Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Let me get this straight.
Mitt Romney wants to go back to the days when the media you saw last night was all we had.
Those were the good old days.
Right.
Greetings, my friends.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh.
And the Rush Lindbaugh program here on the EIB Network, the most listened to radio talk show in the country.
Thrill and a delight to have you here.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the programs 800-282-2882, and the email address Lrushbo at EIBNet.com.
Before the debate started, we had CNBC on in the House, as much people were watching, and uh it was inane listening to this CNBC pre-debate round table discuss what was coming.
It was literally insane or inane.
It was it was pointless.
It was just chatterbox chatter.
And I hadn't paid much attention to this debate before last night.
I had to be reminded last week this debate was even happening.
Frankly, I'm into the World Series because my team, the Royals, is in it, and I've I this debate kind of was not on my radar until yesterday, actually.
So it wasn't until yesterday that I knew who the moderators of this thing would have been.
I'm going to tell you, folks, when I saw John Harwood's name on the moderator list, I knew that we were headed for one of the most biased nights that we were going to see, because if there's anybody openly and willing to act as though he is in the Hillary camp, it is John Harwood.
New York Times, former Wall Street Journal, now CNBC.
The um the display that we got last night was a culmination of everything that many of us have been trying to tell the American people that drive-by media is arrogant, smug.
I mean, it goes so far beyond bias.
Bias doesn't even cover what happened last night.
That was a kill show last night.
That show was designed to kill every one of those candidates.
That that debate last night was designed to take them all out.
That debate last night was to grease the skids for Hillary Clinton.
That was the sole purpose of that debate last night.
And the smugness and the arrogance and the condescension with which those moderators went about it finally came back and bit them.
To the point that everybody watching that debate, everybody, even other drive-by media types saw what was going on.
And you can count on one hand the number of drive-by media types defending what happened last night on CNBC.
And one of them you don't even really count because his mind is lost long ago, and that's Chris Matthews.
So you can count on four fingers the number of drive-bys that are actually defending.
Ron Fournier, even last night said that what happened, the mainstream media is getting beat up today, and we deserve it, he said.
And he's exactly right.
I want to take you back before we get into uh debate analysis, because I'll tell you I started fuming with that very first question.
Please tell us what is your biggest weakness.
Right then, you knew the table was you knew what was coming.
And it ticked me off that some of our people even even deigned to answer it.
The whole premise behind that question is tell us why you're not qualified.
And if there was a theme to this debate last night from these moderators, it was to expose the fact that these fine people, any one of which would be preferable to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, is not qualified.
And it it it bugs me and it has me fuming this automatic assumption that any Democrat, the architects of the current economic disaster, the people, the only fingerprints on this economic disaster.
Well, at least for the first five years.
We're the Democrat Party.
When you talk about Obamacare, there aren't any Republican fingerprints.
We have 94 million Americans not working.
We got half the country making less than 30,000 a year, and these people, these moderators, attempted to say that the people seeking the presidency on that stage last night are not qualified.
Coupled with the automatic assumption that Hillary Clinton is qualified, that Barack Obama is qualified, that Joe Biden or whoever else on the Democrat side is qualified.
I tell you it offends me, and it has offended me my entire life.
But I want to take you back to this very program, all the way back to April 14th, where I issued a warning to the RNC and Republican candidates.
When Good Morning America calls you, understand it's not Good Morning America, it's the Hillary Clinton campaign calling you because George Stephanopoulos is a good morning America, and that's where he really works, is the Hillary campaign or the Bill Clinton war room.
And so you would no more accept invitation to be interviewed by Hillary Clinton's campaign consultant.
So why would you accept an invitation to be interviewed by Hillary's campaign consultant, disguised as an anchor on Good Morning America?
And the same thing goes for whoever it is that moderates these debates that are yet to happen if the Republicans fall for this business of letting Clinton campaign operatives moderate their debates.
We're told, but Rush that look, that's the way it's land.
Everybody knows it, and it's an obstacle the Republicans have.
It's reality that the Democrats don't.
And everybody knows it.
And therefore the Republicans have to prove they can overcome this unfairness.
Really, why is that the case?
It's apparently been required of the Republicans for 35 years that they demonstrate their willing to deal with this unfairness.
It seems like they've demonstrated for a number of decades they're willing to do it.
The point is it doesn't seem to help them much.
It remains an obstacle that has to be overcome.
And it's a challenging exercise to come up with alternative means here of reaching the American people.
But one of the ways, this is a great field of candidates that the Republicans have who can reach the American people by going over the heads of the media, and they should not be afraid to do so.
Yet the RNC schedules these debates, and they schedule these debates with the very enemies of the Republican, and we all know, everybody knows they are the enemy.
They're not just the media.
They are the enemy.
And yet the scheduling continues.
And we all know why.
The Republican Party inside the beltway, the establishment, whatever you want to call it, thinks they have to bend over backward to prove their fairness, that they are not all of these things they're alleged to be.
And so they take every option, every opportunity to try to show these people, no, you misunderstand this, we're not racist, sex is big at home.
There's no changing their minds.
Those moderators last night didn't care a whit what these candidates really think about anything.
You can tell that by the virtue of the questions.
They didn't have any interest whatsoever in what these candidates thought.
The only objective they had was to take them out.
From top to bottom, the objective here was to take these candidates out, to impugn them, to discredit them, to destroy them, whatever it took in the eyes of the public to ruin their reputations, to mock them, to mischaracterize them.
That was the sole purpose.
But it's not just last night where this happens, this happens every day.
The media needs to be removed from the equation here.
Everybody knows that.
But how do you do it?
One of the great issues of our time is how to counteract the damage inflicted by a corrupt media which is aligned with the Democrat Party.
We have serious issues facing this country, and we do not, in too many, not enough sectors of our party do we acknowledge the full scope of our enemy.
Ted Cruz last night, oh, and by the way, wait till you hear the audio sound bites as they roll off today.
Wait till you all the drive-by media people say, whoa, whoa, did you see Ted Cruz?
Boy, everybody better keep their eye on Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz is the dark horse, Ted Cruz is the guy you better keep your eye on.
Where have you been hearing that, folks?
Ted Cruz finally had his fill of it.
You have to ask you if Cruz had not done what he did, would any of the other candidates have spoken Up as forcefully.
I don't think so.
Because I think there's this built-in fear of going against the media because the criticism is, you mean you can't handle questions in the media and you want to be president of the United States?
Come on, you can't be serious.
You need to toughen up.
And that's the wrong way to look at this because this is, we're not dealing with tough questions here.
We're not dealing with challenging questions here.
We're dealing with assassins.
We're dealing with character assassins.
We're dealing with career assassins.
That's who the media is today.
Vis a vis the Republican Party.
And it doesn't matter.
You can have all the nice guys in the world, the Mitt Romney's and whatever.
You're not going to change their mind.
You can have all of the pliant cross the aisle.
I want to work with you.
I want to cooperate with you.
We want to work together to get things done.
You can have all the Republicans in the world, and all you're going to get is mocked and laughed at when you fall for the trick and try to sidle up to the media and the Democrat Party that way, they just privately laugh at you and talk about how they have you wrapped around their little finger.
You can't impress them.
You can't dazzle them.
You can't change their minds about you because they don't care to like you.
They don't care to have you on their side.
Their sole mission is to destroy you because of their quest for power.
Which is what this is all about.
That's what politics is all about is power.
And they make no bones about it, and they don't care how it is they acquire it.
If they have to tell a lie about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes for ten years, if they have to tell a lie about Mitt Romney essentially letting an employee's wife die, and he didn't care about it because there was no help.
They don't care.
They don't, there's nothing that stops them because they know they're never going to be called on it.
Hillary Clinton's never going to have her campaign or her existence characterized as cartoonish.
She is never going to have her criminal past and her husband's criminal past called up and have people reminded of it.
It's going to be glossed over.
And in fact, marveled at how clever the Clintons are at combining all the things that they do to get where they go.
But it's it's not even that.
It's just they're all of the same mind, folks.
They're all of the same mindset.
They are all extremist leftists.
Some of them are disguised as elected officials, some of them disguised as candidates, some of them disguised as journalists, some of them are disguised as think tank specialists, some of them disguised as people that run nonprofits, some of them disguised as college professors, some of them describe disguised as CEOs, but they're all leftists.
And that is the most important thing in their life is their ideology and advancing their agenda.
We are their biggest enemy, foreign and domestic, we, conservatives specifically, Republicans, secondly, their biggest enemy.
And so we faced another hit squad last night, and they were finally called out on it.
Did you notice that not one of them seemed to be bothered by it?
Did you notice Harwood?
Nothing but smirk and smile.
Becky Quick, smirk and smile.
Carl Quintanella, smirk and smile.
They didn't care.
To them today, it's mission accomplished.
A, everybody's talking about them.
B. When they talk among themselves, they're congratulating themselves for actually characterizing Trump as a cartoon character.
Ben Carson as being stupid and shallow.
And on down the list.
They think mission accomplished.
Don't doubt me on this.
They're not feeling chagrined.
They're not embarrassed.
And all the drive-bys on TV that you see, and there are many of them condemning what they saw last night, that's for show.
This is not going to cause one IOTA's change in the media as per how they affect and treat Republicans.
It isn't going to change a thing.
That's why Republicans are now compelled to continue the behavior that they began last night.
It is not a negative.
After what everybody saw last night, it's not whining, it's not complaining to now consider the media as part of the opposition.
It's not childish.
As I say, it's not whining, it's not complaining.
That debate last night exposed every fatal flaw of the media moderated debate model.
One of the great issues of our time, and it's now more pressing than it's ever been how to counteract the daily damage inflicted by a corrupt media, who again are simply disguised.
They are truly Democrat Party activists.
We have an existential threat to our country, to the constitutional republic that is America.
And it is a mistake for Republicans to ask these people, these leftist political hacks to conduct inquisitions of them called debates.
It's kind of laughable for the RNC, which schedule this whole thing to at the end of the night run around talking about how horrible it was.
But I'm just telling you, these people are loving every minute of the expressed outrage by conservatives, both general public and elected officials, Republicans, you name it, privately, rubbing their hands together, mission accomplished.
They don't know shame.
They don't know humiliation or anything.
This is all it's just one night, folks.
This is the rest of the campaign to get this job done.
No, they're not disturbed.
The other because the other drive-bys are just giving lip service.
The other drive-by's are not really upset.
If the if the other drive-bys are upset by anything, it's that they these people last night made it too obvious.
They weren't subtle enough.
The drive-bys who were not on that stage last night are probably huddling together saying, look, the next debate, we can't let these clowns at CNBC do it.
They were too up front.
We got to be more subtle as we set out to destroy the GOP.
We can't have it obvious as what we're doing.
I mean, hell, that thing last night's even going to convince a low information voters that we're a bunch of creeps.
That's what they're worried about.
They're not they're not shamed.
This is my point about trying to express this in any number of ways since the program began.
There's a lot of debate analysis aside from the media treatment.
I want to get into that.
We are loaded with audio sound by today.
This is going to be one for the ages, but you got to hang in there and be tough as we continue to roll on down the highway here.
Two of the most prominent media themes or narratives today.
Jeb Bush didn't pull it off.
Jeb Bush didn't pull it out.
Jeb Bush walked right into Marco Rubio's trap.
And the second primary narrative in the drive-by media today is Donald Trump.
Man, is he fading?
Oh man!
Look at Trump!
Why, he didn't insult anybody last night.
He wasn't the most spoken candidate and have the most speaking time last night.
We barely heard from him in long chunks.
So the two themes are Jeb blew it royally, and Trump is fading away.
And the Jeb Bush campaign, folks, and and Jeb Bush himself illustrate, and this is the real point, how bad, how bad the Republican professional election business people have become, in my humble opinion.
The Jeb Bush campaign, the advice that he's getting, the way they think that Jeb needs to act, the things that they think he needs to do to rebound, to me are great evidence that Time has passed them by.
I'll just give you one example here, and I'm going to expand on this in the next segment.
But isn't it rather obvious now that the Republican primary elected is fed up with politicians, fed up with establishment elected officials, that they are considered the problem.
Every time Jeb Bush, and if he did it once, he did it twenty times last night, started reciting his great record as governor.
I've worked every day, I've cut taxes every year.
I end up screaming at the TV, Jeb, don't you want to, every time you cite your political resume, it's a negative.
People are tired of politicians and people who talk this way and recite their resume.
It's people of that ilk who are considered to be the problems.
And yet his consultants told him to just keep citing the resume.
What a great job you did as governor, how you worked with the Democrats, and how you crossed down, how you did all.
It was it's death.
It was it was to me it was stunning avoidance of reality.
More in a moment.
It's funny, Mr. Snerdley still can't believe that the rest of the drive buyers are not gonna be embarrassed and humiliated over what happened on CNB.
So let me ask you were they embarrassed over what Dan Rather and Mary Mapes did?
Did that bother them?
They might have been stated, but they scheduled an awards dinner and they gave Dan Radder a newly invented journalism award.
They circled the wagons to protect the brand, to protect the industry, but they certainly didn't cave and change, apologize or anything of the sort.
They're not worried, they're damaged control would be the max.
But they're not humiliated.
They don't think they've been exposed or anything.
They don't think this way.
These people think of themselves every day.
They are constant winners.
They have the power, solely and alone, they have the power.
Nothing can knock them off of it.
They are aligned with the Democrat Party.
They are the most powerful political organization in the world in their minds, and there's nothing a little debate last night's gonna do to change that.
I'm talking about their attitude.
Now back to this Jeb Bush business.
Look, I got a lot to squeeze in here today, and I want to get your phone calls in.
We got a great board already lining up here.
And an audio soundbite roster that's to die for.
But this the the Jeb Bush thing is really instructive.
As as we get to the presidential, once we have a nominee, it's going to be really important to find out after we get a nominee who's running the campaign, because if it's anybody at all involved with the Jeb Bush campaign, it's it's problematic.
People right now want nothing to do with politicians.
Politicians, professional politicians, the way they talk, the way they describe describe their resume, their enhancements, that's the biggest turn off in the country right now, on our side of the aisle at least.
In this Republican primary period, the last thing people are going to be moved by is somebody's professional politician resume.
And that's all Jeb Bush has offered throughout these debates is to highlight what he did as governor of Florida, how many tax cuts here, uh, and how much he cut government here or grew this or whatever.
And every time he went last night, I said, Jeb, telling people how good a politician you are is not gonna work.
In fact, it's gonna kill you.
It's gonna hurt you badly.
This is.
And take a look, take a look at the the effort that was made by the Bush campaign to save his campaign last night.
Here we have a political story, the headline, Bush walks into Rubio's trap.
For Jeb's supporters, it was a night of crushing disappointment.
The first thing we all knew what it was gonna be.
They announced the marketing plan.
They announced the trick.
They told everybody what they were gonna do in advance.
They were gonna hit Rubio on not being in the Senate for so many many votes.
They were gonna try to say that Rubio should get out because he doesn't want the job, doesn't like the job, he doesn't like this job, he ought not to be president, he ought to quit.
Fine.
You tell people, you tell Rubio a week in advance is what you're gonna do.
Rubio's got a week to prepare an answer that blows you out of the water, which he did.
And it didn't just blow Jeb out of the water, it blew the media out of the water.
All the votes that John Kerry missed that they applauded because he was serious about his campaign, and all the votes at Al Gore missed, and all the votes at John McCain missed, and all the votes of these other Democrats missed when they were in the Senate Running for president, all of that was applauded because they were serious about running.
So Rubio just nuked them on this last night.
But beyond that, folks, I to me, just observing this, and I'm I'm saying this dispassionately.
You know, I've I've met Jeb a couple of times.
George W. Bush has been wonderful to me, as has his father.
I have no animus whatsoever for the Bush family.
I'm I'm not if there is animus within the conservative quote unquote movement or Republican established, whatever.
I have none on a on a personal basis.
I I admire them all, they're undeniably a terrific family and so forth.
But man, that's what makes it even tougher to say, it has been obvious to me from day one that Jeb didn't really want to do this.
That Jeb is a placeholder.
Jeb's a placeholder for the people who want to return to power in Washington with him as the candidate getting them there.
And when you don't want to do something, you're probably not going to achieve it.
And there's no amount of coaching and there's no amount of advice that can create for you passionate desire.
And if you don't have it, if you're there because it's expected of you, if you're there because others have talked you into it, if you're there because you feel it's an obligation to be true to the family's history and legacy, whatever, the thing that's been missing, in my humble opinion, I know nothing.
I'm just like you observing this from afar.
It doesn't seem that his heart has ever really been in this.
We've had two, the most two most recent debates have been described as make or break.
And Jeb's no different in these two than he was in the first two.
Well, wait, how many have there been?
Three.
So he's been the same in all three.
There hasn't been an uptick in energy, passion, uh fighting forcefully for more time.
There hasn't been any of that.
I think this whole this whole debate format, scenario, situation, he's uncomfortable with the pugilistic characteristics, aspects of it doesn't.
I mean, he campaigns said that they were going to get the nomination without winning the primaries.
I mean, they've never really wanted to do this.
This is something they have to do and go through, but their heart really isn't in it.
But the people behind him really want it.
Whoever they are, I don't know, whoever they are, the fundraiser, the people who want to get back into positions of power that they can only get if their guy's president.
Either they want back there or they want there for the first time, never have been there.
But I'm I'm I'm certain that the people behind the scenes are the ones that really want it.
But they can't go on stage and debate.
So they've got to tell Jeb what to do.
And it isn't him.
All this coaching, all this advice, uh, it's it's led to paralysis.
When you're trying to remember everything everybody's told you to do, and by if Rubio says this, and I'm sure they've rehearsed it, if Rubio says this, you've got to say you've got to come back with this.
Okay, so Ruby just starts saying it, and Jeb says, okay, what do I have to do?
Oh God, oh God.
I hope they don't call him a yet.
Oh God, I gotta remember, oh, oh, ah, ah.
And it's pressure packed, and it's instead of being who he is, is trying to remember what he's been told to say.
And how to act when he says it.
But further, even beyond that, this attack on Rubio last night, in my mind illustrates better than anything that Trump is not a fluke.
And you're saying, well, what's Trump got to do?
Well, that's just hanging there.
Whoever is running Jeb's campaign is is so out of it, so wedded to the way it's always been done, so wedded to the politics of decades ago that it's almost embarrassing.
To go you you've got one debate to revive your campaign.
You got one debate After everything you've seen, here's Trump leading the pack.
Here's Carson leading the pack in certain states.
What are they?
It's plenty easy to find out who and why these two guys are leading.
And have that be a guide and tell you what you must do if you want to knock them off.
And the one thing they aren't is professional politicians.
They don't have a professional political resume, and that's their strength.
And what's Jeb being advised to do?
Continually recite his.
And it's not connecting.
Jeb is simply not connecting with anybody.
It's kind of sad to see here.
And this.
We're told the people on the Jeb campaign, they're the cream of the crop.
They're the best in the Republican Party.
That's why they're with Jeb.
Marco Rubio to Jeb Bush after Bush attacked Rubio for his voting record.
And this is dead on right.
The only reason you're doing it is that we're running for the same position, and somebody's convinced you that attacking me will help you.
It's exactly right.
Somebody convinced Jeb.
Somebody told him, you gotta go after old Marco for not showing up in the Senate.
These guys are friends.
Rubio is Jeb's protege, left to his own devices.
He would not ever go there.
He doesn't believe it himself.
But he was saddled with it by his advisors.
And if these advisors, consultants and whoever, and I don't know who they are, I'm so this I'm not no names in mind.
If if if these people can't even figure out why Jeb is where he is and what needs to happen to move up.
They can't see what's right in front of them.
Jeb wanted to embarrass Marco Rubio, but what did they say?
Rubio was going to be rendered moot.
They Rubio's gonna be so shocked he would not have a reply.
Did they think Rubio is gonna be so put down and so humiliated and so embarrassed and so called out that he wouldn't have anything to say in reply.
Now imagine these people advising Jeb how to go after Hillary.
Oh, I shudder.
Folks, I shudder to think what that would be.
But using intelligence guided by experience would have to think it'd be as ineffective there as it is here.
Jeb was not snared by the moderators last night.
Jeb was snared.
Some partisan hack moderator didn't scoop Jeb up in a net.
Jeb's advisors.
Now I'm not removing Jeb from all responsibility, but I think I know what's going on here.
You put it all together and not heart really not in it, the people that do want it or the advisors, consultants, whoever behind him, they're telling him what he's got to do.
That means he's not being himself.
It all makes sense.
Because it it all makes understandable the lack of desire or passion.
That we see.
Anyway, I gotta take a break here.
I'm up against it on time, and it's gonna happen a lot today here, folks.
Just be patient because all of it is gonna be gotten to.
Sit tight.
So I checked the email during the break, and then it was a fairly decent point.
Rush.
You're ripping into Jeb's campaign people, but don't you realize if it weren't for Trump, Jeb would probably be the guy with 20 points right now, and this thing would be over.
I say, well, they're that word is again, if yeah, well, if a lot of things, then things would be different.
But that actually kind of buttresses my point is if it weren't for Trump.
Well, it is for Trump.
Trump is there.
You better be able to adapt to it, and you better be able to figure out why Trump is doing well.
And if if the only ammo you've got with Trump is he's gonna blow it, he's gonna fade, he's gonna step in it, he's not gonna last, he doesn't really mean it, he's gonna get out of it so if that's all you can do, then you're not doing your job.
There's there they're it's it's not hard to explain Trump's success.
It's really rather easy.
That's why when I see the political story of the incredible shrinking Trump, in their dreams, they haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.
The incredible shrinking Trump.
The usual blustery billionaire offered a downright demure performance at the third GOP debate.
If these hacks in the media were not Democrat Party activists, this story could just as easily be written as Donald Trump shows more maturity as campaign evolves.
But no, because the Democrat media does not see Republicans and conservatives in any way anywhere near a favorable, fair, even almost human way, it's not possible for them.
Trump is a cartoon character to all of them, not just Harwood.
He is a cartoon character to all of them who they hate.
I got an email question last night during the debate.
Okay, Becky Quick, and whatever other women have been minded.
Why do they hate these guys so much?
I said, Are you kidding?
Abortion.
What do you mean?
Why do these female Democrat hacks hate Republican candidates?
The answer is easy.
And in most cases, it's one word.
Abortion or another word.
They're Republicans.
They're hated.
These people have their minds made up.
They're not interested in having their minds changed.
They're not interested in learning if they're even right, because in their minds it's inconceivable that they're wrong.
So Trump, who many people might say was behaving with a little bit more uh less bombast, less personal assault and attack last night, might say Trump is becoming more serious.
Trump is becoming more mature, whatever.
But if you're not inclined to note anything positive or uh synonymous with what you would say is growth in a human being or candidate, if all you can see is somebody's a cartoon character and a buffoon,
and if you think the Republican electorate is so stupid, which they do, remember you people are a bunch of mind-numb robots to the drive-by media.
You are incapable of thinking on your own.
You are your public opinions are nothing but the result of whoever it is influencing you.
Me, Fox News, whoever.
You're incapable of independent thought, critical thought, what have you.
You put these two things together.
Trump's where he is precisely because he's a cartoon character, and you people are so shallow and so dense that that's what you want in a president.
You want reality TV.
You want low rent scum as your leaders.
You want this kind of thing.
And that's what you're supporting.
And then when those people, when the buffoons stop acting buffoonish, and when the cartoon characters don't act cartoonish, uh-oh, they're in trouble.
And we get a headline, the incredible shrinking Trump.
They haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.
They think Trump is fading.
They think Trump may be losing support because he was quieter last night, because less bombastic, because he was less Trump.
All this does is show how these hacks fail to understand the bond that exists between a candidate and his audience or voters.
Let me let me give you one little hint.
Media.
Donald Trump cannot be hurt by something he does not say.
Donald Trump, nor any other candidate, cannot be hurt by something he does not do.
Last night Trump didn't do a bunch stuff.
Wow, he's fading away.
Wrong oh.
For you people in the media, And in the Republican establishment debut, for you people waiting for Trump to blow it, waiting for Trump to step in it, whatever you think is gonna happen.
It's typical and traditional from people who think their job is to take people out.
And that's what the media thinks their job with us is, is to take us out.
Trump was so low-key, nearly invisible, didn't light it up, typical of this way of thinking.
The only way Trump's gonna be taken out is if somebody comes along and is better.
The media didn't make Trump.
So little hint, you media people, you can't take him out.
You not Brit Hume of Fox News tweeted an attack on Ted Cruz after the debate last night.
Yes, yes.
Have to put that in perspective too when we come back.