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March 3, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
March 3, 2016, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 Podcast.
LOK, just finished watching, like many people probably did, the Mitt Romney.
Attempted takedown of Donald Trump.
And once again, as loudly as they apparently are able to say it, the Republican establishment telegraphs, they have absolutely no idea what is happening in this country.
Just stunning to me, folks, uh to watch this.
So many different takeaways that that well, there are many takeaways you can you can have of this thing.
Uh you can analyze it just in its vacuum, and was it good?
Was it bad?
Did Rodney succeed in making the points that he wanted to make?
Then you take it out of that little bubble and you put it in context of everything, and the questions about it just overwhelm whatever substance or content there was in what uh Romney had to say.
Anyway, greetings, my friends, it's great to have your Rush Limbaugh here behind the Golden EIB microphone, telephone numbers 800-282-2882, email address Lrushbo at EIBNet.com.
It it appears to me that the establishment in Washington, both parties, still believes that whatever is happening out here that is causing people to support Donald Trump in large numbers is something temporary.
That it is a fever, that it is a tantrum, that it is uh a child that has gone astray and at a lecture will straighten them out.
That a talking to will show them the error of their ways.
And that's not what this is, as I divulged in great detail yesterday.
And on many days and weeks prior, this is not temporary.
It's not a phase, and it is not a temptum.
Now, Mitt Romney had some substantive things to say about Trump that, as I say, if you just look at it within the bubble of his comments, might make some sense, but it's nothing nobody else has been saying about Trump in this entire campaign.
There wasn't anything new.
And not one instance in the past of anybody saying any of these things about Trump has caused massive defections from Trump's campaign.
So the questions then arise, okay, if it hasn't worked prior to today, why do it today?
What's the deal?
And the answers to me are rather obvious.
I think these establishment people still can't get it through their heads that this is real.
They've expected Trump to implode, they've expected his supporters to abandon him and wake up from all this.
And now that we've had Super Tuesday and every passing day, the establishment learns that it isn't temporary, that it isn't gonna go away on its own, they ratchet up their levels of panic and try to take matters into their own hands,
and then you start questioning the timing and the person they decide to use to do this, and I'm not saying that Romney isn't isn't isn't sincere in any shape, manner, or form, but where was this months ago?
There's not that everything Romney said about Trump today, they have thought about Trump since this campaign began.
Where was this kind of analysis of Barack Obama?
Where has this kind of analysis been of Barack Obama the last seven years?
The way this is going to be heard, these guys at some point I don't know if they're ever going to understand this.
These establishment guys, the way this is going to be heard is why are you trying to destroy your own base over and over again?
Why are you rejecting the majority of people in your own party and their expressed desires and wishes?
Why are you continually ignoring and trying to thwart the will of your voters?
That's how it's going to be heard.
That's how it's going to be reacted to.
This, if they really think, they can't think this, can they?
Do they really think, take the universe of Trump supporters?
And however they hear this, maybe they watched it live, maybe they'll watch streaming on their phones, or they'll see highlights of it later on TV or whatever, but they're gonna see it.
Do they really think that a significant number of Trump supporters are gonna go, wow, oh yeah.
Oh my God, I hadn't thought of that.
You know Romney's right.
Okay, okay, good.
I'm finished with Trump.
Okay, okay, I I I admit I was wrong.
Do they really think that's gonna happen?
It's it's going to be seen as the establishment once again unable to win, and therefore they are going and resorting once again to trying to talk their supporters out of the thinking that they are at present engaged in.
Now, Cookie is as we speak, working on excerpts from the Romney speech, but I want to play you a couple of sound bites.
And this reason I'm playing these sound bites is not to point up any hypocrisy in Romney, although that'll happen.
But the reason I want you to hear these sound bites is because these sound bites matched against what Romney said today, are a glaring reason, one of many reasons why the Washington establishment is being rejected and not trusted, and not supported.
Let's go back February 2nd, 2012 in Las Vegas, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Donald Trump endorsed Romney for president February 2nd, 2012.
And we have two Mitt Romney sound bites.
is the first.
There are some things that you just can't imagine happening in your life.
This is one of them.
Being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight.
I'm so honored and pleased to have his endorsement.
Don't think the people supporting Trump don't remember this.
Don't think then they're gonna hear this, either on this program or elsewhere.
And they're not gonna be questioning Trump.
They're gonna be they're gonna be questioning Romney.
Here's the second bite.
Get this.
Donald Trump has uh shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people.
He's done it here in Nevada, he's done it across the country.
He understands that our economy is facing uh threats from abroad.
He's one of the few people who stood up and said, you know what, China has been cheating.
They've taken jobs from Americans, they haven't played fair.
We have to have a president who will stand up to cheaters.
So I want to say thank you to Donald Trump for his endorsement.
It uh means a great deal to me to have the endorsement of Mr. Trump and people across this country.
Now Trump's the same guy that he was four years ago, 2012, but here's Romney accepting his endorsement and praising him.
Praising him on the terms Trump is using in this campaign.
He is gonna get back at the people cheating Americans, i.e.
the Chinese.
He's gonna get back at the people taking jobs from Americans.
Romney applauds that.
Trump is campaigning on those very things.
But strip away the details.
The way people who have had it with the establishment are gonna hear this.
They're gonna think it's Romney who has to explain himself, not Trump.
They think Trump's being consistent.
They think Trump's trustworthy.
They think whatever they think about Trump, they think whatever Trump stands for, whatever Trump means, which I think is bigger than Trump.
Romney's the one who seems to be in diametric opposition to himself.
How do you go from lavish praise and almost acting like a groupie just to be in Trump's presence?
There are some things you just can't imagine happening in your life, and this is one of them, being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel with Donald Trump standing right next to me, endorsing me.
That's one of those wonderful things you just never explained.
How do you go from that to this today?
Now I realize some of you may not have heard um the Romney speech as I say we are feverishly assembling sound bites from it.
Uh, and I'm gonna get your your input on this too, because there's a lot of different takes on this.
Some people think, for example, that this really, when you boil it all down when you strip it all down, this is really not purposed as a hit piece on Trump, but rather a prelude for Romney to enter the race as a third-party candidate.
But you just can't one day out of the blue say, you know what, I'm running for president.
You have to lay the groundwork.
And so some are speculating that this was a speech that lays the groundwork, i.e.
establishing a purpose and a reason for Mitt Romney to enter the race as a third party or save your candidate.
Some people, no, no, no, no.
He wouldn't have talked glowingly about Cruz and Rubio the way he did in this speech if that was the if that was the case.
There are going to be some people, and I think you're going to be surprised.
I I think most people, if you watch the speech before you've heard any commentary about it, which lets all you people out if you haven't heard it.
But as I say, if you just listen to the speech within its bubble, you go, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Um Romney's gonna have a lot of people applauding this, the people already predisposed against Trump.
So he's gonna have a lot of supporters out there, but it isn't gonna move any Trump opponents.
In fact, this is the kind of thing.
Here's the timing of it, and of all people, you know, the establishment could have chosen anybody to go out there and deliver this message.
Why go out and deliver?
Have the have the message delivered by the loser in 2012, by somebody who would not take on Barack Obama.
Why choose Romney?
And maybe the answer, Romney didn't, he wasn't chosen, he just did it on his own because he sped up.
There's any number of explanations here, but why not do this way back when you could save Jeb, theoretically?
Why not do this for Jeb?
Why not do this back in October?
Trump was the same guy then as he is now.
And the polling data was indicative he was going to be winning primaries.
But remember, back then the establishment thought this is all gonna fade away, and you were gonna grow up, you Trump supporters, you're gonna wake up, you're gonna grow up, you're gonna realize the big mistake you're making.
And once again, they've waited too long.
They've been wrong in assessing why Trump supporters support Trump, why they exist, why they are animated and informed the way they are.
And it still boils down that they really think they can talk them out of it.
I somebody needs to show me the evidence that they can talk anybody out of it.
Remember, these are the guys, these are the guys that want to sign on to amnesty with Obama.
Mitt Romney, I don't know how many people are aware of this.
This is the same Mitt Romney who told an audience just last week, folks, that Americans are so angry.
He was explaining the anger in America.
His theory was that Americans are angry because we're not facing the big challenges of climate change and income inequality.
Just last week in the speech.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're angry.
You're angry because you're mad that Washington isn't taking climate change seriously.
So uh there's many, many questions here as to why Romney and why now.
Now the Michigan primary is uh is tomorrow.
Romney family is still somewhat popular.
Trump has a 10-point lead in uh in in Michigan.
Uh and again, I'm gonna I'm gonna predict to you that that there will be people now demanding that Romney run after this speech.
So there'll be probably a draft Romney movement out there.
Third party, what have you.
And then uh, ladies and gentlemen, the political, two stories here on this.
Wall Street ready's Big Trump assault.
Wall Street getting ready to go nuclear on Donald Trump.
Terrified that the reality TV star could run away with the Republican nomination and bring his brand of anti-immigrant protectionist populism to the White House.
Some top financiers are writing big checks to fund an effort to deny Trump a majority of delegates at the Republican convention.
The effort is centered on the recently formed Our Principles Pack, the latest big money group airing anti-Trump ads, which is run by GOP strategirist Katie Packer, deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012.
There was a conference call on Tuesday to solicit donors for the group, including Paul Singer, billionaire hedge fund founder, Elliott Management, Hewlett Packard president and CEO Meg Whitman, another severe conservative out there, and Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, one of Joe and Marlene Rickett's three sons, the Ricketts family is heavily financially involved in an anti-Trump movement.
And then the New York Times, never Trump movement dealt setback after Super Tuesday.
Alarmed by Donald J. Trump's victories in seven states on Super Tuesday, Republicans desperate to sink his presidential bid, moved on Wednesday to battle him on two fronts, attacking it with millions of dollars in TV ads in Florida while girding for what would be the party's first contested convention in 40 years.
And once again, can anybody, any of you, I mean, even those of you who are anti-Trump, can any of you remember any thing close to this kind of energy, this kind of commitment, this kind of devotion to defeating Democrats.
From either these Wall Street biggies, private sector biggies, Mitt Romney, Republican National Committee.
I can't.
So the Trumpists out there are once again going to think their own party is not only now ignoring them, their own party is ganging up on them.
And all this talk about a brokered convention.
You know, you need 1,237 delegates to win on the first ballot to win the nomination.
Now Trump's going to go in there with a minimum thousand.
1100 if he doesn't win it all.
Can you imagine telling 1,100, say 1,100 people?
Those delegates pledge to Trump that it doesn't count.
You don't, and we're gonna mount a big movement.
You want to talk about a massive walkout of a convention?
So this is how they're gonna see this.
I take a break here, folks.
Sit tight.
We'll be back and continue after this.
What's that?
No, no, no.
Oh no, no, I don't, I don't doubt Mitt Romney's sincerity at all.
I think, let me remind you of things I've said in the past.
I I think Mitt Romney, I remember, I don't know how many times I said this back in the 2012 campaign.
It ended up being very frustrating for me.
Mitt Romney is one of the finest human beings walking the planet.
However, you wish to define that if you want to talk about morality, integrity, character.
And because he has all of those characteristics, I I thought he could beat Obama handily in 2012.
But they drew the line they would not go after Obama.
They would even even when they were saying, Rush, we can't go after Obama personally, but we can go after his policy.
Well, they didn't even do that.
There was this ongoing fear of any criticism of Obama.
They're going to lose the African American voter, going to lose the Hispanic vote, or they're going to lose independence or whatever.
I mean, you know the drill.
Romney can clearly make a case.
I don't doubt he meant every word to this, and I don't doubt that he's severely worried.
I think he's a genuine patriot.
And I think he's terribly worried about what's going to happen to the country and to his party.
I don't I don't doubt that this was sincere.
I don't think any of it was made up.
But I st I I th I it's it's I don't want to say sad because I don't want to sound patronizing, but it is a it is a uh mind-boggling thing to realize that the Republican establishment still doesn't understand what's happening here,
that it's not temporary or uh a one-off or a tantrum or whatever, and that people are not misguided and being suckered in their own, they're committing to what Trump is.
They're committing to anti Washington.
They're not going to be talked out of it.
No, I think they're scared.
I th I think the establishment is scared.
Look at this is their hold on power, folks, is their reason for existing.
I think a lot of these Wall Street guys, the finance guys, they kind of like the financial arrangement the way it is now.
They don't want any, they don't want any tariffs, trade wars, they don't want anything interrupting the current relationship with the Chicoms.
Um the establishment halves, they've got theirs, and and they don't want anything happening to it because there's so many moving parts in in all of this to try to explain where people come down on it.
But here we go now.
We've got excerpts of the Romney speech, which occurred between 1130 and 1152 a.m. Eastern time today.
And I think to be totally fair and in context, Mike, I want you to go back and grab audio soundbite number 20 again, and then we'll start with that.
This is Romney in 2012 in February in Las Vegas.
Trump has just endorsed him, and Romney is thanking Trump and praising Trump.
We'll go from that to Romney's speech excerpts today.
Donald Trump has uh shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people.
He's done it here in Nevada, he's done it across the country.
He understands that our economy is facing uh threats from abroad.
He's one of the few people who stood up and said, you know what, China has been cheating.
They've taken jobs from Americans, they haven't played fair.
We have to have a president who will stand up to cheaters.
So I want to say thank you to Donald Trump for his endorsement.
It uh means a great deal to me to have the endorsement of Mr. Trump and people across this country.
So that's Mitt Romney back on uh February 12th, uh February 2nd, 2012.
Here is Mitt Romney today's in Salt Lake City at the Hinckley Institute.
And speaking about the 2016 presidential campaign and Donald Trump.
In 1964, uh just days before the presidential election, which incidentally we lost, Ronald Reagan went on national television and challenged America, saying that it was a time for choosing.
He saw two paths for America.
One that embraced conservative principles dedicated to lifting people out of poverty and helping create opportunity for all, and the other, an oppressive government that would lead America down a darker, less free path.
I'm no Ronald Reagan, and this is a different moment in time.
But I believe with all my heart and soul that we face another time for choosing, one that'll have profound consequences for the Republican Party and more importantly, for our country.
Okay, let me take the occasion here of that bite to draw the analogy, because the thing that it took me a while to learn this.
When what when I finally became aware that the Republican Party does not like conservatives.
And I learned that late in life.
I I didn't learn that till the 1990s.
I was one of these people that thought the Republican Party was the home of conservatism, and that the Republican Party embraced conservatism, and that's because of my really focused attention of the Republican Party in the 1980s.
And I wasn't during the 80s, I was working uh for many of those years for a baseball team, and then got back into radio in 1984.
But I I only knew the surface that I did not know that the underpinnings inside the Republican Party of the deep resentment of Reagan.
I was in Kansas City in 76 during a convention, and I saw it there, but that was, I thought, just the result of competition between Ford, the incumbent, and the outsider Ronaldus Magnus.
It wasn't until later that I really learned that there is a an active dislike for conservatives in the Republican Party, and it has existed for a long time.
And it's traceable to 1964 in Goldwater.
You know, for the longest time I asked myself, before this all became I became aware of it, I asked myself, what is this?
It doesn't make any sense.
The last time the Republican Party enjoyed real power for eight straight years was during Ronald Reagan.
And what was the Reagan?
Reagan was conservatism.
Reagan was the embodiment of it.
Reagan had 49 state landslide wins.
Reagan had massive approval numbers.
Reaganism policy worked every place it was implemented.
The American people loved Reagan.
There were Reagan Democrats.
The Republican Party was loved.
It didn't make sense to me that the Republican Party would not want more of that.
But the first chance they had to get rid of anything, any Reagan residue, they took it.
And I later learned that there are many reasons why, by the way, not the least of which is ideological disagreements.
Moderate rhino republicans, somebody don't like conservatism, for many reasons, social issues being probably top of the list.
But there are many other reasons.
They're embarrassed of conservative type people.
They have a stereotypical image of them of uh they think they're deliverance.
And it just kind of people, we don't want to hang with them.
It's a class thing, folks.
As I was discussing in great detail recently.
So whenever a conservative comes along in presidential politics on the Republican side, or whenever conservatism presents itself as something that might actually gain power within the reparty, the Republican Party, they panic and they start talking about 64.
Not the 80s.
They don't reflect back on the wondrous years of the Reagan years.
They go back and think of the Goldwater landslide laws.
That's what conservatism means to them.
It was such a profound thing.
That Goldwater landslide loss, that that's what conservatism means to them.
Conservatism means losing 49 states, not winning 49 states.
It's the most amazing thing.
And here's what they miss.
Yes, Goldwater lost, but any Republican was going to lose because that was coming off the JFK assassination.
Just a year earlier, a year prior to the election, there was no way any Republican was going to win that.
But beyond that, Ronald Reagan's a time for choosing speech for Goldwater in the run-up to the election of 1964, actually paved the way for years of Republican dominance in governorships in state houses and at the White House for years and years and years to come.
Goldwater, yeah, lost in a landslide, but that started something in motion that ended up dwarfing the Democrat Party.
There was a time, you may be too young to remember, there was a time the Republican Party owned California.
And it was in my lifetime.
When I lived in California, governors were Republican.
Republicans were in play for California electoral votes.
And that was all due to Goldwater and Reagan all the way back in 1964.
The conservative movement, the Republican Party was energized and birthed, and it grew and grew, and yet here's Romney.
In one of the first things that he mentions in his speech warning everybody about Trump in 1964, just days before the presidential election, which incidentally we lost, he has to point out.
Doesn't point out what happened afterwards.
He just talks about Reagan and his speech and Reagan's path for America, but he doesn't talk about what that path was.
He meant well, conservative principles dedicated to lifting people out of poverty and helping create opportunity for all.
That's scratching the surface of conservatism.
Anyway, this is their attempt to make themselves out to be conservative and understand conservatism when they're they they aren't conservative at the establishment and they don't really like it, and they don't appreciate it.
But I just I I I could not let this first bite go without talking about 64.
64.
Landslide defeat, they are they are obsessed by it and consumed by it.
And that's what they think Trump is.
Forget conservative liberal.
They think Trump is a landslide defeat.
Now, if Trump were just going to lose closely and nobody else would care a big deal, but the a Trump landslide defeat takes them with him, they fear.
And just as they have misread the importance of what happened in 1964 with Goldwater losing and the aftermath that loss created, so are they unable to grasp what is happening now and why.
And the attempt to relate it to 1960, which is what they always do when there are abundant examples of conservatism succeeding wildly and being embraced by the whole nation.
And they do not ever think of those days, the 80s, and they don't want to.
Have to take a break.
More Romney soundbites coming up and your phone calls as well, because I know you're chomping at the bit out there to get in on it.
And your time is coming.
El Rushbone, the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Here's more Mitt Romney from this morning in Salt Lake City.
Even though Donald Trump is offered very few specific economic plans, what little he has said is enough to know that he would be very bad for American workers and for American families.
But you say, wait, wait, wait.
Isn't he a huge business success?
Doesn't he know what he's talking about?
No, he isn't.
And no, he doesn't.
His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who work for them.
He inherited his business.
He didn't create it.
And whatever happened to Trump Airlines.
How about Trump University?
And then there's Trump magazine and Trump vodka and Trump stakes and Trump mortgage.
A business genius he is not.
Well, he was four years ago.
He was one of the most enlightened, brightest business guys there was four years ago.
At least that's what Mitt Romney said about Trump four years ago.
By the way, Trump has released his health care plan.
The media not covering it, but it's out there.
It's seven points, seven-point plan.
Number one, get rid of the individual mandate.
It's unequivocally gone.
But uh if you review the plan, I mean it's uh as far as conservatives go, there's more to much more to like in it than not, but we'll get to that later.
Here's the next Romney bite.
I believe we can nominate a person who can win the general election and who will represent the values and policies of conservatism.
Given the current delegate selection process, that means that I'd vote for Marco Rubio in Florida and for John Kasich in Ohio and for Ted Cruz, or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state.
So vote for different people in different states to stop Trump and deny him delegates.
That's the I I mentioned a three-pronged strategy yesterday.
One of them is everybody stays in, denying Trump 1,237 on the first ballot, and after that it's over.
Then after you go to the first ballot, you're through with your pledges.
So the 1,0100, let's say, that Trump would have, they're free, can vote for anybody.
And that's what Romney's alluding to.
He wants you to go, you vote, vote for Rubio in Florida, deny that to Trump.
Vote for Kasich in Ohio, deny that to Trump.
Because if if if Trump wins both those, the theory is it's over.
And then vote for Cruz.
Here's the next bite.
We keep rolling right through them here.
This is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity.
There's a dark irony in his boasts of his sexual exploits during the Vietnam War.
While at the same time, John McCain, whom he has mocked, was imprisoned and tortured.
Dishonesty is Donald Trump's hallmark.
He's not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as leader.
His imagination must not be married to real power.
That was a primary point that Romney made.
He only stated it one time, it was that it was thematic.
That this guy imagines himself to be Zeus, he imagines himself to be the greatest guy that there's ever been.
We can't let a guy like that have power.
We can't let a guy that thinks that he's a God's gift to humanity with power.
Oh my God, that would be horrible.
Nowhere was this kind of talk heard.
In the Democratic campaign against Barack Hussein Obama.
I don't know.
See, see it's a good thing you wonder why the people I talk to in inside of glass, you can't hear them, is they don't have microphones because Rush, why don't you ask Romney?
What did you say?
Trump never put his his dog on the roof of the car on a vacation.
I'm not gonna go there.
I'm not gonna go there.
Well, he talked about Trump's taxes.
He talked about bombshells in Trump's tax return.
Maybe he hasn't given a lot of money to the vets, and maybe there hasn't been a lot of charitable donations, and maybe he's not as rich as he brags to be.
And then Romney talked about the New York Times tape, that there's probably bombshells in the New York Times tape, which we told you about yesterday.
The meeting he had with the editorial board, which is off the record, but everybody's demanding the Times release it.
The Times says they're not going to.
In fact, the editor of the New York Times, Dean Baket, says, you guys uh I only showed up to watch the show.
There's nothing in there.
We have those sound bites coming up.
Here's the final bite for Romney.
The audio and video of the infamous Tapper Trump Exchange on the Ku Klux Klan will play a hundred thousand times on cable and who knows how many million times on social media.
We will only really know if he's a real deal or a phony if he releases his tax returns.
And the tape of his interview with the New York Times.
I predict that there are more bombshells in his tax returns.
I predict that he doesn't give much, if anything, to the disabled and to our veterans.
I predict that he told the New York Times that his immigration talk is just that.
Talk.
Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud.
His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.
He's playing the members of the American public for suckers.
He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.
There you have it.
So that pretty much is the essence of what uh Mitt Romney had to say today.
He's trying the same tax trick that uh that Dingy Harry played on him.
That's that's another uh incident that's causing people to ask, why is Romney the one bringing this up?
He's got his own uh tax problem per se.
I mean, he's got tax problem baggage because of the allegations made by Dingy Harry.
Okay, now folks, I'll tell what we're gonna do.
We're gonna blow up the programming format.
We're gonna take a top of the hour timeout here, wrap up the hour, and we get back the monologue section of the next hour.
We're gonna start with calls.
People wind up to weigh in on this.
I have held back on everything I think about this for a very important reason.
When I say something about anything, there usually is nothing left to be said.
So I have held back.
Because I want you to be able to have a chance to weigh in on this as well.
So that's coming up in the next hour.
By the way, the Today Show today, Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie.
I think they required Trump to disavow the KKK another 50 times in one interview.
That is such a classic media example of how it's done.
And details coming up, plus uh your phone calls.
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