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RUSH: This is Ken in Livonia, Michigan. Great to have you. You’re up first today, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I’m calling to bring up a very important topic, and I believe I represent a large number of voters out there in your audience. I want to address why I’m supporting Donald Trump and why others are supporting Donald Trump. I happen to be an independent conservative, a Constitutionalist. I identify myself as a Christian who’s pro-life who holds to traditional biblical view of marriage, and I just want to say: The reason why I’m supporting Trump is because the establishment of the GOP, the leadership of the GOP, despises people like me.


They do not represent people like me.

They are doing everything they can to get people like me out of the party. They are against candidates that share my values, my views. Also the establishment, the leadership of the GOP clearly believes in big, bloated government. The leadership of the GOP, Rush, is becoming the opposite side of the coin with the Democratic Party. They don’t show opposition to what Obama and the Democrats are doing. And so here comes Donald Trump. Is he a conservative, Rush? I don’t believe so. But he is the only candidate, Rush, that I see can stop the establishment of the GOP’s preferred candidate, Jeb Bush. And this is something I believe you could say this is —

RUSH: Okay, let me take this a different direction, because we’ve nailed why people supporting Trump. I spent the first hour yesterday explaining all this, and you’ve repeated it here in three minutes. There’s one other aspect to it. Trump has no fingerprints on anything that is happening in Washington. People inside the Beltway, both parties — I talked about yesterday — a lot of people think they’re tone deaf or they’re out of touch. They’re not out of touch.

They know exactly how much you hate what they’re doing. They know how much everybody hates what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter anymore. It used to matter what voters think. It’s relatively new that it doesn’t matter at all what voters think, other than at election time. That’s where they care to make you think that they are going to accede to your wishes during the campaign. They get elected, and they never do anymore. They don’t even pay lip service anymore to public opinion, voter opinion or what have you.

It is clear a new set of rules is governing the establishment, and it’s money. It’s called a donor class or whatever. And people on the Republican side are simply fed up. They figured out they’ve got two landslide midterm elections giving the Republicans everything they said they needed to stop Obama, and they haven’t made move one to stop Obama, and in many cases are going along and trying to assist Obama.


So here comes Trump. It’s not about conservatism. It’s not about conservative principles. We’re so beyond that. This is about drastic emergency steps needed to save this country as founded, and Trump has no fingerprints on anything that’s happened. Whatever has gone on in Washington, he hasn’t had a thing to do with it, and is also voicing his opposition to it and claiming to have fixes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That’s right. That’s why I don’t think the inside-the-Beltway establishment gets this, even though they think they do. I’m gonna maintain to you again: They are not out of touch. It’s not that they don’t know how you feel. It’s not that they don’t know you’re mad at ’em. They just don’t care, folks. They have other masters to serve here, and those masters are providing them with the money that keeps them where they are. You aren’t. It’s very simple. They don’t think your ideas matter a whit to their reelection.

The money from their donors is what determines that. Ideas, shmideas. They don’t matter. The business is get elected and then reelected. The business is stay in office. How do you do that? The easiest way is money, not superior ideas. That’s a waste of time, it’s a waste of energy, and it’s inefficient. Money makes it happen. They’ll give lip surface to your ideas making you think they care about ’em when it’s election time. But after that, screw it. They are fully aware of the disconnect.

But they don’t think they’re the problem. They’re the elites. They can’t be the problem. In their own minds, you are. You’re the ones that don’t get it. You’re the ones not taking the time to understand how tough their jobs are. You’re not taking the necessary steps and you’re not engaging in enough respect. It’s like David Brooks said yesterday: You’re not showing enough respect for the “craftsmen” in the establishment that are making all this possible for you.

But they’re gonna continue to plug ahead anyway, knowing full well that your ignorance is the way they will excuse you for not understanding. There is one thing they don’t get. What they don’t get is that in your mind — and I’ll say it again — emergency measures are needed to save this country as founded. We don’t have time to win an election here, lose an election there, the normal political ebb and flow. We don’t have time for it. We are already victimized by that.

Emergency measures are needed to save this country at every level, on every issue, from health care to immigration to foreign policy to arming our enemies with nuclear weapons. We have an emergency, and the emergency is saving this country as it was founded. I guarantee you the people inside the Beltway do not think like that. They think that’s silly talk. They think that’s extremist. They think it’s dangerous. They don’t believe it for a second. But where they live, everything’s fine.

Unemployment’s 3% and the median salary’s around $110,000 a year. You can’t get into restaurants ’cause they’re so crowded. Everything’s fine where they live. Their kids’ schools are great (mostly private). They don’t have to live with the results of their policies because they insulate themselves from them. The only thing they can’t insulate themselves from is a terrorist nuclear weapon of some kind.

But they can insulate themselves from whatever they do in immigration, and they can have their own health care system paid for by us. So these other domestic things? That’s for you to deal with and figure out and live with. Your hospitals are going to hell. Your schools going to hell. Theirs aren’t! And that’s, sadly, a determining factor. But they’re deeply scared now. They’re a combination of scared and really, really angry now.

‘Cause this has gone way too far.

Trump was supposed have been gone weeks ago, and even if Trump hadn’t destroyed himself weeks ago, he was not supposed to be leading this thing and pulling away. And certainly Ben Carson was supposed to be in second place. In fact, I’m holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers our old buddy Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, and the headline is: “The Republican Establishment Is in DEEP Trouble.

“A majority of Republican registered voters want either Donald Trump or Ben Carson to be their party’s 2016 presidential nominee, according to two new national polls from the Washington Post-ABC News and the New York Times-CBS News.” They live and die, as you know, on these polls and the data that these polls produce. That is a very serious reality to them. They live and die by them. They fundraise off of them. They policy make off of them.

A couple of pull quotes: “It’s not only that 53% of Republican voters (in the Post poll) or 50% of GOP voters (in the Times poll) say they are for either Trump or Carson. It’s also how few Republican respondents in those same surveys say they are for the establishment choices.” Do you realize Trump and Carson are both getting more than all the other establishment candidates combined?

I guarantee you, wherever the establishment’s tree house headquarters is, they’re not sitting there joking and thinking, “Well, you know, it’s early. This stuff’s all gonna work itself out. This is just children out there having a temper tan.” This is too deep now. Both the support for Carson and Trump and the opposition to the establishment candidates is too deep now to not be real. And this is why they’re now getting deeply troubled. They’re scared, I think, and angry.


Continuing with the pull quote: “Bush, the man everyone assumed would be the race’s front-runner, clocks in at 8 percent in the Post poll and 6 percent (!) in the Times poll. Scott Walker, the guy who was supposed to challenge Bush for the top spot, takes 2 percent in both the Times and Post polls.” And Cillizza repeats it: “Two.” Another pull quote: “It’s possible, of course, that by the time voters actually vote in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in February and beyond, the ‘normal’ order will be restored.

“Republican voters will have vented their anger and started to think more with their heads and less with their hearts. For the GOP establishment, the best they can do is wait and hope that such a transformation takes place. That’s not exactly operating from a position of political strength.” Now, stop and think of that. Let’s say Cillizza’s right about this. The only thing they can do is stop and hope? All they can do is wait and hope? There no word here about maybe make an adjustment or two?

There nothing they can do? They’re gonna stay dead-solid locked into the positions that have put them in this spot? They’re not gonna adjust? They’re not gonna make one move to make it look like they get it? They’re just gonna sit and wait for the children to get over their tantrum and hope that that’s what happens? That’s probably right. That’s probably what they will do. That’s why they’re deep trouble and why they’re scared.

And I think, you know, wherever they are (the Grill Room, wherever their clubhouse is) this idea to just sit around and wait for all this maturity to overtake voters and realize that they may be making a mistake for Trump, that’s kind of — I don’t know — a fraught position. I know, you can joke about Cillizza being the last of the party here to realize it, but the importance of this is… (interruption) No, no, no. You can tell jokes. You can tell jokes about Cillizza being the last to get the news.

The point is that’s in the Washington Post, to a lot of people, that’s all they read. This is gonna be news to Washington Post readers who are the last to learn things be next to the New York Times readers. I mean, the idea that the base is in trouble is not news. I understand that. But that the Drive-Bys are just now figuring it out is news. Look, go back to this screenshot I just put up of CNN. They still don’t get it.

Despite all this coverage of Trump, all the interviews they’ve done with him, they still don’t get it. They’re still waiting for Trump to go out there and “say something that offends women” and blow up his candidacy tomorrow night, according to their screenshot. They’re still waiting for the loose-tongued insult to some group that’s gonna finally do him in. Where have they been for the past three months?

Trump’s insulted just about everybody he can, and it’s done nothing but help. I’m serious. I don’t think they understand inside the Beltway, at the establishment, either party. They don’t have an understanding of the dire consequences you are in. And they do not at all think, they don’t understand this idea that emergency measures are needed to save this country. Now, let me expand on that, too.

By “emergency measures,” what I mean is a really solid, multiple injection of conservatism, which is what is going to save this country. I don’t care what anybody else says. If that doesn’t happen — and I know you Trump supporters know full well that’s what’s gonna happen here. There has to be tremendous conservative input to reverse the direction that this country is headed in.

Whether it’s said to be conservative or not, in the real world, that’s what’s going to be required to stop this and then reverse it. The remedies will necessarily have to be conservative (as opposed to moderate, as opposed to independent, as opposed to liberal light). We’re going to need the opposite of what has been happening here at least for eight years and probably longer.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to John in Danbury, Connecticut, next. Tell you what I’m gonna do. In the next hour we’ll play audio sound bites of Trump’s — what was it — hour and ten minute appearance last night here at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas. John in Danbury, Connecticut. Great to have you, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Yes, Rush, good afternoon. We had a local statewide election here recently, and my wife wouldn’t even get out of the car to go vote. She said, “You know, I’m not a Republican anymore. I’m not anything. I’m not voting anymore. These people are all the same. They’ll say anything and then they get in and they do nothing.” So okay, this morning we’re looking at the Trump rally on the tube in Dallas. She turned the TV off and she said to me, “You know, I don’t care if Donald Trump brags about how rich he is. I don’t care how mean to women he might be. I don’t care if he’s not polite. I don’t care if he calls people losers. If he does 10% of what he says he’s gonna do, he’ll be better than what we got now. I think I’ll go vote for him.”

RUSH: I’m hearing this a lot. You know what else I’m hearing? You mentioned it, too. One of the old saws in politics is, one of the requirements is: “If you want to take it a long way, you’ve got to have a hardscrabble upbringing story. You have to have come from nothing and built yourself up to explain your current financial status,” be it wealth or near wealth or whatever. But never, never was somebody openly rich! Even the Kennedys could not brag about it.


They had to talk about how all they wanted to do was raise everybody else’s taxes, and they had to talk about constantly giving money to the poor. They never did it, but that’s how they diffused their wealth. Trump is out resetting the standard on this. Trump is out bragging about it in the sense he’s happy and proud of his success. He wants to share it. He wants more people to experience it. That’s what this country’s all about, and he’s not gonna apologize for it. He’s not gonna act guilty for it, and people are really responding well to that. It sounds like your wife is, too.

CALLER: I’m in.

RUSH: You’re in. Okay. So that’s that. Marco Rubio still has one of those hardscrabble stories. I don’t think those stories are totally negated now. I don’t think that kind of dramatic thing is happening. Rubio’s story is legit; it’s real. His parents come here from Cuba. You’ve heard the drill. His dad was, I think, a bartender and just worked to the bone to give his sons a chance, and now his son’s a US senator. It’s a compelling story. It’s a great story. It’s uniquely American.

But so’s Trump’s. Trump is standing so much about appropriateness and propriety on its head. On the other hand, you got John Kasich. How many of you do not know that John Kasich’s dad was a mailman? I mean, it’s in every speech practically. So Trump is the antithesis, the exact opposite of that, and people don’t seem to be bothered by it. They’re not bothered by the braggadocio. They don’t think it’s classless.

And, believe me, these rich SOBs in the establishment? (laughing) They can’t stand that! I guarantee you they can’t stand that. These are people that have to hide their wealth and have to shield and make sure you can’t see it. So they don’t get the full benefit of living it, other than when they go to the private clubs and only they are members of. Here’s Tammy in Atlanta. It’s great to have you with us on the EIB Network. Hi.


CALLER: Hey, Rush, mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you very much. Great to have you here.

CALLER: I’m so excited. I’m so excited to have heard Trump last night. I think he’s fantastic. I’m excited to have a fighter on board with us. But I wanted to follow up on something that was said last week on your show. The girl called in and said, “You know, I think his numbers would be at 40% or 60% at this point if he would focus on the issues and not say ugly things about like ‘bimbo’ and, you know, ‘your face looks ugly’ and all those kinds of things.”

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I had to think about it for a minute and I realize that’s exactly how I feel. I’m really excited about him. I want to put his bumper sticker on my car. I want to wear a T-shirt that says his name. But I don’t know what he’s gonna say, and I feel like if he says something ugly, then that means that I approve that, if I’m wearing his shirt or if I’m wearing his bumper sticker or whatever.

RUSH: Okay, so what you don’t want is for Trump in a speech… Here you are; everybody knows you love Trump. You can’t wait for Trump to be elected. He goes out and makes a speech, he calls somebody a bimbo again, and your friends say, “What do you mean! How can you support a guy like that?” and you don’t want to have to defend it, right?

CALLER: I don’t want that to represent me. I don’t want people to think that I’m okay with other people calling people that, you know?

RUSH: You —

CALLER: “Oh, well, Tammy says that that’s okay to do.”

RUSH: You may have to make an adjustment on that if you’re gonna hang in with Trump, ’cause that’s the modus operandi. ‘Cause if anybody hits him, that’s what he’s gonna do. If anybody rips him, criticizes him, that’s how he returns fire. Anyway, Tammy, I appreciate it.

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