RUSH: This press briefing that’s going on… (laughing) Folks, this is just… I am loving this. Okay, so Spicer comes out, and he starts talking about all the things that Trump has done and all the things that Trump has signed and all the progress that Trump is making and how the president is focused on putting Americans back to work — and then slips in, out of nowhere, that the president believes (still believes) that millions of people voted illegally in the last election. Well, that is a dog whistle to the media. Because if you’ll recall shortly after the election, even beforehand, there were reports that as many as two million, three million illegal aliens voted.
And that was thrown up against Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. And Trump had thrown it out there, I think, as a counterweight or as a balance to Hillary winning the popular vote. The media immediately had a cow. Now, we all know… It’s been documented. John Fund has almost made a second career out of documenting voter fraud in both books and pieces, stories that have run at National Review and the Wall Street Journal. To say that people do not go and vote illegally in this country is just a lie. People do, and in some cases, in large numbers.
The left all of a sudden wants us to believe that that never happens and that Trump is bringing it up? “He better have some proof! He better have some evidence to support this claim.” So he made the claim and the media had their cow, and it kind of went away as other aspects of the Trump transition began to take its place and require more prominence. Substantive policy issues and so forth. Then the Democrats zeroed in… They actually never gave up on it. The Democrats zeroed in on the Russians having stolen the election.
The Russians hacked something. The media and the Democrats tried to create this impression that the election RESULTS were hacked, that Trump benefited by the Russians cheating Hillary Clinton, even though Hillary won the popular vote. And the effort to delegitimize Trump by virtue of Russian sabotage and Russian chicanery continued. And it’s still one of the primary narratives of the Drive-By Media news day. It’s always out there. Some days it’s more prominent than others.
So in the midst of this great report card of Day Two of the Trump administration — all of the repeals, all the executive orders, all of the union guys coming up with some big-time major love for Trump, all of this — Spicer happens to throw in during the press conference, “The president still believes that millions of people voted illegally.” And, man, Mara Liasson… And I don’t know who the journalist is sitting next to her. I want to say Julie Pace, AP, but I don’t think I’m right about that. Fox is not identifying these people; so if you don’t know who they are, you don’t know who they are.
I recognize Mara Liasson. So the woman sitting next to Mara Liasson just zeroed in on this claim, and Spicer said, “No, the president still believes that millions of illegal votes were cast in the election.” (shouting) “Do you have any proof? Do you have any proof? Can you prove it? You can’t just make these claims! Do you have any proof?” “Well, the president is thinking of conducting a serious investigation of this.” And then the woman drops it and they move on to something else, the hiring freeze.
The VA is exempted from the hiring freeze, and Mara Liasson points out, “That’s 41,000 people being exempted the hiring freeze.” By the way, this hiring freeze, federal employees are taking this hard, because not only is there a hiring freeze, there are other aspects of the freeze. Grants and other things are being frozen. Not only is it a freeze on hiring people, there’s a freeze on these agencies actually being able to grant money and regulations. They’re fit to be tied. So they focus on that for a second, and Mara Liasson, after her question on the VA, goes back to this claim that Spicer made.
“Well, my gosh, if you think this many people voted illegally, don’t you think…? I mean, that is a major, major story. Don’t you think there should be a primary investigation of this?” And Spicer says, “Well, the president’s very serious about looking into this, but his primary focus is rebuilding America, creating jobs for the American people, lowering taxes.” Folks, look, there’s a long version here of telling you that this is pretty masterful what is happening here. It’s been fun to watch this, because the media… I guarantee you the media thinks that Spicer doesn’t know what he’s doing. They think he’s out of his league. They think he’s a neophyte.
A, he’s a Republican. So he’s deficient just because of that. He’s never done this, number two. He’s never faced them, in their minds, number three. And they expect him to be Dan Quayle-like — you know, deer in the headlights, frozen in fear and intimidated and bullied by the fact that they are the big Drive-Bys at the White House press corps. And Spicer is unaffected. He is not overawed. He is not bamboozled. He’s not quaking in fear. He’s not nervous. He’s not stuttering, and… (laughing) I just think that it’s kind of clever here to replace their focus on Russian hackery going back now to the fact that maybe millions of illegals voted. (laughing)
The press is gonna be running in circles here trying to figure out which narrative they want to focus on, and they’re gonna end up with so many anti-Trump narratives that they’re gonna overdo it. They’re not gonna know which ones to focus on. They’re gonna try to do all of them, and they’re gonna look silly. Now, Trump today… The New York Times and the Washington Post are beside themselves. Trump walking back TPP. The New York Times is beside itself, ’cause that’s one of the Obama’s major achievements. “Oh, my God, it’s been torn apart right before our very eyes!” And then the Washington Post.
Trump told the automakers that this environmental stuff is just “out of control.” We’ve got to get our environmental focus back. We’re just out of control here on environmental regulations and the penalties that you face manufacturing cars. We have got to… And I guarantee you, heads are exploding, from Tom Steyer to Algore to every little Millennial blogger that I read in the tech world that thinks global warming is the single most important issue. And for Trump just to casually come out while basically erasing much of the Obama agenda (laughing), now claiming that we are out of control?
By the way, the Spanish language website of the White House is gone. All reference to climate change is gone from the White House website. Basically, well, two days, maybe four if you want to count the weekend. So this is… I think they’re learning. The Trump mantra or his campaign slogan is, “You don’t think I meant it? I meant it.” Everything he said so far on the campaign trail he is acting on exactly as he said he was going to act on it.