Rush Self-Imposes Ban on Opining About the Big Lewandowski Story,

RUSH: I must begin the program today with an announcement of sorts. I know that a major story in the media today is -- I don't know what we call it -- Lewandowskigate, Grabgate. Whatever it is, the ongoing and still blossoming controversy involving the videotape of the reporterette, Michelle Fields, the Trump campaign coordinator, Corey Lewandowski, and the Trumpster himself and what the heck happened.

My friends, I have decided that, going forward, I cannot share with you my opinion on this story. And so going forward, I will not opine. I will simply tell you what the latest is, but I will not tell you what I think about it. I am taking the equivalent of the EIB Network's Fifth Amendment here, because no matter what I say, I am convinced people cannot listen anymore. And no matter what I say, it is going to be misconstrued into one of two things. Either I'm defending Lewandowski or I am trying to destroy Trump in order to help Ted Cruz. And I have done neither, said neither.

Yesterday all I did on this program was to review for people who may not have been able to see the video because it was happening while the program was on the air, just telling people what had happened. And I commented on how much time CNN was spending on this. And I talked about how they were stacking guests. And all of that became "Limbaugh defends Lewandowski." "Limbaugh sells out conservatism." "Limbaugh traitorous to the cause." "Limbaugh supports reprobate A-hole." "Limbaugh" whatever.

And since I didn't do any of that -- (interruption) What? I didn't do any of that. I don't even know Lewandowski. What I know is, everybody apparently hates the guy. What I know is, everybody wants to try to destroy the Trump campaign that is not part of the Trump campaign. I know that includes many people in the media. They will take the occasion of any event that pops up to try to destroy and bring down the Trump campaign, which is politics, and it's fine. But I have determined here that because tensions are so tight, everybody is wound up to such a feverish pitch here, that no matter what I say it is misunderstood and is not helpful.

So on this story going forward, I have no opinion. We have the latest in sound bites. We have the latest in the news on it. I'm even reluctant to just tell you what the latest is because of how that's gonna be misinterpreted. And this may not be the only subject about which I have to muzzle my own self here and silence myself, at least from the standpoint of opinions, because it's apparently impossible to be correctly, properly understood.

RUSH: A story at TheHill.com. What do you think of this. "Majority of Republicans Support Path to Citizenship." This is a poll from an outfit called the Public Religion Research Institute, the PRRI. Have you ever heard of them? The PRRI are a notoriously left-wing group that has ongoing research partnerships with the Brookings Institution and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and they have just released a poll saying that a majority of Republicans now support amnesty, now support a path to citizenship. We'll see how that manifests itself.

RUSH: By the way, what would you think if Trump chose Newt as his vice presidential nominee?

RUSH: Did you hear that story recently, maybe you saw the headline: No, you can't carry a loaded weapon into the Republican National Convention. Did you see that story? I did. I know a number of you did. From TheHill.com. It turns out that the guy who authored a petition to allow open carry of guns at the Republican National Convention says he did it to test the limits of the party's support for the Second Amendment.

The petition, which has attracted national attention, reads as if it was written by a supporter of gun rights. Instead, the guy behind the petition is a Democrat who plans on supporting Hillary. His name is Jim. He's from Philadelphia. He reached out to TheHill.com in a phone interview, said he published the petition to call attention to what he sees as a discrepancy in the Republicans' position on gun rights.

So here you have a guy, the way this works, the story's out there that somebody wants an open carry permit for the Republican National Convention. Everybody says, "No, no, that's crazy." Turns out it's a Democrat playing a trick. After the impact of the news, after the impact of the story has been felt, then we learn the truth of it.

Sorry. Cannot play audio sound bite number 20. I just received a new audio sound bite here. A new movie trailer shows illegal aliens being gunned down while audio of Trump is playing. I cannot play this audio sound bite. It's part of my EIB Fifth Amendment ban on uttering any opinions about the Trump campaign. People don't hear what I say, they misunderstand, so the safest thing to do is to not say anything about it. Well, I'll tell you what it is. What we have here, a Spanish-language ad made to look like a movie trailer, was released, it's a new movie, actually, called Desierto, and it juxtaposes audio from a speech by Trump with scenes of Mexican immigrants being gunned down while crossing into the US.

They actually made a movie out of this and they've taken a section of it as a trailer. They put Trump's voice talking about immigration and a number other things over Mexicans being shot at the border. But I can't tell you what I think of that. Well, I could, but I refuse to. Just have to stick with the fact that it is out there.

Yesterday the Washington Post had a story, a column by Michael Gerson, the former speechwriter for George W. Bush essentially claiming that I am destroying conservatism, that my, quote, unquote, blessing of the Trump campaign, my blessing of Donald Trump is killing conservatism. I didn't bother commenting on it because it was silly and -- I guess I could. I saved it here somewhere.

But, anyway, that was brought up last night on the Fox Business Network, Charlie Payne, his show called Making Money. He had Tammy Bruce, who herself is a talk radio host and Fox News contributor. And he asks her about this. He says, "A Washington Post story, Rush Limbaugh's blessing of Trump is killing conservatism. He's one of the few well-known conservative radio guys who is neutral. He obviously likes Ted Cruz. He's said some nice things about Trump. He doesn't condemn the Trump campaign. What about it, Tammy? Is Limbaugh killing conservatism?"

BRUCE: Well, look, I've been agnostic as well. We understand for many Trump supporters, this is about an existential issue for the country, that if the country doesn't exist as we know it, then what good is conservatism. And if conservatism is so weak and has been so undefended, why would just Donald Trump be the one to destroy it all?

RUSH: Her basic point is that conservatism's gonna survive no matter what. But when you start throwing in blame like this, I mean, this argument about who's responsible for Trump, the very people responsible for it are those trying to shift that responsibility in the form of blame to others. But, again, that's off-limits here on the EIB Network.

I do have something, however, that I want to share with you. There was a town hall meeting in Wisconsin last night on CNN. And there was some news that was made out of this thing. All three Republican presidential candidates have now backed away from the pledge they all made to support the eventual nominee.

"None of the three remaining Republican presidential candidates would guarantee Tuesday night that they would support the eventual GOP nominee for president, departing from previous vows to do so and injecting new turmoil into an already tumultuous contest. Mogul Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were each given a chance during a CNN town hall in Milwaukee to definitively state they would support the nominee. All three declined to renew their pledge. As recently as March 3, in a Fox News debate, all three said they would support the nominee."

Most of the Drive-By Media are only reporting that Trump is refusing to promise support for the nominee, but all three of them have basically backed away from their pledge. This was always gonna be the case. You know, when these pledges first started flying, I thought, the only guy -- I'm sorry. I can't say that. I just thought when all of this started happening that none of this was gonna hold up. Start making promises like this way back last fall, whenever the first debate was, August 3rd or August 6th, and that's when Bret Baier asked all these guys in the first Fox News debate and Trump -- ah. Sorry, can't say that. They all took the pledge.

I'm watching this thinking, "This is not gonna hold up. We're too soon into this. There's too much tumult yet to come. There are too many feelings yet to be hurt. There's too many people waiting to be offended or going to be offended or angered or what have you." When Baier asked the question the responses were practically instantaneous and automatic, which made them formulaic.

But, look, there's something interesting here. We had the town hall meeting, and I have two different stories about the town hall meeting, and they are completely different takes on what happened last night.

During the Obamatrade voting I emailed him asking him to talk about it. He spent the time whining about some feminist on some college campus somewhere--then the voting was done and he mentioned it briefly-- some remark about how we couldn't stop it.

Mrs Mitch McConnell sits on the board with Murdoch at Fox News...to my knowledge, he has never mentioned this blatant conflict of interest with the GOPe and Fox. Every conservative should be aware of Bush's Secretary of Cheap Foreign Labor influencing the only cable news conservatives watch.

We have a good candidate against the vile and treacherous Paul Ryan in Wisconsin. Has Rush mentioned this? I'm not asking him to endorse, but isn't it news?

Rush's audience is well-informed. I'm starting to be unhappy about all he leaves off the plate.

Has he mentioned that Silverado Neil Bush joined Cruz's campaign?

The Bushes claim to hate Cruz.

I believe Rush has bosses and customers to please like all of us. He also enjoys the friendships of influentials and intellectuals that he values. But first he needs to make sure that his audience trusts him as well as lives him. I'm trusting him less all the time. Where does Rush place his true priorities--with his audience or the prestige of highly-placed acquaintances?

Is Rush looking for the good ratings to come when Hillary occupies the White House for the next eight years? He'll have lots of material to fill his show, just like during the earlier Clinton years.

Just wondering what his strategy is here. By the way, he's just about unlistenable right now. Two hours of bloviating, 15 minutes of substance, and the rest commercials.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.