RUSH: In terms of substance? I disagree with Chris Wallace. I think there was substance in this debate last night, and depending on what you want -- depending on what you were hoping to see and then what you think going forward -- there's really only one candidate in this debate last night which was chock-full of genuine policy-oriented substance, and that was Cruz. And I happen to know, folks...
I hear from people constantly, as you can imagine, and I hear from you even on the phones. But there have been people during the entirety of this campaign who think that Trump is a pretender, that he really doesn't know much about what all this is about, that he's getting by on the cult of celebrity and other things in our pop culture that people get excited by and attach to. There have been people who say, "We've gotta expose Trump. Trump's gotta be exposed. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know conservatism.
"He doesn't know policy. He's just up there saying things that sound good in a populist sense." So what Cruz did last night was essentially expose that. If that's what you think needs and has needed to happen, Cruz did it last night. And probably the best way to illustrate how it happened is, one of the fears that a lot of anti-Trump people have is he's not really even a Republican. And they keep talking about all of his donations to people like Chuck Schumer and the Clintons.
Trump's response was, "Hey, look, you know, I live in New York City and they run the show there, and I'm in business, and there are certain things you have to do to get things done. You have to work with these people. But I'm a Republican." And he's made it clear, and he's tried to make that point over and over again. But Trump found last night Ted Cruz illustrating that. (summarized) "Look, if you think we have to beat Hillary Clinton, Trump's not the guy to do it. Trump cannot go out and hit Hillary Clinton on any of the things that she has done, any of her corruption, because he has contributed to her.
"He has donated. All that would have to happen," Cruz says, "is for Trump to hit Hillary in the debate and Hillary, and all she's gotta do is say, 'Donald, I don't know what your problem is. You donated to me to do this exact thing. So I don't know what your problem is now.'" And Cruz said, "We can't nominate somebody who donated to her." It's akin to the people that said we shouldn't nominate Romney. "If we nominate Romney, there's no way we can get Obama on Obamacare because Romney invented it in Massachusetts.
"Romney gave us Romneycare, and the guy that wrote Romneycare then turned around and wrote Obamacare," and it took Obamacare off the table as far as Romney's concerned. He couldn't hit it because there's a retort, "What do you mean you don't like Obamacare? You wrote its father. You implemented and signed into law its father, Romneycare. What are you?" And Cruz's point was that same set of circumstances with Hillary are going to occur.
Because it can be demonstrated that Trump's donations to the Clintons over the years -- including to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation -- have facilitated political move that Hillary Clinton has made. So the people who have wanted Trump exposed, that was pretty substantively done by Cruz. On the Rubio side, what Rubio did was literally just laugh at Trump all night, literally made fun of him, mock him. Not act frightened or afraid of him, and not be worried about ticking off his supporters, either.
A first for both.
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RUSH: Well, yeah, that's true. The Telemundo lady last night, the moderator -- again, her name was Maria Celeste Arraras, and she only asked one question of everybody, and it really wasn't a question. She'd make a speech about Hispanics and illegal immigration and how they go together and how they're inseparable and then say, "Don't you get it?" And then the candidate would answer. She'd get frustrated, go to the next candidate, and repeat her claim. This woman had... Her questions went longer than the allotted 30 seconds the guys got to answer.
So she's going on and on about illegal immigration and Hispanics and how they're inseparable, how they go together, and then the next candidate, she'd say, "Doesn't he get it? Don't you get it?" But there's one thing that did happen because of Maria Celeste Arraras and speaking Espanol last night. And that is she confirmed an allegation that Cruz has been making about Rubio, that he says different things to different audiences about amnesty and the Gang of Eight bill. It was kind of in the weeds.
At least it was to me, because the captioning couldn't keep up with it, and everybody was speaking pretty quickly last night. But that was the upshot of it, where she ended up demonstrating (whether she intended to or not) that Cruz has been accurate in his attempt to get people to understand that Rubio is saying two different things depending on the audience. When he's speaking Spanish to an Hispanic audience, he is saying what he thinks they want to hear when it comes to Gang of Eight and amnesty. He's much more, shall we say, "understanding," maybe "supportive," than when he is speaking to English-language audience.
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RUSH: Mike in Richmond, Indiana. Great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hello. It's a privilege to speak with you, and I appreciate you taking my phone call.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Two reasons that I believe if Trump is the Republican candidate, that the Democrats will win the election. First reason -- which you touched on briefly -- was how is he going to be able to attack Hillary for what she's done in the past when he supported her by giving her money? And the second, which I think is the most damaging, is the mainstream media wants Trump to be the Republican candidate. They know he's got enough skeletons in the closet that they're gonna attack him from every angle, and if he thinks the Megyn Kelly question was rough, wait 'til he's a Republican candidate and the mainstream media starts asking him questions.
RUSH: I don't think Trump's under any illusion. McCain back in 2008 actually believed the media was on his side. McCain actually thought that it the media was gonna vote for him and promote him. I don't think Trump's under any illusion here that the media like him. I think he's fully aware that the media is gonna try to destroy him, and my guess is he'll probably be prepared for whatever Hillary throws at him. Whatever. But I understand. You know, it was one of Ted Cruz's primary points last night, that we've already done this.
We nominated Romney. We nominated a guy who could not attack the main reason we wanted to send Obama packing. That's Obamacare. We couldn't do it because Romney wrote Obamacare, the first stage of it, called Romneycare. So we took it off the table, and Cruz's point was: We're doing the same thing here with Trump. He can't go after Hillary for any of her corruption because Donald's donated to it. That was the point he was making last night.
So, anyway, folks, we gotta take another time-out. I told you this segment was gonna be short 'cause I went a little long in the -- in the previous one.
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