Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, so there were 10 million people that watched the Fox debate last night.
There are 30 million people listening right now to find out what I thought about it.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Is there any doubt about that?
It might be 40 million.
Tuning in right now to find out.
And you know what I thought I would do?
I thought I'd cop out.
Here's what I actually toyed with this.
By the way, greetings, my friends.
Welcome.
Great to have you in Open Line Friday.
I kind of think I know what you're going to be calling about when we go to the phones, but you can you can call about anything.
It doesn't have to be the debate.
You don't want it to be.
That's the beauty of Open Line Friday.
800-282-2882 is the uh phone number, the email address.
Lrushbow at EIB net.com.
So I thought I would do, I toyed with this.
Because you know, folks, when I say something about anything, there's nothing left to be said.
I mean, when 20, 30, 40 million people tune in here to find out what I thought about it.
And what's the fun of that?
Okay, so I spend the first 20 minutes telling you what I thought about it.
What does it matter what anybody else says after that?
Okay.
So I thought what I would do would be to reserve my comments and go to the phones and find out what you thought.
And then I thought, no, if I do that, everybody will think I'm copping out.
Everybody will think that I'm phoning it in if I do that.
But I seriously thought about it.
I really did.
Uh and I maybe do a mixture of the of the two.
Because this debate has engendered a whole lot of comments.
And it is all over the place.
I have never seen since 1997 when the Fox News Channel inaugurated.
I have never seen the kind of public backlash against Fox personalities that I have seen last night and today.
I honestly haven't.
At the same time, the debate drew an audience, preliminary audience of 10 million viewers.
It's a record.
No other Republican debate ever, no Democrat primary debate has ever attracted anything like this.
How about this interesting statistic?
Who do you think got the most airtime last night?
No.
It wasn't Jeb Bush.
And now be serious.
They actually put a clock to this and they measured how many minutes each person spoke.
Who do you think got the most call it camera time, airtime, voice time, whatever?
Who got the most airtime last night in this debate?
This tell take a guess for crying out loud.
It doesn't.
Who?
Marco Rubio.
No.
Don, give me a name.
Who do you think it was?
Megan Kelly is right.
The Fox moderators got 31% of the airtime last night.
Not a single candidate came anywhere near it.
Trump was the closest.
And he was second.
The Fox moderators were heard from more last night than were the candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination.
There were time limits on the candidates and their answers and replies and rebuttals and rebutt butt bottles, but there were no time limits on the moderators.
They could take as long as they wanted answering a question and as long as they wanted interrupting an answer.
I have some headlines here for you from Brian Maloney, the media equalizer.
Liberals, CNN agree.
Fox did a great job.
From the New York Times, Fox News moderators bring a sharpened edge to the Republican debate stage.
From the New York Times, a Foxy rowdy Republican debate.
Hooray for Fox News.
So the New York Times loved it.
CNN, not even begrudgingly, praised Fox News and its moderators for a job well done.
Now we know why Obama was urging everybody to watch the debate last night.
Do you know who Hillary watched the debate with?
What are you going to do?
Hillary Clinton was scheduled to show up at an AFL CIO meeting.
Unions, big donors.
She opted out.
She went to watch the debate with the Kardashians.
She did.
How else are you going to compete with Trump and Fox News?
You got to go somewhere where the low information people think it's a competition.
So she headed over to watch it with the Kardashians.
I'm not making any of this up.
The drive-by media just wanted to drive by media that I've been working feverishly here, trying to uh uh catalog as much as I have been able to absorb and consume here.
And for the drive-by media standpoint, the clear winner, the going-away winner, the no question about it winner was John Kasich.
They thought that at MSNBC, they thought it at CNN, they've thought it in a bunch of places.
And you know why?
Because they said he was the only guy up there that made people think Republicans actually like people.
John Kasich was the only guy that made viewers realize Republicans might actually care about people.
And there were two casic answers.
I'll have them for you here in a moment, coming up on the audio soundbite roster.
His answer on, you want me to shoot you now?
Wait, just wait till the first hour is over, and then you may be asking for a different kind of punishment.
They uh they like the the first answer that they love, I mean, the the the thing the drive-by stink the debate was over when Kasich answered Meghan Kelly's question, filled with snark about Jesus, by the way, on Medicaid expansion.
It was Reagan-esque, it was optimistic, it was with good cheer, and it made people realize there may be some Republicans who actually like people and care about people.
The second answer that Kasich gave that the drive-by's loved was his answer on gay marriage.
So uh now Drudge did an online poll.
Trump was the well to runaway winner there, but at uh at 46%.
Uh people have, and I've been watching and looking at mixed opinion on um on Trump's performance.
There are a lot of expectations.
I was surprised at Trump last night.
I I thought that he would be more outside the boundaries in order to gain control.
Trump shines when he's running the show, when he's controlling things.
Last night he was reactive, uh played better rules, stayed within the time limits and so forth, and he was still Trump.
I mean, don't misunderstand.
Uh, but I th I was just, and look, there's no right or wrong here.
I'm just telling you, everybody's got their thoughts.
I was telling you what I expected uh to see in uh in that regard.
Uh I expect to see Trump sort of uh explode outside the boundaries of the rules, if you will.
I understand why he didn't.
Don't miss now, don't Trump people don't start bombarding me here with because I'm not criticizing, I'm just observing here.
I want to play for you what I thought.
This is just me.
You know me, I'm just a guy in the radio.
I'm just one of 200 plus million adults watching a thing last night.
I want to play for you a soundbite that contains what I think was, if not the best, one of the most important things stated last night.
And it was in the pre-game meal debate, the 5 p.m. debate.
It was Carly Fiorina in her closing statement.
I want to play it for you.
See if you can figure out in it's it's uh it's about 30 seconds.
Tell me, see if you can figure out what it is in this 30-second bite that I really like.
Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi.
She lies about emails.
She is still defending Planned Parenthood, and she is still her party's front-runner.
2016 is going to be a fight between conservatism and a Democrat party that is undermining the very character of this nation.
We need a nominee who is going to throw every punch, not poll punches, and someone who cannot stumble before he even gets into the ring.
I am not a member of the political class.
I am a conservative.
I can win this job.
I can do this job.
I need your help.
I need your support.
I will, with your help and support, lead the resurgence of this great nation.
You know one thing I couldn't believe last night.
It was a Republican, there was George Stephanopoulos was nowhere around.
And yet, if I didn't know any better, I would have watched this thing last night thinking that there is a Republican war on women based on the questions.
And the lack of a woman being on the stage among the ten.
I thought the war on woman was a Democrat creation by George Stephanopoulos.
The last place I ever thought I would see it continued.
The fox says, what you live and learn.
The pull quote in that soundbite.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The Democrat Party is undermining the very character of this nation.
That is it in a nutshell.
Politically, culturally, socially.
I don't I know there were some hits on Hillary in the 9 o'clock debate.
I don't recall any hits on the Democrat Party.
Now I understand.
First debate, got candidates, a lot of them on the stage, trying to stand out and get noticed positively, who they are, what they believe, what they are going to do.
But I already know that about these people because I am a student of politics.
So for me it was it was just a little frustrating because I I wanted I any time there's an opportunity to define the opposition, I say take it.
And we got some defining of the opposition when it came to the Iran deal and Obamacare and things like that.
But this country's in the look, folks, this country's in the mess it's in because of the Democrat Party.
I uh one thing it really kind of burned me.
I I there there's a lot of gotcha in this debate last night, and I don't know why in the world is it that we are the ones who still have to explain ourselves.
We haven't created this mess.
We have not spent our way to $18 trillion, six trillion, seven trillion of it in the last seven years, six years, whatever.
We have not destroyed the economy.
We have not put the world at great risk because of a deal that's gonna allow the Iranians to get nuclear weapons.
We have not opened the borders of this country, although our party wants to, but we haven't yet done it.
We haven't opened the borders, we haven't flooded this country with people that are gonna end up being future Democrat voters.
Why is it we are the ones that continually have to justify our existence?
We didn't make this mess.
Just today, there's new economic news.
The labor force participation rate is at an all-time low.
We're we've now exceeded 93 million Americans not working.
And gobbs and gobs of them are capable of working.
And I, for one, would have liked to have known what we're gonna do.
But it was just the first debate.
But I get a little defensive and a little off-put at this ongoing seemingly endless line of thought, train of thought that says we have to justify ourselves and what we think.
And the Democrat.
You think Democrats had ever got a any many of the questions that the Republicans got last night.
Doubt it.
I made some notes when the thing started, and then I gave up some way in.
But uh and I just wanted to make sure that that uh I didn't forget anything because it's two hours long and all kinds of things being said.
And so I was doing start-stop, actually making some notes uh on things.
And I might share those with you as the program unfolds.
But I do really want to hear what you think, too, folks.
I'm very, very curious to find out what your thoughts on this were last night.
Let me take a brief time out here.
I'm looking, we're just trying to get one more Kasich soundbite.
Because I don't want you leaving uh I want to leave you hanging on on that since I've told you what the drive-bys think were the winning, the winning soundbite last night.
The most important thing that was said the thing uh best of the entire night, as many in the drive-by's are saying.
So I want you to hear what they say that is.
So take a brief time out.
We'll come back and continue here on the EIB network.
Sit tight.
Okay.
Okay, here here we go, folks.
Now let me let me look at some.
Make sure.
Okay.
Okay.
The drive-by media.
Uh many in the drive-by media think that the performance of best answer tonight was uh offered by John Kasich, the governor of Ohio.
And it was an answer on Medicaid expansion.
And I have the question here from Megan Kelly, and then the answer from Kasich.
And this I'm hey, the folks, just telling you right now what the left is saying, drive-by media is saying about the first Republican debate and who they thought was the winner, at least well, not maybe necessary the winner, but had the best answer of the night.
Here's Megan Kelly's question.
Governor Kasich, you chose to expand Medicaid in your state, unlike several other governors on the stage tonight, and it is already over budget by some estimates, costing taxpayers an additional 1.4 billion dollars in just the first 18 months.
You've defended your Medicaid expansion by invoking God, saying to skeptics that when they arrive in heaven, St. Peter isn't gonna ask them how small they've kept government, but what they have done for the poor.
Why should Republican voters who generally want to shrink government believe that you won't use your St. Peter rationale to expand every government program?
All right, so that's the question.
And here is what many in the drive-by media are saying was the best answer of the entire night.
President Reagan expanded Medicaid three or four times.
Secondly, I had an opportunity to bring resources back to Ohio to do what?
to treat the mentally ill.
10,000 of them sit in our prisons.
I'd rather get them their medication so they could lead a decent life.
Secondly, we are rehabbing the drug addicted.
Eighty percent of the people in our prisons have addiction problems.
We now treat them in the prisons, release them in the community, and the recidivism rate is 10%.
And everybody across this country knows that the tsunami of drugs is threatening their very families.
So we're treating them and getting them on their feet.
And finally, the working poor, instead of them having come into the emergency rooms where it costs more, where they're sicker, and we end up paying, we brought a program in here to uh make sure that people could get on their feet.
And you know what?
Everybody has a right to their God-given purpose.
Everybody has their right to God given purpose.
And uh the explanation here of the Medicaid expansion.
Hey, look, Washington was passing on money, so I decided to go get some of it for the people of my state.
Saint Peter not gonna be asking me what I did to reduce the science of government when I get up there.
He's gonna ask me what did I do for the poor.
Drive-by media.
I mean, folks, they're orgasming over that answer.
The second answer from Kasich that they are barely able to contain themselves with.
Meghan Kelly again with the question, which was the Sound Bite 29 Mike, the subject of gay marriage and religious liberty.
Governor Kasich, if you had a son or daughter who was gay or lesbian, how would you explain to them your opposition to same-sex marriage?
I'm an old-fashioned person here, and I happen to believe in traditional marriage, but I've also said the court has ruled that I said we'll accept it.
And guess what?
I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay.
Because somebody doesn't think the way I do, doesn't mean that I can't care about them or I can't love them.
So if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them, and I would accept them.
I'm gonna love them no matter what they do.
Because you know what?
God gives me unconditional love.
I'm gonna give it to my family and my friends and the people around me.
So those two answers have the drive-by all of Twitter.
They have assigned to those two answers optimism, Reaganism, and the bonus, they say is that John Kasich.
And again, folks, do not miss it.
I'm just telling you what other people are saying.
This is not people putting words in my mouth.
I'm just reporting to you here.
It's America's anchorman.
They are saying that these two answers are some of the slimmest evidence that we've had yet that Republicans actually care about people.
Okay, so you put that in your pipe and smoke it or whatever you smoke.
Take a brief obscene profit break here.
We'll come back and we're close to getting your calls in.
Hang on.
It's open line Friday.
Although I think I've had a pretty good idea what people are going to want to talk about.
We're going to be getting to your phone calls in just a moment.
It was just 24 hours ago, ladies and gentlemen, a mere 24 hours ago, and I was behind this very golden EIB microphone, informing you that I had come across a bit of news.
The bit of news was that big-time Republican donors had been ordered to take out Donald Trump in the debate last night.
We all made a mistake.
We assumed that the orders went out to the candidates.
But the candidates did not make one move toward taking Donald Trump out.
The broadcast network did.
I mean, let's review.
The first question from Meghan Kelly to Trump was you've called women fat, slobs, pigs, whatever.
And he said, Yeah, no, just Rosie O'Donnell.
Place starts laughing and so forth, but she's not amused.
And she tells him, no, it's more than that.
She keeps going on and on and on about it and says, is this uh the right kind of temper?
Whatever it was.
And Trump was clearly caught entirely off guard by it.
And even today, he said, I'm not, I don't know when I've ever said this stuff.
Who knows if he writes all of his tweets that he posts?
This is the danger that when you start going in this social media stuff and tweeting stuff, and you maybe hire somebody to do it for you.
I happen to know Trump does not use a cell phone, folks.
He does not do email.
For this very reason, I was told long ago, first started playing golf with the Trump speed, does not use a cell phone, or at least he doesn't do email.
Now, I was kind of surprised, frankly, when I saw that he'd started tweeting.
And my first question is he write these tweets himself, or has he got somebody in the staff doing it just because it's it's hip and it's hot and he's uh wants a presence in it.
Regardless, don't misunderstand.
I'm not getting on Megan Kelly for asking the question.
This is a presidential debate.
And folks, I don't care.
I know full well that no Democrat candidate is ever gonna get a question like that.
And no Democrat candidate is ever gonna be made to justify his or her existence, like our candidates are.
I know I understand that.
And I know that it may seem to be unfair.
The point is, if you're going to enter this arena, you have to know that that's what it's going to be for you if you're on the Republican side.
And you can't complain, and he's not.
He's not complaining.
He's I think she's unhappy with me, and your question was unfair and maybe a little mean, but these realities exist.
And I thought he was caught a little flat-footed, and it illustrated uh I I don't think I'm not sure he ever got back on solid footing after that.
Trump, as I have observed, uh shines when he's in control.
He's not a collaborator, folks.
That's why, you know, I I bet began predicting on Monday that he would do something to take control of this debate because that's his strength.
He's not a reactive guy.
I mean, he's okay at it, but but uh he doesn't share well, he's not a collaborator.
Uh he runs the show and he doesn't do a lot of talking.
But here's the point.
That's all sideline stuff.
Here's the point.
Not one of the remaining nine candidates joined Meghan Kelly in taking the shot at Trump.
Not one.
Yet we had been told that there were orders from Republican donors to take Trump out.
And there were a couple of other instances when Trump restated his views.
Remember the Contre-Ton when the moderators were demanding that Trump prove that the Mexican government was knowingly sending rapists, murderers, purse snatchers, and so forth.
And finally he said, Well, I've been down there.
I've border patrol, I've talked to the border patrol guys.
There's no question that the Mexican government is doing this.
I can't recall off the top of my head now either, but I've reported stories like that.
The Mexican government is advertising in Mexico, how to get on the American welfare system, how to get food stamps.
The Mexican government's doing all.
Trump was right.
He just could not recall where he knew it, who told him how he knew it, or what have you.
And that's why not a single other candidate piled on.
The candidates were given at least two maybe three chances here to pile on, join the moderators in the whatever you want to call it, the hit or the criticism or the questioning of Trump, and they didn't.
They didn't go there when uh Meghan brought up the business about what Trump said about women in the past at Twitter and wherever else.
And when immigration came up, no one, no one joined the freight.
No one tried to jump under him.
What do you make of that?
And in fact, when Trump's name came up, John Kasich, hey, and Ruby, hey, they praise Trump.
Hey, he's reaching a group of Americans.
He's uh my point, not one.
Now you look at Chris Christie and Rand Paul, they went at it over government spying.
But there was none of that at Trump.
Nobody went at him.
I found it kind of interesting.
Uh I thought there were a lot of really really quality people last night on that.
And I tell you, despite everything that we're going to say today and that you're going to say, there's not a one of those people at stage last night I would not take over Hillary Clinton.
And my heart was also warm today because a number of people have sent me notes saying how blown away impressed they were with Dr. Ben Carson.
And it warmed my heart because I have gotten to know Dr. Carson just really in the last six months, but I know who he is when he first came to fame politically when he was at the national prayer breakfast and offered his own critique of Obamacare and what he would do.
I've known him of him long before that with the work that he's done as his career as a neurosurgeon, pediatric neurosurgeon.
You remember probably a month ago now.
I was watching CNN, and there was some conservative, some Republican analyst, who was upset.
I forget what it was, something was upset, and she said this is gonna maybe look Ben Carson look presidential, as though that was a bad thing, and I just I lost it.
There's not there's not a person commenting on cable news today who could wear Dr. Benjamin Carson's clothes as a human being, as a neurosurgeon as anything.
He is the epitome of character and quality.
There is not I mean, and the idea that he should be insulted, which is what tends to happen to our people in politics just is always grated on me.
So I was gratified to get notes last night.
Hey, man, there's Ben Carson guy.
Wow.
Wow, this guy's really solid.
I'm saying, see, yeah, what I why are you just figuring it out now?
But I have to rein in my own frustrations.
Because I realize my job is to get to know these people and a lot about them, and many people don't have the time I do to uh put into that.
Okay, we've reached a point in time where we must take another obscene profit timeout.
We'll do that, come back and get started with your feedback.
So don't go away.
It's open live Friday, and I am your host, the award-winning Rush Limbaugh, all knowing, all caring, all sensing all everything, Maha Rushy.
And we are here on the day after the first Republican presidential debate last night on the Fox News channel from the Quick and Lowlands Arena in Cleveland, and we go to Rocco up in uh Westchester County to kick it off on the phone today.
Hi, Rocco, great to have you with us.
Rush, thank you for taking my call.
I tuned into the debate and I had to check the channel because I thought I was watching MSNBC.
The moderators methodically torpedoed each candidate with Donald Trump being the biggest target.
Uh Scott Walker worked miracles in Wisconsin, but they dug up some statistic that he hadn't reached economic growth he promised.
Jeb Bush sat on a board of Bloomberg of a Bloomberg organization that donated uh to Planned Parenthood.
Jeb didn't even know it, but Fox News did, and uh the worst was Megan Kelly, who you just referenced, who thinks she's all that and and and just too cute, asked that ridiculous uh name-calling question and referenced the non-existent uh war on women.
I have lost all respect for Fox News.
Yeah, you know, I uh you're you're not the first.
I've heard this stuff from beginning last night.
And it is frustrating.
I don't know about you, Rocco, but here we have we're in the middle of seven years of an all-out, you know about war.
We got a war on the way this country was founded, been conducted right now by Barack Obama, the Democrat Party.
And these guys on that stage have not done one thing.
They have not contributed one iota to the mess in this country, and they have to justify themselves.
We never ever are treated to the same kind of uh demands made on on Democrat candidates.
But look, Rocco, here's the thing.
Everybody should have known this is gonna happen.
This is this is presidential politics, and Republican candidates are where media people score their points.
It's where they build their careers, it's where they establish their credentials.
And that's why I say a lot of them uh uh Trump, Trump, he was genuinely surprised by by that question, you could tell.
Uh but you're as I say, you're not alone in your reaction.
MSNBC doesn't.
I know how he could have turned it turned the tables on that question.
I know how he should have reacted.
Well, okay, go for it.
I mean, it's any, yeah, what it what should he have said?
Well, he he should have said, well, Megan, I didn't realize there was a war on women.
This first of all, initially dispelling the the made-up war on women.
That's the first thing he should have done.
And then he should have went on to say, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that there is this alleged war on women.
Don't you think that that it would be based on something more substantive than name-calling?
Well, here's the thing about that.
I uh this is one of the reasons, and I don't mean to be making this personal, folks, but it's the way I share with you my examples and how I've learned things.
And this is one of the reasons I don't like TV.
I used to do a TV show for four years, and every day after the TV show, I heard what I should have said.
And I got fed up with it.
Even I do a 30-minute T TV show that I thought rocked, that I thought was a grand slam home run, and I'm getting calls and emails.
You know what you should have said when you played that Clinton Summer.
So believe me, when you're up there and the lights are on, and it's the first question, and you're the front runner and you don't know what it's your mind, I'm telling you, there was you don't have 35 minutes to think of the best response or an overnight to do it.
So I thought his recovery was fairly quick when he segued back into a problem in the country being political correctness.
I thought I thought that was a pretty good recovery all in all.
But don't Rock, I'm not yelling at you.
Don't misunderstand here.
I'm just sharing personal experiences.
I know what it's like to be told how you could have said it never happens on the radio.
You know what?
That's the point.
I'll finish every radio.
I have yet to have, now I know it'll start tonight.
I've yet to have an email from saying, you know what you should have said when you monologue this afternoon or whatever.
It never happens.
But on television, finally I figured out, you know what, people.
I got more comments on the ties that I was wearing and on the video.
And I said, you know what?
I'm wasting brilliance here.
Nobody's catching it.
Because the picture is overpowering everything that's said.
And I am a verbal guy.
So anyway, that's why I have not beaten the path back to a TV studio.
Because it just to me, A, I don't collaborate, and you have to collaborate to do a TV show.
There's no way to do one without collaborating, and I just don't do that.
I'm not a good at it.
I've never done it.
And uh is too frustrating.
Just too frustrating.
Anyway, but I appreciate call Rocco.
Here's Chris in uh Pleasanton, California.
You're next.
It's great to have you with us.
Hi.
Yeah, hi, Rush.
Honored to talk to you.
Thank you.
I'm uh watching the debate, and when it's over, I I turned, I'm looking at the analysis, and I'm listening to Dr. Croshamer, and he's giving me an extremely negative review of Trump.
He's almost saying he's almost it's almost like the beginning of the end of Trump with Republican voters.
And then I go back, I'm looking at the drugs report, and I'm looking at the polling that's going on, and here's Trump, the runaway winner.
He's in a high 40%.
Everybody else is down in single digits or just barely above that.
And I'm asking myself, how could there be this contrast?
How could a professional pundit, very obviously brilliant guy like Dr. Croshammer, be getting this so wrong?
And and I at least the way it appears right now.
And I think what's happening is they're underestimating uh the frustration and the anger of folks like myself, Republicans, with the Republican Party itself.
We we feel almost betrayed by the, you know, we voted in and gave them the power, it's not being exercised, and it's and that anger is so palpable, I almost don't view it as two parties anymore, like Republican versus Democrat.
I view it like it's almost like two versions of one party, and the other side is the outsiders that aren't part of it.
And I'm wondering if if the analysts like Dr. Krockhammer are realizing the degree that this is happening.
I think it's throwing off his and others' analysis.
I don't think they do.
I think I think you're right about that.
Uh they have awareness, but I don't think they uh it's not just Dr. Krauthammer.
I I think the uh call it the Beltway, the Washington New York Court or whatever the political class.
They're aware.
I don't think they're aware of how much, but at a certain point of their awareness, they they begin to have disdain for it, um, not respect for it, meaning the anger at the establishment.
It's not something they worry about.
It's not something they give a lot of credence or credibility to.
The comments, uh, I saw Dr. Krauthammer uh essentially say that this was Trump who finally exposed himself as a buffoon and uh we're finished now, he's taking himself out.
This is the first phase of that, and they followed that up with a Frank once focused group to make the same point.
And I think they don't understand that a lot of Trump fans are not gonna abandon him because of what happened last night.
In fact, I don't know what percentage, but quite a lot of them are gonna rally around him even more.
He's gonna have to do more than what happened last night to blow this.
But the establishment wants him to blow it, so they've they got a little head start on thinking it's happened.
It is the fastest three hours in media, it's Rush Limbaugh and open line Friday.
You sit tight, my friends, because we have just begun.