And I'm the guy that says that Trump's a narcissist.
Anyway, I want to address the Donald Trump thing head on because if you're a conservative in America or you're somebody that is either a Republican or generally votes for Republicans, you have to address it.
And everybody right now is.
There's just this.
I like to analogize things on my radio show at Milwaukee.
Here's my analogy.
This is what it's like if you're in a culture where they have those arranged marriages.
You meet somebody and you really, really you really like them.
You're in love with them.
This is my soulmate.
But you can't have that person.
Instead, you have the goof that your parents cut a deal with, and this is who you now have to marry.
And you size that person up and you don't like him because he's not what you were in love with.
Well, a lot of people found a met many of these 17 Republicans that were running very good candidates.
A lot of people really liked Marco Rubio, and they really liked Ted Cruz.
Some people like John Kasich.
There were people, I know it doesn't seem like there were a lot of them, that thought that Jeb Bush was perfect.
There are people who liked Ben Carson.
And down the list.
There are also a lot of Americans, conservatives, who thought that this was going to be our year.
Eight years of Barack Obama.
The backsliding we've done as a nation, the creation of a new entitlement, the lack of respect for the United States and the world, the growth of terror.
We were finally going to fix this.
You had a crop of candidates running, some of whom were very conservative.
You'd have a chance to have a Republican president with a Republican Senate and a Republican House, and finally, finally, our side would go about the business of fixing America.
And all of a sudden, the rug is pulled out from underneath you.
In comes Trump.
He comes in and he says a lot of things that many of these conservatives don't agree with.
He conducts himself in a way that a lot of people are offended by and don't like.
He criticizes many of the people that we've considered friends and supporters.
And now he wins.
And all of a sudden, as soon as that's over, these people are told, you've got to accept it, you've got to get on board, you've got to jump up and down, you've got to cheer.
Well, that isn't that easy to do.
Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination nine days ago when he won Indiana and Ted Cruz dropped out.
We're still only in May.
These demands that Trump supporters are making that everybody immediately fall in line now today.
You're asking a lot here.
Now, for those of you who don't know where my position on Trump has been, I've been on my radio show in Milwaukee a Trump critic.
I've not played it down the middle.
I generally don't play anything down the middle.
I throw out my point of view and I advocate for it.
I've been a supporter of Ted Cruz.
My side didn't win.
We wanted Wisconsin, but the rest of the country was out of sync with where we were.
I come from an area, southeastern Wisconsin, where the Republican voter block in the suburbs is enormous, and they voted overwhelmingly for Cruz and against Trump.
In my own radio listening audience of Milwaukee, the majority of my listeners are not supporters of Donald Trump, and many of them are very angry about the fact that Trump won.
On the other hand, my audience also consists of a lot of people who have fed up with me bashing Donald Trump and think that I ought to get on board, and that my criticisms of Trump are off base.
That's the background.
That's the baggage that's out there.
In approaching doing today's Rush program, and when Bo Snurdley called me, I didn't know that it would be the very day that Trump had this meeting with Paul Ryan.
What I decided I wanted to do on the Rush Show is try to look at this from the perspective of both sides.
There are so many people who are critical of Trump who think that the Trump supporters are idiots.
And I hear this.
They say, well, what's wrong with these people?
Can't they see that Trump's a phony?
Can't they see this?
Can't they see that?
And so many people have been trying to analyze why Trump supporters support Trump.
It's taken a long time, but I believe I've figured it out.
They're patriotic.
And they feel as though the nation has lost its way.
They're not all that concerned about every single policy detail, but they see a guy who's an American, who's in your face about it.
He's proud to be an American.
He says he wants to make America great again.
They do too.
They see not only the damage done by Obama, but they perceive the Republicans as being almost acquiescors to, is that a word?
Acquiescers, that they were acquiescing, that they rolled over and enabled him.
That's how they perceive things.
When Trump says I want to make America great again, people buy into that.
They want a president who wants America to be a great country.
They don't want a president who's embarrassed by the United States.
They don't want a president who wants to remake what we are.
This is where there ought to be common ground.
By the same token, the Trump supporters who've looked upon those of us who haven't supported Trump need to understand that we're patriotic Americans too.
That we have principles.
We care about issues.
I happen to be somebody who believes strongly that America needs to play a leading role in the world.
Because if we don't, the world is going to fall apart and go to hell.
That if the United States recedes, you've got tyrants, you've got ISIS, you've got terrorists, you've got China, you've got Putin that are going to run rough shot over the world and eventually us if we don't have an assertive role.
I'm someone who believes that we are spending way too much money as a nation, and that with the demographics of the baby boom aging, if we don't reform Social Security and Medicare, that they will go bust and we won't have it.
I look at our growing national debt, the deficits and the debt, and I think that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Well, these are views that we have.
And for being critical of Trump's approach on this, we are merely fighting for things that we care about.
And we perceive that Trump is somebody who might not be with us.
So what do you do?
Where do you go from here?
The people that are not supporters of Trump have a decision to make.
You can abandon him.
You can say you're not going to support him, you can vote for a third party candidate, or you can even do what a columnist for the Wall Street Journal suggested this week.
Brett Stevens said you should vote for Hillary Clinton.
Brett Stevens' position is if the next presidency is going to be a train wreck, why do you want to own it?
Why should the Republicans want to be the party of a president who fouls everything up?
George Will has argued, let Hillary win, then beat her in four years, but don't be part of this.
Don't be part of this nightmare.
The other side of the argument is the obvious one.
We can't stand four years of Hillary Clinton.
It'll be worse than anything that Bill Clinton brought us.
She's a liar, she may be a crook.
She's unfit for public service, and she's going to keep in place public policies that are disastrous.
And then there's the Supreme Court.
Do you really want four years of liberal justice is put on that court?
You'll lose control of the court for a generation, not to mention all of the lower federal courts.
And if you simply abandon this election, what happens to every other Republican on the ballot?
If there's a Hillary Clinton landslide, you're probably going to lose control of the United States Senate.
You might even lose the House.
Some Republican governors will go down.
Republican members of state legislatures across the country are going to lose.
There's a consequence in simply saying I'm not going to back Trump.
What I think is this, after going through all of that Prattle, what I think is this.
I think there has to be an attempt to find some common ground, but it doesn't have to happen today or by tomorrow or Tuesday of next week.
The election is still six months away and the Republican convention is two months away.
If the people who are not supportive of Trump are to be expected to come around and back Trump, then I think that has to work two ways.
I think Trump needs to make it clear that he backs them.
It would be helpful if Donald Trump said in running for president he's going to support Republicans who are running for re-election to the Senate and the House.
If Trump wants to be the Republican nominee, that means he has to become a Republican.
Now, admittedly, he's been running in a Republican primary, and a lot of Republican establishment figures have disagreed with him and have tried to stop him from winning the nomination.
So of course he's taking shots at them.
But that now has to stop.
By being the nominee, Trump has become the Republican establishment.
If he wants everybody to come on board with him, he's got to get on board with them also.
If Trump is willing to do that, if he's willing to reach out and take that step, it's a lot easier for his critics to take the step toward him.
It does take two to tango.
If this relationship is going to work, where Republicans who aren't all that who don't like Trump, Republicans who don't like Trump are going to back him.
He's got to be willing to get on board with those people as well.
Now I've got some ideas on how that can be done without sacrificing what has made Trump what he is.
There's a quote for today in the New York Times and Trump in which he said, What they want me to change my tactics, they want me to change my style.
People I in fact, here's the quote.
It's a good one.
Trump at a telephone interview compared his candidacy to his Broadway shows and championship baseball teams, saying that success begot success and that he would be foolish to change his behavior now.
You win the pennant and now you're on the World Series, you're going to change.
People like the way I'm doing.
So Trump is saying for those of you who want to change me to change my style and stop being blunt and stop being aggressive and stop saying the things that I'm saying, people like this.
It's working for me.
Why would I change it?
You're not going to get him to change.
There's been talk that he's going to modify his style and he's going to modify his approach.
His campaign manager Paul Manafort said, look, Ellie did this for the primary, but he's going to be a different candidate for the general election.
You're not going to change a 69-year-old man in the way that he conducts himself.
That is Trump.
And Trump won.
But there are areas in which I think Trump can show some flexibility.
And if he does that, I think you'll see some of the people who don't much like him grit their teeth and get on board.
I'll share with you my thoughts and where I think that that could happen, and then we're going to take some phone calls.
1-800-282-2882 is the phone number here on the Rush program.
My name is Mark Belling, and I am sitting in for Rush.
Mark Belling in for Rush.
You know, it's like a sports team where the players don't seem to like one another.
They have to try to figure out how to make it work.
Well, I can prove that I'm a team player.
How's this for you?
I'm going to do a great promo for Rush 24-7.
If you missed any part of Russia's show this week, you can catch up on everything on his member website Rush 24-7 at Rush Lindbaugh.com.
That even means you can access the ditto cam, but not today.
There's no ditle cam when a guest host does the program.
Trust me, you do not want to see me uh doing the show.
If you do join our Rush 24-7, you get access to all of the archives, the podcasts, and all of those great parodies.
So Rushlinbaugh.com is where you can sign up for Rush 24 7.
In talking about Trump, the Republicans, how they can put this together or at least coexist with one another.
We know this about Trump.
He's not on most issues all that focused on the specifics of policy.
The fact that he's bopped around on so many issues demonstrates that.
I think there are some issues in which he has strongly held beliefs, but others in which he doesn't.
Just this whole back and forth on taxes.
Earlier in the campaign he said he was going to lower taxes for all Americans.
Then he goes on one of the network programs over the weekend, well the rich are going to pay more.
Now he backs off on that and said, well no I only meant that in the context they're going to might have to pay a little bit more than my original plan said.
Clearly I don't think he has a strongly held viewpoint here.
If Trump comes out and specifically commits to opposing all tax increases on all income groups, I think that can get the support of some conservatives he does seem to be campaigning, believe it or not, as a supply sider.
He's of the opinion that lowering tax rates will generate growth in the economy and therefore he can do the other things of the government that he wants to do.
That is a conservative position.
If he takes it and adheres to it, I think he can make some progress on some social issues.
If he becomes more firm and clear with regard to issues pertaining to life, I think that that will build him some sort with some conservatives.
There are issues out there that Trump can talk about if he makes himself open to the notion of not cutting the entitlements so much as reforming them to save them.
If he reaches out to the issues that people like Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz and many of the others care about it's possible that there can be a coexistence here.
But for this relationship to work it's got to work on both sides.
In the meantime, don't expect it to all happen overnight but it might still happen.
I've never signed up for that hashtag never Trump movement.
A lot of people have I'm kind of a never say never sort of guy and I'm open to the notion that I can support Trump.
But I'm also not somebody that's going to sacrifice the principles that I have and the things that I care about immediately.
But there's time Trump won the nomination there's still months before the general election this thing could theoretically be put together.
All right let's take some calls Lynchburg Virginia and Nathan Nathan you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Hello?
Hi, you're on Nathan Oh, I'm kind of disappointed with the uh Republican Party as a whole I'm not saying all of them but uh I thought if I can remember correctly Trump was the only one up on the stage that said that he would not support the Republican candidate basically if it wasn't him and all the others basically said that they would support the Republican candidate.
Talk about integrity um Cruz is supposed to be such a man of integrity how come he didn't when he got out of the race how comes he didn't automatically say look guys you know Donald Trump won Fair and square I support him.
Well well you're asking him to do it immediately.
You're asking him to do you're asking a guy who's just been knocked out of a boxing match, knocked to the floor and bloodied to immediately get up and praise and bow and scrape before the guy that did it.
I mean Cruz only lost nine days ago.
It's almost like some Trump supporters want people to have to grovel here.
The fact of the matter is is that the reason that they can't bring themselves around to supporting Trump is they've got disagreements with him in terms of his style his tone some of the things that he says and some of the things that he that he stands for.
I don't think it's realistic for you to expect this to happen immediately.
Plus they're under no real obligation to do it.
It's possible however that it will happen but I do think that some of the onus on this is on Trump.
If Trump wants people to support him if he wants to win he's got to do the same amount of reaching out that you're asking people like Ted Cruz to do as well it does this does have to be a two way relationship here.
If Trump is insistent on continuing to spike the football in their faces, they're not going to come around and support him.
On the other hand, if Ted Cruz indeed does believe that Donald Trump is a better alternative for this country than Hillary Clinton, I suspect he's going to be there.
Hard to believe we're talking about Donald Trump.
Nobody ever brings him a Donald Trump is driving the debate in this country.
He's going to be the Republican candidate for president.
And the Republican Party is going to have to figure out what to do about it.
I think you're going to see most Republicans endorse him.
Unless Trump just makes it impossible.
If Trump starts moving to the left on issues, if Trump continues to insult some of the Republican leaders, then they're not going to do that.
I just can't fathom that that's what Trump is going to do, though.
Presuming he does want to win, he knows that this is a relationship in which they need one another.
The joint statement that was issued today by Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan certainly seemed to indicate that they think that they're going to be able to put this thing together.
But right now, if you talked all over the country, the kinds of discussions that Trump and Ryan are having, people are having with one another, and a lot of people are mad at each other.
This isn't the easiest thing to simply patch up and put together in a week.
Trust me on that.
When I get back to my show in Milwaukee, there are going to be people who say, I can't believe you went on Russia's program and started rolling over to Donald Trump.
You should have used this for him to bash him.
And there will be people who say, I can't believe that you go out there and continue your crybabying spoil sport that your guy Cruz didn't win.
There's no way, and Russia's talked about this in his own program, there's no way to please everyone.
The people who don't support Trump have got to start thinking about what their best strategy is.
Is it to let Hillary Clinton win and try to beat her in four years?
Or is it to make the best of this and hope that Donald Trump can become a great president?
If they simply abandon Trump, are they setting this up to be a national land?
If twenty to twenty-five percent of the Republican voters don't back Donald Trump, he's going to lose.
Nobody can win without the support of most of their political party.
And a lot of other Republicans are going to lose.
Now some people will argue that that's a good thing.
Some people will say that it isn't.
Where I live in the city of Milwaukee, a very, very liberal area, I have to make all sorts of votes in which neither candidate is my favorite.
In the end, you do the best you can.
In this situation, Trump, for all of his negatives that many conservatives see, and many Republicans see, is bringing something to the table.
He has reignited a patriotism in America.
He's taken on political correctness.
And he offers an opportunity to expand the Republican base.
It's not like there's nothing there.
Anyway, my attempt here to get everybody to sing kumbaya and be happy with one another continues as we go back to the phones.
George in Severna Park, Maryland.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Hey, Mark.
How are you?
I'm great.
Thanks.
I like I told the call taker, I am a rare animal these days, but I am a conservative Democrat.
And that's it's even it's even hard to find one of us out there these days.
But there are a lot of us out there that are kind of hiding because I am voting for Trump.
And the reason I am voting for Trump is I don't like either the right or the left is ideologues controlling this country.
I want someone who will listen to both sides and who will make the right decisions for the entire country, not for a particular interest group.
Not for a particular ideology.
I think that we need someone because I'm I I'm like that.
I mean, I have I have liberal ideas, but I also have conservative ideas.
I'm I know but here's here's here's the thing, George.
Some of us are ideologues Because we have strongly held beliefs about the direction of our nation.
I happen to think that you can't continue to spend money that you don't have, and we've got to control our spending.
I happen to think that the United States of America needs to be a major player in the world or the world is going to go to hell.
I happen to think that Obamacare, the creation of another government entitlement, is a disaster.
I believe those things.
And so do a lot of other people.
And they see Donald Trump as maybe being squishy on those things.
You act as though being an ideologue is a terrible thing, whereas in fact, some of us have strongly held beliefs because we think that conservatism is going to is going to work.
Now, what I think Trump has managed to do is bring in a lot of people who consider themselves conservative, but don't care so much about the specifics of policy as they do the achievement of the goal.
And they believe that Trump is pursuing the correct goals.
That's been his strength.
If he reaches out a little bit on the issues to those of us who are more issue focused, he has a chance.
He has a chance to be able to get our support.
In fact, uh Trump uh has just emerged from his meeting with the United States Senate today, and he indicates that things are moving in a positive direction.
But for your commentary that you like the fact that Trump is somebody who isn't so much on either side, that's one of his strengths.
But he if he wants to win, he's going to need the support of the of conservatives who right now aren't sold on him.
And as I say, part of that responsibility is on Trump himself.
Thank you for the call.
Let's go to Austin, Texas.
Mason, you're on the Russian Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Oh, hi, Mark.
I've been calling in for 25 years, always been busy.
So great to get through.
I think the unification thing is easier than we think.
I mean a couple of things.
I I I believe Trump almost hurts himself making deals with Mitch McConnell today.
Uh and possibly even Paul Ryan amongst conservatives.
Well, I don't know if they're making hang hang on a second, Mason.
Do you think they're making deals or they're trying to find common ground?
There's a difference.
Throw us some red meat.
Well, have have uh Trump before the convention, throw us all some red meat, put up Ted Cruz for Supreme Court justice.
Now we'd all rather have Ted Cruz on Supreme Court than president almost, because that's where he can affect he can affect our children's ability to continue to live in liberty.
Mason Mason would be Mason, what you just said.
I I mean yeah I that remember when Chris Matthews talked about Barack Obama and that tingly little feeling in his leg.
You said Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court.
I had that warm little tingly fee feeling in my leg.
I think if Trump, and I don't know that he can come out and say this is who I will nominate, if Trump put Ted Cruz on the United States Supreme Court, it would make a lot of people who are concerned about him a lot less concerned.
That would be a great thing.
He needs to give us the confidence that those are the types of people, never mind Cruz himself, those are the types of people he'll put on because a lot of us aren't yet sold on it.
We're concerned that he's not going to nominate a Keg Cruz, that he's going to be putting up somebody more like Sonia Sotomayor.
That's what our what our what we're worried about with Trump where it comes from.
We're not convinced he's a conservative.
If we thought that's what he was going to do, you better believe that a lot of the people who have a hang up with him would be on board.
I I I love that idea.
That would be great.
They need to do it before the convention to unify everyone.
I I I think that if he takes steps like that, it will go a long way toward bringing people around.
The one thing you're not going to do is you're not going to get him to stop tweeting.
You're not going to get him to stop saying things that some people perceive as vulgar.
You're not going to get him to stop campaigning via holding rally.
You're not going to get him to go in depth on a lot of policy questions.
You're not going to change the way Trump is.
The things that are bothering some people, like myself, who have cold feet here, we are not convinced that Donald Trump would govern as a conservative.
The more that he gives us to indicate that he will, and what you just suggest, I think, is a...
I'm just in love with the idea.
In general, I think the more something drives a liberal crazy, the better idea it is.
Can you imagine how nutso the left would go if Ted Cruz was on the United States Supreme Court?
Thanks for the call.
I think that's a great suggestion.
He's talked about putting out names of people that he would put on.
I think he's got to make the step to convince people people that he is someone who is on the right politically and will govern that way.
As I said also, I think he needs to reach out and make it clear that if he's the standard bearer and the leader of the ticket, that he's going to be on board with the people that are below him on the ticket.
Paul Ryan has a Republican primary opponent this summer.
There's a guy who is running against him claiming that Ryan is a sellout.
Well, if Donald Trump wants Paul Ryan to back him, Donald Trump needs to back Paul Ryan.
If you're expecting people to be one big happy family, that means everybody in the family is going to have to cooperate on this.
Nobody's going to particularly like it, but they might be able to get along.
Do I think it will happen?
Probably.
Do I know it will happen?
No, I don't.
I'm Mark Belling in for Rush Limbaugh.
Mark Belling sitting in for Rush.
Rush's going to be back tomorrow.
His monthly newsletter available in print in digital editions at Rush Limbaugh.com.
That's the Limbaugh letter.
See?
Proving again I can be a team player.
Doesn't come always naturally to me.
Ken in Atlanta, Georgia, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Yes.
Uh can you hear me?
I can, Ken.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Uh I have never called in the radio program before.
Sixty six years old today.
And you have just impressed the fool out of me.
You're not a Trump supporter, yet you just gave the best uh man I've ever heard.
I think you ought to broker a meeting between Trump and Cruz and Rubio and Power Ryan and tell him when they walk in the room, sit down and and be quiet and let me talk.
I think that you could bring you personally could talk to these men and bring the Republican Party together because we I'm a Marine recon, special forces retired, and we cannot take another four years or eight years of Barack Obama if Hillary Clinton gets in that office.
office.
Ken, you might be the better person to broker the meeting.
I'd probably end up yelling at Trump and not be able to bite my tongue.
My my myself.
I'm sure it that I appreciate those comments, Ken.
That was very, very nice of you.
And I'm glad that your first call was when I was sitting in for Rush.
Call uh call sometime when Rush is back.
Thanks for the call.
Now the point that he makes, though, and I am flattered by his comment.
The point that he makes is there is a greater evil here, and that is four more years of democratic rule.
I do get that some people think that a Trump presidency is even worse because it means that the Republican Party is then the party of whatever it is that Trump does.
And they think that that would be a bad thing.
I wrestle with it myself.
I'm not sure which way we ought to go on this.
That's why I say that the onus is as much on Trump as it is on the people who are critical of Trump.
The voters did speak, though.
Trump didn't get more than 50% of all the votes cast in Republican primaries, but he got more than anybody else.
And that means he won.
There may be a third party candidate, there may be people who suggest voting for the libertarians, there may be a Democrats for Hillary Clinton movement that'll start.
There may be all of those things.
Those of us who are conservative have to decide what the best way to proceed is.
I do think the Trump supporters need to accept why some of us have not supported him and are bothered by him, particularly if they are demanding that everybody roll over and support Trump.
This does need to be a two-way process.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Gene Jr. on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Hey Mark, how are you today?
I'm great, thanks.
I listening to uh first time caller to any radio show.
Um I'm a huge Trump supporter of Ben since the day he announced.
Previously a Ben Carson guy until again Trump sub uh came on board.
And um just like in the first debate, everyone pledged to support the eventual nominee.
Because it's at the end of the day, you either support Trump or you support Hillary.
We can argue back and forth, left, right, up, down, frontwards, backwards, but you are going to support one of these two candidates.
One of them are going to be the President of the United States come January 20th, 2017.
Now, you had made a comment earlier that Trump needs to reach out to crews or suggested that he needs to reach out to Cruz for Cruz's support.
Well, not just crews, but people who back crews and people who backed Rubio and people who back Kasich and so on, that he needs to reach out to the people who aren't with him.
I uh yes and no.
Yes and no, because the people have voted for Trump.
People voted for Cruz, people voted for Rubio.
I get all that.
Yeah, I know.
But here's here's the thing, Gene.
In order to win, you do need to get over 50%, and Donald Trump does need almost all of the Republicans to get behind him, and he is the candidate, and there's an obligation on him to reach out in the same way that Mitt Romney and John McCain and all of the others had to do that in the same way that Barack Obama was able to get the Hillary Clinton backers to support him when he ran.
There is an obligation on his part, if he wants to win, to do that.
Thank you for the call.
There is some breaking news here on Donald Trump that I want to pass along right now.
Uh coming out of that meeting with Republicans in the United States Senate, uh, he's apparently saying that he'd back off on his comments about banning Muslims from coming into the uh United States.
Uh Donald Trump's statement on preventing Muslim immigration.
Donald Trump, Trump is calling for a uh Okay.
That was the original statement.
And in any event, Trump made a comment, apparently, just within the last few moments in which he said that this position on banning Muslims from coming in, this might not be all that hard and fast.
That shows some flexibility here, maybe flexibility in terms of bowing to the left.
If he's willing to bow to the left now with this flexibility, he ought to be willing to give those of us on the right some of the policy positions that we're looking for.
Can you turn this into one great big happy family?
No.
Can you make it a coexisting family?
Perhaps.
But some of the obligation on the reaching out here comes from those that have won, not just those who have lost.
I'm Mark Ellington for Rush.
Well, it's certainly an interesting period that we are in, and probably the most divided Republicans and conservatives have been in decades.
Maybe they can bring it all together.
Maybe they can't.
You know, I'm from Wisconsin.
I'm a Packer fan.
The people that are demanding that those of us who opposed Trump roll over right away, I mean, you you're almost asking us to support the Bears in the Super Bowl.
That's a tough pill to swallow.
Can it be done?
It probably can be done.
Advice to Donald Trump.
Start criticizing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
That is something that I think all of us can agree on, and we'll go a long way toward repairing this divide.