RUSH: Audio sound bite time. Chris Christie. This is on CNBC Squawk Box today. I don’t need to set this up. This will speak for itself. He’s talking to the host, Joe Kernen, who says, “Why not be inclusive? Why not focus solely on the economy? Is there a Republican candidate that will see that and say, ‘Look, I want everybody to be happy. We include everyone! I don’t care what your personal preference is anymore’?”

So the question is to Chris Christie is: “Why don’t you Republicans…? Why don’t you become nice people? Why are you so be on obsessed with who sleeps with who? Why are you so obsessed with who loves who? Why are you so obsessed with this or that? Why don’t you just get together with us? We all come together and kumbaya and fix the economy and be inclusive and everybody love everybody? Why won’t you Republicans do that?”

CHRISTIE: It’s your tone and how you talk about it. If you talk about these issues in a way that you are absolutely critical of a person who has a different view than you and dismissive of them, well, then they’re gonna be dismissive of you as a candidate. If you are talking to a person who’s pro-choice on abortion and you’re pro-life and you say to them, like, “Listen, I’m pro-life, and that means I’m going to heaven, and you’re pro-choice and you’re going to hell.” Well, you know, if that’s your tone, they don’t care what you have to say about pro-growth policies; they don’t care what you have to say about any of that stuff. They care that you seem intolerant to them. That’s tone. That’s not position.

RUSH: So this, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of the establishment Republican view of how to get elected. Never mind that this technique has not worked. It’s still the way to go. You can believe what you want to believe, but you don’t criticize anybody and you don’t insult anybody and you don’t put anybody off. You must be inclusive. You must never tell anybody they’re going to hell.

Who does this anyway?

I imagine it happens in some areas, but… (sigh) Again, that’s sort of a straw man argument. The Republican/conservative/whatever view on pro-life is not, “You’re going to hell.” It’s rooted in the value of life. It’s not rooted in the punishment of anyone. Anyway, so here’s Governor Christie explaining that the Republican problem is one of “tone,” you see? Say anything we want to say, but we must inclusive and not insulting and not exclusionary. And he wrapped it up with this.

CHRISTIE: We’re getting back to tone and his question was about electability. It’s how you present yourself. I feel very strongly about the things I feel strongly about. Part of our problem has been tone over time, and I think if the Republican candidate for president’s tone is better and more inclusive, then you can get to a lot of the other issues that the media doesn’t want you to get to.

RUSH: Look, I… (sigh) I donÂ’t have an intellectual problem with the answer here. My problem is, why is it only us? Why is it only we be concerned about tone. The meanest, most extreme people in American politics are members of the Democrat Party and the American left. Tone? These are the people rooting for people to die on Twitter! These are the people rooting for people to get cancer on Twitter.

These are the people who are intolerant, mean-spirited. They’re the bullies, and they don’t care one bit about their tone, and they don’t get punished for it. Yet we come along and we’re the ones that have to make sure that we’re not seen as mean-spirited and bullyish and only one way of looking at anything. (sigh) This whole notion of “tone,” I totally understand the art of the persuasion here and I understand where tone can come into it.

But the problem I have is that all of these rules that end up shackling people, all these rules that end up causing people to be not who they are on our side, are never applied to people on the left. Look what these people say about — take your pick. What they say about anything. George W. Bush. Sarah Palin. Take your pick of any Republican anywhere, and what they say about them, and they’re never punished for it. Nobody ever goes to them and says, “Your tone needs to be moderated a little bit here, Mr. Hoyer. Your tone needs to moderated a little, Ms. Pelosi.” Dingy Harry? For crying out! Tone?

Anyway, we’ll take a break here, come back, and listen to how Ted Cruz deals with this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Yesterday, day before, this week earlier Jeb Bush was somewhere in Nevada and some 19-year-old college kid, talking about the Iraq war and questions that the Republicans have been getting about it, “knowing what you know now.” I made the theory that the Republican establishment has this belief, like Christie said, we’ve gotta be nice, we’ve gotta be respectful, partisan, cooperative, and all of that. We’ll show the Democrats that we don’t hate them and they have no reason dislike us and we can work together and get things done and make Washington work, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

In the midst of all this here comes this 19-year-old smart ass college co-ed who asks Jeb a setup question about ISIS and Iraq, and Jeb starts giving the typical Republican establishment answer, “Well, I think that (muttering).” Nothing one way or the other. She says (imitating girl), “You’re wrong, your brother created ISIS! Your brother, by going into Iraq, your brother gave us ISIS.”

“What just happened? I did everything they told me to do, and she still hates me.” And my point is this business of tone and all that, just let it rock, folks, if you just let it rock, you know, it’s not about tone. It’s about substance. It’s about issues. It’s about the Democrats are destroying the country and people need to be told this. Now, if you need to whisper it to ’em, fine, I don’t know, but don’t shirk from the substance.

Ted Cruz, some little sniveling little Drive-By reporter down in Beaumont, Texas, goes up to Cruz and says, “Do you have a personal animosity against gay Americans, huh?”

CRUZ: I recognize you want to ask another question about gay rights. Well, you know, ISIS is executing homosexuals. You want to talk about gay rights, this week was a very bad week for gay rights ’cause the expansion of ISIS, the expansion of radical theocratic Islamic zealots that crucify Christians, that behead children, and that murder homosexuals, that ought to be concerning you far more —

RUSH: Stop, stop, we’re out of order here, stop, stop, stop it, stop it, we gotta play the right one here, because he asked the question twice. Here’s the first answer. “Mr. Cruz, do you have a personal animosity against gay Americans?”

CRUZ: Let me ask a question. Is there something about the left, and I’m gonna put the media in this category, that’s obsessed with sex? Why is it that the only question you want to ask concerns homosexuals? Okay, you can ask those questions over and over and again. I recognize that you’re reading questions from MSNBC.

RUSH: Okay, then the guy says again, “Do you have a personal animosity against gay Americans?”

CRUZ: I recognize you want to ask another question about gay rights. Well, you know, ISIS is executing homosexuals. You want to talk about gay rights, this week was a very bad week for gay rights ’cause the expansion of ISIS, the expansion of radical theocratic Islamic zealots that crucify Christians, that behead children, and that murder homosexuals, that ought to be concerning you far more than asking six questions all on the same topic.

RUSH: Next question, same reporter, “Do you have any personal animosity against gay Americans? He asked me three different times.”

CRUZ: Do you have a personal animosity against Christians, sir? Your line of questioning is highly curious. You seem fixated on a particular subject. Look, I’m a Christian. Scripture commands us to love everybody. And what I have been talking about with respect to same-sex marriage is the Constitution, which is what we should all be focused on. The Constitution gives marriage to elective state legislatures. It doesn’t give the power of marriage to a president or to unelected judges to tear down the decisions enacted by democratically elected state legislatures.

RUSH: All of that’s totally over the head of this Nimrod reporter ’cause he doesn’t care. He’s just trying to get Cruz to lose his temper and get mad ’cause the guy — I don’t know if the guy’s gay or not, haven’t seen him, but if he is, he’s trying to get Cruz to react, get mad at him, so they can do a report on Cruz loses it with a simple question about homosexuality. That’s what they’re trying to do. Just ask the question over and over again. Cruz answers it three different ways with just perfect tone, as far as I’m concerned.

So that is an alternative way of doing it. Never rising to the bait and getting your answer out anyway, ignoring this lamebrain, stupid question.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I don’t think it’s Governor Christie’s tone that has made him popular in New Jersey, right? It’s ’cause he came at people. Anyway, folks, have a wonderful rest of the day as best you can without this program. We’ll be back here, Open Line Friday tomorrow.