Trump Doubled Down -- and It Worked

RUSH: To the audio sound bites first quickly. I want to remind you just to hear it from my own lips. Last Monday on this program.

RUSH: That was last Monday. I was warning everybody that Trump's not playing by the rules, and it really is an important point. I know I've made this over and over again, but it's required, particularly to make impressions on low-information voters. The fact is when the media, Washington establishment, whoever, starts acting outraged over something a public figure said... They're doing it now with Huckabee, by the way, over what he said about the Iran deal and Israel and ovens, which is coming up.

The conventional wisdom is that not only are the media who are reporting this to you outraged, but so are the American people en masse, that there is universal outrage -- disbelief, shock and dismay -- that anybody could say anything so horrible. It's always implied that a majority of the American people also find it outrageous, and I have always doubted that. I've resented in fact that assumption, that the whole of the country also is either outraged or in support of whatever the media seems to be blowing a gasket over.

I said, "Let's just wait, 'cause Trump is not playing along. He's doubling down. He's not following the script, he doubled down on his criticism of McCain and even went further." I said, "Let's just see if this in fact kills him in polling data," and it didn't. Jeff Lord, American Spectator, back on CNN today. You know, I told Jeff I said, "You know, you're gonna have to stop talking about me or they're gonna start canceling you. They're gonna stop inviting you on."

He said, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, don't sweat it. I mean, the truth is the truth." So he was on with Chris Cuomo today. Cuomo says, "Inside those numbers, if you look at the slice of the GOP that really feels that Washington sucks, Donald Trump is there man. Now, do you use that as the takeovers from the poll? What does it mean for Trump going forward?"

LORD: Bingo, Chris! You are exactly right. Last week I said I thought the big story was Rush Limbaugh talking about the McCain-Trump situation, and he said that he didn't think that that was gonna mean anything, that Trump would survive it in good form. Rush was right.

RUSH: Now, moving on to Huckabee. Breitbart's got a radio show on Sirius XM, Breitbart News Saturday, Alexander Marlow was interviewing Huckabee, and Huckabee had this to say about Obama and the Iran nuclear agreement...

HUCKABEE: This president's foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. He's so naïve, he would trust the Iranians and he would take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven.

RUSH: That was Saturday. That was Mike Huckabee, former and current Republican presidential... He is running for president, right? (interruption) Okay, so in criticizing the Iran deal -- you heard him -- Huckabee says that Obama's trusting the Iranians "and he would take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven." Clearly a Holocaust reference. Well, the predictable outrage lit up television all weekend and into this morning, and the Drive-Bys are debating, is this it for Huckabee?

"Is he finished? Does he have to apologize? My God, he would have to apologize!" They went and got ADL people, they got JDL people. They got Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Defamation League, all kinds of people on CNN denouncing what Huckabee had to say. And on CNN, John King speaking with Nia Malika Henderson, who is one of their political correspondents with Huckabee, about Obama basically marching the Israelis "to the door of the oven," and King and Henderson had this exchange.

KING: He's standing by this. Most people including the American Defamation League (sic) are saying, "Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa." And the old rule in politics is, y'know, "Don't joke about Hitler. Don't draw comparisons to the Holocaust."

HENDERSON: This was despicable and terrible! He should apologize. He will not apologize. There is this Trump Effect I think that's going on with some of these candidates where they want to say things and then double down on them. When I heard it...

HENDERSON: I mean, I had kind of a visceral reaction, because it brings up this imagery, uh, that we should only talk about the Holocaust (snicers) when we're talking about the Holocaust.

RUSH: Okay, so now the Huckster has to apologized. They're following the script except they're realizing now that he's not gonna follow the script; he's following the Trump script. The Drive-Bys find what he says very offensive, but then they say he has to apologize. Now they admit that Huckabee won't apologize 'cause he's gonna double down and follow what Trump did. He's gonna assume that a vast majority of the American people do not agree with Chris Cuomo, John King, whoever else on CNN.

Obama went to Kenya, and before he got there, the Kenyan president said, "Would you leave all of your talk about homosexuality at home? We don't care. It's not a big issue. Don't come preach to us." Obama went and preached to 'em about homosexuality in Kenya. But he went even farther than that. This morning in Addis Ababa, which is in Ethiopia, Obama and the Ethiopian prime minister held a joint press conference. There was a Q&A, and Obama starts launching into the Republican presidential candidates.

OBAMA: In particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are, I think, part of just a general pattern that we've seen that is -- would be considered, duhhh, ridiculous if it weren't so sad. We've had a sitting senator call John Kerry Pontius Pilate. We've had a sitting

senator who also happens to be running for president suggest that I'm the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

RUSH: And then he started in on Trump. But who do you think in Obama's mind the real culprit in all of this is?

OBAMA: When you look at what's happened with, uhh, Mr. Trump, when he, uhh, has made some of the remarks that, for example, challenge the heroism of Mr. McCain, the Republican Party is shocked. And yet that arises out of a culture where those kind of things outrageous attacks have become far too commonplace and get circulated nonstop through the Internet and talk radio.

RUSH: There you have it! The ultimate blame is right here, because of what happens right here is why all these other Republicans are doing what they're doing. Yep! It's why sitting Republicans are calling Kerry Pontius Pilate. Talk radio is why Huckabee said what he said about Israelis and the ovens and the Iran deal. Talk radio is why a sitting senator said that Obama is a state sponsor of terrorism. Yep! There you have it. Talk radio and the Internet.

CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. Listen, I'm a legislator up in New York area, and, you know, I've listened to what Trump's doing right now, and I gotta say: Being in politics for about the past five years, there are a lot of politicians who hold back to what you really want to say this. We're passionate just like anybody else, and I see Trump out there, and it makes me want to do the same thing. So, maybe that's what's happening with Huckabee, and maybe Trump is gonna give the green light to everybody.

RUSH: You know, I bet this is true. I bet there are a lot of people who want to do what Trump is doing, but why don't they?

CALLER: Well, you know, I think it's just hard because you go out there, and sometimes you push the envelope and you get so much grief and crap back at you that it's almost harder to do your job.

RUSH: Well, look, you're right. But there's a larger umbrella answer, under which a lot of sub-answers will fall, and it's this: They can't blackmail Trump, and they can't buy him. Therefore, they cannot intimidate him and bully him into silence, primarily because they can't buy him with donors' promises, what have you -- and they can't blackmail him. Because if they could, they would be. So, therefore how they gonna shut this down, folks? This is the worst nightmare -- what Trump is doing and saying and the result of it -- the establishment could have ever had.

Since the start of his presidency, Obama has repeatedly insulted Americans and America. When even remotely questioned, he doubled down on his statements and claims. He was never questioned; the media seemingly fears questioning any of his claims. Trump is merely playing by these new set of “rules,” which means there is only brashness and audacity. Washington is no genteel, good old boys’ club. There are no gentlemen, and no gentlemen’s rules by which to play.

3 posted on 07/27/2015 1:03:44 PM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")

4 posted on 07/27/2015 1:15:01 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)

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