RUSH: Here’s Frank in Long Valley, New Jersey. Back to the phones we go. Hi, Frank. Great to have you here with us.
CALLER: Great to talk to you again, Rush. I had the answer for you after all the establishment Republicans and Hillary Clinton and why they all lost and why she’s gonna lose. The reason that Trump is winning is because he’s the first Republican to run a progressive Democratic style campaign. The Republican ideas will win, but what we’ve lost and the reason we’ve lost over the last three, four cycles is because we don’t separate the election from governing. You gotta win the election first.
RUSH: Yeah.
The majority of people want conservative Republican ideas. The problem is we didn’t feel — like I told Romney at a private breakfast with Romney, I said, “If you don’t separate the election from governing, you’re gonna give a great concession speech, but there’s never been one policy enacted with a concession speech.”
RUSH: Okay. I get it. Folks, he’s answering a question I asked in the first hour of the program. You might be scratching your head, but he’s got a good answer here. I will explain the context of this after we get back from the break here at the bottom of the hour. It’s worth it, as it always is. So hang in there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Our last caller, Frank, from Long Valley, New Jersey, he thought that I had said I didn’t understand what Trump was doing, how Trump was winning his campaign. That’s not what I said. I was commenting that — we had just played some sound bites from Bill Kristol who was on the Brit Hume show last night on the Fox News Channel. I didn’t see it last night. I was advised that was it happening, but I wasn’t given any details so I didn’t check it out ’til today.
Kristol is obviously for Hillary, and he’s very, very concerned that she’s blowing it. Yes, you heard right, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard is very concerned that Hillary’s blowing it, and he doesn’t understand why she’s running her campaign the way it is. Yes. Bill Kristol, yes, that’s what I said, yes. One and the same, exactly right. Okay.
So I was endeavoring to explain that these establishment people do not understand what Trump’s doing because they live in their bubble where campaigns are run by consultants and candidates do what’s expected. They come up with policies that are expected. They do personal appearances that are expected. They have consultants, they run ads, everything is expected.
And Trump is not part of that, he’s never been in that world, and he’s not functioning that way. And it’s like a game plan from an opposing team that they can’t plan for. They’ve not seen it, they’ve not planned for it, and so Hillary is stuck running what’s always worked for Democrats, and it’s not working on Trump. And they’re all flummoxed.
I was attempting to explain why. They don’t understand the Trump campaign. It’s more than just that Hillary’s stuck in a time warp, which she is. It’s that they really don’t understand it. And the hubris they have, the arrogance and conceit that they enter this is that they are the establishment and they are experts and they are the professionals. Trump’s this outsider bumbling idiot boob, has no idea what he’s doing, that’s why she’s running around saying, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” She means it.
So I was endeavoring to explain it. Now, Frank’s stated reason, he was trying to explain it to me because he thought I didn’t understand it, he said Trump’s doing what the left does. He said Trump understands that the campaign’s different from governing. You do whatever you have to to win, it doesn’t matter, and then when you get into office, then you do what you’re really gonna do. And you don’t campaign on stuff that’s gonna lose, like Romney did and like McCain did. You don’t campaign on things that are gonna lose for you. You campaign on things that gonna win.
So Frank’s point was that Trump’s running elements of a progressive or Democrat campaign in terms of government action here to do this, and government action doing that because the conventional wisdom is that the majority of Americans have now concluded that that’s the purpose of government is to do things for people. He implied — maybe I inferred, but I think he implied that in the process Trump may be skirting around the edges of the truth. I think that’s one of the things Trump isn’t doing.
I think Trump supporters think he’s telling them the truth. I think Trump’s supporters believe he means what he says, with latitude. They trust that Trump is who he says he is, that he wants to make America great again. And they trust that Trump understands why America isn’t great for the same reasons they think it isn’t. Trump has a lot of latitude and leeway. If he makes a gaffe, his gaffes are not held against him, because his supporters are not interested in finding flaws and disqualifying him, whereas the establishment people, I mean, that’s one of the ways you run a campaign, you try to force your opponent into a gaffe, then you build the gaffe up as meaning, “This guy doesn’t know diddly-squat. He’s not qualified, get rid of him,” and the gaffe is the end of the campaign.
The gaffe is never gonna end Trump’s campaign ’cause his supporters don’t care. Trump’s supporters actually realize it’s about much bigger stuff than even Trump personally or Trump’s gaffes or anything else. But regardless, whatever it is, it is very accurate to say that Hillary doesn’t understand it and her consultants don’t, and I venture to say that many longtime political professionals don’t understand it, including pollsters and consultants. It’s not that it’s hard to understand; it’s just so foreign to them.
Remember, these are the people that honestly believe Trump doesn’t have a prayer, especially after his opening day announcement. He’s finished. Before that appearance was even over, he was finished. And they’ve spent every day since thinking that he’s gonna talk himself out of the race or implode some other way. But now that his message is tightening, his discipline is — by the way, can I give you an example of his discipline?
What do you think Trump would have done three months ago with the story that George H. W. Bush had confided to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend he was voting for Hillary? My guess is that the Trump of three, two months ago might have fired back at George H. W. Bush. But the Trump of today let it go. And the only comment we got, that I heard, anyway, was from Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, who had a great response to it. But Trump himself didn’t even pay it mind. And that’s an example of the maturity, discipline, or what have you.
And we’ve got some sound bites here from Trump in Pittsburgh today speaking on law and order. Let’s give you a flavor of this. While Charlotte is having happen to it what is happening, and while Hillary’s out there whining and moaning about why she’s not 50 points ahead, and while Bill Kristol is wringing his hands over the fact that Hillary’s blowing it, and while others are worried about other things, Trump continues his outreach to black churches and other black groups on a law-and-order premise. He was at the Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh today.
TRUMP: We have to respect our flag. We have to respect our flag.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
TRUMP: We all have to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, see things through their eyes, and then get to work fixing our very wounded country. I mean, we have some real problems, and we do have a wounded country. Many Americans are watching the unrest in Charlotte unfolding right before their eyes on the TV screens. Others are witnessing the chaos and the violence firsthand. Our country looks bad to the world, especially when we are supposed to be the world’s leader. How can we lead when we can’t even control our own cities?
TRUMP: We honor and recognize the right of all Americans to peacefully assemble, protest, and demonstrate. But there is no right to engage in violent disruption or to threaten the public safety and peace of others. Every single American in our country is entitled to live in a safe community. The violence against our citizens and our law enforcement must be brought to a very rapid end. The people who will suffer the most as a result of these riots are law-abiding African-American residents who live in these communities where the crime is so rampant.
RUSH: So what does he think needs to happen?
TRUMP: Last year we saw a 17% rise in violent crime in our 50 largest cities. Homicides are up nearly 50% in Washington, DC, and more than 60% in Baltimore. More than 3,000 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year from January 1st. Can you believe that? Nationwide, approximately 60% of murder victims under the age of 22 are African-American. This is a national crisis, and it’s the job of the next president of the United States to work with our governors and mayors to address this crisis and save African-American lives.
RUSH: Again, here is a candidate saying this in the closing months of the first presidency of an African-American in this country. Barack Hussein Obama and eight years of his presidency, and we have somebody campaigning on a premise that we’ve gotta get together with people and address this crisis of saving African-American lives. Well, it must be because they need saving, and if they do, why does this not register with people in and of itself?
We were assured by virtue of electing Obama that this stuff was gonna end. And it was gonna be replaced with mass contentment and healing and everybody, because we’d elected an African-American, we gonna realize we have finally accepted our sins and we have dealt with them, and we are moving forward. And none of that, in fact, has happened.
RUSH ARCHIVE: If Obama gets elected president, wouldn’t it be good to just get this done, Rush, then we could end the civil rights squabbles that we have. It wouldn’t do that. Folks, it wouldn’t do that. It might even exacerbate them.
RUSH: I was right. It has exacerbated. Well, let me be generous. I will not say that Obama’s election has exacerbated — well, now that I think about it, maybe so, because the expectations. I mean, clearly a lot of people had them. We’re nowhere near achieving them and that in itself leads to anger, disappointment, many people think broken promises. As I say, if you stop and think of it, you can understand a lot of the anger African-Americans have. It’s just directed in the wrong places.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jim in St. James, Missouri, great to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I appreciate everything you do.
RUSH: I appreciate that. Thank you, sir.
RUSH: Can you tell us why?
CALLER: Well, one she’s fed up with the health care issues. The law-and-order issues. I think she had children going to MU; she was totally disgusted with that.
RUSH: Oh. Yeah.
CALLER: The open borders. She is she just can’t vote for Hillary, and this is a 70-year-old woman.
RUSH: Now, let me ask you this. Was she ever opposed to Trump?
CALLER: No! No!
RUSH: Did she think Trump was this boorish, bombastic, braggart?
CALLER: No, no, no, no. She was for him back in the primary, in the Missouri primary.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: Oh, yeah! And this is the kicker. This woman has worked for Planned Parenthood a long, long time.
RUSH: Oh. Wow.
CALLER: That’s Hillary’s base. And when she’s got people jumping ship like this, no wonder the gal’s going crazy.
RUSH: By the way, you just reminded me. I had this story yesterday. It’s talking about but I didn’t get to it in detail. Listen to this headline. Gloria Steinem keynoted a Planned Parenthood fundraiser recently, and she said, quote, “Forced childbirth is the single biggest cause of global warming.” These people have lost it. “Forced childbirth” is now a cause of planetary destruction. This is based on the factual that, you know, pregnancy is a sickness. It’s an illness. It’s the result of male patriarchal domination, women getting pregnant.
And now it’s the leading cause — single biggest cause — of global warming. (laughing) I’m gonna have to spend some time on this tomorrow to figure out how that works. But, Jim, if a Planned Parenthood devotee, big-time Democrat abandoning Hillary for Trump… Salena Zito has another piece in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Another piece today. She’s making a career out of studying Democrats throughout the state of Pennsylvania and how they are, en masse, moving to Trump. She’s really doing some phenomenal work in this trying to explain this phenomenon in Pennsylvania.