RUSH: Peter King, hashing through the headlines here, folks, Peter King, congressman from Long Island, quote, “I fully agree with John Boehner, and maybe he gives Lucifer a bad name by comparing him to Ted Cruz.” We got audio of Boehner, by the way. Let me find this. Grab audio sound bite number seven. This is Boehner on Wednesday at Stanford University. He’s being interviewed by a professor emeritus of history out there by the name of David Kennedy who said, “Mr. Speaker, what is your opinion of some of the people running for president? How about Ted Cruz?”

BOEHNER: Lucifer in the flesh. (laughter/applause) In Washington I have as many Democrat friends as I have Republican friends, I get along with almost everybody. But I’ve never worked with a more miserable son of a [bleeped] (edited laughter) Now, over my dead body will he be president.

RUSH: “I have never worked with a more miserable son of a b-i-itch than Ted Cruz. Now, over my dead body will he be president.” Here’s a guy who has no problem working with Harry Reid or Pelosi or Van Hollen or any of these extreme leftists in the House of Representatives, or even over in the Senate.

And here’s Peter King. This was CNN yesterday, Wolf Blitzer: “What is your take on the latest dispute between Boehner and Ted Cruz? You know both these guys. What’s the scoop?”

KING: I fully agree with John Boehner, and maybe he gives Lucifer a bad name by comparing him to Ted Cruz. Listen, what John Boehner was most concerned about was Ted Cruz perpetrated a fraud and a hoax when he brought about the shutdown of the government, some kind of a vague promise that he was going to be able to take Obamacare out of the budget or to end Obamacare. Ted Cruz knew it was never gonna work but he went ahead and did it anyway, shut down the government, cost the government money, served no purpose whatsoever other than to boost his name identification. So I agree with John Boehner on that.

RUSH: Right. See, now, if you stick with this stuff long enough you find out what really, really animates these people and what really bugs ’em. And what really bugs ’em is that Cruz shut down the government.

And if you know one thing, know this: The Republican Party in Washington, establishment, whatever you want to call them, they fear government shutdowns. They fear that more than they fear anything, because of the 1995 budget deal and repeated attempts to shut down the government. They are scared of the media. They’re scared of the Democrats. They think that’s why they’re losing is because they’ve talked about shutting down the government. Cruz did it.

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RUSH: You know, it’s interesting to, again, be reminded, it’s great to see just how insane Republican establishment people are driven just talking about, just remembering a government shutdown. Now, the grievance that Peter King has with Cruz, it’s very simple: They don’t believe that Cruz was serious about stopping Obamacare, because they’re not.

Here’s the rub, folks. The Republican establishment has never been about stopping Obama. It’s never been about stopping Obamacare. In 2010 when it was passed, they didn’t have the votes anyway, so you can’t hold it against them. There’s nothing they could have done. They couldn’t have stopped it in the original vote. They didn’t have enough votes in the House. And the Senate was a lost cause anyway.

But after the midterms in 2010 it was an entirely different — I mean the House was taken back, got a majority, got control back precisely because of the Tea Party, precisely because of Obama’s spending, precisely because of Obamacare, and the Republican establishment, they just didn’t want to work. It’s hard being the opposition. It’s hard trying to stop the first African-American president that they think is universally loved and adored. They wanted no part of it.

The Republican establishment is not ideological. So they don’t view Obama as a radical leftist doing great damage. He’s just the latest Democrat to be in office. And it’s something that, hey, they still got jobs, Boehner was still Speaker and they’ve got the committee chairmanships and they’ve got the perks and all that, don’t rock the boat, just don’t rock the boat.

Reliving this I get so damn mad because it’s not a question of rocking the boat; they took no advantage of that massive landslide midterm election victory that you all gave them. Winning back the House of Representatives, specifically to do whatever they could do to delay or stop or defund partially Obamacare, and not a finger, other than lip service, a bunch of phony votes that had no weight behind ’em whatsoever.

Then we learn that Obama’s IRS is defrauding Tea Party groups, not granting them tax-exempt status. I mean, it was wrong what was going on. It was not just political thuggery, it was statutory violation of law, and they still wouldn’t say anything. Didn’t want to rock the boat. We know all the reasons: Obama’s race, fear of the media.

So here came Cruz, who was dead serious. He had been elected by people after promising them that he would do what he could to stop Obamacare. And he does what he can do, and imagine a single guy was able to shut down the government. Wow. Pretty impressive. I’d be bragging about it if I were Cruz.

But nevertheless you got guys like Peter King and Boehner, “Oh, no, oh, my God, oh, don’t do that, you’re gonna kill us all. We’re sitting here, we’re in good shape, we’re not making anybody mad. Obama’s getting what he wants. We can’t stop him anyway. What are you doing, Cruz? Don’t do this, you’re gonna make us all look –” And then they shut down the government. Oh, no, the absolute, you talk about Lucifer, you talk about showing Dracula the cross.

And then you add to it the fact that they believe Cruz was just showboating. That he never really intended to do anything about Obamacare, because in their minds there was nothing that could be done. They didn’t even want to try, and they never have, as a majority party. I’m sure you’ve got individual Republicans in the House and Senate, but in terms of how the leadership dictated the political action in both houses, there was no serious effort to defund or stop or derail or delay Obamacare.

So Cruz came along and actually did it, and they think that he is a phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller because in their minds there was no way anybody could ever do it, and Cruz knew that. So he was selfish, he went in there and he shut down the government only to prepare everybody for this, his presidential run. And he used them and he used the House and he used the Senate and he made all these Republicans look bad, engaging in something that everybody knew was no way possible.

And so they hate him. They hate him ’cause they don’t think he’s genuine. They hate him ’cause they think he’s disingenuous. They hate him ’cause they think he’s phony. They hate him ’cause they think he betrayed ’em. They hate him because they think he made them look bad. They hate him because they think he knew from top to bottom there was no way anything was gonna be done to stop Obamacare. So he goes in there and shuts the government down selfishly, knowing full well, in their minds, how damaging it is to the Republican Party.

See, that’s the rub. It’s not! It’s only in their minds that government shutdowns hurt them, and in the media. It’s the only power Congress has to stop anything. The power of the purse is the only thing. They telegraphed to Obama they weren’t gonna impeach him, they were not gonna do anything to stop him.

You know, let me remind you, a year after the 2013 government shutdown, do you even remember that one? These things are supposedly so tragic, they are so upsetting, so damaging, the government shut down, oh, my God, the absolute worst that could ever happen to Republicans.

Do you remember the 2013 government shutdown? Do you remember it? Do you remember what it was about? Do you remember when it took place? I’ll bet you don’t. Well, let me tell you what happened after it happened. What came after 2013? There was a government shutdown in 2013. The Republicans didn’t want it, but it happened.

What happened in 2014, after the government shutdown in 2013, what happened? Don’t bother looking it up. You know what it is. You just can’t remember. I’ll tell you: Another landslide midterm election victory. Now, how the hell is that possible? You have a government shutdown, Republican sponsored, 2013, they hate Cruz for it, phony baloney, never gonna stop Obamacare, Cruz knew it. Shut down the government for what, almost two weeks, 10, 12, 15 days, whatever. A year later the Republicans win the Senate back. A year later the Republicans with another landslide in the midterms.

And yet the Republican establishment’s running around fretting and wringing their hands over a government shutdown being responsible for their demise. And yet Republicans came out and once again delivered a midterm election, a landslide victory for the Republicans. There’s no evidence that the government shutdown of 2013 did any damage. But they go back, just like the idea, the thought of a conservative nominee makes them think of Barry Goldwater and a landslide loss. Well, government shutdown, oh, my God, all they can think about is 1995 where they think Clinton ran rings around ’em. The school lunch cuts, it was that budget, there was a government shutdown that Newt was in charge of.

You want to know the truth about that government shutdown? Republicans were not damaged at all by that one, either, in elections that followed. They were damaged in the media. Gotta admit the media went out called ’em all kinds of names. The media threatened ’em and the media told people that Republicans hate government and Republicans don’t want you getting your welfare check and the Republicans don’t want you getting this, they don’t want you getting that benefit.

When the government shuts down the media runs around and tells people that there’s no reason to live. In fact, you may not be able to live, government just got shut down, Republicans shut down the government, you might die, is what the media does.

And rather than Republicans standing up and calling that out as a bunch of literal crap, they play along with it, act scared to death, and end up ceding — c-e-d-i-n-g — all kinds of power to the Democrats and to Obama. And all Cruz did was fulfill some campaign promises to people that voted for him in Texas and other promises he made to other Republicans nationwide ’cause he was serious about stopping Obamacare.

His big shock was when he got to Washington found out nobody else was serious. I’ve had him tell me how stunned he was. It didn’t take him long to learn, how stunned he was when he actually got elected to the Senate and arrived there, to find out how little any of them really cared about very many of the things that Cruz had campaigned on. What he found out was that the single most important thing day to day is reelection, which means scheduling fundraisers and PR events and sponsoring certain kinds of legislation designed to promote reelection.

So, in their minds, Cruz is phony. He knew there was no way of stopping Obamacare but he wanted it for his own selfish reasons, and he shut down the government in the process. And for that he’s Satan. And these clowns don’t even have the wherewithal to actually understand that that government shutdown didn’t hurt them. Now, in the media, yeah, and it goes back to talking about nobody wants to be hated, everybody wants to be loved, that’s the Republicans.

They want to be loved by the media. They want to be respected by the media. So Cruz comes along and shuts down the government, and they, “Well, we just gotta sit back, we were just making inroads here, the media was just starting to like us, just starting to give us respect after 20 years, and here comes Cruz blowing it sky-high. now we’re hated again.” They never gave one iota’s worth of thought of joining him. So Cruz is out on this island by himself.

You look at what Cruz has done, I mean, you might look at last Tuesday and the five-state sweep, yeah. But you look at the forces that are arrayed against Ted Cruz, compared to the forces arrayed in favor of and for Donald Trump, and it is striking to me that Cruz has done as well as he has, given what he’s up against. I’m not trying to create sympathy for him, nor would he accept it. I’m just trying to give you a factual analysis here of what he’s had to deal with. He’s doing the best he can with the deck that he’s been dealt, hand that he’s been dealt.

He wouldn’t complain about it, it’s not gonna get you anywhere, and I’m not complaining either. But I just think people need to stop and reflect. You can’t turn on a cable news network without finding the vast majority of any network fawning over Trump.

By the way, did you see the story by Campbell Brown earlier this week? She’s a former Today show hostette, and she was an infobabe at CNN. She’s married to Dan Senor, the Republican guy that ran Iraq in the Green Zone after we got out of there, after we cleaned their clock with the Bush invasion of Iraq. Paul Bremer, he was the spokesman for Paul Bremer, married Campbell Brown, they got hitched. Anyway, that’s just who she is. She had a piece this week. She said she’s appalled at what’s become of the media. She’s embarrassed. She said, “But I’m not gonna blame Trump. I’m gonna blame the media.”

She thinks it’s the end of media as everyone’s know known it. She says it’s the end of reporting. She says it appalls her, doesn’t matter what network, Trump does a live event and they cover the whole damn thing as though Trump has bought the time, and there’s no reporting of it, there’s no analysis, the reporters are there, but they just do stand-ups in front of the massive crowd. She says she’s never seen this before. She’s never seen whole rallies, hour, hour and a half, be televised.

She said the reason is, with so much media fragmentation, Trump simply means ratings and he means dollars, advertising dollars. And she went so far as to say — maybe it wasn’t her, maybe it was someone else I was reading — so far as to say it may be so profound that the media will not swing to Hillary after the conventions. That they’re gonna stay with Trump because they love the focus of attention Trump is bringing all of them. I don’t know. But I thought her observation of what has happened to the media — it’s different than the way it was with McCain. We knew they were gonna switch on McCain.

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RUSH: This is Rose in Flint, Texas. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega dittos from east Texas —

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: — the Piney Woods and God’s country. We love you out here.

RUSH: Appreciate that very much.

CALLER: I’ve been listening to you since the day after the presidential election in 2008. I couldn’t believe the results and I needed hope, and I thank you for the hope that you’ve given us.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: And love your books, love your books, they’re just wonderful. I just want to thank you for your comments on Ted Cruz. As I was telling Mr. Snerdley, I am a Cruzer, and I can tell you that when he ran for Senate four years ago, he was saying the exact same things. He has not changed, he has not wavered, and he has done what he said he was gonna do, and I think he really should take Peter King’s words, and maybe Boehner’s, too, but definitely Peter King’s about how he single-handedly shut down the government. I don’t think he was aware that he was such a powerful man, and not even being yet the leader of the free world. Can you imagine once elected if he’s that powerful now —

RUSH: Yeah, you know, I read that subject line on your call sheet here, that’s what Snerdley said you wanted to say, it’s a great point, and I’m thinking, though, you know, with so many people — you don’t know the number of just average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill Republicans, not elected, just out there, moderates, they’re just as scared of government shutdown stuff as they are the social issues. So how to deal with this, I don’t know. It’s a touchy thing. I think Cruz is imminently praiseworthy for it. Rose, thanks for the call. I really appreciate it.