RUSH: Shane in Buffalo, New York. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re next on the EIB. No, I’ve not forgotten the FIFA guy. It’s coming right up. Hi, Shane, how are you?

CALLER: Hi, Rush, I want to talk about Rand Paul. He was in the news a few days ago talking about how Republicans were responsible for the creation of ISIS. I started thinking about all the other ridiculous things that Rand Paul has done and said in the past that no one really talks about. Rand Paul met with Al Sharpton to discuss criminal justice reform. He wants to restore voting rights to convicted felons. He attacks Republicans on Cuba, basically takes Obama’s foreign policy stance on Cuba. And I just don’t understand how this can possibly be a good thing to happen in Republican debates —

RUSH: Let me see if I can help you understand.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Rand Paul I met here at the EIB Southern Command complex a little over a year ago. He came by and he spent about an hour here. He was unannounced, but it’s clear he was seeking higher office, presidency, and he already had his game plan formatted. He already knew what he was gonna do, and he shared with me some of it, and I didn’t announce any of this at the time because he hadn’t officially announced. And he didn’t come by here for me to make it public, but now it’s no big deal because he’s out there executing the plan, so I can tell you. He told me, the first thing he told me was that, “Rush, the Republican Party cannot win the presidency without votes from Democrats and independents and moderates.”

CALLER: Oh, God.

RUSH: He said, “There aren’t enough Republicans that we can only turn out our own voters and win.” And then he started telling me how he was going to get these non-Republican votes. He was going to reach out to the African-American community, and he was gonna reach out to the Hispanic community, and he’s gonna reach out to college students. He’s done all of it. I mean everything he told me he was gonna do. He went to Berkeley, he’s done it. And what you’ve just described is part of his game plan that he described to me. Now, not specifically blaming Bush for ISIS. He didn’t talk about ISIS with me, I don’t remember what he said, if anything, about foreign policy. ISIS didn’t exist when he came by.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: So that’s something I can’t explain other than to put it in what I do know about his belief that he’s gotta get votes from elsewhere, in addition to Republican votes, that’s his belief. By the way, he’s not the only Republican that thinks that. He’s not the only Republican that thinks that we can’t win with just our own votes.

CALLER: Yeah, but he never gets attacked for it. No one ever calls him out for it. For some reason I feel like he just, “Oh, that’s just Rand Paul,” just like with Ron Paul, “That’s just Ron Paul, you know, they’re just kind of like –“

RUSH: Well, let me tell you something. That Libertarian bunch, it’s a very active, vocal bunch, and you go after their guys and they come after you.

CALLER: I don’t see how it could be positive for the Republican Party to have MSNBC, CNN claim in the debates, Rand Paul attacking the GOP, which they’re gonna do just like They do with Ron Paul over and over and over again.

RUSH: Yeah, I hear you, but, hey, it’s the lay of the land. He is a Republican. Let me ask you this.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: We’ve gotten to the point now where the Fox News Republican debate, Fox doesn’t know what to do, they can’t get all these people on the stage. They can’t have a debate with all these candidates, so what they’ve done — correct me if I’m wrong — I think you’ve gotta be in the top 10% of polling?

CALLER: Top 10.

RUSH: Top 10.

RUSH: Well, that’s gonna ace out Carly Fiorina, and she needs to be in these debates. She is just ripping Hillary a new one every day. I don’t even think Ted Cruz is gonna qualify.

CALLER: I think Cruz will get in. If he doesn’t get in, I’m not gonna watch, ’cause, you know, I’m a big Cruz fan. But I just think it’s —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — ridiculous to have 10 people on a stage anyway —

RUSH: The question I have for you, do you think — I don’t want to lead, I don’t want to put my words in your mouth, but, I mean, just yesterday, who announced yesterday, Pataki, and the day before that we got Lindsey Graham’s announced, and we’ve got — oh, yeah, Kasich is waiting in the wings. Is it beginning to look like Barnum & Bailey to you?

CALLER: It’s just a joke. I mean, Pataki, I don’t understand. It’s probably just an ego thing. Do they really have that big an ego to think that they could actually, with where they’re polling, come back and win the Republican nomination? I mean, who is excited about George Pataki or Lindsey Graham? Nobody’s excited about that.

RUSH: Not yet. But you don’t know if they’re gonna be excited by ’em like a year from now, that’s the point. You don’t know that. They might not be sending a tingle up your leg right now.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: What do you think it means? Why are all these people announcing? Why are all these fringe and obscure Republicans getting in this race?

CALLER: I think it’s an ego thing, and it’s just a way to get their name out so they can sell books.

RUSH: Okay. So you don’t think a majority of ’em actually are doing this to win?

CALLER: I really don’t know. Maybe they have that big of an ego. I mean, they are politicians, but, I mean, it could be just they want to sell books, you know.

RUSH: Well, yeah, or get an official position at Fox as commentary or analyst or what have you. I mean, how many guys don’t want to be on Fox with all the blondes they got there? It could be that. But then you’ve got — how about this. How about this. Since there doesn’t seem to be anybody in all of these Republicans with a lock on this, that these guys could see as wide open?

CALLER: Well, if nothing else, I think it’s good that Lindsey Graham’s in because I think he’ll take votes away from Jeb Bush, and I think that the problem that the conservatives really have is that we’ve got so many conservatives running, they’re gonna split the vote so much —

RUSH: Well, see, that’s the thing.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I think these guys getting in that you mention are there to protect Jeb Bush, not take votes from him.

CALLER: Well, I think they’re closer to Bush. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t put George Pataki in the Ted Cruz —

RUSH: Yeah, but if they eventually get some support they’d throw it to him before they get out.

CALLER: Possibly. You know, I don’t know how it’s gonna turn out, but I do think that conservatives need to pick one candidate, go for that candidate. If they don’t do it, they’ll be —

RUSH: Okay, well, how do you do that? On paper, yeah, because previous campaigns, the conservatives have eaten each other up, spit each other out. That’s how we ended up with Romney and McCain and whoever else. How do you decide without a campaign, how do you decide of which these conservatives gets to be the guy?

CALLER: Well, for me I just go down the list and I have a priority —

RUSH: No, no, no. How do you get them to go along. If that’s gonna work, they have to go along.

CALLER: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. They’re gonna have to start attacking each other. You know, they’re trying to go after Hillary Clinton, and I guess that’s smart for now, but eventually they’re gonna have start going after each other. Someone is gonna have to say, “Hey, Rand Paul, why did you meet with Al Sharpton to discuss criminal justice issues?”

RUSH: I know. Why don’t you go after Obama? What’s the point going after George W. Bush? But he thinks he’s gonna get votes that way. That’s why he’s doing it. But look, let’s take your idea. You’ve got, let’s say pick a number here that’s fairly close. You got 15 conservatives that want to be the Republican nominee, and you just said we need to pick one and not destroy all of them. Pick one. Okay, so let’s go get all 15 in a room. Not a debate, just get ’em in a room, and somebody with power like me, “Okay, one of you guys is gonna be our representative. One of you guys is gonna be the only conservative in the debates running against Bush and Lindsey Grahamnesty and whoever else, and in this room we’re gonna decide today who it is. And when we finish, the 14 of you who aren’t, do not trash the guy who is.”

Is that even possible? It would never happen. So you can wring your hands and lament the fact that it’s gonna be all these conservatives eating each other up and there’s no other way around it. ‘Cause I don’t know how you’d get ’em all in a room and convince 14 of ’em to quit and then unify behind one. And what are you gonna do, draw straws? Are you gonna say, “Who among the 15 of us has the best chance of winning?” Well, that’s gonna break down in the first five minutes because they all think they have the best chance. They all have the ego big enough to make ’em want to get into this in the first place.

So I know it’s frustrating to look at this ’cause you don’t want to see a repeat of previous years where a bunch of really, really great conservative candidates end up eating each other alive out of the race. But the establishment does want that. That’s exactly what the establishment wants, so that the only guy left standing is their Northeastern moderate liberal, whoever it is year to year.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, folks, running for president — you talk about why these guys are all doing it — running for president might be almost as profitable as starting a family charity, when you look at it that way.