CALLER:  Hello, Rush.  Mega dittos.  It’s an honor to speak with you.

RUSH:  Thank you very much.  I appreciate that.

CALLER: Um, I’m in the car in a very notoriously bad area for reception so I hope I don’t lose you.

RUSH:  You sound fine right now.

CALLER:  I have a question and then a favor to ask of you.

RUSH:  All right.

CALLER:  Obviously Crazy Bernie had no chance to win.  He knew it, everybody else knew it, but now everybody else knows it because of the release of all of those emails.

RUSH: Mmm.

CALLER: So what was his incentive to continue to go?  He knew he’d have to give a concession speech. He knew that his followers were gonna be upset. He probably knew that many of them were not gonna support Hillary. So why stay in it?  Did it get out of his control? Did he not think he would be as popular as he was?

RUSH:  Oh, no.  No, no, no.  Well, maybe at the beginning when he thought it was pipe dream, but I think as this thing went on he got totally sucked in by it, even though he knew that the deck was stacked. Remember, these people have egos like you can’t believe.  They have to have.  In order to do this, you have to have an outsized ego. I don’t care how they portray themselves, they have huge egos, an ego such that the nation can’t survive without me.

They really do. You almost have to believe that to put up with everything else you go through, and I really believe that he thought — even though he knew the game was rigged — that he could put enough pressure on ’em to expose it.  I think he thought he could upset what was rigged.  And I think as it went on, I think he transformed from “I don’t have a chance in this ’cause the game’s rigged” to thinking he might actually win.

And then it became, “I’m gonna control this platform! I’m gonna make sure this party stands for what I believe.”  He got self-absorbed in it and didn’t want to let go.  He’s got millions of people! This guy couldn’t get noticed by an ant farm six months ago, and now half the country’s mesmerized with him?  He never wanted to let go of that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  So here it is.  I got an email from a Democrat disagreeing with me.  I’m assuming it’s a Democrat.  ‘Cause I told the last caller, the last caller wanted to know, why did Bernie stay in this when he knew the game was rigged.  And I went through all the reasons that Bernie would stay in.  But at the top was the ego aspect of it.

Seriously, folks, here’s a guy, Bernie Sanders, who didn’t have — this is true — he did not have a full-time job until he was 40.  He was 40 years old before he got his first job.  He’s never made any money.  He’s the kind of guy that walks down the street and you don’t notice him, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy. Then this happens and a guy who couldn’t get noticed by an ant farm a year ago is now drawing crowds in excess of 10,000.

It went to his head and he loved it. He ate it up and he wanted more of it.  And at some point I think he did become convinced that if he kept at this, that they could overwhelm these superdelegates. That at some point he could cause so much unrest that the party would have no choice but than to acknowledge that he was winning everything.  I think that’s one of the reasons he hung in.  I really think he was trying to overthrow what had been rigged against him.  And at some point it became apparent to him that this wasn’t gonna happen.

So I get this email during the break.  “You know, that’s crazy.  You just make things up about people all the time.”  I’m paraphrasing.  I didn’t print the email.  I have the thrust of it here.  “If that’s why people did things, you’d be out there all the time.  You think people want this ’cause of crowds and ’cause of ego.  You’d be out there all the time.  That doesn’t explain why he did it.  Otherwise you’d be out there doing the same.  You’d be doing speeches.”  And I said before the break, no.

That would be the last reason for me.  That stuff makes me uncomfortable, actually.  But I just know people like in Bernie’s case, you get caught up in it.  It’s easy to believe. I’ve always tried to keep things like that in perspective.  But it’s easy for people get lost in it.  How many people do you know in your life, be it where you live or be it somebody who has decent amount of fame, how many people do you know who think they are really big time something, and they’re really when you get down to, nothing.  And yet you marvel at how they’re able to convince themselves they’re really, really huge.

I know people, you wouldn’t believe the number of people.  I know people with programs that have an audience of three million who really do believe that the whole country is watching or listening to ’em, and they get lost in that and they lose their perspective, and they end up losing their humility.  And for people that like that kind of adoration, it can be seductive.  And I do think Bernie got caught up in some of that.

I’m not saying he didn’t believe what he was saying.  I’m not saying he wasn’t a movement guy.  He clearly was.  I think he had all the ingredients there.  Anyway, just to explain the snarky email.