All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 13, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:37
January 13, 2016, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
And greetings, my good friends, and welcome back.
Great to have you.
El Rushball, Cutting Edge, Societal Evolution, A Man, A Legend, A Way of Life.
I haven't seen it.
I haven't heard it.
I've got the networks on here, and apparently there's a video of the capture of the American sailors and soldiers.
And apparently, one of the videos shows a captured soldier apologizing to Iran, to the captors, saying, sorry, it was our fault.
We were where we shouldn't have been, or what have you.
Now, that's all I know about it.
I don't know if the sailor, the soldier was under orders to say that from whoever ran the Benghazi operation.
Just another way of saying the administration.
Or I don't know if this is the way the military is being trained now.
Enemy captures you apologize.
I have no idea.
But it certainly is right in line with how Obama does business with enemies and foreign countries.
He apologizes left and right.
So anyway, we will get the details.
Right here it is, thehill.com White House heaps praise on Nikki Haley after State of the Union response.
Dennis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, who, by the way, was having a little meeting with the press yesterday before Obama did his State of Obama speech last night.
And apparently the press was asking, so what are you going to do?
I mean, this is the last year.
You've got basically 12 months to go here.
And it's going to be less than that because once the primaries start, everybody's going to be focusing on the presidential race.
And this McDonough, the chief of staff, said, we are going to do executive orders and executive actions, the likes of which nobody has ever seen.
We are going to stay irrelevant.
We're going to continue with our transformative change.
And if it requires executive orders all over the place, then that's what we're going to do.
And I totally believe him.
But I want to ask, what do you think the reaction to this is wherever the Republican establishment is headquartered?
And whoever those people are, when I say Republican establishment, I have a group of people in mind that are basically faceless.
It's primarily that when I think of Republican establishment, I think Chamber of Commerce.
I think donors.
I think elected Republicans who receive that money.
Not necessarily the RNC, but maybe they're part of it.
Okay, so Obama goes out there and he sends his chief of staff out there, McDonough, who says, I have a lot of admiration for Nikki Haley.
I think some of the things she has done over the last year are remarkable.
And I think the speech that she gave last night during anxious times, things like this, and calling out these loud voices, I think it was just great.
What do you think the Republican establishment reaction to that is?
I will tell you what it is.
They're happy.
They consider it progress.
And they think the American people are going to see it as progress.
They're going to see it as the Republicans demonstrating that they can cooperate.
The Republicans demonstrating that they can work with the Democrats.
The Republicans demonstrating that they can be bipartisan and have things in common and get things done for America and make Washington work.
That's what they're going to see.
Meanwhile, while they see that and think that, and while they think the American voters are going to think that, the Republican primary is being conducted, and the people leading that Republican primary have a singular message, and that is, we have got to stop letting the establishment in Washington run this country and run the show.
And we have got to distance ourselves from it.
I mean, the message of the Republican primary is the people running the country right now are the problem.
The message in the Republican primary right now is the Democrat Party and Barack Obama are the problem.
The Republican Party sends Nikki Haley out.
She does an answer to Obama.
It gets universally praised from the drive-by media, so-called conservative media, some quarters.
And now the White House, and I guarantee you, the Republican establishment thinks that a majority of the American voters are going to think this is the greatest thing, and they're going to think great things about Republicans and Nikki Haley because we've demonstrated this ability to be bipartisan and cooperate.
And the same token, by definition of that, the Republican establishment is going to have to think that what's happening in the Republican primary race is tiny and small and represents a minority of thinking in the country.
They have to.
If they are, there's a caveat here.
I'm assuming we all are assuming that they are ecstatic with the White House praise of Nikki Haley.
If they are, then by definition, folks, it follows that they have to think what's happening in the Republican primary is insignificant and not representative of a majority of thought in the country and is almost irrelevant.
And if all of that is true, it is a microcosm of why and how they are in trouble and actually don't seem to have the slightest idea why.
Now, in the Republican primary, the gloves are coming off from Trump and Cruz.
Both campaigns are starting to go after each other now.
And it's interesting to note that the drive-bys all said this wouldn't happen unless somebody got the go-ahead from me here at Talk Radio.
Remember that?
What happened was that Trump goes after Cruz, but he did so using liberal language.
I forget the specifics of what it was, but he attacked Cruz the way liberal Democrats would.
And at that point, Donald, if you want to get Cruz, go ahead, but it's not going to help you to do that.
Not that way.
And Trump backed off.
And so the media started running around saying, well, isn't it interesting?
Limbaugh gets mad at Trump and Trump backs down.
So is it going to take Limbaugh approving of Trump's behavior before he gets back into gear?
And now Trump and Cruz are going at each other without regard for what's being said about them here on talk radio or anywhere else, which is fine.
It's the natural evolution of a political competition.
The two frontrunners are going after each other.
Now, the way it is manifesting itself now, Real Clear Politics has a story here that the Cruz campaign is making phone calls in primary states that are the equivalent of testing various lines or criticisms of Trump.
They're running them by people on the phone to get a reaction to it.
Here's how the Real Clear Politics story begins.
Although Ted Cruz has insisted that he will not personally attack Trump as the race for the nomination heats up, supporters of Cruz appear to be weighing how best to target Trump in Iowa, where Cruz holds a narrow lead.
A message testing phone call in Iowa on Monday floated seven distinct lines of attack against Trump, asking whether each one would make the listener more or less likely to support him.
Kidron Bardwell, a political science professor at Simpson College in Iowa, received one of these calls, and he made detailed notes, which he provided then to Real Clear Politics.
One potential attack noted Trump's recent remark to a Christian audience in Iowa that he has never asked God for forgiveness.
So apparently what's happening is that Trump people or Cruz people are calling people in Iowa and say, hey, Donald Trump said to an audience, a Christian audience in Iowa that he's never asked God for forgiveness.
Does that make you more or less likely to support Trump?
Another question depicted Trump as a New York liberal pretending to have conservative values.
And Trump's even, or Cruz rather, has even gone public with that the other day.
He said, look, everybody knows Donald Trump is New York.
And he didn't characterize New York what, but the message is clear, New Yorkers are liberal.
Two other potential attacks target Trump's loyalty to the GOP.
One noting that Trump had changed his party ID, the other mentioning his Reform Party candidacy for president 1999 and 2000 and his prior financial support for Democrats.
Three other attacks cited Trump's stances on eminent domain, abortion, and single-payer health care.
In other words, the Cruz people are calling people up and said, Do you know Donald Trump one time supported single-payer health care?
Do you know that Donald Trump at one time was pro-choice?
Do you know at one time, and even now Donald Trump believes in imminent domain?
What's that?
Well, that's where the government come take your property and pay you a little bit for it.
So the theory is that there's a cruise people making these phone calls, engaging the response on the phones in advance of preparing attack ads against Trump.
So, for all of you who have called here or written me sometimes nice, sometimes caustic emails accusing me of giving Trump a pass on the premise that Trump's not a conservative and I am.
And why am I not calling him on it?
Why am I letting him get away?
Well, why are you supporting Trump?
Trump's not a conservative, blah, blah, blah, on that.
The answer has always been: don't worry, the candidates will take care of that in due course.
At some point, there's been a hands-off toward Trump now for all the obvious reasons.
I mean, Trump fires back when you hit him, for one thing.
The other thing is there are still people who think Trump's not going to make it.
There are some who think that Trump supporters are not going to caucus.
They're not going to show up and actually vote.
There are some who think that after Iowa and New Hampshire, that Trump actually isn't going to win any of them.
And when that happens, the whole dynamic has changed.
And the long version of the story is that Trump may end up getting out of this, and he's got a lot of voters out there.
So I don't want to be too hard on Trump, some of these candidates are saying, because I want his voters if he doesn't make it.
There's all kinds of reasons why people aren't criticizing Trump.
But with every day that goes by that Trump doesn't get out, with every day that goes by that Trump does not weaken, with every day that goes by that nothing changes, well, then the people who want what Trump wants are going to start hitting him.
And it appears the Cruz campaign is getting ready for a salt, but they're getting ready for an ad campaign that is actually going to focus on the fact that Trump may not be a conservative.
Some of you people supporting Trump may think he is, but he's not.
Now, I don't know for sure that's happening, but that's what this real clear politics story sets up as a possibility.
It says the message-testing telephone calls come as the race to win Iowa has narrowed to Cruz and Trump, both of whom lead Marco Rubio by double digits.
And this story is from yesterday.
Washington Examiner, this gives a different side of it.
This story, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump captures 45% of the vote in a three-way race with Senators Cruz and Rubio, which this is Paul Bedard writing in the Washington Examiner, which says is the latest sign that Republican voters are ready to accept Donald Trump as their nominee.
A new yougov.com poll finds that in the three-way race, a potential situation after the first several primaries, Trump support from those backing other candidates surges equally with Cruz and Rubio.
See, this is another factor.
There are going to be people dropping out of this after Iowa, after New Hampshire.
I mean, some of these people sitting out there with one, two, four, five, six, they're going to drop out.
They've got voters.
Where are they going to go?
That's what this poll attempted to find out.
And they're shocked.
The conventional wisdom was that Trump was not going to get any more support than what he already has.
They say, well, how could he get out of Christie?
And I don't, not predicting anything.
I'm just mentioning names.
When Jendal, any of them, when they get out, the theory has been those voters are going to go somewhere else, but not to Trump.
They might go to Cruz.
They might go to Rubio.
They might go to Jeb, but they're not going to go to Trump.
This poll shows, uh-uh, a lot of them are going to go to Trump.
And so the upshot of this is, and this cannot be good news to the Republican establishment, is that when this thing gets narrowed to three ways, Donald Trump still cleans up.
When it's Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, Trump's still in the lead.
In other words, he doesn't get watered down.
The theory was that Trump would get watered down as people leave because their supporters would go elsewhere, Rubio, Cruz, but some of them go to Trump and keep him where he is.
This, I guarantee the establishment is going to lose its mind when they find this out.
See, this is another thing the establishment has been hoping would happen, that when some of the other candidates drop out, that others would strengthen.
But Trump wouldn't gain it because they've been convincing themselves that Trump's support has maxed, that its Trump peak has happened, that he can't get any more popular, that if he were going to have more support, he would already have it.
People supporting other candidates are not going to go to Trump under Canada's dropout.
Not true, apparently.
So they're going to be beside themselves.
And they clearly are on the way, even as we speak.
Be right back, folks.
Don't go.
Okay, grab soundbite number, what is it, number seven?
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, over the moon.
Just could not contain herself.
So excited over Nikki Haley's response last night.
I think she killed it.
A very effective Republican response.
She called out Republicans for being partly responsible for the broken system, the lack of trust in government.
Also took a real shot at Donald Trump when saying that the loudest voice in the room, being loud and being noisy, doesn't mean that that's the way you have to vote in politics.
Did you hear that?
Oh, I thought she killed it.
I thought it was great.
She blamed the Republicans for everything.
Exactly.
Why wouldn't you think this was great if you're a Democrat, if you're in the media?
She's doing your job for you.
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, taking the day off today because of Nikki Haley doing it for me last night.
She didn't have to work today.
She went out there.
She did Andrea Mitchell's job.
No wonder Andrea Mitchell likes it.
She killed it.
A very effective Republican sponge calling out Republicans for being partly responsible.
She did.
There wasn't anything anti-Obama in this speech or very little.
And here is David Brooks, he of the slant, the smart, crease, and the slacks, qualifying Obama to be president.
This was on PBS special coverage, the Republican response last night.
An excellent response to the Trump campaign.
She did sort of mention Barack Obama in passing, but it was mostly a response to Trump.
It was a response to some of the xenophobia and mostly the style, the loud voices.
If you want the Republican establishment fighting back on Trump, there you just saw it.
I thought she hit one of the high watermarks.
Oh, yeah, that was great.
That was an excellent response to the Trump campaign.
Sort of mentioned Obama in passing.
Of course, that makes it even better.
She had mentioned Obama.
We love Obama.
We hear PBS.
The Republicans say, we love Obama.
She didn't hit Obama at all, but there's a response.
Xenophobia, loud voices, Limbaugh, Trump, you name it.
She went after them all.
We love it.
It's kick-ass.
That's what they think.
And these are Republicans.
Brooks, supposedly, Republican establishment.
We got a Lori and Orlando coming up.
Lori has not enough time here to be fair to you before the end of the break.
So hang on through the break.
Just a couple more minutes and we'll get to you.
In the meantime, controversy explodes over Iranian images of U.S. sailors.
Iran today released a series of pictures and videos showing the 10 U.S. Navy sailors it apprehended yesterday, inflaming the American debate over their capture, including the question of whether the U.S. had formally apologized for entering Iranian territory.
The Iranian media, made up of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Agency and Tasnim News Agency, published roughly two dozen pictures in five videos, a couple of which feature a male sailor apologizing and praising Iran's treatment.
The purported American sailor says, it was a mistake that was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake.
The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here, and we thank them very much for their hospitality and their assistance.
We had no problems here.
Think of it what you will.
That's what the Iranians released as having transpired.
We apologized and praised them for treating us well, and the whole thing was our fault.
Right.
The saga continues a man, a legend, a way of life.
Okay, this Iranian business.
Folks, you can think what you want, but I'm going to tell you something.
This kind of story where we apologized, and boy, the Iranians were so nice.
Oh, my God, it was so much fun doing what it was so nice.
It was our fault.
We shouldn't have been there.
We apologize.
They treated us so well.
You might think that's cool.
I'm telling you, that's one of the biggest propaganda victories that this satanic country could get.
And it's going to, in the Middle East, where this is the kind of stuff that matters, it's going to make it look like they totally dominate us.
It's going to come across as another huge victory over the great Satan, the United States of America.
Now, last night, last night, in his State of the Union speech, Obama's going, oh, no, no, we're the most powerful country in the world.
We got the best fighting force in the world.
We got the best military in the world.
We spend more on our military than the first eight nations behind us.
Combines with the greatest battle machine.
Ask yourself a question.
All of that may be true.
We may be the most powerful nation in the world.
What kind of rules of engagement are they saddled with?
But more importantly than that, why?
I'm dead serious about this.
Why?
Given that we have the most powerful military, the greatest fighting force ever, we can project more power than any nation on earth can even dream of.
Why are all of our enemies growing in power?
Why are they getting bigger?
Why are they stronger?
Why are our enemies more dangerous than ever?
Why are they bigger, more dangerous, and wreaking more havoc than ever before under Obama?
That's how you measure it.
We can have the best, most powerful fighting force in the world, and if it's led by a wuss or somebody who thinks that it's the problem in the world, what good is it under his command?
And make no mistake, Barack Hussein Obama is one of these people that thinks the United States military is one of the greatest problems in the world, historically and at present.
Do not doubt me.
It falls right in line with this whole belief system that the United States is not the solution to the world's problems.
We are the problem.
Henceforth, we've got to get out.
We've got to extricate ourselves because we have caused all these problems.
We've caused all this animosity.
We have caused all this angst out there.
We've done it.
Well, the U.S. military is our agent.
So you can brag about the military all you want, Mr. President, but how come every enemy of consequence is more powerful than it was seven years ago?
Bigger and stronger than it was seven years ago, and more successful than it was seven years ago.
That's the question.
Okay, now here's Lori in Orlando.
I really appreciate you holding on, Lori.
Thanks very much.
And welcome to the program.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'm a single mom, and I'm depressed.
You know, our health care system was supposed to be more affordable, and it's not.
I got to see firsthand how poorly Obamacare works while I watched my elderly father die last month.
And watching the State of the Union message last night gave me even less hope for our country.
And, you know, where does our hope lie?
What is the new administration going to have to do to turn our country around?
What is it going to take to turn our country around?
And I would like to hear what you have to say about that.
I also have a follow-up.
I have an answer.
I have something else, though, that I want to ask you, though, before you hang up.
Okay, just don't lose your place.
Okay.
All right.
Because I'm going to answer you here.
Okay, you're going to answer me?
Do you want me to go ahead or do you want me to wait for you?
What do you want to do?
What do I want to do about that?
No, no.
You want to ask the second question and get it all?
None of you want to wait for me to answer your first one and then ask the second one.
Well, my second one, Mike, I don't want my second one to get you off track.
You won't.
I don't lose my place.
Don't worry, Anna.
Well, my second question to you is that I know yesterday was your birthday.
Yeah.
And so I want to wish you a happy belated birthday for one.
But I would also like to send you and your staff a copy of a book called The Masked Saint.
And in theaters now, there's a movie based on that book called The Mass Saint.
It was just released last Friday.
And the liberals don't want that movie out there.
There's another movie coming that liberals are not going to be.
14 hours?
No.
Well, yeah, but there's another one coming in March by my friend Cyrus Norasta, who did The Path to 9-11.
This movie is going to open in 3,000 theaters, I think March the 11th.
And I'm having a metal block in the title.
I can look it up here in a minute if I get the email.
But what it is about, it's about Jesus Christ at age seven as he has learning what and who he is and what he is to become.
Oh, that's awesome.
It is a fascinating premise.
Cyrus and his wife wrote it.
He directed it.
He'd been working on it for two years, and it's going to open at 3,000.
The Young Messiah, Young Messiahs, is what it is.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Well, this book that I'm telling you about, The Mask Saint, was written by Dr. Chris Whaley, who, by the way, happens to be my brother.
He was a professional wrestler, and he's a pastor.
And the movie's based on his life.
It opened in theaters around the United States on Friday on January 8th.
It's an incredible movie, and I would love for you to go see it.
And I would love to send you a copy of that book.
And I would also love to send you a screener copy of the movie if you'd like.
Well, you don't need to send the book because we will buy.
I will buy the book.
I'll go get it.
I read the e-version of books anyway, so I'll just get it that way.
I'd rather buy it than you give it to me.
I mean, you wrote the book to sell it, didn't you?
And you've just promoted it here, so you don't need to give me the book in order to promote it.
Okay.
Well, thank you for letting me do that.
But I do want an answer to my question, though.
No, now you don't care about my answer to the question now.
I do.
You got to your follow-up, and that's what...
I'm just excited to talk to you.
I waited for two hours to talk to you.
I'm excited.
The answer to the question is very simple.
Executing it's a different matter.
But your question, the answer to it's very simple.
And critics of me and even all spectrum are going to say, that's simplistic, Rush.
That's not an answer.
Do you want to know what has to be done to paraphrase your question?
What has to be done?
What does a new administration have to do to turn the country around, right?
Yes.
Reject liberalism.
We have got to weed out as much of liberalism from the fabric of our government as we can at every level of the bureaucracy.
We have got to do whatever we can to clean up the judiciary.
That's the longer, obviously, process because we've got lifetime appointments there.
But the reason we are in the problems or have the problems we have is liberalism, liberal Democrats, liberalism socialism, whatever.
It's got to stop.
It's got to be reversed.
And so if you really want to fix this country, we have got to begin implementing conservative values and philosophies by people who know it, love it, believe it, can explain it, and can make it happen.
Because most, the American people, I am convinced, the vast majority of American people are conservative in the way they raise their kids, in the way they live their lives, in the way they hope for their future.
Now, conservatism has been so tarnished by reputation.
It's been so besmirched and impugned that a lot of people think that it's something that it isn't, which is why it's very important to have somebody who actually is and can articulate it, promote it, explain it, because it's just common, ordinary, everyday values, morality, and so forth rooted in individual liberty and freedom.
It's the exact opposite of what we have had dominating and running this country for the last seven years and arguably much longer than that.
It's not an immediate fix.
There is no immediate fix.
One election is not going to fix what's wrong.
It's going to take many.
It's going to take a lot of energy and significant amount of time to A, stop the directions that we're headed and then turn it around and go the other way.
But that's, it's not a simplistic, it is a simple answer.
Others are going to want to make it complicated and reject it because it's simplistic, but that is the answer.
Liberalism is why we have the problems we have.
Liberalism is why the American people are hopeless.
Liberalism is why the American people are uneducated.
Liberalism is why there's no economy.
Liberalism is why there's no jobs.
Liberalism is why there is no optimism.
Liberalism is why people believe in hoaxes like global warming and think they're to blame for all these things.
Liberalism is why people are going to die if they have a cup of coffee.
Or too much salt.
Liberalism is why there's pessimism everywhere.
It's got to stop.
It's got to be defeated.
People have to be educated to understand what it is, how to spot it, and always oppose it.
Pure and simple.
Appreciate the call, Lori.
We'll get the book.
And I think we've got a secret address we can give you to send the screener.
Snerdley would know.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah, here's that sailor apologizing.
Now, this is Iranian state TV.
They played a video of an unidentified man that they said was allegedly the commander of American naval forces captured by Iran.
So all of this comes from Iran, that these are captured soldiers, sailors, and that Iran is alleging that he was the captain.
Is Iran's alleging that they apologized?
So that's the caveat.
Here is the video from Iranian state TV.
It was a mistake that was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake.
It was a misunderstanding.
We did not mean to go into Iranian territorial water.
The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here.
We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance.
Hey, so that's what it is.
Now, what do you think the odds are somebody from the United States military got on the phone to these guys, said, this is what you say.
We've greased the skids for your release, and this is what you have to say.
Or the Iranians are making it up.
And those are not really U.S. sailors, and it's just really good English-speaking people being presented as sailors.
Listen to Plugs Biden.
This is from this morning on CBA.
Get this now.
None of the boats had engine failure, drifted into Iranian waters.
The Iranians picked up both boats, as we have picked up Iranian boats that needed to be rescued, and took them to, I'm not sure exactly where.
I don't want to misspeak here, and realized they were there in distress and said they released them and released them like, you know, ordinary nations would do.
That's the way nations should deal with.
That's why it's important to have channels open.
Should we apologize to the Iranians?
No, there was no apology.
It doesn't apologize for.
When you have a problem with the boat, you apologize.
The boat had a problem?
No, and there was no looking for any apology.
Well, then, what the hell is this, Plugs?
So Biden's on CBS saying, no, no, no, no, no, there was no apology.
There's nothing to apologize for.
We didn't apologize.
You have a problem with a boat?
Do you apologize?
The boat had a problem.
We didn't apologize.
So grab number 3033 again after Plugs is no, no, no, no, there was no apology.
We didn't apologize.
It was a mistake that was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake.
It was a misunderstanding.
We did not mean to go into Iranian territorial water.
The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here.
We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance.
All right, so you figure it out, folks.
Plugs said no apology.
No reason to apologize.
Nothing to apologize for.
The Iranians released a video of our guys apologizing.
The GOP established got to love this.
The GOP established this is the greatest thing we need to do.
Yeah, we were to blame.
The soldiers did one thing wrong.
They didn't.
Actually, no, they did take the blame.
Oh, my God.
The Republican establishment has got to love this.
The sailors apologized and took the blame for the problem.
Right, if they had just started complaining about the loud voices on the ocean, confused them, it would have been a home run.
I don't know, it feels like Thursday to me today, but it isn't.
I guess States of the Union, I always think of having on Wednesdays, but it was too.
So tomorrow is Thursday, and we'll see you then, folks.
▲
Export Selection