RUSH: Trump’s speech yesterday.  At about this time, Trump was speaking in Monessen, Pennsylvania, or Pittsburgh.  And, you recall if you were here yesterday, I was giving a running commentary of the speech I could see during commercial breaks.  I made mention that he was using a prompter, and it was not the usual Trump appearance, which is an improvisational rally that goes on for an hour to 90 minutes. It’s a stream of consciousness rant that just has people out of their chairs and yip-yip-yipping and ya-ya-yahooing and just generally excited. 

This was much tamer and much more subdued and much more serious.  The reviews on this speech that I have read have been universally positive, because it was serious, because it was substantive, and because it was unexpected.  Trump did better than people expected, on both sides.   

There were some alarming things for the establishment, like Trump did drop a bomb when he promised to get out of NAFTA and the TPP — get out of both these things. If renegotiations on more favorable terms fail, we’re gonna get out of them.  The Chamber of Commerce, that could send them to the ledge of the highest building.  But he made it. He made a statement with great emphasis and believability.  So that’s what the mix is today. (interruption) Well, I know, not just the Drive-Bys. 

You know, I was reading my tech blogs.  The tech blogs are making fun of Trump for speaking in front of garbage.  But this is the thing.  Let ’em do it.  They don’t… Every critic of Trump… Well, not every, ’cause there are some critics on our side that of a different vein.  But the traditional opponents, like the other party opponents and the liberal Democrat opponents, are reacting to and criticizing Trump using the same old playbook that you have used for years and decades to criticize political opponents. 

If there’s anybody who can get away making a speech in front of garbage, it’s Donald Trump.  If there’s anybody who can turn a speech in front of garbage into a positive, it’s Donald Trump.  His critics think that’s tantamount to a fatal, fatal, strategic operational error, that somebody needs to be fired.  “Who would dare put the guy in front of a pile of garbage?”  It was recycled aluminum cans.  It looked like an aluminum Christmas tree, is how I described it. 

But I think all those tech blogs were just going nuts making fun of the guy for it.  Such thinking…  “Trump speaking in front of garbage?  Who could tell the difference?”  Well, comments like that.  But those kinds of things, I don’t think are relevant.  I don’t.  I think Trump — and he could blow this, by the way. But I think Trump still enjoys a little insulation from the standard, ordinary boilerplate ways of analyzing and judging candidates and candidate performance, because Trump is not from that world. 

He’s an outsider. 

His support is entirely outside that world. That’s why it exists.  Look, I don’t think they’ll be able to “Romney” Trump.  The best way to illustrate what I’m trying to say here is, I don’t think they could “Romney” Trump.  I don’t think they could run an ad showing that the wife of a Trump employee died and get away with running an ad that Trump doesn’t care or didn’t care.  I don’t think they could succeed running an ad where Trump put the family dog on top of the airplane and took off and flew at 30,000 feet on the family vacation with the dog tied up there. 

Those are the kind of things… I don’t think if Harry Reid came out and said, “You know what? I got a friend who says Trump hasn’t paid his taxes in ten years!” I don’t think they could get rid of a Republican candidate like Trump as easily as they could dispose of somebody like Romney, because Trump’s support goes way beyond party loyalty.  It’s much deeper than that. 

But you know as well as I do that if the Drive-Bys come along and attack your average, typical Republican, some Republicans will abandon because the attacks have been successful. “Oh, my God, they just destroyed our guy! Heck, I can’t vote for ’em now.”  It’s what happened to Sarah Palin.  I don’t think they can do that with Trump.  I don’t. I think only Trump can do that to himself, and I don’t think standing in front of garbage making a speech is enough to do it by any stretch.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  Let’s play catchup here on the audio sound bites that we’ve had waiting to go today.  We’ll start with Trump last night, Clairsville, Ohio.  I remember mentioning yesterday during his teleprompter speech, which, again, was reviewed in a number of places very favorably.  Now, the usual places had their usual hit jobs on. 

Trump thinks, by the way, that there is a Trump Effect in these polls, much like there is the Wilder Effect, meaning that there are people who do intend to vote for Trump who are not saying so when a pollster calls because they see the way the Drive-Bys treat Trump. They see the way the Drive-Bys react to Trump. They watch people make fun of Trump, this or that, and they don’t want to be made fun of or laughed at so they don’t tell the truth.  They either say they’re not voting or they’re voting for Hillary or whatever, but Trump believes he’s got a lot more support out there. 

And, I must tell you, folks, we were the first to note this possibility right here on the EIB Network.  I’d have to do a keyword search of my website, but I could find when I first referenced the possibility of a Trump Effect in the polls.  And I forget what it was that made me think it might exist.  But think I could find it.  Trump says that many of his supporters are shy about telling pollsters they support him. 

Politico even has an article on it now, on the possibility of the existence of a Trump Effect.  But they pooh-pooh the whole thing.  They say that Trump’s paranoid, that Trump’s defensive, that Trump is simply coming up with caca excuses for why he’s not doing better.  Yeah, you know, Dana Bash was one of the first people I saw that actually did raves about Trump’s speech, which made me suspicious, to be quite honest. 

Dana Bash raised it as substantive, serious, well delivered, representative of a positive shift in tone in the campaign.  I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  She’s still working there today.  Yeah.  She’s still working there today and still pushing Hillary and so forth.  Yeah, I did, I thought whoa.  It kind of made me reluctant.  But then I saw so many other people, even on some conservative blogs, that are not predisposed to liking Trump, praising the damn thing.  So who knows.  Here is Trump.  This was last night in Clairesville.  This was a rally, not a telepromptered speech.  We have a couple of examples.

TRUMP:  As you know, we had another suicide bombing, Istanbul, Turkey.  Many, many people killed, many, many people injured.  Folks, there’s something going on that’s really, really bad.  All right?  It’s bad.  And we better get smart, and we better get tough, or we’re not gonna have much of a country left, okay?  It’s bad.

RUSH:  That’s pretty straightforward, pretty easy to understand.  “It’s bad.”  There’s not much ambivalence in that.  “Or we’re not going to have much of a country left.”  When’s the last time you heard a political candidate speak that way?  Exactly.  When is the first time you’ve heard a political candidate speak that way?  Do you know how many people think so?  I got a note from a friend of mine last night after this thing in Istanbul.

He said, “You know, the days of you trying to be Paul Revere and alerter, forget it, man, it’s over. It’s time now to make plans to take care of our families and find out what we’re gonna do.”  I’m not kidding.  Got this note from a friend, you know, you’ve done a great job being Paul Revere, but it doesn’t matter, we’re so far gone. 

And he started giving me examples of, “Look, we caused all this. We got Obama destabilizing the entire Middle East.  Why do we have so many refugees pouring in here because Obama’s blown up their countries. There’s nothing left for them to do. In addition to them wanting to do this and spread the gospel as they believe it all over the world, we’re sunk!  So forget this Paul Revere stuff and figure out where we’re gonna take our families.” 

“It’s bad.  It’s bad.”  (interruption) What do you mean, is he nuts?  I can’t say that he’s not.  I can’t say, I can’t assure you that he’s not, but he’s dead serious about it.  When’s the last time you heard a candidate talk this way?  And realizing that a lot of people think this way.  That’s my point in sharing with you the story of the note from my friend.  Here’s the next Trump sound bite.

TRUMP:  You remember when I got in some trouble where I talked about waterboarding, they asked me a question.  They started off, they asked Ted Cruz a question, and he rightfully didn’t want to get into it and he was a little bit, you know, like don’t ask me, don’t ask me about waterboarding.  Well, they asked me the question, I said, “I’ll answer that question.”  They said, “What do you think about waterboarding?”  I said, “I like it a lot.  I don’t think it’s tough enough.”  You know, you have to fight fire with fire.

RUSH:  When’s the last time you heard a candidate advocate waterboarding?  He’s the only one ever.  I’m telling you, the Democrats believe that that’s the kind of stuff that should launch Hillary into the 70% in the polls. (interruption) Cheney is believed to like it, right.  But the waterboard guy that did it, that Lesley Stahl interviewed.  Jose… Jose… I’m having a mental block.  Cookie, see if you can find that bite real quick.  Lesley Stahl was upset that we were feeding them Ensure, Sheik Mohammed. Anyway, you don’t hear a candidate talking this way, advocating waterboarding.

The Democrats think, “Okay, Trump’s finished now.  This is great.  Hillary’s gonna be up at 70%.”  Did anybody watch the Game of Thrones finale on Sunday night?  You guys watch Game of Thrones?  You know what they did in Game of Thrones Sunday night?  Wineboarding.  Not waterboarding.  Wineboarding.  Cersei Lannister wine boarded one of the Septas, one of the High Sparrows, nuns essentially, had her tied down, poured wine all over her face, “Shame, shame.”  If you didn’t watch the episode and you’re not familiar, this won’t mean anything to you.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  December 10th of last year was the first mention of “The Trump Effect” in polling by me on this program, and it was because some people that were saying they weren’t voting for Trump even though they were. So “The Trump Effect” was first established here on this program way back in December.  Most things start on this program, and most things always have. 

Okay.  It was Jose Rodriguez who was the official waterboarder at Guantanamo Bay, at Club Gitmo.  60 Minutes did a profile of Jose Rodriguez. He had a book, and he was describing what went on, and Lesley Stahl couldn’t believe it as he was describing the various techniques that we use to extract information from Al-Qaeda prisoners at Club Gitmo This is one of my all-time favorite sound bites.  Lesley Stahl was interviewing Jose Rodriguez on April 29th, 2012.  She says, “So, what happens,” Mr. Rodriguez? Does Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “break down? Does he weep? Does he fall apart” over the meanness of the United States?”

RODRIGUEZ: No. He gets a good night’s sleep. He gets his Ensure. By the way, he was very heavy when he came to us. He lost 50 pounds.

STAHL: What! His Ensure? You mean like people in the hospital who drink that stuff?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these “dire techniques.”

STAHL: So sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation. I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The United States doesn’t do that.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we do.

RUSH:  “Well, we do.”  Remember, now, she could not believe that we were feeding a prisoner Ensure.  And Rodriguez said, “Oh, yeah, he was very heavy when he came to us,” as though he showed up at rehab.  “When he came to us, he was very heavy. He lost 50 pounds.”  “You mean Ensure? People in the hospital that drink that stuff!”  And Rodriguez is mocking her the whole time, and she doesn’t get it. 

It’s a segment on the “dire techniques,” dire techniques that we use.  So Jose Rodriguez says “Oh, yes, dietary manipulation was part of these ‘dire techniques.'”  Just right over her head. It blew right over her head.  “The United States doesn’t do that! Did he cry?  Did he break down?  Does he fall apart?”  “Oh, no.  No, no.  No.  No, no.”  “Gosh, we don’t do this.”  “Well, we do.”  Jose Rodriguez.