RUSH LIMBAUGH ON FOX NEWS SUNDAY WITH CHRIS WALLACE

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On Ted Cruz = Brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant, and conservative through and through. Trustworthy, strong, confident, leader, and somebody on whom and in whom you can totally depend.

November 22, 2015

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

Rush Limbaugh EIB Excellence in Broadcasting

WALLACE: Well, love him or hate him, Rush Limbaugh is the king of conservative talk radio. 20 million people listen to him each week on close to 600 stations across the country. He's also written a new children's book called Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner. Rush Limbaugh joins us now from his EIB Studios in Florida. And Rush, welcome back to Fox News Sunday.

RUSH: It's great to be with you, Chris, it really is. And by the way, everybody who listens to me loves me. There's no hate. It's a great, great, great misnomer --

WALLACE: I know, but there are some people who don't listen to you. Those are the ones I was talking about. Anyway --

RUSH: Oh, no, no! Even the ones who disagree, listen. I mean, they're the ones who hate, and they're the ones who need a reason for it each and every day. And I'm happy to provide it. Full-service shop here. Going into our 28th year. So I'm just... I pinch myself each and every day I have a chance to do it, and it's a thrill to be here with you, as always.

WALLACE: Well, thank you for that. I want to start with a new song that you played on your show Friday, from a group you called Barack Hussein O and Jihadi Singers. Here is a clip.

RUSH: That's exactly right.

"OBAMA" (singing to the tune of Jesus Is Just All Right With Me): ISIS is all right with me! ISIS has been contained, oh yeah! ISIS is just all right with me! ISIS is the JV team!

WALLACE: (chuckles) You were rocking along as we were playing it. I know it's a parody, but I'm sure one with a point. What are you saying about President Obama's strategy toward ISIS?

RUSH: I don't think he's got a strategy that deals with ISIS. I think Obama's strategy... Best I've been able to learn, and I've looked really hard at this, it seems to me that Obama is linked to Iran and Syria in this. The sectarian violence throughout the Middle East is his excuse for not doing anything about it. Iran capitalizes on all of this chaos and crisis. And Chris, look, I don't like saying any of this, but it's obvious Obama is very sensitive to Iran's needs and is trying to satisfy them. We have lifted the sanctions. They've got $150 billion they didn't have. They are on the way to get a nuclear weapon, all because of Barack Hussein O, and I think his dealing with ISIS is inept, and incompetent, and nonexistent.

WALLACE: All right. So what would you do? How would you destroy ISIS?

RUSH: Well, in the first place, I would get some people around me and listen to them. I would get some people around me who are experts in dealing with groups like this. One thing, I would do, Chris, I would hit their oil. I would hit their oil depots and I would hit their oil tankers. We're not. Do you know why we're not? Because we have rules of engagement. The administration says, "Well, some of the drivers might be civilians, and we can't go there -- and there might be some civilians at the actual oil depots and oil wells that they've taken over."

That's their primary source of revenue. I would hit that and I wouldn't care. You know, Chris, the world is governed by the aggressive use of force, and the purpose of war -- and the purpose of militaries -- is to kill people and break things. That's how you win. And you keep doing that until the other side says, "I'm sorry," and surrenders. Barack Obama's No. 1 enemy is the Republican Party, and the conservative movement. You see he gets animated. He does not need cue cards, he does not teleprompter when he starts ripping into them. But when you get ISIS on the board or anything in the Middle East, he's very cautious, very precise, very... Don't want to offend them; don't want to make them mad.

WALLACE: Let me pick up on that.

RUSH: I think it's very dangerous. Chris, I think it's really dangerous. I think the country is in more danger than people know.

WALLACE: Let me pick up on that, because I know you were struck, like a lot of people were, by President Obama's news conference at the G-20 summit in Turkey on Monday, in which he seemed to be more upset with Republicans who want to limit Syrian refugees coming into the country than he was with the ISIS terrorists who slaughtered people in Paris. Here is the president on both of those issues...

OBAMA: The terrible events in Paris were obvious a terrible and sickening setback.

OBAMA: When I hear political leaders (pause) suggesting there would be a religious test? That's shameful. That's not American.

WALLACE: Rush, what do you think is going on here?

RUSH: In that press conference, from those sound bites you just played, he also said that he doesn't believe in all this sloganeering like providing leadership and winning. You know, that's just... That's not... The first time I heard him say that was in reference to Afghanistan in 2009. He said (summarized), "Yeah, when I hear victory, talk of victory, I think of poor Hirohito being dragged onto the battleship Missouri to sign surrender papers." He's not serious, Chris. There are legitimate questions about what and who he thinks pose threats to this country and who our real enemies are.

And I'm sorry, the American people, looking at the latest polling data, he's got his worst marks ever on dealing with terrorism. People are scared. We have got these refugees coming in, and nobody is confident we can vet them. And yet we're told, "Don't be a bigot! Don't be a racist! Don't be a xenophobe." We're none of those things, and nobody who is worried about this, is! They love America. They are concerned about our security. They don't think this administration is, or at least we're not seeing any signs of it.

WALLACE: We do have a history, though, in this country, not only for matters of religious persecution, but also people fleeing violence in their country, of taking them in as refugees. How would you handle the Syrian refugees, Rush?

RUSH: Well, you know, I would pause it. I would put a pause on it right now, and I would... Again, I don't profess to be an expert in everything. I'm an expert in a lot of things, Chris, but not everything. And in this case, I would get some people who can tell me how best to do this. We paused refugees being allowed to enter the country in 2011. Do you know who did it? Barack Hussein O. There was a six-month pause on Iraqi refugees for the very same reason people are worried about the Syrian refugees today.

Look, I have friends who are Syrians. I play golf with them. They're great people. This is not about that. It's not about bigotry or racism or anti-ethnics or against certain nationalities. It's about the defense and protection of the United States of America and our Constitution, which is what is the primary job of the president of the United States. And again, he just doesn't seem to be oriented in that direction or interested in it.

It's almost as though he thinks that we've committed all these crimes since our founding, unjust and immoral, and it's time for payback. It's time for us to find out what the rest of the world goes through every day. It's time for us to bite the bullet. I think it's... (sigh) It's really troubling. I'm having to bite my lip here what I really think. I think it's really, really devastating.

WALLACE: Well, what do you really think?

RUSH: I think we are a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, and the people leading the country today don't see that. They see us as the problem, not the solution. They think that we are responsible for some of these problems. They'll fall back and blame George W. Bush for what's going on. ISIS didn't exist when Bush left office!

WALLACE: Let's do a lightning round; get your quick reactions to some of the people running --

RUSH: (chuckling)

WALLACE: I know you like this.

RUSH: Oh, lightning round! Yes, sir!

WALLACE: Running for president for 2016. First of all, Donald Trump.

RUSH: Uh, Donald Trump is I think doing a great service. He is showing that you do not have to fear attacks from the media. Republicans do not have to fear attacks from the media. He's showing you do not have to fear being politically correct or violating political correctness.

WALLACE: Ben Carson.

RUSH: One of the most decent human beings in this country. One of the finest men. I've met him. The things he has done, the places he's come from.

WALLACE: Eq --

RUSH: He's just one of the most decent human beings--

WALLACE: Equipped to be president?

RUSH: And I cringe when I see that they're trying to destroy him. OK, next name.

WALLACE: Equipped to be president?

RUSH: Is Ben Carson equipped to be president? Probably not at this stage, but any of these Republicans running would be better than Hillary or better than anything we've got now. So on that, based on that comparison, yes. I would vote for him if it was up to him and Hillary. Absolutely! Without a doubt.

WALLACE: Ted Cruz.

RUSH: Brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant, and conservative through and through. Trustworthy, strong, confident, leader, and somebody on whom and in whom you can totally depend.

WALLACE: Jeb Bush?

RUSH: Jeb Bush. I don't think he really wants to do this. I'm watching, and I don't see passion. I don't see fire. It's as though people in his camp want him to do it because they want to get back in power. I just don't see Jeb with all that energy that says, "I need this. The country needs me. I can't wait to do this." I just don't see any of that.

WALLACE: Finally, Hillary Clinton.

RUSH: I just think "corruption." When I think of the Clintons, I think "corruption," and skirting the edges. Don't trust them, and certainly don't think the country would be in the best hands possible if either of them got back in power.

WALLACE: Finally, you have put out another in your series of children's books.

RUSH: Oh yes.

WALLACE: This one is called

Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner, in which you and your talking horse Liberty and some middle school students go back to talk to the Founding Fathers. And once again it is a New York Times best-seller. This is a passion of yours, isn't it?

RUSH: It is. I never thought I would have children as an audience, I wished I could, but they're not going to listen to talk radio. But these books tap into their imagination, they fulfill children's desires to dream, and they're taken right to these moments in history, and they are part of them, rather than these events being recited to them as facts that they have to remember. They are taken there. They talk to or they read conversations that the people in the books are having with Founding Fathers, and it's written for that age group 8 to 10, maybe up to 12. And we're just thrilled and so grateful at the response these books are getting.

WALLACE: Well, look, everybody --

RUSH: And I'm grateful to you for mentioning them, too.

WALLACE: Well, everybody would like to have a time-traveling horse. I mean, and named Liberty no less. Rush, good luck with the book.

RUSH: That's a smart-aleck and talks back to you to boot. My favorite character in the book.

WALLACE: I don't want a smart-aleck talking horse, but anyway, thank you for joining us, good luck with the book. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Kathryn. Always good to talk with you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, Chris. And folks, you just watched the fastest 11 minutes in TV. See you next time we do this, Chris.

WALLACE: (laughs) You bet.

END TRANSCRIPT

RELATED LINKS

• Rush Revere & The Star-Spangled Banner

 

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