{"id":283901,"date":"2018-09-10T13:50:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=283901"},"modified":"2018-09-11T15:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T19:55:20","slug":"the-drive-bys-cant-change-public-opinion-on-trump-and-its-driving-them-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/09\/10\/the-drive-bys-cant-change-public-opinion-on-trump-and-its-driving-them-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Drive-Bys Can\u2019t Change Public Opinion on Trump \u2014 and It\u2019s Driving Them Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: No, no. Don\u2019t get confused here. What I\u2019m saying, folks, is the New York Times op-ed, that piece by Anonymous — whoever wrote that — and the Bob Woodward book, they\u2019re nothing new at all. In fact, you could make the case… Now, the Woodward book has been in the planning stages for a long time; he\u2019s been working on it a long time. So it\u2019s not… The strategy for the Woodward book is not something that just popped up in the past couple of weeks. But, regardless, the New York Times op-ed…<\/p>\n

Which is there to buck it up — you know, to get in on the action and to get the Woodward book shown in the New York Times, in another publication. It\u2019s to make it look like this anti-Trump stuff is all over the place, the “Trump is dangerous” stuff is all over the place. I would suggest to you this is just the media and the Washington establishment giving up on any idea that the special counsel is gonna come up with anything to get rid of Trump. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything arguable about this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the idea here… Oh, do you remember Chuck Todd? By the way, this is another thing. Chuck Todd, the Friday of the last week I was here — I forget how many days ago. Chuck Todd promised that Mueller was gonna have this gigantic bombshell on Friday. F. Chuck was advising everybody to go to work on Friday. This is of the Labor Day Weekend. “Don\u2019t take the day off. Mueller is gonna have a bombshell!” There was nothing. So I think they\u2019re resorting here to panic that what they\u2019ve all believed and relied on, there\u2019s no “there” there. That\u2019s what I mean when I say these attacks on Trump are nothing new.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You want to see how crazy — you know, the climate change people find themselves in the same circumstance that the left is finding itself in with Trump. People just don\u2019t care. You look at surveys of issues people care about and climate change is way, way, way down near the bottom. They just don\u2019t care. And it\u2019s frustrating because the Drive-Bys have put everything they\u2019ve got into that, and it really does — all of this with Trump, I mean, it\u2019s much more involved than this.<\/p>\n

But I tell you, one of the primary things motivating the New York Times, Bob Woodward, all these people in the media, is their almost incalculable frustration over being unable to alter public opinion on Donald Trump. Do not doubt me on this. It\u2019s something that everybody in the Drive-By Media individually is frustrated by and collectively.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: So back to the week I was not here, last week, the Bob Woodward book — well, that\u2019s actually hitting this week. And the New York Times anonymous op-ed piece. And, by the way, just, just to review, I\u2019m sure you have — let me ask you this. How many of you, when that thing hit, how many of you were outraged, angry, or how many of you just thought no big deal, it\u2019s just the latest in a never ending cacophony of panic and fear from the Drive-Bys?<\/p>\n

How many of you thought, “A-ha. They\u2019ve admitted it. There is a silent coup. There actually is a deep state, and they\u2019re trying to sabotage the Trump presidency”? And then how many of you after that got livid or how many of you didn\u2019t think it was that big a deal at all because it\u2019s nothing really new? I went through a gamut of emotions. When I first saw it, I can\u2019t tell you how mad I was.<\/p>\n

When I first saw it, I went through the — and I was conscious in the process, okay, let\u2019s imagine how I feel if I really believe this is true, and I went through that. I said, “Okay. Suppose this is made up, not true. This person that wrote this doesn\u2019t actually exist, it\u2019s actually written and composed by somebody at the New York Times, and they\u2019re claiming that it\u2019s somebody in the Trump administration, but we will never know because it isn\u2019t somebody in the Trump administration.”<\/p>\n

So I considered that. And I thought how many people in the Trump administration don\u2019t even know the guy but lie about their rank and their level of importance and all this. But when I saw, folks, when I knew the whole thing was rotten to the core is when I saw toward the end of this anonymous piece the veneration for John McCain.<\/p>\n

\"\"When I saw that whoever wrote this, “Why couldn\u2019t we have somebody more like John McCain?” And then I thought, this person has to be a Millennial, it has to be a young person, because this person writes as though this is the greatest challenge to the modern American presidency ever. And it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s nothing of the sort. Trump is not. I mean, these people may be, but Trump isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

But this person, you know, my belief that everybody\u2019s historical perspective begins with the day they were born, that nothing before that really matters to most people, that\u2019s just old-fashioned fuddy-duddy stuff back then. What matters is what happened when I was alive and when I am alive.<\/p>\n

And then I just openly went back and considered, you know, I wouldn\u2019t put it past the New York Times to have made this whole damn thing up and to have somebody on their editorial board write this thing. How many anonymous sources have we had from intelligence people for the past two years claiming to have evidence that Trump colluded with Russia?<\/p>\n

The New York Times has led that charge! There isn\u2019t anybody! They haven\u2019t named names. They haven\u2019t produced any evidence whatsoever. Mueller doesn\u2019t have it. There isn\u2019t any. And yet the New York Times has written as though it\u2019s fait accompli, it\u2019s only a matter of time. And these people are telling us it\u2019s there, it\u2019s gonna come out, it\u2019s gonna be revealed, the Washington Post has been doing the same thing. CNN has been following the Post and the New York Times. And nobody\u2019s got diddly-squat.<\/p>\n

So why couldn\u2019t it be logical to assume they made this up? And then, like it probably hit most people, it hit me. They\u2019re admitting it. Whoever did this, whoever\u2019s responsible for — you know what? I even, for a brief moment, considered that it was somebody in the Trump immediate circle who did it on purpose, claimed to be a ranking official, said this thing to the New York Times knowing that there\u2019s no way they wouldn\u2019t write it, publish it, run it, when in fact because what it does is proves that there is a silent coup going on. It proves that there is a deep state. It proves that there is a Washington establishment trying to destroy Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"And over the past year and a half, two years when any of us have discussed this they\u2019ve mocked us and they\u2019ve laughed at us and they\u2019ve said that\u2019s absurd, that\u2019s crazy. And yet now they come forth and admit it. What a brilliant trick the Trump people could have pulled here. I went through every possibility.<\/p>\n

And at the end of it all, I decided there isn\u2019t anything new about it no matter where it comes from. It\u2019s not an event. It\u2019s not a news story. It doesn\u2019t change anybody\u2019s opinion of the great work that Trump is doing as president. His approval numbers remain steady and solid no matter what they throw at him. It\u2019s got to frustrate \u2019em. And then I ran across the U.K. Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, the Daily Mail is a source, they run hot and cold. In many ways they\u2019re very reliable for decent journalism, and then other days they have their unabashed liberalism. But their reaction to the Daily Mail was amazingly pro-Trump. And the guy who wrote this, I think Jon Sopel of BBC, North America editor, the BBC. For those of you that don\u2019t know, the BBC is the New York Times in the U.K. It may be more left than that if it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

The BBC is so far gone there\u2019s no saving \u2019em. And yet the North America editor makes three points in this Daily Mail piece. One, Trump is being proved right that there is a deep state trying to stop his agenda. Two, Trump is only doing what he was elected to do. And the third point is that the author of this op-ed wasn\u2019t elected; Trump was. That\u2019s another thing, the arrogance behind these people. They weren\u2019t elected. They couldn\u2019t get elected if they tried! The guy they venerate, John McCain, he tried twice. He didn\u2019t win.<\/p>\n

If you missed my comments in the first hour on the McCain funeral, please consult RushLimbaugh.com later today<\/a>. I don\u2019t want to be repetitive because there\u2019s so much to discuss here. But that was mind-blowing to me too. So now we have the realization here by many that this thing has backfired. And then I started reading Drive-By Media reaction. And they went in phases. The first phase was, “Oh, man, they were so excited. They couldn\u2019t see straight. Oh, my God. There it is. Somebody that just…”<\/p>\n

And then they realized what had just happened. What had just happened was that the deep state had been admitted to from within the deep state. And that the silent coup to get rid of Donald Trump had been admitted to by somebody claiming to be engaged in the silent coup. And then I started reading Drive-By Media people who were disgusted because the thing was backfiring. And it\u2019s pretty much where it stayed.<\/p>\n

\"\"Have you noticed, folks, that after each of these events, the Woodward book and then the — well, the Woodward book is hitting this week, there have been some excerpts, but this anonymous piece, nothing changes. And the reason nothing changes is because it isn\u2019t really news. It\u2019s nothing more than an attempt to change your mind. It\u2019s yet another flailing effort by a media paranoid, fearful that they have lost the ability to manage and shape public opinion.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: This takes me back to the anonymous New York Times op-ed, which I still… I\u2019m not gonna definitively say with ontological certitude that I think whoever wrote it doesn\u2019t exist. Some people think that it\u2019s a mid-level National Security Council staffer or somebody in the State Department, because whoever wrote the thing loves McCain. Folks, look: John McCain is all over this anti-Trump, Never Trumper, whatever it is, movement. He\u2019s all over it. He even allowed his funeral to be used for the purposes of anti-Trump. (laughing) It was mind-boggling watching it. I can\u2019t…<\/p>\n

I cannot be any more definitive than I have been up to date. It\u2019s just the whole mind-boggling thing. McCain was instrumental in getting that dossier publicly disseminated. McCain had and obviously harbored a hatred for Trump that did not abate. You know, maybe I shouldn\u2019t say this, but poor Senator McCain was given this brain cancer diagnosis — and it\u2019s the kind of diagnosis that is final. It\u2019s a kind of cancer that\u2019s terminal, and then the objective here is to treat it where you can live as comfortably and productively for as long as you can.<\/p>\n

Whatever length of time that was, there\u2019s a part of me that really feels sorry for Senator McCain to be so… Maybe not consumed, but so still festering with dislike or hate for Trump. It\u2019s a shame. But it was real, and we know it was real because of what happened at the funeral. And then this anonymous Times piece that venerates McCain and praises McCain. I think this stuff is all connected, and then this anonymous New York Times piece comes out right before the Woodward book. So it\u2019s supposed to be a double whammy.<\/p>\n

So we have the Woodward book, and then this piece is supposed to make it look like the Trump administration is totally out of control, that Trump is so bad they have to hide documents from him. They steal documents off his desk and he\u2019s so stupid and dumb he forgets they were ever there. Have you heard that part of this? They\u2019ll have a piece — some memoranda or pieces of legislation — that Trump has to sign and if they think it\u2019s bad stuff they\u2019ll just take it off his desk and he\u2019s so stupid he forgets it was there. This is what they tell us.<\/p>\n

\"\"He\u2019s so dumb… Trump is so dumb — I mean, so dumb, so amoral — that they\u2019re able to steal things off his desk and he will forget that he ever intended to do that. And it\u2019s always things that they think are horribly wrong that Trump has no business being there. It\u2019s the existence of a coup. Anyway, my point is that it\u2019s all happening, this and the Woodward book because these people have had a shocking awakening to the fact that had to no longer determine public opinion. If they did, Trump\u2019s approval numbers would be in the twenties!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be honest about this. If these people determine public opinion, Trump might have been hounded out of office by now. I don\u2019t remember a president in my lifetime ever so consistently denigrated, and if the American people bought this garbage that they\u2019re being fed every day, Trump would be gone long ago. But his approval numbers hover between 44 and 48. It\u2019s gotta be driving \u2019em nuts! So this New York Times op-ed… I wouldn\u2019t be a bit surprised if anybody at the Times wrote the it and everything we\u2019re being told about it is an out-and-out lie, that there isn\u2019t somebody in the Trump White House.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not denying that there are people there who are capable of writing it. I think the federal government is infested with career leftist rats and vermin that no single president can entirely erase or clean out of there. It\u2019s entirely possible there\u2019s somebody in there within the so-called Trump administration who could have written this. I\u2019m just saying if it ever came out that nobody did write it except a couple of New York Times employees and then they claim they got it from an anonymous government source?<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t be a bit surprised if that\u2019s what this turned out to be.<\/p>\n

The proof, by the way, that these people no longer determine public opinion is a Pew Research survey: “More than half of social media news consumers expect the news on social media to be inaccurate,” and it\u2019s a sizable majority of people who think that.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with some audio sound bites. We\u2019ll get to Papadopoulos in a minute. I want to give you a couple here with Bob Woodward, who wanted to weigh in on the New York Times anonymous op-ed. This is yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning. David Martin, the correspondent, was talking to Bob Woodward. Question: “Do you know who the author of the anonymous New York Times piece is?”<\/p>\n