RUSH: See, this is exactly it. Right here. This is exactly the kind of thing that the Republican Party is doing. They’re hammering nails in its own coffin. And at one time, I could have been a member of the establishment. They were putting the full-court press on me, but I resisted, instinctively. I was thinking the other day how easily they could have owned me, way back long ago when I was naive and didn’t know what was going on. That’s about as much as I’m gonna say, just a little tease there.

But there’s a little blurb in the New York Times, and you have to dig deep into a New York Times story. It’s exactly to my point about the problems the Republican Party is facing. Not the… That’s the wrong way to put it. The problems that they are creating for themselves. There is a New York Times story today on Ted Cruz and donors. And you have to read extensively into this story. The story is basically about how donors are gritting their teeth and supporting Cruz. Now, admittedly, I will acknowledge this is the New York Times, and the New York Times is a troublemaker.

And the New York Times often purposely gets things wrong and purposely tries to undermine conservatism. And when they have a chance, they will do their best to undermine the Republican Party, too; they don’t need much help there. So what we have here is a story on Ted Cruz and donors, and the Times is making it look like the donors really don’t like having to get behind Cruz but they’ve got no choice ’cause they can’t get behind Trump, and there’s no way they’re gonna get behind Kasich.

So the story’s designed to be injurious to Cruz and maybe helpful to the Republicans by casting them as mature and reasonable, and here they’re having to really grit their teeth and get behind this extreme right-winger, which they really wouldn’t any other situation do. Here’s little this blurb: “A wider embrace by donors has also been hampered in some quarters by genuine political disagreement between more middle-of-the-road potential donors and Mr. Cruz, a professed conservative purist on economic and social issues.

“Andy Sabin, a former Bush supporter who runs a Long Island precious metals company, said that when a fund-raiser from Mr. Cruz’s campaign reached out recently, he insisted on one condition. ‘I told him, “For me to have any interest in Ted, I need him to accept that the earth has warmed, and that we can solve the problem and create plenty of jobs,”‘ Mr. Sabin recalled.” In other words, here you have a donor in a story in the New York Times, on how they don’t really want to get behind Cruz, but they’re gritting their teeth and doing it.

They tell Cruz the only way they’re gonna donate is if Cruz acknowledges man-made global warming so that Republican industrialists can make money off of it. Well, I’m sorry, 80, 90% of Republican voters don’t believe in man-made global warming. They recognize it for what it is. It is a Democrat Party trick that is designed anti-capitalism. Man-made global warming cannot be proved. The only thing that suggests it’s happening is computer models. There is not one shred of data.

In fact, there’s a story out today I just shared with you.

Recent research has proven that the computer models are predicting massive rainfall in the twentieth century. It didn’t happen. In fact, there were more dramatic rainfall totals, periods, shifts in centuries prior to when fossil were developed in wide use. The whole thing is a hoax. It’s bogus. It’s designed to fleece the United States and other western industrialized nations. It’s designed to damage capitalism. It is designed to grow government and raise taxes. It’s designed to have people blame themselves for an “excessive lifestyle.”

And it’s designed to make people feel guilty so they will dial back on their “excessive lifestyle.” It’s designed to make people feel guilty so they will stop trying to achieve an improved standard of living. Because if you’ll notice, everything that causes global warming or climate change happens to come from an increased standard of living in the United States. More fossil fuel use, more travel, cheaper energy. All of these things are said to contribute to what? The destruction of the planet. It is a signature issue for the Democrat Party.

This is the second story I’ve seen this week about Republicans trying to get Republicans supporting climate change as an issue in the party platform, and now here’s a story about donors demanding that Cruz acknowledge and accept that “the earth has warmed, and that we can solve the problem and create plenty of jobs.’ Mr. Sabin said that he was offered a spot on one of Mr. Cruz’s policy advisory committees, but that when he still asked that Mr. Cruz publicly voice a belief in climate change, he never heard back.

“Even a signal in the right direction would have been enough for him, Mr. Sabin said. ‘All he had to do was say, we think it’s an issue for the general election, and maybe put Ted on the phone,’ Mr. Sabin said, adding, ‘I felt I was being hustled for a donation.'” Wait a minute. According to this, who’s hustling who? It sounds to me like — and this is just one of the donors mentioned in the story. It sounds to me like we’ve got a donor here who needs the party to officially announce it believes in man-made global warming because somehow this guy’s business stands to gain from that position.

What about the issue? What about the fact it’s a fraud? What about the fact there isn’t any man-made global warming? I know; you know. “Some people really believe it.” I know they do. Most of them are Democrats. Most of them are liberals. The conservatives (if there are any) and the Republicans who have fallen for it have been duped, either that or they are just afraid of the power of the opposition, personified by the alliance of the Democrats and the media.

Or maybe what these donors have seen is the crony capitalism or crony socialism that has existed between Obama and some of his donors. They see how some of his donors have made out like bandits, by getting in business with the government when your competitors can’t. At any rate, this is this kind of stuff that the Republican Party is gonna keep losing. I mean, it may have plenty of people donate it money.

And these donors may think that they got friends in Washington, and they might have friends on the losing side of elections, and they still might have friends in Washington. But here is an attempt to get a potential nominee to compromise his belief on the issue of man-made climate change, global warming for donations. And right on the spot to tell us all about it is the New York Times. This is the kind of thing that is dooming Republican Party to consistent losing. This is the perfect issue on which to draw the contrast between Republicans and Democrats.

But apparently it won’t work because there are too many Republican donors who are also businesspeople who have found a way — either via marketing, public relations, or whatever — to say there’s value in making people think they believe in man-made climate change. So you see, it’s all cynicism. It doesn’t matter… I can hear the conversations. I can hear them. Let’s say they were talking to me. Let’s say they listen to this program and they get very mad and they call me. “Rush? Listen, Rush. Smart guy you are, you’re missing it.

“It’s not whether there’s climate change or not. People already think there is! We have got to maximize that. It’s a waste of time arguing out of it. It’s true, people think it’s true, we’ve gotta find a way to prosper with it.” Of course, I would sit there and say, “No. It isn’t true, and it’s helping to destroy the greatest economic engine in the country.” I would ask ’em, “Why are you so unconcerned? Don’t you see 94 million Americans not working? Don’t you see what the United Nations is doing? Don’t you see what this issue is really all about?”

And they don’t because they’re not ideologues. They are Republican partisans, but they’re not ideologues. Conservatism, liberalism, it doesn’t — in fact, they’re probably anti-conservative ’cause they think all that is is pro-life. And they’re tired of their wives nagging ’em about all the preachers and all the family research groups and so forth. They don’t want to go to convention with these people, so they don’t want any part of conservatism. So they’re not ideologues at all.

“Rush, our customers think that there’s climate change. I can’t stay in business if I argue with ’em. They think there’s climate change, I gotta tell ’em, they gotta believe that my company and my business is doing everything I can to save the climate. And, Rush, I’d rather do that than get in an argument with ’em and tell ’em it ain’t happening ’cause they already think that it is.” And this is how we lose issue after issue after issue.

But no sooner had I made the point than somebody points out to me this New York Times story today. That Ted Cruz, potential donors gritting their teeth, not happy about it, have no choice now, but they may as well get what they can get, and they’re holding out money, little carrot sticks, “Hey, Ted, here’s some money for you, but you gotta publicly acknowledge man-made climate change.” We’ll keep a sharp eye on Cruz and see what happens here.

You know, you wonder what happens to these great conservatives on the campaign trail who tell you that they’re gonna go to Washington and fix this stuff and they’re gonna finally stop all this damaging stuff from happening, and then it doesn’t take long after they get there and they’re missing in action. This is what happens.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, I decided to look up Andy Sabin during the break, this donor that the New York Times says told Cruz he’d give him money but only if Cruz accepted and went public with the fact that man-made climate change is real and that we, the Republican Party, need to embrace it. Andy Sabin has spent big money to create a climate law center. This guy is a true believer. It’s not that he needs this for his business; this guy is probably ideologically committed.

I’ll tell you, the Chamber of Commerce has taken over the upper levels of the Republican Party, if you want to know what’s really happened here. And the Chamber of Commerce, like everybody else, thinks Big Business a bunch of Republicans. These guys are flat-out leftists in the Chamber, and they organize the big donors for the Republican Party, and that’s what’s happening.

And this Andy Sabin, who the New York Times reports is trying to influence Cruz, has spent big money to create a climate law center. He’s plowed $5 million into the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He’s a donor to Planned Parenthood, both to his local affiliate and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. His foundation grants Planned Parenthood annual gifts of $5,000, enough to get him invited to parties, where he hobnobs with leaders of the country’s largest abortion corporations. I mean, he brags about palling around with Cecile Richards, the daughter of Ma Richards.

This is his opinion of Trump. By the way, we’re talking about a Republican donor here who has spent millions establishing the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, massive donations to Planned Parenthood. And this is his opinion of Donald Trump. ” DonaldÂ’s a bird brain, alright? HeÂ’s a TV star, heÂ’s not a realistic candidate, in my opinion. HeÂ’s, like, on a TV show! I have to laugh.” He claims to be pro-life, by the way, naturally, funding Planned Parenthood. Well, he claims to care about life. He’s even funded a rattlesnake preserve. That’s the donor the New York Times found trying to exert pressure on Cruz to acknowledge in the general — not now — in the general election campaign, make it a Republican issue, climate change.