RUSH: Jeff in Davenport, Iowa, as we head back to the phones. Your turn, sir. How are you?

CALLER: Good. Thank you, Rush. This is a huge honor. I’m a fairly new listener, to be honest. I’d heard about you, you know, 25 years ago. I had some guy try to get me to listen to you, and at that time I was appalled. Didn’t believe much stuff. But things changed in the last four to five years for me —

RUSH: Wait a minute, you were appalled by me 25 years ago?

CALLER: Yes. Because I was 25 years younger, didn’t believe a lot of things that were being said, had different views at that time. Well, for the last four, four and a half years, I started, I went out in business on my own. And things are different now. Things have changed.

I started listening to you more religiously and started seeing a lot of these things that you had said in the past that I’d always heard about, started happening. My business now, since Trump has been in office, has succeeded. I am higher this year than I’ve been in the past three years. When I go into a customer’s home and I talk to people, I see what’s going on in their home, I see what’s on their television, I hear what’s on the radio.

Seventy-five percent of my new customers this year are Trump supporters. We’ve gotten into conversations. It just took on a whole different meaning, becoming a business owner and starting to listen to you and with Trump into office now. And I’d always said many, many years ago, if Trump ever ran, that’s the guy I would vote for. And that was 15 years ago that I said something like that. But in my line of work, I have noticed — and I have done nothing different — there has been an increase in my business.

RUSH: Can you give us an overview of the business that you’re in?

CALLER: I have a small water treatment company in the Quad Cities.

RUSH: Okay. So that’s great. How do you attribute your improved business profile to Trump? How do you relate that or connect Trump to it?

CALLER: People are spending more money. That’s flat. Because in my line of work —

RUSH: That means there’s more consumer confidence, people are more confident about the economy.

CALLER: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I believe that 100 percent because people are spending more money now.

RUSH: Well, I’ve got a story right here from the top of the Stack. The Conference Board today, which measures consumer confidence — they’ve been doing it for decades — said today that its consumer confidence index hit 129.5 this month, up from 126.2 in October. But the point is, the number is relative. Its highest since November 2000. It’s skyrocketing.

And there’s little parcels, bits of evidence all over the economy that it’s real. The upward mobility and the economic activity is real. It’s not the result of people being told that it’s happening; it’s actually happening, and they are living it, they’re sensing it, and that’s why they’re confident about it. That’s what you’re seeing, you say.

CALLER: Yes. Exactly.

RUSH: So in that circumstance, is there anything Trump does that bothers you, worries you, embarrasses you?

CALLER: Not at all. When he speaks, I feel he is talking to me. He speaks like I do. He says things that I’ve always wanted to say. And I know there’s a lot of people out there that have always wanted to say the things that he is saying now. He’s talking like your general folks, just regular people that don’t care about the politics if you’re one side or the other. They just want a better life. They want to make more money. They don’t want to pay so much in taxes anymore. And that’s one thing that I’m in fear of as my business increases. Oh, great, here’s more taxes that I might have to pay. And that’s a reality of it. But I don’t get upset with what he says. I’m right along with him. I sit there and I laugh when I hear the things he says.

RUSH: I understand that, and I think that’s the vast majority of Trump supporters. And this is what the media doesn’t get. They’re sitting there, Trump in the ceremony honoring the Navajo code talkers, starts talking about Elizabeth Warren, Pocahontas, the media says, “This outrageous! Why, how dare he soil such a solemn ceremony by bringing up the name of a Democrat.” And they think everybody’s offended by it, and so they begin their coverage as though everybody’s outraged by it and they don’t get that most people are like you; they’re applauding it or they’re laughing at it or they’re having the greatest time seeing the media get into another conniption fit over it.

I wonder how long it’s gonna go with the media obstinately refusing to get and understand the connection. And I don’t think they’re ever going to. I don’t think they want to understand it. I think they’re afraid of understanding it. And I think they’re deathly afraid of becoming part of it. Plus, they’re all insider establishment types anyway, which makes them inexorably opposed to Trump. Well, look, congratulations on your success. Is this, in your owned business, is this the first success track that you’ve experienced?

CALLER: I had actually worked for another water treatment dealer for 15 years.

RUSH: Yeah, but this one’s yours, this one’s yours.

CALLER: This one is mine. I have a business partner, and I am very fortune enough to have this gentleman. He said, “Look, I think we can do this. And you run it your way. I have that much confidence in you. I’ve done business with you in the past. I’ll go out with you, and let’s make some money together.”

RUSH: Well, good. What I was gonna say, once when you’re in business for yourself — well, actually, this can happen to you if you’re an employee. Once you legitimately experience a success track, I mean, like me, I worked for 16, 17, 18 years and never amounted to anything. I was nothing but potential. I mean, I was employed, but it couldn’t be said that I was succeeding. But there came a time where I was, and I knew it. I recognized it. It stood out. It was different than anything that had ever happened. It was in Sacramento.

When that happens to you for the first time, when you know what it is, you learn what caused it, and you try to stay dedicated and loyal to the things that made that happen, and you don’t want to let go of it. You want the success track to continue on the upward plane, the upward mobility that you’re on.

Now, naturally everything that goes up is gonna come down at times, but on balance you want to continue going up. And it changes your perspective on things, which is what you are now experiencing. It can’t help but do that. It’s a positive thing. So congratulations.