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Dec. 14, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:38
December 14, 2015, Monday, Hour #2
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And we're back.
It's great to have you here.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program.
Just released at 12 noon today.
Trump hits a new high in national poll.
Donald Trump just got a little more vault in his ceiling.
Nationwide, the polling-obsessed Manhattan multi-billionaire.
What is this nationwide, the polling-obsessed man?
Who's polling-obsessed here if it isn't the media?
What the hell is, why can't you just report the number?
Let me give you that.
Trump's up to 41%.
And this is the Monmouth University poll surveying voters identifying as Republican or independent leaning toward the GOP.
Trump is at 41, nearly tripling the support of his closest rival, Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz in the Monmouth poll is at 14%.
Now, this is a nationwide poll.
This is not Iowa.
This is a national poll.
And there's a Quinnipiac poll out, released this morning.
Trump and Cruz in a virtual tie in Iowa.
CBS Eyeball News 2, new Quinnipiac University presidential poll released today shows Trump and Cruz in a virtual dead heat in Iowa.
The poll shows Trump with 28% support among likely Iowa cauckey participants.
Cruz, 27%.
Marco Rubio, a distant third at 14.
Dr. Carson is next at 10% and is the only other candidate with at least 5%.
So after you get to Carson at 10, nobody.
Rubio, Jeb, Fiorina, Christie, nobody's above 5% in the Quinnipiac poll.
Now, once again, you have something to consider here to show you this is nowhere near over.
Trump has 41%.
Now, if this poll is accurate, then this is getting close to wrap-up time.
When Trump is at 28, 30%, the sum total of everybody not Trump is going to be either that or more than that.
And so when you look at the Republican primary itself, you could honestly say that there are more people opposed to Trump than for him.
Now, you may not want to put it that way, but that's the way you'd have to slice and dice it.
If the sum total of all the other candidates is a number greater than Trump's 30%, then you would have to say that the candidates, that the voters who support somebody other than Trump is a greater number than what Trump's is.
So as the field winnows, as it will, it's really important where those voters go.
You know, say if Christie gets it, I'm just picking names here.
I don't know who's going to get out.
If Christie gets out, if Rand Paul gets out, if Kasich, Fiorena, where do their voters go?
If their voters go to Cruz, big, go to Trump, also big.
This we won't know for a while.
Which is why I just found it extremely interesting the way Trump chose to go after Cruz, echoing the Republican establishment, which, I mean, one of the reasons Trump is doing so well is that he is perceived as the biggest anti-establishment candidate of the bunch.
I think also in this Monmouth poll that shows Trump at 41, you can't take San Bernardino out of that.
The fact that the San Bernardino thing happened and the regime's response to it has been pathetic.
And Trump is the one guy who has stood up and without any excuses proclaimed what he would do.
In fact, he's got a new slogan out there now.
Grab audio soundbite number nine.
Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace said, this week, you've been called a bigot.
You've been called a fascist.
You've been called a demagogue.
I looked up the word demagogue in a dictionary.
It says somebody, a public official, who seeks support based on appealing to people's fear and prejudice.
Is that what you're doing, Donald?
It's the opposite.
It's called Make America Great Again.
It's the opposite.
I want to make our country safe.
In fact, I'm going to add to it.
Make America great again.
Make America safe again.
It's not safe.
We're living in fear.
I'm not creating the fear.
People are living in fear.
Look, there's a problem.
You don't have to admit it, you never will, because you always want to be politically correct.
Your father would have admitted it, okay?
I think it's not necessarily true, but it's still funny.
He's talking about Mike Wallace, Chris Wallace's dad for you millennials out there.
Anyways, he's got his new slogan, make America safe, as well as make America great.
He said something else on this show.
I wonder, do I have it here?
Things are sometimes out of order.
Rather than look for it, let me just tell you what he said.
He accused Hillary Clinton of being responsible for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
And Chris Wallace, of course, was taken aback.
Whoa, what do you mean she's responsible?
She said, what do you look at it?
I mean, look at Benghazi.
And I'm not just talking Benghazi, but look everywhere she and Obama have had their policies.
And well, look what's happening.
There's war everywhere.
Thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of people are being killed.
It's because of Obama and Hillary policies.
There's nobody else out there saying that.
I guarantee you there are tons of Americans who agree with it.
So one thing, you know, my questioning here about the way Trump has gone after Cruz here, calling him a maniac, refusing to work with people in the Senate.
The reason I'm focusing on that, folks, because that's so unlike Trump.
I mean, that's a huge mistake.
But on paper, it's a huge mistake.
Trump gets away with his mistakes.
Such is the bond of loyalty that his support base has for him that he gets away with them.
And I don't think he's made that many.
Don't misunderstand.
But for any of you who are holding out hope that Trump is a genuine conservative, genuine conservative, even in the Republican field, would not go after Cruz this way.
So that's why this raised red flag for me.
Maybe somewhat curious.
The interesting piece here, there's two other things I want to get to here before we have to go to the break.
Let me put these papers back in order.
I'm sorry here, folks.
One is from Namke Kunst at the Hill.com.
Ted Cruz isn't just surging, he's winning.
Now, this is somebody's opinion here.
You may wonder why, this pull quotes here.
You may wonder why Cruz surged this week.
A predictable phenomenon in Republican primaries is occurring.
As the flavors of the month rise and fall, the candidates focused on the long game benefit.
Last week, Cruz picked up the evangelical support from rival candidate Ben Carson in Iowa, who then dropped from 32% to 13% in the past six weeks in Iowa alone.
And with 65% of South Carolina Republican primary voters identifying as evangelical or born-again, Cruz will most likely jump ahead a couple more points in the next few weeks there.
Although Trump owns South Carolina right now, that's still to shake out.
But perhaps the most intriguing factor contributing to Cruz's success is Trump's overt extremism.
Remember now, this is in thehill.com.
Suddenly, Ted Cruz is the palatable conservative alternative for likely Republican voters.
And even the GOP establishment, when asked about Cruz's toxic relationship with his colleagues, a high-ranking Republican consultant told me that the GOP establishment may hate Cruz, but they fear Donald Trump.
Did you ever imagine that?
I'm honest in this question here.
This is not rhetorical.
Well, it may be rhetorical, but I'm serious.
Did you ever imagine that you would see the day that someone who is a staunch defender of the Constitution and the concepts of separation of powers and individual liberty and limited government would be called extreme?
It's another indication of where we are.
You know, the media, when the UN and the lapdogs over there announced this stupid global warming deal, the journalists in the audience stood up and cheered.
Yeah, the media stood up and cheered, illustrating, once again, there is no media.
There are just Democrat Party hacks and leftist activists who are assigned to pretend to be journalists and reporters and so forth.
But they're really Apparatch.
They're party hacks.
And you got this principal at the New York Public School who's wiping out Santa Claus, wiping out Christmas, wiping out Christmas trees, wiping out Thanksgiving, and prohibiting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Because those are not the values anymore that this school wants to promote.
And you can't have more American values than those three things.
So there's an all-out war on these things.
There's an all-out war on this country.
And now, somebody who believes in freedom, individual liberty, separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution now is called extreme.
Ted Cruz.
Perhaps the most intriguing factor contributing to Cruz's success is Trump's overt extremism.
You got Trump and Cruz.
The two leaders are now extremists.
For what?
They're not extremists.
They're mainstream for crying out loud.
They're mainstream red, white, and blue patriotic American.
And yet that has become extreme.
Another poll quote, if Cruz remains smart, he will continue to praise Trump.
In the meantime, for those worried over the demise of our Constitution under President Trump, have no fear.
Ted Cruz, former clerk to the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is here to stay.
Hyper-disciplined, Cruz's multifaceted strategy has solidified support across all primary states.
And in coming weeks, as candidates fade, expect Trump's tirades to continue and watch as Cruz quietly capitalizes.
So what this guy's theory, I'm assuming, I haven't read the whole piece to you, but what he's assuming is that as Cruz continues to gain ground, Trump is going to continue to criticize Cruz in the same way the establishment does, which is going to irritate the conservatives in Trump's support base, and they are going to abandon him and go to Cruz.
This is the theory by this guy at theHill.com.
He says, which is why at this point in the campaign we should prioritize likely GOP voter polls in early primary states over national and total registered GOP voter polls, like the Monmouth poll out last week taken of Iowa Republican voters who have voted in previous caucuses, which shows Cruz winning at 24%, Trump's at 19%.
Or the Sunday Des Moines Register poll has Cruz at 31%, Trump at 10 points.
He thinks at this point we should prioritize likely Republican voter polls like these.
It's his way of saying, keep a sharp eye on Cruz, because when you ask legitimate Republican primary voters, it's no contest.
Cruz is beating Trump.
That's his point there.
Now, NBC has a poll.
You notice something today.
Every bit of news that the drive-bys have on this is poll-related.
Every bit of it.
NBC poll, Clinton would trounce Trump, but lose to Rubio and Carson.
This is the NBC Wall Street Journal poll.
Hillary Clinton would defeat Ted Cruz and would trounce Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head general election matchup.
But Hillary would lose to Marco Rubio or Ben Carson.
Clinton, who leads the Democrat primary by nearly 20 points, says here would have a strong advantage over Trump with independent voters, but would be bested by the three other Republicans within that group.
So Hillary versus Trump, independents go Hillary.
Hillary versus Rubio, Carson, Cruz, independents go away from Hillary.
Against Trump, the Democrat frontrunner would win 50 to 40.
Among Independents, she would capture 43% of the vote compared to 36% for Trump.
Among Hispanics, Clinton would get 69% of the vote compared to just 24%.
Speaking of Hispanics, something else in the other stack here.
It might be Luis Gutierrez, somebody has suggested that we just go ahead and make these illegal citizens.
Just get a minute.
Exactly what I predicted was just stunning.
My prediction is even coming sooner than I thought it would.
I thought amnesty would have to happen first.
I thought they'd do amnesty and not allow citizenship to be rolled out over a series of years.
Then Schumer would go to the microphones and cameras and talk about how inherently unfair that was, how they weren't thinking.
We've just made them citizens and they can't vote.
That's not right.
They need this bill needs to be amended.
Amnesty bill so they can now vote.
I think Luis Gutillier is screw waiting for amnesty.
Let's just make them citizens so they can vote.
They're here.
Not that that automatically makes it happen, but I'm telling you the push is on.
And one of the reasons is that Democrats don't doubt me are not in any way feeling confident about Hillary Clinton and the 2016 presidential race.
I don't care what you hear or who tells you.
There's a lot of concern.
There's a lot of fevered worry out there in the deep, dark bowels of the Democrat Party.
Back after this.
Don't go away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was in Breitbart that I saw it.
Let illegals vote.
Amnesty activists launch a campaign to naturalize immigrants and register them to vote.
These are not the illegals.
This article is not talking about the illegals.
They're just not citizens.
They have green cards, but they have not yet become citizens.
They haven't gone through the process.
Just make them citizens.
Keep a sharp eye.
I mean, folks, I still maintain that we have no idea.
Some of us have a baseline understanding of what's possible.
We have no idea the kind of things Obama is going to be capable of doing next year.
Okay, let's hit the phones because people have been patiently waiting, and I really, I always appreciate that.
I really do.
This is Rick in Fremont, Ohio.
Hi, Rick.
Hi, Rush.
Rush, just give a little background here.
Number one, I just thank the Lord Jesus Christ every day for you, Rush, because you give me hope.
I just want to give you a little background on myself.
I'm a Christian.
I'm a conservative.
I'm a Tea Party guy.
I'm a registered Republican.
And I was in favor of Ted Cruz until Donald Trump came along.
And the reason why is because I've watched over the years the establishment Republicans trying to take out the conservatives.
They hate the conservatives.
They want to get rid of us.
I believe the Republicans want to use Ted Cruz to take out Trump right now because they know that Trump can win.
I do not think that Ted Cruz can win.
He's a conservative.
Trump has Democrats in favor of him.
He has Republicans in favor of him.
And he has independents.
And he's strong.
I look at Ted Cruz as being a little bit soft.
A little bit soft.
I hate to say that.
No, hold off on that.
I've got to stop.
Cruz is not soft, but that's not what I want to ask you about.
I need to ask you a very important question.
From my understanding, there's no right or wrong as far as you're concerned.
This is my understanding here.
You're a Tea Party guy, so you are without quite, you're an unapologetic conservative, right?
Socially conservative and fiscally conservative.
Okay, so are you thinking Trump is the same, or does it not matter as much to you?
Here's the way I look at it.
I look at it.
It's over for the United States if we don't win this election.
Trump can win.
We have to win back our country.
We cannot have another Romney.
We cannot have another McCain.
And I look at Ted Cruz as being almost like a Romney.
He's going to lose.
Well, but he's not like Romney in any way, shape, man, or form, other than if he would lose, he might have that in common.
But that's it.
Yeah.
So you're not worried that Trump isn't who he says he is.
There's none of you that you don't have.
There are no red flags.
I mean, I'm not going to agree with everything that Trump does, but I just want him to win back our country, our freedoms, and get jobs working again, people working again here in the United States.
Okay.
So you're taking him at his word.
When you hear him jump on Cruz, the same way Democrats and the media and the Republican establishment jumps on Cruz, that doesn't raise a little red flag for you.
I mean, he's got to do his strategy, okay?
Trump has to do his strategy.
I don't know what his best strategy is.
I believe what he's doing.
I mean, you see, Rush, his polls are going up.
His numbers are going up.
Hey, I'm just asking.
You know, do not, I'm not trying to hide an opinion in my question.
Don't anybody think that.
You see what I'm getting here, folks.
No, I don't know what happens to Luke Skywalker.
But you know what?
I don't know a thing about Star Wars like nobody else knows anything about Star Wars.
And I know that they're already lined up and they've shut down four streets in Hollywood waiting for this thing to premiere, and I know all the hype and everything else.
My best guess is that Luke Skywalker becomes the villain.
I mean, that's what they're doing in this latest Star Wars crowd.
They're turning the bad guys into the good guys, the good guys into the bad guys, and they're making it look the Democrat Party is currently the left, as represented by the Star Wars characters, becomes the good guys.
The big government guys that are guys become the good guys.
Luke Skywalker is going to become the new Darth Vader.
You watch.
You don't think so?
Okay, well, I don't know.
I don't know.
I just, give me Jessica Jones.
What the hell?
Anyway, we're back.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Do you watch it?
You turn Jessica Jones on?
You like that show?
Oh, I'm telling you, it is a totally.
But here's the thing about it: it's not so much the show itself as what it is.
I'm telling you that I, in fact, I, or the next issue of the Lidball letter, is tackling this subject.
This show is nothing but misery.
And millennials love it because of all the suffering and hopelessness and trauma and how you deal with it as though that's what life is.
It's the most depressing thing.
No wonder the millennials are screwed up.
You know, I thought we baby boomers were bad, having to make up our own traumas, but man, the millennials are out doing anything we did.
Creating trauma, creating stress, creating, and they're reveling in it.
It just coping mechanisms and so forth.
Have you seen any optimism in that show?
I mean, there isn't any optimism.
Even when the good guys, the whole thing is dark.
It's just, but that's not that.
You know, people can make a TV show, do whatever they want with it.
My curiosity is the reaction of its target audience thinking that the portrayal of suffering and trauma and PTSD and stress, it's art as though that is their lives.
And the best shows today are those that reflect and project all of this stress and all of this suffering and all of this misery.
And it just disappoints me.
People have that outlook on life and that as their future.
Something's gone wrong somewhere.
And I know exactly where and what it is.
And it's called dominance of the left wing, dominance of the pessimists.
Anyway, folks, here's Brian in Augusta, Georgia.
Hey, Brian, glad you called, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Thanks.
Rich.
Donald's campaign manager must absolutely cringe every time he gets in front of a microphone.
As I said to Mr. Snerdley, Hillary Clinton would eat Donald's breakfast, lunch, and dinner and go forego the dessert and leave a kill.
Do you remember what she said on one of her campaign stumps?
She said, I look forward to debating Donald Trump.
So, Mr. What's the guy running against her?
What's the what?
The guy running against her?
That'd be Bernie Sanders, you mean?
Bernie.
So, Bernie, you can go sit down.
You and the good governor.
Y'all can go sit down.
You've made some noise, yes.
And basically, a total disregard for the rest of the Republican candidates.
You know, I take issue with you on this, Brian.
You're spouting the conventional wisdom that Hillary would mop the floor with Trump.
But what does Hillary remind everybody of?
Their first or second ex-wife.
And how many of those does Trump have?
He's got experience dealing with those kinds of things.
He'd be able to just wipe the floor with her.
Seriously, why do you think?
I know you've read it, but why do you personally think, Brian and Augusta, that Hillary would just cream Trump in a debate or in the election?
Why?
For one main reason.
She is going to use Trump's biggest enemy against her.
That's his own ego.
I'm glad you asked me that question.
She's going to say, was this you that said this about the Mexicans?
Was this you who said, oh, I got plenty.
I do good with the blacks.
Is this you about she's going to be a systematic killing?
Wait a minute.
Brian, are you thinking there's some people that don't know what Trump said about Mexicans and that Hillary's going to embarrass him by exposing that to people that have never heard him say it?
Rush, it's not that they didn't.
Whether they heard it or not, she's going to remind them in such a way, she's going to make Trump look like this arrogant, corporate, macho, uncaring.
And you've got to remember, Rush, America's crimes was first woman.
I wouldn't vote for Hillary for two seconds in the presidency, by the way.
But America's prying for it.
It doesn't necessarily have to be Hillary, but they're prying for it.
Who says?
And let me say this.
If the media, especially the elite liberal media, believed that Trump could beat Hillary, they would not lift him up the way they do every single week.
Trump, Trump.
But somebody realizes.
Just a second, Brian.
Wait, just a minute.
I'm watching a campaign and you're watching a campaign that I'm not seeing.
Are you telling me that the media is lifting Trump up and supporting Trump because they want Trump to get the nomination because they're confident Hillary is going to wipe the floor with him?
I could be wrong.
That is my feeling.
I said the media elite.
They think the media is trying to destroy Trump and frustrated as hell that they haven't been able to.
Right.
Well, because he's the one person she can beat because she's going to make him seem like such a radical, such a buffoon.
She's going to, what's your overseas political?
Well, I'm going to make a better.
I don't think Hillary can avoid making herself look like a radical and a buffoon.
I know, Rush, but you've got to remember, people who are dipped in the war, gong-ho Hillary Volks, they don't care.
And I think you know that.
She's going to speak to the heart.
She's going to be, well, I've made my mistake, but I care about this country and not you.
And the women, Donald, didn't you say you could do more for the woman?
And you're playing, she's going to twist all that.
And Rush, they only made her stronger with that hearing.
Oh.
If I could have asked her one question, it would have been, Mrs. Clinton, let me ask you a question.
Can we agree that some people died at Vengas?
Can we at least agree on that?
Well, the two questions.
She would say, yes.
No, she'd say, what difference does it make now?
No, I would have said to her then.
So do you say that your conscience is clear over that matter?
Can you say right now, national television, Ms. Clinton, that your conscience, do you have a clear conscience on that?
And I would have left her alone.
Rush, you've got to see it.
You've been around a long time.
I know, but I'm telling you, Brian, unless I'm not following you here and that's possible because of my hearing, but I don't think that anybody by the time we get down to the presidential debates is going to remember Hillary's hearing before the committee.
But Rush, it only made her stronger.
So I'm reading these different articles as the Republican candidate is going to hold the Vengas.
Let's cut to the chase.
Brian, let's cut to the chase here.
I don't have much time.
Let's cut to the chase.
How do you beat her?
That's what you want to do.
So how do you do it?
Who can beat her and how do we do it?
It's going to have to be maybe Cruz or Carson.
They will say a push, but Cruz has a better, and I like what he said.
Hey, he'd be the one to get rid of IRS.
I did like that.
He's not as radical.
Any of those three guys could beat Hillary, but that's why they're not getting that type of coverage on it.
And they've got to show some uniform.
If they don't rush, if Trump gets this nomination, that's just my call here, that the Republican Party is going to...
Look, you're in the conventional...
The conventional wisdom is that Trump doesn't have a prayer to general election.
That is the CW.
And we should probably get more people's thoughts on that, if they agree or disagree and why.
But I've got to go.
Now, Brian, I appreciate the call.
Thanks much.
Be right back, folks.
Sit tight.
Here is Bill in Southampton in New York.
Hey, Bill, great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
I'm not accusing you of saying that you threw Donald Trump under the bus in that first hour, but I am accusing you of relegating him to the back of the bus, and I want to know why.
I didn't do anything of the sort.
You're talking about the soundbites I played where he went after Cruz.
That puzzled me.
It just genuinely, that doesn't sound like the Trump that I have known throughout this campaign.
That sounds like Trump parroting anything you'd hear from the Washington establishment or the Democrats or the drive-by media.
I mean, he basically said we can't.
I'm not buying it.
I don't buy it.
What do you mean?
There's nothing to buy.
You either don't believe what he said.
He said what he said.
He said, I don't think Ted's got the good tremor, but I hear him talking to criticize the Senate.
You can't get anything done that way.
You've got to be able to work with people.
Trump doesn't even believe that.
Trump wants to steamroller to people that stand in the way.
Amen to that.
God bless him for that.
Well, then why jump all over Cruz for basically being the same way?
Hmm.
Good question.
I mean, the thing I hate.
But explain it a little bit more, if you would, please.
All right.
When I hear any Republican, like the last one I heard say it was Chris Christie, I cringed, and it was just a few short weeks ago.
And I think, are you tone deaf?
Christie said, look, I want the Democrats to know, well, that's what do you want the Democrats to know?
I want them to know I will work with them.
I can cross the aisle.
And if they have good ideas, I'll work with them.
And I said, what are you?
This is John McCain.
This is Mitt Romney.
This is exactly how we lose.
Our side does not want us working on the other side.
They want us defeating the other side.
Christie lost me on the moment that he announced his candidacy by saying that we are not angry, but we are more disappointed by our politicians in Washington.
Okay, fine.
Same thing.
My point is.
We're angry.
We're really angry about what's happening to our country.
Right.
The only thing I'm saying here is that with the way Trump went after Cruz, he's free to go after him.
Don't misunderstand him.
It's a primary campaign, but to go after Cruz for not cooperating with the Democrats, where has Trump said he's going to?
And if that's what he's going to do, I damn well want to know it.
You don't want Christie to cooperate with Democrats.
We want to beat him.
When you say that, I'm sorry, Rush.
I really feel like you put him in the back of the bus when you say that.
Didn't put him in the back of the bus.
I just asked him.
Grab soundbite number 10.
I want you to listen to this with me again.
Trump on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Wallace asked him, what do you think of Ted Cruz?
I don't think he has the right temperament.
I don't think he's got the right judgment.
You look at the way he's dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there like a, you know, frankly, like a little bit of a maniac.
You're not never going to get things done that way.
You can't walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars and not be able to cajole and get along with people.
He'll never get anything done, and that's the problem with Ted.
Sounds exactly like what McCain would say of his opponent in the Republican primary.
Sounds exactly what Romney would say.
They would say, I'm the guy that can go into the Senate and I can work with the Democrats and I can get along with him.
And Ted can't.
And my reaction, I didn't know you wanted to get along with the Democrats, Mr. Trump.
This is the first I've heard of that.
That's my only reaction.
Bill, that's not throwing Trump anywhere.
I'm just reacting.
Okay.
I can think of a lot better.
If I'm Trump and I got Cruz coming on, and I can think of a lot better ways to criticize him without making people in my coalition question whether I'm really conservative or not.
A lot of people are supporting Trump for a whole lot of reasons.
And some of his support is made up of people who think because of his anti-establishmentism and his willingness to take on these establishment issues that there's a conservative streak in there.
And he's flirting with making people question that.
Anyway, I'm up against on time.
I'm out of it, folks.
I've got to go.
But thanks for the call.
We'll be back.
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