RUSH: This is Adrian. It’s great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: How are you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Just fine, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. Hey, I just wanted to… If you’ll just give me a chance to explain why, you know, my point of view, just before you cut me off, please.
RUSH: I don’t cut anybody off.
CALLER: Okay. I’m sorry. But, anyway, you know, when I realized that Ted Cruz was a rare and a genuine, honest man that just loved the country, it hit me.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: You know, I was telling my wife. I said, “If he wins, now’s gonna be the time when every other person that is like that has really gotta step up and help him.”
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: But now it’s dawning on me that that’s… You know, because of the way things are going, that’s if he wins — you know, which I hope he does. I was telling my wife, I said, “Everybody needs to get on board,” and so one of the reasons why I’m calling, is you could say my gripe is — and please just hear me out — it’s not what you say but what you don’t say. Because there is an opinion poll that I saw, and I was trying to look it up again so I could tell you what it was — you know, who did the poll. But it was saying that a lot of people are believing now that Cruz is dishonest. And so one of the things that I think that has influenced that is, you know, how we’re lazy by nature when it comes to finding out exactly what’s going on. So the easiest way people form an opinion or a vote is there’s three areas. There’s one when the actual candidates get up there and speak, and then another one is the TV media, and then the third one is the talk radio.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And the first two, the pundits and the media, almost a constant recurring theme —
RUSH: I think I know where this is going.
CALLER: — is slander, that Ted Cruz say liar, and it comes from the two other Republicans, mainly, that Ted Cruz is a liar. And so I believe that’s influenced that. You know, which brings me to my third point, which is kind of my gripe, and that it’s talk radio. Because whenever I need to hear that… Because there’s a weird bent to us that we’re more easy to believe an accusation against an honest man and at the same time we’re more easily to think positively of a dishonest man, if they’re saying other things that we like to hear. You know?
And so when it comes… There’s a saying that a lie goes farther than the truth. And so if there’s a constant theme of a lie — you know, that he’s a liar, he’s a liar, he’s a liar — you know, people will go, “Man, is he lying? Is what Trump’s saying about Cruz true? Is what Rubio’s saying true about Cruz?” And so you go to other sources. Well, mostly we’re gonna go to the radio, you know? And so I hardly ever hear from you. I mean, the only time I hear that from you is that he’s not a liar or that you defend him in any way is when somebody calls, and please just let me finish my thought.
RUSH: Well, I don’t expect you to be able to… Actually, I do. I expect you to listen to every moment of this program. I’m here every day doing it every moment. I expect you to be listening to it. I’m not here to be speaking to empty vessels out here. So if I’m here speaking, you should be listening. And if you had been, you would have heard from the first moment Trump got on this business that Cruz is a nasty guy, I have been saying, he’s not a nasty guy and I have been pointing out he’s not a liar. But your complaint…
I know what your complaint is.
Trump’s getting all the media coverage and Cruz isn’t getting any or Rubio isn’t getting as much, and you want to know why that is. I could answer it for you in any number of ways, talk about other people. You have to understand that the people opposing Trump oppose Cruz even more! When we’re talking about the Republican establishment, and the media — outside of talk radio – there is a huge fear and opposition to Ted Cruz, more so than there is for Donald Trump. But it is a constant battle. You know, George Bush never responded to any of these allegations about him, and if the targets don’t go out and do a bunch of responding and response themselves, then there isn’t any news to comment upon made in that regard.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Let me just get it on the record again. Let me just remind everybody. For weeks — not days, for weeks — I have been telling everybody in this audience that Donald Trump was attacking Ted Cruz as a liar because Cruz was creeping up in the polls. We had the internal polls for the Bush campaign going into South Carolina. We had heard that the internals had Cruz two points behind Donald Trump. Trump ratchets up the “Cruz is a liar! Cruz is a nasty guy!” I pointed out why Trump was saying these things.
Cruz is not a liar. He’s not this or that. This whole thing with Ben Carson? I’ve said it once, I’ve said it I don’t know how many times: The frustration I have over this is childish. For Ben Carson to run around… He didn’t lose a single vote over that. CNN put that news out, and Ben Carson did leave the campaign, for crying out loud. That whole thing reminded me we were watching fricking Romper Room. This is a political campaign, and to me, to sit here and spend a whole lot of time nuking that wasn’t necessary.
A couple times, I did. But they didn’t let go of it, and then Ted kept apologizing for it. So what am I gonna do? There’s only so… Look, and then for every time Ted’s called a liar, I don’t know how many times he doesn’t respond. But when he doesn’t respond, there’s no news made, and to sit here and say, “Well, Donald Trump’s done it again! He called Cruz a liar, but I know he’s not a liar”? That’s what you want me to do. I can do it. But that’s not gonna be enough to get it done. As much as we all wish it were the case, this show is not the campaign. I would love it if there were.
It’d be over, if this show were the campaign, but this show is not the campaign. I’ve tried to spell out the specifics of the accusations, the details on that Carson dropping out business that I just mentioned. I’m not Ted Cruz’s lawyer. I’m not his mother. I’m not his father, Rafael Cruz. I’m not his campaign spokesman. And I’m not whining or complaining about it, in that sense. But I do. When I’m attacked, fairly or unfairly here, I do react to it, when it comes from one of you. Now, I don’t pay attention to what they say about me in the media anymore because I don’t. I just don’t.
And there’s probably a lot of you frustrated I don’t respond to some of that. But I guarantee you, now, most of it I don’t even know because I don’t pay attention to it anymore. To me, it’s just part of the game, and maybe Cruz looks at it that way, too. Maybe Bush looked at it that way. Maybe everybody in politics says, “You know what? Being criticized, being defamed, being destroyed is part of the game. You gotta be prepared to put up with it if you get into it,” and so forth. And you can’t spend all your life defending it.
In fact, you can’t defend it very much or else that can count as a mark against you. “What, you can’t take it? What, somebody calls you a name, you can’t take? What a big baby!” So it’s very, very… I’ve even dealt with this aspect of it, too. I have shared with you over the years what a challenge it is to respond to criticism and how, for every bit of criticism, there’s thousands of people telling you how to respond to it. This way, that way. I’ve spent a lot of time on it. (interruption)
Well, the Clintons had a war room, but here’s the point. Everybody knows Hillary Clinton’s as dishonest as the day is long and nobody cares. With the Clintons, they expect it. It’s part of the package. I think… This is just me: I think Trump’s allegations that Cruz is a liar, nasty, are so over the top that, to me, they’re instantly questionable anyway. They seem to be purely and totally political. They’re so over the top. Nobody, nobody could be as nasty a human being as Trump portrays Cruz to be. It’s not possible.
At some point, you have to realize this. But maybe I assume that people realize insincerity more than I’m aware that they do.