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April 20, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:17
April 20, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Do you really mean to ask me the question that way?
Snerdley just said the Cowboys schedule is out.
Did Pittsburgh release theirs yet?
The National Football League released the entire schedule last night.
At 7 o'clock, in fact, for every team.
There are analysis pages, galore of the schedule.
Strength of schedule, who's got the easier schedule.
Stories on what does it matter?
We don't have a CBA.
There may not be a season.
So what's the big deal with the schedule coming out?
Five teams do not have any primetime games.
The Detroit Lions have their first Monday night appearance in 15 or 20 years.
The schedule's out snurdly.
I was uh I was eager beaver.
I was looking at the schedule.
The Steelers, you know, a Super Bowl loser, but the Stevers uh you would think have a very tough strength of schedule.
But they have the 27th toughest schedule because the uh AFC North plays the NFC West, which didn't have a winning team last year.
So it's uh Packer schedule pretty good.
The Packer schedule's interesting.
They've um I think they open with the Falcons.
They've got a uh uh I don't have it in front of me, but I think they've got a great Christmas Eve game with uh the Bears.
Uh I think it's Christmas Eve.
Every team plays on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.
Christmas Day is a Sunday, and the NFL traditionally does not play their play up a night game.
They've got a Sunday night game on Christmas Day, but Christmas Eve, they've got a full slate of games uh with the latest starts at 4.15.
And there will be football.
This will get in fact for those of you that that care about this.
I haven't heard Trump weigh in on the uh NFL situation.
I don't know what he thinks about it then.
I'm mentioning Trump because it drives some people nuts.
Um there will be four of course there's gonna be football.
Dislike the wouldn't not close.
Do you have any doubts there's gonna be football?
Let me tell you something.
Except the 10th anniversary of 9-11 is the opening Sunday of the NFL season.
Do you really believe when it gets down to brass tax that the NFL is gonna put money and all that ahead of the 10th anniversary of on 9-11?
They've got the Giants playing the Redskins down in Washington, and they got the Jets and the Cowboys in in New York.
There's not there's not gonna do I want to go what, the Jets Cowboys game?
Do I do I want to go see it?
What can you get you you get tickets?
You think you can get tickets for it.
I don't know where I'm gonna be.
I normally the opening day of the NFL, I'm parked in front of my satellite receiver, watching uh watching every game.
I don't know where I'm gonna be in the opening Sunday, September 11th.
The opener is September 8th, Thursday night in Green Bay, the New Orleans Saints.
Open against the Packers.
But I just there's a whole bunch of that what I was gonna say was there's a uh a bunch of players today who have like 70 of them who have broken ranks with the rank and file and are demanding a presence at the court ordered mediation, which is going on now.
And these are referred to as second-tier players, not the superstars.
They want their own lawyer and they want to have their own presence.
So we haven't even missed any game checks yet.
Game checks don't start being issued really until September, but the free agents, that's uh there's some players missing their one giant, their single opportunity for their big financial score in their careers because there's no free agency right now because of the lockout.
So you know, I I love the game, and I just don't see that there's no way the players come out of here winning this.
Uh course I don't think anybody really loses by the time they finish this.
But I I the the the owners of the league is gonna prevail.
They always do.
They always will.
They've got the staying power.
They've got the financial staying power.
And the owners are committed on this.
They're gonna change this deal, and they've got if if they have to sit out a year, they've got the ability to do it.
But that's not like it's going to come to that.
Anyway, uh what Easter kind of puts it in perspective.
That's it.
Let's do it.
Let's grab audio soundbite number 21.
This is one of these sound bites that could remain forever in our rotation.
It's President Obama yesterday in Washington hosting the annual Easter prayer breakfast.
It really needs no commentary.
I can't help it, but it really stands alone.
I want to host this breakfast for a simple reason.
Because as busy as we are as many tasks has pile up.
During this season, uh, we are reminded that there's something about the resurrection.
Something about the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.
Play it again.
Play oh I want to host this breakfast for a simple reason.
Because as busy as we are, as many tasks has pile up.
During this season, uh, we are reminded that there's something about the resurrection.
Something about the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ that puts everything else in perspective.
There you have it, uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, President Barack Obama, peace be upon him.
Praise be his name, commenting on uh Easter at the Easter prayer breakfast in the White House yesterday.
They just puts everything else in perspective.
Like what?
Tax cuts are no big deal, tax increases are no big deal.
When you start thinking about the resurrection, you know, socialism not that important to me.
What does he mean?
What is it about the resurrection that puts everything else?
He said something about it.
What about it?
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who now runs a Democrat uh National Committee, or if she maybe she had been sworn in, but she's she's the new Graham Poo Bah of the uh of the DNC.
She was on PMS NBC last night, and she claims that the Republicans stole the election in 2012.
Yes, she claims that the Republicans stole the election in 2012.
Rachel Maddow had a question for is making it harder to register to vote, which many Republican-controlled states are pursuing right now, is is that a partisan tactic to make it harder to register to vote?
Republicans don't think that they can win elections uh in a fair fight.
So they need to go systematically state by state, rigging it so that it makes it much more difficult for all voters, regardless of political party affiliation or philosophical approach, can get to the polls.
What is rampant is the intimidation tactics that have been used by Republican supervisors of elections, Republican secretaries of state, and that the policies that have been used across the country by Republicans overseeing elections has really been outrageous in in terms of getting in the way of voters who simply want to go to the polls.
Right.
So we're gonna we've steal we've stolen the election 2012.
And remember, with these people, you don't have to understand, Snerdley.
The beauty of Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz is that you don't have to understand.
She is the gift that keeps on giving.
All she has to do is open her mouth.
The more visibility that Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz has, uh will do more for conservatism than even Donald Trump could do.
After discovering that the Republicans have cheated already in the 2012 election, Rachel Maddow said, well, what about the Democrat Party institutionally sort of taking the other side of this fight?
Oh gosh.
Now, institutionally, the Democratic Party has been very aggressive.
Look at what's going on in the Middle East and North Africa right now.
You have literally uh you know hundreds of thousands of people who are risking their lives and dying to be able to have the franchise, to be able to actually vote and choose their leaders.
And here we are, we have uh people who pull the levers of power in the Republican Party who are trying to do the opposite and disenfranchise Americans because they don't like the outcome of an election in a fair fight.
Yeah, it's just when these people speak, it is really true.
When they level accusations like this, they're actually describing themselves.
But she thinks this is a massive democracy movement going on in Libya.
There's they're searching for the franchise over there.
The same thing in Egypt.
They want the franchise, but the Republicans are standing in the way.
Here in the United States.
Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz, the uh new chairman Democrat National Committee.
Okay, folks, another obscene profit timeout.
And uh we'll be back.
continue right after this alright we're going Cincinnati and Ron greetings welcome to the EIB network by the way Ron Cincinnati the Bengals Are one of the five teams that do not have a prime time appearance, the upcoming NFL schedule.
Oh, you had to mention that, Rush.
That was in my talking notes here.
Uh first off, it's an honor and privilege to speak to you again.
Thank you very much, sir.
Yeah, and uh was gonna say that it's one of Cincinnati's one of the harder places to be an NFL fan, but you beat me to it.
Yeah, you have your moments.
Yeah.
We do, and we suffer through it, and we're glad to have them here.
Um anyway, uh resurrection perspective ditto to you, sir.
And uh the reason I'm calling today, uh, you're talking about Trump and you're saying that uh some of the Republicans will almost see when they hear his name mentioned.
But I, for one, I'm glad they had him in the discussion at this stage of the game.
And the reason I'm glad to have him in it is uh he's bringing the pop culture audience who otherwise wouldn't be paying attention.
You know, they're uh they're out listening, you know, they're watching American Idol and uh whatever his apprentice shows are and such, and when they get to the Republican debates and he's out there uh up on stage with the serious candidates, it's not that he's not serious, but he's you know, he's got a lot of flaws.
But uh when he's up there and trying to make his points and he'll make some points, those folks will also be listening to the serious candidates and their arguments, and those folks will then be engaged on the right side.
Let me ask you a question.
Yes, sir.
Because the um uh I I know Andrew Breitbart uh has got his uh his new book out.
One of his objectives with his uh his his media businesses, big government, the websites, the videos that he does, he's trying to uh bring conservatism to the pop culture.
Pop culture's totally owned and nominated by the left, as you know.
Movies, books, television shows.
Um the left owns it.
Uh trying to introduce uh pop culture, uh conservatism to the uh to fans of pop culture, and and and so you think Trump might do this.
Now, what is Trump saying that might cause people who live in the pop culture to have, say, a favorable view of uh what you and I believe.
This I'm that's not a trick question.
I want to know what you really think.
Well, I I think he's uh bringing credence to the con the conservative mentality.
If if they like him as a uh as an icon, uh they recognize his success.
Um, you know, they they feel like um, you know, he's a happening guy, and so it's not so um well, let me jump in here because why I understand what you mean, but you uh I have some problems with uh with that.
And I mentioned I mentioned this yesterday.
I've had a lot of people ask me, you know, you were really hard on Perot.
Why aren't you hard on Trump?
Uh I'll be glad to answer that.
They're really not the same in any way, shape, manner, or form, Other than they both appear to have an appeal to populists.
But let's set that aside for just a second.
Yeah.
If Trump is serious about this, if I, El Rushbo determined down the road that Trump is serious, I'm going to I'm going to request a meeting.
I'm going to take him aside.
I'm going to say whoever is telling you about conservatism is misleading you a little bit.
Conservatives don't want a 25% tariff on imported Chinese goods.
Correct.
The mainstream conservative base is not concerned with where Obama's birth certificate is.
We're concerned with his economics, his destroying the economy.
What I'm afraid of is that...
Um...
This is going to sound strange.
I don't mean to say that Trump is not his own man.
I'm I don't mean to imply here that he doesn't do his own thinking.
But we do know that he's got people who are he's got a team.
He's got a political team.
It's that's quote unquote advisors.
And I think there's some people who are giving him a a skewed perception of mainstream conservatism.
I think he believes that mainstream conservatism is the kooks, is is some of the fringe.
And that's not, of course, the case.
So for example, if if if you if you think Trump is a great messenger of conservatism to the pop culture crowd, then we've got to make sure that what Trump is articulating is genuine conservatism and not and not a distorted view of it, and certainly not populism.
You go to Perot.
Perot, I can't tell you the number of people.
You seem to be taking Trump half seriously.
Trump's saying stuff you ought to be jumping all over it.
I remember you at Perot Rush.
You were telling us from the get-go, Perot's a phony peros.
Let me tell you there's the differences here are stark.
For one thing, we don't know what really is uh motivating Trump here yet.
We know what he says.
What we don't really know with with Perot, what we eventually learned is that he really had a problem with George Bush 41 over prisoners of war and a planned release during the Reagan years when Bush 41 was VP.
They asked Perot to fund it and then wouldn't let him go on the on the on the rescue mission or series of rescue missions.
He had a he had a he had a real problem.
Plus when Trump, when Perot was out there in uh in the 90s, 92, uh the the only conservative media was me.
There was no Fox, there there was no blogosphere.
So Trump, I'm sorry, Perot was all over C-SPAN, and the places that that Perot was going to make speeches were uh hardened, very serious C-span type events.
Only that, you know, most dull, dry national press club, this kind of stuff.
Trump is uh is is is not doing it's it's it is that there's a huge difference in the approach to both.
There was never any doubt in my mind that Perot was going to be a spoiler.
Uh and I remember warning people that he was ultimately he wasn't going to run.
And that that that this was uh I gosh, those days were really fraught with friction here because I had my syndication partners telling me in private meetings, you know, you're really you're you're running your audience off.
But your audience loves Perot.
You you need to be positioning yourself as leading the Perot juggernaut.
I said, I just I'm sorry that's this is this is we don't I'm not a populist.
You know, I'm I'm a I'm a conservative.
Yeah.
So there aren't there there's some still significant differences.
I understand I look at your Trump's got his TV show The Apprentice, he attracts pop culture stars as as uh as guests to appear on that show.
He does have a connection to people of pop culture.
We are weak there.
I don't disagree with your premise on this at all.
Uh but it is uh we we we don't want people getting the wrong idea about what can in other words I don't want the pop culture crowd, and let's let's acknowledge for a second that they are they're made up of people who are largely ignorant about us.
We don't want them thinking that the number one thing we care about here is Obama's birth certificate.
Yeah.
And we do not want conservatism redefined.
This has been one of my fears whenever people come along and and and have this immediate appeal to people that r that that's visceral.
It's not really based in uh uh thought out belief, but rather just an emotional attachment.
There's my fear with McCain.
What McCain was going to redefine what conservatism was.
I don't want conservatism redefined.
That conservatism doesn't need to be redefined.
Conservatism will win if it's just tried.
If if it's just utilized.
So I you know, your your premise vis-a-vis the pop culture is uh is very relevant.
It just it has to make sure that it is an accurate portrayal of what conservatism is.
You bet.
Hey, am I still here?
Yep.
Okay, great.
Well, I got one other point.
I'm hopeful that he does not turn into a spoiler.
I'm hoping that he uh at the end of the day that his uh disgust with how Obama is is handling our nation will allow him to um when he doesn't prevail through the primaries, uh that he'll get behind the right candidate, and again, with with some guidance from conservatives like you and others, um, you know, get behind the right candidate and bring the all the audience that he's brought in then, get him behind the right guy for the right reasons.
Well, spoiler is right.
Um you'd have to say if Trump if he's a spoiler, Trump's not going to take Democrat votes away from Obama.
That's and that was always the risk with Perot.
He was never going to take votes away from Clinton.
Exactly.
Okay, look, um, I'm glad you called out there, Ron, and uh our condolences on the uh the Bengals and uh not one time appearance in the 2011 season.
But we've got much more straight ahead, my friends, and we'll get to it after this.
you Thank you.
You remember that Trump uh almost ran for president in 1999 on the reform party ticket, and that that was the offshoot of Perot's party.
And in 1999, Trump proposed a wealth tax of around 15%, a one-time wealth tax, fifteen percent on everybody's net worth.
I think it was limited to people of uh certain net worth had a that had a minimum before the tax applied to you.
And the purpose of Trump's fifteen percent net worth tax was to pay off the national debt, reduce it.
Now that that isn't conservative, nor are 25% tariffs on imports from the GICOMs.
That uh that isn't conservative.
Now Trump has answered that.
He said, well, I just that's what I would threaten them.
You know, I'm I'm gonna talk a good game to these guys.
They're gonna know they're not sitting in front of a Patsy when they're talking to me.
Now, at the time in 1999, if if Trump's 15% wealth tax, which again was a tax on your net worth, if that had happened, his tax would have been 700 some odd million dollars according, and I think he released that uh that that figure.
His positions today sound very much like reform party.
That's why a lot of people I think are are are bringing up Perot to me.
Because those are the kind of things, and Perot was that there are some there are a lot of similarities.
If you listen to Trump carefully, a lot of similarities to what Trump's saying and what Perot was saying.
Uh and and because they're both oriented here in uh in populism.
And by that I mean oriented in the fact that America's getting screwed, America's getting a shaft.
We're gonna stop it.
Uh what's added to it, what Perot never said, because it wasn't applicable then, was that America's getting a shaft by Americans.
That Trump is adding to that because Obama is giving us the shaft, and he believes that.
So he's he does he has a uh a message that sounds a lot like what the uh reform party was.
Okay, let's see.
Uh Susan in Milford, Ohio.
I'm glad you waited.
Uh, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Um, I just wanted to say that I'm a Republican and I'm a 50-year-old woman who voted Republican her whole life.
And I would definitely vote for Donald Trump.
I think he tells it like it is.
He says what most people think but are afraid to say.
Yeah.
And I think what's motivating him to run is that he's like the rest of us that are sitting here and can't take it anymore, of Obama running our country, bankrupting us.
And I don't think he'll be a spoiler.
I think he'll run because he knows to when.
And I I think he cares about the country, and I think he is getting you know sick of being used by other countries.
And hey, pay us back.
What makes you believe this?
What I'm I'm not challenging, I'm trying to learn.
Right.
What what makes you believe he's serious about running?
I because I can s it just seems like I can see it almost in a space that he's just like all of us that are sitting here thinking like I can't take this anymore.
We have got to get this guy out of here.
We've got to get somebody in here that will really care about the country and really not try to bankrupt us.
And I think he's got enough financial know-how to get us out of this mess.
But I also think on a ticket, he would definitely need somebody that was a respectable and decent and honorable man to run a vice president, and I think that would be Huckabee.
And I think that Huckabee cares enough about Israel.
He's an honest man, and I think he would bring it integrity back to the White House, and we've lost that.
He wouldn't be in the White House, he'd be up at the vice president's mansion.
Well, he'd be helping out.
And he would bring integrity to the ticket.
So I that's why I think Huckabee would be good for him.
Okay.
Well, we're taking all this in.
Um I'm I'm fascinated.
This uh these kinds of things, learning how people think, learning how they react to uh people, candidates' personalities.
It's a fascinating thing to me.
She's uh Susan here is convinced he's running.
Nobody knows.
We don't even know if he knows.
We don't even know if he has made up his mind, whether he's running or not.
Now we do know that he has told NBC that he's not committing to a new season of the apprentice until he figures out what he's doing.
He's even got them hanging.
There's an NBC executive out today saying there's no way he's running.
A nameless NBC exec.
Oh, we know he's not running.
This is just for ratings.
He's just out there hyping up the apprentice.
That's all that's going on here.
Uh we'll see.
Patrick, Albuquerque, New Mexico, hello, sir, Rush Lindball, the E.I.B. Nurk uh Network, welcome you here.
Rush, how are you today?
Very good.
Very good.
Hey, uh long time listener, first time caller.
I just had a real quick question.
You were talking about uh how it might take a catastrophe to raise the debt ceiling.
And my question to you would be how would the government use say a Japan style catastrophe that would happen here on the continental states.
Uh would that be a case to easily raise the death ceiling?
Wait, it might take a catastrophe to raise the debt.
I didn't say that.
I think you said something like that.
What I've what I've said about the debt ceiling is that it's not the apocalypse if we don't.
But I didn't say to be a cat it would require it won't require and what would uh what would they how would they use that?
How would the government use that to raise?
What an earthquake with nuclear ramifications here?
Possibly, or any kind of 300 to 400, 500 billion dollar, you know.
I'm not sure I get what you're getting, but then none of that's gonna be necessary.
Obama just gonna have to get up one day and want to raise it.
He's not gonna have to re need an event to happen.
In fact, most of them, the vast majority of of Republicans and Democrats are already resigned to raising it.
The Republican position is we're gonna get some cuts.
We're gonna get some significant budget cuts in exchange for our vote to raise it.
Uh I I I I think unless I'm misunderstanding something, I think it'd be catastrophic event you're talking about would be something that would cause us not to raise it.
It's gonna require something catastrophic for it not to be raised.
The mature among us, it's gonna go up.
We're gonna raise the debt ceiling.
That's a fate of complete.
I just don't think it needs to be.
I don't I I think an option of not raising it exists.
But I you probably put me and the people who think this way in a thimble.
Large thimble, but still a thimble.
There aren't that many of us.
But I think conventional wisdom is it's gotta go up.
Conventional wisdom, it is gonna go up.
The question remains is just how tough are the Republicans going to be in demanding concessions in spending that it goes up.
Let me take a brief time out.
Thanks, Patrick, for the phone call, and we'll be back.
I I want to I want to remind you of some things that were reality in 2008 as we talk about this debt ceiling business, because I know that I am one of the few people who would who would make the claim we don't need to raise the debt ceiling.
It's such conventional wisdom.
It's gotta go up.
Well, well, United States will default.
We gotta United States has to be able to spend money.
It won't stop us from spending money.
I'm told that there's 90 days of unspent money elsewhere in the budget that would cover 90 days.
And even at that, there's still revenue coming in.
But it's all about how this is sold.
It's identical to 2008.
2008 apocalypse.
Remember in 2008, the way they got to us with was a subprime business, and it was in trouble, but who was hurting?
The Wall Street people were hurting in subprime.
That's who had to be bailed out, not us.
They asked us to bail them out, and they did it by creating this notion that the world financial system would collapse.
But remember, if you will remember, back when this subprime stuff became top drawer news, and we were talking about it in relationship to this uh this apocalypse.
95% of people who had mortgages were paying them.
There was not a crisis in the mortgage market.
There were not people defaulting on their mortgages.
95% of people who had them were paying them.
There was any number of things we could have done.
But no, what do we do?
We ended up co-opting uh McCain and Bush.
And who did we bail out?
We bailed out people who vast majority numbers voted for Obama.
We bailed out high finance execs on Wall Street easily, majority of whom voted for Obama.
You remember I was joking back then about well, the reason Paulson's doing this, he's got to make sure this buddies don't lose their vacation homes in the Hamptons.
Folks, that was damn near close to right.
It was damn near close to what was going on.
A bunch of highfalutin, high rolling, bunch of people got themselves in trouble in this subprime business.
You can trace it back to the government forcing them into this position with the Community Redevelopment Act and all that.
Still a reality on the ground was that that's that's who we were bailing out.
Paulson was protecting his buddies.
Same thing is happening now.
There are there are people, don't want to mention names because I want to show up here tomorrow.
But there are people, you'd know the names, their financial portfolios benefit from a declining American strength.
Some of our Republicans, some of them are Democrats, they don't define themselves as hell.
We bailed out General Electric for crying out loud.
We bailed out General Motors, we bailed out the UAW.
All of this, while we supposedly had an apocalypse on the other side of it.
We didn't bail out GM, but we didn't do TARP.
If we didn't bail out all this, the world financial system is gonna collapse.
None of that was true.
And the same scare tactic, the same same technique is being ginned up now on the debt ceiling.
There is no default imminent if we don't raise the debt ceiling.
This is this is a major moment for our cause.
We sit here and say we've got To stop this spending?
We have got to reverse it.
Here we go.
Debt ceiling.
Call a halt to it.
The idea that we're out of money is ridiculous.
We're not.
This Wednesday.
I can't believe it.
There's only two days to go.
And then the resurrection puts everything in perspective.
Weekend.
The resurrection- yeah, already tomorrow's gonna be Thursday.
That's the fastest week in media.
This is proof of it.
But we'll be back.
We got 21 hours of uh rest and a break here to prep, and we'll be right back at it.
Same time, same place tomorrow.
Thanks so much for being with us today, folks.
It's always for me a thrill to be with you.
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