{"id":325779,"date":"2019-10-18T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=325779"},"modified":"2019-10-18T19:05:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T23:05:13","slug":"parsing-what-mick-mulvaney-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2019\/10\/18\/parsing-what-mick-mulvaney-said\/","title":{"rendered":"Parsing What Mick Mulvaney Actually Said"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We have a couple bites of Trump in the White House today. Let\u2019s see. Yeah, this is one of these press gaggles, met the press in the Oval Office with some other stuff going on. Two sound bites. Here\u2019s number 1…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

THE PRESIDENT: I have to watch with great interest as I see people talking about what we should be doing, and these are the same people that have been failing for the last 20 years, didn\u2019t know what they were doing, especially when they went in and did what they did. They shouldn\u2019t have been there. We\u2019ll see if it works. It\u2019s very fragile. It\u2019s been fragile for years. They\u2019ve been fighting each other for centuries. Literally for centuries they\u2019ve been fighting each other. And years ago we injected ourselves right into the middle of it, and we won\u2019t go into whether or not that was a good thing or a bad thing. You know how I feel about it. But we\u2019ve had tremendous success I think over the last couple of days, a little bit unconventional.<\/p>\n

RUSH: He\u2019s talking there about Syria. Now, I haven\u2019t gotten to the Mulvaney — and I promised to do this; so I will. I haven\u2019t yet parsed Mulvaney from the press conference yesterday. But the problem Mulvaney has is that he assumes the people in the media know what he knows, so he uses that as a starting point. They don\u2019t know what he knows, and they\u2019re not interested in knowing what he knows.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re in there to try to misconstrue anything he might say so that they can savage Trump. He\u2019s trying to give them the honest lay of the land on things and how foreign policy works, how the presidency works. They\u2019re not interested in any of it! Here\u2019s Trump talking about it. I\u2019ll clarify Mulvaney here before the program ends, don\u2019t worry, but here\u2019s Trump talking about it…<\/p>\n

THE PRESIDENT: I think he clarified it. But what just happened is Ambassador Kent — who I have never had the privilege, I don\u2019t believe, of meeting. I don\u2019t know him, and they brought him in as a witness against me — even though I don\u2019t know him. And he excoriated, from what they reported on the news — and, of course, maybe in this case it won\u2019t be fake news. But he excoriated the Obama administration and Joe Biden and Joe Biden\u2019s son saying that he has tremendous problems, tremendous problems with Joe Biden\u2019s son and the Ukraine. So he\u2019s got tremendous problems with Biden\u2019s son and Ukraine and it\u2019s inappropriate and all of the horrible things.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is Ambassador Kent. He\u2019s making the point that he doesn\u2019t know him, but apparently in testimony… You know, the Democrats are seeking testimony, making it look like they\u2019re conducting impeachment and they are deposing and witnesses they\u2019re issuing subpoenas and they\u2019re gathering the evidence. And of course, they\u2019re not releasing any of the transcripts of what any of these people are saying.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re just lying. They tell the media, “Yeah, this guy said Trump\u2019s unfit!” and they run with it. “Ambassador throws Trump under the bus! That\u2019s what just happened in here!” Of course it didn\u2019t. So this guy apparently told some impeachment committee that Ukraine and Biden, it was a bad, bad deal here, and Trump had just heard about it.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: So Pencil Neck Adam Schiff says, “Well, Mick Mulvaney\u2019s press conference yesterday made things very, very bad.” They didn\u2019t change a thing because Schiff is not gonna impeach anybody. Now, we\u2019ll get to parsing Mulvaney here in just a moment. He has a problem. It\u2019s not a problem. It\u2019s that he really assumes that the people in the press that he\u2019s talking to are on his level — and by “on his level,” I mean have the same amount of information he has, have the same degree of understanding how Washington works and how politics works that he has.<\/p>\n

\"\"So he doesn\u2019t start with them where you open the instruction book and plug the device into the wall. He starts with them as though everybody\u2019s been using the device for a year and knows how it operates, and they\u2019re not anywhere near that level with him. And they\u2019re not even there to get on that level. They are in there to hope he screws up so they can mischaracterize something he says to razzmatazz Trump — and you\u2019re saying, “Well, he should know that.”<\/p>\n

He does know that, but he\u2019s like anybody. He makes the mistake everybody makes with the media. I made it when I first started out. I thought I could persuade \u2019em. I thought that I could change the way they were about me or things I was saying. You can\u2019t. That\u2019s not why they\u2019re there. They\u2019re not curious. They\u2019re not there to have something actually explained to them. They are there to nail you if you are a Republican. That\u2019s the only reason they show up.<\/p>\n

You cannot reason with them — and, boy, nobody had any guidance for me. I\u2019d never undergone anything like this kind of media scrutiny when this show took off. This is not a complaint. I\u2019m just saying, there\u2019s nobody I could turn to so I had to learn by doing, and I literally thought that when the media called and wanted to talk to me, that that was \u2019cause they\u2019re genuinely curious about me, the new guy, what I\u2019m doing. That they really wanted to find out what I thought.<\/p>\n

That was not at all what they were interested in. They wanted to find a way to mischaracterize who I was and what I was doing. They weren\u2019t the slightest bit interested in what I really thought. They could not have cared less, and nothing has changed. They don\u2019t care what Mulvaney thinks. They don\u2019t care to try to follow Mulvaney or Trump or anybody else. They\u2019re simply looking for openings to destroy — and if you don\u2019t ever learn that about \u2019em and even you know it…<\/p>\n

Mulvaney knows it, but he is very confident guy, and he — I\u2019m sure — was convinced he could walk them through this and make them understand it. Nope. They don\u2019t want to understand it. That\u2019s the last thing they want, in fact. They don\u2019t even think they have to understand it. They already get it. “You, Mulvaney, are corrupt, and you\u2019re working for a corrupt guy, and we hate you, as we hate him — and we\u2019re here to make sure that whatever you\u2019re doing doesn\u2019t work!”<\/p>\n

Even knowing that, there are some people who still accept the challenge of trying to meet the media head on and change them.<\/p>\n

Sorry, it isn\u2019t gonna happen.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: The news media, ladies and gentlemen, are trying to twist Mulvaney\u2019s words into the opposite of what he actually said yesterday. Mulvaney did nothing other than merely repeat what the White House has been saying from day one, and that is that the Trump administration initially withheld funding from Ukraine for a number of reasons, including the fact that Europe was not providing enough aid and because of the overwhelming corruption in Ukraine, including Ukraine\u2019s interference in the 2016 election!<\/p>\n

This is an undeniable thing that happened. We\u2019ve even shared with you stories from January of 2017 of how the Ukrainians were in a panic because they had worked with Clinton to try to sabotage the Trump campaign and then they had to go do a 180 after Trump won. We ran the stories. I shared with you the story a couple of weeks dragging it out of the archives. Ukraine was up to their elbows in attempting to sabotage Trump in 2016. Mulvaney knows it. Everybody knows it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons that Trump was initially holding out on Ukraine. “Look, you guys were in there, and you were not working in my best interest.” So, yeah, all of these things, Mulvaney is acknowledging this. Of course, the Drive-Bys scream, “Quid pro quo! Quid pro quo!” Mulvaney totally lost them. He\u2019s talking about the 2016 election. They think that he\u2019s talking about the phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president and Biden.<\/p>\n

\"\"Now, because of the overwhelming corruption in Ukraine, we had to have this mutual treaty that Clinton signed in \u201999, 1999 pledging mutual cooperation between the United States and Ukrainian governments to root out corruption by each nation\u2019s representatives in each country. I have mentioned that to you too. Mulvaney said there was no quid pro quo involving investigating the Bidens. A reporter then claimed that it was still quid pro quo to ask Ukraine to investigate corruption.<\/p>\n

Mulvaney said that this kind of quid pro quo goes on all the time. He said quid pro quos in foreign policy are the way Washington works, and then he cited how Trump withheld aid to the Northern Triangle countries until they agreed to try to stop their citizens from coming to the U.S. illegally. The United States withholds aid or threatens to as a matter of foreign policy routinely! Mulvaney was simply acknowledging this.<\/p>\n

He was attempting to tell them, the people in the media, “There\u2019s nothing to see here, gang. Sorry, but this is the way Washington works.” But they were not interested in anything other than getting any two or three words they could get that they could then take out of context and lump \u2019em into what the agenda they came there to conclude was or is — and all of this is true. You have to ask a question: How come it was perfectly fine for Joe Biden to threaten Ukraine to hold back money because of a prosecutor?<\/p>\n

Has nobody realized here? Joe Biden is bragging at a little conference he\u2019s having at the Council on Foreign Relations when he\u2019s vice president. He\u2019s bragging about telling the Ukrainians they have six hours to change prosecutors. (paraphrased) “Get rid of this prosecutor chasing after my son! Get rid of that guy or we\u2019re withholding aid,” and then he dropped the F-bomb and said, “and they F-ing did it, and they changed the prosecutor.” And then Biden said, “If you think I\u2019m going rogue here, you call Obama. He\u2019ll tell you.”<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s Joe Biden admitting and bragging about it, that he was trying to root out corruption in Ukraine demanding a prosecutor get fired. Nobody thought that was quid pro quo. In fact, they\u2019re trying to cover that up. So let\u2019s go to the audio sound bite here. This is Mulvaney\u2019s quid pro quo answer in context. Let me just set this up. Everybody jumped all over Mulvaney for this, including people on our side. It was the same damn thing.<\/p>\n

Rather than try to find out what he was saying, rather than instinctively defending, people on our side ran — just like they did on the Syria business — to condemn and criticize. It was a long answer because Mulvaney is a smarter guy. He makes layered points. He assumes these people in the media are smart enough to follow him.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. So here\u2019s the sound bite. The question comes from Jonathan Karl (impression): “Was the president serious when he said that he would also like to see the China investigate the Bidens? And — and — and — and — and then you were directly involved in the decision to withhold funding from Ukraine. Can you explain to us now definitely why funding was withheld from Ukraine? Can you tell us how you engage a criminal activity? Just right now, do it!”<\/p>\n

MULVANEY: President Trump is not a big fan of foreign aid. Never has been; still isn\u2019t. Doesn\u2019t like spending money overseas, especially when it\u2019s poorly spent. And that is exactly what drove this decision. He said, “Look, Mick, this is a corrupt place. Everybody knows it\u2019s a corrupt place. I don\u2019t want to send them a bunch of money and have them waste it, have them spend it, have them use to line their own pockets. Plus I\u2019m not sure that the other European countries are helping them out either.”<\/p>\n

We actually did an analysis of what other countries were doing in terms of supporting Ukraine. What we found out was that — and I can\u2019t remember if it\u2019s zero or near zero dollars from any European countries for lethal aid. You\u2019ve heard the president say this, that we give them tanks and the other countries give them pillows. That\u2019s absolutely right. As vocal as the Europeans are about supporting Ukraine, they are really, really stingy when it comes to lethal aid. And they weren\u2019t helping Ukraine, and they still to this day are not. And the president didn\u2019t like that. I know it\u2019s a long answer to your question, but I\u2019m still going.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. Go ahead and play number 12. This is the continuation of it.<\/p>\n