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Sept. 25, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:45
September 25, 2013, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 247 Podcast.
So Harry Reid wants to uh wants to play the role of Grim Reaper.
And he did.
He looked just like the Grim Reaper.
He walked in there and he shut Ted Cruz down at 12 noon.
And that is after asking Ted Cruz to yield for a question from McCrazy.
McCain for 15 minutes.
Yeah, they wanted him.
They wanted McCain to get in there and start debating party politics.
Cruz would have none of it.
He shredded.
The guy from Illinois, I'm having a mental block, uh yeah, Dick Turban.
He shredded turban even after 20 hours of this.
You know, folks, I could go for 21 more hours just with the healthcare stack that we've got today.
About the absolute disaster this is.
Anyway, greetings and welcome.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
If things pan out as planned now, we will have Senator Cruz on this program in one hour.
Well, we put it together this morning.
The phone rang.
We said sure.
At that time it was thought the filibuster would end at noon and uh an hour to decompress and so forth and be here at one o'clock.
And then we got word that, hey, it may go on past noon.
And can uh can the appearance time float?
We said sure.
We'll be glad to float with you.
And then Dingy Harry did the Grim Reaper act and shut this thing down at 12 noon after 21 hours.
And at that point uh it became, I guess, etched in stone that Senator Cruz will be here barring something.
I mean, this is such a fluid situation, barring something unexpected, he will be here at uh at one o'clock.
Boy, folks, if this doesn't embody everything that a number of us have been trying to say and inform everybody about the Washington establishment,
the Republican establishment, if it it's all in these 21 hours, even the uh hours leading up to it, the the criticisms of Ted Cruz from his own party, the attempt to ruin him and mock him in his own party and from the so-called conservative media,
and then of all places Fox News trashing this, trashing all over this, and Fox News essentially blaming me and other conservative media for making Ted Cruz what he is.
Britt Hume of all people essentially said that Ted Cruz is who he is because he's being pressured by people like me.
And left to his own devices, Cruz might not be doing this, is the implication, didn't actually say that.
I was I was literally stunned watching this.
The fact that even after 21 hours, even at the beginning of it, they cannot at least admit that this is who the man is.
He doesn't need any advisors here, he doesn't need any pressure.
The man is not a coward.
Ted Cruz isn't afraid of anybody.
The real question is what is the Republican establishment afraid of?
What are some of these conservative media types in Fox News afraid of?
What is the Washington establishment on the Republican side afraid of?
Government shut down, losing elections?
What do you guys think you've been doing?
Did you look at how many Republicans didn't show up to vote for Mitt Romney in 2008?
Do you realize that if the Republican base had turned out Obama would have been defeated?
Why didn't it happen?
When does fighting for freedom backfire?
Explain that to me.
Because that's what this is.
And this is what I I guess some of these establishment types in Washington, regardless of party, I don't think they really understand.
I think there is such a divide in this country that it is so wide that some people in politics, it's their business to understand these things, don't even know what really is going on.
I just heard Michael Barone say, well, this is nothing but theater.
All Ted Cruz has done is engaged in something its impossible.
It's not theater.
This is real.
This is about freedom.
I know to a lot of people that sounds corny.
Freedom, come on, Rasha's freedom isn't threatened.
Oh, but it is.
In ever so small incremental losses, it is.
It's what Obamacare is all about.
It's precisely what Obamacare is all about.
The loss of individual freedom, the loss of free markets.
Ted Cruz is fighting for freedom.
In the greatest tradition of American freedom fighters.
And how did so many Republicans manage to miss that fundamental American lesson?
Mark Stein on this program yesterday made a good point, if I'm of a paraphrase.
But he essentially said that our system doesn't need the smartest, the best elected representatives, because the people can take care of it with popular uprisings.
The people.
This is a country that is a representative republic.
The people get what they want here.
Popular uprisings.
What Ted Cruz is attempting to do is marshal the support of the American people.
It's in the greatest traditions of the American founding.
And the entire existence of the country.
He's simply trying to marshal and motivate the public that already opposes Obamacare in such a way as to send a message to Washington that this is not what's wanted because Washington isn't listening.
How did Republicans manage to miss this?
I've been asking for I don't know how long you look at the polling data on Obamacare and any other issue, but we'll stick with Obamacare.
The numbers are striking.
The number of people, a percentage of Americans that actually support this, the last poll I saw last week is 12 to 26%, depending on the poll.
12 to 26%, and the Republican Party wants to align with that segment of the population.
Well over 50% of the American people don't want this.
And the Republicans say, well, we can't do anything about it.
The law is the law, it's the law of the land.
Well, so is slavery one time, the law of the land.
These arguments just are made by people that do not want to roll up their sleeves or have too much invested in Washington continuing to function as it does.
Ted Cruz was doing exactly what he was elected to do.
Ted Cruz was elected in Texas to do exactly what he did in this filibuster.
And by the way, what he has been doing since he arrived.
He's one Republican who is doing exactly what he was elected to do.
And contrary to people who claim that he is motivated by fear of talk radio.
Go back and look at Ted Cruz's campaign in Texas, and you'll see that he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do.
He's doing exactly what he was elected to do.
He's fighting for free markets.
He's fighting for individual choice.
He's fighting against statists and statism.
He's fighting for the American people.
Even those who don't know that he's fighting for them.
Thank you.
Ted Cruz, in his twenty-one hour speech, filibuster, I know he would have called us a filibuster, if he would have been making a losing speech and a losing cause like abortion, he would have been fetted as a great American.
As was that woman in Texas, Wendy Davis, who was, you want fighting for a losing cause, who never had any support whatsoever, except she was a darling, because she was on the right side of this massive political divide.
This political divide is so wide that the things you and I believe and stand for and want don't even compute.
Not even understandable inside the beltway, or to the extent that they are understanding that they're there.
If anybody is afraid, folks, it's the Washington establishment.
I think that's where the real fear is, and you can see it in the way they react to Cruz.
If he was such a bumbling idiot, they wouldn't want this to stop.
They'd want him to keep going and continue to make a fool of himself.
They'd want him to keep speaking and keep losing everything for the Tea Party.
If they want if they thought Ted Cruz was this giant joke and mistake and disaster, Dingy Harry wouldn't have walked in there and shut this down.
Ted Cruz wants a vote on this thing on Friday, not Saturday.
On Saturday, nobody's going to be paying attention or watching trying to find Johnny Manzel and Texas AM if they're playing, or whoever else playing college football.
Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is fighting for the soul of his party.
Ted Cruz is fighting for the principle of limited government, which is a principle that animates all of us.
There's no penalty for this.
There's no penalty in fighting for freedom.
I don't know how that backfires.
Ah, Russia just goes to show you don't understand how Washington.
Yes, I do, and that's another thing that this is about.
Washington isn't working.
What in the world coming out of Washington is working?
It isn't working.
Who cares about Haifalutan Senate rules?
As a reason why Cruz should stop.
I don't think anything takes a backseat to the quest for freedom.
I don't I don't care how corny that sounds.
Ted Cruz is fighting for all those Republicans and Reagan Democrats who stayed home on election day 2012.
The American people don't want Obamacare.
I don't care what poll you cite.
They do not want it.
Who can't make that connection?
The Americans want somebody to help them push back on this.
If you don't fight, you can't possibly win.
You know what the Republican strategy is?
Well, let's let this thing get implemented and let it fall apart.
It can't work.
I agree, it can't.
It's a disaster, but that doesn't mean it's going to be fixed.
When it doesn't work, the Washington way is another health care program to fix what's wrong with this one.
And the cycle repeats, and you keep getting bigger government after bigger government.
The Kaiser point, I'm really not kidding.
I've got a healthcare stack here.
I could do 21 hours today.
Just the healthcare news that I've accumulated in the days I've been gone.
The disaster is awaiting everybody just in terms of cost.
Well, I know I could do 21 hours any day, but I'm talking about with one subject.
You know, nobody cared about Congress's precious rules when Obamacare was passed via reconciliation.
What about that?
Everybody's so wringing their hands over Ted Cruz ignoring proper procedure and the rules of the Senate and so forth.
Well, hell's bells, folks, we've got Obamacare as an albatross around our necks because the rules of the Congress were subverted and corrupted.
Should have never been allowed to pass under reconciliation, even.
I don't know.
I think it was even I think Robert Byrd said that it shouldn't be passed under reconciliation.
He was the father of it.
We live in a time when a 25-year-old is considered a child.
We live in a time where there's an entire industry getting filthy rich, trying to persuade as many Americans as possible to never take a risk on anything.
We are becoming a nation of wusses, would be wusses.
We have a bunch of leftists trying to take the risk out of anything.
Don't do anything that would upset you or anybody else.
Do not take the risk you might get hurt.
We're living in a time where the president has 19 fake Twitter followers.
We're living in a time where his wife, the first lady, has two million fake Twitter followers.
Well, that's what the story I've got here says, or is this from?
It's uh well the it's David Martusco in Washington, I don't know the source that didn't print, but Obama political king of the fake Twitter followers, more than 19.5 million online fans who don't really exist.
Quite symbolic of Obama himself and the administration.
It isn't what everybody thinks it is, nor is he.
followers.
The Washington establishment exists to make things look as though they are not.
Something comes along outside the formula, outside the box, like Ted Cruz.
Uh-oh, we got a problem.
How do we analyze this?
This doesn't fit.
So we live in a time when a 25-year-old is considered a child.
When raising the debt ceiling is not debt.
President said that when raising the debt ceiling is not incurring more debt.
We live at a time when self-defense is said to be a danger to others.
And amazingly, when fighting for freedom is said to be detrimental to the party of limited government.
I just I still have trouble getting my arms around that.
Because that's all this is a man doing what he was elected to do, fighting for limited government, fighting for individual freedom and liberty, rolling back the biggest assault on individual freedom in our lifetimes outside the Soviet Union and foreign enemies.
And doing that, fighting for freedom is said to be detrimental to the Republican Party, which used to be known as the party of limited government.
Anyway, Cruz won't have any of it.
He's not talked out of it.
He's not talked down from it.
He's not intimidated, yet he's said to be scared of talk radio.
A lot of Americans have been looking for a leader.
I wonder how many people think they might have found one.
Just ask it.
Be right back after this.
The fake Twitter story.
The fake 19 and a half million Twitter followers is UK Daily Mail.
And the two million fake Twitter followers, Michelle Obama from The Daily Caller.
The reason this happens, Macintosh, the Mac OS has a really great feature.
Takes a website and strips everything out with the text.
It's called reader.
But when you print it, it's some for some reason eliminates the source, the byline and all that.
Takes everything out, just the story.
And if whoever's doing it doesn't know that, then they don't include the source.
I, of course, never make that mistake, because I am the tech leader here of this team.
But no matter how many times I make this request, seems that it's a tough one to learn.
And it is a frustrating thing.
Nevertheless, that aside, I just wanted to explain why.
How can you look at something Russian and not know what the source is?
Blame Apple.
Everybody else is.
Now Ted Cruz basically had a crux.
The Cruz Crux.
He had in all of this 21 hours, he had a message, many messages, but he synthesize it down.
Ted Cruz pointed out the fundamental, and there are many, the fundamental flaws in this law that Washington seems eager to be implemented.
And I just now I've got a break here in 15 seconds.
I'm sorry for the programming format the way it is, but we'll keep it right there.
And another thing I want to address is this silly notion that this strategy is why Republicans lose elections.
That is so wrong, so dangerously wrong it needs to be commented on.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, and a reminder, Senator Ted Cruz will continue speaking on Obamacare on this program in a half an hour, right at the beginning of the next hour here at the EIB network.
You know, all we've heard from the drive-by media and the rest of the Beltway establishment is how the GOP needs to reach out.
Right?
GOP needs to reach out to other people.
Needs to broaden its base.
Well, Cruz have been reaching out like nobody's business.
Ted Cruz has made a greater effort, expended more energy reaching out than anybody recently I can recall in the Republican Party.
His grassroots efforts, his petition to sign the petition to defund Obamacare, and now is his filibuster.
Of course, this is not the kind of outreach the establishment is talking about.
They mean the kind of outreach that reaches out to Democrat voters by embracing those positions.
That's what the Washington establishment right now wants.
Cruz is having none of it.
Give you a couple quotes.
There's an interesting phenomenon that's occurring here that's quite interesting to point out.
John Cornen, the other Republican senator from Texas, made a statement not all that long ago, some years ago.
I'll read it to you verbatim.
If Obamacare is allowed to stand, said Senator John Cornyn, if Obamacare is allowed to stand in Congress is allowed to make the purchase of government endorsed health insurance compulsory, there will be no meaningful limit on Washington's reach into the lives of the American people.
That is certainly not what the founders intended.
So why wasn't Senator Cornyn up there with Senator Cruz?
Because Senator Cruz was simply acting on what Senator Cornyn had previously said.
And then, and I can probably cite every other Republican senator in this same way.
Chris Wallace, once interviewing Mitch McConnell.
You don't think the 30 million people who were uninsured is an issue, McConnell said, let me tell you what we're not going to do.
We're not going to turn the American health care system into a Western European system.
That's the Washington Post.
So what's gonna well, what happened then?
How is it that Senators Corny and McConnell sounded like Senator Cruz a few years ago?
But now, did they not mean it?
Were they just saying it Because that's what they thought you, their voters wanted to hear, was it necessary to say that to get re-elected?
This embodies exactly what's happening.
Tell the Republican base what you think it wants to hear, but then forget it.
And especially if the going gets tough.
If the going gets tough, then you always can retreat and find solace and comfort in the establishment where you'll be protected as a preferred member.
I'm sure Ted Cruz heard these guys say this.
One of the reasons I think he wanted to go to the Senate was he thought it was made up of other Republicans like him.
You think Ted Cruz thought when he got elected to the Senate he was going to be one of three or four who meant it?
When they said they were opposed to Obamacare.
I think one of the reasons is I'll ask him.
One of the reasons he was excited to go there.
He thought he was really going to be joining a bunch of people who weren't going to take this.
Who meant it when they said if Obamacare is allowed to stand and Congress is allowed to make the purchase of government endorsed health insurance compulsory, there'll be no meaningful limit on Washington's reach into the lives of the American.
By the way, Senator Corny, who said that was not in favor of this.
So Senator Cruz gets to Washington and finds out that he's one of three or four people in that body, Republicans.
And he could have said, well, I'll take the path of least resistance and throw in with them.
But he didn't.
And so now, ladies and gentlemen, there is this premise out there that doing what Ted Cruz did with his filibusters 21-hour speech.
Note they don't want to call it a filibuster.
Some reason.
At any rate, the premise is that because Cruz did what he did, and because Cruz has been doing what he's been doing, and because Cruz did the petition, because Cruz continues to run against Obama...
Because Cruz is doing what he's doing, the premise is we lose because of what Cruz is doing.
I don't think that's true.
I think that when they do, Republicans lose elections because they have continually dispirited their own base.
Because they have either intentionally or otherwise de-energized their own base.
And because people on our side, whether they be in the Republican Party or in the so-called conservative media, refuse to call out Barack Obama to the extent that he should be called out.
There isn't any criticism of Barack Obama.
There isn't any explanation of who Barack Obama is.
There isn't any teaching.
There isn't any effort to make the American people understand what it is.
The Democrat Party seeks for them.
There's no pushback.
That's why they lose elections when they do.
It's not, it's not because of this.
And now Ted Cruz, it is said, has infuriated his fellow Republicans.
They're very much worried that he's made them all look like fools.
I don't understand that.
Well, how does that happen?
Cruz did what he did by himself.
Well, he had some support at Rubio, he had Mike Lee.
There were some others in there.
But what how does anybody else look silly?
This is the problem.
Everybody's so concerned with what they look like.
Everybody's so concerned with what people think of them.
Obviously Ted Cruz doesn't Worry about that.
Ted Cruz is fighting for the country is founded.
It's no more complicated than that.
He points out that the crux, I mean, the central part of Obamacare has fallen apart.
As a matter of business, as a matter of congressional legislation, it's a mistake to fully implement this thing because it's a disaster.
Medicare cuts that are there to help pay for this have been delayed.
The employer mandate has been delayed until 2015.
The employer mandate was fundamental to making this work, in theory.
The mandate that employees are provided coverage by their employer...
Delayed.
So now the employers can back out forever.
Look at all the conversion of people who used once one time used to have careers.
Now they're part-time workers.
This is a disaster.
It's totally worth opposing this.
But I'll tell you something else, folks.
There has to be a time when you draw the line.
This is it.
You've got to draw the line.
You've got to let set down that marker.
You have got to let the American people know where you stand and what you will not support.
You have got to let the American voter, the American people who are on your side in this.
The vast majority of the American people oppose this.
You've got to let them know where your line is.
And that's what Ted Cruz has done here.
The strategy is not about raising money.
The strategy is not about winning elections in the short term.
What this is about is the debate.
This is taking this issue out of Washington, out of the halls of Congress, and taking it to the arena of ideas.
This is about taking the crux of the matter, what is going to happen to the American people because of this bill, to them, and help them understand what is about to happen if this thing is fully implemented.
It has to happen.
This line has to be drawn.
At some point where everything you're fighting for is on the line, you've got to make a stand for it.
And this idea, well, we can't do that now because we might lose in 2014 or we might lose in 2016.
What are we doing now?
We're losing.
We're losing against the most radical leftist administration in our lifetimes and maybe ever.
And there's no excuse for it because the American people are not with this administration.
The American people are opposed to it.
They may not know that they're opposed to Obama, but they don't like what's happening.
The big danger that is happening in this country is that people are losing faith in the country.
They're losing faith in the idea that there is opportunity here.
They're losing faith in the old adage that hard work pays off.
They're losing faith in all of the traditions and institutions that they have relied on in the past.
They don't see this as losing faith in Obama, a limbaugh theorem, don't want to repeat it, but the point they think, in a misguided but understandable reason why they think Obama's fighting for them right along with everybody else.
They don't understand that their loss of faith in the country is precisely because of the policies, including this one, health care of Obama.
Ted Cruz is attempting To wake people up.
He should be joined by members of his party.
Which he's also trying to save.
As an opposition party and as a party that is known for its devotion to limited government.
There was this talk not long ago about Obama.
And the fact that he did or didn't, depending on the day, draw a red line for Basher Assad.
Remember that?
We need a red line on Obama and his administration.
Ted Cruz just drew it.
Ted Cruz just drew the red line.
If the Republican Party cannot follow through on its promise to voters to oppose Obamacare, and they all did.
Senator Cornyn, Senator McConnell, I can quote any number of these people and what they've said about Obama over the years.
If they can't follow through now and oppose this, then what is the point of winning?
Seriously.
What's the point of winning if you if you're not even going to try to stop the most egregious outrageous assault on the very traditions and institutions of this country that we've seen.
Why do you even want to win?
And the answer is they want to be in control of the money.
Because it's apparently about that, not about ideas.
Back after this.
Since it came on the air, Fox News has been entirely, totally thoroughly excitedly eagerly supported on this program, and people there defended countlessly and endlessly.
And yet, and I I look, I don't expect that to purchase anything.
Don't misunderstand.
I don't mean I'll expect it by like-minded treatment, but I really don't expect the kind of I don't even know how to characterize it.
I mean, Britt Hume actually picked up liberal talking points.
Me, the Republican Party and the people being afraid of me.
Monday night, here's uh these in the 318.
Yeah, let's uh let's hit cut four.
I'm gonna set it up.
Just hit him.
I'm not sure you'd say they're calling the shots, but make no mistake about it, Bill.
Some of these radio talk show hosts have real influence.
They have a huge following, particularly in very conservative areas where they are most popular, uh, and where the many members of Congress who inhabit those areas are not worried about being re-elected if they can get nominated, but they are worried about a primary challenge that could deny them a nomination.
Go a long way to avoid it, and keeping radio talk show hosts off their back is one way of doing that.
I'm used to hearing that from the politico.
I'm used to hearing that on MSNBC.
I'm also used to hearing that from Republican consultants, the architects of losing elections.
So then O'Reilly followed that.
Well, do you believe that if uh in Congress, if somebody has to run every two years as they do, and they get on the wrong side of a powerful radio voice, and he'd mentioned my name in the previous question I didn't read.
They can really do them bad damage.
These radio guys, this powerful radio voice really do bad damage if they promote the other guy.
If you're sitting over in the House of Representatives in some measure to defund Obamacare comes along, and you think it's a suicide mission because it might involve a government shutdown, you're gonna be hesitant to oppose it anyway, uh, because you don't want the uh the the most conservative, you don't want the Tea Party, and you don't want the conservative radio talk show host on your back.
So once again Fox News has now fallen in with this idea that Republican elected officials are afraid of this show.
Note that they are apparently not afraid of Fox News.
Uh Whatever that means.
I just Okay, programming notes, Senator Cruz will not be here at the very beginning of the next hour.
As I originally thought, there is a Senate vote at one o'clock.
In mere moments.
Soon as that vote is over, Senator Cruz will find his way to the nearest telephone landline, and uh will then get in touch with us here.
So it won't be right after, or right at the beginning of the next hour, but as soon as that Senate vote is over.
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