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March 25, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:45
March 25, 2016, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Okay, I found a cookie.
Cookie worked.
Cookie will work for like 10 minutes.
I'll have to have another cookie.
Can you hear the difference?
You probably can't because of the audio problem, but I guarantee you it's taking much less effort to speak here.
It'll last 10 minutes and I'll have to have another cookie.
Folks, I'm 65 years old.
I don't have to play tricks with anybody to score cookies for crying out loud.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open lime Friday.
It's not like I have a bunch of nags around me.
Don't eat the cookies.
You know, they're that good for 65 years old.
I know what works.
It's the same stuff back in the New York days at chocolate donut work.
Yeah, right.
You're just like, I would make that up.
Anyway, we'll see how long it lasts, but I'm telling this is much, much better.
And I've asked auto-larynge specialists about it, and nobody can explain why it works.
Have you ever tried hot tea and honey?
Yeah, it never works.
I don't know what that's all about.
It doesn't help with a cold.
It doesn't help anything.
That's probably the honey lobby.
Behind that.
No, no, Easter egg, chocolate.
It has to be bread-related.
That's why chocolate, donut, cookie, what have you?
It has to.
Who knows?
All I'm telling you is what works.
Why do people want to?
It works.
No, it shouldn't work.
You're just trying to sneak a cookie.
No, I'm 65.
If I want to have a cookie, I'll have a damn cookie.
I have to sneak it.
Jeez.
Anyway, folks, great to have you back open line Friday.
800-282-2882.
Big hour left.
Whatever's on your mind is what we talk about.
We had a guy moments ago, a Democrat in Florida.
What was he?
I guess Orlando.
He was saying he's one of three Democrats he knows for Trump.
And he characterized Trump as a blue-collar billionaire.
So I want to share with you some polling data from the NBC News Wall Street Journal poll that is going to really anger many Trump supporters.
And you're probably going to get mad at me.
But your anger, if you have any, will be misplaced aiming at me.
Just wait till I get through this.
Because I don't think this kind of stuff matters to Trump supporters.
But it's a category list, demographic list of various groups and their negatives toward Trump, their disapproval.
And when you go through this, you wonder how in the world Trump is winning the Republican primary.
Now, he's winning it with 37%, so you could say 63% are not for Trump.
But then that 63% is not coalescing to oppose Trump.
Not yet, anyway.
Some mitigating factors.
There are early voting in a lot of states months ago where you could vote for Rubio or you could vote for Jeb or you could vote for Carly Fiorina or Christie.
And people did.
And by voting early, their votes actually ended up not counting at all.
Which is, side issue, another reason to just broom this early voting.
It's a Democrat trick anyway.
Early voting is just, it's a recipe for fraud.
And it's no wonder it's largely a Democrat idea.
Here are Trump's negatives.
Latest NBC Wall Street Journal poll.
Women, 70% disapproval, Trump.
Millennials, 72% disapproval, Trump.
African Americans, 83% disapproval or negative on Trump.
Hispanics, 77% negative disapproval, Trump.
And suburbanites, 68%.
So if these numbers are right, then Trump is going to need lots and lots of union voters to counteract these numbers.
And just to remind you, it was, did I put this at the bottom of the stack?
The latest, here it is, Fox News poll.
Just to review this, with millennials 35 and under, millennials prefer Cruz to Hillary 51 to 37%.
That is a 14-point lead that Cruz has over Hillary in a national matchup with people 35 and under.
The same group, 35 and under.
Hillary leads Trump by 20.
So a 34-point spread, if you want to look at it that way.
Now, I realize a number of you pro-Trumpsters are going to say, that's a drive-by media poll.
It's the NBC Wall Street Journal.
They hate Trump.
Of course, they're going to do that.
Just like Fox is probably making their poll up to hurt Trump, blah, blah, blah.
I know how Trump people think, the ardent Trump supporters.
And I realize it's not going to talk you out of Trump, and I'm not trying to by any stretch of the imagination.
I myself look at these negative numbers and I wonder, well, if those are true.
I mean, these are striking numbers.
70% of women negative on Trump.
Not on this show.
Vast majority of women call here love Trump.
72% millennials anti-Trump.
83%.
Now, wait, and by the way, there's maybe a mind-the-distinction.
Not saying they won't vote for him.
Maybe they wish that that be inferred.
But depending on the final matchup, this does not say how people will vote.
This is just you have positive feelings, negative feelings.
It's your reaction to various candidates.
And those are Trump's numbers.
All negative.
Women, 70%, Millennials, 72, Blacks, 83, Hispanic, 77, Suburbanites, 68.
Now, these numbers are before this latest dust-up with the tweeted photos of candidates' wives.
So, and before this rumored National Inquirer story that Ted Cruz somehow has five mistresses out there.
One thing interesting about that: all of this negative news about Cruz coming out, somebody's getting worried about him.
I mean, there's no reason for this stuff to be coming out the way it is with such intensity and frequency if people weren't concerned.
But I have to tell you this: when the conversation moves to the Republican establishment and the rules for the convention, don't make a mistake of assuming that the establishment is choosing between Cruz and Trump.
The establishment wants neither of them.
And I don't care where you look.
You can look at Scott Walker's comments.
You can look at any number of Republican establishment people.
They are salivating for a contested convention.
And they're making no bones about the fact that a contested convention gives them the opportunity to pick somebody other than Trump or Cruz.
They have a political story here, which pretty much indicates that the people running the Republican Party and the Republican Convention are going to operate under this premise that neither Trump nor Cruz is qualified to be the nominee because neither one of them got to 1237 delegates.
It's a story about how we're not going to award a nominee who gets the most delegates if he's short of 1237.
The rule is the rule.
And it's always been the rule.
You've got to get a majority, which is 1237.
And if you don't, we're not bending the rules to give you the nomination.
You've got to get there.
And if you don't, then it's contested.
Okay, fine.
But you don't even have to read between the lines in this political story.
It is very clear that the power brokers at the convention, the RNC, wherever they are, are telegraphing the fact that they think neither Cruz nor Trump should be the nominee if neither of them gets to 1237.
That's going to be treated as a defeat.
It's going to be treated as a rejection.
The party clearly wants to look at no candidate getting 1237 as a rejection.
That voters will essentially be saying, we don't want any of these people if none of them got 1237.
The party is going to then take it from there and act on the assumption that I've just stated and then nominate their own guy, whoever it is.
Take your pick.
Jeb, Paul Ryan, any number of people throw their hat in there.
Kasich, which is what he's angling for in all of this.
But Rush, I thought you just said that if they didn't win their discount.
Well, they will.
But Kasich will not be included in that because he never even got close.
So it will not even be looked upon that Kasich has been rejected like Cruz and Trump have been rejected.
And I'm just, you can think that I'm overanalyzing this, but I would caution you not to.
You know as well as I do that the power brokers in the Republican Party don't like Trump or Cruz.
They especially don't like Cruz.
They are much more open to Trump.
But if they had their way, it won't be either of them.
And they will happily lose the election.
They're on record as saying that in any number of stories, some of them by name, some of them speaking anonymously, but they're making it abundantly clear that they're perfectly happy losing the election while maintaining the existing party structure.
If losing the election and maintaining the current party structure, i.e.
establishment, if that's what it takes to hold on to the structure, then losing the election is fine with them.
And that's the problem with these people from the beginning of the day to the end.
They don't care about winning.
It's not their priority.
Their own personal preferences, their desires are what matter to them.
And that's been the problem all along.
In other news items, Chris Steyerwalt at Fox News, Cruz looks to reset the race with a Wisconsin win.
Ted Cruz is out today, Steyerwalt writes, with a trio of new ads in Wisconsin ahead of the April 5th primary.
Now, while Cruz is trying to marshal forces to win Wisconsin, if he did, it would be big.
Don't forget the New York Times story from earlier this week, where the Republican establishment is also planning a 100-day strategy to deny Donald Trump the nomination.
And it starts with the Wisconsin primary on April 5th.
So there are two things going on here simultaneously.
Cruz trying to put together a winning plan and strategy for Wisconsin April 5th and the establishment trying to deny Trump.
And not just in Wisconsin, but whatever they can do for the next 100 days.
But do not forget, these people don't want Cruz either.
This is important to remember because Ted Cruz cannot get to 1237 without winning 80% of the remaining delegates.
Not impossible, but very unlikely.
Trump has to win.
What did I see?
53% of the remaining delegates.
Maybe 55.
That's much more likely.
That's why the establishment is aiming at Trump.
But I just, I want to make it very clear to everybody, for those of you on the Trump side, or on the Cruz side, I'm sorry, when you see the establishment gearing up to deny Trump, keep in mind they're trying to deny Cruz too.
In point of fact, they already think Cruz has been eliminated as a problem because he can't get to 1237.
And 1237 is the number.
And if nobody gets there, don't forget, they are disqualified as far as the establishment powers running the convention think.
Now, Cruz is running three ads in Wisconsin, being backed by $350,000 ad-buy according to his campaign.
They're all positive in tone.
They're aimed at softening his image in Wisconsin, where moderate Republicans hold a lot of clout.
Steyerwalt writes here, the kinder tone of the Cruz closing argument likely has something to do with Kasich, who has campaigned in Wisconsin, but lags way behind Trump and Cruz.
But even a distant third-place finish for Kasich might be enough to deliver the delegates and the momentum to Trump.
Another thing for you cruisers to keep in mind, Kasich is in as a spoiler, and his primary target is Cruz.
Make no mistake.
Quick timeout.
We'll get back to your phone calls when we get back.
Stay with us.
Oh, before I get back to the phone, just one other thing.
I mentioned at the top of the program, and I want to get into just a little bit of detail.
So, Wall Street Journal story.
Headline: Ted Cruz gains in Louisiana after loss there to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump beat Cruz earlier this month in Louisiana's Republican primary by 3.6 percentage points, but but but cruise may wind up with as many as 10 more delegates than Trump in Louisiana.
The reason is Cruz's supporters seized five of Louisiana's six slots on the powerful committees, three committees that'll write the rules and platform at the Republican National Convention and mediate disputes over delegates' eligibility this summer in Cleveland.
So, five out of six slots on three committees that Cruz somehow ended up with because of the primary nets him 10 more delegates than Trump, plus additional power over delegate allocation in certain circumstances at the convention all because of this revised look at Louisiana.
So, the news today is problematic.
I mean, it's somewhat controversial for Cruz.
I don't think this national inquirer, you never know how this is going to, what kind of lifespan something is going to have.
Are you sure there's a story, or is it just an internet rumor that they're working on it?
If there's oh, you've seen it, you've seen this.
All right, is it on their website?
I don't know.
I just see, here's the inquirer, they did break the John Edwards scandal, and they got somebody else's sex scandal.
Yeah, but that's long ago.
I mean, somebody, something recent, Jesse Jackson's love trail, everybody knew that.
But John Edwards, when nobody else wanted to go there, nobody else wanted to touch it, they did have that right in every detail.
There's one other, but then they've also been way wrong.
They had a story that Obama had 12 mistresses, it's only four.
Just kidding.
They had a story that Obama had 12 mistresses, and there's no backup for that whatsoever.
They've shot wide and missed a number of times, too.
I just don't know how much traction something like it's going to get.
We'll see.
Time will tell.
Robin and Toledo, you're next.
I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Dittos from the John Kasich Stronghold of Toledo, Ohio.
I'm so happy to speak with you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
From the John Kasich Stronghold.
We love those.
Yes.
I wanted to discuss what you had mentioned in your earliest segment about why women are so mad about the Melania Trump, Heidi Cruz thing that Trump had tweeted about.
And coming to you as someone who doesn't participate in women groups think, and as someone who has not necessarily been offended by anything Trump has done up to this point, I wanted to explain what I think is going on with this.
And what I think is going on with this is relatability in one word.
Melania Trump took those pictures with the intended reason of having a worldwide audience.
She sent those out to a magazine.
The whole world was intended on seeing those pictures.
So there shouldn't be such an outrage that the world is now seeing these pictures and having opinions about it.
They weren't private photos.
This was something with the intent for the world to see.
The Heidi Cruz picture, there is not one woman in America that hasn't had a bad picture taken of them and thinks, oh, gosh, I hope no one sees that.
That looks terrible.
And people can relate to that.
You know, women see them like, oh, I would hate if somebody did that to me and just sent out my worst photo for the whole world to see and make fun of.
And I think when Trump was...
You know, that actually, Rob and I got a...
That is an excellent point.
In fact, I don't know too many women who do love photos of themselves, period.
Exactly.
And to have the worst photo of you possibly sent all over the world and made fun of.
And, you know, Trump's minions on Twitter, they are just some vile.
And you know what?
And like I said, I don't mind it because I understand what they're doing.
I understand the manosphere mindset that Trump is operating in.
And it's okay.
But for a lot of people of the softer side, that is not okay.
Okay, well, that's a good distinction.
That makes sense to me.
But I have another question when we get back.
That's right, a man, a legend, a way of life.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the rapper and rock and roll crooner, R ⁇ B crooner Kanye West, has said that he's going to run for president in 2020.
Now, as you know, Kanye West is married to Kim Kardashian.
And we presume that in 2020, he will still be married to Kim Kardashian.
So the question is, what happens?
And it's predictable this will happen.
Photos of Kim Kardashian's naked Derier or scantily clad Derry Air will no doubt appear.
Maybe even as Kanye campaign posters, you know, with a question.
What will the reaction there be?
Will people be outraged that opponents of Kanye West might post such pictures of his wife?
Might the reaction be exactly what we just heard.
What do you mean?
How she's, she got not just those, she got sex tape.
Sex tape is what put her on the map.
Or was that Paris Hilton?
Or was it both of them?
Well, whatever.
Kanye knows them both.
She has one.
Right.
Thank you for that knowledge, Brian Glenn.
All right, so she has sex tape and all that.
The argument can't be that it's intrusive because she has put that stuff out there on her own.
And that's the point the last caller made.
Look, look, Melania Trump was a model.
She wanted to get noticed.
She posed for photos.
The idea was for these photos to be seen.
Right, right.
I know.
I know it's 15 years ago, but nevertheless, at the time she did it.
That's what it was for.
And this was a woman trying to explain why this is different from all the other Trump comments about other women.
Megan Kelly to Carly Fiorina to take your pick.
And her point was that Heidi Cruz has never, ever, at any point in her life, sought such notice.
She has never posed for photos that were intended for public consumption.
And that most women can relate.
Most women don't like pictures of themselves.
And every woman has seen a bad picture of herself and no way wants anybody else to see it.
And that that's why this is different.
And I thought that makes some sense.
I've got some soundbites I want to get to here.
I've hyped them.
And we'll get back to your phone calls very soon.
You have to hear this.
This is Mrs. Clinton.
She's in Los Angeles yesterday, USC.
A roundtable discussion on terrorism and homeland security.
Audio soundbite number 10 here.
This is Hillary and her plan to defeat ISIS.
We cannot give in to panic and fear.
It's not in keeping with our values.
It's not effective in protecting us.
And it plays into the hands of terrorists.
We want nothing more than to intimidate and terrorize people, turn against each other, which leads to radicalizing more people and creating even greater problems for us.
I'm encouraged.
I am hopeful that this kind of conversation will find a broader audience.
We like to say in my campaign that love Trump's hate.
Crying out loud, so she can beat ISIS with love.
You know, they have to have focused group, this phrase, this constant reference to our values.
I mean, it's every other sentence out of Obama's mouth.
And we must maintain our values.
That's not who we are.
Whether you're torture or whatever it is, it must.
Because they just overuse this.
It's got to be something their focus grouping has shown them to be beneficial.
And it burns me up because these are the people that are single-handedly redefining and destroying our values.
And I don't even think that's arguable.
The values these people are coming up with that now somehow define America are absolutely destructive.
Okay, we have talked in the past about this TV show that runs on Showtime called The Circus.
It's produced by Mark McKinnon, who also heads up a group called No Labels.
Is basically a bunch of liberal Republicans who don't like conservatives, but they don't want to be Democrats.
They're Republicans.
So they think if they call themselves nothing, no labels, that they can elevate themselves above everybody else.
Like a lot of moderates and independents think that they can be perceived as a cut above open-minded, not racist or bigoted by not being defined by a label.
And McKinnon was the media guy behind the George W. Bush campaigns 2000, 2004.
So there's this show that they're producing on Showtime called The Circus.
And McKinnon is one of the co-creators, along with John Heilman and Mark Halperin, who have a TV show on the Bloomberg Network.
And they have leaked.
They've given a sneak peek of an upcoming episode.
And it has to do with what happened in Brussels.
It was last night on Megan Kelly's show.
Sandra Smith was filling in.
And Trump was the focus of this episode of the show.
And various politicians and their reactions to what happened in Brussels was the subject.
And Heileman is interviewing Trump in this sneak peek from the upcoming episode.
And Heilman says, Trump, when did you learn about what happened in Brussels?
I received a call in the morning, and then I turned on the television.
So what happened?
I said, here we go.
Here we go.
You got the call from your friend this morning.
You already were scheduled to do a bunch of morning show interviews by phone.
Did you consult anybody about what to say?
How can they have no facts?
You have to consult.
I say it from my heart and my brain.
It's not just heart.
It's heart and brain.
And that's what I do.
I say what I think is.
Now, their point here is that Trump's reaction was the best of anybody out there, and it was instinctive with Trump.
He didn't call any consultants.
He didn't call any advisors.
He didn't test various things to say with public reaction.
He just improvised it based on his own instincts.
And as he says here, his heart and his brain.
McKinnis says that Hillary's response was much different.
We are focusing this week on Trump and Clinton, and it just turned out that it was this week that these significant events happened.
So we got to see the candidates, how they responded in real time.
It couldn't have been more different, both in style and in substance.
The Clinton campaign, it was like a 3 a.m. phone call, and they called Brooklyn.
They got the comms team on the line, got the foreign policy advisors.
And of course, a lot of these pieces are in place, but they had a very sort of methodical response with a lot of input.
Donald Trump was just complete, spontaneous, and intuitive response.
And the point here is that they were dazzled by that.
These guys come from a world where everything is scripted, everything's planned, everything is rehearsed, everything's on a prompter, particularly something as momentous as this.
You don't go out and just wing it.
Nothing off the cuff.
It's too risky.
It's terrorism.
We still don't know the extent of it at the time people are going out and speaking.
So Hillary did what everybody thinks should be done.
She got a hold of her team.
They ran various ideas back and forth.
They tested things out.
They scripted a response, and Hillary sounded as though it was scripted.
And Trump just heard what had happened, digested it, went out and reacted to it.
They think his response was much stronger, much more focused, and they were dazzled by the fact.
I find this fascinating.
Just as a personal assessment or a personal aside, these people in politics, and actually people in public life in many ways, are just incapable of spontaneity.
They're scared to death of it.
They don't understand it.
They're scared to death of improvisation.
Everything has to be scripted.
Everything has to be written, not from a proactive standpoint, but from a defensive standpoint.
You make sure that you write down what you're going to say and you do not deviate from the script because you don't want to say anything that could hurt you.
You go very close to the vest, very, very tightly held.
You take no risks.
You don't put yourself out there at all.
And they don't know how to react to a guy like Trump.
They've never seen it.
It doesn't compute.
They don't have anybody who knows how to do it.
When in fact, they do.
They just don't trust it.
Everybody has instinctive reactions to this stuff.
Most people don't have the guts to go with their instincts because most people are so self-conscious.
Many people don't trust themselves.
They need the feedback of others to find out what they think or to get affirmation that what they think is right.
And Trump doesn't.
He just, he's confident.
He has a reaction to things.
He goes out there and says it, such as, you know what?
If we'd been doing a little bit more torture, this might not have happened.
They would never approve a candidate saying that.
These guys, Halperin, Heileman, McKinnon, would never, that would never get on any candidate's teleprompter.
And I just, I don't know, here we are in the upper, the highest levels of American politics, and they are dazzled by somebody who's just real.
They're dazzled by somebody who can just speak off the cuff, stay focused, say what he wants to say.
They're not accustomed to this kind of thing at all, which just when you stop and think these people represent the pinnacle, they represent the best, and the best in their world can't do it without coaching, without advisors, without rehearsals, without a bunch of people signing off on what's going to be said.
It amazes me, just at a personal level.
Back after this, don't go.
Myron, Plymouth, Michigan.
You're next.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Hello.
Well, thank you, Rush.
I've been a longtime listener over 20 years, and I love your show, and I agree with you probably 99% of the time.
But lately, I'm a little disappointed, primarily because I just get this feeling that you're against Trump and you're for Cruz.
But I'd like to put this thing on a positive note because I'm a retired real estate developer, and I know exactly what Donald Trump has to go through.
I mean, it's incredible what that man has done.
I mean, his achievements, his accomplishments are absolutely phenomenal.
And I look at the type of person, granted, I don't agree with a lot of his comments or decisions, but I try to look at the total picture.
And here's a man that's got 50 years of success.
He's had huge organizations.
He's had hired a lot of people.
He's created a ton of jobs.
He's the only one that I feel could straighten out the behemoth in Washington, getting the right people in there, cleaning house.
And I think that's the, as you have been talking about the establishment, they're definitely afraid that he's going to clean house and try to put us back on order.
Oh, they're scared to death of that.
Yes.
No question about it.
And I agree with you.
And I agree with you on most everything.
My big problem with Cruz is he's another lawyer.
And if you look at the history of this country, over half of the presidents have been lawyers.
And that's starting with Woodrow Wilson, who started the progressive movement, and then FDR, who extended the department.
Now, let's not talk about the number of them that came out of Harvard either.
And Ivy League people.
Right, exactly.
And so I just feel we need to look at the positives that Trump has done.
Everybody's jumping on the negatives, you know, the pimple on the elephant and not looking at the total picture.
And, you know, granted, I'm not, I don't necessarily like all the things he says, but at the same token, he's got a lot of things.
I know where you're coming from.
And by the way, Trump's got his supporters, and nobody's talking Trump supporters out of it.
We haven't reached the point, I disagree with Vinny, I don't think that can happen anyway.
But look, Myron, I'm out of time.
I'm really, really up against it.
But we will be back in just a second to really have a happy Easter.
Ladies and gentlemen, good Friday today following Bad Thursday yesterday.
We will be back on Monday, revved and ready to go.
Whatever happens between now and then, this is the place to find out not only what happened, but what to think about it to.
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