RUSH: Here’s Ron in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Ron… Ooh, I just looked at the clock. Go ahead, Ron.  We’ll see what we can do with this.  How you doing, sir? 

CALLER:  I’m doing good.  Thanks, Rush.  I’d like to make just one point on the media and then get your opinion on what I believe is the best course of action. 

RUSH:  Okay. 

CALLER:  The point on the media is that I don’t think we should be surprised with what the Drive-Bys are doing.  Witness the fact that they got Obama elected two terms with their ability to put out and cover what they want the talking points to be and forget the truth.  Having said that, I think that the real course of action for Trump to get going forward is to completely ignore these follow-up debates.  He has nothing to gain and everything to lose.  I mean, I really believe that you and all the other conservative talk show hosts are gonna be able to convince better any undecided voters that are out there than he’s ever gonna get from any of these debates. 

RUSH:  Okay. Let’s leave it at that. It’s a great way to end it, and I’ve got a clock problem, too, see.  Do I understand you…? Yes or no: You think he should not attend the next two debates? 

CALLER:  That’s correct.  

RUSH:  Okay. 

CALLER:   He has no benefit to gain from it. 

RUSH:  Okay.  All right.  We’ll leave it at that. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We just had Ron from Shreveport, Louisiana.  Do you know who’s famous from Shreveport, Louisiana?  Two people come to mind; there’s many more, but two people come to mind that are famous from Shreveport Louisiana:  Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw and Hal Sutton of the PGA Tour.  Well, he’s now probably on the champions tour.  Hal Sutton’s from Shreveport.  

And there’s another, he looks male model.  David — he was also from Shreveport, professional golfer, good too, I can’t think of his last name, mental block.  I once went, I did a — in fact, Bradshaw had to cancel.  They had some kind of a fundraiser every year for their foundation.  I think it was to build a children’s hospital, is what it was.  Bradshaw was due to speak and he couldn’t make it, and they called me at the last minute. “Could you come down and do it?” and I did it, and I met Sutton at that thing and David Toms. David Toms is his last name.  

Which reminds me, the Ryder Cup starts tomorrow, and Davis Love III is the captain.  My mother had friends in North Carolina. After I’d left home, I was in Pittsburgh and Kansas City, and a friend of hers from our hometown in Missouri had moved there, and one of her friends had met Davis Love III’s mother.  And my mom knew Davis Love III’s mother, and I never knew any of this until I met Davis Love III. 

It’s start tomorrow I think at 8:30 or nine o’clock on the Golf Channel. (interruption) Oh, Danny Willett, the guy that won the Masters, he’s a partier. And he’s got a brother who is an even bigger partier.  His brother just went off on slothful Americans, not the players, but fans. The way we talk about bloggers is the way he described — well, not bloggers, but the common pajama clad crew.  He just went after ’em.  Danny Willett’s brother just went after American golf fans, a bunch of fat slobs that sit around eating Cheetos and Doritos all day yelling at their computers while wearing their pajamas, thinking they can do everything when they can’t do anything.  

And Darren Clarke, the Brit captain, had to say how embarrassed he was and how he wasn’t gonna put up with that, and he sent Danny Willett to talk to his brother about it.  Yeah.  Yeah.  You didn’t think I knew about that, did you, when you brought that up?  Anyway, so the Ryder Cup starts tomorrow.  

Now, back to Ron in Shreveport, Louisiana.  He said that he thinks Trump should just bag these next two debates, just blow ’em off.  There’s no point.  There’s nothing to gain by showing up at these things.  The deck is stacked no matter who the moderators are, the deck is gonna be stacked, there’s no way Trump can really win.  He doesn’t have to, is his point.  If Trump just forgets the debates, there are gonna be people applauding him left and right for doing so. 

He could stay on the campaign trail and just do a rally after rally after rally with media coverage of that and build his base out the wazoo and control every event he goes to rather than go to a debate where he surrenders control and, by definition, is constantly is on the defensive.  Screw that.  

So my mind was working overtime in the break, because it jogged a memory in one of the deep, dark crevices of my fertile mind.  Do you remember Trump bagging the debate in Iowa before the Hawkeye Cauci?  Trump bagged it in lieu of — because Megyn Kelly I think was gonna be the moderator. Yeah, I think it was something to do with the moderators.  That’s right.  Because Fox was holding out hope that Trump would change his mind. There were high level negotiations going on all day and Trump finally said, “Screw it, I’m gonna do a personal appearance and salute the military,” which he did.  

He won the Hawkeye Cauci, didn’t he?  He won the Hawkeye Cauci by blowing off the cauci debate, or did he lose the Hawkeye Cauci?  Did Cruz win the Hawkeye Cauci?  I thought I had this down pat.  Now I’m not sure.  The only primary Trump won in the early days — I’m told it was the Hawkeye Cauci that he won, but I’m not so sure of that.  But, anyway, it didn’t hurt him.  The bottom line is by bagging the Hawkeye Cauci and the debate leading up to it, he didn’t hurt himself, and the theory here from Ron in Shreveport is that there’s no downside.  

Now, let’s imagine, let’s say Trump — and they’ve announced that he’s going to do it.  No, I’m sorry.  He lost the Hawkeye Cauci.  The only primary that Trump lost in the early days of the primaries was the Hawkeye Cauci, which happened after he skipped the debate.  That’s what I remember.  He didn’t do the debate, and he lost the Hawkeye Cauci.  Remember the media was saying, these people in Iowa, they don’t like it when you disrespect them that way.  Trump said it wasn’t important enough for them to learn about him personally.  He didn’t go to the debate.  And so people in Iowa didn’t vote for him in the caucus. 

He didn’t win the Hawkeye Cauci, so that would be an argument for not skipping the debate because — (interruption) yeah, I know he didn’t have a ground team in Iowa.  Doesn’t have much of a ground team now.  What are you snickering at?  He doesn’t have a ground operation.  Why is that controversial?  I’m not even being critical.  How many Trump campaign headquarters offices are there?  There aren’t that many.  He doesn’t have many.  I think he’s got one in Florida.  He’s running an unconventional campaign.  

Anyway, so he didn’t do the Hawkeye Cauci, he skipped that debate. He lost the Hawkeye Cauci, so could you extrapolate from that that if he doesn’t do these debates it could be harmful?  You know what the media’s gonna do.  By the way, folks, you should know, I have a couple here of truly in-the-tank Trumpsters, Trumpists, and they don’t think Trump should ever appear with anybody in the media.  And they think Trump ought to bag this debate and the next debate and any forum that’s anything like a debate where Hillary Clinton is there, because they think there’s absolutely nothing to gain, because the deck is constantly stacked. 

Trump is, by definition, gonna be on the defense. They hate the media. They don’t think there’s an any possibility Trump could get a fair shake, shouldn’t do it, waste of time, can actually help himself more by bagging these and continuing to stay on his exhaustive campaign schedule.  Now, if he bagged the debate and by the way, they’re announcing he’s going to be there, because this has come up.  They’re announcing, his team’s announced he’s gonna be there. 

Let’s just say he cancels it. Do you…? Can you imagine what’s gonna be done with that?  They would drop Alicia Machado like the hot tamale she is, and they would veer into, “Trump’s a coward! What’s he afraid of? He’s admitting that Hillary skunked him in the first debate,” and they would do everything they could to say that Trump is admitting he can’t even stay even with her.  And you don’t think that would hurt?  You don’t think what the media would do with Trump canceling his appearance in the debate…? 

You don’t think that the accompanying media firestorm over this would hurt him? (interruption) “Depends on how he explains it.” Doesn’t matter what he says why.  If he goes out and says, “I’m not doing the debate because I have learned how rigged it is. I have learned it’s not productive, I have learned I am not gonna be able to get my points across because I’m gonna be interrupted by moderators and distracted and talk about things that don’t matter. I can do a better job staying focused, if I stay on my own campaign trail.”  

No matter what he says — if he says that — the media’s gonna translate it for people as meaning that Trump is afraid.  So my question to you: “Do you think Trump could survive and prosper with a never ending media narrative that Trump is a coward?”  ‘Cause that’s what it would be.  That would be the narrative.  That would be the spin.  There wouldn’t be anything else.  They would take what Trump says and they would accuse him of lying, of making it up, of making excuses. 

Then they would hunt down people close to Trump in the campaign who would say, “Yeah, he just… After that first debate, he knows he’s not gonna get a fair shake, and he just doesn’t want to put up with it anymore,” and they’re gonna translate that as cowardice.  You think he should bag the debate, give a great reason, and you think the great reason will be reported fairly and honestly by the media with a degree of understanding? It won’t be the case.  What if Hillary canceled the debates because of her health, what do you think would happen? 

(interruption) Okay.  Right.  She’s lose the election.  But you don’t think Trump would be hurt by quitting the debates?  You don’t think Trump will be harmed at all? (interruption)  I know our people hate the media. But are there enough people who hate the media who will vote for Trump because of that?  I mean, you’re basically saying if you think Trump should quit, that a vast majority of or a simple majority of the American voters would applaud ’cause they hate the media?  

And if you think that there are enough those people who would applaud Trump and vote for Trump for doing that, then I can understand your thinking, but I don’t think I agree with your thinking.  (interruption) Uh-huh. (interruption)  Yes, the media ranks lower in trust and yet people still watch them and quote them every damn day.  “You see what I saw in the New York Times? Did you see what I saw  on the NBC Nightly News? Did you see what I saw…?” 

They might say they disrespect them but they quote them left and right and they send out news stories that are published on these websites, if it is interesting to them one way or the other.  So you better think really hard about that.  I know it’s an unconventional campaign. That’d be a very unconventional thing to do, and I can understand the thinking that it might resonate with a lot of people, but would it resonate positively with enough?  I don’t see that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Look, folks, let me just put something to bed here real quick.  Donald Trump is not going to bag the next debate for one reason:  The media has proclaimed him the loser.  He is not going to pull out of this debate with the Drive-Bys saying he’s a loser.  He’s too competitive.  If he had won the first debate, maybe. Maybe.  That would be pulling out as a winner, and he could easily say, “Look, it was so bad, I don’t think Hillary has any hope.  I don’t want to humiliate her anymore.”  But you can’t do that ’cause Drive-Bys are out saying he lost the debate.  

Now, interestingly enough, the left-leaning polling unit known as Public Policy Polling actually asked respondents this question in their latest poll.  The question is this:  “Do you think Donald Trump should participate in the remaining debates for president this fall or not?” Seventy-six percent of the respondents in the Public Policy Polling poll say Trump should participate.  Seventy-six percent say should.  Seventeen percent say that Trump should not, and 7% were not sure.  Now, you have to ask yourself something.  

Why in the hell was Public Policy Polling asking their respondents this question?  Where does this come from?  You have to admit, this is a weird question.  I’ll tell you where it’s coming from.  These people think that it was so bad for Trump, they think Hillary should… Actually, what they think is that Trump was horrible.  They think Trump was embarrassingly bad.  They don’t think that Hillary was that good.  They really think — these people on the left, in the media, they think — Trump was an abomination.  They think was embarrassing, was unprepared. 

He didn’t take it seriously, and we let down his supporters in that regard, so they’re out and say, “Do you think he just maybe shouldn’t even do any more of these?  He was so bad!” That’s the underlying, unstated tone attached to the poll question: Did Trump do so badly that he shouldn’t even participate in the remaining two debates?  That’s why they asked the question.  That’s my opinion on this, and 76% of their respondents said that Trump should.  I went back and I got this McClatchy story. 

It’s “Presidential Debate: Clinton Wins Polls But Loses Votes in Swing State of North Carolina,” and this is the focus group that McClatchy put together to watch the debate.  And everybody agreed that Clinton won the debate, but all of these people, these independents and the focus group said didn’t matter, they’re voting for Trump.  “Kae Roberts and Jay Eardly were leaning toward Hillary Clinton before Monday night’s debate.  By the end, they had both pulled away.  John Kokos and Hank Federal were undecided going in, potential Clinton backers.  

“By the end, they’d ruled her out.  Indeed, while polls found that Clinton had won the first general-election debate with [the Trumpster] on Monday, she may not have won actual votes. And she may even have lost some, at least in the battleground state of North Carolina.  In a focus group of 21 voters from around Charlotte conducted by McClatchy and The Charlotte Observer, four who had been up for grabs before the debate [undecided] had moved away from her by the end.”  

I went back and got this because I distinctly remembered it, because the premise here is that Trump lost the debate; that Hillary looked better and just comported herself much better.  And yet people tending to Hillary decided not to go with her.  And the reason is she’s just… She’s not likable, she’s not trustworthy.  She had that smirk, that arrogant, condescending look on her face that nobody is still talking about.  It’s one of the great uncommented-upon things.