CHENEY: Thank you very much, Rush.  I think that we’re always gonna be in a position as Republicans and as conservatives where we gotta be willing to stand up for our conservative values.  And certainly, you know, at the top of that list is a strong national defense, the importance of a United States military that is superior to all others in the world. The extent to which, you know, this president has absolutely abandoned our allies.

We’ve got this huge threat growing out there in terms of radical Islamic terrorism and a military that he’s absolutely gutted.  So our capabilities are decreasing almost as fast as our enemies are increasing.  So it’s a very dangerous situation, and, you know, as Americans we’ve gotta make sure that we begin to rebuild and get our military the resources they need to defend us.

RUSH:  While I have you, let me ask you… I wasn’t gonna ask you this, but since foreign policy has come up here, what do you think of the implied statement Donald Trump was making that the existence of ISIS actually can be laid to an extent at the feet of the Obama administration?  Do you think…? Forget whether Obama was “the founder,” but rather his role in the… Maybe not the creation of ISIS, but it’s growth.  Do you think he has a point or people who think that have a point?

CHENEY:  Absolutely.  There’s absolutely no question but that this president’s policies, his decision to walk away from the Middle East, his decision to walk away before — you know, our military commanders felt they could.  You can go back and read the history of what happened, and, in particular, his decision not to enforce the red line in Syria once he had declared it, and how that emboldened ISIS and how that emboldened, you know, the rebel groups that were fighting against the United States.

You know, there’s just no question.  When he walked away, he created a situation where not only was ISIS able to begin to form the caliphate in Syria, but then they went back into Iraq. And there is just nothing more heartbreaking and shameful, in my view, than the fact that we have towns across Iraq that were won for the Iraqi people with the blood of Americans, with Americans lives. 

And President Obama walked away, and now many of those towns are under ISIS control. So, you know, it is absolutely the case that he is responsible for the development of ISIS.  Secretary Clinton was standing by his side as that happened.  And they both are absolutely to blame for the situation that we find across the Middle East today.

RUSH:  ISIS is everywhere.  ISIS is in Syria.  Some people think that what we were doing in Benghazi was actually running guns to Syrian rebels which are ISIS.  Here, I just found something I wanted to run by you.  This is a story the Washington Free Beacon.  This is just astounding to me: “Obama Administration Gives Green Light for Iran to Build Two New Nuclear Plants.”

CHENEY: (groans) Ugh, yes.

RUSH:  So we’ve just paid a $400 million ransom. We’ve unfrozen all of their $150 billion assets that we had because of sanctions.  What is it with President Obama and Iran?  None of this make sense to average people.

CHENEY:  Well, I mean he clearly… The best way to say it is that he believes Iran can be an ally.  I think, you know, in fact what he’s done to help, support, and assist Iran… You know, not only do we have the ransom payment, not only do we have this new information about nuclear facility, but we learned the last couple of weeks that there was a secret deal connected to the Iranian nuclear agreement where Barack Obama agreed Iran — one of America’s worst enemies, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism — should have access to the most advanced enrichment technology, the most advanced centrifuge technology.  So it isn’t just that this agreement failed to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon, it aids them in that purpose.

RUSH:  Now —

CHENEY:  For an American president to be aiding America’s enemy in developing nuclear weapons technology is unprecedented, absolutely.

RUSH:  Now, you’re running for the lone seat in the House in Wyoming, right?

CHENEY:  That’s right. Exactly, yeah.  We’ve got one voice out of 435 in the House of Representatives.

RUSH:  What is the Wyoming population, 500,000 or 600,000 people?

CHENEY:  Exactly, around 500,000.

RUSH:  And they’ve got one representative.  You’re running to be it. 

CHENEY:  I am.

RUSH:  Then what are the issues that matter in Wyoming?  Is Trump an issue?  Is where the party’s going an issue?  Is what we just talked about, foreign policy, ISIS, America at risk, direction of the country?  What are the issues in Wyoming?

CHENEY:  Well, certainly the ones we’ve been talking about are tremendously important issues.  Overall, you know, no state in our country has been hurt more by the eight years of Barack Obama than Wyoming has been, and whether it’s the absolutely unconstitutional role that the EPA is playing and the president trying to kill our coal industry — Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal-producing state.  So when President Obama and Hillary Clinton say they’re gonna put coal out of business, it hits us harder than just about anyplace else. 

The massive trampling of our constitutional rights — our First Amendment rights, our Second Amendment rights — are very important. And just the massive overreach of the federal government and the need to make sure that we have a representative who can hit the ground running on day one and begin to roll back the tremendous damage they’ve done and restore our constitutional rights.  I mean, it’s really a race about freedom and our rights and our security.

RUSH:  We’re talking with Liz Cheney, who is on the phone with us today from Wyoming.  There are interesting little… It’s a Bloomberg poll today that the Washington Post has referenced, and it’s got them very, very worried.  In the poll, Trump is losing by the usual eight or nine points just like I think in the new NBC poll that just came out. I think Hillary’s up by nine in that poll, but they found a question here that really worries them at the Post.  They presented two versions of America. 

One, a country at risk in a dangerous world that’s in decline and no seeming leadership to get us out.  The other, a vision of America that’s robust, an economic recovery that’s hunky-dory. In the Hillary Clinton version, everything’s great. Obama’s again great; we’re only gonna get better.  Fifty-six percent of the people in this poll sided with the version of America that we’re not going in the right direction, we’re in a state of decline, and something needs to happen.

And the writer of the story said that, if Trump wins this, this poll question could be what it all the ends up being about.  Well, now, you’re running for office.  You’ve gotta get votes for people.  You hear in the Drive-By Media that Trump’s got people like you down ballot all worried that his drag on the ticket and is gonna take people like you down with him.  Is that a factor as a run?

CHENEY:  Rush, in Wyoming there’s no question for us that Hillary Clinton would be devastating — and far, far worse than Donald Trump. We’ve gotta unify behind him and make sure Hillary Clinton’s not elected.  I mean, she is a felon.  She absolutely — I mean, as you’ve covered better than anybody else — clearly violated the law with respect to her personal server and her lack of willingness to take care of the national security information of the nation. 

What’s been going on with the Clinton Foundation is absolutely crooked and corrupt.  You know, she is a woman who has a long history of not abiding by the law and of getting away with it.  There is just a level of slime and sleaze associated with the Clinton family, and we know in Wyoming we’ve gotta do everything possible to make sure they never get anywhere near the Oval Office.

RUSH:  I didn’t know, and I should have, I didn’t know that Wyoming was the leading coal producing state.  I knew that it was big.

CHENEY:  Yeah.  No, we are.

RUSH:  Well, with Hillary and Obama targeting coal, I’m sure that resonates there, as you pointed out.  But here’s the thing about Hillary.  Liz, my whole life — well, the last 25, 30 years of this program, I’ve encountered people on our side in the Republican Party literally paranoid, scared to death of Hillary Clinton, that she’s some Cruella De Vil that is unbeatable. 

And look, she’s had prominent positions in politics the last 30 years. The first lady, was given a chance to run health care. Secretary of state. She ran a bunch of things in the Clinton administration.  And here she is running for president.  She has a 30-year record, you listen to what she says she wants to do and this utopia she wants to create.  Why don’t people see she’s been at it 30 years and hasn’t accomplished anything.  She’s still complaining about the same things that she came into politics complaining about. 

Now, you and I know these are tactics of hers.  But the real assessment, she hasn’t accomplished anything, everybody thinks she has. First woman to do this, do that, but everything she believes in, like the economy, why do they need to fix anything?  They’ve had eight years here to create the utopia.  Why is everything worse after 30 years of Hillary or eight years of Obama?

CHENEY:  Exactly.  No, I mean, it’s even worse than that.  I mean, obviously, she advocates failed policies, and obviously she’s in a situation where, you know, she will continue the devastating policies we’ve seen from President Obama. But she’s just, you know, she would be the most corrupt individual ever to sit in the Oval Office, if she’s elected.  And she clearly believes she’s above the law.  Obviously we know she will appoint Supreme Court justices who will undo and trample over so many of our constitutional rights. 

And, frankly, I don’t know, Rush, why people have been afraid to take her on. But I watched her a couple of days ago, you know, castigating Trump saying “words matter.”  And I thought, you know what, Hillary Clinton, that’s right.  Words do matter.  When you stand over the coffin of dead Americans and tell their parents that it was because of a video, those words matter.  You know, when having conversations in your email, an unclassified email, putting the name of an Iranian nuclear scientist in those unclassified emails and then he’s executed, you’re right, Hillary Clinton, words matter. 

The American people understand it, and they also know that actions matter.  And I can’t believe that, you know, we’re gonna elect somebody to the highest office in the land who has proven herself not only corrupt, and not only a criminal, but completely unfit to be our commander-in-chief.

RUSH:  Now, I’m gonna ask you a question, and I know what you’re gonna say, because you’re running for office.  But I want to ask you anyway because so many people that I run into that I would consider to be people on my side of things, have a fear that an increasing number of the American people are woefully uninformed, with legitimate reasons, the media being the primary reason — that the American people — you just gave an indictment of Hillary Clinton and Benghazi.  And it’s been out there for quite a while, what happened and what the allegations are. 

It doesn’t seem to have — I mean, her negatives are pretty high, so you could say maybe it’s impacted her, but do you have a concern about the state or the level of the American public and the degree to which they’re informed and care about things that you think are important?

CHENEY:  Well, I know, you know, obviously here in Wyoming people are very engaged, they are very concerned because the policies of the Democrats have just hit home and hurt us so much.  The people are engaged.  But what I worry about, Rush, you know, in large part, is our kids.  I mean, if you look at the complete failure in too many instances to teach our kids the truth about our history and about why our nation is exceptional, and Common Core is certainly the latest iteration of very bad education policy, and that’s gotta be repealed.

We have to get the federal government out of the business of educating our kids and telling us how to do it.  But when you look at how we are failing our kids and how the story that they hear about the United States and about the role we’ve played in the world and our role as the defender of freedom for millions across the world throughout history, you know, they aren’t being prepared to stand up and work and fight and defend this nation.  And when they aren’t told that it’s exceptional, then it becomes much more difficult, or actually becomes much easier for people like Barack Obama to be elected who spread this message of, well, you know, no nation should be held above any other and, you know, we all ought to go down the path of European social democracy.

RUSH:  Exactly.

CHENEY:  That’s the real danger.

RUSH:  When is your primary? It’s probably next week I think?

CHENEY:  It is.  The primary is on Tuesday, August 16th, and we’re working very hard down to the end.  The stakes, as you know better than anybody, Rush, could not be higher.

RUSH:  Well, they are.  But you’ve got guts for doing this.  I know your family history is elective politics and so forth, but, man, is it vicious, it’s dog-eat-dog. They come after you. You need spines of steel to do it, and I think people have a great appreciation for you, your father, your whole family for the sacrifices and the devotion that you’ve had.  So we wish you the best in becoming the one member of Congress from Wyoming.  That’s cool.

CHENEY:  Well, thank you, Rush, and again, you know, thank you for everything you do.  I mean, you fight the good fight better than anybody else, so it’s greatly appreciated and hugely necessary.

RUSH:  Tell your dad we said hi, too.

CHENEY:  I sure will.  I appreciate it.

RUSH:  Liz Cheney from Wyoming.