Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why Did Trump Drop the Cruz Attacks?(Shockwave video in the link)
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | February 5, 2016 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on 02/05/2016 3:14:01 PM PST by Kaslin

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Everybody's stumped today. Everybody's stymied. Everybody's curious. Can't figure it out. All of a sudden Donald Trump says he doesn't want to criticize Cruz anymore. All of a sudden Donald Trump says (paraphrased), "Yeah, you know what? I like Ted! I might even have him as my vice president if I get the nomination." "But, wait a minute! Everybody says you're thinking of suing him 'cause he's from Canada. What the hell's going on?"

They can't figure out what happened.

So they're assigning it to, "Well, you know, maybe Trump's insane."

Then they say, "No, he's not insane. So what's going on here? Well, maybe he's just trying to keep everybody on their toes and off guard and not knowing what's coming next?" No. That may be, but that's not what's going on here. "Well, but then why? He abandons Dr. Carson! Dr. Carson was his big friend, and then all of a sudden doesn't care about Carson. He likes Ted Cruz? All of a sudden he's not gonna complain about Iowa? What's going on?" And they're all struggling to try to figure this out. And the answer can be found by going back to yesterday's program here on the EIB Network. This is why...

RUSH ARCHIVE: Now, I understand that the polling is hit or miss and that 13 of them were wrong. I understand. Thirteen polls had Trump winning. And I've got nothing against Dr. Carson. I think Dr. Carson's one of the finest men alive today walking this planet. This whole episode, nevertheless, boggles my mind -- this whole thing -- manufactured as it is. It just boggles my mind. We're on the verge here, we conservatives, of wresting control of the Republican Party from the establishment and getting sidetracked with this stuff. It isn't helpful. I wish it would stop, but I'm not running all these campaigns.

RUSH: And I said even more than that. I got specific. I said, "This notion that you can't take a tweet that's found on CNN and spread the news around it without correcting some kind of controversy is silly. It's a waste of time. It's a distraction," and a couple of times yesterday, I just said, "Stop it. Stop this stuff. There's way too much going on to get distracted by this. Too much time is spent on this." You know, it's okay to disagree with people; it's okay to have policy differences with 'em.

But there's no reason to start excommunicating people either from the party or from the movement, people who you know are conservative but may be wrong on an issue here or issue there. Fine, disagree with 'em all you want. Defeat them all you want. But this excommunication stuff, and banishing them? I had enough of it yesterday. It's destructive. I mean, this election is too important. I'm rehashing much of what I said yesterday, and adding a couple things to it. But, really, there's just too much at stake here. So I'd just had it.

I was telling people in my circle of friends that this stuff's starting to get embarrassing to me. There was no election stolen in Iowa and all of this about... You know, I did hear from a guy named Bill Saracino. Bill Saracino, goes way back to my days in Sacramento. Bill lost his hearing and he was one of the first guys I talked to about what life was going to be life with a cochlear implant way back in 2000, whenever that was, and he was extremely helpful.

He had gone to the House Clinic just as I had, and he helped me to prepare for what hearing and life and getting along was gonna be like with a cochlear implant, before I had had mine surgically implanted. And then after that, I lost track of him. I got an e-mail from him yesterday, the first time in 12 years, and he is in -- or was in -- California. I guess he's still California. He's working on the Carson campaign, and he was telling me, "There are people who had their votes shafted away from 'em, Rush.

"I heard you on the radio today saying that not one person's popped up to say that they were gonna vote for Carson and didn't because of what Ted Cruz's campaign was doing. Well, Rush, I got a couple of them here. You need to know this." So he was telling me that a couple of people had stood up. But I still haven't heard it or seen it. Whatever, it wasn't gonna add up to 25,000 votes, which is what Carson needed to tie Rubio phone number third place. That wasn't gonna happen -- and furthermore, Carson outperformed what he was supposed to get if you believe in polling data.

So the whole thing to me just seemed unnecessary, and I had the usual, "Oh, you're just in the tank for Cruz!" I'm not in the tank for anybody here. It's not my job to win a campaign for any candidate. It's not my job to take people out of it, either. It's not my job to make 'em win it or help 'em. It's not my job to see to it that they lose it. That's up to them. And it's always been my philosophy. But when I see really unfortunate time-wasting things like this, and it just feeds right in to the Drive-Bys. Here we're on the verge...

Like I said, here we're on the verge of wresting control of the party from the establishment, which is what has to happen for us conservatives, and now here we're in the process of trying to destroy two or three of 'em. It's a circular firing squad. So, anyway, that's what I said yesterday. Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, interviewing Donald Trump. Cooper said, "You came in second in Iowa to Ted Cruz. Let's talk about Cruz! You basically accused him of fraud, stealing the election in Iowa. You talked about wanting a new election there. Have you actually spoken to Republican Party officials about that?"

TRUMP: Nah. Look, I'm into New Hampshire now. It's just one of those things. It was sort of a lot of strange things. And, you know, I like Ben Carson very much, and he got pretty roughed up, frankly. Although it affected me maybe more than Ben. But I'm so much -- because I've been now here for two days. I'm so much into this, into New Hampshire that I just... I don't care about that.

RUSH: Okay. So that's what happened. He doesn't care about it anymore. He's moving on. H esaid what he had to say about it, got his message out, thinks Cruz is from Canada is a fraud and is now moving on. He's dropping it. But the media's not happy. That's why, folks, "Are you saying that you have...?" Who else did? Nobody can figure it out. I'm giving you a possibility, certainly. So then Anderson Cooper... The media's the last group of people who want to see this happy. The media want to see Trump loaded for bear.

The media are deathly afraid of Cruz. And they are afraid of Trump. And they're gonna end up being parade of Rubio at some point. They want Cruz taken out. They're frustrated. The media is frustrated that they haven't been able to take out Republican front-runners yet, and the Republican front-runners-in-waiting are the bottom of the pile. The media candidates of ours, they prefer, can't get any traction. They're frustrated. So here comes Trump aiming at Cruz; they loved it. Anderson Cooper said (impression), "Oh, no! But -- but -- but wait! Donald... Donald, you think... you think Ted Cruz intentionally was spreading false information, right? How can you do this?"

TRUMP: I don't care. I mean, I don't -- I don't want to even say. Let's see what happens. I guess people are looking at it. Who cares? We're into here. I picked up a lot of delegates, you know? I was second. I picked up one less than he did. So that's not gonna be even a factor. But this is the place that I'm focused.

RUSH: Right, he's focused on New Hampshire now. So everybody's running around, "What happened? What, I mean, why did...?" There's a possibility for you. By the way, Cruz? This guy is so sharp. He is so quick. Did you hear he...? A reporter tried to -- and they ought to give up trying. They're never going to do it. No reporter on earth is gonna be able to outwit, in a match wits, Ted Cruz. They're just not gonna be able to sabotage the guy. A reporter kept hounding him about this "dirty trick."

Ted Cruz Schools ABC on 'Dirty Trick' Claim

The reporter said (impression), "It's a dirty trick! It's a dirty trick to confuse voters! Don't you think it's a dirty trick to confuse voters?" And Cruz said, "No. We're not gonna scapegoat anybody." This reporter wanted to know, "Are you gonna fire anybody?" "Nobody gonna scapegoat anybody. I would note that the news story that our team passed on was true and accurate. CNN reported it." The reporter said, "Yeah, but it's a dirty trick, right? Don't you think it's a dirty trick? I mean, how can you do that? That's a horrible thing to do!"

Cruz: "Is it a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You're in the journalism business. Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story," that's where this reporter worked, "or is it only a dirty trick when I pass on CNN stories?" And the reporter (stammering), 'cause Cruz is saying, "Hey, I didn't do a damn thing! Carson's people called CNN. CNN put something up. We saw it; we used it. If there's a dirty trick, it's you people in the media putting it up in the first place." So Cruz is essentially saying this ABC reporter, "Oh, really? It's a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You're in the business. Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story? Or is it just a dirty trick to pass on CNN stories?"

END TRANSCRIPT


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: carson; cruz; rushlimbaugh; trump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-110 next last
To: Sun

It depends on the circumstances around which these ‘endorsements’ or ‘detractions’ are made. Trump says what he says, he calls it like he sees it, and then he moves on.
It is just the way he has always been. No polling necessary .


61 posted on 02/05/2016 4:01:36 PM PST by erlayman (yw)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Greetings_Puny_Humans
The two voice mail messages today, that are nearly identical, are devastating. No need to attack, the Cruz campaign person/idiot working for him probably sunk him...
62 posted on 02/05/2016 4:03:34 PM PST by GizzyGirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: Ken H
If internals are more accurate, then why wouldn't Quinnipiac et al use their methods?

Internal polls are usually more focused on the underlying details - how motivated supporters are, which specific demographic groups are supporting your candidate, etc. The public polls try to do some of that, but don't have the time or the interest in getting too far down in the weeds.

So for example, you could have a "likely voter poll" that shows Trump 25%, Cruz 20%, Rubio 15%. But your internal polling shows that of that 25% for Trump, 10% are low-propensity voters and the Trump campaign has made no contact with them to be sure they get to the polls; while a majority of the Cruz supporters are high propensity voters who have been contacted multiple times by the campaign. That is going to tell you more about who is likely to actually show up and vote than just the top line numbers quoted by the major polls.

63 posted on 02/05/2016 4:03:55 PM PST by CA Conservative (Texan by birth, Californian by circumstance)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776
Ah, doesn't make sense but nothing he does makes sense since. Even businesses do marketing research. Scary, eh? Does that mean he'll do what HE wants, not what the people want? Is he listening to the people or making people listen to him [talk about himself]?

According to a report in the Observer a few days ago, Trump has spent almost twice as much on his promotional hats as he has on his data analysis and GOTV efforts.

64 posted on 02/05/2016 4:06:50 PM PST by CA Conservative (Texan by birth, Californian by circumstance)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

I definitely like Rush. A lot.

But this election really has him wrapped around the axle.


65 posted on 02/05/2016 4:07:50 PM PST by xzins (Have YOU Donated to the Freep-a-Thon? https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: bigbob

Well said.


66 posted on 02/05/2016 4:10:57 PM PST by Gator113 (~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
When I see "shockwave", THIS

is what I think of.

67 posted on 02/05/2016 4:13:30 PM PST by Don W ( When blacks riot, neighborhoods and cities burn. When whites riot, nations and continents burn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: maddog55

Suddenly, I am in a much better mood. Although my chest is tight and I am having difficulty breathing.


68 posted on 02/05/2016 4:16:18 PM PST by Gator113 (~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: dynoman

>>> Team Ted lied - “principled” died.

Just a suggestion... “X lied, X died” is a 100% Democrat meme. If you want to be taken as a conservative, you would be best advised to drop such drivel. Almost as bad as “Hey, hey. Ho, Ho. Candidate X has got to go.”


69 posted on 02/05/2016 4:17:21 PM PST by XEHRpa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: newfreep

Well I’ll be darned, it’s finally happened, Trump is on his way out.

At almost 40% he has got to be a nervous wreck.


70 posted on 02/05/2016 4:19:47 PM PST by Gator113 (~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~~~Go Trump Go~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: catfish1957

The moment any poll says any candidate is closing the gap, then the lies and smears will be non stop. Did it to Carson, then Cruz. Trumps ego won’t allow debate on the issues because his lengthy record of LIEberalism sucks rocks.


71 posted on 02/05/2016 4:20:11 PM PST by RasterMaster ("Towering genius disdains a beaten path." - Abraham Lincoln)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: catfish1957

The moment any poll says any candidate is closing the gap, then the lies and smears will be non stop. Did it to Carson, then Cruz. Trumps ego won’t allow debate on the issues because his lengthy record of LIEberalism sucks rocks.


72 posted on 02/05/2016 4:20:43 PM PST by RasterMaster ("Towering genius disdains a beaten path." - Abraham Lincoln)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: unlearner

Sorry. Don’t think The Donald can hack it.

He can’t control his tweeting or his tantrums. And no one can count on him.

If Cruz counted on him to be fair today, what happens tomorrow?

I would be wary of this partnership if I were Cruz.

I’d love for the two of them to take that little twerp Rubio out but don’t think the Donald can do it.


73 posted on 02/05/2016 4:20:52 PM PST by altura (Cruz for our country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: unlearner

I still suspect the two of them are up to something/in cahoots.

They both *must* know that Rubio is the real threat.


74 posted on 02/05/2016 4:21:26 PM PST by Salamander (I made friends with a lot of people in the danger zone...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: JediJones; bigbob

Maybe bigbob means that he wants to see a businessman WHO LOVES AMERICA in the White House for once.

The others basically are either children or the blame-America-First crowd.


75 posted on 02/05/2016 4:23:02 PM PST by MayflowerMadam (Romans 8:38-39)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

It has been speculated Abraham Lincoln was bipolar. Interestingly, Winston Churchill and General Patton too.


76 posted on 02/05/2016 4:23:47 PM PST by glenduh (:):)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: XEHRpa

I’ve seen it used here about democrats.


77 posted on 02/05/2016 4:24:32 PM PST by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marilyn vos Savant)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: MayflowerMadam

Maybe, but not a business man who loves himself and all his liberal buddies.

A businessman who can’t be counted on for the same position two days in a row.

A business man who is willing to be courted by the gay alliance and who was pro-abortion 3 years ago but claims to have changed.

He changes too dang much. You people need to wake up. You cannot count on the man.


78 posted on 02/05/2016 4:25:51 PM PST by altura (Cruz for our country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: xzins

“Trump quit the attack because he made his point”

I tend to agree with that. Trump is changing his attacks. I expect him to go after Rubio at this point.


79 posted on 02/05/2016 4:26:02 PM PST by Parley Baer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: RitaOK

“TRUMP accomplished his mission. He got the universe to watch Cruz.”

Having Trump focus on the Cruz antics in Iowa, he’s put everyone on notice that cheating will be exposed. I think you’re right — that he accomplished his mission. Thank God for someone bold enough to stand up against cheating.


80 posted on 02/05/2016 4:27:41 PM PST by MayflowerMadam (Romans 8:38-39)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-110 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson