Retiring RINOS Bought the Drive-By Media’s Blue Wave Scam

RUSH: I had so many people last night worried that there was actually a blue wave happening. There was no blue wave last night. In fact, let’s look at the record numbers of losses by a sitting president to the opposing party in midterm elections.

The most House seats ever lost by a president’s party in power was Obama in 2010. He lost 63. Next was Bill Clinton in 1994. He lost 52. In 1958, Eisenhower lost 48, as did Ford and Nixon in 1974. They lost 48. Lyndon Johnson in ’66, lost 47. Harry Truman in ’46 lost 45 seats. George W. Bush in 2006 lost 30. In 1950, Harry Truman lost 29. Reagan, in ’82, lost 26 seats, and in 2016 Trump is at 26 or 27 — and those are New York Times records.

That’s New York Times data since 1946. So it was not a blue wave, especially when you go over to the Senate. Now, the big difference in the Senate is that the people that Trump campaigned for won. Nine out of 11 people. And the way to look at this is… To me, I think this is crucial going forward, as you look at 2020. Everybody… I mean, nine out of 11 people the president personally stumped for won.

He admitted — you just heard him — he focused on the Senate. It was not possible to do rallies for House seats. And, frankly, most sitting presidents do not get involved in House races. Obama even stated that’s so beneath the presidency to go out in these little districts here and there. I’m not gonna mess with it. And there’s too many of ’em. You can’t.

So where he could he tried to combine a House race with a Senate race and the candidates and so forth. But nine out of 11. In the Senate now, gone are a bunch of Republicans who hate Trump, like Corker and like Flake and Senator McCain, they’re gone. And they have been replaced by senators that are Trumpists, if you will, senators who owe Trump their election victory.

So the Republican Senate is gonna be a much more solid Senate. If he wins all of the seats that are still outstanding, like Arizona and Florida where there might be a recount, he could have enough of a Republican Senate to not have to worry about Murkowski and Susan Collins, say, on judicial appointments. And of course the Senate’s role in judicial appointments and other appointments, such as cabinet appointments, is huge.

And the Democrats not turning the Senate is effectively a total shutdown of any attempt at agenda advancement they want to compete or attempt. It’s gonna be fascinating to watch how the Democrats in the Senate — or in the House, rather, go about all this. I actually think, folks, that what happened yesterday, and a little microcosm of it here in this press conference today, I think that if things play out right, Donald Trump was essentially reelected in 2020 because of what happened last night because of the way the Democrats are gonna deal with this.

Now, everybody thinks that Pelosi is gonna be speaker, but I’m not so sure. I think some of these young Millennial whippersnapper socialist victors, these young first time like Ocasio-Cortez and others, I don’t think these people are gonna be patient and tolerant with this octogenarian leadership on the Democrat side. I don’t think it’s automatic that Pelosi’s gonna be speaker. I think some of these young people are just gonna storm the gates.

And I think that they’re gonna try to move what they think are a bunch of dinosaurs out of the way and make way for the new, young blood that’s truly socialist and truly motivated and all this. They’re not gonna be able to help themselves when it comes to investigating Trump and subpoenaing Trump. And it’s gonna be very easy — if there is gridlock — and how can there not be now? How can there be any kind of agenda advancement because the Democrats have the House, the Republicans have the Senate.

So Trump is gonna be able to say, “Look at our record of achievement the first two years when the Republicans ran the House along with me in the White House versus these last two years where nothing has gotten done because the Democrats are trying to roadblock us after every step.” I mean, he’s gonna have I think a lot of ammo.

He went through at the opening of this press conference, he named the Republicans who did not support him and pointed out that they lost. He called ’em out by name. Mia Love. Mia Love gave me no love, and she got no love. And he talked about Barbara Comstock and all of these RINO or old-fashioned establishment Republicans who just couldn’t stand Trump. And they thought nobody else could, either, and they thought the way to victory was to run against Trump, and they lost! Many Republicans in the House lost because they tried to run away from Trump. And he called ’em out by name today.

By the same token, he named those that he campaigned for and pointed out how they were victorious. So it is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. And more and more Republicans are gonna see this. It’s undeniable what happened last night and why whoever lost, lost. This takes me to what I think is a very, very crucial thing that happened way back in December 2017, and that is when the Drive-By Media and the Democrats started this incessant chatter about a blue wave.

Lost in all of this was the 40 to 45 Republican congressional retirements. Forty sitting Republicans retired. I started asking Republicans why. And what I was told, “Well, you know, many of them are committee chairmen and they’re term limited out and they don’t want to hang around going back as regular members.” Well, maybe.

But I don’t think that was solely it. I think that the Republican Party in the House of Representatives had a whole bunch of people in there that didn’t like Trump. And I think they had a whole lot of people who thought that Trump was gonna bring massive landslide defeat to the party and they wanted to get out before it happened. They didn’t want to be a part of it; so they announced their resignations. And one of the things I think that convinced these Republicans that there was gonna be this massive Trump wipeout was all this incessant chatter about the blue wave brought on by the media.

And I think these Republicans, these moderate RINO Never Trumper Republicans bought in to a gigantic scam that the media and the Democrats ran on this blue wave business. They bought it hook, line, and sinker. They thought there’s no chance, Trump is hated and despised, we’re getting out. And so they did. And when you lose 45 incumbents, don’t care who they are, because 98% of incumbents win reelection in the House, 98%. When 40 to 45 of your sitting Republicans get out of there, that presents another challenge, because those are open seats, become brand-new candidates on both sides. Incumbency is lost as a benefit.

RUSH: It is a big deal that the Republicans who won yesterday know they did because of President Trump. That is big in solidifying things moving forward.

RUSH: I’m gonna get to this ’cause I’ve hyped it enough here, ’cause I have a theory, and I think it’s the first example not so much of voter suppression, but I think what happened hastened a bunch of Republican retirements from the House. There were 40 or 45 — I’ve heard both numbers. I thought it was 45 but I keep hearing people say 40, the exact number is not relevant to my point. It’s one of those two.

When you lose 45 incumbents, that is a monumental thing to overcome because of the tendency of incumbents in the House to get reelected, 98% reelection rate for incumbents. In fact, that stat has been one of the many complaints about politics in Washington and how tough it is for outsiders to get in because the powers of incumbency with fundraising and special interest backing is so crucial and hard to overcome.

Well, back in December of 2017, we had the first generic ballot poll which showed the Democrats with a 13-point margin. The media started hyping it, they started talking about it with polling data, without polling data. And a bunch of Republicans — you have to go back, 2017, throughout that year there were a lot of Republicans who hated Donald Trump and did not want to acknowledge that he was president, just like a bunch of Democrats.

Some of them were Never Trumpers. Some of them were RINOs. But many of them were scared to death of what Republicans have been scared to death of for years and that’s the Washington press corps. And so these guys started talking about this massive blue wave that was coming, and they associated it with the fact that Trump’s election was stolen, the Russians stole the election.

That first year, 2017, the intensity of this stuff, you know, we forget it because memories are replaced by reality at the moment. But it was intense! You had Republican leadership in the House not supportive of Trump. You had Republicans not helping Trump with anything. Repeal and replace Obamacare was not happening because a bunch of Republicans believed this garbage that Trump had stolen the election; so they thought he was not gonna be around long. They thought he was gonna be impeached or indicted or something. And this was all created by the media. And we started keeping track of this. To illustrate, I have here a sound bite that runs two minutes, and it could run 30.

RUSH: It is a big deal that the Republicans who won yesterday know they did because of President Trump. That is big in solidifying things moving forward.

This sound bite is a montage of how the Democrats in the media had been predicting this blue wave all year to the point that I believe it forced a bunch of Republicans in the House to retire. I don’t believe that just the fact that they were losing their committee chairmanships meant they were leaving. That was the excuse I was given by other Republicans.

I think they bought it. I think they believed that everybody hated Trump, that Trump’s election was the result of a fraud. I believe they thought Trump was a goner and that they were a goner. I think they believed Trump had destroyed the Republican Party and they were getting out in advance to escape the bloodbath, to escape a humiliating loss.

CHARLIE COOK: We’re standing on a beach looking out at the ocean and we’re seeing what looks like a really, really, really big wave!

RUSH: Stop the tape! This starts in December of 2017, by the way. This montage convers 2017, December, all the way to the present.

JOY BEHAR: Some of the Republican base, I understand, thinks that this so-called Democratic wave is fake news. Isn’t that good?

RUSH: All year. Folks, that’s just a small, two-minute microcosm of what was a theme all year starting in December 2017. Now, you couple that with the belief by way too many Republicans that Trump had stolen the election. They believed this crap about the collusion with Russia. They believed the media that everybody hated Trump, that this was somehow a great mistake and everybody regretted it. Nobody… They thought that there was a massive, end-of-the-party election coming, and so they retired. They got out.

I have no doubt that this was a fundamental element of Republican attitude for most of this entire election year. I have no doubt that this affected Republican — and particularly Republican leadership’s — ability to work with Trump on legislation such as the wall. A lot of people think Trump’s not even gonna make it through the year. He’s not gonna make it to 2018. No reason to do any of the Trump agenda. Now, the Democrats won the House last night with a 27-seat gain.

That’s nowhere near a blue wave — and they lost big in the Senate. They lost huge in the Senate. What happened in the Senate last night is bigger than anybody knows right now because the Republicans that did retire and are gone were anti-Trump Republicans: Corker, Flake, McCain. They’re gone. They’re replaced by people who owe their futures to Donald Trump. Every Republican who retired is now realizing they could have won.

If they had hung in there, they could have won, they could have still been in power, and they could have still been a part of something really big, because the Republican Party now knows that Donald Trump can get them reelected. And the people in the Republican Party that ran against Trump — like Mia Love and Barbara Comstock out there making a big point that they were not Trump, they didn’t approve of Trump, they didn’t like Trump’s tweets, whatever — they went down to defeat.

Every senator who voted against Kavanaugh, of the elections that have been called, lost. Every Democrat who voted for Kavanaugh? There was one; that was Manchin. He won. It was a huge, huge factor. Now, the Democrats won the House, but it was not a blue wave. It was never going to be a blue wave. A blue wave would have been over 63 seats, like Obama lost. Oh, by the way, every candidate Obama campaigned for went down the tubes.

Gillum, Stacey Abrams — and Oprah also campaigned for her. So much of the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom — who’s loved and who’s adored and who’s respected — is wrong. Obama still doesn’t have any coattails. The reason is Obama can’t stop talking about himself when he goes out and starts endorsing people. You may as well not even put him out there because he can’t even talk about the people he’s supposedly campaigning for and endorsing. He talks about himself; it doesn’t work.

So now Donald Trump could appoint any judge that he wants and get ’em confirmed. He could put whoever he wants in his cabinet and get ’em confirmed. If he wants to get a different attorney general in there, he can do it now. Over on the House side, Pelosi and her aging band of leaders think they’re gonna be running the show, but I have a clue for ’em. I don’t think people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have any desire for Nancy Pelosi to run the House.

These young Millennial whippersnappers? I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, if you’re over 50, you need to get out of the way. You’re nothing but an albatross, you’re old-fashioned, you can’t possibly relate, and you’re not socialist enough. The way they’ll look at Pelosi is, “What do you mean, socialist? Look how much money you have! You’re uber-rich. You don’t want to do anything to screw that up. You’re not…”

It’s gonna be fireworks on the House side. But nothing is gonna get done. And you couple the fact that Trump can lay claim to the fact that he got Republicans elected. The people he stumped for — nine out of 11 candidates that Trump stumped for, rallied for, got behind — won. How does that equal Trump is hated? How does it equal Trump is despised? How does it equal, “Trump? Yuk, gotta go!” It doesn’t. The Republican Party still doesn’t get it. They still haven’t figured it out. They’re still listening to the wrong people!

They’re listening to Never Trumpers who tell ’em, “Eww, his tweets! Ew, I don’t like the way he talks about women. Ew, I don’t like…” Yeah? Well, what good did it do you running against him on the Republican side? But what we have here is a classic example of how Republicans get psyched out by the media. This is a tremendous list. This threat, this promise, this never-ending symphony of a blue wave caused so many Republicans to give up one year ago, 10 months ago, to conclude there was no chance.

They bought every bit of phony conventional wisdom that Trump is hated, that Trump’s election was a mistake, that the Russians did it, that Trump’s not gonna last for long. They bought into all of that. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is! So, once again, Washington Republicans get psyched out by the media. Those 40 House Republicans who retired heard this mantra, thought they were toast, thought the party was toast, didn’t want to hang around and fight, just wanted to get out of there.

“Well, I’m losing my chairmanship, you know. I’m kind of term-limited out.” If those 45 had not retired, there’s no way the Democrats win the House last night. No way! Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not crying over spilt milk. I’m pointing out a truth about the real enemy the Republican Party faces and how they still don’t understand it and get it, and it’s not Donald Trump. Here. Here’s the Drive-Bys last night. We have another little montage here of the Drive-Bys admitting last night that it wasn’t a blue wave.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I don’t know whether we want to call it a wave, but it’s a (pause) blue, uh, move? A blue —

CHUCK TODD: You can’t call it a wave if you don’t have a big statewide win anywhere! How do you call it a wave if you don’t win Florida? How do you call it a wave if you don’t win Missouri?

RUSH: How do you call it a wave you don’t win Ohio? Here’s one more: Dan Senor, who is one of Paul Ryan’s big butt, uh, friends.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Those House Republicans that retired and left a lot of open seats, including Speaker Paul Ryan —

NORAH O’DONNELL: — said, “I don’t want to be around when Democrats are in charge” —

RUSH: Yeah, he called it! He has this big smile. “Yeah, he called it: ‘I don’t want to be around when Democrats are in charge,’ says Paul Ryan.” And Dan Senor says, “And he feels the same way today.” Thank you very much, Republicans. Thank you very much.

RUSH: I want to replay this sound bite. I had to hurry and get it in before the last break. This is this morning on CBS. The cohost Norah O’Donnell is talking to Republican strategist Dan Senor who is one of Paul Ryan’s big buddies.

And they’re talking about the impact of Republican retirements on Democrats taking control of the House. I want you to listen to this, because she starts out talking about the House Republicans are retired and left a lot of open seats, including Speaker Ryan.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Those House Republicans that retired and left a lot of open seats, including Speaker Paul Ryan —

NORAH O’DONNELL: — said, “I don’t want to be around when Democrats are in charge” —

RUSH: With a smile on his face. “And he feels the same way today.” “I don’t want to be around when Democrats are in charge.” He said it all the way back in January! Why? What was there in January that indicated Democrats are gonna be in charge? The blue wave. This incessant, never ending, excited drumbeat coming from left-wing America, left-wing media that was gonna be a big blue wave.

“I don’t want to be here when the Democrats are in charge.” Well, what good is anybody — you know, Democrats are the opposition — are we just gonna cede everything to them? Are we just gonna give up? We’re not even gonna try to oppose them?

I tell you, a lot of this is rooted in deep down these people just don’t like Trump and they don’t want to succeed if Trump is a factor in it. That’s pretty much a Never Trumper mantra. While they watch much of what they devoted their lives to happen and be implemented, they oppose it. It is just frustrating like I cannot express.

RUSH: Now, some people, “That’s great, Rush, ’cause Trump is great.” Yeah, but we need more than Trump, is the point. We need some people signing on here. We need some people forgetting all of this stuff about, “I don’t like his hairstyle. He talks about people and so forth.” So relatively inconsequential in terms of the stakes. So pretty much all of the hope to prevent all of these states that liberals are flocking to from their Northeastern prisons rests on the shoulders of Donald J. Trump.

Now, the positive of this is that there’s a whole bunch of Republicans who now know it, a whole slew of Republicans who now realize they owe their political victories yesterday and therefore their careers to Donald Trump. The guy needs some help. And I’m not saying he’s been abandoned. Don’t misunderstand. You know what I’m talking about. So now we got these next two years and on the surface it looks like Trump’s set up real well because the Democrats are who they are and they’re just, you know, folks, they’re gonna make messes on themselves without wearing diapers, they can’t help it because they really do hate Trump.

They can’t help themselves and these young whipper snappers that don’t know what they’re doing are gonna be the ones that go out and define what the Democrat Party is and how radical socialist left it is. And it will present an opportunity again, but it’s unnecessary. We needn’t have lost yesterday. But we did in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let’s go to some audio sound bites from the White House era. Before we get to the press conference, I want to continue a theme that I started, and that is there wasn’t any blue wave, there was never gonna be a blue wave, that the Democrats and the media created a blue wave, that a bunch of Republicans sadly fell for and believed it and thus retired or resigned from the House of Representatives. Now the media, we played you one sound bite with them admitting, acknowledging there wasn’t any blue wave.

Here is Chuck Todd on the Today show today. No. 4, sound bite No. 4. Here it is in three, two, one…

TODD: Democrats won the popular vote and the Republicans won the Electoral College. I feel, like, in some ways a deja vu. Meaning, look, more people went to the polls to vote for Democrats in Congress than not. That’s why Democrats won the House. That’s why they’ve got this majority. But the president has enough support in enough places to win big races in states that have large enough rural populations to either offset suburban America or whatever. So, yeah, I think it’s a split decision. We’re gonna look at this. This is a realignment election, not a wave election.

RUSH: Right, realignment. Yeah, it is that, but not a wave election, and so… Let’s see. Savannah Guthrie says: “Did the president hoist” some of these people “over the finish line,” F. Chuck?

TODD: He prevented a wave. One of the ways you do get political waves is one party is demoralized when the other party is fired up, and what we saw is Republicans weren’t demoralized. So what the president did — and he did it with some very questionable tactics, if you will —

TODD: — of trying to stoke his political base — is that it worked. The fact of the matter is he was right; Paul Ryan was wrong.

RUSH: Exactly. What do you mean, they weren’t demoralized? What is it if you retire, thinking that the Democrats are gonna run over you and you don’t want to be part of that? If that’s not being demoralized, I don’t know what it is. They clearly were demoralized! They believed the media. I tell you, the more I think about that… With as much evidence as there is that the media is Democratic Party activism, there is simply no reason to believe — in December of 2017 — this talk of a blue wave, and yet they did.

There’s no question. That was the whole point! They succeeded in demoralizing a whole lot of Republicans to the point that they retired. “So Trump, yeah, he used some questionable tactics trying to stoke his political base.” What do you…? Questionable tactics? Like what? Rallying for them? I don’t know. I’m really worked up about this because this was not necessary. We did not need to have this happen yesterday, and it happened because of Republicans.

They were a combination of demoralized and never on board to begin with after Trump won the presidency. I just wanted you to hear this stuff, because this is the media admitting that there wasn’t a blue wave, and the media admitting it was Trump who prevented it. Here’s Tom Brokaw last night, NBC News Special Midterm Election Coverage. This is during the early returns and what Brokaw said…

BROKAW: At the end of the day, Donald Trump and his followers are still intact if it stays that way that we’re seeing it right now. And a big reason for that, I believe for some time, is the economy. The fact is the economy is chugging right along. We’ve had the greatest job creation since the 1960s. That’s always an important factor when you run a presidential election or any kind of an election year.

RUSH: Donald Trump and his supporters “are still intact,” quote, Tom Brokaw.

Total bs by el gordo de oxycontino. It was enough of a wave to give the house to the rats and narrow the chances of America’s survival to nil. The house repukis retired en mass to achieve that result. They weren’t looking at polls.

These were the GOP fossils who had nothing to contribute to President Trump’s success anyway. But having to fill the 42 open seats left by these cowards was an impossible task, and it’s a blessing that the good candidates who volunteered for the fight and the tenacity of our amazing President came through far better than expected.

I say Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish, we’re better off without them.

Sucks in the short-run, but we’ll be better in 2020 for it.

It’s called “Blowing up the team”

One thing to be concerned about, while total house sets lost was lower under Trump than Obama in 2018, the congressional democratic vote count vs republican vote count was higher in 2018 vs the tea party outpouring in 2010.

the congressional democratic vote count vs republican vote count was higher in 2018 vs the tea party outpouring in 2010.

Trump no doubt is a lightning rod, the likes we haven't seen. The good news is I think they blew their wads on this election and inevitably the Rats will disappoint them, and they won't be nearly as fired up in 2020.

First of all, by my account at least 25 GOP incumbents lost yesterday, so even if there were no retirements we still would have lost the House.

The House losses were not better than expected, they will probably be at least 36 and possibly over 40.

Let’s not sugar-coat what happened. It was BAD.

Just bs is right.

This was a plan... by the RINOs to kneecap Trump leading into 2020.

Trump now also needs to fire female Romney RNC chair.

“As I recall Rush pooh poohed the importance of the retiring Republicans when it was brought up.”

Rush is not the tip of the spear anymore. Hell, he’s not even in the convoy. Anyone that missed the stakes of the 2016 elections[life or death of the country] cannot be taken seriously any longer.

Rush is naive .
This was a planned hit by the Gope Globalist lot and the Dems.
This was Ryan and the cabal of Chambers of Crony Capitalist revenge .
These mass retirements included sweet deals by DC insiders like the Koches to kill Trump progress .
They want him gone so they decided let the Dems do the dirty work.
Anyone think Ryan wasn't sabotaging these races behind the curtain is naive. Ryan threw the rnidterms. That is why he did not resign .

My opinion is they all had dirt on them - recent, current, way back in their past, whatever - and they were told that the guns are out to nuke Trump, and if they didn't go along they'd be outed.

Who gives up a workless job like a congress member - all those benefits, retirement, cachet, etc.? Who voluntarily leaves that?

They were told to step down and like good little toadies they did.

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