RUSH: To the phones we go here, Open Line Friday. I got a couple sound bites coming up that literally demonstrate, prove the point that I just made about the media, literally prove it. We’ll get to ’em in a moment. We’ve got Luke from Detroit on the phone. It says, Luke, that you are 19 years old and this is your first election. Is that right?
CALLER: That is absolutely right. It’s a pleasure to be on the show, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you for calling. Great to have you here. What’s up?
CALLER: So, yeah, this is my first election voting, and I want to speak for a lot of people my age that I think are thinking the exact same way and feeling the way that I am. And that is, Hillary is definitely not the one. I think that’s pretty obvious to us. But I still feel pretty fearful honestly electing somebody like Donald Trump, somebody that I feel like could literally start a war with his temper almost. And it’s like, there are definitely things that I like about him as well.
RUSH: Let me —
CALLER: But, Rush, I called to ask you: How can I feel better about it officially voting for Donald Trump?
RUSH: It’s a great question. It’s a great question and I’m so glad you called.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: No, really, because it’s gonna afford me an opportunity to try and explain something. Can I ask you…? You say your fear of Trump is that you think he might start a war, nuclear war. What is it that’s making you afraid of Trump?
CALLER: Well, I have to say, even just watching… I watched all the debates, and when his passion can get aroused, I feel like he sometimes almost loses control of himself, and I’m just thinking a lot of these international diplomatic relationships are extremely delicate. And I just think if he can lose his temper that easily, that just makes me nervous. Like, that so many lives are endangered and he can just start a war that easily just from his bad temper, you know, so…
RUSH: Okay. This is… You’re 19, and you’re going through one of these for the first time as a voter. You might have seen a campaign four years ago, but you couldn’t vote. But you’re 19, you’re an adult now, and the first thing I would tell you is that what you’re seeing in this campaign is standard operating procedure about Republican candidates. Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Democrats and the media ran the same scam. “We can’t trust this man with his finger next to the nuclear button! He’s a loose cannon. He’s off his mind. He’s an idiot, he’s a dunce, and we can’t trust him.” What you’re seeing… Now, you did say that your assessment of Trump is what you’re seeing from Trump himself.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: How much of it is also due to what’s being reported about Trump?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: How much of that is causing you to be concerned?
CALLER: That’s true. It’s a good point. I’ve noticed that a lot even just with the media. He’s always made to seem like such a fool. Absolutely.
RUSH: What I want to try to convince you of — and you’re going to have to believe me. I’ve got no reason to lie to you here. What is happening to Trump in terms of the way he’s being reported on and cast with the media is the way every Republican presidential candidate has been treated in my life.
CALLER: Mmm.
RUSH: I’m 65. What they’re doing to Trump, the way they’re portraying Trump is common. It may be your first time going through it. It may unnerve you. It may make you say, “God, this is… If we had somebody more reasonable, they wouldn’t be doing this. There wouldn’t be so many people afraid of Trump.” They turned Mitt Romney into a walking Lucifer who killed his dog and didn’t care if the female employees or wives of his employees died from cancer. So I think… Trump does not scare me from the standpoint that you mentioned.
We’re in more wars today under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Luke, than under George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. Yet they tell you that Bush lied and people died, and we were all over the Middle East. We’ve got more troops in more hot spots around the world than Bush. They don’t know how to do diplomacy. These people don’t know how to do diplomacy. And I would argue, “What’s diplomacy gotten us?” These people are supposedly experts at it? The soft sell, being reasonable, being intelligent, being from the faculty lounge at Harvard? People are walking all over us! The Russians at this moment are taunting us and threatening us! Nobody’s afraid of us. I think Trump would be a welcome change in a lot of ways. But I’m glad you called. I understand what you’re going through.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: They said Reagan was too dangerous. It was Reagan who ended the Soviet Union without firing a shot, Luke. They said Goldwater was gonna destroy the world with nuclear weapons, and they’re saying it about Trump. They say it about all of us, Luke.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, I told you in the first hour, let me go about it this way. Everybody’s worried that Trump will not concede, which I think is an outright joke. I think what was happening with that is the attempt to portray Trump as uncivilized, as not qualified to actually function in our precious political structure and system.
“Did you hear what Trump said? Trump said he would wait to decide whether he’s going to accept the outcome until the election’s over. That’s just not done. We in the faculty lounge so profoundly disapprove of that kind of attitude.” I’m here to tell you, if Trump loses this there’s no question about it, he’ll concede. You know who’s not gonna go easily. The left. If Trump wins this, this concern about what’s gonna happen afterward is totally misplaced, folks.
You think that Black Lives Matter, you think that Planned Parenthood, you think that all these anti-Second Amendment groups are just gonna lay down and casually accept the results? Do you think the Democrat Party will? Look at Florida 2000 if you think that the problem is on the Republican side here.
I’m here to tell you, if the Democrats lose this election, I don’t care how close it is, if they lose this election, that’s what has me concerned over what’s gonna happen in the streets in this country because these people on social media on the left, these trolls that habitat these sewers out there, folks, we know that the Hillary campaign has been working with a bunch of people buying militant, violent protesters to invade Trump rallies and so forth.
These are people that are not gonna wait for the outcome to happen on its own. They’re not gonna casually sit by. They’re doing everything they can to shape the outcome of the election just as they are in the polls, folks. And if it goes against ’em, I shudder to think what is possible. But my point is, they are trying to make everybody think that Trump is the loose cannon and that Trump’s supporters are the powder keg out there, and it’s just the exact opposite.
Luke, I know you’re still out there. Let me make another point to you, Luke, and all of you young people. It is really important. I’m glad he called. He’s 19 years old. He’s scared of Trump. He doesn’t like Hillary, but he’s worried about Trump. And I elicited from him that one of the reasons he’s worried about Trump is the way Trump’s portrayed in the media.
He talked about Trump (paraphrasing), “He seems erratic, he seems he gets so wound up and so passionate, I don’t know if I want a guy like that being able to order a nuclear strike on people. Oh, this makes me nervous.” And I took the occasion to point out that they try to rouse that fear about every Republican nominee — Goldwater, Reagan, not specifically George W. Bush, but they went at it in the same way, “stupid,” inexperienced, dummkopf, doesn’t know what he’s doing. You ever heard George Bush speak? He can’t talk, he’s an idiot. This is what they said about him.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: But Luke, here’s the thing. This is what you need to know. You don’t need to worry about Donald Trump and nuclear weapons. You need to worry about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They have authorized nuclear weapons for Iran, Luke. The world’s state sponsor of terrorism is now on path, sanctioned by the United States, to create nuclear weapons. We are going to make it possible for them.
We have eliminated all sanctions against them. We have paid them $1.7 billion after lifting those sanctions, including a $400 million cash ransom in foreign currencies to release American sailors that Iran was holding hostage. You want to talk about…? We’re dealing with abject incompetence, Luke, in both cases of Obama and Hillary Clinton — and incompetence is the nicest categorization. It could be worse. There could be something else other than they’re nice, to explain this — or naive or what have you.
But if you’re gonna sit there and be worried about what Trump would do with nuclear weapons, you’ve got to know that it’s Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who have made it possible for Iran to nuke up, and that’s in nobody’s best interests. That’s not in the best interests of our ally, Israel. It’s not in the best interests of ourselves. Trump is not your concern in this regard. Hillary Clinton is. Obama and Hillary happily enabling Iran to become a nuclear power. And they would be… Well, Israel has never admitted it, but we know they have nukes.
That would be Iran and Israel in the Middle East. Pakistan off to the west has nukes — and, of course, the Russians do. But this is entirely irresponsible. You know, and Hillary’s running around talk about what a great deal it was, and Obama’s running around talking about what a great deal it was, and Trump is characterizing it as one of the dumbest and stupid deals.