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March 4, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:32
March 4, 2016, Friday, Hour #3
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Just got an email, Rush.
Who do you think is the most attractive female anchor on CNN?
What makes you think I'm going to answer that?
When I wouldn't answer that question when it was asked about Fox, why would I answer it about CNN?
What's with people?
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open live Friday.
I'm fascinated by the way people think, but come on.
Oh, that's right.
Folks, we have a guest host coming in here Monday, Mark Stein will be here.
I have an annual charity commitment all day long on Monday.
So Mark Stein will be here Monday.
Also, I am appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.
It airs live at 9 o'clock Eastern Time.
They've told me I'm in a second segment, maybe about, what'd they say, 11 or 12 minutes?
And they gave me a list of potential topics.
And they're all related to the GOP, the primary campaign, the debates, and all of that.
So, no, they just asked me this week.
Well, actually, one of me couldn't do last week.
They asked me last week.
And so this week is a make good for last week.
So I'll remind you one more time before the program ends.
We've got one hour left here on Open Line Friday, 800-282.
No, no, no.
I'm just me.
I'm a solo, solo segment.
That's what I say.
I think it would be great to put me on the panel after my segment to analyze what I said.
Who knows?
I might hear myself and think, wow, that's not, I could have said it better and disagree with myself.
Why don't it be news?
But maybe someday it'll happen.
When I suggested it to Chris Wallace, he has kind of looked at me and smiled and said, yeah, you're you, Rush.
But it would be.
But no, no cage match stuff unless Chris Wallace, but he doesn't.
No, they won't ask me that.
These are just crazy questions I get in an email from people who want to know who I think is the most attractive female anchor at Fox and CNN.
Who in the world thinks I'm going to answer questions like that?
You know, buddy has asked me about that.
No.
Insiders say that the convention is the only place to stop Donald Trump.
This is from the Politico.
The only way Republicans can stop Donald Trump from capturing the party presidential nomination will be if they go to the party convention in July without a clear winner.
Virtually every Republican member of the Politico Caucus, the Politico Caucus, the Politico Caucus is a panel of operatives, activists, strategists, and elected officials in four key battleground states, march voting battleground states.
And this panel, a majority, every Republican member of this panel said that after Super Tuesday, the door has closed on the possibility of another candidate winning a majority of delegates.
Now, the conventional wisdom is that if Rubio does not win Florida, he is toast.
And by the same token, let's look at it.
Real conventional wisdom is this.
If Trump does not win Florida and Ohio, then it is possible that Trump will not win the required 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot at the convention because delegates are pledged to the candidate in the first ballot.
So every delegate that Trump wins in every state in these primaries on the first ballot has to vote for him.
But if nobody wins, if nobody gets 1,237 votes on the first ballot, then it's wide open.
The delegates are no longer pledged, and the horse trading and the promising and the persuasion and who knows whatever else kicks into high gear.
And so the strategists are hoping that that's what happens.
They want Rubio to win Ohio, and they want Kasich to win, Rubio to win Florida, Kasich to win Ohio to have the excitement of a wide open convention.
This happens to be what the party insiders are hoping.
Ted Cruz talked about it last night after the debate on the Fox News channel.
He was interviewed by Chris Wallace.
Oh, wait, that's the wrong, that's the wrong.
Yeah, it's number 10.
I'm sorry, 10, then we'll do 20.
He was, this was in the debate.
No, it was the post-debate special, sorry.
And it was Megan Kelly.
And she said to Cruz, I want to ask you about today's news at Mitt Romney, the speech he gave denouncing Trump.
Did he have a point that Rubio needs to win Florida, Kasich needs to win Ohio, for you or any of the others to have a path other than Trump.
This contested convention nonsense is something the GOP establishment loves to talk about.
If the power brokers in the GOP try to pick the nominee at a brokered convention, you will see the people revolt.
It is the dumbest idea, and it's what the lobbyists have come up with because they don't understand why the voters aren't voting for the candidates they like.
That's all true.
That doesn't mean they're not going to try it.
And I want to clue you into something that if this goes forth, and if all this looks like it may be possible, you are going to have to become familiar with Convention Rule 40.
There are many interpretations and variations of Rule 40.
For example, it's not just a candidate has to get 1,237, and if nobody does, it's wide open.
Even at that point, even if nobody gets 1,237, you still have to have won a majority of eight states to be eligible to win the nomination.
Did you know that?
However, Rule 40 can be changed the day before the convention by the Republican Party.
And there is a party convention meeting in April.
And if it looks like whatever eventuality is going to happen, they can easily change that eight states to two.
They could change it to four in order to make everybody eligible.
Let's say Kasich does not, or let's say they want Rubio, and Rubio does not win a majority of delegates in eight states.
This is not the 20% threshold we're talking about.
We're talking about a majority today.
If he doesn't, then there's no way, even if Trump doesn't get to 1237, there's no way that Rubio would be eligible according to Rule 40.
However, they can change Rule 40 the day before the convention.
That's also in the rule.
Rule 40 basically says what it says today and has the provision that they can rewrite it and say whatever they want it to say the day of the convention or the day before.
Well, it's their convention, Snertley.
It's the Republican Party's convention.
They can write whatever rules they want, and they've given themselves all kinds of outs and latitude and leeway to write new rules whenever they need them.
But this, that's exactly why they don't trust, and this is what Cruz is talking about.
If they start messing around like this, it's all over.
This is, but what Cruz is saying here, even if Trump doesn't get 1237, but he's like at 1,150, and if they try to take it away, he says, it's still going to be a revolt.
If you guys throw this convention open, his point is to the party, if you throw this open and try to pretend that these primaries have had no impact, that these primaries are not a factor, that all this campaigning and all of this voting doesn't mean anything, if you try that, there is going to be a revolt at that convention like you can't believe.
And Cruz is right about that.
But you just keep a sharp eye on Rule 40, particularly after this weekend and after Super Tuesday.
If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, if Trump just wins Florida, I don't know what Kasich might do in Ohio, but It's getting to the point now where there just isn't enough time, and there aren't enough primaries left, not enough delegates left for anybody other than Trump to get anywhere near 1,237.
So, Rule 40 is going to be the last best hope of the.
Now, here's Cruz in the debate with the question on Detroit.
Everybody got this question: What's wrong with Detroit?
What happened to Detroit?
And the answers were perfunctory.
Well, you know, it's a shame.
It's so sad what's happened to Detroit.
Such wonderful people, great car industry.
We feel so bad about the bad water in Flint, but it's understandable.
Michael Morris from there, what would you expect?
And we feel terrible for the people.
When they got to Cruz, question comes from Chris Wallace.
For half a century, Detroit was the symbol of America's industrial might, 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the city.
At last count, there are now fewer than 30,000 manufacturing jobs here.
The unemployment rate in this city is 11%, twice the national average.
Senator Cruz, I know that you have general plans for tax reform, but what specifically would you do to bring manufacturing jobs back to America and train residents of cities like Detroit to do those jobs?
Detroit is a great city with a magnificent legacy that has been utterly decimated by 60 years of failed left-wing policy.
In the 1960s, Detroit was the Silicon Valley of America.
It had a population of 2 million people, had the highest per capita income in the country.
And then for 50 years, left-wing Democrats have pursued destructive tax policies, weak crime policies, and have driven the citizens out.
Let me say to folks in the media, that is a story that the media ought to be telling over and over again, the destruction of left-wing policies and the millions who have hurt because of it.
Did you hear that bell go off?
The bell, you're supposed to get 60 seconds.
That whole bite's 39 seconds.
And the bell went off.
The bell went off the minute Cruz starts talking about how the media should be trumpeting this story, but isn't.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
I just realized this now because I didn't know how long the answer was last night.
Well, we edited 20 seconds of applause.
Okay, edit applause, edit applause.
Or play it again.
Okay, let's play it again and let's see if we can get this thing to 60 seconds for that.
Let's hit it again.
Detroit is a great city with a magnificent legacy that has been utterly decimated by 60 years of failed left-wing policies.
In the 1960s, Detroit was the same...
Stop the tape!
He didn't wait for the applause to stop.
He just kept going.
So that doesn't count.
Keep going.
Valley of America had a population of 2 million people, had the highest per capita income in the country.
And then for 50 years, left-wing Democrats have pursued destructive tax policies, weak crime policies, and have driven the citizens out.
Let me say to folks in the media, that is a story that the media ought to be telling over and over again, the destruction of left-wing policies.
Okay, it's not the applause, but I did hear an edit in there.
So I'll pull back on my accusation the bell went off early.
But here's what happened after this.
When that answer was finished, Chris Wallace said, essentially, it's all well and good, but you didn't answer my question.
What are you going to do to fix it?
What are you going to do?
What kind of policies do you have?
They're going to teach people how to do the work again.
And Cruz had the answer.
He rattled it off.
He talked about how getting rid of all kinds of regulations, and he specified them, and all kinds of tax cuts, and he specified them, would create a massive new environment for companies to relocate Detroit to Detroit because it would be economically advantageous to do so.
He talked about how those companies would have a leg up in earning a profit because the regulations that are punitive would have been swept away.
He had the specific answer to every allegation, every question that he was asked, even with the follow-ups.
Well, you didn't answer my question.
What are you specifically going to do?
He had tailored his answer first to fit in the time limit.
He was the only guy that said what he wanted to say within the time limit without Kasich.
I mean, what time limit?
He just kept diarrhea of the mouth Kasich last minute.
It just kept going and going and going.
But whenever Cruz was challenged, you didn't answer my question, Senator.
He had the explicit answer to every policy that he thought would work to revive and rejuvenate Detroit or whatever else the question was about.
And it was the only one who did when it came to policy last night.
He was the only one that was even close.
And that's why I say he was in a different league last night, and his IQ was 85 above the average on that stage last night in terms of this kind of answer.
Be right back.
And back to the phones we go.
Oh, Chris Wallace, the Fox News Sunday, I will be live.
It's not going to be pre-taped.
I'm not going to be there.
I'm going to be on camera from here at the EIB network.
Fox will have a crew in here of about 20 people to do this 11-minute segment.
There'll be about 15 lights in here, but it'll be from here.
I'm not going to Washington for it, but it'll be live, and it's not on the phone.
If I hadn't told you, you wouldn't know I'm not there.
Here's Jonathan in Ogden, Utah.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Thanks for having me on.
You bet, sir.
Great to have you.
All right.
Well, I just wanted to bring up the fact that I completely agree with you on the anger that the people are feeling here.
And I think especially people are angry with the weakened perception of the military that we've had around the world.
And specifically seeing the soldier or the sailors that had to retreat and go from the Iranian government.
That was just something that really upset me as a member of the military.
And I know that because of this, specifically in other things, people are wanting a strong commander-in-chief.
My problem is people are saying that Trump is that candidate.
But then you get things where he's saying now that he's willing to attack family members of terrorists.
And then last night on the debate, he goes on to say that not only was he willing to do that, but he was willing to be stronger on all sorts of other issues.
And they asked him, what if the military says no to that?
And he said, I'm a leader.
If I tell people to do it, they're going to do it.
And that doesn't sound like a leader to me.
That sounds like a fascist.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
He said, they'll do what I tell them to do.
I'm a leader.
The military will do what I tell them to do.
Well, see, the problem that I have with that and the consequences that I want to bring out to your viewers and to the American public is think of the consequences that that brings.
Either the military people are going to be like, they're already fed up with all the political things that happen, all the political experiments.
There's so many good people that are already getting out of the military.
We can't have more people getting out because they don't want to face that situation.
Then on top of that, you have people that are either going to say, you know what, I'm not going to do that, and then face the consequences of those choices, even though they may be right.
They still may have to go through a court-martial or go through a process that is really going to affect their lives and their careers, even if they are right.
What did you think?
What do you think about Trump and waterboarding and clearly signaling that he got to let this NAMBI-PAMBI definition of torture stop him from getting what he needs to know from bad guys?
Here's my thought.
I couldn't agree more that we need to be stronger with our efforts that we're making, especially in the Middle East and Libya and all these countries and go stronger with Russia and North Korea and China.
But the problem is when you have a president that would be saying these things, this is the worst consequence that could happen.
You now have members of the military that are going to knowingly go into battle, look down deadly lethal weapons, and say, I don't know whether this person is a real terrorist.
They're a victim of a family.
I don't even know who they are.
And they then have to pull that trigger.
We already have so much PTSD.
We have so many suicides in our military that the American public is going to ask to elect a leader.
It's going to therefore make those members of the military make those choices.
And that's not right.
And truly, I feel ashamed for anyone that would support that for the United States military.
It's interesting.
I didn't read a whole lot about this today, but I did come across pieces written by two military people who reacted by saying, no, we won't.
We will not just automatically do what any commander-in-chief says to do.
So your point was probably felt by quite a few people in the military.
And we're back, El Rushboat, serving humanity, executing assigned host duties flawlessly zero.
Mistakes.
All right, equal time.
John Kasich this morning on America's newsroom, Bill Hemmer, said, last night was a repeat of a week ago.
Governor Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz going after Trump.
They had their thing going on, and you're waiting in the wings to talk about something that you call more sober.
And people call you the adult in the room.
Does a sober candidate break through in a contest like this, Governor Kasich?
When I win Ohio, it's a whole new ballgame.
I mean, we're going to be off to a convention.
And I think at a convention, they're not going to pick who's the best slanderer.
I think they're going to pick who it is that can actually be the commander-in-chief of the United States of America.
If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, it's ballgame over.
He's not going to win in Ohio.
I'm on home turf.
I'm up north.
I'm going to be in Pennsylvania, Illinois.
We'll be going to the Eastern Seaboard.
You won't be able to get the numbers to win on the first ballot.
It looks increasingly, if I win Ohio, we will have a convention that will come together to pick, I would think, the adult in the room.
Well, okay.
Maybe better just to keep going here.
Hemmer then said, well, what did you think of Mitt Romney's plea from Utah yesterday?
I think part of Mitt Romney's plea was way over the top.
I just don't believe you beat Donald Trump by smearing him.
I think you have to have a bigger vision.
If you spend your time trashing somebody else, you're not giving them hope.
Mitt said some policy things that were exactly right, but I'm not going to call names.
No, no, because I'm the adult in the room, and I'm just going to stop all this bickering over there.
I'm the guy that works with the school board, and I'm the guy that works with the governor and the legislature.
And you've got to come together, and you're going to get these done at the local level.
I've done it before.
I've been in Washington.
I was in a budget committee.
And you know what?
I was with Reagan.
I knew Reagan.
These guys, they talk about Reagan.
I was there with Reagan in the 80s, and I sat up and I said, what?
I didn't know that.
I didn't know Kasich was part of the Reagan 80s in an official political capacity.
And nobody said anything about it, so I guess.
I mean, he tried a Lord Benson type answer, but he held up short.
He assumed everybody knew what he was talking about and let everybody fill in the blank in the last answer.
Here's Trump.
This is one of the moments in the debate that had everybody needing the vapors, looking for the smelling salts.
Just right out of the blue there.
I have to say this.
I have to say this.
He hit my hands.
Nobody has ever hit my hands.
I've never heard of this one.
Look at those hands.
Are they small hands?
And he referred to my hands.
If they're small, something else must be small.
I guarantee you there's no problem.
I guarantee.
I guarantee there's no, like, people thought there might be a problem.
We don't want to elect a president not well endowed.
So Trump's saying, don't worry, don't worry.
I guarantee you there's no problem.
I guarantee.
And everybody, oh, Mabel, smelling salts, please.
Oh, my God.
The children are staying with Trump.
Megyn Kelly, you change your tune on so many things, Mr. Trump.
And that has some people saying, what is his core?
I have a very strong point.
But I've never seen a successful person who wasn't flexible, who didn't have a certain degree of flexibility.
You have to have a certain degree of flexibility.
You can't say, it's okay, and then you find out it's not okay, and you don't want to do anything.
You have to be flexible because you learn.
I really mean it.
You have to show a degree of flexibility.
If you're going to be one way and you think it's wrong, does that mean the rest of your life you have to go in the wrong direction because you don't want to change?
You've got to be flexible out there.
All of this was related to, if not directly attached to, the mysterious tape of Trump's off-the-record appearance.
The New York Times editorial board back on January 5th, which Buzzfeed has leaked that Trump may have told them things about his immigration policy that he is not saying to anybody else, such as maybe he won't actually deport these 11 million.
It's just an opener.
It's just an opening position.
Now, nobody knows what's on the tape because Trump was off the record.
Trump is not released at the Times won't without Trump's permission.
And he says he's not going to release the tape nor allow the New York Times to.
So that led to this discussion of: well, then how do we know you mean what you mean?
It's being alleged out there that you're telling the Times editorial board that you may not really be serious about the reporting.
You may not be serious about the wall.
So what is your core?
She said, well, how do we know what your core?
What do you really believe?
And that's why the question about being flexible came up.
And Megan Kelly then turned to Rubio and said, you know, you not only supported the failed immigration reform effort of the gang of eight, but you, sir, are still on record as favoring an eventual path to citizenship for those who are here illegally.
And in addition, Senator Rubio, you favored in-state tuition for Florida illegal immigrants.
Now, you've been hitting Trump hard on this flexibility discussion with the New York Times, but his supporters might say at least that his opening stance was tough.
I absolutely want to solve this issue.
And I did the best we could in a Senate that was controlled by Liberal Democrats and Harry Reid in the hopes that the House, made up of conservatives, would take it up and make it even stronger.
And I said that repeatedly at the time.
And this was Trump's response.
What Marco said is, I understand it.
He's talking about a little give and take and a little negotiation.
And you know what?
That's okay.
That's not the worst thing in the world.
There's nothing wrong with that.
So if Cruz had answered that Rubio question, you know what he would have said?
Well, he might have said liar.
But he would have said, No, Marco, you did not write that bill hoping the House would fix it.
You wrote that bill because you believed in amnesty.
You wrote that bill because you agreed with Schumer.
And now you're trying to tell everybody you did the best you could because you're overwhelmed by those Democrats and you hoped that the House would fix it.
Trump, unaware of all that, saw an opportunity to add ballast to his own flexibility by saying, See, see, Marco said he's being flexible.
That's what you got to do.
I understand it.
He's talking about a little give and take.
And you know what?
It's okay.
And little Marco, he's right about that.
The worst thing in the world, there's nothing wrong with being a little flexible.
I really, I really like what little Marco said there.
And Little Marco standing there holding up his hands about three inches apart.
And Van Jones is at home watching this on CNN.
He showed up last night after the debate on CNN and said this.
I said the last time we were here, I cannot let my children watch these debates.
You know, my father was born in poverty.
He was born in segregation.
He joined the military to get out.
We watched this stuff together.
It's important to me.
We watched this stuff together.
We would read the newspaper together.
This was a part of raising a family.
And you can't do this anymore.
So Van Jones is very, very unhappy.
He couldn't watch this with his kids, couldn't read about it in the newspaper together.
I don't believe the communists read the newspaper.
Who reads the newspaper anymore with their kids?
Whose kids know what a newspaper is?
Right, Brian?
It's got to be on the iPad, right?
Well, that's not that, Mr. Sterling said, what happened on the debate that these kids haven't already heard four times over that day at school?
It's not that they haven't heard it, it's that it happened within the confines of the exalted presidential debate.
No, these kinds of terms, these kinds of discussions and topics shouldn't be happening in that circumstance.
Of course, these kids know what this is about, but not there.
Back to Kasich audio soundbite number 21.
Brett Baer said, Do you buy Romney's blueprint?
Can you say tonight to your Florida supporters that they should vote for Senator Rubio to get a contested convention?
You know, this is so much about process.
It, frankly, is boring to me.
I would like it clear, though, since we're talking about polls.
I beat Hillary Clinton by more than anybody by 11 points.
And the reason it happens in one poll.
You know, the reason is because, as the Democrats tell me all the time, I can get the crossover votes.
You see, because throughout this campaign, I've talked about issues.
I have never tried to go and get into these kind of scrums that we're seeing here on the stage.
And people say everywhere I go, you seem to be the adult on the stage.
Every time this debate went off into the area of hands or flexibility or yoga, you heard the yoga line last night and flexibility.
Here comes Kasich trying to co-opt the adult on the stage persona.
Now, one bite here, unrelated to this, before we go to the break, there have been numerous occasions in the past on this program where I have told people that Barack Obama is going to be the first president in our lifetime not to leave Washington, that he's going to stay there.
And the reason he's going to stay there is to protect his agenda.
And whoever the next president, I don't care if it's Hillary, if it's Crazy Birdie, if it's Trump, whoever it is, anybody tampers with his agenda, he's going to make tracks to the nearest camera and cable news network, and he's going to be trashing and savaging whoever that president is that might be trying to unravel Obama here.
And that's unprecedented.
It's not just George W. Bush that is hands-off.
Clinton even was hands-off for a couple of years before he got back into ripping into Bush, but it's unprecedented.
Most presidents leave, and I've had people say, he's not staying there.
Rush, he's going to buy a house in Palm Springs.
I've seen him.
I've seen the property.
Nope, he's staying.
And I now can share with you the proof.
It was January 7th, 2014 that I made the claim, and it's in the news now.
He's said he's going to stay.
And the reason that he's going to stay is because his kids need to finish high school.
And he's not going to uproot them from Sidwell friends.
Horrible, horrible thing to do.
So he's made it official today.
He is staying in Washington after his presidency.
Mark my Obama is going to stay in Washington.
Can you guess why that might be?
He's going to stay in town to make sure that whatever he accomplishes is not unwound.
I guarantee you, folks, even after he's out of office, he is going to be treated by the media as though he's still president.
And this may be the case even with a Democrat president.
Whatever the next president does, the media is going to go to Obama every day.
He's going to have a satellite administration in exile in Washington.
I guarantee you.
Do not doubt me.
I know these people.
I know how he thinks.
I know who these people are.
I know that's exactly why he's going to stay there.
So, John Kasich is being interviewed on CNN by Brooke Baldwin, and he's just talking about how he had successfully took on the nursing home lobby in Ohio.
I've found it fun.
I've never heard the nursing home lobby.
I'm sure there is one.
I've never heard them being formidable.
I imagine they are.
Anyway, he beat him back in Ohio.
Heather in Lynchburg, Virginia.
I have time to squeeze you in here.
How are you?
Hi, Rush.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Thank you very much.
Well, I wanted to take a break from talking about the election and ask if you would consider writing a Rush Revere book for younger kids, like the cardboard ones for little toddlers.
I've got two Rush babies, and we listen to you every day, and I can't wait to read them your books, but it's going to be a while before they're ready for those.
Oh, yeah.
I don't think you can start teaching them too soon.
So I'd love to have something in the meantime.
I am very flattered that you would ask.
That's true.
These books are written for 8, 10, 11 years old.
That's a good point.
Well, you know, we are, we're constantly thinking about this series and what to do with it next and how to keep it going.
That's a great idea.
And I appreciate you thinking about that.
Right?
They would have to be picture books and other things for toddlers that can't read or just on the verge of it.
Heather, thank you very much.
I really, really do appreciate that.
In fact, get her name and address.
We'll send her kids a bunch of stuff in lieu of those books before they're not yet out, of course.
We'll send some Liberty dolls and audio versions of the books.
That'd be cool.
Back after this.
Don't go away, folks.
Okay, remember, folks, on Sunday, Fox News Sunday, I, El Rushbo, appearing with Chris Wallace.
As of now, it's in the second segment.
Probably will hold up.
And on Monday, I'm out.
I've got my annual and annual charitable outing.
And Mark Stein will be here.
And we'll be back at it on Monday For that huge round of primaries and a discussion of what happened in the election Saturday, which again are fascinated.
Four of them are closed primaries.
Only Republicans can vote.
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