Talk radio

Talk radio rallies around Ted Cruz

As Trump and Rubio attack, the 2016 contender’s right-wing friends circle the wagons.

By Hadas Gold

Conservative talk radio likes to flirt with Donald Trump, but its hosts are showing their commitment to Ted Cruz.

With a month left until the Iowa caucuses, attacks on the ascendant 2016 contender have nudged his talk radio supporters back into line, pushing them to throw their valuable support behind the candidate they want to win rather than the one who assures a strong audience.

And with tens of millions of listeners — and a large slice of likely GOP primary voters — at stake, the backing of these right-wing opinion-makers is significant. Their preference for Cruz, in fact, suggests the upswing in his standing in Iowa and national polls has some durability.

“He’s my guy. I like Ted Cruz a lot,” said Glenn Beck on Fox News last week. The host, who has been an avowed Cruz supporter for years, boasts about 7 million listeners a week, according to industry magazine Talkers.

Talk radio shifted into Cruz defense last week after Trump called the Texan “a little bit of a maniac” in the Senate. Mark Levin, a former Reagan administration official dubbed “The Great One” by Sean Hannity, took to social media to lambaste the poll leader for insulting Cruz.

“My friend Donald Trump really screwed up,” Levin said. “Big time.”

“We have a guy who has stood up to Mitch McConnell, who is viciously attacked in every liberal newspaper, every liberal outlet, by the establishment. Who led the fight against Obamacare. And he’s referred to as a ‘maniac?’ I’m sure Mitch McConnell loved that,” he said. “I’m sure the Wall Street Journal editorial page loved that. He’s a ‘maniac?’”

Levin also boasts 7 million listeners per week, according to Talkers.

The conservative radio hosts have been on the Trump train for a while, with many of them aligning themselves with Trump’s comments on immigration and how to combat ISIS. But few have come out and declared that they’re Trump backers.

In a post on Facebook in August, Beck questioned the motivations of fellow radio hosts, such as Hannity, Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh, seeming to suggest they were talking Trump to keep the audience. “These are smart people. What am I missing? Just based on his favorability ratings, he could never win in a general. Research shows that he may be near his ceiling now. Are they just trying to hold on to those disenfranchised Republicans and keep them in the fold?” Beck wrote.
Trump backed off his “maniac” comment after talk radio rallied around Cruz. But he wasn’t the only one to target the senator now ranking first in Iowa.

When Marco Rubio at the last debate identified and then exploited an inconsistency in Cruz’s rhetoric on legalization for undocumented immigration, talk radio jumped in again.

Host Erick Erickson, who has had beef with Trump and uninvited him from his August “RedState Gathering,” wrote that Cruz, in proposing an amendment to the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform legislation in 2013, was trying to expose Republicans’ plan for amnesty.

“Yes, Ted Cruz offered a proposal, the result of which would have allowed some illegal aliens to stay in the United States in exchange for never becoming citizens. His plan failed and exposed just how intent his fellow Republican Senators were in giving illegal aliens a pathway to citizenship. Now those Senators and Republican elites want revenge,” Erickson wrote. Though Erickson doesn't have as wide a radio reach as some of his talk show colleagues, his regular commentary on Fox News and writings on RedState (which he left in December), have placed him as an important voice in the conservative community.

Rush Limbaugh, the most listened-to talk radio host in the nation with more than 13 million weekly listeners, who questioned Trump’s bonafides as a true conservative earlier this week, also rushed to Cruz’s defense and praised his debate performance, saying Cruz was trying to push through a “poison pill” amendment to the Gang of Eight legislation.

"At the end of the day when people go vote, people are gonna remember, of the two, it was Marco Rubio that was a member of the Gang of Eight and Ted Cruz that wasn't, and that's as complicated or simple as it's gonna end up being,” Limbaugh said.

Laura Ingraham, who boasts more than 2 million weekly listeners, has called Cruz ‘Reaganesque,' She recently tweeted her appreciation of Cruz for never hiding from “conservative talk radio” and welcoming the tough questions. But clearly, she’s still enjoying Trump too.

"Newsflash to Establishment: Efforts to demonize TrumpCruz have backfired big time. Time to fire the donors & get right with the voters,” she tweeted last week.