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April 14, 2016 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:56
April 14, 2016, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
I am the Palm Beach County state attorney.
Oh, yes.
Our microphones are there, right?
Yeah, we can jip this a little bit.
He's already mentioned the big deal, but let's listen just a little bit about Lewandowski and Michelle Fields and why there's no charges.
Under these circumstances, it is not uncommon for a candidate's inner circle staff members known to the agents to assist in clearing a safe pathway.
Right.
It should be noted, however, that one agent was positioned directly behind Ms. Fields and appeared to show no concern over her actions.
Mr. Lewandowski could have called this agent's attention to her movements before taking action himself if he considered her a threat.
Oh, come on.
In addition, soon after the incident, Mr. Lewandowski publicly denied ever touching Ms. Fields in any way.
If you're not going to charge him, don't complain about what he did.
Although these factors might undermine Mr. Lewandowski's potential defense, they do not outweigh the reasonable hypothesis of innocence based on the real-time facts and circumstances recorded on the video.
As stated earlier, law enforcement arrests are based upon probable cause.
State prosecution, however, relies upon a good faith basis that sufficient evidence exists to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
This includes consideration of any apparent defenses.
Although the facts support the allegation that Mr. Lewandowski did grab Ms. Fields' arm against her will, Mr. Lewandowski has a reasonable hypothesis of innocence.
Right, because there is insufficient evidence to rebut these defenses.
That's right.
Therefore, although probable cause exists, the state will no-file this case.
Okay, that's basically even a probable cause, but they can't get a conviction.
They looked at the tapes every which way but Sunday.
They don't think they're going to get a conviction.
This is a Democrat Party that runs a state's attorney's office here in Palm Beach County.
But what we missed during the break at the top of the hour, the Palm Beach County state attorney made mention.
In fact, they've looked at video, everything, different angle.
They looked at still photos, and they have determined that she touched Trump first, that she caused all this, which then followed.
She touched Trump first.
Now everybody's making their exit, which is what Trump has said.
Oh, the anti-Trumpists are going to be livid here because Trump gets away with it again.
But this guy, the state attorney, is saying that she grabbed Trump's arm.
You can see him reacting to it.
And then that's when everything else happened.
That's when Lewandowski moved in.
He just said, as we were jipping this, the state attorney just said Lewandowski could have asked the agent to do whatever was needed to be done with Michelle Fields instead of doing it himself.
And that's when I said, whatever, if you're not going to charge the guy, don't start criticizing what he did.
If you're hard.
But they can't get a conviction on this.
That's the bottom line.
They'll never get a jury to convict on this.
And they never were going to be able to do that.
So they had to go along with this for a while to make it look like they're seriously looking at it.
I'm sure they did.
But this was never going to result in a trial.
Never.
It was never going to result in official charges.
But they've got the Q ⁇ A, the press conference going on now.
And we learned yesterday, of course, there were not going to be any charges filed against Lewandowski.
But really the key, if you ask me, and I know these things because my dad was a lawyer, the key to me, when the state attorney made mention of the fact that Michelle Fields touched Trump when it was over, when everybody was making their way out, and that is when Lewandowski did what he did.
And so she's not actually blamed here, per se, in a criminal sense, of course, but he's just detailing why his office is not going to charge here because they can't get a conviction.
They do not want to go to trial.
This is absurd anyway, that this was battery.
In my humble estimation.
But you know, folks, let me let's in the millennial world, it's not absurd.
Here's the truth.
In the millennial world, that was assault.
No, no, no, no.
It is.
This is what we old codgers are going to have to learn to figure out.
In the millennial world, when they have been raised, when everybody gets a trophy for waking up, you get a trophy for waking up and getting out of bed.
You get self-esteem left and right.
You're told every day how wonderful you are.
You have this belief that nobody, know how, nowhere, no wick can invade your space or what have that was assault.
You know, we sit here, we look at this, and we listen to these young media people react to it.
And I think I'm listening to a foreign language.
This is somebody who got shoved out of the way.
This is nothing.
But to the millennials, this was assault.
Now, part of it was they hate Lewandowski.
They hate Corey Lewandowski.
I don't know why.
I don't know the guy.
I never heard of him before this campaign.
But I have picked up enough.
They despise this guy.
They make fun of his Ichabod crane neck.
They make fun of his buzz cut.
They make fun of his rotten personality.
They make fun of his wardrobe.
They make fun of the way he walks.
They make fun of his ego.
They hate the guy.
So I'm sure that was driving some of it.
But I am not exaggerating.
I hope you have seen this video and know what I'm talking about.
It happened here up in Jupiter after a nighttime Trump press conference after a win.
He leaves the podium.
The scrum of media and security walk with him.
This woman, Michelle Fields, tries to ask him a question after it has ended.
The interview and question-answer period is over.
She's still trying to get an answer.
She's on Trump Bart website.
She's going in there and she touches Trump's arm.
And he, you can see, what, what's this?
He looks behind him and sees her and he shakes his arm loose.
And then Lewandowski grabs her to pull her away from Trump.
She did not get thrown to the ground.
She didn't look like she was going to get thrown to the ground.
She didn't look like she came anywhere near contact with the ground.
She didn't look like she'd been moved more than six inches to me.
But to them, to the millennial news people watching this, it was assault in their world that coupled, I'm sure that there's enough prejudice here with the sheer hatred they have for this Lewandowski guy.
But still, it was considered assault.
I've got something here in the stack I'm looking for.
About millennials.
Ah, is this it?
Is this it?
No.
Please, I've no idea this out here.
Here it is.
Here it is.
This is Fox Business by Adam Shapiro.
The headline, Millennials More Miserable Than Ever Before.
Born between 1980 and 2000, the millennials have thrown a wrench into American society that puzzles older generations.
It does not puzzle me.
I understand it.
And again, that doesn't mean that I agree, but I understand why these young people do what they the way they've been raised.
It's the way they've been educated.
You ought to see, folks, there are, if I can delay this for a minute, just illustrate my point.
How many of you in this audience consider yourselves really rock-ribbed conservatives?
Okay?
And how many of you, and I'm going to, I may need to categorize it.
Let me talk to those first of you who do not have millennial age children.
Because if you do, this will change the way you think.
I've learned that too.
But traditional conservatism, traditional Berkeian Buckley, Reaganism, Hayek conservatism.
There is no way there could ever be any acceptance of the climate change movement as it exists today.
In the traditional world of legitimate real conservatism, there would be no acceptance of gay marriage.
In the traditional, down-the-middle world of Berkeyan official intellectual conservatism, there's a couple of there wouldn't be any agreement with or even understanding of or accommodation of.
But young millennial conservatives are all in for gay marriage.
Young millennial conservatives are many of them all in on climate change.
They think they've been raised to believe that the environment is a precious thing that we have stewardship over it.
It's up to us to protect it, and that we are destroying it.
And it would be really hard for them not to think that.
That's what their parents all believed, apparently, and that's what they've been subjected to in school.
The danger is they are claiming that their view of conservatism includes all these, and it doesn't.
But young millennial conservatives are accepting and adopting views and opinions on science and cultural issues that are in steadfast agreement with the Democrat Party and the left.
And as such, in the millennial conservative movement, conservatism is being watered down and diluted.
And in this instance here, with Corey Lewandowski, there are many in the millennial generation who look at what happened and they do think it's assault.
These are the same people you see on college campuses who are afraid of Trump's name written in chalk, who think that's an offense.
They are the same people who, if anybody is heard saying something they disagree with, it's painful.
It's traumatic.
We've got to do something about it.
It's not just liberal millennials who think that.
At some point, this was bound to happen with the rot that's taken place in the American educational system, the corruption, the almost total takeover of public education by the American left and the worldwide left.
So what's really happening is we have a bunch of young millennials who, like many young people, are very arrogant.
They think they know everything.
They're smarter than their adults.
Parents are smarter.
They're more educated.
They're more tech aware.
And so it's easy for them, like every generation, to tell themselves that they know more than their parents did.
They know more than adults do.
They're hipper and what have you.
So there's a combination of arrogance here, but the conservatism is being diluted at the millennial level very slowly and on a – they haven't yet – we're still safe with the concept of limited government, individual liberty and freedom and so forth.
And it's that individual liberty and freedom that is used to find ways to agree with the left on climate change and gay marriage.
So where that is rooted is young people have no problem with homosexuals and homosexuality.
And since they have no problem with it, then whatever homosexuals want to do, that's liberty.
That's freedom.
If they want to get married, how can we say no?
They don't see it that a tradition and an institution which has been defined by millennial years of experience is being destroyed.
They don't see that at all.
They see it as being expanded.
So it's, to me, all of this is fascinating to watch.
Some of it worries me greatly.
But I always rely on the fact that as they get older and encounter a little bit more experience with this reality that they have created, that as they get older, there'll be some rejection of some of it and a return to what I consider to be conservative normalcy.
I hope I'm right, too.
Well, you know what I'm talking about then.
You are in your obvious, I can tell you're in steadfast agreement with me on it.
But, you know, young millennial conservatives supporting gay marriage, it's a great illustration because to them, it's the epitome of liberty and freedom.
That's what conservatism is.
They don't see that the tradition of marriage defined from the first days of humanity to present is being blown to smithereens, and they don't see the problems inherent with that.
And they don't see the damage, the cultural rot that's going to come from it.
They see expansion of liberty and freedom and so forth.
And they call that conservatism.
And in this way, you know, the left is slowly, sneakily suborning them, if you ask me.
That's why I rely on my faith that as they grow older, they will see the light.
Now, back to this story from the Fox Biden's website by Adam Shapiro.
Millennials more miserable than ever before.
Dr. Gene Twenge, professor of psychology, San Diego State University, first explained the different.
What?
Oh, yeah, it's a good point.
Pardon me.
One more interruption.
The reason I said for those of you conservatives who do not have millennial kids, because conservative adults who have millennial kids tend to agree with their millennial kids, I have found.
I don't want to mention any names, but I could, and you would know them.
When I met some people 20 years ago, and their kids were two, three, five years old, they were as rock-ribbed conservative as I am and was.
I have not changed a bit.
Their kids have grown up and gone away to college, and I don't recognize them anymore, the adults.
Their kids have literally turned them.
They're now pro-immigration.
They are for everything happening in the culture.
They think the bakeries are wrong.
They think the states are wrong to come up with religious freedom laws.
These are people that were as conservative as I was 20 years and still am.
And the difference is they're kids.
They're millennial kids, and they're influencing them.
And that's also, when I was a kid, I mean, my parents were, they were great.
But my dad was not, I mean, he was interested in what I thought when I was 15 and 18 and so forth and 20 years old just to find out where I was headed.
But he never once thought I knew more than he did.
And my opinions very rarely changed his.
I'm talking about core.
I might have been able to change his opinion of what he thought of something or other that I might have known.
But core principles, no way was I going to be able to budge his.
But that is happening today.
Parents, core principles, millennial kids, it is changing.
That's why I made this specification.
Now take a break and I'll come back and I'll finish this millennial story.
Hang in there, folks.
Well, no, it's not over just because the Palm Beach County state attorney is not going to prosecute Lewandowski.
He's still hated and despised by his fellow millennials.
They just hate this guy.
So Michelle Fields is saying, I mean, she said at one point she was going to sue him for defamation.
Civil action.
Might sue him for defamation or, I don't know, pain and suffering from the bruises or whatever.
It's not over is the point.
Just because they're not going to go after felony battery, misdemeanor battery, doesn't mean she can't go and take civil action.
And I think the state attorney here mentioned that Lewandowski, did I see this?
He apologized?
That it was not known, but that he did apologize.
Lewandowski apologized.
That the state attorney showed Lewandowski's attorney showed him an unreleased draft of an apology from Lewandowski.
But I don't think he's officially made that because of her threatening civil action.
An apology, of course, would be an admission of something.
So there may not have been a publicly released or made apology.
But I'm telling you, folks, I don't want to pound it too much, but you take a look.
If you haven't seen the video, find it.
You won't be able to miss it tonight, but it'd be all over cable TV.
They might even interrupt the Democrat debate for a feature on this.
And you tell me if what you saw is assault.
It's a joke.
But to them, to millennials who've been raised to believe in such microaggressions and invasions of space, yeah, it was brutal and it was mean.
Dr. Gene Twenge, professor of psychology, San Diego State University, explained the differences between millennials and other generations in a book in 2006 called Generation Me, Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled, and More Miserable Than Ever Before.
And she's recently updated the book.
It came out in 2006.
And there are now millions of studies and surveys that have been conducted with millennials over several decades and shows that millennials are really different.
People in their 20s and 30s today, really different from people in their 20s and 30s generations ago in many troubling ways.
Some of them are good, too.
But look at that.
I got another.
Ah, geez, I can't get ahead on this.
Maybe somebody's trying to.
I know, it was just said to me, you ought to try being in a high school or on a college campus between classes when people are rushing to get to the next class.
And they shove people out of the way and they drag people out of the way and they get through there.
And nobody ever charges assault.
And this is nothing compared to what happens there.
And that's true.
Same thing in a crowd at a sporting event.
When it's over, you're trying to get out, be the first to get to your car.
All kinds of things happen that make this look like romper room.
The difference is Lew Wandowski was involved, and they hate him.
That is what's driving.
They despise this guy.
They hate this guy.
Plus, there's another added, this woman was a reporter for Trump Bart, and they wouldn't defend her at first.
And that caused, I'm sorry, Breitbart.
And that caused its own little enclave of fascination.
But the idea that this was battery?
I don't care, misdemeanor battery, buddy.
I cannot emphasize enough, folks, to millennials.
Yes, it was.
And we're talking about news media, the most, the vast majority of them going to be leftists.
I mean, these are the classic examples of coddled, protected, overconfident, even arrogant young people who think they're smarter than anybody else in the room.
Anyway, I'm going to finish this research here.
Jean Twengay, professor of psychology at San Diego University.
Lots of research.
She said, millennials are accused of being self-centered, lazy, and entitled.
While Dr. Twengue's research validates some of these stereotypes, it also uncovers positive characteristics.
But she says that the current generation of millennials is somewhat justified to be angry since everybody told them when they were growing up that they're special.
She said, hey, you can't really blame them for thinking they're special.
Everybody told them they were.
And then when they discover that they're not, of course they're going to get mad.
They were special in school.
They were special at home.
They were special everywhere.
They get out in the real world and guys like Lewinsky drag them out of the way.
That's not special.
And Dr. Twengay says, this is a hard, cold reality to come up against.
You've been told you're special and you're great your whole life and you get out in the real world and nobody thinks that of you.
Day of reckoning.
So they get mad.
Today's millennials get angry, told that they could be anything they wanted to be.
They face widespread unemployment.
Raised on dreams of material wealth.
More than a third still live with their parents well into their 20s.
After a childhood of optimism and high expectations, reality hit them like a smack in the face.
They got trophies for waking up.
They got trophies for showing up.
They got trophies for losing.
They got trophies for not showing up because they were sick.
Now nobody cares whether they show up or not.
And they feel forgotten.
And they feel offended.
Part of the problem, says Dr. Twenge, our culture and education system that rewards everybody just for showing up instead of rewarding hard work.
The doctor's critical of the self-esteem movement that swept America when this current crop of millennials was young.
And she shows in her research how the practice of giving every child a trophy despite their effort or achievement actually hurts them.
Could have told you this before it started.
Don't need research for this.
Time-honored, thousands and thousands and thousands of years of raising children told us this.
But it wasn't good enough for the left.
No, the left had to go about it a different way.
They had to make everybody the same.
They have to make everybody with equal outcomes.
They have to get rid of competition.
That's the key.
This current generation was raised on the belief that competition is ugly.
It's racist.
It's bigoted.
It's unfair.
It's mean-spirited.
Competition's horrible because they're losers.
That's fair.
So, how else can a guy like Chris Cuomo grow up thinking communism is about making everybody rich?
To the phones, we return.
Mike in southern Maryland.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hey, Rush, I'm a first-time caller, long-time listener, since your TV show.
Appreciate your patience and hanging on today, sir.
I really do.
Thank you much.
So I'm calling because I think there's as many Tea Party people supporting Rush as there are Cruz.
And in fact, I'd say that people could easily switch from Cruz to Trump or Trump to Cruz.
You think there's equal number of Tea Parties supporting both Cruz and Trump?
Yeah, I think basically the two frontrunners are anti-establishment.
And I'm not convinced that a contested election or a contested convention wouldn't mean a bunch of current Cruz people jump to Trump.
You mean delegate types at the convention?
Or you're talking about voters in November?
I think the media supports the horse race concept, but I think the underlying electorate for the two candidates are people that are opposed to big government, are upset with the way things are going.
And in fact, what happened in Colorado could hurt a number of people in the cruise camp who think, well, it's nice that he played by the rules, but really it's just another manifestation of establishment rules that are working against us, and he took advantage of them, so let's go with Trump.
In this case, I don't think a lot of people are going to look at Colorado that way.
I don't see a lot of people penalizing Cruz for winning Colorado basically because he's an insider establishment guy.
I mean, you may be right.
Let me ask you this.
Do you think Trump supporters are not really bothered by Cruz supporters, not bothered by Trump running around calling Cruz lying Ted all the time?
You think they're going to be able just to forget that?
No, I don't think so.
I think, you know, most of the people that are out to get Trump are not Cruz supporters, but Democrats.
Take my word for it.
There are a lot of Cruz supporters who detest Trump.
Oh, I'm sure there are some hardcore, but I think when you talk about the number that need to swing to either candidate, I'm just, I think they come from the same core Tea Party people that are opposed to the establishment.
I mean, I think.
Okay, so what you're basically saying there's going to be unity when this is all over, that whoever, the Cruz people are going to have not as much trouble joining the Trumpists in November as people think might be the case now.
And by the same token, you think a bunch of Trumpists would not have all that trouble joining Cruz if that becomes the result, because they're essentially all Tea Party or a large part of them.
Maybe, but not all of them are.
And there's a bunch of Democrats that support Trump and a bunch of moderates and Independents and a lot of moderate Republicans.
I'm sure that Trump has some Tea Party support, but I would think the Lions' share of that is lined up with Cruz and probably always has been.
Although there are exceptions, Phyllis Schlafly is all in for Trump, right?
And you'd have to say Phyllis became a Tea Partier.
Look, folks, there's some stuff happening in the future.
I need to point this out.
No, maybe I don't.
Maybe I can let somebody else point it out and have you get mad at them.
Well, it's upcoming primaries.
Well, I'm just looking at his upcoming primaries.
Trump's got double-digit lead in Pennsylvania with Cruz in third place, double-digit lead in Maryland, Cruz in third place.
Cruz can't afford any third-place finishes here.
Even if you're talking about a contested convention, right now, there has been in the world of perception, a momentum shift away from Trump because A, Wisconsin was a Cruz victory.
And what happened in Colorado?
Yeah, people's noses are out of joint because of how Colorado happened.
But just in terms of the energy, momentum, I mean, crew's on a roll right now, delegate-wise.
Delegates out of Colorado, they're his.
Delegates out of Wisconsin are his.
He's running around shoring up second ballot delegate loyalty in all these places that Trump won, which is perfectly legal.
But at the same time, there are a lot of primary elections yet to happen.
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, not to mention California.
And again, we're in a lull here where all anybody's got to talk about is the most recent event in the past and polling data.
But next Tuesday, we're going to have a New York primary, and we're going to have hard, cold results.
And those hard, cold results are going to wipe out everything going on right now and change everybody's focus.
And the perception is going to be all different.
It's a seesaw.
It's like an up-and-down roller coaster.
Got to take another obscene profit break, however, right now.
Back in just a second.
Here is the statement from David Ehrenberg, the Palm Beach County, Florida state attorney.
And this is really the key here in why they decided not to press charges or prosecute, rather, Corey Lewandowski.
Ms. Fields was directed to the back of the room along with other members of the media.
After initially complying with the directive, Ms. Fields returned to the pathway area and walked directly alongside Mr. Trump, attempting to ask questions of him.
It appears, based on the freeze frames from the video recording and an independent photograph taken by a Washington Post photographer, that Ms. Fields brushed or touched Mr. Trump's arm.
He then appears to react to Ms. Fields by pulling his arm back and away from her, at which time Mr. Lewandowski reached forward and grabbed Ms. Fields' arm, pulling her away from Mr. Trump.
Okay, did you hear that now?
He describes Michelle Fields as brushing or touching Trump's arm, and Trump pulls his arm back and pushes away.
And then he describes Lewandowski as reaching forward and grabbing Ms. Fields' arm and pulling her away.
He is describing almost similar actions, similar activity, and yet Michelle Fields isn't being charged with anything.
She's not being charged or accused of misdemeanor battery.
And what the state attorney here is saying is, look, if she hadn't done that, none of the rest of this would have happened.
So we don't have anything to prosecute here, he's saying, but she's still leaving open a possible civil suit against Lewandowski.
And that's the bite that I wanted you to hear, because that really explains why they didn't go any further than they did.
We had a guy, a caller lined up ready to go, wanting to know where the real men have gone?
And we didn't have time to get to him.
So he gave us his number.
We're going to call him tomorrow on Open Line Friday.
And the rest of you have your golden opportunity to make it count tomorrow then, too.
So we will see you then.
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