RUSH: El Rushbo, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. I’ll bet Trump knows somebody can crack the phone. I’ll bet Trump could do it. Even though he thinks Apple ought to do it, I’ll bet Trump could do it. A lot of people think Trump could do it. Here is Pat in Houston. Pat, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, hi, Rush. I sure appreciate the Shanklin entertainment while I waited. That was excellent. I was not quite a Trump supporter, but the man has me impressed. At the beginning of this, he stated that politicians are stupid and that he is smart, and then he’s proceeded to run circles around Rubio and Cruz, who are both the smartest guys in the room, I thought. And, you know, the other politicians in the media treated him as a clown.
And they vastly underestimated him. But, you know, it’s like Trump has counted on that and knew it was gonna happen. To your Stack of Stuff, we’ve got a US News & World Report today saying that at the beginning of the year Trump had more salaried campaign employees than Cruz or Rubio. And so this guy, Trump, it’s like he’s planned it all along, and I’m just really impressed at how smart of a campaign he has run against the guys who are supposed to be experienced.
RUSH: Let me… You’re on to something here. Let me take the occasion of your call here — and, by the way, I want you to stand by. Robert B. Reichhhh has just given Ted Cruz the best endorsement he could have had. I have it here. It’s about a minute and 50 seconds. Robert B. Reichhhh. The best thing could have ever happened to Ted Cruz coming up in a moment. But I happen to think Trump has been planning this presidential run for years.
As I look back, as I think back and remember things from times I’ve been with Trump — various little isolated things that he’s said, done, this kind of thing — I actually think this has been in the works for a while. Don’t know how long. Couple years, three, maybe. About this bit that Trump says the standard, ordinary operating politician today is stupid, a stupid hack, dumb, stupid, incompetent? Yeah, it’s insulting, and a lot of people are put off by it.
Even if it’s true, you’re not supposed to talk about people that way. But he does. He’s brash, but the caller here is right. Trump has all kinds of professional people that he has hired here. He has all kinds of professional strategists, analysts, campaign experts. I don’t know per se if he has a consultant, as we think of consultants. I think he probably is his own in this regard. But he is illustrating… What is the point of politics? I mean, you could… (interruption) Okay, many answers to that.
But what is one of the things you have to do to succeed in politics? (interruption) Well, yeah, you have to win, but you have to draw flies. You have to draw people. You have to make a connection with people. You have to go out there and you have to do whatever it takes, because that’s how you win. Yeah, you have to win. Yeah, you have to raise money. But you do all that by connecting with people. You have to create an army of supporters. Now, here’s Trump — a quote/unquote “political neophyte,” never done it before.
In the words of the establishment, he’s inexperienced, doesn’t know what he’s doing. “We’re the pros.” The establishment cannot draw flies. The Republican establishment candidates cannot draw a crowd. They cannot connect with the voters. They have blown it. So just how…? For people who think that Trump is somehow doing all this on a whim and things are aligning and it’s just coincidental that it’s working, Pat’s point is that there’s much more than coincidence going on here.
And it looks like Trump has a better understanding of what has to be done to draw a crowd and to hold the crowd and to expand the crowd than the political professionals, the people that devoted their lives to it. And make no mistake: That ticks ’em off. Oh, do not misunderstand. Here you have this cadre of political professionals at all levels. You got professional analysts. You got professional strategists. You got professional consultants. You have professional advisors.
You have professional lobbyists. You have professional suck-ups. You have professional yes-men. You have professional everything. You’re inside the Beltway and you’ve got the best, the creme de la creme. And here comes a guy, a reality TV host carnival barker, and he’s running rings around you on your field. He’s running rings around you in your business. It makes total sense that they would be flabbergasted, that they would be discombobulated, that they would be all out of sorts and not understanding what’s hit them.
Because there’s an arrogance sometimes that attaches itself to years and years and years of unchallenged dominance or superiority. And it’s clear that the professional political class is making a mess of things. By the way, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention right now, Fred Barnes… Do you know who Fred Barnes is? Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard. He’s a well-known and renowned conservative columnist. And he was… (interruption) Before Weekly Standard, where was he? (interruption)
Well, yeah, yeah, he was a Fox News analyst, but that was after the Weekly Standard. The Weekly Standard… He used to guest host this program in the early days. Anyway, Fred Barnes is out with a piece that is predictable. It happens once or twice a month during election season. And that is that the fault for all of this — including the inescapable Republican defeat in November. The fault for all of this, the only explanation for Trump, the explanation for the failure of traditional Republican candidates like Jeb Bush is — dadelut dadelut dadelut — talk radio!
We, in talk radio, have alienated you from your political professionals. We have alienated you from your political establishment, the seasoned veterans who are the experts and know how to win. Talk radio has irresponsibly driven a wedge between Republican voters and its own establishment and elected officials. And talk radio is, therefore, irresponsible and solely to blame for this. And it means that the Republican Party, Donald Trump, whoever it is, is destined to once again lose the presidency in November.
You can make book on stories like this. You can make book on columns like this.