RUSH: I kind of knew it was gonna happen, and so I’m gonna have to expand on this today. Because I didn’t quite make my full strategy understood. So everybody’s focusing on one part of it, which is understandable. It’s the part I focused on.

But there’s another part of it that I think needs to be addressed. Yeah, this is the Trump to California thing that the Drive-By Media — oh, man, this must scare them because they went nuts last night, they went nuts this morning.

Greetings and welcome. It’s Rush Limbaugh. We’re back at it here on hump day, the EIB Network at 800-282-2882. The Limbaugh Institute, also available by email, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

Now, let me give you the brief history of this, if you’re not familiar. I think on Monday we were talking about all of the problems in Los Angeles and San Francisco, these metro areas, the whole state’s run by Democrats, and it has been for many years. Whatever the problems are in Californian cities, the Republicans have nothing to do with because they don’t have any power whatsoever. They don’t have the power to stop anything, they don’t have the power to pass anything.

So everything that’s happening in California now that people are complaining about can be traced directly to Democrats and Democrat policies. And the story that triggered me was the rising number of homeless people in Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles, it’s so bad that the downtown LAPD headquarters has become rat and vermin infested. And the story talked about how the city is buying more of skid row to give to the homeless for them to live in.

At the same time, LA city council and other officials are saying they don’t understand this. Why is this happening? They couldn’t and can’t figure it out. And then the next story was that Democrats in California are frustrated that the Democrat presidential candidates are not talking about this.

Now, that kind of stunned me ’cause how dumb are these people? Why in the world would you think the Democrat presidential candidates are gonna focus on any problem in California and point to it and say we have to fix it? Because all they would be doing would be pointing fingers at themselves. There is no way.

And I told the people of Los Angeles on this program, the city councils, the city fathers, the city mothers, the city stepchildren, everybody, you can forget about any of these presidential candidates on the Democrat side talking about your problem, offering to fix your problem, proposing solutions to your problem. There’s nothing to gain by pointing it out. You’re gonna be ignored!

You people California had better get used to feeling what it’s like to be an African-American voting Democrat for 50 years. Because they’re gonna take you for granted. They know no matter what they do California’s electoral votes are going to the Democrat candidate. It doesn’t matter. Therefore, there is no downside to ignoring it. There is only a downside if you point it out and try to fix it ’cause Democrats can’t fix it.

The Democrats don’t have solutions to homelessness. They like homelessness. It creates dependency. The Democrats have not got the ability, it’s not in them to create policies that benefit large numbers of people economically because that’s not how the Democrat Party is structured.

The Democrat Party is not structured to benefit from prosperity. The Democrat Party is structured to benefit from people not prospering, from people being dependent. The Democrat Party is built as a party that survives on the backs of people who cannot provide for themselves. And the Democrat Party, therefore, doesn’t want anybody escaping that circumstance.

The more dependent people are, the more they cannot help themselves, the more there are fewer tools to help themselves, the better the Democrat Party is. Because if people learn that they can do better for themselves by investing in themselves rather than the Democrat Party, then the Democrat Party is gonna lose people and voters. We can’t have that.

So what really triggered me was these people in LA whining and moaning that the Democrat presidential candidates were not talking about their issues. It’s like the old adage I told you back when I was a top 40 deejay. We had a policy — well, not we. ABC owned and operated stations had a policy that you could never be hurt by a record you don’t play.

The objective back then, make sure people don’t punch the button to another station. Don’t tune out. And the operating philosophy was that you could be hurt by playing a record people don’t like, then they would push the button and go somewhere else. But you could never be hurt if you didn’t play a particular song because nobody would ever know you’re not playing it. Nobody listens 24/7.

So therefore the tune-out factor is reduced. So if there’s a song that’s on the bubble, if there’s a song that’s marginally popular, you don’t play it. That’s why playlists back in those days — I’m not kidding — were 25 songs mixed in with some oldies, and that’s because average time spent listening and all that, nobody listened 24/7 to figure it out, what playlist was, how many songs were being played. The operating theory was, you can’t be hurt by something you don’t play.

And the same thing here. You can’t be hurt by something you don’t talk about, especially in the state of California. Folks, they don’t need to lift a finger. The state of California’s gonna vote for the Democrat no matter what. If the whole city of Los Angeles becomes homelessness, not just in skid row, if everybody in LA lost their homes, it would still go to the Democrat candidate.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m saying this to make the point. Therefore, the Democrats running for president have only got things to lose by pointing to problems in California, because when you do that, you gotta blame somebody, and they’re used to blaming Republicans for everything or blaming Trump. But that won’t wash. Republicans have not had a thing to say about things in California for I don’t know how long.

Well, this, of course, has been picked up. In addition to that, I suggested as a result that Trump ought to go to California, Trump ought to schedule a couple appearances, you know, once a month, maybe schedule a debate. But my purpose in saying so was not what has been interpreted, and it’s my fault. I didn’t take this far enough. To illustrate, let’s go to the audio sound bites.

Bill Hemmer on Fox today had the… Was it the A-Team today? Yeah, the A-Team. I’m glad they only play my sound bites when they have the A-Team in there. The A-Team must be on Wednesday. The B-Team is probably Monday when they can’t get the A-Team out of bed. Friday is probably the B-Team ’cause who wants to be there on Friday? Everybody’s wanting to get out of town. So the A-Team’s on Wednesday. It makes sense. Okay.

So he’s playing my sound bite for the A-Team which is Republican strategerist Brad Blakeman, A.B. Stoddard from Real Clear Pol…? Real Clear Politics? A.B. Stoddard? I thought she was at The Hill, then I thought she was at CNN, then I thought she was at… Well, I guess she’s in a lot of places. Anyway, she’s now at Real Clear Politics, and let’s see who else they have in there. (pause) That was it. So here’s Hemmer playing what everybody thinks was the highlight of my comments about all this yesterday.

HEMMER: Rush Limbaugh has an idea: Go to California. Thinks President Trump should campaign in California and really put the spotlight on the issues in the Golden State. Listen…

RUSH ARCHIVE: I think Trump ought to start going to California. I think he ought to go there once a month. I think the Republican National Committee ought to schedule a debate in California. I think the campaign should have ads showing and highlighting the homelessness in downtown Los Angeles and pointing out that this is what happens when Democrats run things with no opposition, no checks, no balances.

RUSH: Okay, see, you can’t blame ’em for focusing on that, because I did say that. I mean, it’s right there. But I have additional reasons for Trump going, not just to point fingers of blame at situations and say, “See what happens with Democrats.” But I’m talking actually making a play for people out there. Go to California and make your case. Go to California and explain your philosophy, your policies, your heart. Go to California. People out there are not hearing it. California may as well have boundaries around it where outside news doesn’t get in there, other than things like this show.

I’m saying Trump and maybe other Republican candidates go there, make the case, explain what we’re for, not just point out all of the problems that Democrats have caused — ’cause, believe me, they already know that. They may not be willing to associate it with themselves, and it’d be okay to point that out. But I say, “Go make the case!” Go make the case for whatever you want to call Trumpism — conservatism, nationalism, populism, whatever you want to call it.

Go make the case! Go make the case for reforming immigration and relate immigration, illegal immigration to homeless problem! Go make the case! We haven’t made the case in California because we know we don’t have a chance of winning it. It’s considered to be waste of money to go to California, waste of resources. I’m saying, “Go to California. Make the case.” You gotta make an effort to get it back sometime. Why not? There’s no better time than now. You don’t have to forever give up on California. Go there now. Make the case.

There’s nobody better than Trump to make the case. You know, go to Dodger Stadium, schedule a gigantic rally in Chavez Ravine or the Staples Center or wherever they could make it secure. I don’t know. Go to a hospital that had to close the emergency room ’cause they couldn’t afford to treat anybody anymore ’cause it was overrun by illegal aliens! Go ahead and make the case for what we think! Okay. So here’s the responses that the A-Team had beginning with Brad Blakeman.

BLAKEMAN: I love it. I think it’s brilliant. Why? We may never win the state of California, but California is the petri dish, is the laboratory of what Democrats are gonna do to the country, what they’ve done to California, what they’re doing right here in New York. Go to a sanctuary city. Show the plight of Los Angeles, of the homeless. They can’t even take care of citizens who are homeless and needy, and now we’re taking in people who have crossed our border illegally? Rush is on to something. Go to the enemy and show exactly what we can expect if Democrats control everything.

RUSH: Look, that’s absolutely right, and that was part of my point. Obviously, you go there, and there’s a way to do this without being seen as pointing fingers. There’s a way to do this as though you really care about it, you’re really distressed by it. Distressed to see this happening at the downtown LAPD headquarters. “We’re distressed to see this. It isn’t necessary. Here’s why it’s happening.” And then go after the Democrats however you want. But I’m just saying, make the case, state the obvious, explain why these circumstances exist. Then make the case. Now, here is A.B. Stoddard of late from Real Clear Politics. You could tell with this answer that she thinks it’s a great idea, but she doesn’t like it.

STODDARD: Well, I think that’s a good galvanizing, mobilize-your-base strategy. I don’t know that it swings the swing voters back who supported Donald Trump in 2016 and then swung by 24 points in the midterm elections and are supporting Biden by 30 points over Trump in this poll yesterday. You really gonna have to get people on the margins, and, you know, the Democrats who think that climate change is our greatest threat? They love what California’s done on its own without the help of the federal government.

RUSH: Now, she’s reacting to (What was it?) the Quinnipiac poll yesterday. Folks, we’re gonna blow this one out of the water, as I’m sure you’re expecting to happen. There’s a Quinnipiac poll out that shows Trump losing to everybody that has a chance of winning the Democrat Party nomination, and winning big. This poll shows Trump losing in a landslide in a presidential election that’s not for a year and a half, and then there’s a New York Times story out by Maggie Haberman.

And it says that people inside the Trump campaign say that their internal polling shows the same thing and that Trump is ordering them to lie about it. Kayleigh McEnany at the Republican National Committee says (summarized), “That’s crazy, this is not true, this polling data doesn’t exist,” and so is Kellyanne Conway saying the same thing as she’s, you know, running around the house trying to avoid being caught by her husband, George. She has time to get the messaging out there. She says it’s not happening.

But there’s A.B. Stoddard buying into this, “Well, I don’t know. Yes, it might galvanize the base, but Trump’s already got the base. I don’t know how it helps when he’s down 30 points like in this poll yesterday.” I think this is ripe. These people still, even when I’m right up front… There was no deceit in my idea. There’s no trick here. There’s no trying to go in a back door, side door to get to. This is right head on, and they still don’t understand it — or maybe they do understand it and they don’t like it, and they’re worried about it.

And so now they’re gonna try to convince Trump, “You got enough troubles in Michigan and Wisconsin without wasting time in California.” They don’t want him — they don’t want anybody — picking up on this idea.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to get started on the phones. Cupertino, California, Stephanie, great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush! How are you?

RUSH: Fine. I’m great. Thank you.

CALLER: I’m really happy to hear you talking about having President Trump come to Cupertino or anywhere in California. He needs to come and highlight what’s going on out here. Last night they told us to not use electrical outlets like our TVs, our washing machines, our air-conditioning because they’re worried about fires, they don’t have enough electricity. They told my nephew in Ripon that they were probably gonna have brownouts out there in the Central Valley.

RUSH: Let me ask you a question quickly. Were you part of the heat wave that hit the Bay Area and all the way down the coastline?

CALLER: Yeah. We were about 101, 102 yesterday, and the day before we were roundabout the same, and today we’re supposed to be in the upper nineties.

RUSH: And they couldn’t handle it so you’re told not to use your electricity at night.

CALLER: Until after 10 o’clock.

RUSH: ‘Til after 10 o’clock.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Well, you know, Apple, the gigantic Apple park there, the gigantic ring in Cupertino, you think they were told to do that?

CALLER: I doubt it, and they’re just a stone’s throw from my house.

RUSH: Right. Right. Right. Of course, they have their own electrical system there.

CALLER: Probably.

RUSH: Anyway, I do think there’s an opportunity to make the case in California for what Trump believes in and so forth, in addition to all the pointing out of the problems in California. I’m glad you like the idea. Thank you very much, Stephanie.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Los Angeles. This is Paul. I’m glad you waited. I really appreciate your patience. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. First time, long time. I just want to tell you, you are absolutely correct. We need President Trump to come to California. We have the highest gas prices, we have the highest taxes, and — newsbreak — July the 1st, the state gas taxes rises an additional 12¢ per gallon. You want to hear people screaming then and there? You need to have President Trump come to California, to give the people who support him who are squashed by the media — who don’t listen, who don’t think, who completely ignore that we even exist — and give us a voice because he does have supporters in this state.

The problem with California is a single political party. It is a party run by… It’s a state run by Democrat Socialist Party. We call it communist California. If it weren’t for my work and the job that I have defending this country, I wouldn’t live in the state of California. But unfortunately, I’m there, and I gotta do what I can to help make it right, because I believe that we can’t just give away California to these idiot Democrats. That’s about all I got to say, Rush. Again, thank you for everything you do, and I’m out.

RUSH: Well, I’m glad you called it. I appreciate the show of support. California’s a… Let me say some things here. I don’t want to be misunderstand by anybody. I love California. I lived there for 3-1/2 years from 1984 to halfway through 1987. I lived in Sacramento, and when I arrived, the voter regulation of the Sacramento metro area was 78% Democrat. When I left, it was just have over 60%. We made some great inroads there.

I had a great, great time there. It was the first stop in my career where I actually planted roots and became a functioning member of the community rather than just a passing vagabond media personality climbing the media ladder of success, which is city after city after city. It was my first taste of success. I describe it as being my first success track, after having been in radio for over 20 years.

So I owe a lot to that market, to the people in Sacramento, and there were just… It was a fabulous 3-1/2 years that feel like a lot more than that. I have friends spread out all over the state, and I actually love California and I love going there — and I would love living there, but it’s senseless. It is senseless to go there and become a taxpayer. It’s senseless — unless you’ve grown up there and everything about your life is there already, your family and everything — to go there.

Unless you just have so much money that you don’t care about throwing it away at a government, which is what you’re doing out there. But it’s a shame what’s happened to California. California, to me, is a lesson. Because, believe me, for all the talk about California, there are places you can go that — if you have the money — it’s paradise. But the problem is, it isn’t that for very many people there at all.

The division between haves and have-nots in California is maybe as stark and as large as it is anywhere in the country. New York might be a close second. But I don’t think so statewide. You’d have to say it’s true in New York about Manhattan and the boroughs of New York City. But statewide, you’ve got pretty obscene wealth along the coast — San Francisco down to Monterey — the central coastline all the way down to San Simeon and down to Santa Barbara, Montecito, then you hit LA, San Diego and down there.

It starts to disperse a little bit once you get to Los Angeles, and actually disperses quite a bit. The haves and have-nots in LA are… That’s a stark difference. But there are parts of all these places that are just idyllic, and they’re beautiful places to live, beautiful places to live and visit and so forth. But when you go inland and when you go into the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Valley — the agricultural community where the illegal immigration has made such a difference — it’s just an entirely different state.

And the state has been lost politically. It is… As our last caller said, is a single-party state, and it is radical leftist. It’s not accurate to say that California has gone to the Democrats. It’s radical leftist in its politics. Now, not everybody who lives there is radical leftist. There are plenty of people like us that live there. They’re just so just outnumbered that it’s as though, politically, they don’t exist, because there is no way they can ever prevail in elections.

How did that happen?

It used to be… When I lived in California, the Republicans were in great shape there. The government was Republican. Reagan had been governor — Pete Wilson, George Deukmejian — and wherever you went in California, it was not like it is today. The taxes were not nearly as oppressive as they are today. The cost of living was not nearly as oppressive. It was just… In fact, when we got our first affiliate in Los Angeles and I made my first trip out there is when I first began hearing the rumblings that the economics were turning in such a way that people could not afford to live where their jobs were.

Now, this was 1990/1991, and that began a serious trend. When that happens, when the people who work in… I don’t care what it is they do. In all walks of life, when the vast majority of the them cannot afford to live whether they work, now we’re talking a whole different necessary social and economic structure, whole different standards of living, different concentrations of wealth. And, by the way, the creation of wealth is a great thing, and the market economy distributes wealth very well.

It’s government that redistributes wealth and does it very unfairly, very inefficiently. But the market is a great distributor of wealth. But what’s happened in California? The market’s not allowed to function because it’s gone all radical leftist with government in charge of everything — and when Democrats run things, they need as many people dependent as possible to stay in power. That means they need as many people who are not economically independent tor prosperous as they can get.

The Democrat Party cannot afford for people to succeed, essentially, other than their own chosen leaders and big donors and so forth. But the average rank-and-file of the population in any Democrat-controlled area is not going to be governed by policies that allow them to pursue prosperity. It will be choked off. Democrat Party doesn’t want it. Democrat Party doesn’t believe people are capable of it. But when it really turned — and it’s hard to pinpoint a date because this has been going on for so long.

But the reason California is gone to Republicans politically is the direct result of illegal immigration. There are other factors in addition to that. But that’s number one, and that’s why California is always pointed to as the petri dish. If we’re not careful, this is what’s gonna happen to the whole country. If illegal immigration isn’t stopped, if the wall isn’t built, if the people that do come in are not assimilated and don’t become Americans. If they’re not interested in or pointed to joining the distinct and unique American culture, which espouses the values expressed in our founding, not in some Democrat Party playbook.

The pursuit of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, given the natural ordained status of your existence as bestowed by our Creator, those are the things that are shut down and shut off. And government replaces all of those things, and government determines way too much. And when you have a government that opposes prosperity — and they’ll never admit that that’s what they’re doing. I’m just telling you, that’s the direct result of Democrat Party policy.

Take a look around. I mean, wherever Democrats run things unchecked, that’s what you find. It’s not just LA where they got a homeless problem. Look at any city or state that’s run unchecked by Democrats and you’ll find one or more of the same problems that we find in California. And that’s why I think Trump should go to California. Not to point fingers at them alone. That’s not the reason to go, to try to tar and feather the Democrats, but you go there to make the case.

And not to win California. This is an unreasonable expectation. It would be great icing on the cake if Trump could actually win California for the Republicans. There just aren’t the Republican votes to do that right now. At the same time, it makes no sense to write off the state. Somebody like Trump could go there and make the case that the people of the state of California never hear made anymore because it’s a one-party state and a different way of life as an option is really never presented.

“Yes, it is, Rush. The media.” No, no, no. It really isn’t. That’s one of the reasons California has become what it is politically and why it remains so. See, I think there’s a golden opportunity for somebody like Trump to go to California and — look. If you want to say, to send a signal to the Republicans and Trump voters that are there to say, “thank you,” yeah, that’s good too. But the primary reason for doing it is the opportunity it presents to make the case because whatever case is made there will be covered nationally.

And if you want to point out how our policies differ from theirs you could point to the various social and economic problems that exist there. But you don’t do that just for the express purpose of hammering Democrats. You do it to point out how there’s a better way. You do it to point out alternatives that exist elsewhere in the country and how it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s long overdue, too many people on our side have been writing off the state of California because politically it makes no sense to go out there and spend a lot of money ’cause you can’t win anything.

The key to this is the Democrats have to ignore it, folks. The Democrats have to leave it alone. The Democrats can’t fix California, because if they did that, they would be admitting they broke it! Remember what got me started on all this. What got me started was the Democrat presidential candidates are not talking about the homeless problem in LA or some of the others and city council members and other politicians in Los Angeles are mad that the Democrat presidential candidates are not offering any assistance, not talking about the problems, and the reason is they can’t.

The Democrats in California, it’s time you realize something. Your die is cast. The Democrat Party does not need to fix a single thing there. You’re gonna vote for them no matter what happens. It is in their interests to never mention California. It’s in their best interests to never talk about it, to never point out any problem.

So they won’t. If you can’t fix it yourselves, then you’re gonna be in heap big trouble because the Democrat presidential candidates — and if there is a Democrat president someday — there’s not a whole lot they can do other than bail out the state, which I think may eventually someday happen, and that’s a whole ‘nother story that people will have to deal with.

But it’s because the Democrats, even though they own the state, in a political sense, have to abandon it, that makes it wide open to somebody like Trump and the Republicans. It’s almost like only Nixon could have gone to China. The Democrats cannot, these presidential candidates cannot start whining and moaning about homelessness in LA because the Republicans have nothing to do with it.

They can’t blame Trump for it. They can’t blame the Republicans. They would be pointing fingers at themselves. And they’re smart enough to know, why even talk about California? Why even say one thing about California when all it can do is hurt them? It’s why they never have to do much for the African-American community because the African-American community’s a guaranteed 92% vote for the Democrats every four years. Without lifting a finger, without doing a single thing to improve their lives, they nevertheless get the vote.

So why even worry about it? They don’t. On the African-American side, they mention it only because it allows them to blame Republicans for it. But note they never fix it. They never solve any of the complaints. They let them live. And they let them grow for the express purpose of blaming Republicans for them. Same thing in California. They can’t afford to fix a thing out there. It wouldn’t help them.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Susan in Middlesex, Virginia. Welcome. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I just wanted to tell you that that California idea of yours is brilliant. That is why you are a gift to us on loan from God. And it’s right up Trump’s alley. It’s, like you said, only Nixon could go to China. I’m thinking maybe only —

RUSH: I think he’d hit a home run out there.

CALLER: Yes, absolutely, for a lot of reasons. He defines issues for us. You saw that with jobs. You saw that with the black unemployment. You see that with immigration. Now, he’s kind of stalled in the swamp with the immigration, but there are so many things that Californians could benefit from his work. And maybe the legislature in California —

RUSH: Well, you know something?

CALLER: — will notice it.

RUSH: I’m glad you said that because I still haven’t gonna to the bull’s-eye on this. My reason, my reasoning for him to go to California is not primarily to change California, because that can’t get done in one appearance. But one appearance in Cali, can you imagine the audience for this?

This would almost be like a speech from the Oval Office, I think. Trump going to California, San Francisco, LA, take your choice, I don’t care where you go there, and have a lot of pre-hype as to why, it would provide an opportunity to sell your agenda, your point of view. It would provide the opportunity to contrast, which is always, always effective.

I’m not just saying go out there for the express purpose of trying to get California back in the Republican camp. That would be obvious. But the opportunity it presents beyond California simply by going there, it is such a win-win that I think it’ll happen.

I think it’ll happen. I have no idea when, but it’s gonna happen. Trump’s gonna go to California, and they’re gonna panic about it on the left. And they’re gonna almost act like he’s got no right to go. You wait. You wait ’til this happens. I appreciate the call. Thanks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I guarantee you there will be some, “You can’t go to California, Mr. President. That’s our state.” They wouldn’t say it that way. They’d make Trump look like an idiot for going there, tell him he’s dumb for doing it. We’ll see.