RUSH: Grab sound bite No. 3. Mike Murphy, Republican consultant extraordinaire — this is the guy that ran Jeb Bush’s campaign, hundred thousand dollars, got three delegates, he and Mark McKinnon are the two probably most prominent Republican consultants out there. They’re both on CNN last night with — well, I don’t know if they both were on with Don Lemon or not, but the first one is Murphy on CNN Tonight. And he says the problem that the Republicans have in the November elections is Trump, Trump, Trump, that’s the problem, and it’s a problem the Republicans just cannot overcome.
MURPHY: President Trump, who peaked in districts like that a year-and-a-half ago is now in real trouble, he’s become an anchor on the party. There’s definitely a blue wave coming. I’ll say it, yes, it’s Trump. This is not rocket science. We have the most unpopular president in the history of polling in the first year of an administration. So, you know, two plus two is four here. Massively unpopular president who is constantly doing things to undermine the presidency and offend two-thirds of the country, and so guess what? We’re getting clobbered now at the polls. The problem is fundamentally Trump and the fact the party has become lemmings following him. Yes, I totally blame Trump!
RUSH: Does he sound happy to you, Mr. Snerdley? He doesn’t sound happy to you? Play it again. Does he sound enthusiastic? Does he sound panicked? Well, what does he sound like to you, then? See, I think he sounds gleeful here. I think he sounds, “Told you so, told you so, told so, told you so.” I think he sounds just like he sounded when we nominated Sharron Angle and the woman who had to say she wasn’t a witch in Delaware, whatever her name was. (imitating Murphy) “I told you, I told you, you’re making the biggest mistake in the world. I tried to tell you, you won’t listen to me. I tried to do tell you. I told you Trump’s the killer, Trump’s killing us. Listen to it again.
MURPHY: President Trump, who peaked in districts like that a year-and-a-half ago is now in real trouble, he’s become an anchor on the party. There’s definitely a blue wave coming. I’ll say it, yes, it’s Trump. This is not rocket science. We have the most unpopular president in the history of polling in the first year of an administration. So, you know, two plus two is four here. Massively unpopular president who is constantly doing things to undermine the presidency and offend two-thirds of the country, and so guess what? We’re getting clobbered now at the polls. The problem is fundamentally Trump and the fact the party has become lemmings following him. Yes, I totally blame Trump!
RUSH: I see the smile. Oh, he’s gloating. (imitating Murphy) “Yeah, I did, Trump, Trump, Trump, guess what, we’re getting clobbered in the polls. The problem is fundamentally Trump and the fact that the party’s become a bunch of lemmings following him. Oh, you idiots. I tried to tell you, I tried to tell you. We have the most unpopular president in the history of presidents, two-thirds of the country’s offended by the guy every day, I told you, it’s Trump, Trump, Trump. Blue wave is coming. We’re toast! Ha-ha! I told you.”
Let’s go on to McKinnon, Mark McKinnon next. He ran all the media for George Bush in the 2000 campaign and was prominent in 2004. He was on with Don Lemon. And McKinnon is the guy that founded this centrist group called No Labels. We’re not conservatives. We’re not liberals. We’re actually liberals that don’t call ourselves liberals, is what the No Labels group is. And Lemon said, “Okay. You’re plugged into a lot of Republicans, Mark. What are they really saying behind the scenes?”
MCKINNON: They’re saying, get off the beach. The wave is coming. Get out of here. I mean, actually, that is happening. I mean, they’re getting out of the races altogether. In fact, 41 Republicans have retired and resigned. And I think because of last night we’re gonna see more resignations. Last night’s news, that was the canary in the coal mine getting hit by mustard gas and a grenade, and there’s feathers everywhere. I think a lot of Republicans were holding out hope that because of the tax cuts and because of the very strong economy, that would help carry through some of the problems that we’ve been seeing out there. This suggests that that’s not gonna be the lifeboat that everybody thought it was gonna be.
RUSH: Okay. We got one more with Murphy back on CNN, and he’s on the same show with McKinnon ’cause you’ll hear McKinnon in this bite as well.
MURPHY: We need to give the same kind of long leash to some of our candidates who want to walk away from the president a little bit and walk away from some of these litmus test primary issues, like guns in these suburban districts where Republican support is collapsing. So I would say my advice to the Republicans would be, copy that, because we are heading for real headwinds. That’s an effective tactic, as we just learned in one of our base districts.
RUSH: So we need to give a long leash to some of our candidates who want to walk away from the president a little bit, walk away from some of these litmus test primary issues like guns in these suburban districts where Republican support is collapsing. Republican support for guns in suburban districts is collapsing.
Okay, so the message is that Trump is a buffoon, an idiot, he’s hated and despised, two-thirds of the country doesn’t like the guy. He’s the most negative polling president first year, first term we’ve ever had, blue wave is coming, get off the beach or you’re gonna drown. Republicans are resigning left and right. It’s over.
How did he gett elected in the first place, then? Could somebody explain to me what happened, how did he get elected in the first place? Was he overwhelmingly popular by people who voted for him and now one-third of the people that voted for him have abandoned him or more, he’s hated and despised? Trump is hated and despised by many of the people that the voted for him, Republican support is collapsing because of Trump, Trump, Trump? How did a guy like this ever get elected then?
Now, I know what these guys will say. Hillary Clinton and Russia. Hillary was a horrible candidate, one of the worst candidates, one of the worst candidates the Democrats have ever run. Well, she won the popular vote, count the five million votes out in California or whatever, she won the popular vote, and the Democrats loved her. What happened? In a year-and-a-half, what has happened in 15 months, since Trump was inaugurated, what has happened to cause all of this dramatic reversal of opinion on Trump? What has happened?
Well, there are answers to this. I’m just asking if any of you — (interruption) Well, he’s implemented a conservative agenda, and notice how these guys run down the tax cuts. A bunch of Republicans running it down, “Yeah, not enough, not enough. They thought the tax cuts could be our anchor, but nope, that’s not enough.”
I have the answers to all my questions. I’m asking rhetorically here. What happened? How does the guy get elected in the first place if he is this hated, despised, and unpopular now, after implementing 65% of his agenda. Well, maybe these guys hate him precisely because of that. Maybe these guys hate him because he beat them resoundingly, outsiders, took them to school during the primaries, then the general.
But, anyway, despite all that, you see, folks, these are Republican consultants considered to be the cream of the crop, and they’re out there on CNN saying it’s over. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with anything with Russia. No, it’s over because Trump sucks. Trump is horrible, Trump is hated, Trump is despised, he’s unpopular.
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RUSH: Mike Murphy predicted that Trump was gonna lose in an historic landslide right up until the night of the election, just to put things in perspective. And Trump still beats Hillary in faux presidential elections. If the election were held today, Trump still beats her. But, you know, Republicans in the establishment just do not want to succeed with Trump. That’s what it boils down to.
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RUSH: We got a grab here of McKinnon and Mike Murphy on CNN with Don Lemon. Go ahead and switch it over there. They don’t look too broken up about it here. I mean, look at the smiles on Murphy’s face and McKinnon’s as they talk about this upcoming blue wave that’s gonna wipe out the Republican majority in Congress. They don’t look too broken up about it, do they to you, Mr. Snerdley?
Don Lemon, of course, Lemon’s gonna be happy, absolutely. By the way, grab number six. There’s another one! There’s another Republican — this guy is Dan Senor. Let me tell you who Dan Senor is. Dan Senor, I never heard of him ’til we took over Baghdad. This guy ended up being the spokesman for, what was his name, Paul, Paul, Paul… Bush put together to run the reconstruction of Iraq. I don’t know. I can’t remember his name, but Dan Senor, he’s married to Campbell Brown who used to be a Today show anchorette and then CNN.
And he’s another Republican strategist or consultant-adviser. He was on CBS today with Norah O’Donnell, and she said, “Republicans are dealing with a potential loss of a House seat in a strong GOP district. It looks like the Democrats may have won this one, Dan.”
SENOR: It’s a bad sign. It’s the seventh special election since President Trump — since he’s been sworn in, eight if you include the Alabama race, and in each of these races, even though a couple the Democrat has won, you’ve seen massive shifts of vote — Democrats shifted the votes 16, 18, 20 points on average.
O’DONNELL: And the president himself went there to campaign himself!
SENOR: And it looks like the race was tighter before he showed up. So what it’s looking like is the president is very good at motivating the opposition. It’s not clear that he’s good at motivating his base.
RUSH: Oh-ho. So now Trump hurt himself by going into the district. I know it’s not true. It’s the exact opposite, but according to Dan Senor, this guy, Saccone could have won this thing except for Trump showed up. And Trump went in there, and it looks like Trump hurt himself ’cause the race was much tighter before Trump showed up. That simply isn’t true.
So what explains this? While you ponder that, I need to get back to the phones. By the way, our previous caller, her point was — well, we ran out of time — that she thinks the Republicans didn’t really care to win this. Because it’s gonna have to be recontested in November anyway. It’s just a temporary filling of the seat here. So the election will happen again in November, maybe with a different candidate, but then there’s also this.
Remember the state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania’s redrawing districts. This district may not exist. Okay, that’s right. This district is being split into two different districts. It’s not even gonna be a district if that holds up, and so the theory is Republicans didn’t throw a lot of money into this race for those two reasons, although some money did go into this race. They did put some money in this race. They put $10 million in this race. It’s a myth to think that they didn’t.
Now, let’s go back to the phones ’cause we got a lot of people that still want to weigh in on this. But this election is being turned into the most important election of the century so far. And that’s how it’s being treated. And even these Republican consultants — by the way, Murphy now works at Harvard. What is this place at Harvard? He’s a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. So he’s talking to his Harvard buddies when he appears on CNN gleefully predicting the end of the Republican Party in this district and in Washington because of Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump.
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RUSH: Fort Worth, Texas, Scott. Glad you waited. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush! Hey, fantastic. Mega deplorable Trump voting dittos.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you got through here, Scott, my man, what’s happening?
CALLER: Yeah. Just actually two real quick points. Hillary was wrong. We did not force our white significant female others to vote for Trump. We bribed them with Shari’s Berries. There. I said it.
RUSH: Bribed them with Shari’s. (laughing)
CALLER: But no, really, on a serious note I think every GOP running against a Democrat in these upcoming elections, all they have to do is take a Hillary Clinton picture and put it with their Democrat opponent and say just another Hillary Clinton Democrat.
RUSH: Well, you know, let me tell you something. I like that. But here’s why. Who are these so-called Republican consultants to be conceding defeat in freaking March? If they’re willing to concede defeat in March and smile about it on CNN, then of what value are they? But there they were on CNN last night, Mark McKinnon and Mike Murphy, and we got ’em and they’re smiling while they’re talking about the blue wave that’s coming, and that Trump is the reason. That Trump’s hated, most unpopular president that’s ever polled the first year of his presidency, just it’s over.
I wonder how these guys would do as coaches in the NFL? So the team meets for OTAs before the spring mini-camps begin. The coach, “Look, you guys. Let me tell you something. I saw your season last year, and you suck. And there’s no way we’re even making the playoff. You guys are so bad, you may be the most unpopular team in the league. We had more people kneel during the Anthem than any other team in the league. You guys don’t have a prayer.” How would that team do? How long would the coach last?
And it’s not just these two. Dan Senor is out there (imitating Senor), “Oh, yeah, the Republicans, it’s a blue wave coming, dude. The Republicans are gonna lose, and it’s all because of Trump.” But here’s a guy from Fort Worth who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, and he’s got an idea to sabotage all these Democrat candidates, just start running some ads and put some billboards up and posters and say the Democrat is right out of the Hillary Clinton school of politics, best friend of Hillary Clinton, long donor, long supporter of the Clintons. Think our people are thinking things like that? Doesn’t sound like it. I’m glad you called out there, Scott. The Shari’s Berries line was actually kind of funny too.