RUSH: Now, I want to go back to last week and my reaction to Trump’s interview with Chris Matthews. That rapid-fire interview on what Trump would do in that hypothetical he created where abortion is illegal, what would you do? And Trump, you know, had three different answers over seven or eight different hours. I was hugely disappointed by that because that was just another attack on the entire Republican Party. It was not just an attack on Trump and an attempt to characterize Trump. That was Chris Matthews acting as a Democrat Party hack, whether he knew it or not.
The point is that question, that subject all ties into a major effort by the Democrats with this War on Women business, to try to convince people the Republican don’t like women, want to punish women, think of women as second class, whatever it is. So in my explaining what happened, many people, “There he goes again, defending Trump. He defends Trump all the time.” I was not defending Trump. What I was trying to do, and I’ll say it again, Trump or Cruz, one of these two guys more than likely is gonna be the nominee. And at this point I don’t want to sell out either person and do whatever might be done to damage them.
But the larger point is that that whole question — the Democrats are never asked questions like that. The Democrats never have hypotheticals created like that, even on things they approve of, even on things they want to do. They are never, ever put in a position like that. The reason Trump was asked that is because they know he’s a novice. They know that Trump is not studied on this. They know that Trump is not a traditional insider politician who doesn’t look, therefore, at issues the way insiders do. He’s an improv guy. He knows what he knows. He believes what he believes. He believes in the force of his personality, but the best way to describe it is he’s not an ideologue. He doesn’t look at life that way.
And, as such, when he hears a question like that, it becomes a law-and-order proposition to him. “You’re asking me what to do when somebody breaks the law? You punish them.” The fact that it was abortion was incidental to him. I’m not defending. The point is that that was not just a question about Trump. That was a question designed to further diminish, demean, impugn, characterize, attack, whatever the entire Republican Party. That whole line of questioning was designed to buttress Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Party, and demean the entire Republican Party.
That’s why I kind of didn’t like everybody jumping all over Trump on this. There’s evidence to prove — well, evidence to indicate that I was right, because next up was Maureen Dowd. Did you hear about this? “Given his Draconian comment, sending women to back alleys –” what is that? Who said anything about back alleys? Nobody. It’s my point. This is what the Democrats get to do. Nobody’s talking about sending women to back alleys. There’s nobody I know in the Republican Party, there’s nobody I know in the pro-life movement who actually wants to solve the issue this way as a matter of criminal behavior. They do want to make it illegal and all that, but it’s about changing minds and hearts.
But the Democrats don’t care. They want everybody, as many as possible, thinking that every Republican only wants to put women in jail. Period. Just like they wanted old folks to think Republicans were gonna kick ’em out of their houses, just like they wanted seasoned citizens to believe Republicans were gonna cancel their Social Security. The Democrats have nothing going on. They have a moribund, slow-motion, unexciting, drab, dull campaign. This is the kind of question that can incite their base. This and the race card are the two things that the Democrats know to play when they get in trouble.
To so Maureen Dowd says, “Given his draconian comment, sending women back to back alleys, I had to ask: When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion? ‘Such an interesting question,’ he said. ‘So whatÂ’s your next question?'”
So he dealt with it correctly there. He basically told her to go to hell. But that’s not the point. You know what? People throughout the media are reacting, “Why would Maureen Dowd do this? This is crazy!” What do you mean, why would Maureen Dowd do this? This is just the beginning of it. This is my whole point. This isn’t gonna go away. The Democrats think they can score too many points with this. You know what else is fascinating to me about this? Audio sound bite support coming up.
By the way, I forgot to mention this: Today’s program is dedicated to those of you who have promised never to listen to this program ever again. I just want to say hi. No, you know what this episode, this whole Trump/Chris Matthews abortion…? You know what it illustrates? See if I can make this point. The deeply… This demonstrates how deeply ingrained establishment insider political procedures are and how everybody thinks you have to fight them. What do we have in Trump? Stick with me on this. We have an outsider, by definition.
It’s somebody who’s not elected. He hasn’t been in Washington. He hasn’t been doing his business there as an insider. We all know what this means. He’s not establishment. I know people tried to say he is because he’s done business with them over the years, but he’s not. And his supporters agree, which is the important. His supporters know what he’s an outsider, believe he’s an outsider, and all that. So here comes a typical insider subject: Abortion. This is an establishment issue.
The Democrat establishment uses this against the Republican establishment as often as they can no matter what the Republicans do or say about it. The media willingly accomplice the Democrats in this effort to once again portray the Republicans as hateful and mean-spirited toward women any chance they get. So here comes an outsider getting this question from an insider perspective, and the outsider was not equipped or skilled to give an insider’s skilled answer. He answered like an outsider.
“Y-y-you’re asking me if we have a future where abortion’s illegal, what do I want to do with people who break the law? Punish ’em.” Ah, ah, ah, ah! Yes. It’s a perfect outsider answer, and look at the universe disgust there was with Trump. As an outsider, he was essentially penalized for not being an insider and not knowing how to deal with this as an insider. That’s how deeply ingrained the establishment way of doing things politically is, with a subject like this. Instead of his answer being a feather in his cap…
“Okay, he’s an outsider. He’s not supposed to know how to do this kind of stuff. It’s a trick question. It’s a typical Democrat Party trick question and he’s an outsider. He’s not skilled on this kind of stuff.” Instead of being maybe not hailed, but everybody came down on him as though he is an insider who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, when that’s not who he is. And so now Trump is out there saying, “Well, you know, politics is… There’s a learning curve.”
He’s gotta be real careful with that. That learning curve in politics? A lot of people don’t want him learning that learning curve. Others do. But you start learning the learning curve, and what are you doing? You play by the club’s rules. Who sets the learning curve? Who sets it? Who is it that decides what you have to know, when you have to know it, how you have to say it? The establishment does.
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RUSH: To the audio sound bites. I mentioned the reaction of people throughout the Drive-By Media to my reaction over Trump’s interview on abortion with Chris Matthews was all over the place. I want to share some of it with you. We’ll start State of the Union Sunday morning on CNN with Jacob Tapper, who was interviewing the chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus, and Jacob Tapper started the interview with an audio sound bite of me.
TAPPER: Rush Limbaugh — who is a major conservative voice, as I’m sure you know — expressed real concern about what that answer will mean to Democrats. Take a listen.
RUSH ARCHIVE: … I’m telling you what happened last night was huge in terms of rejuvenating the Democrats. They were moribund. They are falling asleep. They were depressed. They don’t have a candidate they could give a damn about. They’re excited not at all. Their turnout is nothing. Now they’re energized.
RUSH: So Tapper then said to the chairman the Republican National Committee, okay, Reince, what do you think of that? What’s your reaction to that?
TAPPER: Are you concerned at all? Is Rush Limbaugh right?
PRIEBUS: Well, he’s right about the first part, that they have nothing to be excited about. He said it better than I could. But, look, I mean, he’s since walked that back. Of course we don’t want women prosecuted, but again, as I said before, we’re the party of the open door. That means anyone can come in. Obviously we have our principles that we’re a pro-life party, we believe that, I expect that obviously to be the case moving forward, and I’m happy he clarified his comments.
RUSH: Yeah, he did. Three times in the next five or six hours, which I don’t — folks, if you remember, my concern with this was not about how it affects Trump, because the purpose of the question was to smear all Republicans. It was to continue the meme of the War on Women against all Republicans, not just Trump. But if they can make Trump look like he doesn’t know what he thinks, or maybe he thinks scary things, he’s the front-runner, he’s the face of the party now. That’s why they did it, and that’s why I thought it was a huge deal and people need to understand that the criticism of Trump here could be damaging to the party at large, was the only point that I was trying to make about this. Here on The Lead with Jake Tapper on Friday night, same subject, he spoke with Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s spokeswoman, about the same thing.
TAPPER: Rush Limbaugh, who has said some very nice things about Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh said that will be hugely damaging in a general election, that Trump harmed his potential to get Democrats to cross over. Are you at all worried?
MCENANY: It was definitely a misspeak. It was not a good moment, there’s no doubt about it. But the point is, he quickly came back, he retracted the statement, or at least revised the statement and said what he truly meant. So I don’t think that it will harm Republicans generally because Donald Trump did clarify his position.
RUSH: And John King, CNN’s Inside Politics on Sunday morning.
KING: Talk radio inside the state of Wisconsin, it’s quite a vibrant industry. Also, nationally Rush Limbaugh among those saying sorry, Mr. Trump, I defend you a lot, but this is Republican 101. George H. W. Bush changed his position; Mitt Romney changed his position. You can change your position on abortion as long as you can explain why. And being unprepared at this point in the campaign is what has everybody thinking, “Whoa,” right?
RUSH: No, no. Who does it have thinking, “Whoa?” It has me thinking “whoa,” for the big, broad reasons, I understand how and why the Democrats do what they do, and the Republicans don’t seem to ever understand this. The Republicans look at this as an opportunity, “A-ha, Trump got exposed as a neophyte. We can get rid of Trump.” They don’t understand this is an assault and a continuation of the War on Women attack against the party.
I’m not suggesting gotta go out and get Trump over this. The point is to understand what’s coming, ’cause they don’t have anything else. The race card and pro-life, abortion, is all they’ve got. They’ve got a dead campaign going on right now, their turnout is down. I don’t mean to be repetitive, but it’s important to make the point. And so here’s King pointing out that you can change your position on abortion as long as you can explain why. Being unprepared at this point in the campaign is what has everybody thinking, whoa.
Well, back to my point about insiders and outsiders. As an outsider, isn’t it sort of, by definition, as an outsider, that you’re not focused on the same stuff insiders are and you don’t talk about the same things insiders do, and you don’t even think like them? I mean, insiders equals the establishment, equals the business of politics. And Trump is not that. His strength is he’s none of that. And yet he’s being taken to task and held to account here because he doesn’t know how to instinctively answer a question like this as an insider, which he’s not.
The irony in this is rich. Everybody claims they want an outsider but then when the outsider in their mind screws up, “My God, everybody ought to know the way you –” Yeah, if you’re an insider and this is rote and then standard operating procedure. But, you know, Trump talks about abortion when he’s asked about it. I don’t think it’s something at the top of the page of any candidate’s list of agenda items. It’s on the page, I mean, don’t misunderstand.
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RUSH: David in Colorado Springs. Got about one minute, but I wanted to get you in. Hello.
CALLER: Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much, Rush. Hey, you know, I wanted to talk about this Trump and abortion thing — and I agree, it’s total baloney. Laws all have penalties. If you break the speed limit, there’s a law you get a fine. Right now if you break Obamacare law, you get a fine. In the future, you’re gonna be put in jail.
RUSH: That’s right, yeah.
CALLER: I think Trump or Cruz, whoever… I’m a Cruzer. I’ve been that way from the start. But I think what they should have… We always have to turn it back around on the Democrats, because they’re the enemy. We want winners, and we have to turn it around on them. We have to keep the focus on them, and Obamacare is not hypothetical. It’s out there. And in the future, people are gonna go to jail if they don’t have insurance.
RUSH: You know, that’s a good point. So here’s Trump on Chris Matthews. “Hey, hey, so in the in the future if abortion’s illegal — you can’t do it, it’s a crime — how are you going to punish the women? What are you gonna do?” “Chris, what are you worried about? You know, you can already really get fined and maybe go to jail if you don’t have health insurance in America.” “Who said that? Who said?” “That’s Obamacare.” “No, no, no. That can’t be possible. We never got to do.” “Yeah, it’s right there in the law.” I see what you’re saying, turn it around on them with and put them on defense, which is absolutely the brilliant, great strategy. It is.