RUSH: Yes, my friends, it’s an interesting… (laughing) Take a look. I’m telling you as I was telling Mr. Snerdley this morning, “The media has gone all Palin on Trump now. They’ve gone all Palin.” Folks, there’s no doubt what is going on. The media is trying to take Donald Trump out. And I’ve told this story a number of times. Please indulge me as I tell it one more time, because there are new listeners, not just every day, there are new listeners every half hour on this program. We have the data to document that.
Back in 2008, I got conned into hosting a dinner party at my house, and there were some people there that I had not met before. But I had it on good authority that they were okay. So they showed up, and everything was fine — until we began to discuss the campaign. And two of the guests at the dinner suggested that it was time to throw Sarah Palin overboard. They claimed to be Republicans, and they were going to vote for McCain. But it was time to get rid of Palin. It might have been before… No, she had been chosen. She was the VP nominee.
He said, “It’s pointless. If the media wants to take you out, they’re going to take you out. So we’ve got to move on. Besides, Rush, she’s an idiot anyway to let this happen.” They went on and on. So I got so mad, I walked out of my own dinner party. I think I had to fly out… Where was I going? I might have been flying to California for a golf trip. I forget which. But I left early, stormed out of there. Kathryn followed me out on the front porch, driveway, shaking. (laughing) Couldn’t believe what had just happened: I was leaving my own dinner party.
I’m telling you, I wonder how long it’s going to be… Well, it’s already happening, even before today. But we do have a number of Republicans — Meg Whitman being the most famous and noteworthy recently — who are suggesting not only is it time to throw Trump overboard and get rid of Trump, it’s time to sidle up to Hillary Clinton. But I’m telling you, there seem to be so many people on our side that are deeply affected by what the media does.
They still believe that the only way we can ever win is to have a nominee or a candidate for whatever election is up that the media doesn’t destroy. And, of course, I said, “Well, then if you get that kind of nominee that the media doesn’t want to destroy, they’re really not going to be that good.” Here’s an example: We have what is no doubt a hostage payment in violation of American policy, foreign policy, FBI policy. You name it. You don’t pay ransom! You just don’t do it.
We did.
Obama’s denying it.
He said (summarized), “There was nothing nefarious about this deal.” There wasn’t? There wasn’t anything nefarious? So the Iranians want $400 million; they have four or five of our sailors. They tell us they’ll release them when we pay up. But we can’t use US dollars because of sanctions — meaning to do this, we have to break the law, if we can’t use US dollars. So Obama then goes and arranges somehow to get $400 million from somewhere. Now, normally maybe there’s a… What do you call it? What do businesses call…? The petty cash drawer.
Maybe there’s a petty cash drawer in the White House that’s got a couple of billion in there, and Obama can use it in a discretionary way. (interruption) Yeah, “Obama stash.” Anyway, he comes up with $400 million, and then it’s in foreign currency. Some of it is Swiss Francs. Some of it is in Euros. I forget what other denominations or what other currencies are used, but it totals $400 million. We put it on a pallet. We put it on a plane. We fly the plane over there. The plane lands under cover of darkness.
The hostages are on the tarmac awaiting the arrival of that airplane and that cash before the Iranians will release them. One of the hostages was told, “You can’t leave here until that plane arrives.” The hostage says, “What plane?” “Never you mind,” the Iranians say. “But there’s a plane coming, it’s got some stuff on it, and until it gets here and until we offload the stuff on it, you can’t leave.” Well, the plane lands; they offload the pallet of $400 million, again under cover of darkness — and, again, nobody knew it at the time.
You would think a prisoner-release program like this would be something that the Regime would be bragging about, as in, “Look at what we did! We got our hostages back! We got our hostages back and nobody died!” Yeah, and then people started saying, “It’s a ransom payment.” “No, no, no! It’s not ransom. In fact, it’s an advanced payment. We have a lot of deals going with Iran. In fact,” Josh Ernest, White House Press Secretary, said (paraphrased), “this is actually brilliant on Obama’s part. You know why? Because this could have been much more.
In this case, it happened to be Iranian infrastructure: Roads, bridges, schools, and so forth. Well, in the midst of all of this, Donald Trump claimed that he saw video of the cash on the pallet being unloaded. Now, we know that it happened. We know the cash arrived. We know the cash arrived under cover of darkness. We know that the Iranians accepted it. We know the Iranians called it “ransom”! We know we paid it. The White House is admitting we paid it. They’re just saying, “It wasn’t ransom.”
So we know an airplane with $400 million in cash currency landed in Iran, that pallet was offloaded and given to the ayatollahs. We know that happened! Trump says he saw a video of it. Turns out, he was mistaken. He saw a video of something on Fox News but it wasn’t this. What is the news today? What is the news? In the Drive-By Media, what is the big story today? It is that Donald Trump lied about seeing a video of $400 million being paid as ransom to the Iranians for the release of hostages.
The big story is not even Obama denying that it was ransom, even though it was. The big story is not Hillary and John Kerry and the press secretary all lying about it. They’ve all said, “It wasn’t ransom!” They’ve all said, “There’s nothing to see here.” They’ve all said, “It wasn’t nefarious.” But that wasn’t the big story. The big story is that Trump tweeted out that he actually saw a video of this happening. The big story is not that one of the hostages says that their plane didn’t take off until after the money plane had landed.
I mean, the hostage has reported that they were on a tarmac, they were ready to leave, and the Iranian strongmen said, “You can’t leave until the plane arrives.” “Why?” “Well, you just can’t. There’s a plane coming in here for us. It has something on it. And until we get that something off of it for us, you can’t leave.” That’s not the big story. The big story is Donald Trump saying he saw a video of all of this happening.
The big story is not Barack Obama using the plural “payments” at the Pentagon yesterday. What, payments? This was not ransom, but it was part of payments? Payments for what? Did Congress authorize these payments? Is this the $1.7 billion in total, and is this part of or in addition to the $150 billion that we have unfrozen for them? Regardless, that’s not the story. The big story is that Donald Trump claims to have seen a video of what we know happened.
The big story is not asking where Obama got the $400 million. The big story is not asking how Obama laundered the $400 million and turned it into Swiss and Euro currency. There seems to be no interest in any of that. The big story is that Donald Trump mistakenly saw a video of all of this happening. The big story is not that anybody else who found a way to launder money and use it this way would have already been charged with something and maybe in jail. No, no, no! Of course not. That’s not the story. Don’t be ridiculous.
The big story is Donald Trump says he saw a video.
The big story is not that every single American on foreign soil is now at risk for kidnapping because the Obama regime has paid ransom. That’s not a story. It’s not a factor. We’re not even warning anybody, “Be careful, you could be next,” because the big story is that Donald Trump said he saw a video of this all happening. We know it happened. And the big story is not the video on YouTube done by Iran to brag of the payment! There is a video. The Iranians have the video on YouTube bragging about the ransom they collected.
Trump, mistaking the video.
That’s the big story of today and is offered as further evidence of why Trump is unfit to be president.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Try this: Media Research Center has surveyed some CNN telecasts. They have discovered this:
“On Thursday’s New Day,” I guess it’s their morning drive news program, “CNN’s John Berman did his best to defend the Obama administration’s secret shipment of $400 million to Iran right before the Islamist regime released four American prisoners. Former Rep. Mike Rogers criticized the payment, but Berman countered that “the President…said money was going there…We did not have the details about the plane…the euros � things like that.” He later underlined, “Isn’t the key to diplomacy…that everyone gets to declare victory?…Don’t you try to strike a deal, where Iran can say one thing happened; and the United States can say the other thing?”
“On Wednesday, CNN’s New Day,” I guess it’s their morning drive news program, “devoted nearly 200 times more coverage to alleged scandals involving Donald Trump than it did to the … $400 million [ransom] payment the Obama [Regime] sent to Iran …” Two! Hundred! Times! We ask, “Why doesn’t this hostage story…? Why does this ransom story…? Why doesn’t it cause people to get angry?” Because, folks, they don’t know about it. Apparently, a majority of Americans are not even hearing about it. They’re hearing about all of Trump’s scandals but they’re not even hearing about this. They don’t even know about this story.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Mike in Richmond, Virginia. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on your show. I appreciate that.
RUSH: You’re welcome, sir. I’m glad you’re there.
CALLER: Thank you for keeping my blood pressure at a manageable level. (chuckles) In reference to Trump, do you think that what’s going on right now with the Democrats and the media — even the turncoats in his own party — can possibly backfire on them?
RUSH: Um… (long sigh) Give me an example. What kind of thing are you thinking or hoping might happen?
CALLER: What I’m thinking is, sometimes in this country when you pick on the underdog, the underdog comes out with sharper teeth.
RUSH: I’ll give you an example. When I thought that… I don’t know if I thought. I hoped. The other day when Obama shows up at the press room and starts in on how Trump is unfit. (paraphrasing) “He’s just not fit. He’s not suitable. He doesn’t have the right temperament,” and then when —
CALLER: Uh-huh.
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: I was thinking, “This is so arrogant and condescending.”
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: “At some point, is this going to arouse pro-Trumpers to the point of being so damned condescending and insulting, that it’s going to fire them up even more?” I know you could probably give me other examples where you think the media is just being over the top, can cause a backlash.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: You never know. That’s the thing: We’ll not know. Maybe it shows up in polling data but we won’t really know what to attribute it to.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But I do know this: You can’t rely on that, even if something like that does happen.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I think one of the things that Obama is doing with that really arrogant and condescending… You have to understand that Trump has ardent supporters, and Trump’s supporters are not demanding. They don’t demand you speak the correct language. They’re not demanding that he sound like a Harvard professor. They just demand that he be honest with them, that he mean what he’s saying, that he intends to do all of this.
But I don’t know if people who are not supporting Trump have the slightest curiosity about it. I don’t know if they see things that way. But the evidence is that most people believe what they hear out of Obama’s mouth. He’s got a 56% approval number. The evidence is that most people believe what they hear by the Drive-By Media. I mean, they believe that George Bush… After four years, the media convinced people that George Bush was a crime walking. They got Bush’s approvals numbers down to the thirties.
Admittedly, Bush wasn’t responding to any of them. The Bush administration wasn’t defending it at all, and Trump does. Trump pushes back. But I think it’s one of the things we have to admit. We have to admit this. To sit here in denial does not serve any purpose. The great unwashed — a certain but sizable percentage of our population — believes everything they see in the media. They just do! Still. Despite 30 years now of alternative media exposing it every day. Their monopoly’s gone, and they’ve been dealt a serious blow in that regard.
But their credibility hasn’t been assaulted.
Their credibility has not been successfully attacked — and notice, that’s their technique. They never… Be it the Democrat Party, be it elected officials, be it the media, they never debate us on ideas. All they try to do is destroy any effective man or woman who has the ability to communicate it. (sigh) I’ve seen them do it to Oliver North. You’ve seen what they’ve done to Sarah Palin. They’re doing it now with Trump. They did it with George W. Bush. They would do it to Ted Cruz.
If you think, by the way, that Cruz or Rubio or anybody else would be faring better, they’d be getting the same stuff today that Trump is getting, tailored to them. There wouldn’t be anything different other than the substance of whatever they would be doing. But they would be in the same destroy mode. They’d be going after whoever had won, if it were somebody other than Trump. Take your pick! Jeb? They would have found ways, because it’s going to be Hillary come hell or high water.
Hillary or bust! There is no, “Well, maybe Jeb’s okay.” There is no, “Some Republicans would be okay if Hillary doesn’t win it.” That’s not the option. So, they’d be out there trying to destroy whoever the nominee was. So if any of you’re thinking (impression), “Well, my God! We really could have spared ourselves if we had nominated…” No. Wrong way to look at it. You might want to say that Rubio or Cruz or take your pick, would have done better at dealing with it, but (chuckles), where’s the evidence for that?
If the Drive-Bys want to destroy them, they have a knack for doing it, and the only reason they can is because people believe them. People don’t question it, and even though… If you look at these polls asking people’s opinions of various industries, what they think of industries, some of the lowest scores for respectability and trust (chuckling) is modern American media. So there’s a lot of contradictory data that we have about all this. But you see, everybody thinks…
Now, while they’re doing that, they are trying to destroy — with basic disfigurement, impugning, lying — whatever the Republican agenda is and whoever the Republicans are trying to advance it. So there are two things going on at the same time, and these attacks on Republicans and conservatives and spokesmen and so forth are always attacks on their character, on their honesty, on their intelligence, on their whatever — and that’s how they go out.
And they never attack or even talk about the honesty of Hillary Clinton or the honesty of Bill Clinton or the honesty of Barack Obama. They never go there. Everything is under the umbrella of, “Will the Democrats get what they want?” Whatever the Democrats want, that’s the MacGuffin. If they want Hillary to be the nominee, anybody trying to stop that — in this case, it would be Trump — is the enemy that has to be taken out. People watching think they’re watching the news.
But they’re not watching the news. They’re not watching media. They’re watching politics, and they claim to hate politics. Like the poll of young people we just shared with you. “I don’t like either political party.” Millennials. Only 28% identify with a party, because they don’t like “politics.” They have no idea that they’re watching raw, cutthroat-’til-it-bleeds politics when they watch ABC, CBS, NBC, read the New York Times, the LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. Google searches.