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Feb. 3, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:38
February 3, 2016, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Here we go.
All right.
There we go.
Greetings, my friends.
Welcome back.
Great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh here in the cutting edge of societal evolution.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
And those of you on hold, please be patient.
I'll get to you.
Start on the phones as soon as I can in this hour.
You know, I was telling Mr. Snerdley yesterday, is this an observation?
It's not meant to be a comment on anything or anybody else.
I was just telling Mr. Snerdley that if I did have guests on this show, I don't know where I would squeeze them in.
I can't fathom it.
We never have that.
I mean, I haven't taken a call yet.
And I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to make time for that because we barely scratched the surface on all the stuff that I want to touch on today.
And there's stuff beyond the world of politics, like that Super Bowl story, USA Today trying to guilt trip people into not watching it because you're promoting the concussion culture that has taken over the NFL.
And you, by watching it and buying the products of the sponsors and so forth, you are encouraging and promoting the great harm occurring to NFL players.
It's amazing.
And it's exactly the kind of stuff that I knew was coming years ago when this full-fledged assault on football began.
Anyway, there's that.
There's other things out there.
It was, by the way, the Illinois Board of Elections that has declared Ted Cruz a natural born citizen.
The state's Board of Elections ruled that Cruz met the citizenship criteria to appear on the ballot in Illinois.
Two state residents, William Graham and Lawrence Joyce, had challenged Cruz's eligibility with the board, claiming his name should not appear on the primary ballot on March 15th because his candidacy did not comply with Article 2 of the Constitution.
The Board of Elections in Illinois told those two guys to go pound sand.
Is he at that thing now?
He is.
Obama's at the mosque.
He chose a mosque in Baltimore.
And it was a big deal.
First president ever to visit a mosque in America.
And he's saying, this mosque, like so many, is an all-American story.
What did I read that it's one of the most extreme mosques in the country?
If so, doesn't surprise me at all.
I want to go back to this allegation of cheating and fraud against Senator Cruz on this business of trying to take advantage of a confusing tweet from the Carson campaign about leaving Iowa and going back to Florida.
And that tweet, by the way, the original tweet was a CNN tweet.
And the original CNN tweet, it was not a Carson campaign tweet.
It was not a Cruz campaign tweet.
The CNN tweet that got everybody going on this habit at 5.43 on Monday, which is, I think it's Central Time, so be an hour and 15 minutes before the caucuses began.
And it's a tweet from Chris Moody, CNN.
Carson won't go to New Hampshire or South Carolina, but instead will head home to Florida for some R. And then he'll be in D.C. on Thursday for the national prayer breakfast.
That tweet was then assumed to mean something, or at least somebody sought to take advantage of it and have it mean something.
Now, I have a question.
And the question is, how many votes was Dr. Carson denied because of this fraud?
I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers the vote totals on the Republican side from the Iowa caucuses.
Ted Cruz, more votes than any Republican has ever received in the Iowa caucus.
51,666.
Donald Trump, 45,427.
Marco Rubio, 43,165.
Here are the delegates.
Ted Cruz, 51,000 votes, eight delegates.
Donald Trump, 45,000 votes, 7 delegates.
Marco Rubio, 43,000 votes, seven delegates.
Ben Carson, 17,395 votes and three delegates.
Now, my question is, in order for Dr. Carson to have caught Marco Rubio and tied him for third place, there would have had to have been a change of 25,000 votes in both directions.
So Carson would have to win 12,500 and Rubio would have to lose 12,500 or any combination thereof equal 25,000 because Carson needed 25,000 votes in order to tie Rubio.
His total was 17,395.
Does anybody believe that Ben Carson was cheated out of 25,000 votes because of this fraud?
Well, we don't know, but the polling data, remember now the last poll that everybody trusted, the Des Moines Register poll before the caucuses began, had Trump up by four, Cruz in second place, Rubio in third place, and Carson in fourth place, and then everybody after that didn't matter.
Carson at 9%, Rand Paul at 5%, and then 3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 and 1.
So aside from the position to Cruz and Trump, the poll was accurate.
So would had nobody tweeted that Carson was leaving the race, had nobody tweeted, hey, you don't need to vote for Carson, he's getting out of the race, would he have somehow ended up with 25,000 more votes?
Can you see it?
We will never know.
Obviously, the Trump campaign and the Carson campaign are going to try to make the case that it is entirely possible that Ben Carson got shafted out of 25,000 votes.
I mean, they practically have to if they're going to go forward with this and make it the big cause that it happens to be.
Now, I happened to mention a previous half hour that I happened to be discussed on the Fox News channel last night.
I wanted three soundbites here, and I want to get into them.
The premise was based on a phone call that I received yesterday.
It's one of many I get, and you've heard them, and countless emails.
And, you know, not just emails and phone calls.
When I'm just out and about, people mention things like this to me.
But we had a caller yesterday.
You know, Rud, Fox News just doesn't seem as conservative anymore.
No, no, no.
They're always attacking conservatives.
They're attacking, and suddenly they've got all these liberals on there now, these analysts and their experts or whatever, strategists.
They're always going after conservatives now.
And that debate, I just don't understand.
What does it mean?
So I sought to explain to yesterday's caller what I thought the explanation for this was.
Bill O'Reilly aired that and then began a discussion of it with KB Pavlich, who is the editor of Townhall.com.
So here is O'Reilly setting it up.
Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said this.
I think Fox is burdened with this belief that everybody in the media thinks they're conservative and they don't want to be thought of that way.
So they will purposely hit conservatives hard to show that they are not friends and not biased in favor of conservatives.
Now, speaking for myself, I hit everybody hard if that's necessary.
And that's the way the media should cover politics.
Okay, so that's O'Reilly playing the soundbite clip of me and then reacting to it.
And the point, by the way, yesterday's not the first time I've said this.
I'm blue in the face saying it.
I think it's true not just to Fox.
I mean, hell, it explains half the behavior pattern of the GOP establishment.
They're tired of what people think of them and they want to correct them or disabuse them of the notion.
And, you know, you get inside these capitals, the Washingtons, the New Yorks inside these places and the culture where the left runs them.
The Democrats run both the corporate and social culture in these towns.
And I don't have any doubt that being accused of being conservative is not cool to a lot of people.
No, no, no.
And so to demonstrate that they're fair, I don't think it's really trying to demonstrate they're not conservative.
I think the better way of saying it is that there are some people at Fox, and I don't know that it's a corporate thing.
I just think some people think that if they go after conservatives, that they'll be seen as fair and not in the tank for anybody.
No more complicated than that.
And I think it's true of not just of people in the media or at Fox, but if you ever encounter conservative on conservative crime, so to speak, I think one of the explanations is that whoever is doing the criticizing is attempting to curry favor with whoever the power structure where they live is,
so that they will not be lumped in with all these crazy, wacko, pro-life conservatives and so forth.
So anyway, O'Reilly said, no, no, no, no, speaking for myself, I hit everybody, if that's necessary.
Katie Pavlich, townhall.com brought on O'Reilly, said, Katie, what do you think about Mr. Limbaugh's statement?
I think that he's wrong.
Fox News is exactly that.
It is a news outlet.
We provide the news.
Megyn Kelly, of course, is one of those people who has been in the news a lot for asking a certain candidate a question that their supporters didn't like.
Fox News anchors and reporters aren't purposely going after conservatives.
They're simply asking questions about their records and about their positions, and that is called journalism.
It's not about purposely going after them to somehow prove that they're not conservative.
Journalists here are simply doing their job.
O'Reilly says, well, if you ask somebody's candidate that they're supporting a tough question, and they don't like that, because on talk radio, the host favors somebody, and they're not skeptical of that person.
Conservative audiences in general have been complaining for years about the mainstream media being biased towards their presidential candidates, Senate candidates.
You can't complain about the media not holding Barack Obama accountable, for example, but then also complain when journalists at Fox News or other outlets are asking Republicans some similar questions about their positions.
What, didn't they just make my point there?
Didn't they sort of, in a circuitous way, make my point?
They want to be known tough on both sides.
They want to be known as being able to be tough on both sides.
But nobody at NBC or CBS or ABC or CNN worries about that.
Does anybody ever get mad at CNN for the way they might go after, say, Bill de Blasio?
Have you ever heard it happen?
Have you ever heard anybody complain at CNN about the way they go?
Michael Moore, take your pick of whoever.
It doesn't happen, does it?
I just, I don't think it's a complicated thing here at all.
What O'Reilly's point is, and we're in broadcast news, we do not have chosen sides, chosen candidates.
We do not have favorites.
But talk radio does.
Talk radio is, the hosts always favor somebody.
And they're never skeptical.
They're not skeptical of that person.
Au contraire.
I think talk radio holds more people accountable and in a tougher way than you'll find in a whole host of places.
But anyway, that's what it was.
People were curious about it.
Now we're going to take a timeout.
We'll get to your calls, as I promise, so don't go away.
Folks, also coming up, there are a couple of, um, what?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm going to address the Rubio thing.
Of course.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, of course it's part of the mix.
But I've got a couple of really fascinating, you know, people are still analyzing the Trump phenomenon.
Victor Davis Hanson National Review has a really, really good piece today on that.
There's also a great piece here from the News Oklahoma, News OK website, about a professor at the University of Oklahoma who tackles the subject of explaining why millennials and college students and young people are attracted to Bernie Sanders.
It's the age-old question, what is it about socialism that's so seductive?
It's a demonstrable fraud.
it has never worked and the evidence is right in front of everybody's face now seven years of applied concentrated socialism doesn't work so why does it still attract people this guy is obviously a lone wolf And the faculty in Oklahoma, because he's blaming education.
He says that the attraction to socialism, and this makes sense, but his points here are unique, and I want to share them with you.
That the attraction of socialism can be found in education.
Now, I know that may seem like, of course, Rush, no big deal there, but it's interesting the way he gets there in this piece.
And there's one other thing here that is a besides the Victor Davis Hansen piece.
Actually, it's a David French piece in National Review about Rubio and the establishment and so forth.
So that and much else still ahead, but we go to the phones now.
We're going to start with Jimmy in Toms River, New Jersey.
And as always, I really appreciate your patience in waiting.
How are you?
You must be kidding with the patience part.
I got to tell you, your call screener told me to keep the butt kissing at a minimum.
But I have to tell you, it's a true honor to speak to you.
He's an inspiration to me through a lot of hard times and a lot about life.
And I really do mean that, Rush.
It's not just the obligatory mega giddos.
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
I really do.
I got a couple of quick points.
First about the Iowa polls, which will lead into my main point.
You know, when you look at it and analyze those polls, Cruz's number was about where most of the polls shows he was going to be, anywhere between 24 to 25 to 26.
He ended up at 27.
Where they were off was obviously Trump's number, but that leads me into this.
Rubio, the massive turnout, really, if you look at it, went to Rubio.
There was a massive turnout.
Whether it was a true, just absolute I have to vote for Rubio or another reason, which I think it was another reason that I'm going to get to now.
I've been a Trump guy from the beginning, Rush.
I'm one of those angry people.
I grew up, I grew up in abject poverty with abusive parents, and Ronald Reagan told me I can be different.
That where I came from is not where I can end up, and this country has afforded me things and lets me do things that I can only imagine.
And I've also supported the Republican Party, and they slapped me in my face.
Two landslide Senate victories that did nothing but get them to capitulate to avoid.
Okay, wait a minute.
I'm getting off the road here.
You were a Trump supporter?
Yes, I was.
Okay, and because I'm one of those angry men.
Right, so you were an angry guy, and you wanted everybody to know how mad you were, the things were going wrong, and you think there's all kinds of stuff, and you like the fact that Trump was a vessel for your anger.
Is that right?
Exactly.
And I was willing to overlook the fact that really any honest person has to say he is not a Reagan conservative or a traditional conservative.
Okay, so are you overlooked that?
Okay, but you're in New Jersey, so you didn't vote in the Iowa caucus, but you wanted about Rubio and where his numbers came from.
Well, what my overall point is, is I think what happened is this.
The anger can only last so long, okay?
I'm angry about the things that I mentioned.
And, you know, I'm angry at the fact that I was laid off eight months ago when I'm weeks away from being homeless after raising two kids since I was 16 and coming from nothing.
You know, but the anger can only last so long.
And hearing him constantly talk about the Canada thing, even after he lost, which anybody of any type of conscience has to look at why you lost and humble you a bit and lead you in a different direction.
He still hops on the canvas.
Now, wait a minute.
I just want to make sure that Trump has lost you because he won't get off of Canada thing.
It's not the Canada thing overall.
It's starting to seem like his anger is disingenuous, and he's angry for anger's sake, not just angry for principles.
He's angry because it sells something.
I don't want to be sold anything anymore.
I was sold something by the mainstream Republican Party that obviously was proven to be a lie over and over again.
I don't want to be sold anymore.
And it's starting to think that this whole anger with him is not for the reasons that he tends to let out.
It's more for this is what they're going to buy.
Are you jumping here?
Jimmy, time is dwindling, and our phone system is such that we actually can't have a conversation.
That's why I have to sound like I'm interrupting you.
But are you saying that Trump's anger, while you think is legitimate, is not, he doesn't understand why you're mad and therefore you don't think that he really gets it, and he's just being angry now because he thinks that's what's attracting people to him?
100%.
Like I say, again, I worked hard all my life, okay?
I was laid off eight months ago.
I don't want anybody to give me nothing.
But I've searched out opportunities for days and days.
My savings is gone.
Everything is gone.
And there's no opportunities anymore.
Right, right, right.
You've got a chance for me to start work and get somewhere anymore.
Okay.
I have to run.
I'm out of time.
I'm frustratedly out of time.
By the way, the NFL story in the USA Today, just to tell you, again, it's a story claiming that we all ought to not watch the Super Bowl because we all have collective guilt over the concussion phenomenon happening to players.
It's our fault, and watching it furthers the occurrence of concussions and so forth.
In addition, that accompanies that, I don't know if you've heard it yet or not, but they just apparently, I don't know if an autopsy or study, but they announced that Kenny Stabler of the Oakland Raiders had CTE.
He died of cancer not long ago at a young age.
Stabler was always a renegade, a maverick.
He was, well, some might say crazy, like a lot of the raiders in his era were.
Now, all of a sudden, guess what?
Stabler had CTE.
This is what is resulting from concussions, the lesions on the brain that explain suicidal behavior a la junior sayow.
And the latest to be added to this is O.J. Simpson.
O.J. Simpson head CTE.
So the anti-concussion forces, anti-NFL, are gearing up here in Super Bowl Week to take advantage of the attention of the game to get their political point of view about football out there.
Kenny Stabler and O.J. Simpson.
And there happens to be a special that started last night, special.
It's a 10-episode series on the FX Network, American Crime Story, the O.J. Simpson story or whatever, based on a book written about O.J. Simpson and the murder, the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, based on Jeffrey Toobin's book, that premiered last night on FX.
And now we're finding out, hey, maybe it wasn't OJ's fault.
O.J. was sick.
O.J. Simpson had seen.
They're speculating that he might have had CTE.
They've announced that Stabler did.
Now, as to our last caller, it depends.
Folks, the phone system here is weird.
And it happens most of the time when people are on a cell phone.
You ever used a speaker phone where you can't talk to who you're talking to until you shut up.
And while you're speaking, they can be shouting and you will not hear them.
That's the way the phone system is here for some reason on cell phones.
I was unable to talk to the guy.
I had to just keep shouting at him until he stopped talking and took a breath, is when he could hear me.
But what I was able to get out of it, what I was able to put together was he was originally a Trump supporter because he thought Trump's anger was exactly what's needed.
And he was detailing his lot in life, how he started out and lost everything, became a Reaganite and so forth, believes in America.
And he's angry at all of the destructions taking place, taking place and taking place in the country.
And he thought Trump was just ideal.
And he's out of the Trump support window now.
He has abandoned Trump.
Those are my words, not his, but he said he's over it.
And the reason is he doesn't think that Trump's anger is genuine.
That's when he was talking about he thinks Trump's anger is a sales technique.
And what convinced him of this is that he doesn't understand why after the election, after it's all over in Iowa, why he's still continuing to go after Cruz and the Canada angle.
To him, this is what he was saying.
As a Trump supporter, it doesn't make any sense.
To him, nobody would really be mad about that.
It doesn't make sense to be that mad about whether somebody might be Canadian or not.
So that was his point.
That's what he was aiming at.
And we were able to dissect it for you during the break.
Now back to the phones.
Joel in Coconut Creek, Florida.
It's great to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
It's an honor to be with you.
Thank you, sir.
You know, Trump started off his whole campaign with the signature issue of immigration, you know, about the wall and putting the big, beautiful door in the middle of it.
And that's, he really got everybody fired up with that.
And if you look at the list of candidates that we have, you know, you'd have to say Rubio is the shakiest on immigration.
You know, since he's announced, you know, whether it's in the debates or in tweets or, you know, whenever he gets a chance, he's gone after everybody, even people that were lower in the polls all along.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Who Rubio or Cruz is going after?
Or Trump is going after everybody.
Trump.
You know, and now it's basically exclusively Cruz.
My question for you, I wanted to know what you thought about this, is I was thinking about it, and I don't remember a time that Trump ever has gone after Rubio about really anything, and specifically on immigration.
You would think, you know, if that's his number one issue, and he garnered a lot of support that way, why hasn't he gone after Rubio one time on immigration?
Well, Rubio has never been the frontrunner, but don't forget that for a long period of time, in practically all of December and much of January, I'd say the first half of January, Trump and Cruz had what looked like a mutual admiration society going.
They were not, Cruz was pointedly not criticizing Trump.
The theory when that was happening was, this is when everybody was still of the belief, well, not everybody, the consultant class, the donor class, the establishment, all thought or hoped or were praying that Trump would implode.
Cruz was behaving and covering his bases in the event that did happen.
He wanted to get Trump's voters.
And Trump's voters are a very passionate lot, and they're intolerant of any criticism of Trump.
And they're not very tolerant of people that don't advocate, energetically support Trump.
So Cruz said not a word about Trump.
And Trump, by the same token, wasn't saying much about Cruz.
Cruz was not the frontrunner while all this was going on.
Trump was.
Then when Cruz all of a sudden began to move and then ended up being tied and ahead of Trump, then here came Trump going after Cruz, starting out on Canada.
Now, I think if I'm right, you're going to see everybody in this race going after Rubio this week.
Everybody.
Christie, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul would have if he would have stayed in.
Kasich, they are going to dump on Rubio like Rubio has not been dumped on before.
And I think Trump is going to do so as well.
But Trump is also going to focus on Cruz because Cruz won Iowa.
And in Trump's world, that's illegitimate.
That wasn't supposed to happen, even though particularly the last poll going into Iowa said Trump was going to win by four points.
This is a matter of honor.
And so Trump is always going to focus on Cruz or whoever happens to win a primary or be leading the pack in the polls should something like it happen.
Now, just to reiterate, the first poll taken in New Hampshire, TV station poll, since the Iowa caucus has Trump up plus 24, which is pretty much consistent with where he was before Iowa.
This is, again, folks, it's depending on where you go in the media, you can find people, probably already have, speculating that, well, I'll tell you what you're going to see, because I've seen it now, there are stories out there already asking, has Trump's support never really been as high as the polls say it is?
And this question is being asked because of the Iowa result.
It's being asked by people who work at networks that put out these polls.
You have expert analysts at blogs, network websites, wherever, that are now asking the question, maybe these polls have always been overstating Trump support.
Could that possibly be?
You've got other stories that, well, this loss changes everything.
Now, this takes the momentum away from Trump.
He's not the winner that he won.
I'm sure you've heard this.
You've been watching TV.
You probably, in fact, I bet you've seen that and every network has people just, I mean, the Shadden Freude is incredible.
They're so happy Trump lost, and they're snarky about it.
They're out there saying, yeah, Trump, yeah, Trump, winner, winner, winner, never lose, right?
Gonna win, win, win.
Well, you lost, Trump.
You lied.
You can just feel the anger dripping off the TV screen when these people get going.
Because they have been so frustrated.
They couldn't explain it.
They didn't understand it.
And they're so gleeful.
And they hope this means that none of these Trump numbers are real.
Except here comes the New Hampshire TV station today, basically confirming that he's plus 24 after Iowa.
So he's going to continue to go after Cruz because Cruz is the frontrunner.
Cruz has committed a crime.
He won.
Nobody's supposed to do that when Trump's involved.
Somebody does that.
There has to be some illegitimate explanation, like he's from Canada or he cheated with Dr. Carson or what have you.
And as our previous caller said, he's losing me on this.
I don't understand anger at Canada.
I don't understand.
The anger ought to be at what's happening to the country.
It's kind of a variation of what I said.
Ted Cruz is nobody's enemy right now.
The enemy, everybody's enemy, ought to be Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and anybody in the Democrat Party.
They are responsible for this.
And those in the Republican Party who've made no serious effort to stop it.
But Ted Cruz is not one of those.
I'm dead serious about this.
But I know these campaigns, this is a primary and technically it's not about the Democrats.
I think it should be.
I think it's a winning strategy to go after the Democrats.
The Democrats are the reason we're in this mess.
The Democrats are the reason why the Republican primary is shaping up the way it is.
But I, short answer to your question, I think Trump is going to be hitting on Rubio at some point.
Christie has already started.
So I think Rubio, you know what Rubio should do?
Change his name to Bush or change his name to Obama, and Christie would love him.
Go in there, we're going to name change right now and just change his name to Marco Obama.
And Christie might want a photo op.
You never know.
I'm being facetious.
Ladies and gentlemen, but I think Trump's going to be hitting everybody that's close.
Rubio's got the momentum now, as defined by the media.
Rubio's where all the interest is right now.
It always happens.
You have this winner, and the winner was a surprise because Trump was supposed to be the winner.
But Rubio was thought maybe, if lucky, to barely finish in third place.
But he wasn't supposed to end up within a thousand votes of the Trumpster.
So you stay right here, folks, and we will sort all of this stuff out for you happily, minute by minute and day by day.
Sticking with the phones, this is Bob in Waldorf, Maryland.
Hey, Bob, great to have you, sir.
Hi.
Hello, Rush.
How are you hitting him?
Very well.
Very well.
Actually, I finished with three birds and a netbird Saturday, last four holes.
It was a fabulous round.
Oh, stop it, man.
You're killing me.
Smelling up here.
Look, I wanted to talk to you about Trump.
I've heard him talk about how, for every reason, making every excuse he could possibly make for why he lost.
But I haven't heard him say anything about the comment I heard him make, how he was going to make deals with Pelosi and Reed and, you know, get along with the Democrats.
And I mean, we already have enough liberal Republicans making deals with the Democrats.
I sort of think and hope that that hurt him.
I mean, to me, the more he talks, the more he exposes himself as a liberal Republican.
Who are you for now?
I'm for Cruz.
Okay, and you've been for Cruz from the outset?
Yeah, pretty much.
I've enjoyed watching Trump poke him in the eye and give him the visitors and everything.
But, I mean, he's not saying anything, right?
Your first caller, I think, pretty much nailed it.
He reminds me of a used car salesman.
Wow, this is a different tone that we're hearing here.
Well, I mean, when he said that, I mean, the problem, from what I see, you know, it's Republicans making deals with Democrats.
They're selling out the American worker rush.
They're killing us out here.
Well, let me tell you, when he said that, I thought it was a problem, and I mentioned it again yesterday.
You know, everybody's figuring out what happened to Trump.
He was leading by four in a respected poll in Iowa.
And you can't find a poll where he wasn't finishing first.
Two or three maybe are showing Cruz winning in Iowa during the month of January, but it's been Trump's race.
And everybody's not outrushed the debate, not showing up at the debate.
That's what did it.
And I said, well, man, everybody thinks that, but I don't.
I think it was his healthcare statements that he made on TV Sunday, which might have confused people.
And I remember that was part of his criticism of Cruz.
I think you chalk it up to what I call ideological awareness.
And he's out making the point that he's great at negotiating deals.
He wins.
America is going to win.
We've got idiots doing our deals now.
Idiots doing deals with the Chikons.
Idiots doing deals with the Iranians.
I'm going to do great deals because that's what I do.
Nobody does deals better than me.
So he has that as a foundation.
Then it's time to criticize Cruz.
And what does he know about Cruz?
He knows that the Senate hates Cruz because Cruz is not cooperative with the leadership.
Cruz has made a name for himself by calling out his own leadership.
So in Trump's world, doing deals, winning negotiations, stomping people, that's the measure of success.
He's going after Cruz as unable to do that.
And he happens to glom onto the fact, look, Cruz could never make a deal with those guys.
They hate him.
They despise him in the Senate.
And it is, I think, the ideological lack of awareness that doesn't inform Trump that that criticism of Ted Cruz, that he won't do deals with the Democrats, that's his supporters do not want deals done with Democrats.
His supporters are with him because they are tired of doing deals with Democrats.
Trump's supporters want the Democrats and everybody else responsible for this mess defeated, not negotiated with.
But he thought in saying that he was ripping Cruz because that was the objective, to discredit Cruz, particularly in an area where he, Trump, thinks there's nobody better.
And if he were more aware of why the Republican base is ticked off at its own party, then he would probably not have talked about how accomplished and successful he would be with Schumer and Pelosi and so forth.
My take.
Take it or leave it.
We have to run out of time.
Be back after this.
Don't go it.
Well, it really is the fastest three hours in media.
I can't believe we only have one to go.
I'm already getting worried I can't squeeze everything in that I want to do.
How does anybody have time for guests?
I will never understand it.
I don't know.
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