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<\/p>\nRUSH: Now, the Republican Party. We have three Republicans who have announced they\u2019re gonna run. It\u2019s Mark Sanford and it\u2019s — well, hang on a minute. Mark Sanford, the guy that told Obama that he was a liar when he was in the House. Obama\u2019s making some speech and this guy said, “You lie.” What\u2019s this guy\u2019s name? Joe something or other, Joe Green, Joe Brown. Anyway, there\u2019s one other.<\/p>\n
Mark Sanford is the former governor of South Carolina, former member of Congress. This is the guy who gave it all up for a woman in South America. This guy got caught up in an affair of the heart. He lost all perspective, proving one of my oft-stated, Undeniable Truths of Life, and that is \u2013 (interruption) Joe Walsh, that\u2019s right. Lust\/love, the only human emotion that will make you do things that in a rational state of mind you would never do. This guy gave it all up because he was infatuated or in love or whatever with some woman down in Argentina. He left his family, left his wife, left the job, nobody knew where he was. When they finally caught up with him he said he had been hiking solo on the Appalachian Trail trying to get in touch with himself and with nature, whatever.<\/p>\n
It was finally exposed to be a gigantic lie. It was a huge embarrassment for everybody involved. He went out, paid his penance for a while, now back in American politics, and he says that he\u2019s going to seek the Republican nomination against Trump in 2020, primarily because he believes the Republican Party has lost its way.<\/p>\n
He says he\u2019s upset with all the spending. He\u2019s upset with the size and the expansion of the deficit. He\u2019s very, very, very concerned that the Republican Party, which used to stand for those two things, fiscal responsibility, economic growth, getting rid of the debt, paying down the annual deficit, the national debt, that\u2019s out the window now. Trump\u2019s spending like we\u2019ve never had anybody spend before. The Republican Party has lost its way.<\/p>\n
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Well, I\u2019m gonna remind you. For those of you new to the program, that\u2019s not a sentiment with which I disagree. I just disagree with the timing. I don\u2019t think the Republican Party lost its way with Trump. Trump is the result of the Republican Party having lost its way. And do you know when you can trace Republican Party having lost its way? Where do you think, Mr. Snerdley?<\/p>\n
If you were playing Jeopardy! right now and the big $25,000 prize hinged on you answering this question correctly, when did the Republican Party of the modern era lose its way? (interruption) Exactly right. In the post-Reagan era. And why did the Republican Party lose its way? (interruption) No, because they abandoned conservatism! They abandoned conservatism and pretended to be conservative and dibbled at it and dabbled at it. They talked about it, but they never implemented it — or rarely.<\/p>\n
They promised to during campaigns, but once they got elected there wasn\u2019t any. It fooled people for a while, but that\u2019s when you trace the Republican Party having lost its way. And it\u2019s always been frustrating. Ronald Reagan shows the way: Straight-down-the-middle conservatism. He won two landslide elections in 1980 and 1984, proved a whole bunch of conservative theory that you can cut taxes and double the size of government.<\/p>\n
You creates revenue that Washington would otherwise never get by cutting taxes, that you can create new jobs and lower the deficit and lower inflation by cutting taxes, eight years of it — well, six. It took a couple of months to get the tax cut passed and then another 18 months for it to kick in after it was implemented. But all during this time the Washington establishment, including both Republicans and Democrats, did not like Reagan because they didn\u2019t like conservatism.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t like anything that deemphasizes the role of government on a day-to-day basis, and they don\u2019t like anything that deemphasizes or shrinks the size of government. So they pretended to love Reagan and they all wanted to be in the spotlight. But privately, they were plotting how to take control of the party once Reagan\u2019s two terms were over and get it back on track to where it was the Harlem Globetrotters… Well, the Republican Party was the Washington Generals to the Democrat Party\u2019s Harlem Globetrotters.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Washington functions, when the Republicans know their place, and that is as losers in the minority party. That\u2019s when Washington functions. That\u2019s when the media\u2019s happy. That\u2019s when everybody\u2019s happy. But when that goes astray, that\u2019s when the left loses it, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re in now. We were in it during the eighties with Reagan. The Washington, D.C., order was upset. I\u2019m not kidding and I\u2019m not exaggerating.<\/p>\n
Washington, D.C., functions in peace and tranquility when the Republicans know their place, and that is as a minority that occasionally wins the White House but still does not try to dismantle any aspect of the Washington establishment. Instead, the Republicans and Democrats work together to maintain it, maybe even grow it. So what happened when the Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years in the 1994 elections? The Washington insiders went bonkers. The media went nuts.<\/p>\n
Newt Gingrich got the Ronald Reagan treatment that Donald Trump is now getting. If you want peace — and I\u2019m gonna expand on this as the program unfolds because, folks, I\u2019m sensing some wavering out there among you deplorables, among you Trump supporters. I\u2019m sensing just the tiniest bit of wavering. And you know where? You know where I\u2019m seeing it? I have a few people starting to talk to me about how they wish Trump would do more to make the media like him, or at least do more to make the media stop focusing on him all the time.<\/p>\n
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And it\u2019s understandable, it\u2019s human emotion, and it is fatigue. The people that voted for Trump would much rather see Trump receive accolades. They would much rather see Trump be celebrated rather than constantly ridiculed, laughed at, made fun of, attempted to be destroyed and all that. And I need to remind everybody here today and every day going forward what is at stake, and what this was always gonna be if Trump won, and it\u2019s only gonna get worse. It\u2019s 365, 24\/7. That means all the time.<\/p>\n
What you\u2019re seeing now, it\u2019s not gonna change. There\u2019s no way to buy off the media. There\u2019s no way to placate the media. There\u2019s no way to soften the media. The only thing to do is to keep defeating the media and the Democrats politically. So I will expand on this as the program unfolds. (interruption) Yeah, Bill Weld. Bill Weld\u2019s the other Republican seeking the nomination. The Republican Party is responding by saying, “Okay. Well, we\u2019ll just eliminate the primaries in three states and we\u2019ll just erase you guys.”<\/p>\n
But, I mean, I know where Sanford\u2019s coming from. (impression) “The Republican Party\u2019s lost its way. Donald Trump is no longer the Republican Party.” No, he\u2019s not. But Donald Trump is not the reason the Republican Party is lost. Donald Trump has come in and picked up pieces of what used to be the Republican Party. Look, I\u2019m not making this up. When Washington, D.C., is peaceful and tranquil and when you do not notice any acrimony is when the Republicans agree to be the minority party.<\/p>\n
I may be exaggerating, \u2019cause in the modern era I don\u2019t think there are a whole lot of Republicans that want to lose. But I\u2019m telling you, in the old days pre-1980… Do you know how many Republicans were in the House of Representatives before Reagan won in 1980? It was 130 — 130 out of 435! The Democrats didn\u2019t even let \u2019em into some committee meetings, and Republicans didn\u2019t care as long as they get to go play golf with people. It was their role to be a permanent minority since the days of FDR.<\/p>\n
Reagan blew all of that up by becoming a winner and bringing a lot of Republicans along and having the Republican Party finally be defined as it should be: The party of conservatism. But all the while, establishment Republicans were doing what they could to undermine that after the end of Reagan\u2019s second term, and they did. But the American people that voted for Reagan, two landslide victories, they didn\u2019t want the Republican Party to go back to permanent minority status even if that\u2019s what it meant for there to appear to be peace and tranquility in Washington and in the media.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: By the way, folks, I pulled a Joe Biden here. I erred. I misspoke. I\u2019ve been talking about Mark Sanford being from North Carolina. He\u2019s not. He\u2019s from South Carolina. I knew that. I just got — well, I got a little lazy out there, all the action in the special election, Trump\u2019s rally tonight in North Carolina. But Mark Sanford is from South Carolina.<\/p>\n
Let me grab Ed in Whitesboro, New York, as we get started on the phones. Great to have you on the program, Ed. Hello.<\/p>\n
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CALLER: Hi. Thanks for having me. I wanted your opinion about something I\u2019ve been thinking about, you know, because the Republicans have been watching Trump roll around in the mud here. A lot of them have been retired and I view these people that are retiring, these guys are falling on the sword, so to speak, just to get rid of this guy. And I was wondering in regards to your monologue about them running, you know, a candidate, do you think it\u2019s possible they would do that just in a possibility of shaving off enough votes where Trump could lose?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Running a candidate when? In the presidential election?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: No, no, no. No, no, no. This effort\u2019s gonna be made in the primaries. But it isn\u2019t gonna work. You\u2019re basically asking me if there are enough Never Trumpers to cause Trump to lose. Right?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah, because it almost seems like, you know, there\u2019s times when it doesn\u2019t look like there\u2019s that many, but, I mean, they had 40 of \u2019em, you know, when the election came for the House, they had 40 of \u2019em leave, and we\u2019ve got more retiring. And it almost seems like they\u2019re just doing it on purpose, you know, so that way they can say, well, the Democrats ruined it for Trump and not them. You know, I\u2019m just very suspicious of them. And I\u2019m a conservative.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, let me put your mind at rest on one thing. There aren\u2019t enough Never Trumpers to cause Trump to lose the presidential election. The Never Trumpers have always been a very small, very finite number of people. They are predominantly so-called conservative Washington and New York axis, the New York-Washington corridor. They are think tank tips, columnists. They would think of themselves as literary artists.<\/p>\n
But Biden — every measure you want to look at, they don\u2019t have a constituency. “What do you mean by that, Rush?” Okay. Look, folks, some of this is not easy. I\u2019ve known these people all my lives, and this departure of theirs from conservatism simply \u2019cause of Trump, it\u2019s created a lot of friction.<\/p>\n
But where do these people work? They either write op-ed columns or they work at magazines. Every magazine for which they work, with a couple of exceptions, is dying. They\u2019re doing fundraisers or they do cruises to supplement their subscriptions because there aren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying this as a critic of any business. I\u2019m just pointing out that they don\u2019t have a huge constituency. If the Never Trumpers represented a wide swath of the American public, they wouldn\u2019t be in the financial straits that they are in. Their magazines would be thriving. Their subscriptions would be expanding and increasing. And they aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
They are given a lot of airtime because they hate Trump. You know, the media loves Republicans that criticize Republicans. The media loves Republicans that hate other Republicans. So they\u2019re becoming stars in the Drive-By Media, but they\u2019ve always been establishment types, and they\u2019ve always had good relations with the Washington establishment types. And they\u2019ve now joined forces here in their anti-Trump status. But in terms of representing a percentage of the electorate, they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Believe me, they have lost a lot of supporters. They\u2019ve lost a lot of donors. They\u2019ve lost a lot of subscribers. And they\u2019re picking up some of what they\u2019ve lost from Democrats, not Republicans. And this also, this is one of the many things that has frustrated Never Trumpers to no end.<\/p>\n
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You know, for the longest time the Never Trumpers — and by this specific group I\u2019m talking about conservative, quote, unquote, intellectuals — they thought they were the engine of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. And they sought donors and subscribers on that basis, that they were necessary to keep conservatism alive, that they were the ones that had the oomph and the power and the ability to get conservative policies in front of elected officials and get them implemented.<\/p>\n
And then Donald Trump comes along and blows the whole ruse sky-high by basically illustrating they haven\u2019t been accomplishing much at all. Trump comes in and in two years gets more of the conservative agenda implemented than anybody has since the end of Reagan. These guys have been exposed. So they\u2019ve gotta hate Trump. They\u2019ve gotta come down on Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump has basically shown that you don\u2019t need to send think tanks and magazines a bunch of money in order to get conservatism implemented. You just have to elect the right guy. And what\u2019s really been amazing about it, here these guys are, these Never Trumpers, who — we\u2019ll give \u2019em the benefit of the doubt \u2013 have been working tirelessly their entire professional lives to see all kinds of various conservative policy implemented. Here it is being implemented, and they hate it!<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of the most amazing things to me to observe, which can give rise to other questions. The answer to your question, there aren\u2019t enough, they do not have a voting constituent — not a single one of them that\u2019s got a candidate that\u2019s gonna run for anything anywhere, particularly for the presidency.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
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<\/a>When there was one mildly fair headline in the New York Times, the left went bonkers and demanded that the Times change it. Where is there any favorable coverage of Trump in the Drive-By Media? I don\u2019t think there is any. But it\u2019s a dual-edged sword. Because while this Trump hatred is intensifying throughout the left and the Drive-By Media, the Democrats are seeking to conduct their primary nomination process. And this Trump hatred is so intense, and it is so focused that the Democrat presidential hopefuls can\u2019t get covered.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TrumpMediaWall-of-trump-C1.jpg\")
You want there to be some acknowledgment of achievement. You want anything. But there is none of that — and, folks, there never is going to be. How many times…? How many times during one of these many-faceted controversies have I appeared on this program and said, “This is what pushing looks like?” What the election of Donald Trump is and what it represents is a literal assault on the Washington, D.C., status quo. It is an assault on the worldwide so-called order, the post-World War II order where the United States was established as a nation that was not to behave as a superpower.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/APP-011718-Combat-Drive-By-Media.jpg\")
Now, you might say, “Well, yeah, but Rush it\u2019s all negative.” Doesn\u2019t matter. It doesn\u2019t matter in this instance because the Democrat candidates can\u2019t get covered. \u201cWell, that may help \u2019em, Rush, because their ideas are so damn radical.” Well, I\u2019m just telling you that everything about this is upside down.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/APP-082819-G7-Trump-Mel-Chopper-2.jpg\")
RUSH: Yes, that\u2019s exactly right. I\u2019m glad that you reminded me of that. What he\u2019s talking about, in the very beginning moments of today\u2019s stellar broadcast, I mentioned that some people I know are getting weak-kneed, getting wobbly. They\u2019re simply tired, folks. They\u2019re tired of the media onslaught. They wish it would stop. They think Trump could stop it.<\/p>\n