RUSH: Donald Trump confounding his supporters today and confounding many in the Drive-By Media. Donald Trump and his acceptance remarks after the New York primary referred to “Senator Cruz” a couple of times, did not refer to him as “Lyin’ Ted.” And this prompted many in the Drive-By Media to applaud the Trumpster for now making the transition to presidential candidate, a more serious and respectful demeanor, and gone is the off-the-cuff, politically incorrect insults and barbs. Except it didn’t last. Here is the Trumpster in Indianapolis at a campaign event yesterday.

TRUMP: In the case of Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Lyin’ Ted — lies, oh, he lies. You know Ted, he brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies. You know, Bernie’s gone, you know that, don’t you? Bernie’s gone. I love running against Crooked Hillary. I love that, I mean, so much. Better, better. Bernie wouldn’t be as much fun.

RUSH: Yeah, so Bernie’s gone. He can’t wait to run against Crooked Hillary, and Lyin’ Ted, Lyin’ Ted just keeps lying, he holds up the Bible, he puts it down, and he lies, Lyin’ Ted. The Drive-Bys are beside themselves. They can’t figure it out.

JIM ACOSTA: The softer side of Donald Trump, all of that is out the window. We’re back to Trump being Trump referring to Ted Cruz as ‘Lyin’ Ted.’

MAJOR GARRETT: Reverted to his nasty side when referring to top rival Ted Cruz.

WOLF BLITZER: Today he’s back to his attacks on Cruz calling him ‘LyinÂ’ Ted.Â’

TOM LLAMAS: Just when we thought Donald Trump was trying to act more presidential, he was back with his classic attacks.

GERALDO RIVERA: That moderation did not last through today. He’s all sharp elbows and ‘LyinÂ’ Ted.Â’

JOHN HEILEMANN: Today Donald TrumpÂ’s calling him LyinÂ’ Ted Cruz by the middle of the afternoon.

ANDERSON COOPER: Today he’s back to calling him ‘Lyin’ Ted.’

CHUCK TODD: Look whoÂ’s back. He’s back to using ‘LyinÂ’ Ted.

CHRIS STIREWALT: We’re all the way back, and we’ll be at ‘Scummy TedÂ’ in a week.

RUSH: That’s Chris Stirewalt at Fox News. Lyin’ Ted will become scummy Ted, but the point is gone is Senator Cruz. But we’re just getting warmed up here on the new Donald Trump. This is the Today Show this morning. They had a town hall event with Trump and during the Q&A with the audience a woman stood up and said, “My relative is a natural-born American in the military. His father and step mother are undocumented people here in the US for the last 25 years without any way of adjusting their status.” Meaning they’re illegal immigrants, they’re undocumented, there’s no way to change their status.

“Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, if you’re president, what will you do for those members that are the fabric of our country,” i.e., what are you gonna do, Mr. Trump, for the illegal aliens and the undocumented who are the fabric of our country that have been here for 25 years undocumented, what are you gonna do for ’em?

TRUMP: Look, we’re either gonna have a country or we’re not gonna have a country, but many people are very fine people and I’m sure these are very, very fine people. They’re going to go and we’re going to create a path where we can get them into this country legally, okay? But it has to be done legally.

REPORTER: You will deport them first, correct?

TRUMP: They’re going to be and they’re gonna come back and they’re gonna come back legally. We have some wonderful people. It’s too tough to say you’ll never come back again. They’re coming back. But they’re coming back into our country legally.

RUSH: Okay, this is really nothing new. This has always been what Trump has said he’s gonna do with this. He’s gonna deport them and then bring ’em back legally. They’re gonna come back legally. They gotta go, they gotta go, but they gotta come back legally. And when they come back legally then everything is gonna be fine. But we don’t have a country. We don’t have a country if we don’t have borders. We don’t have a country if this stuff doesn’t stop so we’re gonna send ’em back. We are gonna deport, they gotta go, they got go, but then we’re gonna bring ’em back legally.

But he wasn’t through, ladies and gentlemen. Correspondent Willie Geist ran a Twitter question. “Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, please be specific. Tell us your views on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders and how you plan to be inclusive as president and speak about the North Carolina bathroom law in particular.”

TRUMP: North Carolina did something that was very strong and they’re paying a big price and there’s a lot of problems. Leave the way it is. North Carolina, what they’re going through with all of the business that’s leaving and all of the strife, and that’s on both sides, you leave the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.

REPORTER: So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses?

TRUMP: That is correct.

RUSH: Okay, so Trump is all-in for letting people use whatever bathroom they feel like using that day, that year, that hour, whenever. However they decide to present, however they feel, whatever they think they are at that moment. He’s got no problem with Caitlyn Jenner… That may not be the best example ’cause Caitlyn Jenner’s a celebrity, and Trump likes celebrities. But just your average, ordinary unknown, 25-year-old guy wants to go into the women’s restroom with a four-year-old he met on the playground.

“Ah, yeah. I have no problem.” What Trump’s answer seems to indicate is that what North Carolina’s doing is bad ’cause it’s causing harm for businesses and that’s not good. We can’t be doing things that’s gonna hurt business. We can’t do things are gonna cause businesses to leave and all of the strife. So he says just leave it the way it is, meaning: Whoever wants to use whatever bathroom is fine. And then there was this.

REPORTER: Do you believe in raising taxes on the wealthy?

TRUMP: I do. I do. Including myself. I do.

RUSH: Well, so we’ve got a trifecta here, folks. We have a pathway to citizenship in one town hall meeting, on the Today show today… We have a trifecta. We have a pathway to citizenship spelled out. We have no problem whatsoever with… In fact, North Carolina and Georgia and all states should not be doing what they’re doing. If people want to use whatever bathroom, it’s fine. It isn’t a problem. People should be able to use whatever bathroom they want.

Raising taxes on the rich? Yes! Absolutely raise taxes on the rich. Now, it’s interesting, ladies and gentlemen, there’s also this from the Wall Street Journal. The headline: “Donald Trump Plans to Adopt More Traditional Campaign Tactics.” It says his campaign is evolving. Coming soon are policy addresses, teleprompters, and a speechwriter. All of this is being chalked up to the hire he made, a guy named Paul Manafort, the convention manager for Trump’s…

By the way, do you know what we just learned? Paul Manafort, who is now essentially… He elbowed Corey Lewandowski out of the way there, and he’s now running things for Trump, he has a business with a guy named Charlie Black, who is a well-known Republican establishment figure. I mean, well known. Charlie Black may be… If you wanted to put a picture of the Republican establishment a dictionary, his would be in it. And Charlie Black is running the Kasich campaign, and Charlie Black and Trump’s guy are business partners.

And this has led to some interesting speculation: “Why is Kasich still staying in this thing? What in the world is going on? It only helps Trump if he stays in,” and then there’s this scuttlebutt, the whispers and the bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz that Kasich is hanging around to be VP. We find out that Charlie Black running Kasich and Manafort running Trump are business partners, which means they’re… Well, you have to assume that they’re friends. So one of the big attractions for Trump has been the Lyin’ Ted stuff, the off-the-wall, off-the-cuff anti-political correctness stuff.

There’s another thing here, folks. Ed Morrissey has a post at Hot Air: “Trump Handing the Campaign Keys to Lobbyists? — Politico’s Ken Vogel reported last night that the shift from Corey Lewandowski to Paul Manafort has changed more than just personnel — it has brought the Trump campaign under control of lobbyists…” That’s what Charlie Black is, by the way, and that’s what Manafort is. “[I]t has brought the Trump campaign under control of lobbyists, an industry Trump explicitly derided earlier in the primary cycle…” And there’s one more.

You know, this quote/unquote “controversy” over the $20 bill. Obama and his buds want to take Andrew Jackson off of there and put Harriet Tubman on it. And Trump has — in a reflexive, automatic way — come out and expressed his opposition to this. Do you think he knows who Harriet Tubman is, Mr. Snerdley? Let me just ask you point-blank. I don’t mean to be putting you on the spot, but do you think you know what Harriet Tubman is? (interruption)

Do you think that he knows Harriet Tubman if she were alive today would be one of the biggest advocates of the Second Amendment? (interruption) Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. (interruption) No, she would be. I’m asking does he know, does he know that Harriet Tubman was a Republican? Harriet Tubman, of course, ran an operation to help slaves escape the South. She’s a renowned figure in American history.

She was a Republican because back then the Republican Party was the party anti-slavery, and nothing ever changed other than the Democrats co-opted it. Democrats have always been the party of slavery. They were always the party of Jim Crow, the party of segregation. The Ku Klux Klan was a Democrat Party military branch. The Democrats Lester Maddox, George Wallace, all these guys in the South, the segregationists — J. William Fulbright — they were the segregationists, they were the racists.

Harriet Tubman was a Republican.

But Trump has said, “I don’t like getting rid of Andrew Jackson. This is political correctness. We’re getting rid of Andrew Jackson, put a woman on there?” Those are not his words. I’m paraphrasing. Andrew Jackson? You know, a lot of people look at Trump as a modern day incarnation of Andrew Jackson because he was, oh, thought of to be an outsider. But there’s something that Andrew Jackson is known for that if you did not benefit from the proper — or, not proper.

If you haven’t received a good American history instruction in your life, then there’s something you may not know about Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson wasn’t just a figure and a Democrat. He was a hugely controversial figure in the United States. He sponsored what was called the Indian Removal Act. The Indian Removal Act by Andrew Jackson paved the way for the tragedy known as the Trail of Tears. You know the trail of…? (interruption) Have you…? Okay, you’ve heard of the Trail of Tears? What it…?

The Trail of Tears was a would-be a march, Native Americans and Indians being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and having to proceed by foot to their relocation area. 10,000 of them died on the way. That’s why it’s called the Trail of Tears. That’s Andrew Jackson. It’s Obama that wants to change all these… (interruption) He was a slaver on top of that, true. It’s Obama that wants to change the identity of people on the five, too.

Hamilton got saved because of the musical.

They were gonna get rid of Alexander Hamilton ’cause they had a hip-hop musical. You can’t take him off the $10 bill now. So he’s still there. For the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson is gonna go to Harriet Tubman. But Trump just reflexively came out and opposed it, and that’s also raised some eyebrows because then the question’s obviously: Did Trump do this because he needs to continue to appear to be anti-political correct and that means opposing everything the establishment wants to do even with pictures of people on the $20 bill, or does he just not know any of this stuff?

And time will tell. It’s gonna be real interesting to see the reaction, if any, to his remarks on having no problem with LGBT bathrooms. If you think you’re a woman at two o’clock this afternoon and want to use the ladies’ room, have at it. If you’re really a guy, it doesn’t matter. You feel like a woman? Go in. No problem. We’ll see if there’s any blowback on that. Trail of Tears. Where I grew up Cape Girardeau, Missouri, there is a state park.

Because where I grew up is not far from where the Trail of Tears actually was and the name of the park is Trail of Tears State Park. It’s where I went camping. I got the Gold Brick Award my first Cub Scout/Boy Scout camping trip. I got the Gold Brick for not doing anything but sitting around waiting for the campout to end. But we all called it Trail of Lumps, because usually that’s where your girlfriend broke up with you. When you went out there to park, you got the bad news. Trail of Lumps is what we called it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This question that Trump got from an audience member of the NBC town hall today on LGBT, Trump’s answer was the politically correct position. You understand, folks, this is worth a serious examination, what’s happening in our culture. Some people think the culture wars are underway. Others thinks that we’ve lost them. And there’s a fascinating piece today. It’s gonna require a tremendous amount of effort on my part to translate this and explain it.

Because it’s written for a very, very highbrow audience with all kinds of terms in it that nobody knows the definitions of, like “transgressive free speechism” and “Nietzschian” and “waiting for Prometheus to show up.” But I’m gonna wade through this because it’s got a fascinating premise. And the premise is that the reason we are losing the culture war is that the left, in fighting the culture war, has been using the free market and capitalism to do it. And the upshot of it is…

If I’ve got this right, the upshot of it is that objective truth and fact and substance are irrelevant now in determining how people decide what behaviors they’re gonna engage in, what behaviors they’re going to support and oppose. And instead, for lack of a better term — and it’s more complicated than this, or it’s a little bit more detailed than this. But instead, it’s theoretically here boiled down to a question of what is considered modern and hip, or cool. Although that doesn’t quite cover it. It’s a starter point to kind of get you locked in and intrigued on it.

But as I say, I’m gonna spend some more time on it today translating this piece for you. As I say, it’s in TheFederalist.com, and the LGBT question fits right in with this theory. I mean, there’s no way under the sun that one-tenth of 1% of the population engaging in behavior — that nobody 10 years ago, five years ago, would ever ascribe as laudatory — is now all of a sudden not only is it accepted, you must love it, you must support it and it is politically correct to support it. And that happens to be the position Trump has taken. Here’s this guy running anti-political correct in his stance, and he’s just following right along here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Just to get this Andrew Jackson/Harriet Tubman thing out of the way — ’cause I want to move into this LGBT business. This is a great teachable moment. It’s a great learning opportunity, and I’m not gonna wait ’til later in the program to try to make something complex here understandable. I’m gonna just jump into it here in just a second. But here I want to play for you what Trump said at the town hall event on this change of face on the $20 bill. It was Matt Lauer who said, “Now, as you’ve seen, Mr. Trump, Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Now, you have so often during this campaign, you’ve railed against political correctness. Do you see this as a move that is all about political correctness, or is this a move that is simply way overdue?”

TRUMP: Well, Andrew Jackson had a great history, and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country, and I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic. I would love to… I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill. I don’t like seeing it. Yes, I think it’s pure political correctness.

RUSH: See, that would be… I don’t want to call it knee-jerk, but that would be an understandable reaction. Here you have Barack Hussein O and the Democrat Party making all these moves, and you can’t just look at it as an isolated move. You have to look at everything Obama’s doing as part of his agenda. Now here’s Obama attacking the currency. Now, one of the things that people who are paying attention realize is that the entire Obama presidency has been an assault on America as founded.

It has been all about transforming America into something she was never founded to be, because Obama and people like him believe this country is illegitimate, immoral. It was unjust as founded, and he and his Alinskyite brethren have come along and have decided that it’s time for this country to get a little payback. It’s time for this country and its majority to find out just what kind of pain and suffering they have forced on people of color, for example, and other minorities. Not just in this country, but around the world.

That’s why Obama constantly apologizes for America, and why he’s doing his best to uproot all of these great traditions. It’s why he supports uprooting traditions, institutions that have defined the country. So if you think that about Obama, then you see one day that he wants to change faces on the bills, yeah. The reflexive reaction would be you’ve gotta disagree with Obama. That’s just the reflexive action you would take, and you would assume that Obama — ’cause he’s a Democrat, and that’s the home of political correctness.

So you would just reflexively assume, if that’s what you’re doing. Rather than just taking each of these instances of the Obama agenda and actually thinking about them, if you just act reflexively, of course you would assume, “I oppose this. I oppose what Obama’s doing. Obama’s a bad guy, Obama’s destroying the country, Obama’s whatever. And Andrew Jackson? Nothing wrong with Andrew Jackson! He’s a great guy, and was on the bill for a reason.” That would be your reaction. But the selection of Andrew Jackson to be on the $20 bill was always controversial.

Andrew Jackson, in addition to the story I just told you about the Trail of Tears… It was his idea to have this massive march of Native Americans to relocate them, and 10,000 of them died and that route they took was called the Trail of Tears because of the deaths. In addition to that, Andrew Jackson is credited as the cofounder of the modern Democrat Party. Would it surprise any of you to learn that Andrew Jackson named as his attorney general, Roger Taney? Does the name ring a bell? (interruption) Roger Taney? (interruption)

Roger Taney doesn’t ring a bell for you? (interruption) Oh, good. (interruption) Okay. So let me tell you about Roger Taney. After Andrew Jackson appointed Roger Taney attorney general, he then named him chief justice of the US Supreme Court. And it was Roger Taney, as chief justice, who wrote the Dred Scott decision that essentially said that African-Americans were slaves and could be owned. The Dred Scott decision is one of the blackest marks, one of the darkest days of our history — and there’s Andrew Jackson right in the middle of it. This is why his picture on the $20 bill has always been controversial.

He did good things, too; don’t get the wrong idea. Even Newt cites Andrew Jackson of a great example of an outsider who came in and rocked the boat, if you will. Don’t get the wrong idea. He was not a total bad guy, but he’s got elements of his past that are not laudatory and that you would be hard-pressed to defend today. Roger Taney wrote the Dred Scott Decision, which was an attempt to write slavery into the US Constitution, is what it was. And it was Justice Bork — who was turned down for the Supreme Court — who said the right to slavery is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

Roger Taney, Andrew Jackson’s attorney general and chief justice the Supreme Court, thought that it should be. Harriet Tubman was a Republican. She was a big proponent of gun rights, and she ran the Underground Railroad. She was involved in the women’s suffrage movement, which of course led to the right to vote. And she is named to replace Andrew Jackson. There is a racial component here. If you’re just reflexively reacting to this, you’ve got political correctness and you’ve got a racial component.

And so if all anybody’s gonna do is reflexively, as I say, just react to this, rather than then it be easy to think it’s politically correct and really when you see Obama doing it, want to take a white guy off the bill and put a black babe on the bill, “Oh, oh.” I don’t know where Trump comes down on this. But he… Well, I do know where he comes down on it; he’s said that he doesn’t like it and he thinks it’s pure political correctness to remove Andrew Jackson. I’m sure he thinks that because who’s doing it: Obama and the Democrats.

So it’s… I don’t know. I think it’s revelatory, myself. I think it’s extremely revealing. And I’ve always — what’s the word? Not “fascinated.” But it’s always interesting to me is to discover what people know and what they don’t know, what they’ve learned and haven’t learned, because it will help you a lot in making judgments on, if they say they want to represent you as an elected official at any level. But Andrew Jackson, one of the reasons that Newt cites him in a favorable way is that Andrew Jackson was the first populist president.

Now, I don’t want to taint Andrew Jackson any more than they already have, but there are historians have studied Andrew Jackson who say that Elizabeth Warren sounds exactly like him. Now, remember, he’s the founder of the modern-day Democrat Party, Andrew Jackson. He was a war hero. “So if it weren’t for him, we’d all be speaking Brit English.” But there’s still these aspects to him that explain why something like this might be happening.

Now, other people have said, “Leave Jackson alone and create a new bill like a $25 bill.” I think that was Greta Van Susteren who suggested a $25 bill and put Harriet Tubman on that, and Dr. Carson suggested putting on the $2 bill. Well, nobody use the $2 bills. Do you even…? When was the last time you saw a $2 bill? (interruption) You have one? (interruption) Yeah. (interruption) That’s my point. It’s in a drawer.

Quick time-out. We’ll come back… Let’s look at the phone roster here. Well, grab a lot of phone calls and I’m gonna delve into this LGBT thing because this is another one today that Trump… I just wonder if his supporters care — are surprised, not surprised, or shocked. That’s what I’m curious about. He said that he wants to raise taxes on the rich before, and he’s said that he’s gonna deport ’em but they come back legally. He’s said that before. But his support for LGBT? This is new.

Quick time-out. Don’t go away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All I can tell you is that agreeing with and supporting LGBT to use whatever bathroom you want, that is political correctness. That is not opposing it. That is supporting it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Alan in Charlotte, you’ve got a good point here, I wanted to get you on before we had to go. What is it?

CALLER: Well, Rush, I just wanted to make clear the fact that the Donald is making issue statements about not having all the information. Here in Charlotte, the city council was hijacked by the LGBT community, and they changed the law for nondiscrimination, opening up the bathroom portion of the law.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: And now he makes a statement that we should keep it the same. Well, it was changed, and now we gotta fight.

RUSH: Yeah, here’s the point. This is a good point. It’s a good point. What Alan is saying here is they had laws in North Carolina for bathrooms. Men’s room, women’s room and so forth, and LGBT activists — actually in North Carolina I think it was a noted sex offender, an accused sex offender, convicted, pushed the change in the law to where there’s essentially no signs and anybody can use any bathroom at any time at all based on how they feel, how they want to present or what have you.

And he says that Trump’s argument today was they should just leave it the way it was. And Alan’s point, the way it was was perfectly fine until some political agitators came along and advocated for the change to accommodate them. And if the argument is gonna be leave it the way it was, the way it was was the way it was for decades, centuries, if you will. So, Alan I’m glad that you were able to get that in using brevity. Appreciate it.