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June 11, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:12
June 11, 2015, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Thank you very much.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
It is Eric Erickson, my real name no less.
Welcome, fellow ditto heads.
It is a delight and pleasure, as always, to sit behind the golden EIB microphone, although I'm not behind the EIB microphone today.
I'm in Atlanta at my home station, and we have a ton of stuff.
Before we even get going, let me tell you: at 2 p.m. Eastern, Senator Jeff Sessions is going to join me to talk about the trade agreement in Congress.
Excited to talk to him and this horrible story that's been percolating out there for weeks about Disney firing workers but making them train their replacements first.
We'll get into all of that.
But at the beginning of the show today, ah, Hillary Clinton, she's again going to declare that she's running for president after three other attempts.
We got a ton to get to.
The phone number first, 800-282-2882 here at the EIB Network.
You can also get me on Twitter or Facebook at EW Erickson, E-W-E-R-I-C-K-S-O-N.
So Saturday, Hillary Clinton is going to announce she's running for president again.
I think this is the third or fourth announcement, which begs the question: if she fell over in the forest, would anyone hear her?
At her age, she'd be a giant sequoia, so I imagine we would probably take notice of it.
But nonetheless, I'm not 100% sure.
I mean, so now she's going to give a big speech on Roosevelt Island.
My buddy Mike Needham over at Heritage Action, he put on Twitter, Hillary's campaign will launch on New York's Roosevelt Island, formerly the home of a prison and insane asylum.
Yes, that's where Hillary has decided to announce again.
Well, I mean, maybe she does need to announce on the island that's a former insane asylum because she tends to keep forgetting that she's already done it.
She's already had the road trip to Iowa.
I wonder if she's going to get in a van again and drive from Roosevelt Island to Iowa and stop at every Chipotle along the way, wearing sunglasses and staring at her BlackBerries and iPhones to her private secure home server that doesn't exist anymore, supposedly.
The New York Times reports, oh, it's going to be an outdoor rally.
Wear your sunscreen, Mrs. Clinton.
At your age, you don't need to be getting sunburned.
She will directly address concerns that have emerged in the early weeks of her candidacy, telling voters they can trust her to fight for the middle class.
How much do you want to bet she's going to use the phrase little people?
You just, you know, she's going to use the phrase little people.
She's going to stress that she cares about their problems from her home in Chappaqua, where she stares down out of the windows at the servants filling her pool.
Do you know somebody?
I think it was John Echdel, my buddy on Twitter.
He put up an in-scale picture of Marco Rubio's boat.
And it fits in Hillary Clinton's swimming pool with massive room to spare on all sides.
I mean, I guess Bill, when he's got all the strippers coming over when Hillary's not at home, he can fill up a pool that big.
I have no idea, but it's a massive pool.
I mean, Rubio's boat can fit in her pool with room to cruise around and fish.
She probably has Jeeves stock the pool with fish on occasion when she's not yelling at him to get her in her car and whisk her away.
You know, that is the great wonderful thing about Hillary Clinton is we don't have to worry about a speeding ticket story from the New York Times about her because she hasn't driven for 30 years.
It's, I mean, driving Miss Clinton around.
You can imagine Morgan Freeman sitting in the front seat driving her around to make sure she avoids getting speeding tickets anywhere as she goes and sends her servants out of the trunk of the car to go grocery shopping for her.
So she's going to give this speech there.
And allegedly, she's going to put forward a rationale for her campaign.
David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama, who's introducing her to the axle rod underneath Obama's campaign bus, says she has to articulate an authentic, compelling rationale for her candidacy, a cause and vision that's larger than her own ambitions.
That's her problem.
She doesn't have a cause or vision larger than her own ambitions.
Nobody believes it.
Nobody trusts Hillary Clinton.
There is a reason, though, that they're having to do what they're doing with Marco Rubio.
And I guarantogone, in her speech about real issues and fighting for the middle class, Hillary is going to, I just, I know she's going to do it.
She's going to talk again about voter ID and those evil lawful Republicans blocking people from voter ID.
Never mind, as Greg Abbott has pointed out in Texas, Texas has a more open, easier voting process than the state of New York where Hillary lives and was senator.
She's going to do this, though, because there's a related story in the Washington Post from the other day.
I just, I got to read you the beginning of this story.
This is, this is, wow.
During those two electric Novembers, the chance to elect a black president and then keep him in office seized Regina Motley's neighborhood.
Nightclubs were registering voters.
Churches held fish fries after loading buses that filled.
Wait, churches!
Churches were doing this.
How dare, oh, wait, never mind.
Those are the good churches.
A truck hoisted a big sign that said, Obama.
But as Motley and some friends sought shade recently under a mulberry tree and looked across the landscape of empty lots and abandoned houses that have persisted here, they wondered whether they would ever bother voting again.
What was the point? asked Motley, 23, a grocery store clerk.
We made history, but I don't see change.
This is a millennial, a millennial in a minority neighborhood who supported Barack Obama because he promised hope and change and nothing changed.
And now they're thinking they'll never vote again.
That's why Hillary's doing what she's doing.
Because she knows that she has a fatal flaw in her candidacy.
I was sitting last night in honor of Rush.
I was sitting outside at a hotel smoking a cigar doing my show prep.
And a left-wing troll came up to me who recognized me, who pretended to not be a left-wing troll.
He said he worked on Wall Street and that he, like me, was on Fox, except I've never heard his name before.
But also on CNBC, he said.
And Hillary Clinton, we're not going to be able to stop her.
She's invincible, he said.
Because Republicans, you know, we've just bought into the caricature.
We're hateful Christian bigots, closed-minded.
We want to deny sailors and soldiers who are gay from marrying after they fought for us.
And no, no.
I mean, I recorded most of the conversation.
I mean, the guy, he used my name and I never even gave it to him.
It was that obvious.
I mean, worst troll I've ever encountered.
He had also been drinking heavily.
But he came out and he wanted to sit outside next to me and say he wanted to, would I mind if he sat there and smoked a cigarette?
And I said, no problem.
I guess the cigarette box was the recorder or something because he never actually smoked while he was trying to engage me.
I didn't take the bait.
I mean, I spotted.
Rush Limbaugh has given me great training over the year on how to spot these people.
I mean, it is the in-person version of the seminar caller.
But there's a problem, and it's related to all of this, and it's related to this black voter story.
See, the Democratic base is not the Democratic base.
It's Barack Obama's base.
Grandma from New York does not have a base of support other than her drivers and butlers and servants and valets and Huma Abedine and Anthony Weiner.
She doesn't have anybody to support her.
Even Bill de Blasio, who she helped, who she got into politics, who she steered.
Even Bill de Blasio has gotten cold on her.
Maybe if she put a hammer and sickle on and started wearing red all the time, he'd like her again.
But until then, he doesn't.
It's not her base.
So she's got these young people, Regina Motley, 23, Jacksonville, Florida, a swingy area of Florida that just went to the Republicans, a grocery store clerk, probably making around minimum wage who could use $15 an hour from Hillary.
We made change, she says, but history, but I don't see the change.
Hillary's not going to give her change.
I mean, it's like Marco Rubio said.
Hillary Clinton, when he announced for president in Florida that Monday, yesterday, yesterday's candidate announced she wants to take us back to yesterday.
Nobody wants to go back to yesterday.
That, by the way, is why they're panicked by Marco Rubio, because they've seen this before.
In 1992, Bill Clinton, when he ran for office, what was his theme?
Bridge to the 21st Century.
It was the economy stupid.
Bridge to the 21st century played the song Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.
He gave a speech at one point.
You know, the World War II generation, the greatest generation, we love them, but their time is past.
It's time for a new generation of leaders.
And they see the Clinton playbook from 92 being turned on them and they're panicked.
Because, I mean, Hillary, she could, I guess, have plastic surgery, Botox, something, but she's generationally from yesterday.
It doesn't matter what she does.
She can't convince people that she has a compelling reason to run because she's a Clinton.
The Clintons are only in it for themselves.
They have financial anorexia.
They look in the mirror and they still see poor people.
And she's desperate for more money.
Bill, actually, there's a story out that he's thinking he's going to have to hand over the reins of the Clinton Foundation to, well, Chelsea.
So mom and dad can be in the White House and the first child can be the one to do the shakedowns with foreign countries and corporations.
I mean, these people, they're like a Arkansas version of the mob.
Instead of meeting in the back room of pizza parlors down in Arkansas, you got to find your local fried chicken establishment.
And there in the back room, they're doing the shakedown of corporate America.
That's what they are, the Clintons.
And she can't change that.
And people know it.
And that's her problem.
And that's why she's going after using the New York Times, the David Brock American Bridge Group to go after people like Rubio.
They see the 92 playbook and they see it coming at them as a fast-approaching train.
And they're panicked because they got nothing.
Eric Erickson, in for Rush Limbaugh.
We'll be back.
Welcome back.
It is Eric Erickson filling in for Rush Limbaugh today.
The phone number, 800-282-2882.
I'm going to do my obligations here as a guest host and promote for you something that I myself get.
Father's Day is coming up, by the way.
I had my 40th birthday last week.
Father's Day is coming up.
I usually get a giant combined gift from my wife and kids.
They got me a pizza oven.
Yes, Snerdley.
I got a pizza oven to make homemade pizzas.
And I made sure to put bacon on the pizza.
You can get the limball letter for your father.
You probably ought to.
My dad's already a subscriber, so I can't get it for him.
But I'm a subscriber, too.
If you're not a subscriber to the Limball letter, you really ought to get it.
It's really awesome.
Rush does some great interviews, has some great content in there.
So subscribe to the limbo letter.
Go to rushlimball.com, get the limball letter.
And as always, you can join Rush 24-7 because, well, you can get everything.
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I'm a big believer in it.
When I grow up, I want to do something like that.
Jon Stewart is upset with the New York Times.
You know, the only begotten son of the left.
I mean, he's like immaculately conceived by the brains of liberals, Jon Stewart, who he's his job is not to make you laugh.
It's not to be funny.
It's to affirm you in your smugness as a liberal that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
Jon Stewart, that guy, he's upset with the New York Times for their reporting on Marco Rubio's finances.
He thinks it's silly stuff.
He doesn't buy into it.
When you've lost Jon Stewart on the left, you probably have failed to do anything.
But the left, of course, and the media, they're all circling around to defend the New York Times.
You know, it's like the original, the speeding ticket story about Marco Rubio and his wife that revealed nothing other than they are from Miami and drive like it.
They are doing, they've done the finance story.
Now, Chris Salizza at the Washington Post, he says, this is a real story because we need to know how Marco Rubio spends.
How do members of the press spend their money?
You know, the press doesn't like to talk about themselves.
You've got some well-to-do members of the press out there.
You've got a lot of them who are schlepping it, trying to make their way in the world.
A lot of them are 20s and 30s-somethings with no sense of history, which explains a lot of their reporting.
But what about their finances?
If we're going to look at Marco Rubio, well, Mr. Erickson, we are not running for president of the United States.
No, but you're running to hold that person accountable.
I think we should know what your hidden agenda is.
I mean, for one thing, so many of these people are married into the Obama administration and left-wing causes.
I mean, I could go through the litany of journalists who are married to members of the Obama administration.
Let's not forget the Obama administration, brought in Jay Carney, supposedly objective reporter for Time magazine, to be press secretary.
They brought in Shila Murray, I think from the Washington Post, to be Joe Biden's press secretary.
She's now in the White House.
You got Chuck Todd on NBC, who's married to a Democratic operative.
I mean, listen, I find the spousal relationships in the Washington Press Corps fascinating because so many of them are connected into politics and most of them are on the Democratic side.
And they don't want to reveal that.
They don't think that's a conflict of interest.
They don't think the person they're sleeping with is a conflict of interest, but Marco Rubio buying a fishing boat is somehow a big deal.
And so listen, this line really sticks out at me with this Saliza piece in the Washington Post.
The issue then is that Rubio has worked to sell the average guy with debt storyline, even while doing things average folks don't do, like buy a boat.
Whether it was a fishing boat or a luxury speedboat, as the Times described it, is sort of beside the point.
No, it's not.
It's precisely the point.
I live in middle Georgia.
I know plenty of people who are middle class, who make five figures, not six figures, who own bass fishing boats, who own fishing boats, pontoon boats, jet skis, you name it.
It is an aspirational goal for many average middle-class guys with debt.
And they just want to get out on the lake, have a few beers, cast a line, catch some fish with the kids, and go home.
The fact that the New York Times couldn't identify Marco Rubio's boat as a fishing boat and described it as a luxury spoke is precisely the point.
The people who are most out of touch with the middle class in America, most out of touch with people who live along the American river valleys, where most people do, are the ones who have ordained themselves to be the arbiters of what is fair and what is right and what is good.
These people have no idea.
Yet they're the ones who want to make the judgment call.
I think it's precisely the point, Chris Eliza, that the New York Times couldn't tell you what boat Marco Rubio had.
I think absolutely average folks do go out and buy boats.
You could, I bet, Chris Eliza, you've never been to a Bass Pro shop.
You go see the people who are in there and tell me they're millionaires and billionaires.
No, they're not.
They're my neighbors in Middle Georgia.
They're the people who make $50,000, $60,000 a year.
They're not going to go to the Hamptons for a vacation.
They're going to go out to Lake Tobosovki in Middle Georgia, Lake Ocone, and sit on the boat with friends.
Their aspiration is to get a shack on a lake somewhere and just have friends over to barbecue and fish and have a good time.
I mean, it is Marco Rubio's, I mean, for lack of a better term, and not insulting to him in any way, ordinariness that connects him to people in a way Hillary Clinton wishes she could.
And more of these stories like this, that average guy storyline doesn't add up because average guys wouldn't buy a boat.
You know, this is why Fox is kicking everybody's butt, by the way.
And I don't just say this because I'm on Fox.
But this is why Fox News is kicking everybody's rear end.
Because Fox News actually does pay attention to what people in the heartland do and say.
I mean, Roger Ailes is genius.
If you've never read Roger Ailes' book, you can get it on Amazon.
You are the message, I think, is the name of it.
And Ailes makes the point that you are your message.
You are the conveyor of your brand.
And to convey your brand authentically, you need to be aware of not just yourself, but what goes on around you.
And that's what Fox News does, by the way.
Fox News doesn't pay attention to the people who live within 25 miles of a coast.
They pay attention to people who live within 100 miles of an American river valley, the Mississippi, the Allegheny, the Ohio, the Missouri, the Red, you name it.
And so you're not going to get reporters at Fox News suggesting that average folks don't want to buy a boat because they do.
They not only want to, but they do buy them.
And they can identify that, in fact, it is a boat for fishing, not a luxury speedboat like John Freaking Carey, who parked his in Rhode Island to avoid taxes that the New York Times never bothered to report about.
Welcome back to the EIB Network.
I am Eric Erickson.
The phone number 800-282-2882.
How about we go to the phones to Obi in Sanger, California?
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Thank you, Eric.
You're doing a good job there.
First, I say I'm a staunch Republican.
I'm for all the Republican candidates.
Love them.
But this deal on the fishing boat, as silly as an issue as it is, I just want to say that I've owned a few fishing boats and I'm a fisherman.
And $80,000 is a very expensive fishing boat.
For $80,000, geez, you can get a small yacht.
So, I mean, everyone's saying that this is nothing but a little dinghy.
It's not.
Well, it's an expensive.
It's not a dinghy, but it would fit with room to spare in Hillary Clinton's swimming pool.
I think that's relevant.
So do you fish lake or deep sea?
I've fished out at Dana Point.
I had a boat there, a 21-foot fishing boat, and I do lake fishing too, and a lot of river fishing up here in Central California and the Kings River.
Beautiful area, Dana Point.
But, you know, so Rubio, he does get an 800,000 advance on a book.
He uses $80,000 to buy a boat that is not a luxury speedboat, but a deep sea, family-friendly fishing vessel, according to the description of the boat.
And by the way, apparently the bulk of the cost came not from the boat itself, but he upgraded the engines, which is where apparently some of the costs came from there.
But I guess the point to me is that isn't this typical liberalism?
They want to be the ones to decide what he should or should not buy with money he earned.
It's as silly as can be.
I know your time is limited.
Let me make one more pertinent.
I'll let you.
And that is this.
I think that political correctness has become the new McCarthyism and that we're all suffering from this, that you're so quickly and easily labeled by the left as a sexist or a homophobe or a racist.
And it's frightening and people lose their jobs because of it.
And that alone should be the reason we defeat the left and the Democrats in this election, is to stop the insanity of political correctness.
Obi, thanks very much for the phone call.
Stick around for the next hour because I got a stack of stuff on this I'm going to get into in the next hour.
You will be made to care, I always say, on these issues.
They will make you care.
I'm actually writing a book with that title.
You know, speaking of the lifestyle police on the left, and that essentially is the point.
Look, Rubio got an $80,000 boat.
You can agree or disagree that it was a bigger boat than he needed, but he's the guy who wanted it.
It should be his choice.
It was his money.
And the left is attacking him for spending his money in the way he wanted to spend it.
It is only with, we are within 48 to 72 hours.
I guarantee you it's being edited for publication right now.
Some leftists writing about the carbon footprint of Marco Rubio's boat and by buying it, clearly he hates the environment and wants us all to die.
It's only a matter of time.
A lemonade stand operated by two young girls received national attention after police asked for a permit.
This is in Overton, Texas.
The Overton Police Department, a code enforcement officer, to be fair, drove up to the location, got out, asked for the mother, and said they needed a $150 permit for the girls to sell lemonade on the side of the road.
Now, the permit, the peddler's permit is called, was waived.
But staff members informed them that they would then have to call the health department because under state law in Texas for Pete's sake, Texas people, Texas, an inspection must be conducted and a permit must be issued in order to sell anything that must be temperature regulated to prevent bacterial growth, including lemonade.
You know, kudos to Kim Paxton, the Attorney General in Texas.
They just signed a law down there.
Greg Abbott did that, that Kim Paxton had pushed.
The pastor protection bill, the law, according to his press release, shields pastors and churches from lawsuits regarding their refusal to perform or host a marriage ceremony that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Can we now get Texas to pass a law that says kids are allowed to operate lemonade stands?
This has happened where I live in Georgia as well, coming after kids.
There's a story that doesn't seem to be related, but I promise you it is.
Robert Gibbs has gone to work for McDonald's.
You know Robert Gibbs, the incompetent White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs.
I mean, well, I shouldn't say that he's incompetent because I used to think that Robert Gibbs was incompetent.
Then Jay Carney took his job.
And holy cow, wow, that guy.
So Gibbs, the more competent than Jay Carney, incompetent former White House press secretary, is now a strategic communications person for McDonald's, which is now a progressive burger company.
What exactly is a progressive burger company?
Do they now serve horse and claim it identifies as cow?
I mean, it's only a matter of time before American Pharaoh decides that it identifies as a cow and must be called Cleopatra.
I mean, then they can serve it up at McDonald's, I guess, because it's a progressive burger corporation.
They're going to go vegan or something, I guess.
This is essentially after the targeting of the fast food industry.
This is what's become of American capitalism.
You've got to employ Obama administration officials in the shakedown to make sure they don't turn their guns on you, to make sure Michelle Obama doesn't target McDonald's.
I'm sure it has something to do with them hiring Robert Gibbs and declaring themselves progressive.
They're going to change the golden arches to the golden hammer and sickle to make sure that they know that they're one of them now.
It's like Miss Piggy declaring herself pro-abortion or what the politicization of the Muppets.
I mean, my kids like the Muppets.
I had to explain to them that we're not down with the Muppets anymore if they're going to involve themselves in politics.
I like Beaker, but I don't want to be involved.
I don't want my kids exposed to this garbage.
They don't need a female pig to declare herself pro-choice or whatever she did.
I mean, what the heck do the Muppets have to do with politics?
But everybody's got to declare their loyalty in some way to the Obama administration.
It's nothing but a shakedown.
So kids around the country now are, I mean, Valerie Jarrett is probably going to get solicited after the Obama administration, after she leaves.
Eric Holder right now is probably applying to lemonade stands around the country, telling 12-year-olds if they can generate a million dollars a year, he will sit on their payroll, ensure the inspectors don't come for them and point to McDonald's to show the protectionism.
This is Eastern Europe before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Hiring the shakedown artists from the Democratic administration to make sure your company's not targeted, to call yourself a progressive burger company.
This is cuckoo crazy.
And lemonade stands in Texas.
What is the world coming to?
When you can't have a lemonade stand because of the health inspectors.
Come on, Texas.
If you can protect pastures, thank you, Ken Paxton.
If you can protect pastures, surely you can protect the right of kids to have lemonade stands and earn some money during the summer, teaching good and valuable job skills to people.
All right, back to the phone, Stewart, Columbia, South Carolina.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thanks, Eric.
How you doing?
Good.
How are you?
Not too bad.
Hey, listen, I was calling the, I think everybody's kind of missing the point on the New York Times article with Rubio.
The New York Times has just proven how racist they truly are.
We finally have a Latino who's a serious contender for president, and they start attacking him because he spent some money on something that his family would enjoy.
Stuart, you are so three years ago.
Marco Rubio is a white Hispanic like George Zimmerman, so he's fair game.
Oh, I guess so.
I mean, the one thing that hit me was that, I mean, they were going after the guy for spending $80,000 on a boat.
I mean, what do they expect?
Do they expect that?
Meanwhile, who is this?
Someone on Brian on Twitter notes to me that Hillary Clinton got an $8 million book advance, and no one even bothered to buy her book except the people she forced to buy it.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, though.
I mean, I've got to imagine that there are Hispanic families around the country who see Marco Rubio who lived the American dream that they strive for, whose message is about living the American dream.
And he comes under attack from the left-wing media for living the American dream.
And what is the first attack out of the gate?
Speeding tickets for not really him.
He only got four for his wife.
I mean, they've actually, they're trying, the New York Times is to make an attack on him, but really they're attacking Marco Rubio's wife's driving record.
I thought you weren't allowed to bring the spouses into it.
But it's okay because he's an Hispanic Republican.
He's a white Hispanic like George Zimmerman.
They can attack him.
Next thing you know, the New York Times is going to have a big think piece from Maureen Dowd or someone trying to tie Marco Rubio, white Hispanic-ness, and Trayvon Martin together.
I guarantee you they'll do it.
Don't think it's impossible because it sounds so crazy.
You know they're thinking it.
Eric Erickson, in for Rush.
Welcome back.
Eric Erickson here in for Rush Limbaugh.
Hey, folks, don't forget Rush 24-7, a great way to access the site, get the show notes, see Rush on Demand on video when he's here.
Listen to the show, the live stream.
It is a great, great gift for Father's Day for your dad coming up.
The Ditto cam alone is worth the price of admission.
Go to rushlimball.com.
You will totally enjoy it.
I get the limb ball.
Look, I'm a total ditto head.
I remember the day my dad and I driving, looking at colleges in 92, he had been listening to Paul Harvey, and suddenly this guy comes on we never heard before talking about restless leg syndrome in 92 and the Clinton campaign fell in love that day.
I'm a total ditto head and it's just a pleasure and delight to be here.
The only thing I've ever really wanted to do in life is fill in behind the golden EIB microphone.
And I am, except my microphone's not golden.
I'm in my studio in Atlanta at my station, WSB.
But it really is worth it.
I'm a subscriber to Rush 24-7 and get the limb ball letter.
You people should be doing it as well.
I wasn't sure whether or not I should, but I feel like I ought to talk about Jeb Bush for a minute.
So there are a slew of stories out today on the disarray within the Bush campaign, that he's got to hire too many people.
There are too many cooks in the kitchen.
I knew this was going to happen because Jeb Bush is the 2016 version of Mitt Romney, essentially.
All the consultants thought that he was the guy, so they ran to his campaign.
He's now top heavy.
He's got a burn rate that we're going to see soon in the campaign disclosures.
Now, listen, I've always liked Jeb personally, and I'm not going to bash Bush.
He was a conservative governor of Florida.
I've got issues with him on immigration.
I've got issues with him on Common Core.
My purpose here today, though, is not to indict Jeb Bush on any of those things Rush has so ably done, but to say he's got a fundamental problem.
And the fundamental problem is he made major miscalculations in his campaign.
He thought that if he announced, he could keep other people out of the race.
He got Mitt Romney out of the race, but we knew he could get Romney out of the race.
But he thought he could keep Marco Rubio out of the race by declaring early that he was thinking about running for president.
And he can't.
Rubio's in.
He thought he could then secure all the Florida donors for himself.
I've had multiple people close to him tell me this, and he couldn't.
The Florida donors are looking at his campaign.
And then he did, it was a political thing to do.
It's kind of not a nice thing to do.
He started hiring up people, basically paying, listen, the consultants are a bunch of leeches to begin with.
So many of them are blood-sucking animals.
And he decided that he would pay them more money to get them away from their other candidates.
I think he probably took consultants away from most every other campaign.
Well, now he's got all these consultants, all these cooks in the kitchen.
They got to do something.
He's got to super back.
Some of them are there.
Some of them are advising the campaign.
One of the smartest things he's done is put Danny Diaz in as his campaign manager, highly competent guy, to be his campaign manager.
Great guy.
But he's top heavy.
He's got a burn rate.
He's got all these people.
And he just assumed he could get people out of the race that he didn't really have to take positions.
That he could be the guy who says, I'm going to run around the GOP to the left and sew everybody up like McCain did and like Romney did, and it's not working for him.
And it's not working for him so much so that now you've got guys like John Kasich from Ohio, the governor of Ohio, deciding to come in.
Kasich, of course, listen, the greatest thing to happen to all the Republican candidates out there is John Kasich hiring, oh, what's his name?
Fred Davis and the other guy.
Oh, what's his name?
The other consultant that Kasich has hired.
He's hired the guys who ran John Huntsman's campaign.
He hired the guys who ran, John Weaver, yeah.
Weaver and Davis.
So they work for John McCain.
They work for John Huntsman.
They work for John Kasich.
They clearly like their Johns.
These are guys who don't like the Republican base.
Kasich himself doesn't like the Republican base.
I mean, Kasich's been running around the country saying Jesus told him to love Obamacare and expand Medicaid in Ohio.
Listen, I talk to Jesus all the time, and he's yet told me that I should support expanded government.
I don't know which Jesus John Kasich is talking to, but that's what he's actually been saying.
One day I'm going to stand before Jesus and he's going to say, what did you do for the least of them?
And I'm going to say, I embraced Obamacare and I expanded government in Ohio to take care of the poor and make them enslaved to the state.
That's his argument, essentially.
So when you're a guy who says Jesus told you to love Obamacare and you hire the two losingest consultants in the GOP for presidential campaigns who don't like the Republican base to begin with, it's not exactly a stellar way to run for president.
I don't actually think he's running for president, though.
I think Kasich is running to stop others from becoming president.
I don't think you can hire the people he's hired and be the person he is and say that I'm going to be president.
No, he may look in the mirror every day and call himself Mr. President.
I don't think Lindsey Graham does that, by the way.
I think Lindsey Graham is running for president just to make sure national security issues get talked about.
Because Graham is skeptical of Rand Paul on national security.
He's skeptical of some of the libertarian voices within the party.
I think Graham wants to plant his flag and say, here's my issue, and you guys better talk about it.
And they are.
And that's why he's running for president.
Kasich may think he's going to be president, but essentially, I think he's running for vice president.
He's more running for vice president than Carly Fiorina, who's actually running an impressive campaign for president.
And he wants to be the kingmaker.
He wants to stop.
Look, I'm told that he doesn't have a great relationship with Scott Walker.
He's not a big fan of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, probably not of Marco Rubio.
I don't know that he has a great relationship with Rick Perry in Texas.
So maybe he's decided that he can build the case for a Florida, Ohio ticket with Bush Kasich.
Yeah, that's a winning ticket to motivate your base.
Hillary Clinton, by the way, has already figured out her campaign strategy is not to bring new people into her party, but to motivate her base.
If we're running a base motivation campaign in 2016, I'm not sure Kasich or probably even Bush are the ones to best motivate the base.
But with Kasich, I just think he wants to take someone else out.
He doesn't want to be president.
Eric Erickson, fill in for Rush.
We'll be back.
Welcome back.
It's Eric Erickson in for Rush Limbaugh.
So Rush and I are both Apple Watch wearers.
And a few weeks ago, we were pinging back and forth just so we could use the tactic engine and annoy each other and whatnot and make sure things were working.
And during the last segment, all of a sudden I just tap, tap.
I was like, this is Limbaugh pulling a prank on me while he's on vacation.
And I look, no, it was about 20 people texting me to say, Weaver, John Weaver, that's who it is with Kasich.
It actually is pretty cool.
I'm a very big fan of it because I do Fox News.
I do Fox and Friends in the mornings around 6:15 every Monday.
And so I can set my alarm for 5 a.m. and it just taps me until I wake up.
So my wife never wakes up.
So I have happy wife.
Happy wife, happy life.
When we come back, remember at 2 o'clock hour, Jeff Sessions, Senator from Alabama, he's going to be here with me.
But when I come back, I have a stack of a bunch of different stories, but they're all on the same theme.
The reign of terror of the left.
They're starting to be eaten by their own rain.
And the craziest story out today, you know what they don't want us to say these days?
You know the new phrase that the left wants to be verboten?
It's going to blow your mind.
I'll tell you when we come back.
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