{"id":259522,"date":"2018-01-05T16:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=259522"},"modified":"2018-01-08T15:59:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T20:59:53","slug":"nuking-the-wolff-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/01\/05\/nuking-the-wolff-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuking the Wolff Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH:\u00a0 On the Today Show today, Savannah Guthrie, who, by the way… Here\u2019s another thing: When they announced that Matt Lauer has been fired for sexual harassment, all these people on the Today Show said (sobbing), “Oh, my God! Oh ho! Oh, I feel so bad! Oh, I didn\u2019t know!” They all knew.\u00a0 They probably all knew that Bannon was the leaker.\u00a0 They all knew about Matt Lauer.\u00a0 They are acting like, “Oh my God, it\u2019s such a shock! We didn\u2019t know.” He had a button in his office that locked the door from the inside from the desk!<\/p>\n

\"\"Anyway, Savannah Guthrie was interviewing the author of the book, Michael Wolff — the book Fire and Fury<\/a> — and we have some sound bites here.\u00a0 And this is where it kicks into gear that Trump is moronic, illiterate, incurious, insane, unfit, and that virtually 100% of the people that work with him know this. That\u2019s where all this got started today.\u00a0 So Savannah Guthrie says, “Let\u2019s talk about the book itself.\u00a0 One of the overarching themes in your book is that everybody around the president — senior advisers, family members, every single one of them — questions his intelligence and his fitness for office.”<\/p>\n

WOLFF: (halting) Let me put a — a marker in the sand here, 100% of the people around him — the one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common — they all say he is like a child.\u00a0 And what they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about him.\u00a0 I mean, this letter for, um… The cease-and-desist letter.\u00a0 I mean, still have sources in the White House, and I know everybody was going, “We should not be doing this, this is not smart,” and he just insists.<\/p>\n

RUSH:\u00a0 Well, about that, let me once again pose a question.\u00a0 What if they had not reacted?\u00a0 Forget the cease and desist.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s just the way they chose to do it.\u00a0 What if they chose not to react to it?\u00a0 What if 36 hours later nobody in the White House or Trump had said a thing about the book?\u00a0 I guarantee you that everybody in the Drive-By Media would be saying, “Hey, it must be true.\u00a0 He\u2019s not denying it! Hey, hey, Wolff may have stumbled into something. They\u2019re not denying it. Trump usually reacts. \u00a0He\u2019s not reacting.”<\/p>\n

You know, folks, how many times over the course of the many, many broadcast years here have I explained to you the dilemma that public figures face when they\u2019re slandered, when they\u2019re libeled?\u00a0 There is no one set rule of thumb on what to do.\u00a0 There are as many different theories as there are advisers.\u00a0 Should you respond or not?\u00a0 In some cases, the answer is, “No.\u00a0 Don\u2019t respond, because all you\u2019re gonna do is elevate it, and people that otherwise would never know about it are gonna hear about it.”<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s not operative in this case because everybody in the Drive-By Media is talking about it.\u00a0 So Trump reacting to it is not gonna elevate it; it\u2019s already elevated.\u00a0 So the other rule of thumb is, “You can\u2019t let them get away with saying that about you.\u00a0 You can\u2019t let that stick.\u00a0 You have got to fight back on this.”\u00a0 Well, the reaction to that is, “Okay.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 But when I fight back, you know what they\u2019re gonna say?\u00a0 They\u2019re gonna go, ‘Oh, wow!\u00a0 We must have hit pay dirt!\u00a0 We got him upset!\u00a0 He\u2019s reacting to us!'”<\/p>\n

And so when you boil it all down, on balance it doesn\u2019t seem like there is a good way to react to this kind of thing, because there are downsides no matter how you choose to react.\u00a0 So you plug Trump into this, and what do you get?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you get somebody who analyzes it like I just did.\u00a0 We had Trump on this program during the campaign.\u00a0 And at the time, everybody was up in arms about Trump tweeting and Trump not letting criticism roll off his back, that no matter what somebody said, he had to respond. You know, some people thought it was childish.<\/p>\n

\"\"And I asked him about it.\u00a0 I said, “Why do you respond to every little bit of criticism?”\u00a0 He said, “When they attack me or my family, I\u2019m going to hit back.\u00a0 You hit me; I hit back.\u00a0 I\u2019m not gonna let what they say stand unchallenged.”\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 So the Wolff book hits, and I don\u2019t think Trump assembles a bunch of people and they start strategizing in philosophical ways.\u00a0 I think Trump\u2019s got a plan, he has a belief, he has a policy: he gets hit; he hits back.\u00a0 Trump is also very litigious.\u00a0 Over the course of his life, Trump has sued a lot of people.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a technique.\u00a0 It\u2019s not uncommon.\u00a0 So for Trump to he will it his lawyers, “Send a cease-and-desist letter,” these people are assuming that Trump\u2019s an idiot \u2019cause he should know that that isn\u2019t gonna work.\u00a0 No judge is gonna stop the book.\u00a0 Well, why do people assume Trump is so stupid he doesn\u2019t know that?\u00a0 Maybe he\u2019s doing this for an entirely different reason.\u00a0 He knows he\u2019s not gonna stop the publication of the book.\u00a0 But yet he wants to have it on record that he thinks it\u2019s crazy, BS, and not true.<\/p>\n

And look what\u2019s happened.\u00a0 The author of the book has now said, “Well, yeah, some of it may not be true.”\u00a0 The author of the book is saying, “I said whatever I had to to get my story.”\u00a0 The author of the book has admitted that he tricked people in the White House!\u00a0 They thought they weren\u2019t on the record.\u00a0 You think the author of the book would have admitted, “Well, you know, I can\u2019t guarantee all of it\u2019s true” if Trump hadn\u2019t said anything?\u00a0 Now, this business of being childlike?<\/p>\n

I maintain to you that this is nothing more than people in Washington who are more alike than you would ever believe. And one of the ways in which they\u2019re alike, they think they are super adults.\u00a0 They think they are the epitome of morality and maturity.\u00a0 They think that they define refinement and sophistication and propriety and all these things.\u00a0 As such, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re capable of understanding somebody like Donald Trump.\u00a0 This allegation that he\u2019s childlike and demands affection, demands praise, demands to be…?<\/p>\n

What did he say here? “Need for immediate gratification.” You know, I could just as easily say that about Barack Obama.\u00a0 If there was somebody who needed adulation, needed people thinking he\u2019s the smartest guy in the room, needed people fawning all over him at press conferences, it was Barack Obama.\u00a0 You telling me that Trump expects to be loved and liked when he\u2019s out there calling these people fake media, fake news?<\/p>\n

Is that how you go about being immediately gratified? Normally you suck up to people when you want immediate gratification. Normally you want flattery when you want immediate gratification, when you want praise. Trump is not seeking praise from these people. He\u2019s declared war on them! They have a personality type they don\u2019t understand and can\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

You know what\u2019s obvious, folks? Every day I become aware of a lifetime of naivete that I\u2019ve carried around. I\u2019m not afraid to admit it. Every day. I\u2019m gonna 67 years old pretty soon, and I am still naive in ways that I didn\u2019t think I would ever be. I thought by this time I would understand it all, I would know the ways of the world. But I have lived under an obvious misconception and misunderstanding my whole life about Washington, D.C., and the people there.<\/p>\n

\"\"I understand there\u2019s liberals and conservatives there, but I have believed that the Constitution rules and that the American people are respected. I know people joke about various aspects – we call \u2019em low-information voters. But I\u2019m talking about in terms of structure and respect. I wasn\u2019t aware until a couple years ago just how much Washington, D.C., resents the people of this country. I wasn\u2019t aware of how strident the dislike for average, ordinary Americans, your average Washington establishment person carries around.<\/p>\n

I have always believed — and this is big time naivete — I\u2019ve always believed that succeeding in something garnered respect for the person that succeeded. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can make it personal in illustrating this if I wanted to. But this is just the way I always felt the world worked. I thought somebody comes along, whatever they do, lay bricks or tell the news on TV or doctors or what have you, I thought when you succeeded, when you reached the pinnacle in your profession, that there was respect for it.<\/p>\n

So I always assumed that power brokers in Washington would be dazzled by somebody from outside who figured out a way to win. I thought there\u2019d be some modicum of respect for it. I thought there\u2019d be some modicum, some level of appreciation for the achievement. I guess that\u2019s what it is. There isn\u2019t any. There is resentment at the achievement. If you are not in the group and you achieve something that the group does, you become a threat. Well, you\u2019re not respected. Let\u2019s put it that way.<\/p>\n

And Trump epitomizes this. Trump has come in and in less than a year done things that the official people in Washington have led us to believe can\u2019t be done anymore. Trump has survived every effort that literally thousands of people in Washington have engaged in to destroy him. Donald Trump has survived an array of power projected against him unlike anything we have of seen. These people guarding their little fiefdom have literally launched everything they\u2019ve got, including lies and subterfuge and fake, phony, lying media. They have done it all. And he has run rings around them simply by surviving. Then you add triumphing and succeeding.<\/p>\n

And they say he is childlike? Who is it that is behaving here like immature, spoiled brats? People who are witnessing their life\u2019s work being implemented as policy, who are acting like babies in a crib (crying): “He doesn\u2019t have the right to believe what I believe.” They\u2019re crying and they\u2019re panicking. I always thought these people really meant in their hearts, when I\u2019m young and I\u2019m reading about all these great conservatives and what they believe in and I\u2019m learning from, I thought they really believed it.<\/p>\n

Now here it is being implemented, and they hate it! And they\u2019re trying to stop it. They\u2019re trying to stop the very implementation of the things they believe in. Why? Because the guy doing it is not one of them offends them? Who is it that\u2019s childlike and immature? Who is it that we\u2019re learning can\u2019t extend the hand of friendship and cross the aisle? Who is it that cannot act grown-up and mature and deal with a reality that they cannot deny? And yet it\u2019s Trump who\u2019s childlike, and it\u2019s Trump who is in need of immediate gratification? It\u2019s Trump making it all about him? I mean, it\u2019s the exact opposite.<\/p>\n

I think with these people in the establishment, it\u2019s all personal. They\u2019re personally affronted. They\u2019re personally offended. And so they lash out at Trump, and they\u2019re hopelessly incapable of understanding who he is and how he operates because they have no connection with real people in this country anymore. They have isolated themselves, and they\u2019ve built a moat around that town, essentially. They control admittance. And they have not only lost touch with the people I maintain make this country work, they have an open disdain for them now, for us. All on the basis of class. Ruling class, working class.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Yeah, yeah. I know. Angelo Codevilla wrote all about that. Ruling Class<\/a>. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But each and every day I find out just how wrong I was when I was assuming certain positive things about people who live and work in Washington. It\u2019s a tough thing to admit that I\u2019ve been this naive, but at least the learning never stops. Look, and that\u2019s just one sound bite from Wolff. We got a couple more here, all on the theme that Trump is an idiot, that he can\u2019t read, that he\u2019s not curious, he\u2019s not interested in reading, he\u2019s not interested in learning, he\u2019s childish. Now he\u2019s unfit. Now he\u2019s demented, he\u2019s insane. Now we need to have some psychiatrists examine him from afar, hopefully be able to get rid of him via the 25th Amendment.<\/p>\n

This is the reaction of people not in charge. These are people that have lost touch. They\u2019ve lost their grip. Because Trump is threatening the little fiefdom they\u2019ve created. They\u2019ve set it up so that they\u2019re the experts and nobody else can possibly understand what they\u2019re doing or do it. And in less than a year, Trump has come in and run rings around them, and that poses such a big threat, he\u2019s got to go. Everybody\u2019s learning that these people don\u2019t wear underwear. Once you lift the dress, they\u2019re all naked and nude under there.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

\"\"RUSH: They say that Trump doesn\u2019t read and Trump\u2019s stupid, Trump\u2019s dumb, Trump doesn\u2019t read. Do you all remember George W. Bush and Karl Rove had a reading contest every year to see who could read the more books between the two? I think it was in 2005. Rove won. He read 110 books. Bush read 95. Okay.<\/p>\n

What\u2019d they say about George W. Bush? Stupid, idiot, dumb, cowboy, chimpanzee, what have you. They insulted Bush. He was an idiot, right? He lied, he was dumb and stupid. And he read 95 books in 2005. And now they say Donald Trump doesn\u2019t read at all. What is he? Stupid and dumb. Who is it that\u2019s stupid and dumb that can\u2019t come up with something new as a criticism of somebody?<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, a couple of more sound bites from Wolff, the author of this book, which is called Fire and Fury.\u00a0 We\u2019re up here to audio sound bite number nine.\u00a0 Savannah Guthrie on the Today Show today said, “You said that these senior people insult Trump\u2019s intelligence, meaning they say he\u2019s an idiot and he\u2019s stupid.\u00a0 What are the kind of things these people are saying, Mr. Wolff?<\/p>\n

WOLFF:\u00a0 They see he\u2019s, um… a moron, a (sic) idiot.\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong… This man does not read, does not listen.\u00a0 So he\u2019s like, um… a pinball just shooting off the side that used to be that in the beginning it was, like, every 25 or 30 minutes you would get the same three stories repeated.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s the same three stories in every 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

GUTHRIE:\u00a0 And what\u2019s the suggestion there?\u00a0 Because that goes beyond saying, “Okay, the president\u2019s not an intellectual.”\u00a0 What are you arguing there?\u00a0 You saying, for example, that he was at Mar-a-Lago and didn\u2019t recognize lifelong friends?<\/p>\n

WOLFF:\u00a0 Uhhh, I — I — I will quote Steve Bannon: “He\u2019s lost it.”<\/p>\n

RUSH:\u00a0 Well!\u00a0 Well!\u00a0 There we go.\u00a0 We\u2019ll quote Steve Bannon.\u00a0 “He\u2019s lost it.”\u00a0 Hey, let\u2019s take this: “He\u2019s a moron, an idiot, the man does not read and does not listen.” I want to remind you 2005 we were informed by Karl Rove that he and George W. Bush had a reading contest to see who could read the most books.\u00a0 Rove won it.\u00a0 In a year, Rove read 115, Bush read 95.\u00a0 What\u2019d they say about Bush?\u00a0 Stupid, dumb, moron, cowboy.\u00a0 Bush was reading rings around the Drive-By Media.<\/p>\n

Bush was more educated, more informed than anybody in the press corps covering him.\u00a0 What\u2019d they say?\u00a0 They insulted his intelligence all the time.\u00a0 They told us, “This is a cowboy,” made fun of the way he spoke.\u00a0 I give you Will Ferrell\u2019s impersonation of Bush.\u00a0 The portrayed him as the biggest idiot, which is what the media and Democrats do with every Republican president.\u00a0 Ronald Reagan? Dunce, stupid, idiot, sleeping all the time, didn\u2019t know what\u2019s going on his administration.\u00a0 Trump, same thing.\u00a0 George W. Bush, too.<\/p>\n