{"id":281135,"date":"2018-08-01T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T19:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=281135"},"modified":"2018-08-02T16:21:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T20:21:57","slug":"cnns-breaking-news-on-rush-and-trump-sparks-a-monologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/08\/01\/cnns-breaking-news-on-rush-and-trump-sparks-a-monologue\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN\u2019s Breaking News on Rush and Trump Sparks a Monologue"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I just found out that CNN used the president\u2019s congratulatory call to me here about an hour and a half ago<\/a> as breaking news. Breaking news on CNN. We have two sound bites. It\u2019s Gloria Borger and Wolf Blitzer. This is on Wolf\u2019s show. Here\u2019s the first of two bites.<\/p>\n

BLITZER: The president, Gloria, has just given an interview to Rush Limbaugh, radio interview in which he doubled down on his decision that unless there\u2019s a border wall with Mexico and other immigration issues, he\u2019s willing to shut down the federal government. He says, \u201cA lot of good people ask me, could we do it after the election? They\u2019ve been good to me.\u201d This what the president told Rush Limbaugh. Quote, “I think it\u2019s a great campaign issue. I think it would be great before. But I don\u2019t want to disappoint a lot of great people.” So he\u2019s insisting he\u2019s ready to shut down the government at the end of September when the fiscal year ends.<\/p>\n

BORGER: It sounds like he\u2019s listening to them. Plus, don\u2019t forget, they want to get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed for the Supreme Court. Well, how are they gonna do that if the Congress is shut down?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Easy. You get Kavanaugh confirmed first and then you shut it down. This isn\u2019t hard. What do you mean, how do you get Kavanaugh confirmed? You know, this reminds me, I\u2019ve been going back and forth about how introspective to get on this program today vis-a-vis 30 years into it. But that just — I\u2019ve gotta say something. But here\u2019s the second bite.<\/p>\n

This is Wolf. They had not had time to actually cut up any audio, so they\u2019re just talking about it. The president\u2019s appearance on this program, which is about an hour and a half ago. So here\u2019s Wolf now picking up from Borger, who just said, “How are you gonna get Kavanaugh confirmed if the Congress is shut down?” Here\u2019s Wolf.<\/p>\n

\"\"BLITZER: The president also said there are evil people here in Washington in this interview with Rush Limbaugh. Let me read to you another quote from the president. “You have a lot of bad people in Washington. You knew that a long time ago. Frankly, before I knew it. I had no idea how evil some of them are. But you have some great people, too.” So he\u2019s doubling down on his evil people here in Washington.<\/p>\n

RUSH: What you mean doubling down on his evil people? So he\u2019s doubling down on shutting down the government, and he\u2019s doubling down on his evil people here in Washington. Wolf, let me help you out. This is so frustrating. Wolf, if you\u2019re Donald Trump — no. Wolf, you\u2019re not Donald Trump. You\u2019re you.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re you, and the entirety of the Washington establishment who you love and respect, and you think love and respect you, all of a sudden start reporting stories four or five times a day that everything you\u2019ve achieved has been because Vladimir Putin or somebody else helped you. That you\u2019re not genuine, Wolf, that you\u2019re a pretender, that you\u2019re a fake, that you\u2019re a phony, and this goes for a year and a half.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s people that you\u2019ve known all of your life, people that Donald Trump has known, people that he has been aware of and have known him, he gets elected president, all of a sudden he becomes the absolute worst example of humanity in the country. He becomes a racist, he becomes a bigot, he becomes a sexist, he becomes a traitor, he becomes Adolf Hitler. Are you telling me that he\u2019s wrong to think that there are some really bad people in that town?<\/p>\n

Wolf, they\u2019re trying to destroy him, and you\u2019ve joined them! You\u2019ve signed on to \u2019em, Wolf! You and all of CNN have signed on with the idea that Trump needs to be sent packing, despite the fact that he won an election that you nor anybody else at CNN could ever hope to accomplish. And yet he\u2019s the one that\u2019s disqualified, he\u2019s the one that\u2019s unqualified, he\u2019s the persona non grata, by people who could not wear his underwear, could not do in 10 years what Trump does in an average day. This is what galls me about these people. Which leads me to something else.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>You know, I was telling people here during the break that I was kind of stressing over this program today. Thirty years is a big deal to a lot of people. It\u2019s another day to me, but it is a big deal. But the people that have worked with me for all the years, it\u2019s a huge deal to be part of something that has been number one, that has been dominant, that is winning.<\/p>\n

I mean, the number of people on the highly overrated staff who have left this program in 30 years, you can count \u2019em on one hand. I think only one of them\u2019s been fired, two of \u2019em have been close. They\u2019re still here. There are some people barely cutting it here, but we hang onto \u2019em because we\u2019re good people. They don\u2019t know who they are.<\/p>\n

No, seriously. It\u2019s a big deal to them, because everybody wants to be on a successful, winning team. It\u2019s a source of great pride, especially when you are an important contributor to it. And so I realize this. And it\u2019s something that I want to acknowledge for all of the people who have enabled me and helped me and assisted me to do this. And one of the main ways they do it is by not distracting me. They take care of things without having to ask me about it. That\u2019s a luxury, folks, to have people who you just trust to do what needs to be done, whatever it is, whatever area they\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n

And they don\u2019t complain or whine when something goes wrong, somebody\u2019s not carrying their weight. ‘Cause all of that is nothing but distraction, and they know that that\u2019s not good. So it is a big deal to them, and it is an equally big deal to me. My only reservation is that this is not the end of it. After we finish today, gotta get ready to do it all again tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that for effect. I mean, that\u2019s crucial. Last Friday I sent an assignment for Monday\u2019s show up to Cookie one hour after the program ended on Friday. I\u2019d gone home and I\u2019m already working on Monday. I\u2019m looking at things that I missed and so forth. So they\u2019re very much attuned to what happens here. And it is a big deal.<\/p>\n

But I was stressing over how much time to spend on that today. Because the things happening every day are crucially important, and when I haven\u2019t commented on something that people think is important, then, well, it\u2019s not good, because they\u2019re expecting me to, and they want to hear what I have to think about it; so those are expectations that I try to fulfill every day.<\/p>\n

\"\"So how to balance all of this on this program has been a challenge. And I decided I\u2019m not gonna try to balance it; I\u2019m just gonna do it as it happens, and if I feel like doing a remembrance, I\u2019ll do it. Which I do right now. And it\u2019s related in part to this sound bite that Borger and Blitzer just had. But it\u2019s also in relation to an email that I got last night and the phone call from the Trump supporter who said two years ago he could wear his Make America Great Again hat, go to dinner with anybody that he knew, even if they weren\u2019t gonna vote for Trump, and there wasn\u2019t anything wrong, everybody laughed about it, had a great time.<\/p>\n

Trump wins, and people he thought were his friends have abandoned him. They think his nuts, don\u2019t want anything to do with him. And I was listening to the Rush to Excellence sound bites from Sacramento — it was in July, by the way, of 1989. And it got me to thinking about the success of this program and how truly, if you\u2019ll excuse what will apparently sound like a trip to Egoville but isn\u2019t, the degree of success of this program is unique in this business.<\/p>\n

This business has changed tremendously from when I was in it, when I started. My first job away from home, as I say, was in suburban Pittsburgh 1971. I\u2019ve been fired seven times in this business. And only one of them for something I probably should have been fired for. The rest of it was just the vagaries of the business. That\u2019s the point. People get fired all the time. It was not something negative on your resume unless it was malcontent kind of stuff. It wasn\u2019t necessarily resume enhancing, but it was just the way the business is.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t happen now. More people than ever are working in broadcasting. There are more people who\u2019ve never done broadcasting who are in broadcasting. There are more people on television that have never been on television. The media world has expanded and has grown, and there\u2019s all kinds of people in it who have never studied it professionally, they\u2019ve never apprenticed in it, they\u2019re just in it. And they have the freedom to make the mistakes you make when you\u2019re young and have it looked at the other way; so forth.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t that way for me. I had to climb the ladder as it existed back then. And without boring you the details \u2019cause you know them, your life has been the same. But where I\u2019m really headed with this is that in an America not too far long ago, the story of this program from its beginning to its success would be something celebrated by everybody. Not because everybody would agree with it, but because of the distinctive nature of the achievement and because of whatever it took, be it work, commitment, or talent, devotion, in order to achieve what\u2019s been done. That would be one of the reasons why it would be noteworthy.<\/p>\n

But in today\u2019s America, a story like mine — and there are many like mine — is of very little value. It\u2019s not very impressive, and it doesn\u2019t matter much to people because of the divisions that exist in the country. We are a country governed by a pretty relatively small group of elites who all go to the same schools, who grew up in the same neighborhoods, summered and socialized the same ways, same places, with the same people. And if you don\u2019t come from that elite strata of our society, then you don\u2019t count. And whatever success you have is not noteworthy; it\u2019s not anything special; it\u2019s nothing. And, as such, it\u2019s not something that could be used to inspire others.<\/p>\n