RUSH: Now, I want to go back to audio sound bites. I want to go back to yesterday. Following Trump’s press conference, which we covered, our microphones there were. He went out after he signed that pledge with Reince Priebus — and, by the way, in the Stack of Stuff today there are all kinds of reactions to that. I mean, people think Trump has signed away his chance to win the presidency. Others think that Trump has snookered the RNC and Reince Priebus. The opinions of Trump signing the pledge are all over the place. Well, after the press conference I happened to have CNN on one of the monitors here. They had four people on analyzing and discussing what had just happened and what they had just heard.
They had Jeffrey Lord from NewsBusters and the American Spectator, they had Ana Navarro, who is a Republican strategist in Miami, New York, and Washington and cigar bars, and they had Gloria Borger. I can’t remember who the other person was. Gloria Borger caught my attention. I mentioned Jeffrey Lord. Maybe that’s… Oh, that’s right. There were just three, and then the CNN host. There were four people on the show: Jeff Lord, Gloria Borger, and Ana Navarro. But it was Borger… Well, there was one other.
There was a fourth woman, a woman who had worked for Trump and had been on The Apprentice, a Hispanic woman who defends Trump with everything she says, and she’s on CNN regularly. I can’t remember her name. She’s young. She’s in her twenties. And she would not stop filibustering yesterday. It was kind of funny. Gloria Borger was trying to get word in, word in, and she can’t.
She’s being patient, I could see. You know, I can read body language. Gloria Borger was the Senior Media Professional, and the others were junior to her in terms of experience. And you could see on her face that she was being tolerant and patient waiting for the children to opine and waiting for her turn as the adult on the panel to tell everybody what had just happened, what she had seen.
Let’s go to the audio sound bites. We’ll start here with number one. This is after Trump’s press conference. It’s Ana Cabrera and Gloria Borger, and Cabrera says… Now, let me read what he says. “I like Jeb, he’s a nice man, but he should really set the example by speaking English while in the US.” Gloria Borger then jumps in with this…
BORGER: What he was doing with that comment was playing to his base, which is the conservative white voters in the Republican Party. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And it’s a way to differentiate himself, and he understands. Even though he said today, “I love the Hispanics,” as he put it — even though he said that today — it’s very clear that, in criticizing Jeb for speaking Spanish, he was talking to his core constituency.
RUSH: Now, in addition to saying this, Gloria Borger wanted to say something and she was interrupted, and I’m not sure she ever completed it. But during that press conference yesterday Trump did come out and started speaking lovingly of Hispanics, all of those that he’s known, all of those who have worked for him, all of those who do great things. He loves the Hispanics. “I love Mexicans. I have great respect,” and so forth.
Gloria Borger was on the verge of saying, “This is not the kind of red meat that Trump’s voters want to hear,” and I don’t think she got around to saying it. I could see she wanted to. She wanted to make a comment (because I know she started to) about how different Trump sounded in this appearance. There wasn’t any of the rapists and the murderers and they’re all this and they’re all that. There was nothing but love for them.
She said, “He’s becoming more presidential. He’s starting to soften his tone.” She wanted to say that she wonders whether or not the Trump base is going to be disappointed by that, because she thinks that they want to continue to hear nothing but how the Mexicans are rapists and purse snatchers and murderers and muggers and so forth.
“They don’t want to hear about how much Trump likes ’em!” Now, she didn’t say that. She was on the way; she got interrupted. It’s my interpretation of where she was going. And then this English language subject came up. On the next bite in sequence here is Jeffrey Lord reacting to what Borger said. Cabrera said, “Jeff, can Donald Trump win the election if he stops making comments like this?”
LORD: This was an interesting column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal the other day in which she was talking about Hispanic friend who listen to Spanish-language radio. The hosts gets lots and lots of calls from Hispanics supporting Donald Trump. They’re opposed to illegal immigration, too. One other thing here that Gloria is saying, and she’s right about this in terms of his base. Rush Limbaugh spent considerable time on his radio show discussing this and saying how stunned he was that it is controversial at all to defend speaking in English. And I can tell you, that really will resonate with the conservative base.
RUSH: There’s no question about it. This is the secondary topic that interested me yesterday, coequally with the… I know it was a desire. A lot of people on this panel wanted to point out that Trump really backed off the red meat and started talking loving of the Hispanic people. I’m telling you, Gloria Borger picked up on that and she was on the verge of trying to make the point that Trump’s basically gonna like it.
Then this English language thing came up, and that is factual. Jeff Lord has it right here. I mean, the idea that it’s controversial that Trump thinks we should be speaking English, and he was just pointing out that Trump’s base is not gonna be offended by that at all. They’re gonna be very supportive of it. Then next was Ana Navarro.
NAVARRO: Let’s not pretend that the controversy here is that Jeb Bush doesn’t speak English. Jeb Bush speaks English. If you know more than one language and you can express yourself in it, why not? I hope that more people learn more languages. It is a huge asset in business. It’s a huge asset in life.
LORD: It’s not just Spanish. I mean, it’s all languages. The implication here that springs from this whole illegal immigration situation is that the country is being forced, in other words, to a different culture than the one it has, the American culture; that it’s being, in the words of Victor Davis Hanson, “ethnic triumphalism.” And, you know, that’s not a good thing.
RUSH: Exactly right. What is involved in all this is that America is being forced to adopt other cultures. That’s not what assimilation is. In the old days of immigration on assimilation, the immigrants would come here, they would become Americans. They would want to become Americans. They would learn the American culture. They reveled in it; they loved it. That’s why they risked everything.
What’s happening now is that America’s leaders seem hell-bent on showing that we can become their culture, and that’s what Trump objects to, whether he’s aware of it or not. In terms of actually using the words, with everybody running around speaking in Spanish, it’s pandering. And here’s the final bite. This is Gloria Borger wrapping it up.
BORGER: Romney lost the last election; he had 27% of Hispanic voters. In talking to Mitt Romney about that, Romney was the first one to say the Republican Party has to do much better than I did. When George W. Bush won the election, he had 43, 44% of Hispanics. The Republican nominee has to do at least that well. And so at this point, Donald Trump has to figure out a way to navigate that, what has become a very, very difficult terrain for him.
RUSH: Well, she also noted earlier that that’s how she interpreted his comments. But I’m telling you, I’ll say this ’til I’m blue in the face. We’ve run the numbers. Everybody has. If Romney had won 70% of the Hispanic vote in 2012, he would have still lost the election. The Republicans are gonna continue to lose if they believe the only way to win the White House is Hispanic votes. If Romney couldn’t have won getting 70%, then it’s a giant mistake they’re making, and I think they’re gonna continue to make it.
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RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites quickly. Here’s Bloomberg TV, TV Markets is the show. Coanchor Alex Steele had an exchange with John Heilemann who hosts another show on that network called All Due Respect.
STEELE: What are you hearing from the stalwarts of the Republican Party, from the Karl Roves, the Rush Limbaughs? Are they gonna get behind Trump, would they?
HEILEMANN: Very different categories of people there. The establishment Republicans think Donald Trump’s a disaster and would be a — certain to lose almost every state if he were the Republican nominee, that his rhetoric on immigration and other things is dragging the party to the right and is hurting the whole party. They would like to see him go away. If they could snap their fingers and make him go away, they would. Rush Limbaugh is a different kind of character. He’s not in the Republican establishment. He’s part of a different establishment, which is the talk radio establishment, and he is good for Rush Limbaugh’s ratings just like he’s good for all of our ratings.
RUSH: See, I’m doing it all for ratings. Yeah. (laughing) Trump’s good for ratings. When’s the last time we had Trump on the program here? I don’t think we ever have, have we? (interruption) Oh, that’s right. That’s right. He called in during the Cure-a-Thon and he donated five figures. That’s exactly right. Very good memory. You’re recovering well from sub-Saharan. And here is Anderson Cooper 360 last night. GOP strategist consultant Rick Wilson is the guest. Cooper said, “The numbers came out about Hispanic voters and how they view Trump, and it’s like 80% have an unfavorable view of him. With numbers like that can any candidate in any party actually win the presidency?”
WILSON: Donald Trump is buying himself a lot of short-term benefits and a lot of long-term detriments with that, with a very nativist tone in that regard. And I think that it’s difficult for Donald Trump to put together a national coalition unless he is gonna go with base, base, base only and try to rev up, you know, exclusively white voter turnout at the end of the day. Which, look, it is not an impossible mathematical equation to get there, but it leads to something I think that is pretty ugly in the country.
RUSH: So this is what the Republican establishment believes of their own base, that 30% are racist nativists. This is what they believe. That’s why Jeb wants to try to get the nomination without them. I’m not sure about that number, 80% have an unfavorable view of Trump, Hispanics? The number is different than that. Trump’s been out there hyping a much different number than that.
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RUSH: Here’s the CNN poll. “Donald Trump often vows he’ll win the Hispanic vote if he becomes the Republican” nominee. It says here, “If so, he might have some work to do. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday finds that the real estate magnate is viewed unfavorably by 82% of Hispanics, with 68% feeling ‘strongly so.’
“Just 15% of those surveyed view Trump favorably. Those numbers are a sharp contrast to the Spanish-speaking Jeb Bush, who is viewed favorably by 43% of Hispanic voters, a higher percentage than is usual for Republicans. But only 39% of whites have a favorable view of Bush, compared to 48% who have a positive opinion of Trump.” Now, there are two separate polls, the names of which escape me. One’s Pew, and the other might be IBD/TIPP. I can’t remember.
In both of those polls back in May, overall Trump’s unfavorables were 61 and 63%. And last week in both of those polls his unfavorable-favorable had done a total flip to now his favorables in one of those polls is 59, and in another one 62. I mean, a total flip-flop. And that was just voters overall. That was not polled by ethnic group. Now, this poll having come out on Wednesday in the Washington Post probably explains why Trump spent so much time yesterday in the post-pledge presser speaking of his affection for Hispanics, the numbers that he has hired and likes and so forth.
And this is what Gloria Borger was talking about on CNN yesterday when I zeroed in it. She didn’t quite get to say it because it was a four-panel show and everybody was trying to talk at the same time. But she was trying to point out that Trump was backing off the red meat that his supporters love. “You know, ‘Hispanics are rapists. The illegals are rapists and murderers and muggers and purse snatchers.” He’s not talking like that anymore about them.”
I know she was gonna make the point that he’s backing off; he’s starting to sound a little bit more presidential on this. She wanted to ask whether or not his red meat supporters are gonna be satisfied with the new moderate tone coming from Trump on Hispanics. Now, it’s a fascinating premise behind the poll. What is the premise behind the poll? The premise behind the poll is this is apparently nobody can get elected president in this country unless they have the Hispanic vote.
Now, during my 27 years, now into our 28th, behind the Golden EIB Microphone, it seems like it’s shifted. One election, whoever got the soccer moms was gonna win. The next election, whoever got women was gonna win; you could not win the presidency without women. And then another year and a frequent number of years it was African-Americans. “If you don’t get the African-American vote, why, you don’t have prayer!”
It is never said by any of these polling units, “If you don’t, as a Republican, solidify turnout among your base, you will never win.” They never poll that. They always go out and poll things that they are confident will show the Republicans lacking, as in hated and despised by certain ethnic groups. That’s what this ABC News/Washington Post poll is. And Gloria Borger yesterday on CNN said she had talked to Mitt Romney.
Yes. The standard bearer. You know, we won an election with Mitt Romney. Right! So she was going out and talking to Mitt Romney as though he knows how to win elections, except he didn’t. She said that Mitt Romney got 27% of the Hispanic vote, and he told her that the Republican Party just can’t do that. They’re gonna have to get far, far more than that if they have a chance to win the White House.
And then she cited that Romney told her that George W. Bush got in the forties with the Hispanic vote. Nobody seems to want to tell the following stat though. A bunch of people have run the numbers. You probably tired of me pointing it out, but as long as they’re gonna continue trying to in this direction, I’m gonna continue hitting you between the eyes with the truth. The truth is, if you look at all of the numbers postelection, state by state, group by group, gender by gender, orientation by orientation, however you want to divvy it?
What you will find, if everything stayed the same except Mitt Romney got 70% of the Hispanic vote, he still would not have won the election. He would not have won the popular vote. And he would not have won the Electoral College vote. And yet they persist in thinking at the Republican establishment that they don’t have a prayer unless they get the Hispanic vote. And so Jeb goes out and starts speaking Spanish, as though somehow that’s gonna convert to votes.
It’s pandering, I think. But how do they miss…? I mean, you would think these are people do want to win elections, right? You would think that they’d want to be honest about what they have to do to win. Why do they lie to themselves? Why do they not tell themselves 70% of the Hispanic vote would not have won it for ’em?
So then where did they fall short in 2012? They had to fall short somewhere. If 70% of the Hispanic vote still would not have secured a win for Romney, then what didn’t they get in addition to the Hispanic vote? Well, we all know the answer. For whatever reason, four million people who voted in 2008 did not vote in 2012, Republicans. I don’t know that they were all conservative.
I don’t know that they were all part of the Republican base, but four million people staying home is a big. Now, you will see consultants and establishment types argue with that, “No, no, no, no, I hear Limbaugh talk about that all the time. He’s wrong about that. It’s a little bit more complicated.” No, it’s not. And I’ve never heard them try to explain or I haven’t even heard them acknowledge the 70% stat of Hispanics that even had Romney got, which no Republican ever has, by the way. No Republican has ever gotten 70% of the Hispanics. It was never gonna happen. Even if Romney had set records, he still wouldn’t have won.
Now, I would think they’d want to be honest with themselves about this. Even if it’s not publicly, just honest internally. Because winning elections is what it’s all about. But now they’re sitting here, now they’ve got this ABC/Washington Post poll, and they see 82% of Hispanics view Trump unfavorably. And they’re all sitting there, “See, see, we told you. He can’t win. He’s gonna bottom out.”
I just want to remind everybody that he was 60% disapproval in May in two other polls and did a massive turnaround. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen with the Hispanic vote, but it has happened. And of course I guess we have to believe this, it’s the ABC/Washington Post poll. You can’t run around and cherry-pick a poll and say you don’t believe it. You can’t do that. I mean, you could but you wouldn’t have any credibility with it. You have to go with it.
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RUSH: Now there’s another poll on Trump’s favorability with Hispanics. It is a Bloomberg poll. And Trump has a net favorable among Hispanics of plus 51 in this poll. So it’s quite a disparity. The ABC/Washington Post poll, 82% disapproval. In the Bloomberg poll, 51% approval. What are you gonna do?