Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, hey folks, how about those rigged?
Those rigged rules of the Republican Party primary process.
Did you see this?
Did you hear about this?
Donald Trump got 60% of the vote.
And got 95% of the delegates.
I mean, that's rigged, right?
I mean that's we've been told it's it's not rigged.
That's not rigged.
Oh, okay.
Well, greetings, my friends.
How are you?
Great to have you here.
Rush Limbaugh behind that.
The Golden EIB microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, the telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882, the email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
I just want to demonstrate again for you why you make the effort to listen here each and every day.
You will be on the cutting edge.
You will know what is going to happen, both sometimes specifically and in a generic sense, long before it does.
If you listen, and if you have the courage to trust and to believe, this was me last Thursday, right here on this program.
I'm just looking at some 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 cruise 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.
Crews on a roll right now, delegate-wise.
Delegates out of Colorado, they're his delegates out of Wisconsin or his.
He's uh 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 gonna have a New York primary, and we're gonna have hard cold results.
And those hard cold results are gonna wipe out everything going on right now.
And change everybody's focus and the perception is gonna be all different.
It's a seesaw.
It's like an up and down roller coaster.
And voila, in one night, just just last week, maybe even Monday, could be last Thursday or Friday.
Everybody was talking about, hey, you know what?
Cruz could actually pull something off here.
Cruz is shoring up all these delegates.
He's going to all these places where they're having their conventions and choosing their delegates after the primaries, which is what happens, and he's getting a whole bunch of them.
And the Trumpsters are all upset because Cruz is getting delegates that they think Trump is won, but we're talking second ballot delegates here, and everybody was talking, man.
Oh, look, it's Cruz, he's really on a roll here.
And the cruisers were all excited, and then the New York primary came, and now what's the what is the narrative?
It's over.
The narrative now is it's over.
It's all over but the shouting.
Now it's all over.
No way can Cruz get to 1237, and there wasn't a way that he was going to be able to last week anyway.
But it's just an illustration once again of how media establishes narratives for a host of reasons and how people get caught up in them, and how many of these narratives surround non-events,
and how hard cold results of a primary election, actual hard news rather than theories, forecasts, polls, can totally wipe out a narrative that has been established by the media in uh in in previous days.
And no matter where you look, it's the same thing on the Democrat side, it's over now.
This is Hillary Landslide.
Uh top Clinton aid now.
If Sanders doesn't tone down the rhetoric, F him.
Uh Bernie says, screw that.
Uh we're We're gonna head uh head down the road here, keeping up our delegate fight and so forth.
Uh so it just it's it's a and it's not we're not finished with this.
There are gonna be momentum shifts, even despite last night, there will be momentum shifts.
But here's Chris Silissa in the Washington Post today, and I'm I'm hey, again, I'm just telling you what's out there.
Uh informing you here, the headline, the new Donald Trump should scare the hell out of the GOP establishment.
Gone was Lion Ted.
In its place was Senator Cruz.
Gone was the long-winded speech that went nowhere.
In its place, a succinct recitation of states and delegates won.
Gone was the two-day vacation as a reward for winning.
In its place, an early morning trip to Indiana today, followed by another plan stop in Maryland.
Donald Trump 2.0 made his official debut last night.
This is a drive-by.
Chris Zelissa, card-carrying member, drive by establishment media, Washington Post, claiming that Trump 2.0, meaning he's finally become presidential.
And it happened in his home state, winning the New York primary.
You know, just on a personal level, if you're Donald Trump, if anybody, the front page cover, the New York Post today, that's one you frame and you keep forever and your kids will always be proud of it.
New York Times, a big banner headline.
First word in the headline is uh is is Trump.
So it's uh it was a it was a big day, big night.
They did better than what they thought they were gonna do.
The Trump people did.
Uh speaking of this, folks, we've been running at Rush Limbaugh.com.
I mentioned this a couple of times.
I mean it's time to focus on this.
We have been following the John Kasich delegate countdown.
As you know, John Kasich is uh also in this race and is insisting that he will be the nominee.
And so we have been tracking his success.
Primary after primary after primary.
And the number of delegates that Kasich won has not changed in two or three weeks.
But last night it did.
So we've had movement in our little chart at rushlimbaugh.com above the fold on the homepage of our website, the Kasich delegate countdown magic number to clinch the nomination is now 1,090.
He's only a thousand ninety delegates away from clinching.
He has won 147 delegates.
He's still behind Marco Rubio, who is out of the race.
But Casey got some delegates last night, and we were able to make a change in our Casic graphic, much like our Al Gore countdown.
Ten years for Planet Earth to survive, which we have survived, Al Gore's 10-year countdown.
Now, yesterday on this program, uh actually two days ago, on this program, I happened to mention something that I've mentioned numerous times, and that is that there are a lot of Republicans all over the country.
National Republican, state, local, what who have said they're never voting for Trump.
Whatever.
No vote for Hillary instead.
Well, yesterday on the Fox News channel, Martha McCallum and Bill Hammer, their morning news block from 9 to 11.
McCallum played the bite and brought Rich Lowry in and a former Joe Biden speechwriter to come in and discuss what I had said, which I'm just repeating what I've heard.
I'm not making anything up.
I have heard all of these different Republicans who say that they would never vote for Trump.
Some of them never vote for Cruz.
They're going to vote for Hillary instead.
And I endeavored to explain why.
It's all about the establishment trying to hold on to their fiefdoms.
It's all about the establishment trying to hold on to what they've got and being afraid that outsiders like Trump or Cruz would come in and blow up the entire Republican establishment club and network and basically destroy people's positions in it, and they would much rather hold On to that club than win the White House with somebody that might harm the club, meaning self-preservation is their first objective.
Well, I I said yesterday I thought it was it was kind of cool for McCallum to do it because mostly it was sound bites like that when when TV news networks air them, they usually air those things to uh take a shot at me.
Oh, what's the latest uh wacko thing limbos on tuna?
But she played it and she backed it up and she thought that it was relevant and made sense and asked people questions about it.
Well, it has continued.
It has survived.
Last night, Fox Bidness Network after the bell, David Asman, is talking to Daniel Henniger, columnist of the Wall Street Journal, he's the editorial page deputy editor, about my comments that establish at Republicans would rather vote for Hillary than for Donald Trump or Cruz.
And Asman said, you know, that's quite a charge that uh Limbaugh's making here that Republicans will vote for Hillary.
It's not a charge, it's not even an allegation.
I'm simply re replying, reciting what I've heard them say.
Am I the only one who's heard this?
Let me do a little quick little Mr. Snerdley.
When you've when you heard me mention this uh Monday, did you did you do a double take?
He said, Well, what's he talking about?
No, of course not, because you've heard it too.
Not making it up.
And we've got evidence to back it up here in in just a second.
Anyway, Asmond says that's a quite a charge that Republicans will vote for Hillary.
We've had some Republicans say that right here.
In fact, Mr. Henniger, what do you make of that?
Things are getting pretty hot under the collar out there, at least Rush Limbaugh's collar.
I have not heard too many people say they would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than vote for Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
I mean, generally what I just heard Pataki say it right here, essentially say it uh a couple of hours ago with Neil Cabuta.
That he would vote for Hillary Clinton.
Neil put it to him several times, and he tried to squirm out of it, but essentially that's what he said.
Well, the conversations I have with such people generally after they go through all the angst and torture of talking about Trump versus Cruz and all the rest of it, say, but the important thing is defeating Hillary Clinton.
No, that's the point.
There are a lot of Republicans not saying that.
There are a lot of Republicans and they're and they want to be noticed saying this.
They're not whispering it.
They're repeating it to media types who then publish it or broadcast it.
And Asmond gives Henniger proof.
Well, Pataki, just write this here on our network here.
Said it to Neil Cavuto.
Cavuto couldn't believe it.
He asked him three or four times, Pataki, yeah, yeah, yeah, stuck with it.
So Hinneger then does a takes a detro.
Well, well, most people I know voted against Hill Hennett.
I mean, caught red-handed.
Well, let's keep going here with the audio sound bites.
Up next, Neil Cavuto talking to Pataki yesterday afternoon, the Fox Bidness Network.
What would you do if it is Trump?
Would it George?
It would be a party decision.
So you couldn't make up your mind to be unequivocally.
I do not think Hillary Clinton should be president of the United States.
All right, so he'd vote for Trump.
We'll see.
Yeah, we'll see.
That's the tail end of it.
He had said that he would vote for Hillary.
He doesn't think she should be president, but he can't see himself voting for Trump.
I'm not making this stuff up.
Christy Todd Whitman on Bloomberg TV, February 29th, 2016.
I probably will vote for I won't want to.
I probably will vote for her.
I don't want to.
That's all the way back in February.
There are other examples.
A GOP delegate from the District of Columbia, Rina Barrara, says she will vote for Hillary rather than Trump.
And anti-Trump RNC delegate saying that she will vote for Hillary over Trump.
We've got the YouTube video link.
Back in March, Republican Congressman Carlos Corbello of Florida said that he would vote for anybody besides Trump, even if it means crossing party lines.
Asked point blank if that means he would vote for Clinton over Trump if it came down to, well, well, not necessarily, but they're out there saying these things.
Peter King, Congress of New York, has refused to say that he would vote for Trump over Hillary.
He has said he would take cyanide if it's Ted Cruz.
Oh, yeah, Peter King, Congressman from New York C would take cyanide if it was Ted Cruz, and he has not said that he will never vote.
He's not said he will vote for Trump under any circumstances.
Fortune magazine.
Elliot Cohen, influential neocon, who helped multiple positions in the George W. Bush administration held positions.
And Carlos Corbello, Kevin Madden, the communications strategist for three Republican presidential campaigns, Mel Martinez.
He said that he would vote.
Not no, but he worked for Mel Martinez.
Scott Riegel, representative Virginia's second congressional district, Ben Sassa.
You know, these are these are people who have intimated they'd never vote for Trump no matter what.
So my point is it's not, we're not making it up, and then you you hit this uh establishment editorial page editor, Daniel Henniger.
That's just Limbaugh.
It's not.
You know, these guys all come back with, well, at the end of the day, people are going to realize that uh Tiller's.
I wonder, you know, that's the whole point with me.
It damn well better end up being everybody's gonna line up and vote for against Hillary because I'm telling you, whatever the options are we have on the Republican side pale in comparison to the destructive force that Hillary Clinton leads, which is the Democrat Party and the American left.
It is the primary reason this country is failing as it is.
It's the primary reason there's such angst.
The Democrat Party specifically, Barack Obama and policies.
There aren't any Republican fingerprints on much of this.
There aren't any Republican fingerprints in Obamacare.
Uh the Republicans probably do want their fingerprints on amnesty and illegal immigration, but so far there there aren't any.
The only thing the Republicans are guilty of yet is not stopping any of this stuff and not really making any serious effort to stop any of it.
But I'll tell you what else is frustrating for me, folks.
We have shown that in the midterms we can skunk these people in big time.
2010, 2014, the Democrats lost over a thousand combined seats in the House, in the Senate, in state houses, governorships, uh, down to town council, you name it, it's significant.
A thousand offices they lost that are now held by Republicans, many of them governorships, in 2010 and 2014.
Now, what happens?
Why can't that same phenomenon happen in the presidential year?
And there are many different theories.
Well, when the party chooses a nominee, and it kind of kills the enthusiasm.
So don't tell me it can't be done.
The Democrats can be beaten.
Yeah, Rush, but midterm turnouts, you know, the Democrats don't show up.
Yeah, but it matters why they don't show up.
They're not enthused.
And they're not enthused.
No, I don't care what people want to talk about the Democrat primary.
They're still in any enthusiasm on that side of the.
I've got to take a quick time out.
We'll be back and continue here.
And here's just one more example from the, and this one I remember like it was yesterday because it almost is.
The Hill.com March 24th, vocal Trump critics in GOP, open to supporting Hillary.
The real question is, why am I the only one that noticed this?
This stuff's been all over the place out there.
So I have to talk about it.
Shows up all over cable news.
They bring in Republican establishment types to talk about, I don't know what Limbo's hot into the collar about.
I've never heard anybody say this.
Members of the GR.
Remember when I told you this, members of the Republican foreign policy establishment are open to supporting Ted Cruz or even Hillary Clinton for president if that's what it takes to prevent Trump from becoming commander-in-chief.
There's some interviews with the Hill.
Prominent Republicans signed a scathing open letter denouncing Trump.
So they are not wavering from their opposition to him.
Now, admittedly, these are not elected officials, but these are foreign Policy experts who have worked in prior Republican regimes, prior Republican administrations.
They are major establishment figures.
They wear the wingtips, the striped pants, they got the uniform down pat, State Department or Pentagon, depending on where they are.
120 of them wrote a letter denouncing Trump.
The Hill.com contacted 13 of them.
And the Hill says that most, if not all of them, intimated they would back Hillary over Trump.
And a couple of them, like I just mentioned, Elliot Cohen, were listed in the fortune piece cited above, which listed nine top Republicans who won't back Trump, they say, under any circumstances.
So once again, it's out there for anybody who wants to see it.
I happen to see it because I, folks, frankly, the reason it resonates with me is because I know, without knowing who, I know that there are lots of these establishment types of this opinion.
I've been explaining it left and right that they're more concerned with with with holding on to what they've got.
Uh personally, professionally, uh career, career path, connections, whatever it is.
And the fear is that the election of Trump will blow it up.
I don't know how much Trump can blow up K Street if he gets elected president.
I don't know how much Trump can blow up these connections, but they fear it, which is the point.
And uh what why these other people out there refuse to notice this, or maybe they do and just don't want to attach any substance to it, but that would be a grave, grave error.
Are you kidding me?
The State Department says it doesn't know if Iran is using its new cash to fund terrorism.
Seriously.
It's entirely possible Iran used its new cash to fund terror State Department.
What an admission.
But they can't be sure that they're using their new cash, the 150 billion unfrozen with the Iranian nuclear deal, uh, once the sanctions were killed.
This is unreal.
The State Department, the wizards of smart, well, we don't know.
Uh we we can't determine whether or not uh the Iranians are actually using new cash to uh fund uh terrorism.
Seriously.
We are so screwed.
And Obama, you see where Obama went home since Saudi Arabia bowing down to yet another king.
This one King Salman, not to be confused with King Salmon.
This is King Salman, he's the half-brother of the deceased king, Abdullah.
The Saudis, you know, the oil markets got Saudi is all panicked, and they're claiming they took out a loan at 10 billion dollars uh to provide the royal family some living expenses while they have some problems there with the oil sales.
Then the Saudis are threatening that if they end up being blamed for 9-11 or they're officially blamed for, which is not going to happen with this administration.
So I don't know what they're worried about.
The Saudis are not going to be blamed for 9-11, even though we got those 28 pages, much of it redacted.
Look, there's no doubt that Saudi officials, government officials, aided and abetted some of the hijackers in 9-11 in Los Angeles and San Diego.
There's no question about it.
The Saudi royal family are the custodians of Islam and of the Grand Mosque at Mecca.
There's no, there's there's no question about this.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi.
But we're never going to, that's never going to be officially status of the 28 pages 9-11 Commission report will remain redacted, and we won't see it.
But the Saudis, they're all if you guys blame us, they have they have threatened to wreck our economy by selling all of the debt that they have invested.
They have $750 billion of our national debt.
Meaning they have helped us go into debt.
They've bought the debt, they enable us to engage in deficit welfare state spending.
And they're claiming that if they get blamed for this, they're going to get really mad and they're going to take their $750 billion and go home and think that that's $750 billion is going to wreck our economy.
And meanwhile, Obama's over there bowing down to the king or whatever.
Who knows what is happening?
Ted Cruz has uh uh recently spoken up.
We have the soundbite here, he is in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
And it was at a uh it's a reporter gaggle, I guess a little campaign appearance in Hershey for the Pennsylvania primary up next.
And Cruz is sticking to the narrative of yesterday before the primary that hey, nobody's gonna win this on the first ballot, so I'm staying in this.
Donald right now is terrified.
It's the reason Donald won't debate because he can't defend his policy.
The math is virtually impossible for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is not getting to 1237, nobody's getting to 1237.
The reason Donald's so scared is the last three weeks, and in particular the win in Wisconsin, put the nail in the confidence and made clear Donald doesn't get to 1237.
He knows that.
Which means this race is headed to Cleveland.
It's headed to a contested convention.
Okay, let me just ask.
How many of you believe Donald Trump right now is terrified?
Now, I have some Trumpists here.
They're on the other side of the glass, and then they would naturally think this is nonsensical statement, but I'm even, you know, dump your Trumpists.
Is Donald Trump terrified?
And later in the soundbite, that's the reason Donald is so scared the last three weeks.
Does anybody look at Trump and see somebody terrified?
Do you look at Trump and see somebody who's scared?
I don't know.
I think it I think it's a stretch, and I think this kind of illustrates one of the boy, here I go.
I'm just going to jump into this head first.
I think this soundbite is a it's an example of Cruz missing the mark.
Let me just put it that way.
Because Donald Trump isn't scared.
And he he's not, he's not terrified right now.
He may he may be, I don't know what he is.
He looked pretty celebratory to me last night.
He looked pretty uh pleased with uh with what's happening.
Whatever, he didn't look terrified.
But about this 1237, you know, this is another story for this has been percolating out there, and there have been any number of stories generated by comments made by Republican officials that, hey, you know, if somebody gets close enough to 1237 that he may just go ahead and win it anyway.
It may not require 1237.
Then you probe deep, you say, well, why?
The rule's the rule.
Well, because there's gonna be at least 200 unbound delegates on the first ballot.
So all Trump's gonna have to do is pick up whatever number short he is at 1237 before the first ballot.
So it and you've seen these stories, I'm sure.
We have pointed them out to you.
And there's another one today from the politico.
And this is the most to the point of all of these stories yet.
Headline is Trump's real magic number is less than 1237.
The subheadline is GOP elite whisper about a lower threshold for the front runner to clinch the nomination.
And here's how this story begins.
Even before Trump's big win in New York last night, conversations among party officials and high-level operatives about a contested convention were already shifting dramatically.
The magic number of delegates for Trump to clinch a nomination on the first ballot, likely to be his best and maybe his only chance to win this, remains 1,237.
But there are now whispers that the real number of delegates Trump must win by June 7th, maybe lower.
One RNC member attending quarterly meetings down in Fort Lauderdale said he whispered, he didn't give his name.
He said, the closer Trump gets at 1237, even if he doesn't get all the way there by the final primaries, the more likely he cobbles it together.
There are plenty of delegates unbound on the first ballot.
You've just got to go find them.
And as I say, these whispers are not particularly new and they're not particularly recent.
We've been hearing Republican officials like Randy Evans say what this official just said for weeks.
And back to the story.
When the convention opens in Cleveland in mid-July, roughly 200 delegates will arrive as free agents unbound by the results of primaries or caucus in their states.
Trump's campaigns confident they can win as many of them as they must in order to get to 1237 on the first ballot.
Yeah, Trump has to get to 1237, but there's a lot of lot of talk about, well, well, what's the real number?
says another RNC member.
What's the real number?
So this is how they're beginning to think now.
According to the political story, that 1237 is a number.
What is the real number?
Whatever half the uncommitted number is, that's probably a reasonable number.
Now, I think that a lot of people think that if Trump gets to within 50 to 100 of 1237 that he'll be able to carry it, this is Steve House.
The Colorado GOP chairman, who is himself an unbound delegate, already being courted by the Trumpists and the Cruz campaigns.
Steve House, this is the guy that rigged the system in Colorado, quote unquote, is claiming he can go, you know, 50 at 1,137 and still be able to carry it.
Now, House is the guy who, together with the Colorado GOP did away with the straw poll, which some say was done to prevent Trump from winning their delegates.
The old argument here about the rigged system.
People being denied chance to vote.
And House, this guy is on records being very anti-Trump right before that change of rules in Colorado last August.
The whisper conversations about this indeterminate real number that Trump must hit by June 7th reveal a growing, if reluctant consensus among party officials and establishment Republicans that if he gets close enough, they can't take it away.
And I'm going to tell you, that's happening too, folks.
You know, yesterday, the day before, the week before, the month before, all speculative, all based on unknowns, all based on polling data, uh, a lot of empty time that needed to be filled up in the cable networks.
Here comes expert after expert after expert opining on that magic number 1237.
Is it hard?
Is it flexible?
Uh and as we get closer and closer to it, reality's gonna set in.
And what is the reality that's gonna say you can see it in this story, reality's beginning to set in.
That the real magic number is less than 1237.
And let me tell you what the real reality is going to be said by some of the people at the RNC even.
They're gonna look at this.
After June 7th, we get the final delegate count.
Let's just hypothetically say Trump is uh a hundred short, that he's at 1,137 and needs 1,237.
And let's further let's add to this speculation this belief, this theory that Trump has to win it on the first ballot or he's finished.
Have you heard that?
That Trump can't win the second or third ballots for a combination of reasons?
A, so many delegates are opposed to him, that Cruz is out working hard for second ballot, uh, second ballot delegate support and all that.
I've heard this theory banded about that if Trump doesn't win it on the first ballot by virtue of the primaries, that when it gets to actual delegate votes, he's not gonna get 1237, he's not that popular among people.
Well, that's not That's the wrong way to look at it.
And the way some of these RNC people are looking at it is this.
You strip all of this away.
And what would be the if Trump shows up at 1,137, 100 delegates short.
Nobody's anywhere near him, and they engineer a mechanism where they take it away from him.
Some party people looking at think they would have an abject disaster on their hands by having that many people ticked off, fit to be tied, maybe walking out of the convention or what have you.
And that's where all this talk is starting now.
That's why that this magic number 1237 may not actually be a hard number.
It could be even less.
Because when you get down to where the pedal meets the metal, where the rubber meets the road, the actual denial of the nomination to the guy that got so many, many more votes than anybody else.
That's that scares them.
And others are excited at the prospect.
Others are so anti-Trump that they would love to see that happen, even if it means the party takes it on the chin for two or three more election cycles.
But this is about keeping you on the cutting edge.
And I'm just telling you that there are a growing number of people in the RNC who think 1237's a soft number, not a hard number.
And I'm just warning you, you're going to be seeing more of it as the days go by.
Yeah, and and there's also something called a bandwagon effect.
And I I think that's what these anonymous RNC officials speaking to the politico.
Remember what the political is.
The politico is the place where GOPers go to leak to unburden themselves in the drive-by media.
And this this talk now that 1237's a soft number and maybe not be required because 200 unbound delegates are going to show up in the first ballot.
Trump could go get them.
The bandwagon effect is this.
And you see it all the time.
It's the frontrunner effect.
It's called celebrity...
Well, I can't use the it's the it's the four-letter F-bomb word, but celebrity.
And the way it works is convention finally gets you.
It's not, it's not the middle of April like it is now.
It's actually late July, and it's Cleveland, and a convention starting and rah-rah, and all the pomp and circumstance and all that stuff.
It's now in gear.
And Trump rides into town on Trump Force One and all this itinerant glitter, and many of these 200 unbound might just want to get on that bandwagon just to bask in the glow.
And I think that's what a number of these unnamed RNC officials are talking about in this scuttle but here that 1237 is a soft number.
Look, I'm not trying to make anybody, I'm just telling you what's happening out there.
You can make the mistake, look at your advocating it.
I can tell them the tone of your voice.
I'm not advocating anything.
Not doing any of this.
I am just informing you.
Want to grab a call quickly before the hour ends.
Bruce in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Welcome, sir.
It's great to have you here with us.
Hello, Rush.
I want to thank you for what you do.
I salute you for what you do, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
First of all, I want to say I'm a cruise supporter.
Um I think it's time that Cruz makes that secret phone call to Trump.
And uh starts to align with him.
Uh I believe that uh he needs to they need to get together and say he's gonna be Trump's vice president.
Uh we don't need to be selfish here.
We need to win the White House.
And there's a lot of wall mending that needs to be done right now.
Let me ask you Republican Party.
Bruce, are you old enough to remember the 1976 convention, Reagan?
Uh I'm sorry, the 1980 convention, Reagan and George H. W. Bush are you were you an adult at that point remembering that?
Absolutely, sir.
I'm 57 right now.
Okay, good.
So you do you remember when Reagan was advised by James Baker to pick Bush as his VEP for the purposes of unifying the party.
You remember how angry people got at that?
Oh, yes, sir.
Do you re well that's the equivalent of what you're suggesting here, that Trump choose Cruz.
They are diametrically apart on many, many things.
The only thing that argues for this is so-called unity of the party.
Does as a as a Cruz supporter, what indication do you have that he's even thinking of this or would even entertain the idea of being Trump's running mate.
Well, last night, listening to the speech that he gave.
He started talking about needing to unify the party and bringing in people uh into the party to support the Republicans to beat the Democrats.
That's all true.
I just I'm I'm not sure that that Cruz isn't is I'm still he's thinking he's maybe the guy to do the unifying.
Anyway, Randy uh Bruce, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
I'm really out of time here.
I've got to go.
There's another one.
John McCain says he's gonna skip the GOP convention to stay home in Arizona, probably at Sedona, and campaign for re-election at the family mountain home, no doubt.