TRUMP Go ahead.

RUSH: Yeah. Here we go.

REPORTER: Mr. Trump, uh, Republican primary, you —

RUSH: He’s in Bismarck, North Dakota.

REPORTER:  — attacked your opponents for, uh, you know, being defunded by big donors, big-money donors. You’ve started, now, fund-raising with some really big ticket fundraisers.  How do you convince your supporters that you’re not going to become the puppet that your accused your opponents of being?

TRUMP:  Well, I’m no puppet, and I’ll tell you, I’m raising the money for the party — largely for the party — and we intend to raise a lot of money for the party.  I have no idea how much, but we’re raising it for senators, for congressmen, congresswomen —

RUSH:  It would be a record.

TRUMP:  — you know, a lot of the people that are running. We want to go in; we want to have majorities. It’s very important. We have a tremendous staff of people.  We raised last night… Actually we raised in Los Angeles, we raised a lot of money for the party, and this is money that is going into the RNC, and we are going to have, I think, a tremendous… We’re getting thanked all over by the Republican senators, by congressmen, and hopefully we’re gonna raise a lot of money. But this is money that’s being raised for the party —

RUSH: Yeah.

TRUMP: — and I think we’re going to have a tremendous success.  I’m also continuing to fund big portions of my campaign.

REPORTERS: (shouting questions)

TRUMP: Go ahead.

REPORTER:  Mr. Trump, uh, Mr. Manafort was also quoted as saying that if you did release your taxes, that he wouldn’t advise it because it would just serve to help year adversaries.  You seem to sound as if you’re not going to release the taxes —

TRUMP:  No, no. I’m releasing when we’re finished with the audit.  I have to say the IRS has been very professional, and they continue to be very professional, and when they finish… I’ve been audited, however, for 15 years, and I don’t know of very many people that have been audited for 15 years.

RUSH:  I have!

TRUMP:  I’m audited all the time, so I don’t know what that’s all about.

RUSH:  I have.

TRUMP:  But the IRS has been very professional, and as we move along, as soon as that’s finished, whenever that may be — and hopefully it’s gonna be before the election — I’m fine with it.  Okay?

REPORTER:  Just to be very specific on this: You do pay some federal taxes?

TRUMP:  I do.  Yeah.

REPORTER: You do!

TRUMP: I do.  Yes.

REPORTERS: (shouting questions)

TRUMP:  David?  David, go ahead.

REPORTER:  Mr. Trump, um, in the wake of yesterday’s, uh, inspector general report — the State Department — about Hillary Clinton emails, you said you have doubts on whether or not she could stay in the race against you.  Are you prepared right now to, in fact, call on her to get out of the race so that Americans have more confidence in the integrity of their government?

TRUMP:  Actually I want her in the race.  I want to run against her.

REPORTERS: (laughter)

TRUMP: Look, she has bad judgment.  This was all bad judgment.  Probably illegal.  We’ll have to find out what the FBI says about it, but certainly it was bad judgment.  I just read the report.  It’s devastating, the report. It’s devastating.

RUSH:  Very bad.  Very bad.

TRUMP:  There’s no reason for it.  It’s just, you know, skirting on the edge all the time, and you look back at her history, and this is her history.  It’s a very, very harsh report — done, really, by Democrats, if you think of it, appointed by Obama and done by Democrats.

RUSH:  That’s right.  That’s right.

TRUMP:  So it’s shocking to see it.  It’s shocking to see what she did, and really, more than anything else, it’s bad judgment. But that’s gonna be up to her whether she wants to continue running.

RUSH:  All right, we gotta take a break here.  That’s Trump. He’s in Bismarck, North Dakota; that’s his first press conference after crossing the 1,237 threshold.  It’s a good point.  They can’t say what they always say about this IG report. The “vast right-wing conspiracy” had nothing to do with it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  You know, stop and think of this.  Back last June and July, Hillary Clinton was thought to be on the way to a coronation.  Her nomination was a perfunctory, accepted thing.  It was automatic. It was gonna happen. Just a matter of the calendar.  And Trump was gonna implode and be sent packing in a mass moment of embarrassment.  He was going to implode.  Well, now Donald Trump has secured the GOP nomination, surpassing the 1,237 delegate threshold, and Mrs. Clinton cannot close the deal against Bernie Sanders.

It’s why I tell you, you just never know.  It’s a risky thing to start predicting long-range political outcomes (like it is anything), ’cause nobody’s knows what’s gonna happen, and nobody knows the things that are gonna transpire in the time frame in which a prediction is made.  I try to, you know, refrain from it as much as I can, ’cause you just don’t know.  Nobody would have predicted… Well, I did, by the way.  I predicted 80, 90% of this.  I got audio sound bites here today to prove it if anybody wants it, but I don’t want to waste time on that.