Ted Cruz Won Troubling Debate
March 04, 2016
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I don't go into these debates with any expectations anymore. That's the key to being able to handle all of this. If you go into these debates expecting your candidate to be treated fairly, you're gonna be disappointed. Whoever your candidate is, if you go into these debates expecting fairness, however you define it, you're gonna be disappointed.
I just watch them. I watch them and soak it all up as a sponge. Literally I try to shelve every expectation I've got and every hope that I have, whatever they are, and whoever I happen to be pulling for, broom that, too, and just watch it, just take it in as it happened and judge it accordingly.
Here's my takeaway from last night. We'll of course fill in blanks and get into this in great detail, but I think Ted Cruz won that debate hands down. I don't think it's even close. I think Ted Cruz Ted Cruz was in a different league last night. Ted Cruz was in a different debate than what everybody else was doing, including Kasich. I think Ted Cruz was running rings around everybody in terms of awareness of the issues, knowledge of the issues, mastering whatever it was that was discussed.
Megyn Kelly tried a couple of times to insult him in questions and take him off balance and it didn't work either time. He did not respond to her in a negative way. He just took her question, answered it, and blew it out of the park. The one question where she said, "So, it looks like in this instance we just can't trust Ted." And his answer specified how her question was misleading and had incorrect data in it.
I think it was a polling question on a CNN poll, Trump and 49%, and Cruz pointed out in that poll that he's the only one beating Hillary in that poll. This is not to say that if you like Trump, if you like Rubio, if you like Kasich that I thought those guys didn't do well. I'm just telling you: As I watched this thing with no expectations and with no hopes and with no preconceived notions of what was gonna happen, I just thought last night...
Within the context of what happened last night, nothing compared to what's happened on previous occasions. No baseline from previous debates or appearances from which I'm making comparisons, just within the confines of that debate last night. When Ted Cruz got the question about Detroit -- Flint, Michigan -- he's the only guy that got the answer right. Now, the things other people said about it were true, but Ted Cruz is the only guy that got anywhere close to explaining what's wrong with Detroit. Liberalism! Left-wing policies!
For 50 years, everything that's going wrong wherever you go in the country, the people that have been running it are left-wing Democrat Party. Wherever they've been in charge unchecked, everything's a mess just like it is in Detroit. I think Cruz's skills as a debater were on full display last night for anybody to see, but there was a period of time early on in the debate where he was the new Ben Carson, meaning he didn't speak or wasn't heard from for easily a half hour.
His sections, his portions of the debate, nobody would call the most entertaining.
The most entertaining portions obviously were between Rubio and Trump. And Trump is entertaining and captivating and dominating ever he is participating, no matter what he says and no matter how he says it. But I really, for the first time, I actually... I don't know how else to explain this other than to say in terms of the old way that we used to consider qualifications for the presidency, the old way in which we used to analyze competence, Ted Cruz hit a grand-slam home run last night.
But that's not how we make judgments on these things today.
That's not a complaint. It's just an observation. I'm not whining. I do not whine. So that's my overview. Of course there are intricate elements and details of this thing last night to discuss. We'll do that while mixing your phone calls in with the program today. Plenty of audio sound bites to review from debate last night as well. One of the items of focus last night based on just my perusal of Drive-By Media coverage, is some people think that Trump flip-flopped in a major way on immigration on the H-1B visa questions and discussion.
There are other people who are expressing incredulity that Trump seemed to not know what "off the record" means, based on his answer about the New York Times. The off-the-record questions came up regarding Trump and his interview off the record with New York Times editorial board. And everybody's dying to know what he said, because he won't tell anybody what he said and he won't release the tapes. And they asked him -- the moderators and a number of people challenged him to release the tapes.
"Tell us what you said there, Mr. Trump," and Trump said, "I have too much respect for 'off the record.' I have too much respect. I wouldn't do it to the other guys. I would hope they wouldn't do it to me." And I admit I was scratching my head, because off the record is a protection for the journalists. The candidate in this case or the subject of a news story is totally in control of off the record. If Trump wants to release it, he can. If New York Times does, they are violating a profound journalistic principle.
If they release it -- which I think they've already done. I think the New York Times is even alluding to this, to BuzzFeed, and getting this whole thing going is a giant violation of journalistic ethics. But Trump himself is in total control. He's the one that would demand "off the record." The media doesn't offer it to you. And if they do, you've gotta be very suspicious about it. Very rarely will the media offer you "off the record." Now, maybe for an editorial board meeting, maybe it's standard operating procedure to be off the record and everybody knows it going in.
But normally whoever is the subject, whoever's the interviewee has to request "off the record," and then the media either agrees to do it or not, in which case the interviewee then decides how much he or she wants to say. And if the media will not go along with a request to go "off the record," you shut up, has been my experience. The only way you go forward's if they grant you your request to go "off the record." But it's not something that anybody but the interviewee is in control of. So it's not that the New York Times and Trump have to come to an agreement.
(continued on next post)
March 04, 2016
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I don't go into these debates with any expectations anymore. That's the key to being able to handle all of this. If you go into these debates expecting your candidate to be treated fairly, you're gonna be disappointed. Whoever your candidate is, if you go into these debates expecting fairness, however you define it, you're gonna be disappointed.
I just watch them. I watch them and soak it all up as a sponge. Literally I try to shelve every expectation I've got and every hope that I have, whatever they are, and whoever I happen to be pulling for, broom that, too, and just watch it, just take it in as it happened and judge it accordingly.
Here's my takeaway from last night. We'll of course fill in blanks and get into this in great detail, but I think Ted Cruz won that debate hands down. I don't think it's even close. I think Ted Cruz Ted Cruz was in a different league last night. Ted Cruz was in a different debate than what everybody else was doing, including Kasich. I think Ted Cruz was running rings around everybody in terms of awareness of the issues, knowledge of the issues, mastering whatever it was that was discussed.
Megyn Kelly tried a couple of times to insult him in questions and take him off balance and it didn't work either time. He did not respond to her in a negative way. He just took her question, answered it, and blew it out of the park. The one question where she said, "So, it looks like in this instance we just can't trust Ted." And his answer specified how her question was misleading and had incorrect data in it.
I think it was a polling question on a CNN poll, Trump and 49%, and Cruz pointed out in that poll that he's the only one beating Hillary in that poll. This is not to say that if you like Trump, if you like Rubio, if you like Kasich that I thought those guys didn't do well. I'm just telling you: As I watched this thing with no expectations and with no hopes and with no preconceived notions of what was gonna happen, I just thought last night...
Within the context of what happened last night, nothing compared to what's happened on previous occasions. No baseline from previous debates or appearances from which I'm making comparisons, just within the confines of that debate last night. When Ted Cruz got the question about Detroit -- Flint, Michigan -- he's the only guy that got the answer right. Now, the things other people said about it were true, but Ted Cruz is the only guy that got anywhere close to explaining what's wrong with Detroit. Liberalism! Left-wing policies!
For 50 years, everything that's going wrong wherever you go in the country, the people that have been running it are left-wing Democrat Party. Wherever they've been in charge unchecked, everything's a mess just like it is in Detroit. I think Cruz's skills as a debater were on full display last night for anybody to see, but there was a period of time early on in the debate where he was the new Ben Carson, meaning he didn't speak or wasn't heard from for easily a half hour.
His sections, his portions of the debate, nobody would call the most entertaining.
The most entertaining portions obviously were between Rubio and Trump. And Trump is entertaining and captivating and dominating ever he is participating, no matter what he says and no matter how he says it. But I really, for the first time, I actually... I don't know how else to explain this other than to say in terms of the old way that we used to consider qualifications for the presidency, the old way in which we used to analyze competence, Ted Cruz hit a grand-slam home run last night.
But that's not how we make judgments on these things today.
That's not a complaint. It's just an observation. I'm not whining. I do not whine. So that's my overview. Of course there are intricate elements and details of this thing last night to discuss. We'll do that while mixing your phone calls in with the program today. Plenty of audio sound bites to review from debate last night as well. One of the items of focus last night based on just my perusal of Drive-By Media coverage, is some people think that Trump flip-flopped in a major way on immigration on the H-1B visa questions and discussion.
There are other people who are expressing incredulity that Trump seemed to not know what "off the record" means, based on his answer about the New York Times. The off-the-record questions came up regarding Trump and his interview off the record with New York Times editorial board. And everybody's dying to know what he said, because he won't tell anybody what he said and he won't release the tapes. And they asked him -- the moderators and a number of people challenged him to release the tapes.
"Tell us what you said there, Mr. Trump," and Trump said, "I have too much respect for 'off the record.' I have too much respect. I wouldn't do it to the other guys. I would hope they wouldn't do it to me." And I admit I was scratching my head, because off the record is a protection for the journalists. The candidate in this case or the subject of a news story is totally in control of off the record. If Trump wants to release it, he can. If New York Times does, they are violating a profound journalistic principle.
If they release it -- which I think they've already done. I think the New York Times is even alluding to this, to BuzzFeed, and getting this whole thing going is a giant violation of journalistic ethics. But Trump himself is in total control. He's the one that would demand "off the record." The media doesn't offer it to you. And if they do, you've gotta be very suspicious about it. Very rarely will the media offer you "off the record." Now, maybe for an editorial board meeting, maybe it's standard operating procedure to be off the record and everybody knows it going in.
But normally whoever is the subject, whoever's the interviewee has to request "off the record," and then the media either agrees to do it or not, in which case the interviewee then decides how much he or she wants to say. And if the media will not go along with a request to go "off the record," you shut up, has been my experience. The only way you go forward's if they grant you your request to go "off the record." But it's not something that anybody but the interviewee is in control of. So it's not that the New York Times and Trump have to come to an agreement.
(continued on next post)
