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Dec. 16, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:00
December 16, 2015, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hi folks, greetings.
Great to have you, Rush Limboy, here at it, behind the golden EIB microphone.
There are only two of these.
I have both of them, obviously.
One is for here and one is for when we go on a road and travel.
Here's the telephone number if you want to weigh in today, and I'm pretty sure that you will want to weigh in today.
On the big GOP debate last night.
So much to observe and point out.
If you want to be on the program, it's 800-282-2882, the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Hard to pinpoint uh biggest thing to happen in the debate last night.
I have a series of observances.
I'm sorry, observations, observances would be taken today off for holiday.
Sorry, I seldom misspeak like that, linguist that I am.
Um my first observations was if anybody is wondering why Trump can say things that doesn't appear to don't appear to make sense and not lose anybody.
In his support base, I would call your attention, I would direct your attention to when Hugh Hewitt asked Trump if he would pledge not to go third party.
Trump in that answer immediately morphed from whatever performance persona he adopted.
And by the way, they all have performance personas.
And I'm not singling Trump out here.
Some of them are better than others.
Uh but Rubio had his performance persona, Cruz had his Carly Fearina, Kasich, hard to tell.
Um but they all Christie, they all do.
Trump has his.
He came off of his in that answer.
And what you got was the Donald Trump that people know him see every day.
Gone was the bluster, gone was the combativeness, and he just answered the question to the point that Hugh Hewitt actually applauded.
First time I've seen a moderator applaud at a debate on our side.
You see, the moderators applaud Hillary all the time.
And what basically Trump said, yeah, and I again gone was the braggado show.
Here came the humility.
He talked about how honored he was to be the front runner, how honored and proud he is to be Republican.
He has no intention of going third party, and he looked everybody in the eye and promised to work his hardest and do his best to beat Hillary.
It's not talking about what he said.
It is the way he said it that if you don't understand that, just get it and look at it.
That will tell you, that will illustrate for you.
If you're having trouble understanding Trump and his support base, that will show you how and where he makes his connection to his supporters.
Now those things, those type of events or instances happen frequently in his personal appearances.
And if you haven't been to one, or if you haven't seen one total televised in Toto, then you may have missed some of these.
But that to me was was quite telling.
And in addition to that aspect, just the subject matter makes it a pretty big uh item in the debate.
Because that's he's gonna have a tough time walking that back.
Uh it's gonna take something momentous for Trump to walk that back with credibility because he pretty much promised last night from the bottom of his heart.
It wasn't just words.
Now then you run across this political story, Bush v.
Trump behind the Vegas rumble.
Jeb Bush has considered declaring he would not support Trump as the nominee.
Now, something like that.
Let's say that when Jeb gets out, and if when he gets out, he says, I'm I'm not gonna support Trump.
I will not support a Republican Party nomination.
Well, now that could give Trump ground.
So yeah, I've always predicated this on being treated fairly and being supported, and if that's gonna happen, then screw you guys.
I mean, I can see that happening.
If Jeb or other powerful figures in the Republican Party publicly claim that they're gonna split the scene.
But aside from that, I mean it was a pretty serious commitment, and it was sincere.
And it was from the heart.
And it's important to point this out because there are still people trying to figure out how is it that Trump gets away with saying things that anybody else says them and he would lose support and in some cases big amounts of support.
And he doesn't, and that's why.
It's all, folks, it's rooted in the personal connection, that what is perceived to be the personal connection of personal bond.
And Trump has it, and people who have not seen it or are not looking for it may not know it, and if they don't, then that would confuse them.
That's one thing.
I'm sorry about this, but I could not believe the open to this debate last night.
I was doing double takes.
What was last?
It was a debate, right?
What happens in a debate?
People argue, right?
Sometimes their voices raise.
And people jockey for position.
And sometimes people ignore the rules and try to assert themselves if they've got maybe their last chance here to make something in a campaign.
So the question was, Governor Kasich.
I don't even remember the question.
All I remember is the answer.
The answer was, I was talking to my daughter, and I asked her what she didn't like about politics.
She said, Dad, there's too much arguing.
There's too much shouting.
Really?
Governor Kasich opens a debate claiming there's too much arguing going on.
Is that did I hear that right?
I look, I asked myself, could I possibly have mistaken that?
At the beginning of a debate where arguing and positioning and fighting and asserting and all this is the order of the day.
One of our candidates.
And I know what he's trying to do.
I was telling Mr. Snerdley earlier today.
I I really, especially now, folks, there apparently is still a large swath of the Republican establishment in primary of the Rhino Club that apparently still believes that what the American people want to hear is how Republicans can cross the aisle and cooperate with the Democrats to get things done to show that we can govern,
to show that we can cooperate, to show that we will consider opposing ideas.
And that's what Kasich was trying to score points on.
Nobody has scored points on that since it was first tried years ago.
Every candidate who based his appeal on that has been skunked.
And yet somewhere in the Republican establishment, they still buy into it.
The fact of the matter is, the reason it doesn't work is there's already plenty of cooperation between the Republicans and Democrats inside the beltway.
The Republicans are cooperating on all the spending Obama wants to do.
The Republicans are cooperating on all the refugee importation Obama wants to do.
The Republicans are cooperating on illegal immigration amnesty.
The Republicans are cooperating on, well, maybe not cooperating, but they certainly are not doing everything they could be doing to stop Obama care.
The question, the problem is not that we're not seen as cooperative and willing to cross the aisle and bipartisan.
The problem is there have been way too much of that, and there aren't any distinctions between the two parties in terms of inside the beltway.
So I don't understand the advisors or the thinking of somebody who opens a debate claiming our biggest problem is that we're going to be arguing for the next two hours.
I'm sorry.
It'd be like starting a Major League Baseball game...
And saying you can't throw any harder than 35 miles an hour.
We want to make sure everybody has a chance.
This is just it's indicative of something that's a major, major problem at the Republican establishment.
They don't even get where we are.
They don't understand that the vast majority of people that are going to vote Republican are sick of all the cooperation, sick of the bipartisanship, and they want the Democrats defeated.
They want the things that Democrats believe in, defeated.
They want them smoked.
They want them skunked.
A lot of people booed when Hugh Hewitt asked, and this was a second time the question was asked.
He asked Ben Carson if he was okay with murdering innocent civilians and children and so forth.
Yeah, the audience booed um Hugh Hewitt and the question, but Wolf Blitzer tried it twice.
With, I think, was it Cruz?
Wolf Blitzer tried that question twice.
You know, see, this debate was not media bias last night.
This was just flat-out media incompetence.
A, way too many people on the stage for this stage of the campaign.
There should more than half the people up there last night have no business being there at this stage.
And the questions, you know, Trump was was was largely correct when he said that the bulk of the questions are, uh, Senator Senator Ribio, Donald Trump said back on March 31st, what's your reaction to that?
And he was right, even if the questions were not about Trump, they were about Senator Rubio said, uh, Senator Cruz two weeks ago, that what is your reaction to that, uh, Senator Paul?
And it's the questions prevented.
You know, I couldn't believe didn't get discussed last night.
I I could not believe the whole subject of vetting Syrian refugees was not specifically addressed last night.
I mean, it was it was talked around with the telephone metadata and you know what we should do about surveilling and the internet and this kind of thing, but the actual vetting of these refugees was something that didn't come up.
And it's not specifically CNN's fault.
But when Wolf Blitzer's up there demanding that the rules be followed, uh, you know, I had it been me when Wolf Blitzer said that, I would have said, Mr. Blitzer, with all due respect, the audience is not tuned in to watch you make us follow the rules.
The audience is tuned in here to see which of those of us on the stage they prefer, and the only way that can happen is if we're the ones speaking, not you.
But don't misunderstand.
This was not as bad as the as the CNBC debate.
Uh that it was just, it was just incompetence.
It was structured incorrectly, the questions were were bad.
And limiting is the problem.
And the pressure was brought to bear by Blitzer that the rules will be followed here, and camera time depended on the rules being followed.
So the moderators did have some leverage.
If you weren't gonna follow the rules, they wouldn't gonna ask you any questions.
So it was kind of a catch-22 as far as the participants are concerned.
But that question from Hugh Hewitt, and it was actually first asked by by Wolf Blitzer, and I think it was of Cruz, the way it was worded.
I mean, it's a it's a valid question if you ask it a different way.
It's a totally valid question if you ask it a different way.
I mean, if you understand that the purpose of war and the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things, then that question makes perfect sense.
But the way this question was asked, not only of Dr. Carson, but of Ted Cruz, essentially was you Republicans, you really don't care about life.
You'd kill anybody, right?
You just kill anybody to get what you want.
You kill anybody to get where you want to get, right?
That's what that question meant.
And that's why there was booing in the audience, and that's why there was some reluctance to deal with it.
It was a bigoted question.
It was a prejudice question the way it was phrased.
But the fact of the matter is that is exactly how you win wars.
Go back and look at any of them.
Look at our bombing of Germany, look at Hiroshima Nagasaki.
You really don't need to look beyond those two.
Who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
What were the military targets there?
Where were the surgical strikes?
We killed innocent civilians.
That's what happens in war.
War is terrible.
War is horrible, but once you get into it and you have to win it, there are rules, and this is how you do it.
And all it would have taken was somebody to explain this last night.
Now, maybe there wasn't a desire to do so because we're so imbued with political correctness that that kind of truth might have been seen as insensitivity and callousness.
But well, I know, see, even when I say it, it sounds uh well, I don't not scary.
I'm not scaring people here.
But it's but it but people that don't think of war that way, it it is shocking.
But that's precisely how wars are won.
That's the purpose of war.
It's it's not complicated.
Kill people, break things until the enemy surrenders and apologizes for starting the whole thing.
That's how wars end.
They don't end with negotiations.
The negotiations happen long after the military defeat, unquestionable military defeat and surrender.
Then you start talking terms.
And that's when you get the apology, and that's when you get the promises that they'll never do it again.
And that's when they agree to give up all of their arms and weapons, as the Germans were forced to do after World War II.
But none of that happens until somebody gets shellacked.
It doesn't happen with the Red Cross, it doesn't happen with doctors without borders.
It doesn't happen with environmentalist wackos running around trying to save the planet.
Negotiations don't happen over doctors, nurses, and clean water.
Wars are won by whoever kills more people and breaks more things.
It may be uncomfortable hearing it.
And that actually was, I think what Hugh Hewitt was asking.
When the audience booed his question of Dr. Carson, Hewitt did a quick double take on the he asked the question a different way.
And I I knew what he I knew where he was.
He was not trying, I don't think, to entrap or ensnare Carson.
I think they were actually, in Hewitt's case, and he was actually trying to learn if the people he was asking about this understand what's at stake when you get into one of these things, when you when you are serious about war.
Because in wars that are won, innocent people die.
Civilians die.
It in most cases in the past has been the objective, as well as taking out military targets.
It's been the objective.
That is why do you think the uh uh the terrorists, the Hezbollah's, why do you think they put their military people in schools and hospitals?
They know we've become so PC with so many rules of engagement that that's how they escape us actually prosecuting a war in ways necessary for victory.
They understand that we're dominated and we're ruled with a tight grip of political correctness.
Anyway, uh we have a bunch of great audio sound bites to respond to as well, plus your telephone calls, further analysis of what everybody saw last night will continue with all of it when we get back.
On the on the subject of the questions asked by the moderators last night, I just thought they were I thought they were monotonous.
I thought the questions were boring.
And I thought at times the debate last night was boring.
It had its moments and it had its uh confrontations, and there was there were on a couple of occasions actual debates that took place, primarily as I predicted yesterday between Cruz and Rubio.
Oh yeah, did I ever call that or did I call that?
And it was clear why, and it it the the subject matter that they were debating was very substantive, and it was instructive, and it was important, but for the most part, the questions were just monotonous, monotone, same, same, same.
No matter what the subject, the question was, so what are you gonna do about terrorism?
So what are you gonna do about the NSA spying?
So what are you gonna do about ISIS?
So what are you gonna do about this?
What are you gonna do about that?
What are you gonna do?
There were no detailed questions.
there were no questions that that invited a probe of depth into the subject matter.
Now, again, don't misunderstand.
I realize that the contestants here, the participants can take whatever question they want and go wherever they want with it.
They don't have to be hemmed in.
But Blitzer, a number of times last night, made it clear that if in his school marms opinion people weren't following the rules, there was going to be a price to pay, and that would be they were going to be ignored.
So there was leverage used in that in that way.
And as such, I mean, what are you going to do about ISIS?
What are you going to do about spying?
What are you going to do about the internet?
You really want to get out of the internet.
These are we got caught up on things that people trying to score points on things that were just silly and were irrelevant.
Everybody knew what everybody meant.
And we're back on Debate Plus One.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Cookie went and rolled off the...
Uh answer Trump gave to the question from Hugh Hewitt about whether he will run third party or not.
This is what I talked about at the opening of the program where Trump drops the person the performance persona and communicates.
This is an example of many.
These things happen frequently in his personal appearances.
I'm only illustrating this or mentioning it because so many people still wonder how it is that Trump doesn't get hurt by what some people think of the stupid things he says or the ignorant things he says or the mean things he says or the controversial things, the things that would normally destroy others he profits from.
And people, professional communicators are scratching their heads, professional political people, scratching their heads, it doesn't make any sense.
They're still hoping that Trump will implode.
And my I'm just trying to help people understand why.
And it's it's all rooted in the bond, the connection that Trump has made with the people who support him.
And by the way, that bond is rooted in substance.
If you want to further understand it, last night Trump, you you can I mean a lot of people are saying, boy, Trump really embarrassed himself last year.
He didn't even know about the nuclear triad.
Yeah, I noticed that.
But it's not gonna hurt him.
And some of you might be, well, it damn well ought to.
I mean, if you don't know what the nuclear triad and your president of the United States, he'll find out what it is.
How many people know what a nuclear triad?
I happen to know what it is.
But it was another one of these esoteric kind of questions, uh valid but nevertheless esoteric.
But here's the thing.
Of everybody in this field, right now, Donald Trump was the first to tap into viscerally what Americans are feeling and living.
This is not to slight anybody else.
This is not to be critical of anybody else.
He started with the border, the southern border, and worked his way to refugees and the economy and any number of things that are making this country weak and said it's got to stop.
And during all of this, he let everybody know that that they were right.
He validated what millions of people were already thinking.
This is what the establishment of both parties misses.
They think that most of the people in this country are brain dead, sponges, mind-numbered robots, waiting to be influenced by any number of false prophets or phony Svengales.
Because they have a basic contempt for average ordinary people and what they consider to be their lack of mental ability.
So they're dead wrong about that.
So Trump comes along and he didn't say anything anybody else wasn't thinking.
He said something everybody was thinking.
He said lists of things everybody was thinking.
He validated.
And he let everybody know that they were right that America is not great with Obama and the Democrat Party in charge.
America is not even trending to the great with Obama and the Democrat Party in charge.
And Trump did not need a focus group Or polling data to tell him this.
His heart told him, his instincts told him.
It's what he saw.
He went out and said it.
Call him Captain Obvious.
And collective politicians have their heads in the sand.
So all Trump has to say, like he said last night, nothing in our country works.
He's mining gold when he says that.
It's a true statement.
Nothing in the country is working right now.
It doesn't mean he's the best person to be president.
But I know one, I know Trump has his finger on the pulse of the people.
Now, whether that qualifies him to be president, that's for voters obviously to decide.
But this is why he leads nationally.
He was first in fearlessly and violating political correctness, pointing out what was wrong.
He was first to cut through all the crap.
And he said that he would cut through all the crap.
He would do what was necessary to destroy the people who are breaking and ruining this country.
And he told how he would do it.
And then to top things off, he said he was a Republican.
Would not go third party last night.
And this is how he said it.
The question from Hugh Hewitt, my listeners tell me again and again, that they're worried that Hillary Clinton will win the White House because you're going to run as an independent.
Are you ready to reassure Republicans tonight that you will run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans?
I really am.
I'll be honest.
I really am.
I have great respect for the people I've met through this process.
I've never done this process before.
I've never been a politician.
I mean, not for the last six months.
I've been a politician.
But I will tell you, uh, I am totally committed to the Republican Party.
I feel very honored to be the front runner.
And I think I'll do very well if I'm chosen, as I'm so fortunate to be chosen, I think I'll do very well.
Polls have come out recently say I would beat Hillary.
I will do everything in my power to beat Hillary Clinton.
I can come.
Okay, so the performance persona is gone there, folks.
That's straight from the heart.
That happens frequently in his personal appearances.
There was humility.
All the characteristics that people think Trump doesn't have were right there in 30 seconds.
And I'll tell you something else.
The Republican Party has a lot of problems, and I am one of many who chronicle them on a daily basis.
But I will tell you this.
For all its problems, the Republican Party is not blaming you and your SUV and your diet for terrorism.
The Democrat Party is.
When the Democrat Party, it's so ridiculous, it's embarrassing.
When the Democrat Party, led by Barack Hussein Oh, and echoed by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, claimed that climate change is responsible for all this.
Well, who's responsible for climate change?
are.
The way you eat, too much bad food is produced, creating CO2, your SUVs, every wasteful ways you use electricity.
You people are causing climate change.
For all its problems, the Republican Party didn't trade five high-value terrorists for a deserter named Bo Bergdahl.
For all of its problems, the Republican Party is not detached from reality like the Democrat Party is.
Keeping America safe does not include a carbon tax.
Keeping America safe does not include releasing thousands of felons like Obama is doing.
Keeping America safe does not include or mean ignoring the borders and just welcoming in anybody who wants to come because we somehow are obligated to.
That does not keep America safe.
The Republican Party does not have a candidate who had top secret emails on an illegal server used for the purposes of destroying evidence of selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of influence to foreign governments and crony capitalists.
All of that corruption is owned and operated by the Democrat Party.
So for all of its faults, the Republican Party is not complicit in not keeping America safe.
The Democrat Party and its policies are right up there.
And along these lines, last night in this in this debate, you know, I thought I thought Ted Cruz was outstanding last night.
Ted Cruz speaks like a traditional, powerful, well-versed, proud, unabashedly proud conservative.
He is an articulate representative of conservatism and the conservative movement, and he is a happy warrior.
He loves doing what he's doing.
He loves mixing it up, he loves getting in there.
And he is relishing this opportunity to put on display what he believes, what millions of the rest of us believe.
I thought Cruz looked really good last night.
Might have even damaged Marco Rubio a little bit.
Rand Paul was attacking uh everybody under the sun, trying to save his candidacy.
But I think Trump, in the midst of all this, you know, Trump did what I thought he would do.
He basically shut up.
He was he was uh he answered questions when he was asked to.
It was not till late in the game when he was goaded by Jeb Bush's attempts here to get back in the game that uh Trump became Trump.
But I think Trump served himself very well last night.
He's basically to every question when ISIS came up, when the NSA came up, when uh beating whoever our enemies are in war, however we do it.
Trump's basic message was, you know, guys, don't don't don't try to hang me up on the niceties and the details of all of this.
We need to kick these guys' butts all over this planet.
We need to kill the terrorists, we need to enlist the right people to do it.
Screw you and your details.
I'm not here to get caught up in details.
I'm a big picture guy.
I want to kill the bad guys, and you want to sit here tonight and tell me why I can't hear and why I can't there, and why we can't overhear.
I want to beat the bad guys.
I want America great again.
Cruz the same thing.
The PC crowd and the moderators, well, you can't do that, innocent children and civilians and so forth.
I'm tired of hearing why we can't do things.
There are things that we're gonna have to do, and I want to go do them.
And don't bog me down with these little details here.
Big picture.
I think it's effective.
So Cruz and Trump last night to me were the uh winners, but uh Rubio, I think his fans uh on marginal inbounds probably would be happy uh with his performance last night.
But that's it for me.
Couple sound bites, and then we get to your phone calls all when we get back here on the EIB network.
Okay, to the phones, George and Raleigh, North Carolina.
You're up first, sir.
Great to have you.
Hi.
Hey, Russ, good to talk to you again.
Russ, I've been I'm a long time listener, I've been listening to you for a long time, and and uh I'm normally in full agreement with your opinions, but I'm just one of those people that can't for the life of me understand the allure of Donald Trump.
I heard so much intellect on that stage last night.
None of it, in my opinion, was coming from Donald Trump.
Well, you I don't think you have heard in terms of uh well, define intellect.
What do you mean by intellect?
You mean intellectualism?
What do you mean?
Manner of speaking?
What do you mean?
Yeah, well, just in substantive uh issues that were when when Carly Fiorina talked about how the internet has left our government behind.
I know exactly what you're saying.
I'm in no way, shape, or form a Rand Paul fan.
But I knew exactly what he was saying.
I know exactly what his position is, and that's why I know that I disagree with him.
Donald Trump hasn't said anything new since he said at the first debate.
I don't know anything more about his policies or how he planned.
Just he said he's gonna get it done.
Well it's gonna be huge and it's gonna be great, but I have no idea how he's going to do it.
Well, from Marco Rubio, I get a sense from Ted Cruz that they that they have a plan.
Okay, so because of that, you're you you don't understand why Trump is number one.
It doesn't make sense to you.
No, it makes no sense to me at all because he he just came off to me last night as the most unintelligent person on that stage.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
The most unintelligent person on the stage.
That's interesting.
The most unintelligent person on the stage.
Well, so then what explains it, do you think, even though you might have been listening on hold where I just did explain it, what do you think explains it?
Well, I I I hate to say it, Rush, but I didn't think in the re in the conservative movement we had low information voters.
I think that people are just drawn to his bomb bath.
Well, now understand something.
Now, wait just a second here.
I've I've said this a number of times, and I I think this is something that's gonna need to be repeated.
The majority of Trump's support base does not come from the Republican base.
A lot of it does, but not the majority.
I mean, his his support base is all over the place demographically.
He's got blue-collar people in there, he's got disaffected Democrats, he's got some Hispanics, he's got a lot of women that support him.
It it actually is what the Republican established claims they want the party to be.
Well, he he he's talking about whacking for lack of a better word.
The families where he's talking about laughing?
Whacking.
I'm sorry, my Italian is coming out in me.
He's talking about whacking the families of jihadists.
Oh, whacking the family.
He's not Don Corleone, he's not running to be Don Corleone.
I mean, that's a ridiculous statement, and people just brush it off.
Like it's normal, it's just Trump being Trump.
No, that's that's that's not fitting of the commander in chief.
Uh let me explain it to you again.
Not justifying, I'm gonna explain it.
You after I explain this to you, you can you can say, Rush, I don't care.
That's not a reason to vote for somebody.
Which don't do it.
If you don't like Trump, don't support him, don't you know, find the guy you like.
But as I just said, you know, there's everybody's asking, and you are too, in your own way.
I don't understand this Trump guy.
I don't understand people supporting Trump.
I don't understand why he's just the dumbest guy in the stage class.
I don't understand it.
I don't even think that's the right question anymore.
If you want to know, if you want to understand why people support Trump, then you need to know what they are asking.
And you know what they're asking?
You know, trying to figure out Trump is the wrong question.
The question is, what's wrong with the ruling class establishment?
They are the ones implementing policies that are causing this country to be at greater risk, less safe, our economy to crumble.
The real question is, what's with the ruling class establishment?
The evidence is abundant that they are doing harm to this country from regulation to taxes to health care entitlements, immigration, national security.
It is the Washington establishment dragging down this country.
And the people supporting Trump have been asking why for years, and they haven't gotten an answer.
The establishment's not interested in what people think.
The question is what's wrong with them, not what's wrong with Trump or Rubio or Cruz or any of these other candidates.
The real why doesn't the establishment see what the rest of us see?
That's the question to me.
And if they do, if they see what we see and it doesn't change the way they implement and support policies, then do they not love the country as much as the rest of us do?
Why would anybody knowingly take us down a path that's gonna end in a horrible crash?
That's the real question.
And Trump is asking that question every appearance, and that's why people are signing on.
He was the first to tap into what Americans are feeling and thinking, George.
When nobody else was.
It's that simple.
Look, folks, hang on.
As soon as we get back, I'm gonna develop this even further because I think this is really important here.
We're asking a wrong question when we ask what's up with Trump.
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