RUSH: Over to NBC now. Peter Alexander. This guy gets it right. This was on the Today Show today. He had a report about the recent battle between Trump and Cruz.

ALEXANDER: Conservative commentators questioning Trump’s tactics. Take Rush Limbaugh.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Whatever you want to say, Cruz is not a nasty guy. When you get into criticism, it better be believable.

RUSH: All right, I said that, and it’s in context, and so it’s out there. But they love it. The Drive-Bys relish it. See, the Drive-Bys, it’s fascinating. The Drive-Bys want to take both these guys out, but they know they can’t do it at the same time. So they have to take one of them out, then they go get the other. Whoever gets out first, the second one survives, they’ll get ’em. And they’re looking for help. So they’re turning to me, who happens to be just an entertainer.

Any time I happen to utter something that they think is helpful to the objective they have, well, they ride in there and they find it and they prominently broadcast it on all their big shows. “Conservative commentators questioning Trump’s tactics. Take Rush Limbaugh.” This is classic. The media loves to get other people to say what they think themselves as a way of maintaining this facade that they are objective and fair and honest. NBC Nightly News. This is Hallie Jackson. She is the NBC correspondent reporting about the Republican presidential primary.

JACKSON: Conservative radio hosts are now warning Trump he may be turning off some Republicans with his attacks on Cruz. Watching it all unfold? The establishment candidates, since this Trump-Cruz battle could open up space for one of them to rise.

RUSH: Yes, and you see that happens to be one of the unspoken little secrets, that if Trump-Cruz heats up and one of them starts doing real damage to the other, then maybe one of the guys we really want can get a push, maybe a little vacuum is created, maybe Jeb would somehow launch in and fill it. Don’t forget, John Kasich in a poll today in New Hampshire showing up at — (interruption) Are you kidding me? Is that the big announcement? That can’t be the big announcement. Jesse James, Instagram post on Trump, that can’t be. This is the guy that used to be married to Sandra Bullock, the chop shop guy, the motorcycle guy, the tattoo guy. Jesse James endorses Trump, praising him — that can’t be the big announcement Trump promised. No, no, it’s not. It’s an Instagram post.

Okay. So here’s Hallie Jackson on NBC: Conservative radio hosts are now warning Trump he may be turning off some Republicans with his attacks on Cruz. So they went last night, CNN got a Trump spokesman to be on with Erin Burnett. Her name is Katrina Pierson and here’s the chitchat.

BURNETT: You just heard Rush Limbaugh saying, Donald Trump, not a good idea. Another one saying you could lose votes if you keep attacking Cruz. Is Trump nervous? Is that why he suddenly went silent on Cruz today?

PIERSON: Donald Trump wasn’t attacking Ted Cruz today. It was because Ted Cruz wasn’t attacking Donald Trump. Mr. Cruz was attacking Trump over the weekend in the media, and Donald Trump was responding in kind. There is no way someone’s gonna go out there and attack Donald Trump and him just sit there and take it. It’s not gonna happen.

RUSH: And that’s been the standard operating procedure from the get-go. No news there. Staying on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, he had Dana Bash on, their chief political correspondent. And the conversation continued. Cooper’s question to Dana Bash, “Did Trump attack Ted Cruz at any of his rallies today?”

BASH: No. Not at all. And actually it was quite surprising. But earlier today in Virginia, here in New Hampshire, not one word about Ted Cruz. Now, Trump has been getting some blowback from some conservative talk radio saying, “Wait a minute, be careful, Donald Trump, before you go too far in attacking Ted Cruz,” warning that he’s attacking him and he could risk alienating his own voters.

RUSH: Right. I got an e-mail, too. And this is interesting so I’m going to endeavor to answer this. I’m paraphrasing. I’m not reading it. I didn’t print it out. I have it right in front of me. The premise of the question is: Rush, why is it so important to warn Trump that he may be making a mistake? I don’t hear any of you warning Cruz that he might be making a mistake. And I don’t hear any of you warning Jeb Bush that he’s making mistakes, and I don’t hear any of you warning Kasich or Rubio. Why is it so important that you warn Trump?

Well, the answer is actually multifaceted, but it is rooted in the idea that whatever happens here — and I know this is gonna be tough for some of you out there, based on things I’ve read, to stomach, but speaking for myself, I do not think it is helpful to have conservatism bashed as part of this process.

So any time anybody, I don’t care who it is, any time anybody mounts an attack or a criticism, I don’t care if it’s on Cruz, I don’t care who it would be on, if it was on Trump, if anybody mounts an attack on any of these Republicans that is like something a liberal Democrat would say, I’m gonna step up and comment on it. I remember back in 2000 — I’m sure you’ll remember this — George W. Bush out there campaigning as a compassionate conservative, and he said, “We can’t balance the budget on the backs of the poor.” And, I’m sorry, but I had to launch on that. That is not the way conservatives talk. To talk that way, to be critical of conservatism that way, is not helpful, useful, or any of those other things, and it’s wrong. So speaking for myself, it is an objective here to protect conservatism.

Now, some of you might say, “But that doesn’t disprove that Trump’s not a conservative!” I… Folks, can I take you back to the first story that I shared with you today? It’s by David French. It’s at National Review. And its focus is on how the Republican establishment has overestimated its conservative base. The upshot of the piece is that the Republican establishment is shooting itself in the foot because it doesn’t really know who its conservative base is, doesn’t understand it, and has a totally wrong conception of who they are — or we are.

The Republican establishment considers there to be many types of conservatives, and they think the primary definition of a “conservative” is a social issues conservative who is pro-life, rigidly law and order, small government, reduce the size of government, stop this needless spending. They think that is what animates the Republican base today. Of course that’s anathema to them at the establishment. They live and work in Washington and government. They don’t want to hear talk of it getting smaller. They don’t want to hear talk of there being less money.

This is how they live. Government’s their business. Spending money is their business. Spending their money is how they get elected. What they are missing is that the primary animating aspect of conservatism today… It’s a given that conservative principles define a conservative. The application of those principles, and the way they manifest themselves today, is a total opposition to the Democrat Party, to liberalism, to the left, whatever it is. That is what is energizing conservatives, not conservative principles because those are a given.

If any of you rock-ribbed conservatives out there still can’t figure out why Trump appeals to people that you think would automatically disqualify him ’cause he’s not conservative, it’s because he is doing a bang-up job criticizing the party and the policies which are destroying this country. So is Ted Cruz. Jeb Bush doesn’t understand this language. Jeb Bush doesn’t understand criticizing the left. Rubio does, but the rest of them don’t. You want to know why they’re not resonating well?

This is not a contest here over who is the purest, most doctrinaire conservative. Who is it that recognizes the immediate threat this country faces? The immediate threat this country faces, and we have been facing and fighting for at least recently seven years is the Democrat Party and Barack Hussein O, an authoritarian leftist, statist, transformative agenda which seeks to turn this country into something it was never founded to be nor intended to be. That’s the immediate threat. The immediate threat is stopping what is happening to this country today as implemented by the Democrat Party.

And if a Martian landed here and understood the threats posed by the Democrat Party and was able to spell them out, the Martian would be supported. If a Corinthian walked in here from the Middle East and landed on CNN and knew how to criticize Obama and the Democrats and was able to articulate the dire consequences of this nation’s future if this stuff doesn’t stop, the Corinthian would be automatically supported and celebrated. According to Mr. French, this is what the GOP doesn’t understand. The GOP does not think there’s a crisis.

The GOP doesn’t think the Democrat Party’s any different today than it was ten years ago, 15 years ago. The Republican Party today does not think the Constitution is threatened, they don’t think the spending is out of control. It’s nothing that we can’t deal with. It’s so out of whack, the Republican establishment doesn’t even understand why this economy is tanking! Can I tell you why the economy’s tanking? It’s very simple: The federal government, under Obama, decided to print $4.5 trillion. They gave the money to Wall Street, so the banks could remain solvent, so the banks could continue to be bailed out, so that the 1%…

If there’s anybody in this country — any single person — who’s responsible for the divide between haves and have-nots, for this income inequality, it’s Barack Hussein O and his buddies at the Federal Reserve. Barack Obama has done more to widen the gap between rich and poor than any Republican/conservative could ever hope to. It’s $4.5 trillion, and not a penny of it… If you’re gonna print money for the purposes of stimulating and not a penny of it ends up in what you and I would consider the mainstream economy, it ends up on Wall Street as securities, bailouts for banks, solvency for the banks, what have you.

You can’t print that kind of money and not have it come back and bite you, and we’re having it come back and bite you. See the stock market plunges recently? The bubble? All of a sudden, these people have gotten used to corporate welfare from the Fed, and all of a sudden it’s gotten turned off now. That $4.5 trillion was it, and they’re panicking. So everybody’s selling off, taking their profits. And you hear rumblings of 2008 all over again. This artificial injection of $4.5 trillion that we didn’t have, that we just printed?

Things like this, people out there understand from the first days of Obama, when he first announced his stimulus. All this spending, this irresponsible spending has got to stop. It’s eating away and destroying the future of people’s kids and grandkids and great-grandkids now. And the Republican Party seems oblivious! “It’s nothing. It’s just the Fed. They’re just… Okay, we had to keep the banks going, keep Wall Street going. I mean, the rest of the economy was sort of hurting, so we gotta keep one end of it up: Wall Street.”

They don’t see anything really wrong with it. Those people all donate to political candidates, so some of the money came back to politicians, which is the money laundering little secret. You want to know why our economy hasn’t recovered? You want to know why 94 million Americans are out of work? It’s because there hasn’t been one single responsible economic policy implemented since Obama took office that would get the government out of the way and allow this economy made up of free markets and investors and entrepreneurs to grow.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rush Limbaugh, talent on loan from God-d. West Palm Beach. This is Noah. Great to have you, Noah. Welcome, sir, and how are you?

CALLER: Thank you, Rush, for taking my call. I’m a first-time caller. A little nervous here. But I just wanted two comments, if I can. The first comment was about the Drive-By Media kind of bashing you in a way as far as biasing people’s decisions, but, you know, at the end of the day I’m reading from your website, it says that, you know, they shouldn’t be taken seriously, they’re just entertainers. They’re kind of doing the same thing what they’re saying not to do.

RUSH: What’s that? I lost you.

CALLER: Oh, do you hear me?

RUSH: Yeah, but they’re kind of doing the same thing, what they’re saying, not —

CALLER: I’m just saying that they’re trying to convince people not to listen to you guys, so they’re trying to kind of brainwash in a way. So what they’re trying to teach not to do, they’re doing the exact same thing. It’s kind of like rhetorical in a way. I don’t know if you got that.

RUSH: I don’t understand — are you saying the media is becoming like a bunch of entertainers.

CALLER: Yeah, basically that, you know, the talk radio people, they’re just entertainers, they’re not really to be taken seriously, they’re just entertainers, so them saying that, they’re trying to talk to an audience to convince a mind-set, which is pretty much what you do with conservatives so it’s like in fact they’re — I don’t know if I can make —

RUSH: Yeah, but here’s why I’m confused, it’s because the last week, the Drive-By Media is treating me as an oracle.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: They’re not treating me as entertainer today. They’re treating me as the oracle of the day who has the power to determine who survives and who doesn’t, the campaign.

CALLER: But that’s not — I mean, we’re independent thinkers. What you’re doing, you’re running a conservative talk show radio, so anything that is non-conservative or is conservative, you’re gonna preach about it, so I don’t understand the media saying that you’re gonna be biasing us like we’re robots.

RUSH: Well, the explanation for that is that — depending on the day — the media does not… Look, I don’t know how many times… There is a… This is not what he said he wanted to talk about, folks, and then he stretched it. He wanted to talk about how he’s lost faith in Trump so I was prepared for that. Now he’s… I don’t know if you’re sucking up or being critical here. But if the media had their druthers, I wouldn’t exist. They’re upset at me and mad at me ’cause I blew up their monopoly. But other days they think I can be useful in accomplishing what they want.

They, right now, want Trump and Cruz destroyed. They think (because you people are a bunch of mind-numbed robots), that if I set my mind to destroying Trump, that you will believe me and abandon Trump. They don’t understand you. They don’t understand the program. They don’t understand how I look at you. You are not mind-numbed robots. You are independent thinkers. You’re individuals, and you make up your mind long before you turn the radio on. But they don’t think that, and it’s not just of this show. That’s how they think of everybody.

They think they have their audience of mind-numbed robots who don’t know what to think until they watch the NBC or ABC, CBS nightly news. They do not have any concept of an American people or a population that is intelligent and capable and competent to go through life making up their own minds. So whenever voters do something that liberal Democrats don’t like, it’s not because the voters are genuinely that way; it’s ’cause somebody’s poisoned them, like me. I, on the other hand, do not look at members of this audience with anything but respect.

I certainly don’t look at people with contempt, and I don’t sit here thinking that you don’t know what I’m talking about. Quite the opposite. I think you understand everything I’m saying, and I treat you that way. They’re the ones that don’t. They had a monopoly. There was nobody challenging them. So whatever they wanted people to believe, that’s all the news was. And they can’t get away with it anymore. So, you know, every day they’re confused. I mean, some days they wish I wasn’t here. Other days, they’re glad; they hope they can manipulate me into doing what they want done that they can’t do on their own.

They can’t take Trump out. So they’re hoping I will.

They can’t take Cruz out. They’re hoping I will.

(interruption) Well, they have tried. Oh, they’ve tried! They’ve tried to take me out for 27 years. They can’t. That’s the whole point. It frustrates ’em. But, look… (sigh) At the end of the day here, they can’t accomplish what they want universally on their own. They want Trump and Cruz both gone. They want Hillary to be president. So they will respect me for a fleeting moment if I happen to say something that they think might achieve something they want. So if they think I’ve really ripped into Trump? Oh, they can’t wait to give me all kinds of credibility and report it as though I’m an oracle!

And that’s what you’re seeing.