RUSH: No, no, no, I’ve told Mr. Trump not to schedule these things to start at 12 noon, I’ve told him. He doesn’t listen. He’s his own guy. He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. He’ll probably make the adjustment as time goes on, but this foreign policy speech, somebody else set this thing up. I know what’s going on with this thing today. It’s at the Mayflower Hotel, it’s in Washington, DC.
Normally what happens is the only people that schedule personal appearances right when this program starts are Obama and the Democrats and they do it trying to get this program preempted so that local stations will carry what they’re doing and tick off my audience.
Anyway, folks, great to have you here, and we are at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. And I have a question for you about that today as the program unfolds. But I have to tell you — no other way to say it — I was just not right yesterday. Well, it’s not a big deal. I mean, it’s not a big deal, but I clearly said on this program 24 hours ago that what was gonna happen yesterday and last night was not gonna shake anything up because it was already expected to happen.
Trump was going to win. And the delegates that Trump was going to collect had already been factored in and that these five states that voted yesterday were really not going to have that big an impact on things because nothing unexpected would happen, and that’s not true. This was a tsunami that happened yesterday. It was incredible what happened here yesterday.
Do you realize, folks, that Trump won every county in every state that was holding elections yesterday? Every county in every state. Nobody predicted, even the most favorable predictions, even the most supportive predictions, nobody came close, really, to what happened yesterday.
Trump got 58% of the vote in Connecticut, Cruz got 12%. Trump got 61% in Delaware, Cruz got 16%. Fifty-seven percent for Trump in Pennsylvania. That surprised a lot of people. And I’ll tell you something else. Kasich was thought to do better. He wasn’t gonna win anything, but people thought that Kasich would do better in some of these Northeastern states ’cause there’s a bunch of moderate liberal Republicans there.
Ted Cruz has a major announcement today at four o’clock, timed to occur after this program ends. And there are two possibilities. (interruption) No, no, no. He’s not gonna — now be nice. Come on. Don’t sit in there and gloat. Be nice. Don’t you have any compassion for people that try this? All right. Look, there’s two things that could happen. It’s either gonna be, he’s gonna announce that Mike Pence is gonna endorse him, the governor of Indiana, or he’s gonna announce his vice presidential pick.
And, frankly, folks, I don’t see Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, endorsing Cruz, or anybody today. But this… This defeat yesterday was just too massive. There’s no reason to endorse somebody today. There’s no basis for it. Unless your endorsement is Trump, and Pence is not gonna do that. So it has to be that Cruz is gonna announce that he’s chosen somebody to be his vice president. It’s probably gonna be Carly Fiorina, who might be looked at as somebody can help in California because she’s lived there. She has run for office there before.
And it’ll be, you know, a typical move for a campaign that’s in this position. But this… As I say, there are takeaways. I watched Trump last night after the voting was all over and the tabulations were in, and he’d just announced that he’s the presumptive nominee now. He went out and he said that Bernie Sanders was robbed and should run as an independent. He said that he will take his people out of the GOP, and the GOP will lose the White House and the Senate, if people don’t unite behind him; that he has no problem doing that.
And he then went after Hillary Clinton. He said if she were a man, she wouldn’t get 5% of the vote — that’s max she would get — that all she does is play the gender card. And he basically said, “Hillary Clinton’s gonna be easier to beat than the 16 guy I already have beat.” It was… Trump pulled something off last night. He came off as presidential and also came off as Trump. He actually put those two things together out there.
There is panic setting in at the Republican establishment level, and there is curiosity that is boiling over in some sectors of the conservative movement. John Podhoretz has a piece today wondering, why can’t Cruz do any… I mean here’s the great, great conservative. Why aren’t people voting for him? Why aren’t conservative Republicans coming out and voting for Cruz? A lot of people are scratching their heads trying to figure this out. I think I can answer it.
But, you know what? I want to leave that question open for you all today for a while. I want to find out what you think, ’cause it is kind of curious, is it not? (interruption) There is. You have here… (interruption) What? No, no. People who think that ideology matters and people who think that conservatism’s the antidote to what’s happening to the country, we’ve got a conservative. We do not have a Mitt Romney. We’ve got an actual, tried and true conservative running for the Republican presidential nomination.
This is something that years ago people would have been celebrating and would have considered a major victory just to have it happen. Now it has happened, you don’t… I can’t tell you the number of hardcore conservatives — and maybe just not hardcore, but people just who are conservative, but they’re not ideologues about it. From all walks of conservatism, people are curious and trying to figure out why there is happening.
And you can’t leave Trump out of the equation here when you answer the question. But I think it’s not… I don’t want to answer it — not yet — because when I say something there’s nothing left to be said about but whatever it is. But… Like Jim Geraghty at National Review. His blog is called Morning Jolt: “Beating Trump at the Convention Became More Difficult Last Night.” Here’s an excerpt:
“John Podhoretz says it’s time to face facts, that even if you grant Ted Cruz was never going to be a strong candidate in the Northeast, heÂ’s faltering: ‘After Trump’s astounding five-for-five primary night, by margins that were likely surprising even for Trump fans, it’s now Indiana or bust. If Trump wins the primary next week in the Hoosier state, Cruz is toast and Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee.'”
This is Podhoretz now: “‘There’s no putting a lipstick on this pig. Cruz’s numbers Tuesday night, like his numbers in New York last week, were beyond horrible. With six weeks to go before voting concludes, the man conservatives are hoping can overcome Trump with his clever delegate game and more serious mien is getting 10 to 15 percent of the vote in major states.'”
Geraghty himself writes: “I say this as a guy who’s pulling for Cruz now — why is he having such a tough time winning some of these states? Why is he fighting for his life in Indiana of all places, the land of Hoosiers, Dan Quayle, Mitch Daniels…?” Why? They go on to talk about how puzzled they are that Cruz lost the evangelical vote in a lot of places. “Cruz lost the evangelical vote in a lot of places. He lost all of the Southern primaries to the previously pro-choice, thrice-married casino and strip-club owner who bragged of his affairs with married women…”
There’s just a lot of people that don’t understand this. So much was thought to be understood. Not that the skids were greased, but it has a lot of people scratching their heads, frustrated, bamboozled, curious as to just what explains this. Now, we go over to Mike Allen and his daily newsletter published at The Politico: “Donald Trump said last night after winning each of the five primary states by 29 or more points,” and again: He won every county in every state, every county in five states.
“‘As far as I am concerned, it’s over. … I consider myself the presumptive nominee — absolutely.’ … To the pundits who’ll try to infuse next week’s Indiana primary — Ted Cruz’s last stand — with melodrama and cosmic significance: Good luck. Trump won Connecticut by 29, Delaware by 40, Maryland by 31, Pennsylvania by 35, Rhode Island by 39. I think the voters are trying to tell us something.
“A top Republican insider laments that even with conservative calculations, he now projects Trump will cross the magic number of 1,237 delegates to win on the first ballot at the Cleveland convention: ‘The dominoes are falling, and you can’t stop them. … Kasich staying in the race was an in-kind contribution to Trump. It blocked Cruz from ever getting his one-on-one shot.'” Kasich hasn’t pulled enough to matter anyway. I think that’s a nonfactor.
So the wisest men at the top of the Republican Party think that Trump is guaranteed to elect Hillary Clinton in a landslide and that it’s the end of the Republican Party. That’s what Murphy’s saying here. “The lights are going out across the Republican Party tonight… It’s like Trump has built a lab to blow a general election, even against Hillary Clinton,” meaning Hillary should be easily beatable. Hillary Clinton’s the easiest to beat Democrat down the pipe and we’re gonna blow it. We’re gonna lose in a landslide ’cause we’re gonna nominate Trump.
That’s what they think at the upper echelons of the Republican establishment. “Murphy predicted Trump will ‘turn on the insult comedy’ against Clinton: ‘But her big judo win is to play the victim. … Jeb was the anti-Trump; now we have Trump. And Kasich, the guy who COULD win a general election, can’t get arrested.'” So Mike Murphy thinks that the best bet we have is Kasich. The only guy that could win the general and beat Hillary.
Instead, we’re gonna get Trump, who can’t beat Hillary — and in fact, is gonna get beaten in a landslide, and is gonna destroy the Republican Party. What has been destroyed here, folks — well, not yet. But what has really taken on some heavy water is the GOP establishment and the consultant class. I mean, they had all of their candidates. They had two or three of them in that original mix of 16, and combined they couldn’t get 10% of the vote with all of that money.
And there are reasons for all of this, and I’m looking forward to getting into them with you and trying to make sense of some of this. ‘Cause it does make sense. What’s happening here is logical. Some people may not want to hear it. They may reflectively, instinctively disagree with what’s happening here. If you understand one thing… Let me give you one thing going into the break. Presidential elections… You stop and think about this now. I would classify this as a near profundity. Presidential elections are situational. They are not ideological. Stop and think about what that means. Of course, I am here to help explain it as the program unfolds.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now Trump is down to needing 287 delegates to clinch the GOP nomination. There are 10 races left and Indiana is the big one, of course, coming up next Tuesday. It’s really all down to that.
But the momentum after yesterday is undeniable.
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