RUSH: Are you sick and tired yet of hearing how Paul Ryan wants to kill Medicare? You know what’s going to kill Medicare is Medicare. Medicare is going to eat itself. Medicare is going to implode if something isn’t done about it, unless somebody does something to save it. And I’ll tell you, I had a thought develop yesterday when we were discussing the $700 billion that Obama cuts from Medicare. It’s not just that he took $700 billion from Medicare. He put that $700 billion elsewhere. Obama is robbing Medicare. Obama is the guy that’s robbing money from Medicare.

By the time it’s all said and done, when you factor interest over a number of years, you could accurately say that Obama is taking a trillion dollars out of Medicare and putting it elsewhere in Obamacare. It’s not just an accounting move. It’s a real transfer of money, in order to keep the overall reported cost down. I remember yesterday having so much trouble convincing people of this, because the meme is out there that Ryan’s budget cuts Medicare.

I want to apologize for being so frustrated with Mr. Snerdley, but he was really stupid yesterday. Normally I say it to him a couple times and he understands it. But the whole show yesterday he was frowning at me like I was speaking a foreign language because he was so wedded to the idea that the Ryan budget cuts Medicare. He was so scared that we’re going to get creamed on that. I said: “No, the Ryan budget doesn’t cut Medicare. Nobody over 55 has anything different happen to them. And if you’re under 55, you get to choose to stay in the current Medicare program or choose something else.”

And then, ladies and gentlemen, I saw Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz on with Wolf Blitzer who took her to school on this. Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz, just as Rachel Maddow on Sunday, Meet the Press, Rich Lowry, played you those sound bites, she did not have an answer for the proposition that Obama is cutting $700 billion out of Medicare. She didn’t have an answer. All she could say to Lowry’s question about it was, “Well, I’m not running for anything.” When we played it yesterday, part of me said, “Well, she may not know. She may not know.” If Bo Snerdley, who is as informed as anybody except me, or I, on these things, if Bo Snerdley thinks that Ryan cuts $500 billion from Medicare, then certainly every Democrat believes it because why does anybody believe Ryan cuts 500? Because that’s what the Democrats say.

So I’m thinking maybe Rachel Maddow doesn’t even know. Not that she’s lying, not that she was trying to cover up getting caught. She was stymied because she really didn’t know. It may have been the first time that she heard that Obamacare cut $700 billion out of Medicare. Then I saw Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz on Wolf Blitzer and she didn’t know. Now, with Debbie, you don’t know if she didn’t know or if she is lying about it or a combination of the two. But I began to wonder, all of these television Democrats, all of these so-called Democrat strategists, they may not know. They may not know what Obamacare has done to them. They may not know that they have an indefensible position.

They live off of a playbook that’s very simple. Republicans equal what? Starving kids. Cutting Social Security. Kicking the elderly out of their homes. They believed it. They have uttered this by rote for so many decades that they believe it. Conservative Republican equals cuts. It’s almost robotic. And when you hit them with, “No, no, Ryan doesn’t cut any money out of Medicare. It’s Obama, $700 billion.” They’re floored. They don’t have any idea what to do. Really, it’s almost like Rachel Maddow and Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz are hearing it for the first time. I’ll have the sound bite coming for you in just a second.

Then, after thinking that, I ran into a piece at National Review Online by a man by the name of Yuval Levin, who has cowritten things with Pete Weiner, who is my friend, who worked with Rove in the Bush White House. By the way, Pete just announced — I knew this weeks ago — I was sworn to secrecy on this, but I knew about it weeks ago. But he announced yesterday that he’s joining the Romney campaign. He worked with Paul Ryan at Empower America with Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp back in the nineties. That stuff matters. Bill Bennett and Kemp were great mentors to these guys. It demonstrates that it’s important where you go to school, who your mentors are.

Anyway, Yuval Levin has this piece at National review that Obamacare care changed everything. And listen to this paragraph. “I donÂ’t think Axelrod and Maddow were just setting out to lie exactly — itÂ’s worse than that. Listening to them, it seemed as if they really hadnÂ’t realized until now the situation they were in. TheyÂ’re used to a certain order of things on Medicare and have not stopped to grasp what Obamacare has done to them. They assume it must be true that Republicans want to cut benefits and Democrats want to preserve them. But itÂ’s not true, not anymore. You could see that panicked realization slowly rising in MaddowÂ’s eyes as she was pressed.”

That’s exactly what I thought. And with Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz, the same thing. So then I began to think: What an opportunity this is. These people, we know they’ve been lying to us. Now they’re lying to themselves. They are in a perfect position from our standpoint to be embarrassed. I think one of the greatest things that’s happening here, one of the most positive effects of the selection of Paul Ryan in this campaign, we are already talking more about the issues, and we are double down serious, double down truthful on Medicare, the economy. We’re not talking about personalities anymore. We’re not talking about Romney and his steel worker’s wife being murdered and all that. And we’re not even talking about Obama’s personality. We’re talking about root ideas.

Now, I also have to admit, folks, if you would have told me 20 years ago that in my 25th year on this program Medicare would be one of the prime topics, I would have told you, “Well, then I won’t have anybody listening to my show if that’s what I’m talking about.” Because if I’m talking about Medicare, Social Security, you know what that means? That means I’m finished. Now look what’s happened. It has effervesced. It’s bubbled up to the top, and it’s because of the situation that we’re all in, the situation the country is in, and what the future portends if we get this wrong. I’m sitting here in stunned amazement over a lot of these things. But think of it. The idea that Rachel Maddow and Debbie “Blabbermouth” don’t know — and, by the way, that is entirely believable to me, that these people don’t really know. Now, I’m not trying to say that they are innocent dupes. They are Marxists. They are leftists. They have every desire for what Obama’s doing to happen. I’m not trying to excuse them.

What I’m saying is these people live in their own, created universe where they are elites. They, in their own minds, are smarter than everybody else (same thing with the media), and look at how stupid they are! Look at how really ignorant and sheltered they are from what real life is in this country. And it’s probably the case for many elite liberals, media, and high-ranking Democrats. They’re low-information flacks! They are the opposite of what their PR or the buzz or the image of them is.

Now they’re out there defending something that isn’t true, and they are just now awakening to the fact that they really can’t defend this. So now they’re going to have to start lying again, purposefully, and try to become even more effective in their lies. They are stupid and smug about it. And I’m telling you, it’s a golden opportunity for us here (provided that I’m not the only one who thinks this). I have some more Yuval Levin. The Democrats, you see, folks, are stuck in this play.

They never have to defend their ideology. They never have to discuss their ideology! They always hide it. They camouflage it. That’s why they say things that are distractions. That’s why they lie about who they are and what they believe. It’s because they cannot discuss their ideology. Their ideology is represented only by 20%, 25% of the population. They genuinely are a real minority. We’ve discussed this. They can’t be honest about what they really believe. They can’t be honest about what they intend.

So they live to lie.

They lie about what they are, who they are, and what they want to do — and, as such, they never discuss their ideology. But that doesn’t work now. They’re going to have to discuss it. Only they haven’t realized that. Here’s Yuval Levin starting his piece: “Watching some of the Sunday shows yesterday and reading the usual suspects online, I was struck by how even knowledgeable liberals still do not understand what Obamacare has done to them.

“They have a sense that health care is no longer a good issue for them, that it might have cost them the 2010 elections and will hurt in 2012, but they havenÂ’t grasped that Medicare … is also no longer their issue.” And, by the way, 2010 was all about health care. It was all about Obamacare. And it was a slam-dunk, landslide defeat for them. And what has changed? Nothing. But they lie to themselves. The 2002 midterms were a shock for them, too. Bush held on to a majority in the House; they couldn’t understand why.

The exit polls said, “Well, values voters were really concerned about cultural rot.”

So everybody was shocked. The Democrats, for two weeks, said, “We see what the exit polls are. We’ll really reconnect with people.” For two weeks they said it, and then it was bye-bye. This becomes evident in part when you consider the arguments the Democrats naturally fall back upon regarding Medicare that are just false now. “So for instance David Axelrod on CNNÂ’s State of the Union referred to ‘Congressman RyanÂ’s idea that we should turn Medicare into a voucher program, shifting thousands of dollars ultimately onto the backs of seniors.’

“But thatÂ’s simply a lie — RyanÂ’s actual Medicare proposal … simply doesnÂ’t shift costs to seniors.” It doesn’t do anything that they’re saying! But they believe that it does, or else they know and they’re just lying through their teeth (and both options are possible). But I’m telling you that, from the evidence I’ve seen, I think some of these people are deer-in-the-headlight-eyes situation. They naturally believe in the superiority of their ideas. They naturally believe in the fact that they’re the ones with compassion, that they’re the only ones that care about old people.

They’re the only ones that care about the poor. And all of a sudden they’re a hit between the eyes with the fact that their Messiah is the guy that’s cut $700 billion out of Medicare. It’s their guy who has taken money away from seniors. It’s their guy who’s robbing grandma. It’s their guy pushing grandma over the cliff in the wheelchair, not Paul Ryan. And I’m telling you: They now face it. They have to go on television and now openly, knowingly lie, when they know we all know they’re lying and can disprove what they’re saying.

And I think this is a new place for them.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You see, folks? The truth of the matter is — and we’ve got an opportunity now to get this out there — if anybody is conducting war on seniors, it’s not Paul Ryan, it’s not Mitt Romney, and it’s not any Republican. It’s Barack Obama. Obama is conducting a war on seniors. Medicare, if untouched, is bankrupt — including Obamacare — in 11-1/2 to 12 years, and what is Obama doing? How is Obama “saving” Medicare from bankruptcy? He isn’t. He’s taking money out of it: $700 billion out of Medicare.

When all is said and done, it’ll lose close to a trillion dollars. I think they can be forced into defending this, which they are already having to do. Now, if you’re a young person paying into Medicare, what’s really happening is Obama is taking your money and killing the program. Which means you not only get no coverage, but you have to pay the massive bill. Obama hasn’t done anything about Medicare, because he’s concerned about having an issue to win re-election.

The Democrats haven’t passed a budget because it requires laying out their priorities. They want to get past another election cycle without having to be honest about what they intend. That’s why they don’t have a budget and haven’t had one for three years. If you are on Medicare or if you soon will be on Medicare, you have a lot to fear. You need to be very, very afraid of Obama. Obama and Obamacare are actually hastening the end of Medicare.

You remember Obamacare came out and it was over 2,000 pages? We read it. That’s why we know what’s in it. The Heritage Foundation read it. The Tea Party people read it. James Pethokoukis read it. Everybody on our side, we all read Obamacare. We know what’s in it. The media didn’t. The media simply accepted the talking points. “Yeah, you get to keep your kid on the plan to age 26, and everybody with a pre-existing condition is covered, and it’s free,” and that’s what Obamacare was.

That’s how it was reported.

“Your premiums go down 2500 bucks, your kid stays on your policy until he’s 26, and if you have pre-existing condition, you get insurance. It’s a beautiful thing!” Except it’s all lies. The media does not know. The Democrats do not know. They have not read Obamacare! They have the ultimate faith in the lie that is liberalism, that they are the ones with the big hearts and all the compassion. And everything in that bill, they trust, is filled with love and compassion and concern.

They have no clue what’s in that bill.

I’m convinced.

Now, not all of them.

Look it, don’t misinterpret me. I’m talking about the TV Democrats. I’m talking about every time you watch somebody on TV who’s a Democrat “strategist.” I’m not talking about the leaders. The architects of this know. Obama, he knows full well what he’s doing. But their little marching ant farm of insects out there that go on television to talk? They’re just drinking the Kool-Aid.

Now, here’s Howard Dean on Sunday morning. He was on This Week Needs David Brinkley, and it was during the roundtable. George Stephanopoulos talking to former Governor Howard Dean about Obama’s Medicare plan. Stephanopoulos says, “Is the argument that President Obama cut $700 billion — in Obamacare — out of Medicare good enough?” That’s what Ryan and Romney are saying: Obama cut $700 billion. Is that “good enough,” Howard Dean?

DEAN: Here’s the problem with talking about $700 billion that got cut out of Medicare which then was transferred to Obamacare, which takes care of the same people. So it’s… The problem is that nobody believes it. You can’t convince people that a Democrat is going to cut Medicare. They don’t believe that.

RUSH: And there you have it: You can’t convince anybody a Democrat would cut Medicare. Yeah, and you can’t convince anybody that it’s the Democrats who turned the dogs and the fire hoses on civil rights marchers. And nobody would believe it’s Democrats that kept blacks out of universities in the South. And nobody would believe that a greater majority of Republican senators voted for the Civil Rights Act 1964 than Democrats.

Nobody would believe that the Democrats would devise policies that actually bring harm to the American family, particularly minority families. Nobody. He can say it all day. “You can’t convince people that a Democrat is going to cut Medicare.” They don’t believe that. And he’s got a point. But Howard Dean is wrong here: Obamacare does not cover the same people as Medicare. People on Medicare have paid into it for all their lives.

The money they paid in is now being given to people that have paid nothing. That’s what the $700 billion cut is. Money that you’ve put in is being taken out and given to others. The whole design of Obamaville is to take from people who work and earn and give it to people who don’t in the name of fairness, in the name of the people who work are just lucky. The people that have jobs and earn a lot of money, that’s just luck. We need to spread the wealth around.

Obamacare does not take care of the same people as Medicare. That $700 billion cut out of Medicare to go to the other parts of Obamacare, if it was going to Medicare, it would stay there. But still Howard Dean: Nobody’s going to believe that Democrats are cutting anything. You can’t convince people that a Democrat is going to cut Medicare. That’s why Rachel Maddow and Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz have no idea. Now on this, I think Howard Dean is right.

It gives us an idea of the mission that we have and it’s not just about this. Every e-mail I get, “Rush you need to send something out to the media. You need to tell the media that Ryan doesn’t hurt anybody.” They’re not… (sigh) I really wish people would accept that we’re going to have to beat the media. Not convince them. Not persuade them. They’re no different than the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee. They’re no different than the Obama campaign. They’re an extension of it.

Anyway, I want you to hear Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz and Wolf Blitzer. I’ve been talking about this. I’ve got two sound bites. This whole thing runs a little over three minutes, but I’ve cut it up. I have a rule: Nothing over 60 seconds in a sound bite, brevity being the soul of whit. But I wanted to play the whole thing, so I cut it into a couple of bites. This is the Situation Room last night. Wolf Blitzer, you have to give him some credit on this.

He hammers and hammers and hammers, and she’s clueless. Her eyes get big. She’s batting her eyes. She’s in Nowhereville here, if you see this. Blitzer says: “[Ryan] does call for dramatic changes for people 55 or under. But anybody who is 55 or older, or any senior living in Florida right now, they have absolutely nothing to worry about, Debbie. Because if his plan were to be approved, it wouldn’t affect them. You do accept that, don’t you?”

SCHULTZ: No! Paul Ryan’s views two years ago on Medicare, and how we can shore it up and preserve it for future generations, were extreme and wrong then. And they are extreme and wrong now. And made even worse by the fact that now they’re in charge of the House of Representatives. And, actually, if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan became president and vice president of the United States they would be able to end the Medicare guarantee safety, shred the health care safety net that Medicare has provided for more than 50 years, and turn Medicare into a voucher program leaving seniors really out in the cold because, eh, as health care costs grow larger than the voucher provides, seniors wouldn’t have enough money to — to cover their health care costs. And we know that the Romney/Ryan plan would increase Medicare premiums by $6,300 each year for seniors, Wolf. So —

BLITZER: But, we’re taking about —

SCHULTZ: — we can take another approach —

BLITZER: But he says there would be no —

SCHULTZ: — like Barack Obama has.

BLITZER: He’s not calling for any changes for anyone who is 55 or older, including anyone who is on Medicare right now. Those changes… Let’s say we accept the description you had of all those changes.

SCHULTZ: Right.

BLITZER: That affects people 10 years from now, let’s say 65 or 67, when they’re eligible for Medicare. But it doesn’t impact anyone who is receiving Medicare right now or those who have 10 years to go, 55 and older.

SCHULTZ: It certainly does, and I’ll tell you how.

BLITZER: How does it?

SCHULTZ: First of all —

BLITZER: Explain how.

SCHULTZ: I will.

BLITZER: If you’re 56, 57 —

SCHULTZ: I’ll be happy to.

BLITZER: — or 83 years old, how do his recommendations for those under 55 impact them?

RUSH: And she continues to sing the song (impression): “Ryan’s an extremist! He cuts Medicare! The price goes up $6,300! They take away the safety net! They turn it into a voucher program. Pull the string and I’ll say it again. I’m nothing more than a Blabbermouth Barbie Doll. Pull the string and I’ll say it again! Pull the string and I’ll say it again! Pull the string and I’ll say it again! I’m a Blabbermouth Barbie Doll, and I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve been programmed to say it. Wolf, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve got to continue to say what I know is true, and that is the Republicans are going to destroy Medicare and kill everybody!”

That’s essentially what she said. Here we go…

SCHULTZ: I’m happy to. First of all (snickers), Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan presume that the people who are younger than 65 years old who have spent decades —

BLITZER: Under 55.

SCHULTZ: — in their working life —

BLITZER: He says 55.

SCHULTZ: Okay! So 55 and younger. We’ll start with that age. Those people have spent decades paying into Medicare. And because of the arbitrary cut off of 55 years old that Romney and Ryan have established, that means that we would no longer, for those people, have Medicare be a guarantee. Instead, we would shred that safety net. It would no longer be a guarantee. It would be a voucher. They’d pay more than $6,000 more in premiums to pay for their Medicare coverage. And because health care costs often rise higher than that voucher would at a faster rate, the voucher wouldn’t provide for all the health care costs —

BLITZER: But that would only affect —

SCHULTZ: — and cover them all. Also —

BLITZER: That would affect only people who were under 55 right now.

SCHULTZ: It’s —

BLITZER: Current recipients of Medicare —

SCHULTZ: It’s not okay!

BLITZER: — are —

SCHULTZ: Why do we presume…?

BLITZER: He says that his proposal — and he spelled it out in the House budget committee.

SCHULTZ: Okay.

BLITZER: He’s the chairman of that committee.

SCHULTZ: Right, and I’m on that committee.

BLITZER: He says there would be absolutely no change.

SCHULTZ: So I have a front-row seat.

BLITZER: You’re familiar with his recommendations that no one over 55 —

SCHULTZ: He cannot say there would be no change.

BLITZER: — would be impacted by his recommended changes.

SCHULTZ: Okay. Here’s how, though. As I said, because (stammering). First of all, we do care that we have, uh, a safety net in place in health care for people who are 65 now and — and — and for people as they turn 65. We made a decision in the 1960s that we were going to —

BLITZER: That they would continue to have that safety net.

SCHULTZ: No they wouldn’t, because, uhhh —

BLITZER: He said anybody who is over 55 —

SCHULTZ: The seniors now?

BLITZER: — is still going to receive exactly the same Medicare that they receive right now.

SCHULTZ: O-o-okay. But, Wolf, they end Medic… Their plan ends Medicare as we know it.

BLITZER: For people —

SCHULTZ: And what it does —

BLITZER: — under 55 years old.

SCHULTZ: Um, and that’s not okay.

RUSH: They end Medicare as we know it, $6,000. She’s hit with the fact in three minutes, in a three-minute sound bite, Wolf Blitzer told her no less than eight times, nobody over 55 is affected by Ryan’s Medicare plan. She refuses to accept it. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Her talking points are all that matter, and that is they’re going to kill the program, take away the safety net. The voucher isn’t going to be enough and everybody’s going to die. She was one of the robots telling us that if Obamacare passed that costs were going to go down. Now she’s talking about never ending cost increases.

One other thing, though, I can’t let Wolf off the hook totally here because there’s a problem with what Blitzer was saying. He’s wrong. Americans under the age of 55 have the option of staying in the current Medicare system. They are not automatically shunted off into this new voucher plan. When you hit the age of 55, if you’re 20 now, you have a choice. Stay in the current plan. It’s always going to exist. But there’s going to be a private sector option where you are given the money that is spent on you for Medicare, you’re given that money. You go shop for your own medical care. Keep what you don’t spend. The idea is to bring back competition in healthcare and have prices that are commensurate with what people can afford to pay.

Now, this is important here because for three minutes she’s hit with the truth and she doesn’t know what it is. And if she does know, then she’s just a very, very poor liar and was nothing more than robotic. But she still said it and there’s still a lot of seniors out there who may be scratching their heads now. And the question is, who are they going to believe? Wolf Blitzer when he says, “If you’re older than 55 nothing’s going to change for you.” Or will they believe Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz. That’s the challenge we’ve got.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s interesting. I checked e-mail during the break. “Rush, I love you man, but you’re totally missing this. Debbie ‘Blabbermouth’ Schultz won that. How many times did she say Ryan shreds Medicare over and over? The idiots in this country are going to hear that and believe it. You’re getting all excited, Rush. You think the truth carries the day and it doesn’t. Propaganda wins every time it’s tried. It doesn’t matter whether she knows what she’s talking about or not. She went out there, propagandists are natural born liars anyway, the last thing they care about is the truth. All she wanted was: voucher program, $6,300, you’re out of luck, out of Medicare, shred Medicare, you’re dead. She got that out. Doesn’t matter what Wolf said.”

I’m summarizing the e-mail. Now, first, nobody heard it on CNN because literally nobody’s watching CNN. So now a lot of people have heard it. And the people in this audience who have heard it, truth matters to them. But it is an interesting pregunta. Propaganda versus truth. Which wins? What was Hitler more concerned with? Propaganda. Did Hitler succeed for a time? Yeah, he did. What was Clinton more concerned with, truth or propaganda? What’s Obama more concerned with, truth or propaganda? Who would you say is winning? Is propaganda winning or truth winning?

We, the virtuous ones in our society, we think truth wins. We have this investment in the truth. We think it’s holy. We think that it is profound. We think it’s persuasive. I play you three minutes of Wolf Blitzer cleaning Debbie’s clock, and I get an e-mail, “No, Rush, Ryan shreds Medicare was said I don’t know how many times. That’s what people are going to hear because the fear will always trump the good. Because people react to fear.” Okay. We’re sunk. How do you fight propaganda? You gotta turn into a propagandist yourself and you’ve got to abandon the truth. Some of us don’t know how to do that. Not believably. Not consistently.