RUSH: This is Sal in Cooperstown, New York. It’s great to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks for taking the call. I’m a little nervous so I’ll try to make my point regarding endorsements.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: My opinion is that lately we see the public considering even the so-called true conservatives — the Haleys, the Trey Gowdys in Congress or the Senate — be part of the club, as you call it, or the establishment. And when I hear so many on TV talk about, you know, “Who exactly is the establishment?” For me, it is any candidate that’s going to be indebted to an industry or a company because the candidate has accepted huge donations. And what I’d like to see from the politicians today — and they have an opportunity to make a name for themselves, good or bad — is not worry about what the consequences are going to be endorsing a candidate, ’cause there has to be more than a select few that have done so in support of Trump but have not because they’re fearful for their careers. And I think that that just shows that they are silent, that they’re not coming out in support of him, and lastly I think that Trump really… I still question whether he really, really wants this. Because if he really, really does want this position, he can have it with just a few minor tweaks on the things that he does on a daily basis. And so that was my point regarding the endorsements.
RUSH: All right, two things —
CALLER: (interrupting)
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. Don’t go away here. Don’t go away. You said some provocative things. Did I understand you correctly? You mentioned a lot of Republicans would endorse Trump except they’re afraid to?
CALLER: I do. I think they’re afraid to endorse him because the perception from the Republican Party is that if you’re for Trump… Because they’re doing everything they can to get rid of this man.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: If you’re for him, then you will be looked at by some in the public as bigoted or racist or just too flamboyant or not presidential.
RUSH: Yeah, but you started off describing this as being establishment related, and you’re on to something there. But that’s not how the establishment operates. But I’ll explain that later.
CALLER: But here’s a question, then.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: If Rubio is out there saying that Trump does not describe his policy and that you can’t get away with that down the road, well, you know what, Mr. Rubio? We’ve asked you so many times, “What’s your stance on immigration?” and your reply is, “Let’s build a wall,” which has been Trump’s motto, and then his response is, “We’ll let the American people decide what they’ll accept.”
RUSH: Well, but see that’s not —
CALLER: How is that describing your policy?
RUSH: Wait, wait. But that’s not right, either. Can you hang on through the break here?
CALLER: Yeah, of course.
RUSH: And then will you let me speak and respond when you come back? Because if you will, I’ll let you hang on here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, we’re back with Sal from Cooperstown, New York. Sal, about your definition of “the establishment,” you said you consider the establishment to be any Republican takes money from contributors and is going to act on that money in terms of executing policy or what have you. That’s close, but look: In terms of endorsements, the Republican Party is the Republican Party. And, for all intents and purposes, we’re gonna call it “the establishment.” If you’re in the Republican Party, if you’re elected and you want to become more powerful in the Republican Party…
If you’re gonna climb the ladder of success in the Republican Party, if you’re in the House and you want a committee chairmanship and you want to get part of the leadership eventually (Senate, same thing) you are not gonna endorse Donald Trump. You are going to endorse who the party is officially for, and right now that has become Rubio. It was Jeb; it has become Rubio. If you don’t do that, you may as well forget amounting to anything in the Republican Party. It’d be no different than if you worked for McDonald’s and went out there and publicly endorsed Wendy’s. You’d be finished at McDonald’s! You just… It’s just the way it is. It’s not —
CALLER: But “we” that are not part of the establishment — we as the public — we finally have a chance, finally have a chance to hire somebody who is not indebted, who is not playing the, “Hey, I better go along with the crowd or I’m not going to get my career change.”
RUSH: Exactly! But the Republican establishment is not applauding that. They’re scared to death of that. They don’t want any part of that. They don’t want you “hiring” somebody that’s not one of them! And you can’t expect them to get excited that you’re gonna do that, and you can’t expect… They’re gonna fight you left and right, which is exactly what they’re doing, which is why they are in trouble. Look, it goes much deeper than that. But that’s who the establishment is. The establishment is the club that you can’t join.
You can’t apply for it. There’s no application. You don’t go, “Hey, I want to join this club.” You can run for office, you can become a lobbyist, but you can’t get in there on merit. It has to be connections and then merit takes over. It’s a closed club. You can’t fly to Augusta, Georgia, go to the clubhouse at Augusta National, and say, “I want to become a member.” It doesn’t work that way in any club of elites. And, by the way, let me tell you something else Al Sharpton said, and he is more right than he may know. Donald Trump is from Queens.
He has never been accepted by the elites of Manhattan, despite what he’s done. Trump’s dad, Fred Trump, was from Queens. Trump was born in Queens. These clubs, when you’re talking about elites and these super high achievers or whatever, however they got there, they are really exclusive and exclusionary. And Trump has never been welcomed into that group of elites that make up Manhattan powerbrokers, be they in real estate or politics or anything else.
Now, that’s not to say that he doesn’t run around with ’em. It’s not to say that he doesn’t go to dinner with them. It not to say that he doesn’t socialize. But he’s not one of them. And it has propelled him and motivated him to build taller buildings, to become more famous, to become a bigger personality than any of them combined, because he’s not admitted. Now, this is not something that bugs him. He doesn’t run around feeling… I’m having a mental block on the…
He has no insecurities about this or inferiority complex. It’s just the way it is. So he’s in battle with ’em now in politics. He’s not in that club. He’s not one of those elites. He’s from Queens. He’s not from Manhattan. He’s never been accepted in the Manhattan crowd. It’s really tiny and small. You don’t get accepted by moving there and becoming a success there. I mean, unless it takes years and years and years and years. But one of the hallmarks of elite clubs like this, no matter where you find them — and they exist in every town.
Every city, every town has its own elite structure, the people that run the show. And if you’re in it, you’re in it. If you’re not, and if you want to be, you’re gonna spend your life in disappointment. Trump has decided that he’s going to do everything he’s done despite them while not becoming accepted by them or one of them and so forth. And the same thing is playing out here in politics. And I think it’s one of the things that does motivate him in a sense, like it would motivate anybody else. So when it comes to endorsements?
The Republican Party, if you’re in it and you’ve run for office and if you have accepted “help” (i.e., money) from the RNC or the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee or the House Campaign Committee… Both the House and the Senate, Republican and Democrat, have a group whose purpose is to make sure every elected Republican stays elected and new ones get elected. And every year the leader changes. It’s always an elected official that chairs it up. And what they say to you is…
Let’s say you’re a freshman. You’ve gotten elected and you come in and they bring you in. “What do you want to do here?” And you tell ’em, “Well, I want to be on this committee, this committee.” And they tell you what you have to do to get it, and that is, “Do what we say. You vote the way we tell you on legislation. You don’t say what we don’t want you to say. You say what we want you to say. Do it for enough times that we can trust you, and you might get on that committee you want to someday be chairman of it. If you violate it, if you go outside…”
In this case like you described, if somebody in this situation goes out and endorses Trump, they are finished. They may be reelected every year, but they’re finished. They are nonpersons inside the party. It’s made miserable for them. They don’t want to stay. Luis Gutierrez (Democrat-Illinois) admitted all of this, that it also exists on the Democrat side. That’s why you’re not gonna have a whole lot of these people, at this stage, endorsing Trump.
Now, when we get a nominee, then all of this changes. And then party loyalty rears its head. But in this case, even then we’re gonna have to be some split factions because there are going to be some in this elite Republican group who are gonna vote for Hillary and they’re gonna say so rather than vote for Trump. They’ve already done so. There are already unnamed… They have been quoted as anonymous elected Republicans saying they’re gonna vote for Hillary instead of Trump if he’s the nominee.
They can’t stand this, because Trump blows up their elite status. Trump blows up the club. Trump demonstrates you don’t have to be in the club to get anywhere. The elites and the clubs rely on one thing — well, many things, but one thing to ensure loyalty, and that is you can’t climb the ladder without being a member. Okay, so Trump gets the nomination. They can’t let this guy become president. It just demonstrates that their club’s not needed! That’s where the Republican Party is in this whole primary right now, folks.
Everything happening in this primary is showing that that the Republican Party… Their chosen guy, Jeb Bush? He spent $115 million. Four points! Four or five points. Now they moved on to Rubio. The question ought to be: Why now Rubio? Why not Rubio at the beginning? If you like Jeb, what is this really about? Are you signing onto Rubio ’cause you really like Rubio’s ideas or is he the next guy up in the club? And the answer is: “He’s the next guy up in the club.” They hate Cruz. Cruz is exactly what I just described.
Cruz has gone up against ’em. He’s done it publicly.
He’s done it on the floor of the Senate.
He’s challenged the leadership as a bunch of lying snitches. He doesn’t have a future there, and he knows it. And they’re not gonna help him. And that’s why when Trump runs out and says basically defamatory things, the Republicans are not coming to Cruz’s rescue. “He’s getting what he deserves. He went up against the club, he went up against the elites, and this is what he deserves. He’s getting his!” That’s the way they look at it. Now, as to your other thing about if Trump really wants this, Sal, would you tell me…? What did you say? If Trump really wanted this, he would modify things he’s saying? What do you mean by that?
CALLER: What I mean by that is when he starts hearing that if he adds up the votes, he just comes out and says on TV, “I’m gonna get some of those votes.” But if he looked at the camera and said to those voters, “Hey, guys, I know you have loyalty to such-and-such, but let me earn your vote, let me show you. Yeah, I’m loud, maybe flamboyant, et cetera, but I am the hardest working individual on this stage and I want your vote.” Ask for my vote. Don’t assume that just because my guy drops out that I’m coming your way. And those are the little things that he can do that doesn’t compromise his principles or compromise —
RUSH: Wait a minute. You’re saying that if he really wants this he’s gotta make some modifications. Are you worried that he really doesn’t want to win this?
CALLER: There are times where I look and hear the things he says and say, “Come on, Donald, you know better than that. That this cheap like American public, they’re very easily persuaded by things that are said not only by you, but how the media portrays it.” And if he would just tweak things here and there like —
RUSH: Why should he? Sal, wait a minute. Hear me on this. Why should he tweak anything? He went out there and said, “I could commit murder on Fifth Avenue and my voters wouldn’t leave me.” And he was right. And the media had a cow. The media can’t believe he’s still alive and breathing. The media thought he’d be dead back on June 20th, three days after he announced. I mean, your theory that he doesn’t really want to win this because he’s out saying outrageous things guaranteed to cause people some concern and not vote for him, we’re way past that.
CALLER: But if he could just tweak a couple things to guarantee an ultimate win, isn’t winning the ultimate goal here?
RUSH: Yeah, and I think — yes. I was going to offer an opinion. Yes, of course it is. But you think he might be trying to lose it.
CALLER: No, I’m not thinking he’s trying to lose it. I’m just thinking that him being himself to some people in America that truly don’t see through it all might be persuaded —
RUSH: Let me ask you this. Forget what you said about how he could appeal to voters instead of assume he’s gonna get ’em. Does it bother you at all that he’s out there just saying this really, really defamatory stuff about Ted Cruz, calling him a liar and a nut and crazy, waving the Bible and he doesn’t really believe all this religious stuff ’cause he wouldn’t be holding the Bible while lying the way he does, does that bother with you? Does that kind of stuff, what he says about other candidates, bother you?
CALLER: From the topic of why he’s doing it, no, but why I am bothered by it is if he keeps these two candidates, Rubio and Cruz, in the race, right to the end, I’m convinced that he can win it. So I don’t want Rubio or Cruz to drop out. I want them to stay in it and continuously get their 20%, let him get his 40, and that will get him to where he needs to get to. If one of those two decide to drop out then I’m gonna have to worry about something else. Whether it happens or not is another story, but it is something to talk about.
RUSH: Fascinating. All right, good. I’ve gotta take a break. We gotta process that, ’cause we got a genuine Trumpist here, folks. Got to process that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This interview that Sharpton gave to The Politico in explaining why he’s not sure that Hillary understands race, Sharpton actually said that being from Queens has kept Trump from ever being accepted by the rich and powerful in Manhattan. And it’s true. This is not a criticism, folks. I’m not complaining about anything, and Trump doesn’t either. It’s just the way of the world. This is why all this talk of equality and sameness, it’s bogus. You’re always gonna have the movers and shakers and the powerful that determine things. You’re never gonna take that away from ’em. Well, it’s not that you’re never gonna take it away from ’em. You’re never gonna change them.
Even in homeless populations you’ve got the elite bunch that determine who’s real and who isn’t in there. It’s just the way human beings organize themselves. And Sharpton’s point was that the elites, the power brokers, the rich and powerful in Manhattan, Trump’s from Queens, he was never fully accepted. He was accepted as a success. He was accepted as a guy that built buildings, but he’s not one of them, Sharpton said, just like being black kept him from being accepted by the same people in Manhattan.
But, anyway, Sharpton’s point is this is why Trump is so anti-establishment and why he’s willing to take on the establishment, is because there is some resentment there. And to one degree or another there’s truth to this. And, by the same token, you have people, and they’re obvious if you know how to spot ’em. I call ’em front-runner suck-ups. There are people who are not part of these clubs or groups, but desperately want to be and so badly want to be, that they will publicly demonstrate that they want to be by acting like they are, by trying to be in close proximity to whoever is hot at the moment. Whoever’s got a lot light shining on ’em, that today mostly means getting a lot of media coverage.
You’ll see all kinds of people that are trying to get close and maneuver in and want to be thought of as a crucial member of someone’s inner circle or what have you. Yes, I could name names, but I’m not going to. There’s no point in naming names. If you know how to spot these people, you can see ’em left and right. I’ll tell you how to find them. They’re people that on their own have done very little, but that’s not their reputation. It happens to be the reality, but it’s not their reputation. Their reputations are far beyond what they’ve actually done, but they know their reputation is shaky and sketchy. There’s a constant attempt to make it appear as though they’re insiders.
Let me think of somebody who’s dead who did this that I could give you an illustration. It may take a while to come up with that. I know you’re curious. “Who are you talking about, what do you mean? Give us an example.” I understand that. They’re all over the place. Music, movies. There’s names for ’em, celebrity screwers. You’ve got the same type of people trying to get in tight with bankers, trying to get in tight with politicians, trying to get in tight with media people, trying to get in tight with anybody else who’s getting a lot of media and public attention for whatever reason, who have not been able to do it on their own, who want to have it reflect on them, but they’re not responsible for it.
They’re all over the place. And sometimes they’re very able to fool — (interruption) No, I’m not thinking Hillary. No, no, no, no. The Clintons are a different. The Clintons are really not part of any elite, but they were able to forge their own sort of perverted version of one because they were able to shine or bring a lot of light to a lot of other people, but they’re not a good example of this. They’re an example of outsiders that got inside and forced people to accept them.
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