Rush Limbaugh here at 800-282-2882, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Great to have you with us.
New York Times think Hillary Clinton will win in a landslide.
Don't bet on it.
So we've got this new poll from Florida Atlantic University.
Trump up two, 43 to 41 over Hillary in Florida.
We've got a Reuters poll that shows Hillary up 12 nationally.
But remember in that poll, they don't count the undecideds.
Now, in all these battleground states, the narrative is that Trump is losing.
Who cares about the national polls, they say?
In these battleground states, states Trump has to win.
You can barely see him anymore.
He's in a rearview mirror, and he's getting further and further away.
Doesn't seem to be any way he can reverse field.
Hillary running out the clock, not even going to do any campaign appearances because she realizes that the media is running the campaign for her.
And then this poll shows up amidst other stories about how it's tightening, that Trump is gaining ground, but then the accompanying stories are, is there enough time?
Then people say, well, wait till the debates rush.
Anything can happen in the debates.
Debates, I mean, she could get skunked.
He could get skunked.
You never know.
The debates, the thing hasn't even really begun now.
Then Trump came out with his supposed softening on immigration.
And now we've got the New York Times saying, hey, if you think she's going to win in a landslide, you better not bet on it.
And they go on to explain why.
The vote may be more favorable to Trump than the worst case scenario prognosticators suggest for a simple reason.
Landslides do not really happen in presidential elections anymore.
Oh, so that's why they got a whole story here with a headline, think Hillary's going to win in a landslide, don't bet on it.
And the only reason why is that landslides don't happen anymore.
You talk about a giant suck you in.
This is what is called clickbait in the tech community.
They just want people clicking, and that equals ostensibly hits, which leads to advertising revenue, supposedly.
Anyway, my thinking on this, with Hillary basically phoning it in now, and they're making no bones about it, by the way, the Democrat Party, other than their fundraising, which they seem hell-bent on, but that's nothing really odd.
It's what the Clintons do is ask people for money.
That's essentially the reason they're alive, is to ask people for money.
And they're probably better at it than most anybody else.
But aside from that, no press conferences, no campaign appearances.
Let the media run the campaign, essentially.
And it's the old overconfidence aspect settling in.
And it makes a lot of people on the Democrat side nervous.
And I think privately, they're a little bit more nervous than they admit simply because they saw what happened during the primaries.
They saw what Trump can do.
So I don't think this show that they're putting on of, hey, you know, it's over.
This guy's a buffoon.
He has no prayer.
Everybody loves Hillary.
She's going to win this thing in a walk.
I think that a lot of that is making others on the Democrat side a little nervous.
And we're not talking about Babe Ruth here calling her shot.
I mean, Hillary Clinton has got her own problem with negatives.
She has her own problem with people that don't like her.
In fact, this may be an election.
One of those elections where more people vote against somebody than actually vote for somebody.
It could well be.
Let's go to the audio soundbites.
And Trump.
Now, this was last night on Hannity at a town hall in Austin, Texas with Trump.
And the question, you seem to be in the last week revisiting the issue of immigration, sending everybody back that is here illegally.
Where do you stand on that now?
We want to follow the laws.
You know, we have very strong laws.
We have very strong laws in this country.
If you start going around trying to make new laws in this country, it's a process that's brutal.
We want to follow the laws of the country.
And if we follow the laws, we can do what we have to do.
We've got some great people in this country.
They shouldn't be here.
They're still great people.
But we've got some really, really bad gang members and some horrible people.
Start with them.
Those people are going out day one.
They're going to be the first order I signed.
They're going out day one.
Okay.
So not a big deal there.
I mean, the question is, okay, Mr. Trump, you're starting to revisit the issue of sending everybody back.
And the answer is, well, you know, we want to follow the law.
You hear them cheer.
No matter what, they cheer.
We want to follow the law because they understand that that's not what the Clintons are doing.
It's not what the Democrats are.
It's not what Obama's doing.
These guys are extra-constitutional executive orders and this kind of stuff.
But it's this bite coming up that had the drive-bys practically unable to contain themselves with joy and excitement today.
So Hannity says, well, is there any part of the law that you might be able to change that would accommodate those people that are here illegally, who contribute to society, who have been law-abiding, who have kids here?
Would there be any room in your mind where you could maybe moderate a little bit?
Maybe not send them all back.
Maybe keep the good ones.
Keep the law abiding.
Keep the productive.
Keep the parents.
Keep the kids.
Because I know you had a meeting this week with Hispanic leaders.
I did.
There certainly can be a softening because we're not looking to hurt people.
We want people.
We have some great people in this country.
We have some great, great people in this country.
But we're going to follow the laws of this country.
What people don't realize, we have very, very strong laws.
Yeah, but Obama doesn't follow them.
Even though they don't follow them.
But we're going to follow the laws.
All right.
Now, that's the bite that had the drive-by talking today that Trump is softening.
Hey, it used to be they got to go.
They got to go.
They got to go.
We're going to send them back.
Send them way back.
Way, way back.
We're going to send them back.
They got to go.
They can't stay.
Now it's become, well, some of them are great people.
Some of them have kids, some jobs.
Some are productive, create great things, contribute to society, but law-abiding.
Yeah, yeah, I can see not sending all those people.
We're going to focus on the rot gut.
We're going to go out there.
We're going to find these gang members and we're just going to bang them right out of here.
No matter what he said, there was raucous applause.
The drive-bys took this and ran with it.
And they said, the Trump campaign doesn't know what it's doing.
The Trump campaign is softening.
Then they started asking, is this Kelly and Conway?
Is it Bannon?
And Byron York had a piece.
That Trump campaign doesn't know what it's saying anymore.
The Trump campaign's trampling all over itself.
The Trump campaign can't get out of its own way.
And here's how the media started reacting to it, accusing him of flip-flopping.
This is from last night, a montage of various drive-bys.
Donald Trump says he may be, quote, softening his hardline stance on immigration.
Donald Trump is signaling a new softening on immigration.
Softening his hardline position on immigration, maybe softening his stance on immigration.
He may be willing to soften his plan for mass deportations.
He might soften some of his immigration positions.
Where did Trump ever say soften?
I've got two soundbites here, and I don't find Trump using the word.
Did Hannity use the word?
No, I see it there.
What's that?
Yeah, but okay, there certainly can be some softening.
All right, there it is.
So they picked up on it.
They're going to soften here, soften there.
And they think it's a flip-flop.
They think Trump's people should be abandoning left and right.
As I say, they've been out there doing man in the street interviews, trying to figure it out.
And they can't find any Trump's, not any significant number anyway, who are abandoning Trump over this.
And they thought that was going to happen.
Let's listen to a little bit of Trump.
This was in Austin last night.
And we've got some bites from what many are saying was another great Trump appearance here.
The Trump's message is about redeclaring our independence as a country.
On November 8th, a very, very important date, we are going to declare our independence from special interest, corrupt politicians, and I might add, very corrupt politicians.
And from a rigged system that benefits only the insiders.
We are going to declare our independence from politicians who don't listen to us and media executives that don't care about us and by the way, who never report our massive and very, very friendly crowds.
That's for sure.
The crowd went nuts there.
Trump's back at it right.
He's in Tampa with another appearance at this moment.
Last night in Austin, Trump refined his outreach to African Americans.
The percentage of black Americans in poverty has grown under Obama, the Census Bureau reports from 25.8% in 2009 to 26.2%, up too much.
Too much.
The number of blacks on food stamps soared under Obama to 11.7 million people in 2014, up 58.2%.
Also, from Obama's arrival through last June 30th, the percentage of black Americans who own homes plunged 41.7%.
Nearly four in ten African American children live in poverty.
That's no good and not fair.
And he kept on, folks.
He's not deterred.
He continued on this same line.
58% of young African Americans are not employed.
Homicide is up nearly 50% in Washington, D.C., and up more than 60% in Baltimore and up throughout all of our inner cities.
Violent crime rose 17% in the 50 largest U.S. cities.
This is the legacy of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
It can't get any worse.
To those suffering, I say, what do you have to lose in trying Trump?
What do you have to lose?
I will fix it.
I will fix it.
Okay, there you go.
Now, here's a Trump audience going nuts over the prospect of improving the lives of African Americans.
They're applauding it.
They're all for it.
We conservatives are all for everybody doing better.
We want great things for everybody.
We want everybody accessing every opportunity that they can.
We live in the greatest country on earth.
It's got incredible bounty.
We want everybody experiencing it.
Now, in the last couple of days, I have been commenting on this, and I found that many conservatives disagree with me.
I have been, for the most part, thinking, Trump, this is a good outreach.
And most people are saying, no, no, Rush, this is not the way to do it.
This is demeaning.
This is humiliating.
This is Trump telling African Americans how rotten their lives are, even if he is trying to blame it on Democrats.
This is not the way to do it.
This is not the way.
It shouldn't happen.
And I think to myself, if I were trying to outreach to African Americans as a candidate, I'd do something similar.
You know, I'd ask them, you've been voting Democrat your whole lives and then some, and what's it gotten you?
Well, I know, that's the thing.
But here's what I found this actually addressed last night as I was digging deep into show prep for today.
And somebody actually went to a group of African Americans and asked them how they are reacting to Trump.
Now, remember, many conservatives think that Trump's not really reaching out to African Americans here with this, that what he's really trying to do is show white college-educated people, and in particular women, that he's not racist, that he's not bigoted, that he likes everybody.
In other words, his target is not African Americans with this, but it's with white people that doubt him.
That's the theory.
So I ran across this.
I don't remember specifically what it was.
And I was in the middle of something.
I was on an iPad.
I couldn't print it at the time, but I remember it.
And it was a story interviewing several African Americans, and they were asked to respond to Trump's pitch.
And it was exactly, it was exactly what my wild guess assumed it would be.
They don't care what Trump's saying because they don't really think he cares because he's a Republican.
And they admitted the people in the story, the African Americans in the story admitted, yeah, but at least the Democrats care.
It didn't matter to them that Democrat Party policies not only have not worked, they probably have made things worse.
It didn't matter.
The results, the actual reality of life on the ground didn't matter.
The reason that they are not going to abandon Democrats is because in their minds, the Democrats care more.
The Democrats care for real.
And they don't think, they think Trump is just saying this stuff.
Now, that is the result of 50 years of branding or more.
So simply reaching out, apparently, and expressing your desires and your hopes for African Americans as a Republican is not nearly enough.
I don't know what is, but apparently that's not the way to do it.
Back in a sec.
Back to the phones, Ringo.
This is Robert in Owaso, Oklahoma.
It's great to have you with us here on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Hey.
It is an honor to speak with you.
I have been listening to you on a daily basis since the Oklahoma City bombings.
So this definitely is something I can mark off my button.
Well, that's 1996, 95, somewhere around in there.
Yeah, that's many, many moons, a little Indian lingo.
Yes.
The question I had was regarding that AP story.
Secretary Clinton signed a separation agreement that she was not going to be doing business with the foundation when she was Secretary of State.
So essentially, she not only lied to the administration, she lied to the president.
So at this point, what does Obama, you know, what is going to safeguard him?
I mean, why would he not go ahead and unleash the Department of Justice and say, you know, investigate all of them?
Well, why would Obama not unleash the Department of Justice on her private email server and the things that went on there?
I, you know, this requires pure speculation.
I mean, so many different competing theories here.
I mean, some people have the theory that Obama hates Hillary, just doesn't like her.
So why did he make her Secretary of State?
Well, it's to keep her in the tent, not outside the tent.
It's the whole thing, you make her a part of the regime so she can't rip the regime.
And if she's in the regime, she's got to be a loyal player, particularly if she wants to go further.
So, well, then why if Obama hates her, why did Obama help pay off her campaign?
Same thing.
Same thing.
You don't want the Clintons out there trashing you in your first term while you're trying to obliterate the Constitution and do whatever else you're trying to do.
So then why not unleash things on her if, for example, what you mentioned, the pay-to-play operation at the State Department.
Look, wild guess here, but it's obvious.
It's apparent that Obama doesn't want to do anything that's going to damage Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.
He's had clear and present opportunities to do it.
Doesn't want to.
Have to chalk it up to party loyalty.
Have to chalk it up to don't want the Republicans coming in here and unraveling everything I've done.
And also, by letting her skate, she is going to continue to owe him, which gives him continuing leverage over her.
Am I understanding your question correctly?
Yes, sir.
I guess my point is I think we've all come to the conclusion that Obama is pretty much a narcissist, and this is going to be about his legacy.
His policies haven't worked.
Obamacares, you know, falling apart.
Foreign policy is a joke.
That's not going to be it.
No, that's not going to be his legacy.
His legacy is going to be national socialized medicine.
Obama's legacy is going to be he tried markets and they didn't work.
And he had to finally, the government had to come in and rescue the beleaguered healthcare system.
The people writing about Obama today are the ones who are going to write his legacy, and it's not going to be negative.
Are you stumped on that one?
No, sir, not at all.
Just wanted a level of clarification on that.
And one last thing before we go.
Like I said, it's an honor to talk to you.
But I want to get back to something Nathan said, one of your first callers, about President Reagan.
And I'm of that generation that grew up with him as commander-in-chief.
And, you know, the safety and leadership that he showed, that's definitely something we miss.
And I think that for a screwball as he is sometimes, I think Trump reminds a lot of people of President Reagan.
You know, I hear that.
That has always, I'll be honest, that has intrigued me.
I know people who worked for Reagan, who have gotten on the Trump bandwagon from day one.
And I called them.
Well, I don't call anybody.
I send them an email.
I said, what?
It reminds me of Reagan, Rush.
Reminds me, Reagan, early days, reminds me of, I said, you gotta be kidding me.
Nope, nope.
I see the same potential.
I've heard that from a bunch of people that work with Reagan.
Now, I've also heard from other people that work for Reagan, when they hear that, they want to throw up.
They don't think there's anything to that at all.
I mean, the opinions on Trump are all over the place.
We call it perfect polarization in the media business.
But I hear from a lot of other people that Trump reminds them of what they think, what they remember Reagan was.
And I'll tell you what I think it is.
Reagan beat the media.
And Reagan did not have any help.
Reagan did not have a Fox News.
Reagan did not have me.
He didn't have talk radio.
Reagan had a couple of magazines, and that was it.
Everything else, there were three networks and the newspapers, and that was it.
And Reagan won two landslides.
Reagan had the ability to go over the heads of the media and connect with the American people almost on a one-on-one basis.
And he won two landslides, 49 states in the second one.
And he was not brash with the media.
He laughed at the media.
He chuckled with them and all that.
He never bashed them like Trump does.
But the media tried as hard as they could, and the Democrats tried as hard as they could to take Reagan out, and they failed.
And I think that's what people see in Trump.
They see somebody wanting to take on the media that the media can't harm.
And I wouldn't discount that, folks.
Among people on our side, lifelong Republicans, lifelong conservatives, the degree of frustration felt over the success the media has in destroying people on our side.
When they come along and try to destroy somebody and the person survives and triumphs, I think people are drawn to that.
And I think that's one of the reasons Trump has the appeal he does.
It's not by any means the sole reason, but it's a key.
Here's Jim in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
You're next.
It's great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi.
Rush, longtime listener.
And Megan Diddon.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I respect your intellectual clarity in a lot of the issues that are going on.
But what I want really everybody to know is that there is a grassroots movement of people who never voted before.
They are just sitting there waiting.
And it's going to happen.
Nobody's, you know, really vocal about what they feel, but they're going to go for the best of two evils.
And I'm out in the, I guess you could say, the population with my work.
I take care of network issues for a large grocery chain.
So I'm in the neighborhood, you know, neighborhoods all over the U.S. And everybody that you talk to, everybody.
Well, you're breaking up on your cell call there, but I think I got the gist of it.
And let me repeat something I said in the first hour.
I got a bunch of emails from people who really took me to task yesterday.
You know, I gave people the impression that I think that there is this giant, bursting, silent majority that nobody knows.
The pollsters are not finding it.
And they're sitting out there lurking.
And when election day comes, they're going to show up in droves and Trump's going to win in a landslide and shock everybody.
And people sent me even Rush.
It's not possible.
I mean, if that movement existed, we would know about it.
The media would be finding them.
The pollsters would find them.
Said, you're dreaming.
So I had to stop, what did I say that makes them think that?
So I went back and reviewed.
And it was, again, yesterday, I quoted Robert Costa in the Washington Post.
In fact, we've got the bite.
Grab the bite.
Soundbite number 20.
In fact, let me get that.
I got to take a timeout anyway.
So let me take the time out.
And I'll come back and explain this because the emails last night misunderstood what I was saying yesterday and think that I'm dead wrong.
There isn't this giant scient majority out there that's just waiting to show up.
That there may be a bunch of people, but it's not a majority, and it isn't enough to help Trump.
That was the upshot of the notes I got last night.
Back in just a second.
Okay, Selena Zito had a column yesterday about all the people she found in rural Pennsylvania driving through small towns, all the Trump signs.
And she said, this just, I mean, these people used to be the backbone of America.
These people are for Trump left and right, and nobody's talking about them.
Nobody's finding them.
They're not in the big cities.
She didn't say they're going to engineer a Trump victory.
She just said that there's a lot of support for Trump out there people aren't talking about.
I mentioned that, and then I quoted again this audio soundbite.
It's wider than any party.
I mean, it includes some Bernie Sanders supporters.
It includes some libertarians.
The most important voter in this movement, when I travel around the country, is the previously disengaged voter.
They're almost a nonpartisan voter, but they've given up not just on the political process, but they've disengaged from civic society.
They don't really follow politics.
If that is a real coherent voting block, then Trump, regardless of the polls, will have a shot in November, regardless of all this mistakes, because that is a huge block.
There's so much of this country that rarely, if ever, votes.
And if for some reason they come to the polls in droves, that changes everything.
Okay, so I mentioned that after reading Selena Zito's piece, and I got emails from people last night, you're dreaming.
You're giving people the wrong idea.
You're making people think the polls are wrong.
You're trying to tell people there's this giant voting block out there waiting to vote for Trump and nobody's finding.
And you're being irresponsible.
You're misleading people.
I was not doing anything of the sort.
I'm simply telling you what other people are saying.
In this case, Costa is a Washington Post reporter, used to be at National Review, and Selena Zito writes of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
And it happens to be true.
If you travel through small towns, there are a lot of people that don't vote.
They have disengaged because they think politics doesn't mean anything.
It's not helpful to them.
They think their votes don't matter.
70% of the people think the country is traveling in the wrong direction.
And if you put those two things together, and Costa spells it out better than I have, if those people exist and if they show up, it changes everybody's calculations.
But I'm not trying to tell anybody the polls are wrong.
I'm not sitting here trying to give anybody false hope.
It's amazing.
I happen to just mention what other people are saying.
And these emails came in last night.
Well, you're misleading people.
It's irresponsible what you're doing.
One of the points was if there are that many people for whatever reason that are waiting to vote for Trump, believe me, Rush, they would have been found and you would find evidence of their existence in the polls.
So make of that what you will.
But here we've got another guy.
I don't know how I'm going to have a chance to get to him here, but Auburn Hills, Michigan, he's seeing the same thing.
I've had this sitting around here for a while.
This might be an appropriate time to mention it.
It's a YouGov poll that was taken in Ohio recently.
And the upshot of this poll is there's many aspects of it, but one of the aspects of this poll is that nearly 20% of people who say they're not voting for Trump would reconsider if he apologizes to the people he's offended.
Now, this poll predates Trump apologizing if he offended anybody.
Now, do you believe something like this?
I mean, who would even think to ask this question?
Would you change your opinion of Trump if he apologized?