Okay, I got to play catch-up here because I've got a lot of soundbites from the candidates' appearances on TV last night, and maybe you didn't see much or any of it.
Trump, Rubio, and Cruz, and when I get to those, just one more thing on this terrorist telephone business.
Our last caller made a really, really good point that all of this is only a topic right now because we are just letting these people in the country.
These people, these terrorists got in the country on what, a fiancé visa?
Fareed, Sahib, whatever her name was, they got in.
And they were just a normal American couple.
And then something about the American health care system ticked them off and they became terrorists or some such thing.
Isn't that what it was?
Maybe not the healthcare system, but it was some of the office, I don't know what it was, but they were fine, normal, just happy, go lucky, nice Americans, and then all of a sudden got radicalized.
And it was our fault somehow.
It always is.
But the caller made the point.
We can argue over what they want to do with the phone and FBI and Apple and every customer and security.
But if we just wouldn't make it so easy if these people get in the country, we wouldn't have the problem.
That's a good point.
800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program just joining us, the Pope has accused Donald Trump of not being a Christian.
Maybe that's too strong a word.
Maybe they said anybody who would build a wall to keep people out of someplace is not a Christian because Christians don't build walls.
They build bridges.
And of course, there we've got the Vatican Wall.
There's all kinds of evidence that you wanted to go the hypocrisy route, you could.
Then the Pope came out and said, hey, you know what?
There are certain instances where the church would say contraception is okay.
Like when you have the Zika virus out there.
Yep, that'd be okay.
And then the Pope also granted permission to devout Catholic American legislators to vote for and in favor of and support same-sex marriage and civil unions.
So Jeb Bush, this is the last thing Jeb needed.
I mean, people might think this would be a great help for Jeb and Cruz, for here comes the vicar of Christ saying the Republican frontrunner is a fraud and a pretender and is not a Christian.
But in this day and age, that's not going to hurt Trump.
It's only going to help him.
Because where we are now, the Pope is seen as a ranking member of this establishment out there that is exclusionary and actually responsible for all these messes.
So these people don't get it.
Making Trump a target like this or isolating Trump and trying to hold him up as an example of what's wrong or bad, that's only going to solidify his support.
It may even expand it.
And Jeb Bush understands this.
Here in Columbia, South Carolina, Jeb Bush, during a Q ⁇ A with Dana Bash at CNN, her question, do you think the Pope was wrong to question Trump's Christianity?
I don't question anybody's Christianity because I honestly believe that that's a relationship that you have with your creator.
And it only enables bad behavior when someone from the outside of our country talks about Donald Trump.
So an unidentified reporter said, well, do you agree with the statement then?
I mean, what Pope Francis said is a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.
See, the drive-bys, they love it when somebody who is a Christian is attacked as being phony.
Oh, folks, this is nirvana for them.
The Pope, to the drive-by media, the Pope's today's hero.
And he could have said, if he'd have said it about Cruz, it would have been even better.
They would have had orgasms out there on the campaign trail if he had said it about Cruz, if he had said it about anybody.
But the fact that the Pope, who is the definition of Christianity as far as they're concerned, is out there singling out people for not being Christians, that means the media thinks they're hypocrites and phonies, and they eat it up.
So this reporter says to Jeb, do you agree with the statement then?
What Pope Francis said is a person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be and not building bridges is not Christian.
Do you agree with that?
You do not support a wall.
I support walls fencing where it's appropriate for sure.
I also believe that we ought to have other parts of this, which is forward leading the Border Patrol using drone technology, using GPS technology across the board.
We ought to have a strategy to protect our border.
That is clear, but that is not an unprisoned thing to do to make sure that people don't come across our border illegally.
Well, there you have it.
Jeb Bush not only defending Donald Trump, but attacking the Pope.
Well, I know he didn't attack the Pope, but that's how the media, the media will say that Jeb Bush attacked the Pope.
Then nobody was doing anything.
The Pope stands up and attacks Trump.
Then people respond to that are going to be accused of attacking the Pope.
That's how it works.
You have to understand these things, folks.
That's why I am able to read between the lines and able to see the stitches on a fastball.
So the Pope, you know, everybody's minding their own business.
And the Pope says, hey, Trump, you, yeah, you.
You're not a Christian.
Christians don't build walls.
So Trump responds.
They ask Jeb what he thinks.
He responds.
And the news is going to be Trump and Jeb attacked the Pope today.
Oh, and Limbaugh.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Yes, of course.
But that's standard, ordinary everything.
Limbaugh.
Limbaugh, Trump, Jeb attacked Pope in separate incidents.
Okay.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, as you know, we check them, lrushbow at EIBnet.com to MSNBC last night.
This is a fascinating thing here.
This is very, very interesting.
Snirdly, did you watch this last night?
I lifted the ban because it was part of campaign and the focus was not on MSNBC host or hostette.
It was not an MSNBC show per se.
It was a special one-time only program, a town hall with Trump to counter the town hall going on in CX.
Of course I lifted the ban.
Actually, I didn't even have to lift the ban for this because I didn't lift any ban, the ban on normal everyday run-of-the-mill CNN programs, but they brought in their morning team to do this thing last night.
So they didn't even let Chris Matthews anywhere near this.
He's out there probably trying to get away and own the Pope's plane to thank him, even as we speak.
Anyway, Mika Bzezinski, who is the daughter of Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former national security advisor for Jimmy Carter, and Joe Scarborough.
And they conducted a town hall with Trump last night.
And this was a well, just listen, this is, it got me.
I have to tell you, I fell for this too.
I wanted to describe a candidate to you.
The candidate is considered a political outsider by all the punnets.
He's tapping into the anger of the voters, delivers a populist message.
He believes everyone in the country should have health care.
He advocates for hedge fund managers to pay higher taxes.
He's drawing thousands of people at his rallies and bringing in a lot of new voters to the political process.
And he's not beholden to any super PAC.
Who am I describing?
Or any special interests or any donors.
You're describing Donald Trump.
Actually, I was describing Bernie Sanders.
Oh, that's good.
There's one thing that we're very similar on.
He knows that our country is being ripped off big league, big league on trade.
The problem is he can't do anything about it.
All right.
Now, folks, I was disagreed with last night on cable TV, and we have the sound bites coming up.
Do you remember yesterday, or maybe might have been Monday or Tuesday?
Well, it had to be Monday or Tuesday because this is only Wednesday.
Remember when Trump went off on George W. Bush in the debate Saturday night?
And when this is Thursday?
It just makes a case.
It was either Monday or Tuesday then.
Because I know it wasn't yesterday.
Anyway, remember I went off on Trump when he went off on Planned Parenthood in the debate supporting them.
Said they're great.
And went off on George W. Bush, knew about 9-11, didn't do anything to stop it.
Didn't keep us safe.
There were no weapons of mass destruction.
Remember all that?
And I said, South Carolina is an open primary.
Trump made that move on purpose to try to expand his base, expand his support base, since it's open, to either just slam the nail shut on the last nail in the coffin and just wipe this thing out, just end it, or else he believes in turtle polls that show crews catching up.
So he's got to go out and get new voters somewhere.
But I said, in any case, this was a result strategy.
Well, last night, that theory was discussed by other analysts on cable TV, and I was said to be all wet.
That's not Trump.
They made it sound like I was making Trump sound diabolical.
And I wasn't diabolical.
It was political strategizing.
But they think I was saying Trump was being diabolical.
I wasn't.
They say, no, no, no.
Trump wasn't strategizing.
He was just speaking from the heart in that debate.
Well, I'm here to tell you that I think he was strategizing in his reaction to this.
He has just been told by Mika Bzezinski that there is no difference between him and Bernie Sanders.
And what did he do?
He praised Bernie Sanders.
He said the difference in Bernie and me is that Bernie can't do anything about any of this, and I can.
Remember this discussion he had the other day about the political spectrum not being a straight line, but a circle?
This is exactly what I mean.
This is where both sides, both ends of the spectrum eventually meet at the top of the circle.
So she throws him a curveball.
I fell for it.
I thought for sure she's describing Trump.
And then she says, no, I actually was talking about Bernie Sanders.
And Trump said, well, that's good.
There's one thing that we're very similar on.
He knows our country's being ripped off big league, big, big league on trade.
Problem is, he can't do anything about it.
He did not take the occasion to hammer Bernie Sanders as crazy or anything else.
He, now, I'm not saying this is strategy because he didn't know this question was coming, but given the chance to hammer Bernie, he didn't instinctively hammer Bernie when he was effectively told that there's not much difference between him and Bernie in the ways that she described.
The ways that she described him as basically their impact on the political scene, not policy differences.
So don't misunderstand me here.
I'm not saying that Trump is no different than Bernie Sanders.
The way she set it up made it look like that.
Scarborough then said, how do you convince a Republican like me, Mr. Trump, that if you were nominated, you're not going to nominate the type of Supreme Court justice that always seems to go in there and flip and become a big lib.
Okay, so if you look at me as a conservative, okay, and I'm not sure that that's necessarily the most important word, but I say I'm a common sense conservative.
I'm the most conservative on the border, nobody tougher than me on the border.
I'm the strongest on the military, most conservative on the military.
We're going to get rid of Common Core.
I'm very conservative on that issue.
Common Core is going.
We're going to have local education.
On the Second Amendment, I am absolutely the strongest.
So there's Trump.
He's been insisting he's a conservative since the summer.
Now, that's not the most important thing.
He's a common sense conservative.
And he says, as you will hear coming up, that he's going to have more crossover votes.
That's exactly what I said that he was doing on Saturday night that all these analysts last night told me I was wrong about.
He's out there now telling everybody it's going to happen.
Mika Bzezinski again.
You said that if you knew about bin Laden, why didn't the government know about it?
Meaning he was a bad guy before he blew us up.
If you knew about it, why didn't the government, Mr. Trump?
Seems like an approach a Democrat would take against the Republicans.
She's talking about the way he went after Bush Saturday night in the debate, and here's his reaction.
I will have more crossover votes.
If I get the nomination, I will have more crossover votes than anybody that's ever run for office.
I will have Democrat votes.
I will have Independent votes.
I will do tremendously with crossover.
And one other thing, I will have states that nobody ever thought of getting in terms of a Republican.
That's exactly what I just admitted it.
He just says he's going to get more Democrats, more independents.
What else did I say?
I said that he's going to redraw the electoral map.
He's going to put Pennsylvania in play.
He's going to put Wisconsin in play.
He's going to put Michigan in play.
Pennsylvania.
I said all this on Monday or Tuesday, because this is Thursday.
I said this on Monday or Tuesday after pointing out that he had made a move on the left.
Let's go to these sunbites.
We're going to jump forward here.
We're going to find these bites these guys take.
It's Roger Stone is the first one, and it is number, what is it?
I thought it was closer anyway.
Hang on, Mike.
I'm getting there.
I thought about it.
Number 10.
How did I miss number 10?
Where's number 10?
Number 10, number 10, number 10.
Yeah, this is David Asmond.
Okay, it is number 10.
This is Fox Business Network after the bell.
This is last night.
And David Asman is talking to Roger Stone, who's a consultant, used to be with Trump, has been with a bunch of Republicans.
He's one of the guys that said that I didn't know what I was talking.
He was not mean about it.
He just thinks I was wrong about it.
Rush Limbaugh suggested today that there is a strategy here that if Hillary is the nominee for the Democrats, she's going to go after Bush's Iraq war and Bush's recession.
And this is a way of undermining that strategy from Donald Trump.
What do you think of that?
I just don't think that Donald Trump is that diabolical.
He's just speaking from the heart.
Look, I was there.
I was working for him at the inception of the Iraq War.
There is no doubt whatsoever he was opposed to it and vocal.
And he also believes that the government had numerous tips to our intelligence agencies, the CIA, the NSC, about 9-11.
There's nothing diabolical or Machiavellian.
Trump merely tells you what he really thinks.
I didn't say it was diabolical or Machiavellian.
I was saying it's not Trump has admitted it anyway.
He admitted it, that what he's doing here is going for crossover votes.
He's going to have proud of it.
He's going to have more independents.
He's going to have more Democrats.
And he's going to have more states that normally go Democrat vote Republican.
And I said that's what I thought Saturday night was all about.
I don't think Stone either understood the point that I was making in the clip or was thinking about something.
Maybe he thought I was being critical, and his instincts are to defend Trump.
I was not being critical.
In a way, I was being trying to tell people this: this guy is not an idiot.
He's not a political neophyte.
He's got serious political advisors in his circle.
And I just didn't think that going after Bush the way he did and defending Planned Parenthood, I didn't think that that was happenstance.
Anyway, after hearing all this, folks, I'm sure you all agree now that I was right because Trump has confirmed it.
What I was saying was that Donald Trump was not out of control in that debate.
The additional strategy: look, this is not diabolical.
If you know that the Democrats' number one target in this upcoming campaign is going to remain George W. Bush and the Iraq war and torture and weapons of mass destruction and you're going to and the recession and at the current economic plight and ISIS and all is still George Bush's fault.
My point was that Trump is taking that off the table, taking that ammunition away from Hillary for the general election by doing what he's doing on this score.
It's not diabolical, it's forward-thinking.
These guys are just hypersensitive.
When everything Trump's being criticized, then they have a rote behavior that they engage in.
Oh, no, no, he's not a mean guy.
No, he's speaking from the heart.
I didn't say he wasn't.
Anyway, Debbie in Austin, Texas.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yes.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Hi.
Thank you for taking my call.
Long-listening, heartfelt dittos, Rush.
I'm a silent Trump supporter.
I'm middle-class, pre-Medicare.
I'm a U-Maw.
I made up the coin phrase.
It means undereducated, middle-aged white woman.
That's called a UMAL.
But anyway, we are in a hurting position where we, the middle class, are paying $20,000 to $30,000 out of our pocket for our own medical expenses because premiums and deductibles are so high that our family tree is changing because of Obamacare.
We are desperate.
We are drowning.
Trump put out his hand a few months ago when I first heard him.
And he said, Hi, there's that middle-class woman.
She's drowning.
Her premiums are increasing.
Her deductibles are increasing.
And I'm going to help her.
That is what first came out of Trump's mouth months ago at the first debate.
And he got me from there.
I will never waver.
I will always support Trump.
What is bringing me out of silence today?
I got 15 seconds.
Please go hurry.
I'm concerned that all the conservatives are bashing Trump so much.
We're going to have another thing that happens this year, like it did in 2012 and 2008.
They won't vote for Trump.
And we will have Obama.
So you think the Republican Party has got its annual circular firing squad going.
She's worried about that.
Thank you.
Appreciate the call.
One of the interesting things about our last caller, everybody associates Trump and his original base of support with immigration.
With her, it was Obamacare and what she heard him say about how it's become unaffordable and how it's robbing middle-class people of their lifestyle.
And she was exactly right.
$10,000 a year in premiums.
That's for the bronze plan of Obamacare.
But the deductibles and the copay put it at over $20,000 a year.
This is for the fine, which is cheaper now, but it's not going to be for long.
Or you can pay the $20,000 up front and go platinum and have no deductibles or copay.
But who can do that?
$20,000 for health care, for insurance.
We're not even talking about treatment yet.
That's just the insurance.
Think about how much disposable income that is taking out of the economy.
How much discretionary income, the things that people, the money that people spend on necessities and leisure time activities, look at how much of it's being eaten up by mandated insurance costs.
And so when she heard Trump identify her problem and relate to it, that's all it took.
She hadn't heard anybody else.
That's all it took.
Trump owned her.
And now she doesn't like the fact she thinks the same thing is going to happen here, that the Republicans are going to destroy their own frontrunner before the election.
That was her point.
Josh in Brick, New Jersey.
It's great to have you, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
First time caller, longtime listener.
That's great you're here.
Actually, I have two points.
The first point is: I believe, and I'd like to know what you think about, is had Ted Cruz not been in this primary, would the Republicans even be claiming that they would hold the line and not even take up Obama's Supreme Court pick?
Hmm, it's an interesting question, as Tom Broco would say.
An interesting question.
You may have a point that I think Cruz's presence does hold their feet to the fire in a way.
But you've noticed there are already signs they're caving.
Yes, he did say that he would filibuster that, so that's going to put the pressure on them.
What's your second point?
My second point is this is not about Ted Cruz, but I'm just curious.
If Trump loses the Republican primary, forget third party.
Why doesn't he just go on the Democratic ticket?
And who knows?
He could beat Hillary or Bernie.
Well, because she's going to have all the delegates.
I just saw a story.
She just picked up some more delegates, and there hasn't even been a primary.
She can't see.
She can't sing.
She's barking like a dog.
She's losing in the public polling data.
All excitement was Bernie.
Susan Sarandon saying, I'm through voting with my vagina, which I still would like to see that.
I've never seen that.
She's going to vote for Bernie now, and yet Hillary picked up a couple more delegates today.
How does that happen?
But no, I get your point out there.
You know what Josh is saying?
He took the circuitous route.
Hey, look, if Trump doesn't win the Republican primary, why doesn't he just go be the Democrat liberal that he is?
That's what Josh was saying.
That's what he was saying.
Don't think you got that one past me, Josh, old buddy OPAL.
I spotted it.
And since you didn't say it that way, I decided to translate what you said because that's what you meant.
Well, I could hear, I could hear the sarcasm in his voice.
He's a cruise guy.
It would be only natural that he have some opposition to Trump out there.
Here's Daniel in Miami.
Great to have you, sir.
Your turn, you're next.
Hello.
How are you doing, Rush?
I have a question.
And to reference the Breitbart report that just came out about Hillary Clinton's emails and Cuba harboring a Hezbollah base.
Oh, yeah.
And now the fact that, you know, Rubio yesterday basically said they asked him if he would go to Cuba.
He said, absolutely not.
Not as long as they're harboring terrorists and stuff like that.
But Obama is going to go in a couple of weeks.
And I just wanted to know what your opinion was on that.
Probably related to golf, maybe they'll probably open up a golf.
No, you know, look, it would make sense that Obama would not attend the Scalia funeral, but would play golf instead and then go to Cuba.
He, after all, is responsible for opening up Cuba, in his mind.
What are you looking at me that way for?
He's not going to go to he's going to attend Scalia's body will lie in state Supreme Court building Friday.
He's going to attend that.
He's not going to attend the funeral.
And we don't know why.
Well, I don't hazard a guess.
That may please the Scalia family, by the way.
You don't know.
No, and I'm not trying to be.
No, no, it could well be.
I just.
Obama had no affection for Scalia.
Yeah, I know he's the head of state, but it's a different head of state.
Different behavior rules now.
You got a chance to see Hezbollah?
I mean, Breitbart does a Hezbollah base in Cuba.
Look, I would love to go to Cuba.
Not for the reasons Obama wants to go, but I'd love to go to Cuba.
I would only do it full sunshine.
Because I understand they've done some great things with their hotels down there.
Selma in Ridgewood, Queens, New York.
Great to have you.
Listen, the bottom line of the story is all the candidates on the right have, to one degree or another, want to secure the border.
But you've done an invaluable service by providing seven students to kids.
I homeschooled my son.
We had the Abeca program, and we had great books.
Today, the school system is throwing away the books.
But listen, the bottom line of the story for this also is to keep our country safe, we have to do these two things.
However, having said that, we cannot allow our government to circumvent the law.
Because when Snowden opened his big mouth, he disclosed things to us, the public, but the government had been endangering us by listening to our communication.
So I must disagree with the government, and I have to disagree with Mr. Trump.
You may not circumvent the law because bottom line of the story, if you get drunk, for instance, when you open your mouth in a friend on the phone.
Wait, wait a second.
What do you disagree with Trump over?
And you agree with the government?
What is it you're disagreeing with?
Well, I disagree with Trump as I disagree with the government, that you may not circumvent the law or the rules that are in place now, that were put in place, and obviously it's working.
When Snowden opened his big mouth, which I don't think he's a traitor, I think he's an honorable man for doing this because he safeguard us.
Billions of people know now that the government has been spying on us for years.
And I remember before I had a cell phone.
You should not go into iPhones.
That's what you're saying.
Okay.
Hello?
So you think the iPhone should be off limits for the government?
Absolutely.
And I'll tell you why.
Because, for instance, people that are on medication that are taking psychotropic drugs may be disclosing things that are not based on reality.
I know.
Look, there's no question what they can find in people's phones.
See psychotropic drugs or who knows?
Just your average ordinary conversation between a couple of reprobates could trigger all kinds of things, especially if it's read out of context and so forth.
But I was very, look, everybody in government, it's not just Trump.
Every other, I think, I think all the other candidates have sided with the government over Apple on this.
Am I wrong?
Casey came out in favor of government.
Of course, they're all going to.
Anyway, I appreciate the call.
Selma, but we're just out of time here for this segment.
I have to roll on.
We'll be back, though.
You know, that's true.
Donald Trump, that is true.
Donald Trump did question Ted Cruz's evangelical credentials.
Remember when Trump said, how can somebody who lies as much as Ted Cruz lies be an evangelical Christian?
So here comes the Pope today saying, well, that may be true about Cruz, but you build walls, and we Christians don't do that.
So you're not a Christian either.
Sometimes all you can do is chuckle.
I mean, you need a break from it.
You just can't be intense and wadded up all the time here, folks.
You've got to chill now and then.
Not so much that you offend people thinking you're not taking seriously.
Can you ever do that?
But some of the stuff, like I've got the greatest line in the world about the Pope coming out in favor of contraception, and I don't dare use it.
I don't even dare hint getting close because the moment you understand it, I'm in trouble.
So it's something I've got to contain and avoid bursting and so forth.
And now you're frustrated because I've teased you with it.
Come on, Rush, you can sit.
No, I can't.
You have to trust me.
I really can't.
But it's a great, great line.
As a great story, I didn't get to that.
I'm going to save it tomorrow for Open Line Friday.
Hillary's woes show that young women get feminism and she ain't it.
It's a classic.
And then there's another one here: Man in Women's Locker Room cites gender rule to get away.