! The Washington Post fact checked her; others in the media fact checked her. 

Was Cindy Sheehan ever fact checked?  Were the Khans? Were the Khans ever fact checked?  And then beyond that, Chris Matthews called her comments against Hillary “a gross accusation” and said,” I don’t care what that woman felt.  I don’t care what Pat Smith felt after the death of her son.  She’s falsely accusing Hillary.”  She not falsely accusing Hillary.  Hillary told her they’re gonna get the guy that did the video!  That’s the contrast needs to be made.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  There’s a Washington Post story, a website post about how the Hillary campaign has made a strategic change.  Now, you tell me if you think this is strategic change.  The Hillary strategic change is to begin to zero in on Trump’s incompetence and the fact he’s unfit to serve.  That’s not a shift.  That’s not a change.  Hillary Clinton’s already spent I don’t know how many millions of dollars running ads on that very premise, back in June and earlier this month — and it didn’t work.  I mean, it didn’t affect the polling at the time. 

But there’s nothing new about that strategy.  The Washington Post said: Yeah, the reason they’re gonna do it, is because it will take focus away from Hillary and shift the focus to Trump.  The focus has always been on Trump! The whole focus of Hillary’s campaign has been on his unfitness, his incompetence or what have you.  But the real news in this… Remember, now, it’s the Washington Post. The real news in this story… Here we go again! The real news here is that Hillary doesn’t want to talk about her record. 

Hillary doesn’t want to go out and trying to get people to vote for her.  She has apparently… The Washington Post says that they’ve apparently, at the Hillary campaign, decided that the focus of their efforts — at least for the immediate future — is gonna be to take on and destroy Trump.  Well, I maintain that’s what they’ve been doing since last summer.  If you ask me, the Washington Post establishment of both parties has been doing that.  I just saw — I missed the name, but — a very high-ranking staffer for Jeb Bush. Was her name Sullivan? 

I’m talking to myself here.  I’m trying to remember.  I just saw the blurb go by on Fox. Whoever this woman is said that if it looks like the election in Florida is close, she is voting Hillary. That’s a high-ranking Jeb Bush assistant.  Well, again, that isn’t news.  We have been chronicling since last summer and last fall the number of establishment Republicans who have gone on record and those who haven’t saying that they would vote Hillary. 

I don’t care what you think of Donald Trump, but any Republican who would publicly, proudly say they’re gonna vote for Hillary Clinton? Man, oh, man! Is that revealing about what the Republican Party is or has become?  How in the world…? I mean, okay, so your nose is out of joint because Trump won. Your nose is out of joint ’cause Trump’s not a professional and he cleaned everybody’s clock. Your nose is out of joint ’cause think Trump’s gonna the Republican Party a bad rap or bad name.

So the way to fix that, the way to rescue the Republican Party from your perceived damage here is to vote for Hillary Clinton?  That is how you establish the Republican Party?  That’s how he rebuild it?  That’s how you tell people the Republican Party is open for business, is you announce you’re gonna vote for Hillary? (interruption) No, I think her name is Sullivan.  She doesn’t… Who is she?  I think it was her.  The point is not her; it’s the fact that she represents some thinking high up in the Republican Party and in the Republican donor base as well. 

Anybody paying attention — anybody who is halfway informed about things that is a Republican — ought not be anywhere near Hillary Clinton, unless what this is really all about for those people is cronyism and sidling up to power for personal aggrandizement and personal benefit and not really about party principles. Which is interesting, because all these party people telling you they can’t vote for Trump are telling us it is because of principle, that Trump doesn’t have any, that Trump violates our precious Republican principles. 

They’re gonna sign up with whoever they think is gonna win, so they’ll at least have a shot at the cronyism that’s gonna go on.  It’s, again, not new. But it’s still stunning to me.  And every one of these incidents — like the circumstances here with Mr. and Mrs. Khan at the Democrat convention — they just fuel this kind of stuff, which is precisely what the Democrats do.  It’s why they use these people. 

It’s why they parade a never-ending parade of victims all across the stage.  But let the victim be a Republican? I mean, what they’re doing and what they did to Pat Smith, fact-checking the mother of someone who died in Benghazi?  It is a sight to behold.  Chris Matthews saying, “I don’t care what that woman felt. That woman ruined the Republican National Convention.”  Let me grab a call here quickly.  This is David in Dexter, Michigan.  Great to have you, sir.  Hello.

CALLER:  Hello, sir.  How you doing?

RUSH: Very well.  Thank you.

CALLER:  Yeah, you know, I was listening to you earlier about Trump’s interview over the weekend, and, as a Trump supporter, I didn’t see the full interview. I didn’t see what softball questions were offered to him before the “What did you sacrifice?” question. But I could tell it was an obvious setup.  Because their son died in the line of duty, and they paid — you know, he paid the ultimate sacrifice.  And they’re asking Mr. Trump what sacrifices he’s made in comparison to that.  I could see the setup.  Yeah, and as I listened to his answer, he had sacrificed his time over the years, being a good father —

RUSH:  No, no, wait.  Wait, wait.  Here’s another example.  I know where you’re coming from.  I know exactly where you’re coming from, David.  You see… You thought that it was an obvious setup question and you probably are next going to tell me that all the Trump supporters see it that way, and you don’t understand how everybody else doesn’t see it that way.  I’ll lay you a dollar to a doughnut that’s what he was gonna say, right?  Well, welcome to the club of conservatism. 

That’s exactly the attitude I have had about low-information voters and the Kardashian community for the whole 28, 29 years I’ve been doing this.  How do they not see the Democrats really are?  How do they not see the media bias as it really is?  How do they not see all this stuff?  You pull your hair out over it.  But the fact is, they don’t.  They don’t see it the way you do.  Which is the point.  This question… You’re right about that sacrifice question being a setup.  Let me translate that question for you. 

And again, you have to… I honestly think that you have to have an ideological understanding or grounding to be able to understand this.  I’m talking about Trump.  Okay, so he’s there being interviewed by Stephanopoulos, and let’s remember, Trump’s ego is very healthy.  He’s not afraid of anything they’re gonna ask him.  Whatever the question, he’ll deal with it and he’ll hit a home run.  That’s his attitude, which is fine. But here comes a question. So automatically, now, the Khans are explained as having endured great sacrifice.

Their son lost his life defending this country. An Islamic couple with their Islamic son who lost his life in a war against Islamic militants: The ultimate sacrifice.  If they want to show up at the Democrat convention and say anything, nobody has a right to say or condemn them because they lost their son.  If they’d lost their son in Benghazi, it’d be a little different story, but they didn’t.  So here comes the question to Trump:  “What sacrifice have you made?”

Right then, what that question means is: “You didn’t even serve, Mr. Trump!” That is what that question means: “You dare to criticize this family who lost a son in combat when you haven’t even worn the uniform?”  Trump didn’t hear that.  He heard the word “sacrifice” and thought, “I’d better have an answer for this.”  And so he gave what he thought would be an appropriate response to the accusation that he hasn’t sacrificed, and he chose to use his business. 

“I have sacrificed a lot for my business.”  Well, people don’t look at his business as sacrifice ’cause he loves it, and he’s been very successful, and his family has been very successful — and, look, that’s obvious.  So associating sacrifice with his business doesn’t have a chance, David, especially with the people that you’re talking about who are not paying full-fledged attention 24/7. 

But in Trump’s world, he’s worked so hard. He has employed so many people. He has paid them above minimum wage. He has paid an incredible amount of money. He’s made a lot of people rich. He’s built a lot of buildings. He spent all kinds of his time doing that.  That’s sacrifice.  The point is, “I have devoted my life to making America better” is not gonna fly because the question wasn’t about sacrifice. 

It was, “You haven’t even worn the uniform, Mr. Trump, how dare you criticize him?”  That’s what the question was.  You disagree with me on this?  And if you don’t hear the question that way — now, I have the benefit.  I have been attacked by these people for 28 years, so I know. I don’t mean to make this about me, but I’m just intelligence guided by experience here. 

Twenty-eight years, folks, and those of us who have been here the entire time know full well of the many efforts that have been made to, quote, unquote, take me out.  And some of them I gave them. You know, some of them I stepped in it, like Trump does.  But the 28 years have taught me to recognize it and have taught me to just not even mess with it ’cause there’s nothing to be gained. 

Well, they don’t anymore, but Cookie could tell you, I mean, it must have been a year, two years in a row that Good Morning America called here or This Week every week wanting me to appear.  There’s no point.  I’m more famous than the show is, so I don’t need to go on there for that.  Why give them the target?  Why take myself, the target, and put it in their headquarters?  You know, why do that?  Because they keep talking when I leave. 

They get their roundtable after I leave and they keep talking.  I’m in the car driving to where I’m going and they’re still bashing.  Just makes no sense to me.  But you — because Trump doesn’t have — he’s got experience being hit by the media, but not for his, quote, unquote, political views.  And he’s had people trying to do damage via competition and business.  But I don’t know that he’s had people trying to destroy him, his life, his reputation, his career, his future, which is what is happening now. 

So when you’re asked, “How dare you, Mr. Trump, what sacrifice have you made?”  That’s one of those you don’t accept the premise.  You know, the premise, it’s rigged.  I got take a break here, folks.  Sit tight.  We’ll be back and — (interruption) No, no, no, I’m not putting down Mr. Trump.  No, no.  It’s not putting him down.  Don’t be silly.  I’m actually trying to be helpful in my own distant and removed way here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  So, yeah, we could parse some of what Khizr Khan said about Trump because Khizr Khan made it look like Trump wants to limit liberty and freedom.  I’m sorry to tell everybody, the only candidate in this race who wants to do that is Hillary Clinton.  Hillary Clinton’s openly talked about doing away with the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and the Tenth Amendment.  Hillary Clinton and her acceptance speech made a beeline for your liberty and your freedom. 

Trump has not.  Khizr Khan totally misrepresented the two candidates’ positions.  That’s fair game, if you ask me, he holds up a Constitution, asks if Trump has read it. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  One of the things that Mr. Khan also tried to imply or wanted people to infer is that limiting Muslim immigration is somehow unconstitutional, it’s a violation of liberty and freedom.  And it isn’t by any stretch.  We have and always have had a religious test for immigration and refugees, which I have explained on previous occasions.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Jay in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.  I’m glad you waited, sir.  It’s great to have you here.  Hi.

CALLER:  Thank you for you and Snerdley for taking my call.  An impressive montage about your career, Rush, although too quick, but whatever.  I do want to —

RUSH:  It was too quick, wasn’t it?  It was too quick.  I mean, if it’s 28 years, it needs to be a 28 — at least, you know, 30-minute montage, at least a minute per year.  I agree with you.  But —

CALLER:  Impressive.  Impressive accolades about you.  Nonetheless, so —

RUSH:  I appreciate this.  We’re just teasing.  Cookie’s gonna get all nervous now.  We’re just teasing.

CALLER:  Anyway, I do want to discuss a very sensitive topic.

RUSH:  Yeah.

CALLER:  About Mr. Khan’s speech, his diatribe against Donald Trump, and I have to qualify it by saying before I begin that I have an utmost respect for him and incredible sympathy that he lost his son who gave the ultimate sacrifice to the country, that I fully am aware of.  But, and it’s a big “but,” that represents one life, and that stacks up against the thousands and thousands of people whose lives have been disrupted, destroyed by ISIS and Al-Qaeda.  How dare you, how dare Hillary Clinton, the unmitigated gall to use an unwitting pawn in her scheme, her warped campaign, to take somebody like that, his heart was in it, you saw his heart and soul was in that —

RUSH:  That’s who they are.  That is exactly who they are.  They could have gotten parents of any fallen soldier, but they had to politicize it.  “Well, of course, Rush, it was a convention.”  You know, you can do things at a convention that do not appear overtly politicized, and they’re even stronger.  This was overtly politicized.  But it has to be seen in context of what these same people did to the parents of fallen soldiers at the Republican convention.

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