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April 13, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
April 13, 2016, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, I was just asking a question here of the staff.
I'm going to ask you, and if anybody wants to call and give me your answer to this, have at it.
We all know that the Trump campaign is continuing to actively, I don't want to use the word complain, they're being very critical of the Colorado process.
Okay.
So my question is this.
The Colorado process has been known for months and months and months.
Why?
I'm serious here.
I'm not trying to make a point with it.
I'm actually asking a question.
Why not complain about this two months ago?
Why not call attention to it last month, two weeks ago, two months ago?
Why wait until after the results to start complaining about how it was rigged?
It's not as though something happened in Colorado that nobody knew was going to happen.
It's not as though they changed the rules in the middle of the process during the weekend.
So why complain?
Why call attention to it now?
Why not do so a month ago?
Why not back in September, October?
Or whenever the Trump campaign found out how Colorado was going to manage its affairs here during the primary.
Greetings, my friends.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Rush Lindbaugh back at it here in another three hours.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882 and the email address, illrushbo at EIBNet.com.
I guess one of the biggest bits of news that's out there now is that apparently a member of the Republican National Committee, a guy by the name of Randy Evans, was on MSNBC this morning.
We have a ban on anything that happens there.
And I'm not going to lift the ban.
I don't need the ban lifted.
This guy said on MSNBC this morning, if Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 delegates, then he's going to get the nomination.
If Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 votes, delegates, he will become the nominee, even though he may not have 1,237.
Well, this has caused a lot of buzz.
People are asking, wait a minute, what does this mean?
There are any number of possibilities.
Does this mean, is this guy speaking for the whole committee?
And has the committee internally decided that if Trump gets that close, 1,100, they're just going to scrap the 1237 rule and hand it to Trump?
Or does he mean, hey, if he gets to 1,100, there's no stopping him no matter what anybody tries to do?
Does he mean that?
Or does he mean something else?
And everybody's digging deep, trying to find out exactly what Randy Evans meant.
And apparently, somebody named Caitlin Huey Burns, Real Clear Politics, tweeted out, just got off the phone with Randy Evans, the Republican National Committee, and he said the 1237 number is not flexible, only that if Trump is close, that he can wrangle enough unbound delegates.
So I hate to be the bearer of what some might consider bad news, but this does not constitute an official change of the rules from the RNC and the convention.
It's just happened as one committee member goes on TV today and says, hey, if Trump gets to 1,100, it'll be a snap to get to 1237.
All he's got to do is go and get 137 unbound, 117 unbound delegates, whatever it is, and he got it in the bag.
So the guy was not saying that the RNC is going to modify the 1237 rule and count 1,100 close enough to say it's a done deal.
He's simply saying if he gets that close, it's going to be easy for the Trumpster to go out there and make up the difference.
The Washington Post has a story today saying that the Cruz campaign is working diligently to make sure that Trump does not get to 1237 on the second ballot, much less the first.
So it remains unsettled.
We have polling data coming in from New York where Trump continues to poll way, way, way out in front of anybody else.
But I want to do something here before we go back and get into the nuts and bolts and the dirt and the grime of the entire process here.
Because I've got four soundbites that are interesting.
They are sound bites that go to the human side of both Trump and Cruz.
One of them is Alan Dershowitz, who taught law to Ted Cruz at Harvard.
And Dershowitz has always said that Cruz was the smartest student he ever had, the most challenging student he ever had.
Bar none.
Dershowitz has made it plain that nobody has ever come close in intelligence, brains, all of that to Ted Cruz, anybody he's taught at Harvard.
On the other side, CNN last night did a, well, it sat down with the Trump family.
And the Trumpster was there.
And it showed the Trump family interacting and the women of the Trump family just totally enthralled and respectful and in love with Donald.
And a number of people say, you know what, this is great.
We see a side of this guy that we've never seen before.
This is great.
This is great.
So, and I think this is healthy and helpful to have the opportunity to illustrate the, you know, I hate this term, the human side, because what are they?
They're not mongoloids.
They're humans.
But, you know, in the common vernacular here, when people talk about the humanity of somebody, usually talk about their liberalism.
And of course, that's not what I'm talking about.
When you just get them out of the daily grind of what they're doing, in which everybody, every candidate adopts a persona, a stage presence.
The good ones do.
So let's get started with Dershowitz.
This was on Fox News last night.
Megan Kelly interviewing Alan Dershowitz.
Two soundbites.
She said, you taught Ted Cruz when he was a young whipper snapper.
What was your impression of him?
Everything I said, he challenged me.
He was one of the best students I ever had because a teacher loves to be challenged.
I use the Socratic method.
Everything I said, he disagreed with.
I was against the death penalty.
He's in favor.
I was in favor of the exclusionary rule.
He's against it.
And he made such brilliant arguments that I never had to play the devil's advocate.
Even as a law student, he was there.
He had that sort of thinking.
He had been a champion debater at Princeton, and he and his Princeton roommate sat next to each other.
And he was an African-American, a black kid from Jamaica, two of the most brilliant guys at Harvard Law School, and they were inseparable.
And they had a team tag match.
One guy finished, the other guy would raise his hand.
Whoa, whoa, it's a double whammy here.
First, we got Dershowitz, who is a well-known leftist, a proud card-carrying leftist, admitting that the most brilliant law student he has ever come across was Ted Cruz.
And then the bonus that Cruz's best buddy was a black guy who was just as smart as Cruz, and that they were a tag team here in the debate.
And one of them would finish, the next guy raised his hand, and they would keep on as a team, and they just slammed anybody got in their way.
There was no defeating these guys.
And Kelly said, did you know what Ted Cruz's politics were at the time?
His politics were clear, principled, unwavering, and very intelligently presented.
You said he was one of the smartest students you ever had.
Is that true or is that hyperbole?
No, no, no, it's true.
And in fact, I got a lot of criticism from my friends on the left saying, why are you saying that?
I'm a professor.
I have to tell the truth about my students, even if I disagree with their views.
Even if I'm not going to vote for him, I'm not going to change history.
His politics were clear.
We're talking about a early 20s student.
He wants consistency.
I mean, this goes to, here's who the guy is.
He is who he says he is.
He is who he appears to be.
His principles are his principles.
They have been for his whole life.
He doesn't make anything up here.
He's not manufacturing it as he goes.
This is who he is.
Clear, principled, unwavering, intelligently presented.
A lot of his leftist buddies are ripping him for saying these things about Cruz, but he says, hey, I'm a professor.
I can't lie about my students.
Okay, so that's Dershowitz and Cruz.
And that's, you'd have to admit, now it's effective testimony, but it's validation, confirmation from somebody who doesn't agree with Cruz in any way, shape, manner, or form.
And it debunks all the caricatures that are out there of Cruz from the left, somebody who many leftist Democrats, they're sure what they admire to the hilt.
Now to the Trump side of this.
There was a show last night on CNN called a Trump Family Town Hall.
And they had Trump and Melania and some of the kids who are now adults, some of the kids, even had Tiffany Trump there.
I think the only Trump that wasn't there was Barron, the youngest.
I'm not sure.
But it's fascinating.
So on CNN today, they're reviewing it, what happened last night.
The host, Michaela Pereira, spoke with two people who attended last night's Trump family town hall, Joseph Kovac and Arlene Ting.
And during the discussion about their experience of the event, the hostette here, Michaela Pereira, said, I understand that this is the first time you've had the opportunity to do this sort of thing, show up at an event like this.
And Joe, Joe Kovac, I understand you actually found that your vote has been swayed by what you saw last night.
It has.
Last night, I saw Donald Trump in a different light.
I saw how he interacted with his children.
I saw that interaction.
Being a Republican and tending to be more conservative and being from Sten Island, I agree with a lot of the positions that Donald has taken.
I also feel that tone is very important.
So we're to assume he was not supporting Trump.
Now he is because of the interaction that he saw with his children last night.
You know, let's go and play the second bite and I'll share with you an observation.
This next one is Michaela Pereira saying to Arlene Ting.
Arlene, this idea of tone.
Was it something that bothered you going into the event that you wanted to find out where Trump's head was?
And Chris Cuomo, you'll also hear him trying to swivel into this sound bite.
You always wonder if someone with this type of personality can kind of turn it off at times.
And it was reassuring to me that he had said that he was nicer to his family rather than what we've seen at the debates, despite, you know, all of the incendiary remarks that he has made.
I was thinking maybe he would comment that he was a disciplinarian or very critical towards them, but for him to admit that he was nicer towards them was actually reassuring because he's a father, he's a husband, he's a grandfather as well.
I still feel that I'm undecided.
It kind of gives a different perspective when you see them talk amongst their family.
This always amazes me.
I'm always trying to understand how people think, how they react to things they see on TV.
It's always going to be a learning exercise for me.
So, you know, plus I know Trump personally.
And Trump is not, well, in business, he can be.
But it amazes.
People could watch Trump interacting with his family and say, wow, I'm shocked.
What do you expect?
His family's out there all the time.
His family loves him.
Why does it surprise people that Trump's family doesn't think that he's a fire-breathing, satanic figure?
Why is it a surprise when people get together with their family on TV and everybody seems to love and respect each other?
Why is that a surprise?
No, no, no, no, no.
I understand that some people's family experience is not the best and so forth.
I mean, these guys are on television a lot.
Is it really that hard to figure out who these people are?
Especially Trump.
Trump's been on TV all over the place.
Can people not spot what the shtick is, what the act is, and where the real guy is?
It always amazes me how people can't always, me, look at myself too.
It never fails.
Even after 27 years, I find myself in a public situation and talking with people.
Well, I'll give you that.
I went to dinner three weeks ago with a couple of friends in New York, and they were visiting down there.
They were being hosted by a resident here I've never met.
And they told me their host was hesitant to come because she was afraid that I would be walking into the restaurant, looking at liberals and pointing to them and say, get out.
She was afraid that I was a bull in a China shop.
And so we said that after, but she had to say a word for the first 10 minutes.
After the first 10 minutes, she says, I can't believe you.
You're one of the nicest people I've ever.
You're the one of the most engaging.
And I'm sitting here, what do you say to that?
Of course, but it's the power.
I know what it is.
It's the power of public image presentation and so forth.
But it seems that there is seldom any assumption or benefit of the doubt.
Like, I am the same thing works with Cruz.
Cruise, who appears to be an automaton when it comes to his campaign.
He's focused.
He is never off message, never off point.
And people routinely say when they meet him how shocked they were that he's actually a normal person.
It just always, why do people why is it a surprise when public figures are seen as normal?
Anyway, it's an ongoing learning exercise for me.
I'm not being critical of it.
It's a fascinating thing.
And I think these two sound bites illustrate it.
Here's Dershowitz saying things about Cruz that nobody else, there's not a single Republican out there talking this way about Cruz.
Maybe his wife, of course, but I mean, you don't have anybody that knows Cruz on the Republican.
Everything about Cruz, he's hated.
He's despised.
The Senate doesn't like Cruz.
Go talk to his law professor, smartest guy ever.
Same thing with Trump.
Just interests me.
We'll take a take at timeout, be back and continue right after this, folks.
We're just getting warmed up here.
Yeah, looking for something here.
Hang on just a second.
It's a healthcare story because we just, here we go.
Here we go.
You have Audio Soundbite 16.
We have a Heidi Cruz bite.
This should have been part of the four-part little soundbite expose we just did.
Heidi Cruz last night was on a Kelly file as well with Megan Kelly, who said Donald Trump sent out an unkind retweet about you, comparing your appearance unfavorably to that of his wife, Melania, who is a retired model.
Everybody thought that was just horrible, Heidi.
I was just despicable.
It was crass.
How did you first learn about that?
I don't tweet.
So I had an ability to completely ignore it.
And I think we have a pattern of behavior here that when Donald Trump is falling behind.
Yeah, but that's a dodge.
Like who told you about it and how it made you feel?
You and Carly, my dear friend Carly and myself have been the object of some of Donald's criticisms.
But I will tell you, I know why we're running this race, and it's not for Donald Trump.
It is for the voters of this country.
And when you have a husband who's standing by you that is so strong and so unflappable, it really gives me a lot of strength.
And so I really have to honestly say, it didn't impact me in the least.
That's fascinating.
I got to find some real quick.
Grab somebody 21.
Did you hear what she just said here?
She said, when you have a husband who's standing by you that's so strong and so unflappable, it really gives me a lot of strength.
That is cool.
And I want you to compare me.
Listen, this is Michelle My Bell, Obama.
PBS special Monday night series, Jackie Robinson, during a segment showing off how hard it was for Robinson to handle being the first African-American in the major leagues.
Obama and Michelle talked about.
Listen to this.
There's nothing more important than family than a real partnership, which is probably what made him such a great man, because he had the judgment to find a partner that, well, I think that's true.
I mean, I think that's a sign of his character that he chose a woman that was his equal.
I don't think you would have had Jackie Robinson without Rachel.
Okay, so what is the message there?
You got Obama sitting right next there, and Michelle said Jackie Robinson wouldn't have, we wouldn't have had him without Rachel.
That's Michelle Obama saying to Barack, hey, you wouldn't be here if it weren't for me, pal.
Contrast that to Heidi Cruz and the way she talked about her husband.
We will be back.
I want to take you back, turn back the hands of time.
Not quite to the groove yard have forgotten soundbites because this is not that old.
It was just six days ago on this program in discussing the Republican presidential race and what the establishment might do, who they might turn to, how they might do it, who might the nominee end up being.
I warned.
I'll give you just solicit names as an example.
Ryan, Walker, Romney, Jeb.
If you start seeing in the media news stories that are essentially puff piece profiles, if you start seeing news stories about what has Jeb been doing since he got out, and how is Jeb reacting to it?
And what's Jeb planning for his future or about Scott Walker or about Ryan?
If you see news stories where there is an attempt to build the case for somebody and you wonder, what's this about?
He's not there floating possibilities.
This is where you read between the lines and you figure out what they're trying to pull off.
And that's how you can identify if there is somebody that they have singled out that they do want to nominate in a contested convention.
Just watch and see which Republican establishment types are getting a lot of news coverage.
The kind of coverage that would serve the purpose of establishing a reputation, establishing qualifications, establishing sense of purpose.
Yes, might not have made it throughout the primaries, but has learned a lot and has stayed involved, is closely watching events and wants to do anything possible to help the party.
And I was simply asking and advising people to keep a sharp eye because there's still a considerable body of thought that, and there's two schools on this, that the establishment is going to try to come up with the Karl Rove, quote-unquote, fresh face.
And I don't think anybody should doubt that.
It looks like a long shot.
I mean, the common sense analysis would be that the Republican nominee is going to be Cruz or Trump.
Let me rephrase that.
It's going to be Trump or Cruz.
I'll go in the order in which they stand now with delegates.
Because the only possibility of anybody getting it 1237 is one of those two.
And so the conventional wisdom has it, it's got to be one of those two.
And eventually at some point, everybody in the party is going to accept that.
The other school of thought is never are we going to accept that.
And we're going to go down, we're going to plant a flag, and we're going to be standing if it's to the last man.
We're going to try to deny this nomination to these two outsiders who we don't want anything to do with.
And we're going to pick our own guy.
And that crowd still exists.
They have people trying to make that happen.
Many of them run magazines.
Well, some of them run magazines.
Others are conservative media types who think they have a tremendous amount of power.
And then you have the establishment, actual establishment official Republicans throughout who I have no doubt will be trying, however dismal the opportunity, they will be trying.
So I was just warning, if you want to spot possibilities, just keep a sharp eye on names that seemingly have been eliminated, that nobody would ever think in the current context as a nominee.
Start seeing their names all over the place.
It could be an indication that the PR effort has begun.
So interestingly, yesterday at 3.15, 15 minutes after this program ended, Paul Ryan went out with the fourth or fifth time now that he has said he is not seeking the nomination and he doesn't want the nomination.
Cynics, of which I am not one, cynics have pointed out this is exactly what Ryan did before he became Speaker.
He repeatedly denied that he wanted to be Speaker.
He knew that there were many Republicans who wanted him to be, so he made them want him even more by telling everybody he didn't want it.
So people are wondering if the same strategery has been implemented at this time for a possible presidential draft.
Here is Ryan yesterday afternoon at the Republican National Committee building.
Let me be clear.
I do not want, nor will I accept the nomination for our party.
So let me speak directly to the delegates on this.
If no candidate has a majority on the first ballot, I believe that you should only choose from a person who has actually participated in the primary.
Count me out.
I simply believe that if you want to be the nominee for our party, to be the president, you should actually run for it.
All right, now a cynic could also say, but he didn't address the possibility of a hung convention, so to speak, and a bunch of people begging him to do it.
He tried, I think, to imply that that would be the case.
But a lot of people think the jury is still out on this.
And the reason they do, folks, is because they understand the establishment, who they are, and how tightly they have control over the apparatus and how difficult it's going to be for them to let go and have either one of these two guys, Trump or Cruz, be the nominee.
Because I pointed out yesterday, you know, so many things are different.
In a normal primary, the nominee is chosen by virtue of primary elections months before the convention.
I think Romney tied it up, wrapped it up in late May in 2012 in the convention.
Convention 2012 was late, wasn't it?
I seem to think it was August sometime.
It might have been July.
But in most cases, like in 2000, maybe 2008, McCain had the nomination wrapped up in February or March, which is why we did Operation Chaos.
So the point is, people don't see the delegate selection process.
They don't see the transfer of power from party head, chairman of the committee, to the nominee.
It just evolves and just happens.
In, for example, a normal year, by normal, I mean where your nominee is chosen by virtue of primaries and wipes or wraps it up early.
The nominee becomes the titular head of the party and the nominee runs the convention.
The nominee selects people to sit on the rules committee.
And all of the rules that get changed or made written at the convention are written under the guise of leadership of the nominee.
The nominee chooses who speaks and on what night do they speak and on what subject do they speak and in what order do they speak.
And the speeches have to be vetted by the nominee and his circle of advisors, of course.
You go back to 1992, Pat Buchanan, as you know, had sought the Republican nomination, and I think even might have won the New Hampshire primary in 1992.
But George H.W. Bush was the nominee and granted Buchanan a speaking slot in prime time on Tuesday night of the convention.
It was in Houston.
It was at the Estradome.
And it was in that speech that Buchanan unloaded on his comments about the culture war.
And he unloaded on the political aspects of the militant leftist gay community, for example.
And he described, and it just, there was nothing else like that at that convention.
And the Bush people were criticized afterwards for granting Buchanan that time and giving him that slot in prime time and for not vetting the contents of his speech enough.
And they figured out that they actually blew it.
They allowed Buchanan to have the time.
They knew what Buchanan was going to say.
And they thought having him go Tuesday night, people would forget it by the time Bush was officially nominated, gave a speech on Thursday.
But nobody forgot it because it was the only thing in that convention that was really raucous and had people wired up because we're coming off the no-new taxes read my lips pledge that had been violated.
So Buchanan was the only thing that was electric, and that's what people did remember.
And so the establishment back there were fit to be tied.
But the point is, Buchanan only spoke because the nominee, George H.W. Bush, relented and agreed to give him in this convention.
What's going to happen?
If we don't have a nominee before the convention, who runs it?
Who schedules the speakers?
Who gets to speak?
Who puts them in order?
Who sits on the rules committee?
All these, this is what's different this year.
So the sausage-making process is happening right out in the open.
Everybody sees it.
And in a usual year, a normal year, this never is seen because most of it's not even necessary.
The nominee becomes the head of the party.
And in some cases, even if the nominee goes on to lose the race for the White House, the nominee is still the power broker of the party until there is, in some cases, another nominee.
The guy may slink away and not do much, but his people have still been installed at leadership positions in the party.
And whoever runs the Republican National Committee is going to be somebody that's close to the nominee.
None of that is really going to be a factor here.
So in lieu of the nominee essentially running the convention, the party is going to this year, i.e.
the establishment.
And that's why I don't think anybody should think for a moment that these people are just going to sit idly by and not give it the old college try to get somebody from their club as nominee.
It could be dramatic.
And I could be wrong.
It could be that the party will see that, hey, look, it's got to be Cruz or Trump.
We can't just disenfranchise either one of these guys and their voters.
That's just instant death.
But there's some people in the party, remember, who would be perfectly fine with that.
And they have publicly said they'd be perfectly fine with Hillary winning if it meant the party remaining in control of people who run it at present.
And there's a little story here that ran CNN.
Republican leadership advising members to skip Cleveland.
A number of high-profile Republicans, fearful of a potential melee in Cleveland this summer, are considering skipping the convention and campaigning back home instead.
Have you ever heard of this?
Give you some names.
With the campaign hitting a fever pitch and Donald Trump warning about riots if he is denied the nomination, some House and Senate Republicans are telling the CNN that it makes more sense to spend time with voters back home rather than be associated with the drama engulfing the party.
You talk about a mistake.
This may be the first party convention in years that people actually tune into and want to watch it gavel to gavel and to not be there in the mix to be back home with the voters.
CNN says even some leading party stalwarts are planning to skip the convention.
Asked Tuesday if he was going.
Jeb Bush told CNN no.
Senator Kelly Ayat, unlikely, when asked if she would be in Cleveland in the midst of her tough bid for a second term.
She's got a lot of work to do in New Hampshire.
I have my own reelection focusing on my voters in New Hampshire.
I don't think I'm going to go to Cleveland.
The decision underscores the dilemma confronting Republicans and being tied too closely to the top of the ticket.
Particularly incumbents from swing states worried that Trump's divisive candidacy and Cruz's rigid brand of conservatism will doom their chances at keeping power in both changes.
Chambers.
See, what we're hearing now is that the powers that be in the establishment, you know what?
We don't want to be anywhere near that place.
Whoever gets it up, if it's Cruz, if it's Trump, we don't be anywhere near that because, ooh, yuck, we'll be tainted by it.
You talk about a tactical error.
Oh, this is incalculable the damage these people will be doing to themselves.
We'll be back in a second.
And we start on the phones today in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
This is Grace.
I'm glad you called.
Great day.
What's on your mind?
Hi, Rod.
Hey.
Well, I have a lot of questions for you.
We've been listening to you since 1997.
Oh, my husband corrected me, 91.
And so we're Colorado voters, and now we don't agree to the point, yeah, okay, they made the rules, this Republican deal thing here.
In fact, we know that Cruz was here.
And what I'm trying to say is we just don't find that it's right for them to do that and disenfranchise the voters.
And secondly, to us, because we've been Republican voters for years, and we're saying is that the more that they try to destroy Trump, our driving, the same people are driving people to him.
We were Cruz, now we're Trump.
Well, see, in a way, these things balance themselves out.
I know it appears unfair.
It looks like it disenfranchises voters.
I don't think this is the first time Colorado's done it this way.
But it does.
It does disenfranchise voting.
Voters don't play a role in this.
That was the rule going in.
The delegates are selected at caucuses and they apply to be delegates and they go out and they get 10 seconds to campaign because there's so many of them that wanted to get 10 seconds to get put on a slate.
But look, it is backfiring in a lot of ways and it's actually redounding in certain places to Trump's benefit here.
It's just, you know, we just find it so wrong what they're doing.
And now we've been, I even posted on Facebook another voter here in Colorado that has done with the Republican Party.
They're leaving the Republican Party left and right and going to Trump.
Okay, so let me just, you were all in for Cruz until this happened, and you got so mad now because Trump got screwed that you're joining the Trump.
No, no, no.
We had made our decision for Trump some time ago.
We had, you know, we just felt like, okay, you know, just because a man says he's a Christian or just because he holds up a Bible doesn't make him one.
And we're not believing everything that we are listening to.
Because there's so much, so much.
First of all, when you listen to the news, I mean, all you hear is nothing but garbage and trash and just, you know, just trying to destroy each other.
And the one thing that really hold it.
Garbage.
Who's talking garbage about who too?
Who are you referring to?
The media or other candidates?
Actually, both.
Both.
And you just savaged Cruz in your own way.
Just because you hold the Bible up and say you're Christian doesn't mean you.
I mean, you're qualified to be on cable news.
Well, the thing is, we even used to be Fox News listeners.
We don't even do that anymore.
We're just so tired of it.
I know.
Look, I hear this.
You do not know how much I hear it.
I know exactly where you're coming from.
I wish I had more time, but I don't.
No, I already talked about that.
Okay.
I'll talk about it again.
The RNC member Randy Evans said that Trump can win with 1,100 delegates.
I'll tell you what he meant.
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