RUSH: There’s a story here at TheHill.com. “Poll: Trump Up to 60 Percent in New York.”

I wonder why this is. “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has a whopping 43-point lead in New York, according to a new poll.” This is a NY1/Baruch College survey that was released late yesterday.

Sixty percent support. Kasich in second place with 17%. And Ted Cruz at 14%. Ted Cruz in third place in all of the New York polls. Baruch College pollster Mickey Blum said Trump is just “killing” it. “This could really be his road to getting enough to win it outright before he ever gets to that convention.”

“New York awards 95 delegates in next week’s primary, making it a major prize,” obviously. “Fourteen delegates are allocated to the statewide winner, while the remaining 81 are divided up by winner of congressional districts, three per district.” That’s why Cruz is spending his time in friendly upstate districts trying to nail down the delegates in those districts trying to prevent Trump from getting to 50%.

That’s the markup. You gotta get 50% in each district to get all the district’s delegates. Cruz’s theory, he’s abandoning the popular vote per se statewide focusing on, in New York, congressional districts and delegates there, and voters as well. The Trump lead in the delegate count right now, 743, Cruz 545, Kasich 141.

And Paul Ryan is said to officially rule himself out of the presidential race, a surprise speech at the Republican National Committee today at 3:15 p.m. Fifteen minutes after the program today Paul Ryan will make it official that he’s taking himself out of the running. Now, that might imply that he was in the running. I think what it more closely implies, or what people infer is, that others had put him in the running and he’s now officially taking himself out. Yeah, I guess he had to be drafted. If you officially take yourself out of the running, it just means you’re taking yourself out of the running, but it doesn’t mean that they come to you and draft you.

Okay, so let me see when this Baruch college survey was taken. It doesn’t say. Just has a 5.8% margin of error. I expect Trump’s numbers in a number of places to go up because of the perception of what happened in Colorado. You know, perception and reality oftentimes intermingle and are seen as the same thing, when they are clearly different and apart from one another. And the perception is, Trump’s speaking it loudly enough and there’s enough media that’s amplifying this, is that he got royally shafted out there, got royally screwed.

Now, let’s… As I mentioned yesterday, folks, there shouldn’t be any shock at this, when you look at what happened. It’s been known since August that Colorado was not going to have a caucus. Well, sorry. They’re not gonna have a straw poll or a popular vote to determine the nominee. I went through all of this yesterday. This is the establishment. These are the insider guys. They made this decision in August, and the reason for the decision they made…

It’s actually come back to bite ’em. The decision they made to do it this way was not to stop Trump, and not to stop Cruz per se. The reason they did it this way was to facilitate one of their own insider candidates winning the state, by turning it into a total establishment insider game. Remember, this is back in August. The GOP in Colorado thought they were greasing the skids for somebody like Jeb, or somebody else that’s on the insider by focusing on people who had the money and the organization and the wherewithal to get out to Colorado and win it according to the rules.

The rules are not a trick, meaning it’s not a late-in-the-game change. The rules were published in a book that was sent to everybody by the RNC. So there’s no chicanery here. There’s no trickery. But it is the establishment trying to change the weight of the rules in their favor. You can get mad at that all you want, but that’s how these things work. The Harlem Globetrotters do not lose, okay? The Washington Generals are just honored and happy to be on the court, and I think there’s no greater illustration of politics today than to look at the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Democrats are the Globetrotters; Obama is Meadowlark Lemon (only not as entertaining), and the Republicans are the Washington Generals. They lose every time, and they’re happy. They’re happy to get on the court. They get to travel with the Globetrotters. They’re in that… They bask in that warm glow of attention the Globetrotters get, and they’re gonna protect themselves. They’re gonna protect their fiefdom, their castle, what have you. What happened in Colorado is because Jeb and the insiders that were really to benefit from the rule, got out.

That left it wide open for somebody else to exploit the rules that Colorado had set up, and Cruz did and Trump didn’t. Now, we can go into whatever reasons why you want. I mentioned a couple yesterday. But the reality… I’m mayor of Realville, you know. I am Mr. Literal with a capital L. But the perception of what happened out there yesterday is that a giant screw job took place. Any time you change the rules in a country like America and you ace out the votes of average, ordinary people, people are going to suspect you — and that’s exactly what happened.

So all Trump has to do is talk about how the game was rigged, how it’s not democratic, how people are being denied the right to vote; it’s gonna resonate with people. People like to think they choose the party nominee. People like to think they have a role in this, and Republicans have had a couple delegates go out there — well, officials from the party — and they say, “No, no, no, no. People gotta understand. We choose our nominee, not you.” A couple of them may have had a little bit too many adult beverages when they made the admission.

We have the audio sound bites. So this is gonna possibly reignite Trump’s campaign. Trump, when his theme is, “Win, win, win, win, win,” when the Trump theme is, “You’re gonna get so sick and tired of winning ’cause that’s what we’re gonna do: Be winning so much that you’re gonna beg me to lose some just to remember what it’s like. But no, no, no, no! We’re never gonna lose! We’re gonna win, win, win, win, win, win!” Well, Trump hasn’t won in quite a while. That also has an effect on perceptions.

Clearly there’s been a momentum shift. The delegate numbers are still what they are. It’s impossible for Cruz to get to 1,237 before the convention. Well, highly unlikely. It remains within the realm of possibility for Trump. But the momentum, it dissipated. There’s no question. I’ve got e-mail from Trumpists. You know, some of them are mad at me but others understood what I was saying yesterday and had… I’ll give you an example. Let me just read one to you. An e-mailer here reacting to the final call that we had yesterday.

He claims that I didn’t understand the point the last caller of us making, and I don’t remember the last caller yesterday, but it doesn’t matter. Here’s the crux of this. “What most Trump supporters have in common is that if there is a scintilla of a chance of saving our country, Trump is it. There is nobody else that will do what it takes to save our country. Trump is it. We know there’s a very small chance, but Trump’s the last chance, and if he can’t pull it off, it’s over.” But this is the key to the e-mail:

“I always thought that a candidate that took it to the media would win. I always thought that the candidate who was able to triumph and succeed despite the media and make media look like fools — I always thought a Republican candidate that owned the media — would win. I never factored in my thought process betrayal by the candidate’s own party.” So here you have a Trumpist who believes, as many of them do, that Trump is the only hope.

And that’s why they’re so tolerant of Trump and his technique, his words, his comments, behavior. They’re tolerant because he’s the last chance and they really fear they’re losing the country. This is it. He’s the only guy that can do it. They don’t think Cruz can. Certainly anybody else can. They don’t think the establishment’s aware that there’s a crisis, and they’re right about that. But these are people who also — and this is not a view that they hold exclusive. These are people who resent the hell out of the media.

And they have resented the hell out of the media since they turned 12 years old and they first started watching Kennedy-Nixon, and they watched the Goldwater campaign in 1964, and they have just despised the media and bias all the way through Cronkite, through Dan Rather, you name it. They despise it, and they’ve gotten progressively depressed and angry as they watched the Republicans cower in fear to the media and not fight back, and they have watched in anger and fear as the Republicans refuse to even criticize Obama because of the media.

They refuse to even oppose Obama or stop Obama because of the media. So they believe, many of them believe that if a candidate came along and finally mastered the media, had the media eating out of his hand, that that would enthuse the party and the party would get behind that candidate and it would be smooth sailing. And it’s been a shock to the system that the GOP will not get behind Trump because he has neutered and neutralized the media. Stop and think about that, because to these people that is huge and the fact…

I must admit to being a little surprised that this guy, and I’m sure a lot of other Trumpists, at this stage of the game, actually thought the GOP would rally around Trump for any reason. But the media especially. This is how important a factor the media is in trying to understand the Trump phenomenon, and when the GOP does not rally to somebody who can turn the media either to his advantage or render them basically ineffective, then they get further depressed, they think, “Well, for crying out loud! Isn’t that what this is all about?”

The media mistreats, the media impugns, the media lies, the media distorts — all of these crazy things about the media — and here’s Trump has shown how he can neutralize them, and that doesn’t even make the party change around or come around and support him. I guess one of the things I’m surprised about in this is that there was ever any consideration that the party’s gonna come around and support Trump before they have to, and even then they may not. I mean, this is… This is life and death, life and death for these establishment types.

And the idea that somehow Trump can do things and even succeed wildly to the point that the GOP establishment’s gonna come around… Well, no, I just… See, I’ve never labored under the belief that we could turned the media. How many people have called here over the course of the broadcast — you know, the years — and have said to me, “Rush, we’re never gonna win ’til we get the media. If we get the media being fair to us, that’ll be the sure sign of victory.” I said, “Well, that’s never gonna happen.

“The media is not really media. They’re not even reporters. They’re liberals. They’re left-wing hacks and they’re disguised as journalists. They’re not out there open-minded waiting to have their minds changes. They’re not out there to see the light about anything. They are committed leftists, committed to advancing the Democrat Party agenda. They’re never, ever gonna come around. That’s your measure of success. You’re never gonna find it, ever.” And if you want some proof, here’s Trump. Trump does find a way around the media.

The media can’t hurt Trump, is the point. Do you realize how big a deal that is to people? The media has been able to destroy whatever Republican they wanted to destroy. About the only Republican the media hasn’t been able to destroy is Reagan. Pretty much they’ve had free rein after that. They’ve able to successfully diminish — by reputation, image, what have you — any Republican they set their sights on, except Reagan. And now Trump.

And the belief that that would provide the energy for the GOP to see the light and get behind Trump, and know where they got there. But that was never, ever gonna happen. If anything it’s gonna make the establishment even more opposed to Trump because gonna make Trump an even bigger threat. The establishment is made up of people of both parties. The establishment is made up of Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans are the Washington Generals; the Democrats are the Harlem Globetrotters.

But when the entire castle is threatened (i.e., Washington) they’re gonna circle the Potomac, and anyone outside trying to get in there, they’re not gonna let ’em in. And that’s what Colorado was all about. But the establishment has been doing things throughout this campaign that’s backfired on them so many times, and this looks like it might, even though they didn’t break any rules, even though they didn’t conduct any tricks, even though they didn’t do anything under cover of darknes.

Everything they did was wide out in the open.

That’s all it takes is this perception. Because Trump successfully has created one image — well, many. But one image that triumphs over everything else, and that is if he doesn’t win, somebody cheated. If he doesn’t win, somebody shafted. If he doesn’t win, somebody broke the rules. In Trump world, that is believed 100%. If Trump doesn’t win, the game is rigged, so here comes Colorado doing what they do, and it appears, perception-wise, that they did pull a fast one by changing the rules to prevent Trump, for whatever reason, whether he’s prepared or not, to even compete in Colorado.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One of the biggest mistakes that people make… Not just Trumpists. One of the biggest mistakes people on our side make is believing that official Republicans, Washington Republicans, New York Republicans — but primarily the Republicans in elective office, the Republican lobbyists, people that work for Republican elected officials. There is this assumption that official Republicans feel the same way about the media as you do, and they don’t. The media is part of the overall ruling class.

They are part of the establishment, and Republicans come to know what the media is going to do and why they do it, and they accept it. So when Trumpists are shocked that the Republican establishment will not get behind a candidate who can take it to the media, it tells me that many of you have conception of how the Republican Party looks at the media. It’s hard to explain, really. It’s just they don’t see them as “the enemy” that you and I do. They don’t see them as much more than an obstacle. But they don’t even see them as that.

It’s part of the infrastructure and framework. It’s the way things are. They never complain about the media — very rarely — and they don’t do anything about it. And they very seldom even try. How many times have you heard a Republican say, “Why don’t you do a presser? Why don’t you do a press conference, bring up some victims of Obama’s latest policy and do what the Democrats?” “We won’t get covered.” How many times you heard ’em say, “We won’t get covered.” They know. And so they do not have your view, just like they don’t view Obama and the Democrats the way you and I do, they don’t view the media the same way, either.

And they don’t think we’re in a crisis.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s John Heilemann, CBS This Morning today. He’s got that show on Bloomberg with Mark Halperin. Norah O’Donnell said, “Donald Trump’s talking about a dirty, rigged system –” Colorado — “what’s the point of all this, Mr. Heilemann?”

HEILEMANN: This is a year when, in both parties, vast parts of the bases, Democratic and Republican, believes comprehensively the system is rigged. And so Donald Trump is trying to tap in to the populist kind of energy that’s fueled his campaign all along. All the complaints about it, the responses that he should figure it out, his campaign should be better, et cetera, et cetera, they’re all a hundred percent right, but this talking point for him for the next two months is not a bad one for him, politically speaking.

RUSH: That’s a good point. I have taken an informal survey of Trump supporters ’cause I know quite a few, and I’ve asked ’em I think a pretty penetrating question. Essentially I’ve said, “Look, your guy is out there telling you, telling everybody that everybody else in Washington is dumb and doing dumb things. But he’s a winner, and he’s smart, and he’s got the smartest people available to help him. And when it comes to talking to the ChiComs, when it comes to talking to the Japanese, when it comes to making deals with the Iranians, we’re gonna stop doing stupid things, and we’re gonna do win things, we’re gonna do smart things. We’re gonna be so smart, we’re gonna win, win, win, win, win.”

So I ask ’em, “Does what happened in Colorado bother you?” I mean, here’s the guy that’s gonna take it to the ChiComs, take it to the Japanese, couldn’t find a way to take it to the Colorado Republican Party. And I’ll tell you what they tell me. They say, “That’s true, but you know what? Trump knew that he was not gonna be able to prevail there. He knew that he didn’t have the infrastructure ready to go to do state-by-state delegate fights. So you know he did, Rush? He let this thing all happen and then began playing it as though he was cheated, as though it was rigged.” This is working out exactly as Trump designed it, they think.

I’ll bet you that’s a pretty common view that many Trump supporters hold, that he didn’t get snookered on anything here. That if anybody’s snookering anybody, it’s Trump. Trump is smart. They try to trick Trump and he’s turned the tables on ’em. He knew that he wasn’t gonna be able to go out there and compete in the way necessary because he hasn’t got a big enough staff, he hasn’t hired enough people to do it yet. And if he lost he’d be easily able to say he got cheated ’cause the system is rigged, because his supporters think that to begin with about all of this.

And I’ll bet you if you encounter some Trump supporters — and maybe you are one yourself — and you ask ’em, “Does it not bother you? I mean, the guy is smarter than anybody else in the room, and he’s gonna be able to negotiate rings and circles around everybody else.” They are gonna tell you something along the lines of, “Hey, hey, he is, and he’s demonstrating it right now. He goes ahead, he lets Cruz think he got a big win out of there, but Trump knows how the media works and he’s coming out of there claiming he got cheated, he got rigged, and he’s gonna win big because of it.” So we’ll see.

The New York poll, the Baruch College poll shows him at 60%. It was taken before all this happened. Kate Andersen Brower, she wrote the book on first ladies and administrations and so forth. That’s the name of the woman who claims that Michelle Obama has nothing in it for the Clintons. In fact, there may be some actual animosity there. Reince Priebus On the Record with Greta Van Susteren last night. She said, “Now, a big firestorm over what’s going on in Colorado and the way they ended up choosing the nominee out there, the preferred nominee. Trump says it’s corrupt and rigged. What do you say to that?”

PRIEBUS: Well, I mean, it’s the same process they used, Greta, four years ago. I mean, it’s no different. I have a book in front of me that every candidate has state by state with the dates and what’s happening. This is an organizational process that candidates have to be involved with from the very beginning.

RUSH: That’s all true, folks. There’s no mystery here. This is not something that snuck up on — well, it might have snuck up on people if they didn’t read the book. I really don’t think this is hard to understand. Trump is not one of these guys. He doesn’t read owner’s manuals. He either hires somebody to read the owner’s manual or just goes in there and learns it himself. What are you looking at me like that for? If you’re Trump, you’re running rings around all these guys. You’re leading by 20 points in every poll. You’re racking up delegates. You’re creaming the opposition. You’re driving everybody from the establishment out of the race. You’ve got crowds so big that five and 10 thousand people can’t get in.

So you want to stay on that roll and you’re just gonna win this with national pressure, national momentum. You’re gonna win this without all these arcane insider rules ’cause those are the things you’re actually running against anyway, is that whole structure. So you don’t even take the time to get into it. I don’t have any doubt that that was probably it. And he didn’t have anybody on his staff that was oriented toward the nuts and bolts of this stuff. Trump’s campaign is in for the hearts and minds of average, everyday American voters. But now that this has all happened, I mean, if it’s time now to wine and dine delegates — he-he — do any of them have Mar-a-Lago? Do any of them have a Boeing 757 he can put ’em on and fly ’em around? Hey, that’s how some of this stuff happens. Priebus is right. Here’s Cruz. This was last night in San Diego.

CRUZ: He yells and screams and stamps his foot. Donald, 65,000 people voted in the state of Colorado. They just didn’t vote for you. They voted for our campaign. (cheers and applause).

RUSH: The crowd was cheering. And finally, here’s Trump in Albany last night at another Trump appearance.

TRUMP: In Colorado, which was a total fix, they took away their votes. It’s a corrupt system. It’s a totally corrupt, rigged system. In Louisiana, I went there, I campaigned for four or five days. We had rallies just like this, thousands and thousands of people. I end up winning Louisiana. And then when everything is done, I find out I get less delegates than this guy that got his ass kicked, okay? Give me a break. Really disgusting.

RUSH: And the Trump people are cheering and they’re applauding, they’re going “right on” ’cause they think they have been cheated. They think the game’s been ridding against them, you understand. These are average, ordinary people who think we’re losing the country. They are serious about it. We’re in a crisis, and they’re being laughed at and mocked and made fun of and called losers by establishment media types.

They’re getting no respect, so to speak. And it would make total sense that their guy is getting shafted and getting screwed in a rigged game. So all he’s gotta do is come out and say that and he’s not gonna lose anybody because of this. And the establishment is gonna miscalculate on this again if they’re not careful. If they think that the long-awaited Trump implosion is beginning, they’re misjudging how this is going to be received. I got a little analogy that I can give you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The Denver Post had an editorial back in February: “Colorado GOP Blundered…” That’s “made a mistake,” for those of you in Rio Linda. “GOP Colorado Blundered on 2016 Presidential Caucus — Republicans made big mistake in abandoning presidential tally.” This editorial goes on and on about what a huge error this was to deny Republicans in Colorado their vote, and choose the nominee via a delegate caucus rather than a straw poll or a vote.

It’s gonna come back to bite ’em, and this editorial was back in February.