RUSH: The Republicans and the Drive-Bys think that they’ve got Trump in the crosshairs now. They think that the race is over. They’ve got this Bloomberg poll, and it shows Hillary has advanced her lead over the Trumpster. I think she’s up by 11 in this poll. And, since everybody knows that the presidential race is decided by polls in June, it’s over for Trump, and the media and a bunch of Republicans are ecstatic about it. We have a montage here.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Presidential campaigns are won or lost not in the fall, but in the spring and early summer. This might be a sinking ship.
DAN SENOR: The gap is widening between Hillary and Trump.
CHUCK TODD: Trump has picked a bad time to have a bad time. You cannot have your polls start cratering in June.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Sixty-three percent of women say they will never vote for Donald Trump. That’s pretty devastating in June.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Hillary Clinton opening up a double-digit lead.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: You’re starting to see perhaps the chickens coming home to roost.
NICOLLE WALLACE: The Trump campaign is experiencing his near-death political exercise.
MARK HALPERIN: This is a really critical period. The Republicans are looking for him to turn things around not in a few days, but today, quick.
RUSH: Right. Remember, presidential elections are decided by polling data in June now. Somebody might want to tell President Dukakis about that. You know, President Dukakis was leading big time in the polls. President Dukakis double-digit lead all through the summer until George H. W. Bush in concert — by the way, this program started August 1st, 1988, and that’s exactly when George H. W. Bush’s polling fortunes began to turn. I’m not kidding.
Anyway, Michael Dukakis ended up losing even though they were declaring him the winner. I mean, Susan Estrich was his campaign manager, was on Meet the Press with Tim Russert and was running around acting like they’ve won this thing months in advance because of polling data in June. And here are these seasoned political professionals. Who did you hear there?
You heard John Heilemann; you heard Dan Senor, who is a Republican establishment type; you heard F. Chuck Todd of NBC News; Joe Scarborough; George Stephanopoulos; Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist, analyst, now moved over to the No Labels crowd, I think; Savannah Guthrie at NBC News; Nicole Wallace from the George W. Bush communications office of the White House; and Mark Halperin.
He was the spokesman. He’s more than that. He was an executive with Paul Bremer. That’s where you might remember the name, and he’s big in Republican establishment circles. He’s on CBS this morning, and Heilemann said to him, “Let me ask a straight political question. You have the Judge Curiel comments. You have the response to Orlando saying that soldiers in Iraq stole from the recovery fund. You have a sense Republican leaders are more pessimistic about Trump’s prospects than they’ve ever been. So is there now a renewed push to dump Trump at the convention, Mr. Senor?”
SENOR: There are two tracks being discussed. One track continues to be a potential independent candidacy, which is very hard and very narrow at this point. The other thing being talked about is whether or not some rules could be amended to actually force a real convention fight to replace him. It’s a long shot. I don’t know if it will happen. More and more you hear the Republicans saying that the system, the establishment, the whole machine supporting the Republican ticket can’t sustain another couple weeks like these last couple weeks.
RUSH: Right. So it’s over. They have figured out that Trump has stepped in it one too many times now. The judge business. This is the first poll that I’ve seen that might have any damage to Trump on the judge business. All last week there weren’t any such data. You know, polls, you can’t just arbitrarily toss ’em out when you don’t like ’em. Have to deal with them as they are.
But the interesting thing here is that the Republicans have no desire to even fight here. They want to dump this guy. They want to toss him overboard. They want Mitt Romney. They want somebody to come back in there. They want to take over their own convention. They want to toss Trump. They want to set up a whole brand-new procedure so they can have a real, real open convention floor fight, get rid of Trump, and put in somebody they want, who’s also guaranteed to lose. But at least they will be happier.
RATHER: Put me on the record. I’m not predicting he will win. I will say he’s capable of winning in November. He has a path. I’m not saying he will win, but he can win. Democrats who want Hillary Clinton to be president, should be afraid. They should be very, very afraid. Anybody who thinks that Donald Trump is gonna moderate himself along the way is either slightly touched or smoking something very expensive. It’s just not gonna happen. Before this campaign is over, it will be nastier than a possum’s mouth. This is gonna get really, really ugly. The race is very fluid at the moment. You can go away and not come back until sometime after Labor Day and not miss a whole lot.
RUSH: Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think it’s gonna be a lull. He contradicted himself there a little bit. He said this is gonna be nastier than a possum’s mouth, but you’re not gonna miss anything if you take time off from now to Labor Day. (laughing) Convention’s coming up? Anyway, the point though is that Rather thinks these guys are getting a little bit overconfident now. Rather thinks that Trump can win.
Now, don’t forget Rather’s perspective here. Think whatever you want about Dan Rather, he got caught running a phony, fake story and actually lost his job for it. That does not happen in the Drive-By Media. His perspective on events is much different from the protected, encircled class of people in the Drive-By Media that are basically just Democrats with bylines. But because disaster has happened to Rather, he’s aware that it can happen, and Trump winning would be disastrous.